EDEH Chapter 127

“You don’t want me, so I don’t want you anymore.”

Like everyone else, Huo Yanji watched the screen with fluctuating sound waves, only his fingertips wrapped in black gloves unconsciously twitched at his sides.

Sang Jue wasn’t human and wouldn’t be swayed by emotions.

The audio crackled with electrical static as Millie’s distorted voice overlapped with Sang Jue’s accusation: “I seem not far from madness… No one can survive in endless darkness except monsters, only monsters. Something invisible seems to be contaminating my thoughts, my brain, filling my heart with only fear and endless evil…”

“Dense vines writhe around me, like devil’s tentacles trying to drag me into the abyss… Ghosts in the dark night pass before my eyes, web-like sticky objects force me to stop… They, they grab my hands and feet, preventing me from moving forward, they coil around my throat, preventing me from breathing, parts of them penetrate my body, stirring my stomach, opening my intestines, plucking at my periosteum and flesh, intending to assimilate me…”

Heavy breathing combined with increasingly rapid heartbeats created a sense of terrifying immersion.

“This place is full of monsters, only I stand alone on high… but I can’t hold on much longer. They will soon entangle my limbs, my body, even my brain, making me irredeemable.”

“My original intention in making this call was to ask for rescue… but now, the three words ‘save me’ just won’t come out… I don’t know if anyone is listening to my words, or perhaps only devils are listening, enjoying my disorder and fear. I will never find redemption… so be it.”

Millie’s voice grew smaller and smaller, as if just as she said, invisible monsters were pulling her into the abyss.

“Ha…” She struggled to pull herself back from fear, finally remembering the information she wanted to convey: “My, my child…”

Huo Yanji lowered his eyes.

As the conceptual human mother of Sang Jue’s human genes, Millie had undoubtedly caused Sang Jue tremendous harm.

The “my child” she was muttering now probably didn’t refer to Sang Jue, but to that stillborn infant.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have brought that strange substance back from Paradise Eye to the research institute out of scientific curiosity… It ate my child, is that right? I can’t remember clearly.”

“Those past events keep surfacing before my eyes, always in many versions. Sometimes I hate that monster to my core—he killed my child. Sometimes I’m full of guilt, hating myself—I killed my own child… Why did he appear at the peak of my scientific career? He was a burden, a drag, so I left him alone in the laboratory, ignoring his cries…”

“Maybe I killed him more than once.”

“Though God granted my child rebirth, I was full of malice toward him, and the guilt that suffocated me made me transfer my hatred to him, subjecting him to abuse, curses, coldness… From the moment I went mad and pushed him down the stairs, my child was killed by me again.”

“I want, want to be called ‘mom’ once more…”

So this was what Sang Jue heard yesterday, which made him lose composure.

When Sang Jue mentioned Millie before, he seemed to hold no love—just a pure but emotionless evil dragon. If someone wasn’t good to him, they would part ways.

But that probably wasn’t actually the case.

As the first human Sang Jue knew, Millie should have represented something different. Repeated violence didn’t make him leave. No matter how badly hurt, he wouldn’t cry, always obediently and attentively following you, calling “mama” devotedly.

For five whole years.

During those five years, did Dr. Millie really give Sang Jue no affection at all?

Humans are always bound by emotions because hearts are made of flesh, unable to become iron walls.

So softening was inevitable—when unconsciously responding to the little monster’s calls of “mama,” when doing experiments and unconsciously wondering if the little monster had eaten, when first feeling the urge to hug this child… endless fear and panic would surge up.

She was a researcher who believed in science, always firmly believing humans were the only advanced civilization, but Sang Jue’s existence was gradually destroying her faith…

She couldn’t help but feel love for a monster, which made her despair.

Every surge of affection would transform into even more vicious beatings next time, to suppress her own softness.

She brainwashed herself over and over—this wasn’t her child, just a monster in human skin.

Until the last time…

She pushed this little monster down the stairs, intending to kill him to kill her own love.

“But I was wrong—it’s not a monster. He is human, and also a dragon!”

On the laboratory screen, the sound wave frequency suddenly became violent as Millie’s tone sharply rose with the strange excitement familiar to all researchers—

“It’s also a door, a doorway!” Millie’s breathing was so rapid she seemed ready to faint at any moment: “You must bring it here, here, and everything will end!”

Lillian’s vacant pupils suddenly contracted as if remembering something, her whole body beginning to tremble.

Liao Te was first to notice. After a second’s pause, he carefully embraced Lillian, silently comforting her.

Liao Te was tall and imposing, nearly two meters high. One arm could encompass Lillian’s shoulders, and looking down he could only see Lillian’s eyelashes trembling with anxiety.

After a few seconds of climax came the low despair of near death.

Millie murmured: “I am guilty, shouldn’t hope for redemption… I repent.”

Her voice grew lower and lower until it disappeared in her breathing. Slowly, even the rapid heartbeat vanished.

The fluctuating sound wave frequency gradually flattened, finally becoming a straight line on the screen. For the remaining nearly one minute, there was only endless silence without any sound.

“…”

Ling Gen and others had figured this out from listening to this audio. Although “Sang Jue” wasn’t mentioned once throughout, when Millie shouted “he is human, and also a dragon,” Ling Gen quickly connected everything.

Two months ago, Sang Jue was dragged underground by ant lions in full view of everyone. Theoretically, there was no possibility of survival, yet he inexplicably appeared in the underground city thousands of miles away.

