Chapter 796: Shadows of the Abandoned Institute

This issue is too complex to explain in a short time.

Faced with Lu Xin’s response, everyone who had entered the Research Institute sank into an unusually oppressive mood.

On instinct, they wanted to offer some explanation on his behalf.

Yet every time they opened their mouths, they found their explanations couldn’t hold water.

Two doctors—one adept at analyzing Mental Power and the other gifted in Pollution Logic Chain reasoning—were both left completely baffled.

After a long while, in the dark, deep corridor, Doctor An finally spoke softly.

Then she looked up at Lu Xin and whispered, “Let’s just continue our investigation for now…”

“Mr. Single Soldier, are you currently able to control your emotions and maintain your stability?”

“…”

“I…”

Lu Xin managed to speak, only to discover that his voice had become hoarse.

He paused, adjusted slightly, and then nodded quietly, saying, “I can.”

Even though the uncertainty and suspicion in his heart had reached its peak, he could do nothing but nod.

He wearily scanned the faces of Doctor An, Dr. Zhang, and Dr. Wang—he was desperate for answers but couldn’t even articulate his own state clearly.

So he forcefully suppressed the surge of thoughts and slid the playing card back into the drawer.

He didn’t even know why he had done that.

Perhaps he hoped that another version of himself might one day come along, needing to pull out this very card to prove something to someone?

Clack…

Only when that thought surfaced clearly did Lu Xin suddenly snap back to awareness.

How could he have such a strange idea?

He had already been here, so why was he still considering that another version of himself might come and take the card?

……

……

“Then… let’s continue…”

Dr. Zhang and Dr. Wang, unsettled by Lu Xin’s odd behavior and the oppressive environment, looked visibly alarmed.

Even the steadfast researchers couldn’t remain calm at that moment.

It was like an atheist who still finds himself afraid of ghosts.

After all, even if ghosts don’t exist in this world, what if something suddenly appeared under the bed?

That thought caused them to huddle together for comfort.

Only Doctor An stood apart at the back, her entire figure swallowed by the corridor’s shadows.

No light shone directly on her, so no one could see her face.

She simply stood silently in the corridor, waiting for Lu Xin to reemerge.

Her eyes, fixed on Lu Xin, held a mix of admiration and expectation…

Yet she uttered nothing further—just waited in silence.

Lu Xin left the office and gently closed the door, leaving it ajar.

It was as if, on autopilot, he maintained the door just as it had been when he entered.

They switched on their flashlights, staying alert as they moved forward.

One by one, beams of light swept through the pitch-black corridor; for a long while, no one spoke.

They merely pressed on, continuously scanning their surroundings.

They had already heard electronic flies describe this corridor,

but experiencing it firsthand was entirely different.

Their eyes followed the light over grimy walls, debris and scattered papers on the floor, overturned tables and chairs, large dark, dried stains, and even the musty smell of the corridor made them drowsy.

It was evident that this had once been a bustling work environment.

On one floor, three broken vending machines leaned silently against the wall.

The offices, arranged one after another, were mostly partitioned into tiny spaces.

Every so often, embedded iron doors in the corridor divided it into distinct sections.

These iron doors hinted at a time when, besides busyness, there was an almost eerie strictness.

But now, all the iron doors and fences were flung open, like an abandoned prison after its inmates had escaped.

Yet neither Doctor An nor Lu Xin had the heart to pay much attention to these details.

Doctor An and her group walked through the corridor with taut nerves and light steps, though their pace had slightly quickened.

An electronic fly, which had already mapped out the building’s layout, buzzed about four or five meters ahead, its blue light flickering.

It served both to guide them and to probe for any sudden bursts of mental pollution.

Meanwhile, Lu Xin forced himself to ignore the unsettling familiarity gnawing at him.

Yet as he moved forward, random flashes made it hard to tell reality apart from memory.

……

……

Gradually, after a dozen minutes or so, they reached the deepest part of the building.

After forcing open a safety door, they discovered a corridor descending underground.

Everyone’s breathing lightened; they knew that beneath this corridor lay the database.

The secret that the Research Institute had long sought—deliberately buried by a generation of researchers—was hidden within.

Footsteps on the stairs echoed loudly in the cramped space, and when they turned left into an open area, every heartbeat seemed to thunder within their chests.

Before them stood a heavy iron door.

This was exactly the spot Doctor An had predicted—a place concealing records from the “Genesis Hard Drive.”

The electronic fly couldn’t enter this sealed space, so they had no choice but to address the situation here.

“This…”

Dr. Zhang couldn’t help but twist his neck and murmured uneasily, “This is it, right?”

