The destruction from the natural gas explosion that had filled the room was devastating.
The ceiling of the entire second story had all but collapsed. Shattered concrete slabs dangled toward the floor, which was blanketed in fragments of furniture and rubble.
A few items in the room, like the sofa and curtains, were still burning fiercely.
The entire house was a total wreck, looking more like a ruin than a home.
The experiment in progress had been completely interrupted, and the laboratory itself had also suffered heavy losses.
The two-story building was now eerily quiet, the silence broken only by the occasional crackle of the flames.
Just then, the courtyard gate was pushed open without a sound. Several people in delivery uniforms walked in, carrying long, rectangular packages.
They kept their hands inside the packages. Once in the courtyard, they immediately drew out the contents—Long Sabers. The man in the lead held a handgun.
A Hualong-made!
After entering the courtyard, they immediately bolted the main gate from the inside. They exchanged glances, then, Long Sabers and handgun at the ready, they rushed into the small building through its shattered glass door and began searching room by room.
The one with the handgun was a sinister-looking man in his thirties with a small moustache. He brought up the rear, heading up the stairs to the second floor.
The dozen or so men, all wearing earpieces, were clearly well-trained. After finding nothing during their search of the first-floor rooms, they immediately reported to Little Moustache.
Little Moustache reached the second floor, gun raised. Behind him, a group of his men with sabers filed in one after another. They navigated around a large hole blasted in the floor and quickly found a separate room that looked like a laboratory.
Two people were lying face down on the ground. Their limbs were mangled, and parts of their bodies were charred.
The two were still wearing Tai City Middle School uniforms. On the back, the school motto was written: "Opportunity belongs to the prepared."
One had short hair, the other long hair. They appeared to be a teenage boy and girl.
Seeing the two bodies, a look of delight spread across Little Moustache’s face. He quickly strode over to them for a closer look.
’These must be the people we’ve been tracking.’
’No doubt about it. They’re the targets.’
But the closer he got to mission success, the more cautious Little Moustache became. He gestured to a subordinate, signaling him to inspect the bodies carefully.
Two of his men immediately stepped forward, grabbed the bodies, and gently turned them over.
As expected, it was a teenage boy and girl.
Half of the boy’s face had been blown off and was charred black, giving off a burnt smell. The girl was even more gruesome to look at; a shard of glass from the explosion had pierced one of her eyeballs, and blood was streaming from the wound.
Little Moustache smiled faintly. He recognized their faces.
They were mangled, but still identifiable. These were his two targets.
When he first received this mission from his superiors, he had been shocked, even apprehensive.
He couldn’t quite believe that such an important mission would fall to him. It was unsettling.
But after a long and meticulous investigation, he had finally come to a conclusion: the two targets were just ordinary people.
It was a bit odd that they were living by themselves in a two-story house in the suburbs, but the boy had inherited a small fortune from a distant relative. It wasn’t unheard of for him to move in with a girlfriend.
He had wanted to investigate a bit more before making his move, but his superiors seemed impatient and urged him to act at once. That was why he had brought his most elite team to personally carry out the mission today.
To ensure a clean, permanent solution and make it look like an accident, he had gone so far as to damage the house’s natural gas line. He’d even had the organization’s best hacker take control of the local power grid to trigger a massive gas explosion.
He hadn’t expected to succeed in one fell swoop, turning the two oblivious targets into corpses just like that.
One of his men casually dropped the boy’s body back on the floor and said with a fawning tone:
"Boss, your plan was brilliant. To think we took out these two targets—the ones who had the whole organization on high alert—so easily! I’m sure the higher-ups will give you an even bigger reward. The money’s going to be rolling in!"
Little Moustache was secretly pleased, but he kept his expression neutral and said:
"Get a move on. Collect their tissue samples. The fire department and police will be here soon, so we don’t have much time. Team Two, Team Three, photograph the scene and search for any high-value items."
The dozen or so men immediately sprang into action. Aside from the two handling the bodies, the others began to enter the other rooms, photographing the damage and rummaging through the belongings.
Little Moustache stood on the second-floor balcony, his Hualong-made Handgun in hand, and peered over the high outer wall toward the world beyond the courtyard.
This was the suburbs of Tai City, after all. The area was mostly wasteland with few houses around. And since it was the middle of a workday, there was hardly anyone about.
That’s why the explosion, though violent, had been too brief to attract much attention.
Even so, the gas company would have immediately detected the drop in pipeline pressure, discovered the explosion, and subsequently called the police.
He estimated the fire department and police would be arriving soon.
They didn’t have much time.
Fortunately, the mission had gone off without a hitch. The targets were eliminated; collecting samples and taking photos was just icing on the cake.
Thinking of the reward his superiors would give them, Little Moustache couldn’t help but break into a knowing smile.
The organization’s presence in Huaxia had always been relatively weak. Who would have thought he’d be the one to pull off such a major coup?
’I wonder what the looks on the faces of those arrogant bastards in the Europe and America divisions will be?’
Just as he was lost in thought, one of the men collecting samples from the bodies suddenly let out a curious "Huh?"
Little Moustache’s brow furrowed. He asked:
"Skinny, what is it?"
Skinny, who appeared to have some medical training, stared at the boy’s body with a strange expression. "His skin..." he said.
"His skin... is strange... Why is there a wire in the charred section? And the way it burned... it’s different from real human skin. It’s almost like..."
"Like what?" Little Moustache pressed.
"Like plastic..." As Skinny spoke, he plunged the dagger in his hand into the corpse’s eye. Blood immediately trickled out.
But he didn’t stop there. He pushed the blade deeper, then gave it a hard twist, gouging out the eyeball and a section of the charred facial skin. Beneath it, however, there was no muscle tissue or human bone. Instead, there was a metal facial framework and some kind of plastic filler!
Little Moustache’s eyes widened in horror, the color draining from his face. He rushed forward, grabbed the corpse’s "face," and yanked. This time, it didn’t take much effort at all to tear the entire burnt mask of skin away.
He held the piece of skin in his hand, squeezing it, then pulling it apart for a closer look. He found that while it could "bleed" and felt identical to human skin, it clearly possessed the flexibility of plastic and silicone.
This wasn’t human skin at all. It was synthetic!
He looked again at the skeleton under the torn skin. It was perfectly smooth. Faintly visible on the chin was a line of small text: "Jingwei Manufacturing, Simulated Metal Human Skeleton, 3rd Experimental Edition (Defective)."
It was... a robot!
Little Moustache screamed:
"Regroup, now! Watch out! Something’s wrong!"
But behind him, there was only silence. The men who had gone to the other rooms to take photos and search gave no response.
It was as if they had vanished into thin air.