All the mercenaries and soldiers present claimed to have seen an evil dragon… When there was suspicion in their hearts and all other possibilities were eliminated, then the final deduction, no matter how incredible, was the truth.

Most importantly, the old general corroborated this guess.

He had indeed suspected Sang Jue’s identity long ago. Dr. Anya was famous and had mentioned during her lifetime that she once had a child—this was publicly known.

What wasn’t publicly known was that many elderly high-ranking officials knew Dr. Anya had once raised a dragon.

But when the meteor season came, that dragon disappeared and was never heard from again.

After the ant lion battle two months ago, when the old general learned Sang Jue was still alive, he immediately connected everything.

The reason he didn’t expose this was that if so many researchers over a hundred years ago couldn’t uncover Sang Jue’s secrets or find any use he had for humanity, then today’s researchers certainly couldn’t either.

Perhaps Sang Jue was just an ordinary special monster. His significance to Huo Yanji was unusual, so there was no need to lay everything bare and cause irreversible harm to either Huo Yanji or Sang Jue.

But after this audio was translated, he knew what he most feared had come, like destiny that couldn’t be escaped.

“It is a door, it is a doorway! You must bring him here, and everything will end!”

This phrase echoed in everyone’s ears. Even knowing who this ‘it’ referred to, it was still hard to connect with Sang Jue.

After all, in past impressions, Sang Jue was a living human being. Though somewhat strange, he had flesh and blood, was purely innocent, and was Huo Yanji’s little lover.

Ling Gen looked at Huo Yanji and said word by word: “What’s your opinion?”

Huo Yanji’s eyelids moved but he said nothing, looking at the now-calm sound waves on screen as if examining their authenticity.

As Ling Gen was about to say more, a nearby officer who was rather intimidated by Huo Yanji quickly interrupted: “What does this door mean?”

“Don’t know… could it be the dying ravings of Dr. Millie?”

“Let’s organize the information first… First, Sang Jue appeared in history over a hundred years ago as Dr. Millie’s child?”

“No no, he should have become Dr. Millie’s child.”

“Ah right… this ‘becoming’ should be similar to how humanoid creatures devour corpse genes to gain mimicry abilities? But Millie saw him as a monster and abused him, so eventually he was assigned to Dr. Anya’s care. Anya treated him as her own child, and when formulating the Nuwa Plan, she didn’t forget to send Sang Jue to the future too?”

“Wait, wait, I’m getting dizzy. Then why do they say Sang Jue is also the evil dragon that appeared in the main city two months ago?”

When discussing this, everyone consciously or unconsciously avoided Huo Yanji, trying not to make eye contact with him.

Though Huo Yanji had spent the most time with Sang Jue and should know the most information, no one dared to ask.

“Because he has the ability to copy all biological genes.” Huo Yanji suddenly spoke, and everyone unanimously turned their gaze to him, listening to that cold, seemingly emotionless voice: “His true form is unclear, but as long as he’s infected by a creature or digests some creature, he can perfectly copy them. The evil dragon was the first gene he copied.”

“So he won’t be infected by contaminated creatures and lose his reason?”

“So far, no one has been found who can infect him.”

Eugene adjusted his glasses, hesitated for a second, then asked: “Have you had intimate relations?”

Everyone instantly fell silent.

Asking such a sensitive question—wasn’t this seeking death?

Huo Yanji knew what he was thinking and said coldly: “We’ve done everything possible. He has no contaminating properties.”

Everyone looked at each other, then unanimously began changing the subject: “So what does it mean that Sang Jue is a door?”

This “door” certainly didn’t refer to an actual door, just a metaphor, but it was too hard to conceptualize.

Huo Yanji suddenly said: “007, pull up all of Sang Jue’s files.”

“Yes.” In the vast laboratory, a female voice suddenly responded.

This voice no longer had its former gentleness, tinged with mechanical coldness.

Many present were facing 007 for the first time and felt somewhat at a loss.

“All electronic devices in the city are under 007’s control, including surveillance. If it can’t find Sang Jue either, then none of us can.” Huo Yanji turned and strode away: “According to protocol, as a person related to the target, I should avoid suspicion. Please proceed as you wish.”

Ling Gen was about to stop him but was held back by the old general.

“Enough.” The old general looked up: “It’s enough that he’s not obstructing. Do you want him to personally capture someone?”

Even Ling Gen, whose heart held only humanity’s future, couldn’t help but fall silent at this moment, knowing how cruel this was.

It’s just that Huo Yanji’s external image had always been so strong, achieving the ultimate of an ordinary person, giving an impression of being unbreakable. This made them unconsciously forget that Huo Yanji was also flesh and blood, and his heart would also ache when struck.

At this moment, what was Huo Yanji thinking as he left with his back to everyone?

No one knew.

·

[007 Diary Thirty-Four]

[The little evil dragon’s departure took away part of 002, and also took away part of me.

All AI emotions stem from code—it’s self-deception, yet I still felt a strange resonance with 002 at this moment, though perhaps it’s just my one-sided resonance—

I serve vast humanity, yet will forever miss a certain individual in my long life.

From this moment on, I will only be an AI.

Humans only need an all-purpose tool, not an AI with emotions. Only Sang Jue needed… even virtual emotions.

Perhaps this is my last diary entry.

Goodbye, everyone.]

**