He felt strangely uneasy, thinking that at such a critical moment, it was odd no monster had appeared to stop them.

But Doctor An seemed even more collected than the others.

With a brief glance and a check on the electronic screen on her wrist, she simply nodded:

“This is it. Open it!”

“…”

Seeing that the heavy iron door didn’t appear to budge with normal strength, the doctors discussed notifying Master Li to have the electronic flies use laser cutters to open it.

While they were pondering the matter, Lu Xin slowly stepped forward.

He grasped the iron valve firmly with both hands and began pulling; the door emitted a dull, grinding sound as it moved.

Unexpectedly, even though the door was rusted, he managed to pull it open successfully.

Both doctors’ eyes widened in shock.

But at that moment, Lu Xin felt an indescribable wave of loss swell inside him.

He hadn’t approached the door out of confidence that he could open it—rather, it was the overwhelming familiarity he felt upon seeing it.

It was as if he had once watched this door being opened, and when it closed, it wasn’t even locked.

With the door opening, his intuition was confirmed once again.

Any joy in his heart vanished, replaced by a surge of chaotic confusion.

“Ah…”

As Lu Xin sank deeper into an abnormal terror,

Dr. Zhang and Dr. Wang quickly raised their flashlights to shine behind the door.

A shock like a bucket of ice water dumped over their heads left them utterly disappointed.

Behind the door, what looked like a vast records room revealed only empty shelves.

Not even a scrap of paper remained.

So, had the worst-case scenario come true?

After all their hard work to reach this point, they found it had long been cleared out, leaving nothing behind.

……

……

“No, no…”

Just as despair threatened to break them with a powerless sigh, a baffled murmur arose from nearby.

That abrupt sound startled them, and they quickly turned around.

They saw Lu Xin—who had just opened the door—standing beside it, his gaze weakly surveying the surroundings.

Apart from the spots lit by flashlights and the faint blue glow of electronic flies,

his eyes reflected a stark, pale light, as if the whole world had suddenly been illuminated.

“This is…”

Both doctors took a step back in slight panic.

“Don’t disturb him,” Doctor An suddenly whispered, halting them.

The two doctors, puzzled, quickly turned to see Doctor An staring intently at Lu Xin, her expression unusually serious.

She didn’t seem at all affected by the empty database or the failed investigation; her entire focus was on Lu Xin, as if only now did she worry about whether the mission could be completed.

“There is…”

Under their tense watch, Lu Xin muttered, then abruptly turned around, “There is… still information left…”

“…”

As he spoke, he quickly dashed toward a corridor on the left without even switching on his flashlight, moving as if propelled by urgency through the pitch black.

“Hurry, catch up…” Doctor An cried out, her voice low with anxiety.

……

……

Unaware of Doctor An and the others’ reactions, Lu Xin felt an overwhelming familiarity with this building and its surroundings the moment he opened the iron door, blurring the lines between memory and reality.

For instance, he knew full well that he was at the abandoned Research Institute with Doctor An and the team—using flashlights to investigate the dark building.

Yet, he was also deeply lost in recollection as hallucinations flickered before his eyes.

He saw the building brightly lit and teeming with people, recalling its bustling prime.

A powerful attraction urged him to cast aside all reason as he strode boldly toward a destination.

The intense familiarity with the building made him turn a corner and dash through the labyrinthine underground corridors as if he had lived there for years without a second thought.

After what felt like eternity, he suddenly sensed a slight easing in his pounding heart.

Looking closely, he found himself at the end of a long corridor, pushing open a door left slightly ajar.

In that moment, a sensation like an electric current surged into his brain.

He heard the low hum of incandescent lamps, a sound that distorted his vision and perception in a hallucinogenic haze.

He saw a skeleton lying on the floor.

The skeleton was nearly rotten, its bones covered in an unknown black substance.

The white coat it wore had long decayed into dirty fabric clinging tightly to its frame.

Attached to the skeleton was a tattered, blood-stained ID, its faded text visible:

Red Moon Research Institute

Higher-Dimension Life Research Project

Psychological Counselor: Bi Zaizhi

……

……

Lu Xin lightly tapped his forehead, the sound echoing like a drum.

He suddenly felt that this scene wasn’t just familiar—it had appeared in his memory before.

It was back in Qinggang, when he was confronting a Mental Monster that dragged people into nightmares; he had been inadvertently pulled into one, where he saw this corridor and this very skeleton.

He even knew what lay ahead…

With that thought, Lu Xin looked up and indeed saw a collapsed metal rack, scattered, broken pills,

a row of prison-like wards

and

three doors at the very end.