The group returned to the door of Laboratory C and knocked incessantly.
Based on Mu Yiran's deduction, there must still be survivors inside Laboratory C; otherwise, they wouldn't be able to open the door from the outside. If everyone on Card C had perished inside, the laboratory would be rendered useless, as no one could open the door from the inside.
After knocking for a good ten minutes, someone finally opened the door shakily from the inside.
It was Zhang Hanrui.
The once fair-skinned and beautiful girl was now covered in tears, snot, and saliva, and reeked of urine. Upon seeing the group, she collapsed to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably.
The group left Wei Dong at the door to comfort the girl, while the rest went into the laboratory.
In the dim light of their cell phones, the other three members of their group lay slumped on chairs beside the two simply constructed machines, all covered in snot and urine.
Qin Ci walked over and checked the pulse points on the necks of the three people, then looked up at everyone: "Deng Guang and this girl named Zhao Youyi are dead. The girl named Li Yaqing is just unconscious."
Ke Xun used his phone to examine the equipment for a while and found that the three people were sitting on chairs on either side of two machines. Zhao Youyi and Li Yaqing were on opposite sides of the same machine, while the other side of the machine where Deng Guang was was empty, presumably where Zhang Hanrui had sat.
The dead Deng Guang and Zhao Youyi were both holding the end of a specially made wire protruding from the machine, while the unconscious Li Yaqing's hand was empty.
It seemed that both machines had been used, and the two people who shared the machine were one dead and one alive.
The key was the two machines and the wire ends held by the dead.
Ke Xun went forward to examine the two machines. Everyone had already checked them when they came last night. The two machines were simply connected by circuits and wiring. Ke Xun found a button that looked like a switch and pressed it, but there was no power, and the machine did not respond.
Unable to determine the machine's operating principle, they could only ask Zhang Hanrui, the only conscious person present.
"What happened last night?" Mu Yiran went outside to ask Zhang Hanrui, who was still clinging to Wei Dong and crying incessantly.
Zhang Hanrui was terrified and could only cry, refusing to say anything.
Qin Ci spent some time waking up the unconscious Li Yaqing, and before she could recover, he quickly asked, "What happened?"
"Electricity...electricity—electricity!" Li Yaqing screamed, sitting on the ground kicking her legs wildly, "No—no—Youyi—please, please, don't let go—I don't want to die—please—"
Hearing this from outside the door, Zhang Hanrui broke down even more, wailing loudly. Wei Dong, whose headache from the noise the previous night hadn't fully subsided, was further disturbed by the crying so close to his ear, and he collapsed to the ground, falling into a heap with Zhang Hanrui and Cai Xiaoyan.
The scene was somewhat chaotic, and everyone had to evacuate from Laboratory C.
"They need to leave here temporarily and calm down," Qin Ci said in a deep voice, rubbing his temples. "The three from our group can't stay in the room any longer, or they'll become emotionally unstable. I think it's better if they go upstairs, get some fresh air, and eat something. Hunger makes people more emotionally unstable and their willpower weaker."
Everyone agreed. Qin Ci returned to Lab B, calmed the three from his group down, and brought them out, along with the two surviving girls from Lab C, and went back upstairs to the first floor.
Although the first floor was still dimly lit, at least they could see the outside sky and scenery, and it was more ventilated than the basement. Everyone went to the restroom to wash their faces, and their emotions calmed down a bit.
"Everyone, calm down first," Qin Ci's mood was much better than in the morning, and he had regained the calm and composure of a doctor. "We should divide the work and proceed in an organized manner. First, we need to solve the problem of food; second, we need to sort out what happened in each laboratory last night; and third, we need to find the signatures. So I suggest that some people go and prepare breakfast first, and the rest of you can discuss what happened last night. So, I'd like to trouble Xu Zhen, Zhang Hanrui, and Cai Xiaoyan to help prepare the meal, okay?"
Xu Zhen, pale-faced, blurted out, "I can't cook."
Seeing Qi Qiang staring at her with disbelief, Xu Zhen coldly added, "I'm usually a workaholic and don't have time to cook. I always order takeout or go directly to a restaurant."
Zhang Hanrui also sniffled and said in a hoarse voice, "I can't either... I usually eat in the school cafeteria when I live at school, and my mom cooks for me at home..."
Cai Xiaoyan trembled, "I only know the simplest dishes... I, I'm afraid to go alone..."
"I'll go." It was Ke Xun who spoke, and he took Cai Xiaoyan to the warehouse.
Mu Yiran withdrew his gaze and turned to Zhang Hanrui and Li Yaqing: "Now can you tell me what happened last night?"
Upon hearing this, Zhang Hanrui and Li Yaqing started crying again, squatting on the ground as if they wanted to cry themselves to death.
"Stop fucking crying! If you cry again, I'll kill you!" Qi Qiang roared, stepping forward and grabbing Zhang Hanrui's hair, forcefully lifting her off the ground, causing Zhang Hanrui to scream in pain.
