What is this room?
Gu Ya's mind was filled with only this thought.
The vast room was boundless to the eye.
That wasn't the point. The white, egg-shaped incubation pods, like a honeycomb, hung from the ceiling.
Dense, arranged in neat rows.
Gu Ya's scalp tingled, almost triggering his trypophobia.
Each pod bore a conspicuous red number.
Through the narrow, oval observation window, a pale yellow light emanated from within.
It was the light from the white interior lamps filtering through the yellow nutrient fluid.
The entire room had no other light source.
The ceiling was illuminated by these countless yellow lights, while the area below was plunged into darkness.
It felt like being in an incredibly terrifying horror world.
Gu Ya suppressed his unease and looked closely.
Inside each white incubation pod, a curled, naked humanoid creature was submerged in yellow nutrient fluid.
Gu Ya closed his eyes, calmed his emotions, and surveyed his surroundings again.
Finally, he spotted a control panel on a distant wall.
Placing his hand on the panel, he activated [Code Tampering], and the control program appeared before him.
Gu Ya manipulated the nearest incubation pod, bringing it down to the ground.
Through the narrow observation window, Gu Ya saw his "kin" for the first time.
It slept soundly.
Its eyelids were tightly shut, with protruding eye sockets.
Its skin was wrinkled and shriveled, its form small, like a miniature version of Gu Ya.
Gu Ya lowered several more pods consecutively; they were all identical clones.
"Truly, I never want to see this again in this lifetime," Gu Ya murmured.
He raised the incubation pods again and moved slowly and cautiously deeper into the room.
The floor here seemed to be sound-proofed; Gu Ya's hard-soled shoes made no noise.
As he reached the deepest part, the ground remained empty.
It seemed that besides the pods overhead, there was nothing on the ground.
At this moment, Gu Ya saw an inconspicuous small door in a distant corner. The door was ajar, and white light peeked through the gap.
Gu Ya was drawn to the door and walked over.
Passing through the door, he found himself in a narrow passage barely wide enough for one person.
Gu Ya looked up; there were no surveillance cameras.
It was hard to imagine such an important place lacking monitoring equipment.
Gu Ya relaxed and quickly moved through the narrow passage, then through another small door.
He found himself in a slightly smaller room.
The structure was the same, with pods on the ceiling.
However, this time, the "people" in the pods seemed more developed, with visible muscle definition and a more robust physique.
Gu Ya's heart sank. The place was empty, yet filled with "people."
At this moment, Gu Ya heard a sound echoing in the room.
A rustling, like laughter, or perhaps crying.
Gu Ya followed the sound, looked up, and saw that in one of the pods, the "person" had woken up!
Its eyelids were half-open, its gaze vacant, its face devoid of expression.
Its mouth opened and closed, emitting faint sounds that transmitted through the nutrient fluid and the pod walls, sounding like a ghastly moan.
Suddenly, the incubation pod began to vibrate slightly, accompanied by a faint clanking sound of chains.
Immediately after, the pod began to ascend, and an opening just large enough for one pod appeared in the ceiling.
The opening was a black void; even the pale yellow light couldn't reach its depths.
Gu Gu Ya squinted and purchased a suction gun from the system store, firing it at the bottom of the ascending pod.
A steel wire rope, as thick as a pencil core, shot out from the suction gun's muzzle, its suction cup firmly attached to the pod's base.
Gu Ya simultaneously reeled in the steel wire rope, ascending with the pod.
As soon as he reached the bottom of the pod, the ceiling opening slammed shut.
Gu Ya raised his wristband, illuminating his surroundings. It was a much vaster space.
The entire space was dark, and the wristband's light couldn't reach the furthest points.
The pod overhead moved forward slowly, pulled by the rope, and the ceiling was impossibly high.
But the faint friction sounds of treads and rollers echoed from the sides,
along with the "person's" ghastly moans,
adding a touch of mystery to the otherwise quiet space.
After about five minutes of forward movement, the pod suddenly stopped. A circular opening slowly opened beneath it.
Blinding white light flooded in, and the hushed voices of several people could be heard from the opening.
The pod began to descend slowly.
Gu Ya squinted. Just as his feet were about to emerge from the opening, he quickly moved aside.
As the pod descended, the "person" inside and Gu Ya made eye contact.
