Guinea Pig

Hui Yin kept a steady distance between their two cars. When he briefly stopped on the west side of the street, Hui Yin waited a few blocks away on the east side.

It was fortunate that the car she chose appeared indistinguishable. There were many flashy cars inside Lu Shen's garage, something that would be a prized treasure in the eyes of car collectors. She was also grateful that Beijing was a busy city. It was in the early hours of the morning, but the road was teeming with cars honking and revving their engines. It gave Hui Yin a perfect cover.

After a while of following him, Lu Shen's car rounded off into an alley road. Hui Yin waited for fifteen beats before turning into the same direction.

But his car was no longer there.

"What?!" Hui Yin gaped, leaning forward to squint through the windshield.

She slowly cruised inside, but it was a dead end. In front of her was a cement wall, and to each of her side were the side facade of two different buildings. There was no exit except for the street behind her.

Hui Yin left the car engine running and opened the door. She walked around the alley, trying to find a garage door where Lu Shen's car could have gone into. But it was all grilled windows and sturdy walls.

She paused for a moment, then began pushing random bumps on the walls. After doing it for a while with no results, Hui Yin threw up her hands.

"Alright, maybe I watched too many movies!"

In a bad temper, Hui Yin stomped back towards the car. Along the way, she nearly tripped over a protuberance on the ground.

After regaining her balance, Hui Yin crouched down and studied it. It was a truncated pyramid made of silver metal that was engraved with the word 'PARK'. Hui Yin at last noticed that there was a wide rectangular cleft on the ground, fit for a regular-sized car. Her car was already halfway inside it.

"Don't tell me...?"

She hurriedly went back inside the car and parked into the rectangular-shaped cleft. To her chagrin, the ground immediately sank down and delivered her to an underground parking lot.

"Stupid tyrants and their fancy tech companies!" cursed Hui Yin.

I'm still a bit behind the times, okay! This grandma is still struggling with the new software update in her phone!

What Hui Yin didn't know was that it was actually more complicated than she realized. If she hadn't used one of Lu Shen's personal cars, she couldn't have managed to get inside the underground parking lot.

After parking her car, Hui Yin walked towards the elevator. She thought that those two nondescript buildings in the alley must only be a disguise for this building that she was in.

Inside the elevator, there were no buttons to the floors you wanted to go. Instead, there was only a keypad made of single-digit numbers.

"Hmph."

Hui Yin smugly entered Lu Shen's password. This was an area where she was confident in her abilities. As expected, there was a faint beep and the whole keypad lit up into a green color. The elevator started moving.

In no time at all, Hui Yin arrived inside a pristine white hallway. The white walls and the detached feeling that it gave off made her feel as if she was inside a hospital.

There were doors, but there were no windows. Hui Yin tried each one of them and the last door to her left opened. But it only led her to a metal staircase that went down.

By the end of the staircase was another door. When the door whooshed open, she was surprised at what she saw.

It was a large laboratory room, and there were about a dozen people wearing laboratory gowns. Some were sitting in front of a microscope, examining a slide. Others were experimenting with volatile-looking chemicals inside a flask. Thankfully, all of them were busy. Hui Yin found a rack of laboratory gowns and put one of them on. There were also boxes of gloves and masks, so Hui Yin tied up her hair and put on the mask.

Hui Yin bowed her head and found herself something to do. As an actress, she knew how to quickly get into character. Hui Yin blended seamlessly with her surroundings that it was as if she had been working with these same people for decades. But no one noticed that when Hui Yin placed herself in front of the sink, she was only turning the faucet on and off.

Two scientists that looked younger than the rest of them were talking in whispers while they were working. Hui Yin shamelessly strained her ears and listened to their conversation while pretending that she was only there to buy soy sauce. [1]

"He's been in there for five days and he's still not speaking. Is he not afraid that the boss might lose his patience and really use our latest batch of experiments on him?"

"Ke! Are you dumb? Even if he doesn't speak, I don't think the boss will let him live. We need a guinea pig to execute a simulation run. We've only tried it on animals before. I think this is a good opportunity for us. We haven't experimented yet how the chemical reacts once it's injected in the human bloodstream."

"But the way those animals died...isn't it too cruel?"

"Idiot! Isn't this why the boss hired us for? If you don't like this job, then quit. There's more scientists queuing up to take your place. Where else can you find a boss that helps us push science to its limit? I think CEO Lu is right to invest in this field." [2]

Hui Yin frowned. She knew Lu Shen had his hands in different pies, but this laboratory looked secretive and confidential. It couldn't be anything good.

But what worried her more was their brief mention of a 'guinea pig'. Hui Yin had a bad feeling about this.

Before Hui Yin could think any deeper of their conversation, a calm voice interrupted her thoughts. It came from a speaker mounted on a nearby wall.

"Send another 30 mL bottle of succinylcholine for the subject."

"Aww, again?" One of the scientists complained. "Can he just stop struggling? I thought they strapped him!"

"Hey, I'm in the middle of something. Can any of you guys send it? A single error could mess my experiment up."

"But I'm busy with something too!"

"Shh, are you guys crazy? Don't let the boss wait! I was the one who sent it earlier, so one of you needs to volunteer too!"

"I don't want to go in there, it smells too bloody!"

Each one of them passed a red-capped bottle back and forth, unwilling to be the one to send it. Finding her chance, Hui Yin took it with a brief snap of her wrist and strode towards the direction of the wide door at the right corner side of the laboratory. It was the only door in the room, so it could only be where the 'subject' was held.

"Uhh...thank you!"

The scientists were people with a one-track mind. When they were doing a task, most of their attention would be focused on it. This is the main reason why that not one of them recognized that the person who grabbed the bottle was a stranger that they didn't even know.

When Hui Yin was far away, she called out casually, "What's the password again?"

Her voice was muffled by her mask.

She didn't immediately go towards the door earlier because she saw that there was a keypad beside it. Unlike the keypad from before, it wasn't made of digits but letters.

One of them called out distractingly, "Hui Yin."

Hui Yin choked.

What was her name doing there, ah?!

For a man who could look so indifferent and outwardly cold, this kind of thing...

Hui Yin was afraid that even a kid would feel embarrassed by him.

[1] minding one's own business/disinterested

[2] Don't worry, we're not going into science fiction territory. I'm training in a laboratory, so...hihi.