"Let's talk this out," Qin Ci quickly intervened, "If you scare her like this, she'll be even less able to speak. She's a girl..."
"I fucking don't care if she's a boy or a girl!" Qi Qiang's anger surged, his eyes bulging, and he viciously slapped Zhang Hanrui across the face. Zhang Hanrui let out a miserable groan, and when she opened her mouth, she spat out several mouthfuls of blood foam, with a broken tooth wrapped in the blood foam, which fell from her lips.
Qi Qiang showed no mercy, swinging his arm to deliver a second slap, but Mu Yiran firmly gripped his wrist, coldly looking at him: "Stop if you don't want to die."
Qi Qiang refused to listen, about to beat the pretty boy as well, but found that he couldn't budge his arm, which Mu Yiran was holding. He glared at Mu Yiran in shock and anger.
Mu Yiran released him, ignoring him, and turned to look at Li Yaqing, who was slumped on the ground, her sobs choked in fear. He said calmly, "Crying won't solve anything. If you don't want to experience what happened last night again, you'd better be strong and tell us what happened in as much detail as possible. Only in this way can we leave here sooner. Crying will only bring you closer to death. Do you understand?"
Li Yaqing nodded, sobbing, shifting her body to get further away from Qi Qiang, and recounted the events of last night in broken sentences.
The four of them were also forcibly dragged from the ground by a seemingly "human" and irresistible force, and pressed down onto chairs next to two machines.
Someone forcibly pressed their heads in front of a long, illuminated electronic screen on the machine, displaying instructions.
The instructions were simple and easy to understand: after powering on, if one user at either end (A or B) lets go first, the other will die.
"...Something like an electrical wire was shoved into my hand...then someone pressed a button...and then, a current came through, waah...it was so painful...really...I really tried my best to hold on, but...but it was so painful, like I was about to die, I just...I just couldn't hold on anymore, so...I let go...waah..."
Li Yaqing burst into tears, collapsing to the ground.
Everyone finally understood the emotions hidden beneath her and Zhang Hanrui's sobs.
Zhang Hanrui was perhaps alright, after all, she was paired with a stranger, Deng Guang.
But Li Yaqing's groupmate was her best friend and sister, Zhao Youyi.
Unable to endure the torment of the electric shocks, she let go, leaving her best friend, Zhao Youyi, to suffer a potentially fatal shock alone.
Li Yaqing felt she had killed her friend.
This was perhaps far more cruel than killing a stranger.
"Who would come up with such a heinous experiment!" Xu Zhen gritted her teeth and cursed. "Is this some kind of test of humanity?! The person who designed this experiment is the most inhuman beast!"
Qin Ci's eyes darkened. "We already know the experimental content of laboratories A, B, and C. We only need to find laboratory D. It also contains equipment that requires electricity to operate, and it seems that the laboratory won't be powered on during the day. Perhaps if we want to find the signature, we'll have to wait until tonight to learn about the experimental content of laboratory D before we can continue."
"No matter what," Xu Zhen said firmly, "we can't just do nothing during the day and wait to be captured at night. We'll go back downstairs in a bit and search carefully, not missing a single brick seam!"
Everyone agreed. Before breakfast was ready, they left behind the still-devastated Li Yaqing and the stunned Zhang Hanrui, who was lying on the ground, and went back to the small door leading to the basement. However, they found that the iron gate wouldn't open no matter how many times they swiped the card.
"Why is that?" Xu Zhen looked at Qin Ci and Mu Yiran in astonishment.
"Could it be..." Qin Ci's voice turned slightly cold, "that we need to get new numbers?"
"To regroup." Mu Yiran's eyes darkened. "After we learn about the experiment, regrouping and getting new numbers is another way to test humanity and human thought."
"The research projects of this institute are all inseparable from 'humans'," Zhu Haowen chimed in. "Whether it's human nature, human thought, or human physiological functions, these are all their research topics. Humans are their research targets, or rather, their test subjects."
Everyone fell silent for a moment until Xu Zhen broke the silence: "So, this time, when we get new numbers, the people in front will still draw numbers starting with A?"
"Obviously," Qin Ci nodded slightly. "But this time, there might not be four people who draw numbers starting with A. Two people died last night, reducing the number of people, and the number of people in each laboratory will also change. So, correspondingly, there might not be only one person in Laboratory D this time."
"Then, who wants to get a number first?" Xu Zhen looked at everyone.
Everyone already knew about the experiments in Laboratory A. Although the narrator, Mu Yiran, only used a few unadorned words, everyone could imagine the agonizing experience it must be.
No one immediately responded to Xu Zhen's words; each remained silent, mentally considering which experiment in the various laboratories was… easier to endure.
This created an atmosphere of mutual distrust and self-preservation.
Seeing this, Qin Ci calmly spoke up: "I don't think there's any rush. We can take some time to consider and discuss; perhaps we can come up with a safer and more appropriate solution." No one objected. They came out again through the small iron gate and saw Cai Xiaoyan calling out, "The food is ready; let's go to the cafeteria."
Entering the cafeteria, everyone was surprised and taken aback.