"A vengeful person?"
Lin Yuan muttered to himself. Just as he was about to speak, Carol Anna's voice rang out.
"To be honest, Li Wen's desire for revenge is because of you."
"What do you mean?"
"Last time you met him, the company gave him a mission to collect your bodily tissues. But he refused and faked evidence. Unexpectedly, people from the company actually found issues with the evidence he provided.
As a punishment, they turned his wife and daughter into experimental subjects."
As Carol Anna spoke, Li Wen had already buried his head deeply between his knees, a painful aura surrounding him.
Lin Yuan never expected that Li Wen would help him so much.
He quickly asked, "Li Wen, why didn't you tell me then? It was just bodily tissues, not like it would cost me my life!"
Li Wen waved his hand, not even raising his head. His voice was already hoarse, "It's not your fault. I just didn't want you to get involved in the company's conspiracy. Once they obtained your tissue samples, they would only create more powerful biological weapons. At that time, it wouldn't just be you who got hurt, but the entire world.
Moreover, if I hadn't reported your death, the company would have only made me continue tracking you. The subsequent missions wouldn't have been small matters like collecting a few hairs. It might have involved cooperating with external personnel lurking in China to capture you.
The torment you would have endured then would have been far more painful than you can imagine!"
"But didn't you think about your wife and daughter?" Lin Yuan didn't believe he was that kind. This was completely different from the Li Wen he knew.
He ruffled his hair and continued, "Yes, I was a selfish person at first. It's easy for people like me to survive in the apocalypse. But I changed. I changed before I even started my second year of university, all because of a ridiculous dream I had! I dreamt that during high school, I encountered a zombie horde. I dreamt that my friends, my wife, all had ridiculous names, and then one by one, they shielded me and died. Among them was you.
In my dream, your name was Wen Mu, what a damn name. And you were holding a wolf-toothed mace that reached your eyebrows, hahahahaha!"
This laughter had alerted everyone else.
"Boss, this..." Anderson hadn't finished speaking when Carol Anna shot him a glare.
He immediately quieted down.
Turning to Robin, he punched him, "Stop looking! What are you looking at!"
Li Wen's expression shifted from pain to madness. This absurd reason seemed to be true.
"Later, I didn't get to attend my second year of university and was captured by people from HSAC. No one noticed. I was just one of the 8 million missing people in China each year.
At first, they trained me as an assassin and sent me on missions to China. During that time, I met my wife and had a daughter. I always thought I had hidden my wife and daughter very well, even in the apocalypse. But I never expected the company to find them.
I really can't understand how they found them.
To be honest, I regret it now. I should have just taken a strand of your hair and handed it in to close the case. Then I wouldn't have ended up like this.
I couldn't even protect my own wife and daughter, yet I thought about protecting the whole world. How ridiculous."
His words were filled with self-blame and regret. If time could be rewound, Lin Yuan was sure he would have acted against him, but if that were the case, Lin Yuan would never have let Li Wen go, and might even have killed him on the spot.
At this moment, Carol Anna patted Li Wen's shoulder and comforted him, "Actually, you don't need to blame yourself. After all, given the personality of that blonde man in the company's upper management, even if you completed the mission and excelled in everything, your final fate would still be to become an experimental subject."
She had a point. Currently, HSAC's leadership was extremely hostile towards China. Most of the Chinese researchers in the company had already become experimental subjects, and only a few who had not yet completed their projects were barely surviving.
Li Wen nodded reluctantly and said, "I know, I know they are very hostile towards our country, or rather, towards anyone other than themselves. That's why I agreed as soon as you invited me to join you."
"By the way, if your company discriminates against our Chinese people so much, wouldn't it be very dangerous to take me back?" Lin Yuan noticed the key point in Carol Anna's words.
"What's wrong? Little Yuan, are you scared?"
"I'm not scared, but if I can live, I'd choose to live. I still need to take this life back to accompany my wife! I can't die."
"Then you'd better prepare yourself. Our plan is actually very dangerous." Carol Anna's tone this time was not joking; she was very serious.
Lin Yuan's heart tightened slightly. Although he knew that following them was indeed dangerous, he only heightened his vigilance to the maximum and was not afraid anymore. "I've been ready for a long time. Rather than slowly dying from genetic defects, I'd rather take a gamble!"
Carol Anna shook her head, looking at Lin Yuan with pity. "Little Yuan, the loss of life force due to genetic defects isn't slow; its rate only accelerates. You might not feel anything now, but I can guarantee that in a year, if you don't receive any treatment, your hair will be completely white, and you'll be covered in wrinkles, like an old man on the verge of death."
Dying of old age in a year? That terrifying? Although Lin Yuan didn't know if Carol was trying to scare him or telling the truth, he was now determined to obtain the gene therapy agent.
No matter what her intentions were, staying alive had become his only goal. If he died, he would have nothing.
"Then can you tell me the plan now?"
"Not yet. We haven't set sail. Knowing it in advance won't do you any good."
"I hope it goes smoothly~" Lin Yuan unconsciously touched his armpit, and his entire demeanor became melancholic.
"Don't worry, don't worry, Little Yuan. With your sister here, don't worry. As long as you cooperate, this operation will be foolproof!"
Ignoring Carol Anna, who was boasting and exaggerating, he looked at Wang Xiaoxin beside him. Her eyes were vacant, clearly lost in thought.
He wondered what she would do, and how Carol Anna would arrange for Wang Xiaoxin.
He then looked at Anderson and the others in the distance, who were drinking mushroom soup and eating grilled fish, and smiled.
Judging by the weather, it was going to rain tonight.
It would be interesting to see if Wu Tian would laugh or cry when he told him about this back then.
He also wondered how that girl Jiang Ziqi was doing, and if she was alright on the aircraft carrier.
Lost in thought, he didn't realize it was already midnight.
Carol Anna came over and patted his shoulder, bringing him back to reality.
It was time to depart.