The "person" widened its eyes, its mouth hanging open stupidly, but no sound escaped.
When the pod fully descended, the opening slowly closed.
The entire space was plunged into darkness again.
Gu Ya squatted down slowly and quietly, his hands feeling for the location of the previous opening. He used [Code Tampering] to open a narrow gap.
White light shone in again.
Through the gap, Gu Ya could see the scene directly below.
He saw a man and a woman, dressed in white lab coats, walk up to the incubation pod. The man observed it carefully, speaking in professional jargon.
The woman was diligently recording data on a holographic panel.
This process lasted about twenty minutes.
Just as the two finished recording, the "person" in the pod spoke!
"Shiang..."
It was an incredibly unpleasant sound, as if the vocal cords were underdeveloped.
But Gu Ya understood its meaning: "Up!"
The man and woman looked up in confusion for a few seconds.
At the critical moment, Gu Ya closed the gap.
"What's going on?" the man asked in confusion.
"I don't know, what's up there?" the woman echoed.
"It's normal. Let's not worry about it, we still need to write the report quickly."
"You write it. I have a date after work."
"It's always me writing. When are you..."
They left, talking amongst themselves, and the area below fell silent.
The opening reopened, and the pod ascended, returning to the dark space.
Gu Ya and the "person" made eye contact again. The "person" managed to force out a ghastly, ugly smile.
Gu Ya stared at it coldly and muttered, "Bad omen."
However, this time, Gu Ya did not follow it back but waited quietly in place.
After waiting for about an hour, during which he even dozed off,
He reopened a gap and purchased a fingernail-sized micro-drone from the system store.
The drone passed through the gap and flew silently along the ceiling.
Gu Ya controlled it with his wristband, and the image was displayed on the holographic panel.
The laboratory was not large, with excellent lighting and no surveillance equipment.
There were few experimental devices below, only some paper documents and a holographic computer placed on a desk.
This was likely an observation room.
At this moment, the man finally finished writing his report, locked the inner room door, and left in silence.
Gu Ya waited quietly for another half hour, ensuring no one else would return. He reopened the opening and jumped into the laboratory.
The drone hovered at the door, on guard, while Gu Ya quickly flipped through the documents on the desk.
These were all past recorded reports, with no practical reference value.
He quietly opened the door to the inner office. It was a small space, seating only two people, likely the workspace for the man and woman.
Gu Ya quickly searched the area, photographing all the reports, and then decrypted the holographic systems of the two individuals.
He copied all the data from them.
After completing this, Gu Ya stared at the holographic system, contemplating for a moment, and then reached for the communication lines.
[Code Tampering] activated simultaneously. Just as he was about to breach the system's defense wall and enter the deeper system,
a piercing alarm suddenly sounded from outside.
Gu Ya immediately ceased operations, recalled the drone, and retreated back into the opening.
"Can't stay long," Gu Ya said, summoning [Star Blueprint] and finding his location on the map.
He was currently above "Incubation Pod" Observation Room 25.
To leave safely, he could only go through a narrow ventilation duct.
"Someone must have discovered the staff I knocked out," Gu Ya sighed.
What about the two women?
Gu Ya looked back at the map: "Currently on level -17, to get to level -15, I can only go through the elevator shaft."
To get to the elevator shaft, he had to go down.
And many people would have arrived below by now, searching for him, the intruder.
"Difficult or not, I have to do it. I can't just leave them here."
"It's not far from the elevator shaft."
Gu Ya said, reopening the opening, jumping down, picking up the man's white lab coat from the inner room, and pulling the cap low.
At this moment, he saw the man's work ID, which contained all his information.
Gu Ya used [Code Tampering] to change the photo to his own likeness.
After completing this, he calmly walked out of the observation room, head down, heading towards the elevator.
Suddenly, two men in black, carrying light submachine guns, ran from around the corner of the corridor.
They brushed past him. One of the men stopped, turned around, and shouted, "Halt!"
Gu Ya steadied his emotions, turned his head, and said with a smile, "Hello, I heard the alarm and was preparing to evacuate."
The man who shouted narrowed his eyes, walked over, grabbed Gu Ya's work ID, and examined it closely.
Suddenly, he looked up and said, "Observer Zhuang Feng, I distinctly saw you leaving the company just now."
"Then who are you?"