Awaken

THERE IS A LITTLE BIT OF GORE IN THIS CHAPTER!!!

----In the lab room-----

Relief... That was the captain's first thought. He smiled.

His smile only grew wider as he pushed aside Yi and rushed out of the laboratory. However, his joy did not last for long. Just as he neared the room where failures were kept, he felt a wave of dizziness and staggered.

The people standing in the hallway keeping guard saw this and quickly shouted in an unsurprised tone, " Quickly! Someone bring the pills, Captain fainted again."

Just before his vision darkened completely, he saw a young girl who was being dragged forward by some guards with the corner of his eyes. Her mismatched eyes were wide with fear and desperation, and her ebony hair was a wild mess, but it didn't mask her undeniable beauty transcended the mortal realm.

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When Xiaomiao awoke, her entire body was numb with a pain that was slowly fading. Her eyes were open, and her head was tilted to the side, but she couldn't move.

In front of her, she saw piles of bodies piled on top of each other. They weren't bleeding, but some bodies had already begun to rot.

The bodies had strange marks on them, and the pupils of the corpses were tampered with; some eyes were gouged out while others had no irises at all. There were some familiar faces amongst the bodies, and she was terrified.

There was an awful stench of burnt flesh. The scene sent chills down her spine.

She tried to scream, but it was as if her vocal cords were frozen.

She tried furiously to think.

Who is she?

Where is she?

What did she do?

Slowly, memories started to flow in.--

".....Where....where are you taking me? This isn't what you promised..."

She wheezed, holding back a dry and incessant cough, "what... did... you... feed... me...?"

Shrieks and screams filled the oppressive air.

"My eyes..." the girl sobbed, unable to see. "My arms...my legs..." the girl cried again, trying to move her limp appendages. "It... hurts..."

"... Please... stop... Please... I beg you... please..."

".... mom... sis... I hope you guys will live a long, healthy life..." she mumbled with tears streaming down her face, "without me..."

Her head pounded. Her eyes dulled for a moment before lighting up. Then they dulled again.

Her family. Since she was alive, she could return to them now, right?

They lived in Dazu's most impoverished neighborhoods and had sold her to the government for food. It was either her twin sister or her.

In the end, she was picked. Doctors determined that she wouldn't live for long anyway due to an inborn illness. She didn't blame them, but when remembering their faces, tears threatened to fall. She subconsciously closed her eyes to avoid crying...

... She closed her eyes?! Could she move now?

She opened her eyes and flinched at the gore. She straightened her head and became even more frightened.

Wires? Thousands of cables of all different sizes and colors were connected to her body. Thank goodness the wires were very long, and she was able to move around. She laid on top of a metal bed with all sorts of equipment around her. It was… kind of like some kind of hospital.

She and several other young people were in the same position, but she was the only person that was awake. Everyone else had skin that was turning green and rotten.

... These people were dead.

She suddenly understood, horrified at the realization. People in her village often said that the dead often looked as if they were asleep and at peace since they had died with fulfillment, but they just looked dead to her.

The girl then felt fury, unexplainable fury. These were villages that she grew up with, she was aggrieved at the notion that they were killed mercilessly even before their lives had officially begun. That they left this world without the peacefulness of death that her village had believed in.

Then, she spotted a shiny surface that was glinting in the brightly lit lights. The girl sat up with difficulty and strained her neck to see what it was.

It was a mirror. She hadn't seen a mirror in so long. She was nervous. If she was the only person alive in the room, and the corpses were all tampered with, then was there something wrong with her as well?

The girl screamed. She thought she saw a ghost.

The mirror was ordinary, but her facial features were entirely not how she remembered them. She became prettier, but it was a kind of artificial beauty, it just didn't look comfortable. But that wasn't the scariest part; her eyes were two different colors.

Her eyes used to be just gold; everyone in her village thought her a monster.

Now, one pupil had turned purple while the other remained a bright gold. Indeed a unique pair. Her eyes were so intense that they weren't comfortable to look at.

It wasn't long before the girl realized that screaming was a mistake. When all of the wires connected to her body dropped like limp noodles, she knew someone had noticed her.

Suddenly, four identical young men rushed into the room. They grabbed ahold of her arms and marched out.

She was frantic and struggled-- but in vain.

"W-where is my family?! Did you at least give them the compensation? You said that I could go back afterward, didn't you?"

However, the men's eyes were dull, and it was as if they couldn't hear her voice. They led her down an eerily white hallway, seeming oblivious to her screaming.

As the group turned a corner, they finally encountered someone else other than guards. It was a handsome young man with white hair. The girl was from the countryside and thus never saw a head of white hair on anyone other than the elderly.

She was delighted and thought she had found her savior. However, the man swayed unsteadily, and when he crumpled to the ground, the guards surrounded him. The people who were handling her were momentarily shocked, and the girl knew that this is her opportunity.

But before she could do anything, something sharp poked into her wrist, and her world turned black.