Yan Mu wanted all the chaotic, mixed pheromonal information inside her body to disappear, wanted this body that had been marked countless times by so many people to break free from the influence of the past.
Even though she was already close to becoming a skeleton, this flesh and blood still tightly bound her sorrow and hatred.
“Of course it’s possible. I’m very willing to resolve this trouble for Mother. It’s just that right now I have nothing at all. Does Mother want me to start from scratch separating and mutating pheromones, and then formulate a drug suitable for you? I’m afraid you won’t be able to hold on for that long,” Yan Qiongyu said.
“Your assistant An Mo is very thoughtful. He brought everything that’s needed,” Yan Mu replied.
Yan Qiongyu had been exploited when he was utterly exhausted after an experiment ended. Along the way, he had been drugged with a powerful sedative and brought here.
He had long guessed that the people who could take him away from a tightly secured laboratory must be those assistants and researchers around him. Hearing Yan Mu say this now only confirmed it.
“An Mo? He is indeed a very meticulous assistant, but with just him, the experiment probably won’t be enough,” Yan Qiongyu said with a fake smile.
Yan Mu looked at his expression and smiled as well. “There are also three researchers, all ones you’re used to working with… Are you angry that they betrayed you?”
Yan Qiongyu’s smile did not change. “If they were loyal to Mother from the beginning, then it can’t be called a betrayal of me.”
When Yan Mu left the CON base, he had repeatedly screened the people who remained behind. He did not dare to heavily rely on Yan Mu’s people. The researchers who were able to stay in his laboratory were basically all chosen by himself, people who had once been on the fringes of the Utopia. Especially this assistant—he had nothing to do with the Utopia.
He knew very well that Yan Mu would definitely leave people behind in the base to spy, but he had not expected her infiltration of that base to be even stronger than what he had seen.
“Mother will teach you one more thing,” Yan Mu said. After saying so much, a faint weariness appeared on her face. “Don’t trust anyone.”
Yan Qiongyu withdrew his smile. “I’ve learned my lesson.”
He was taken to the laboratory on the spacecraft. This laboratory was narrow, with glass on all sides. Every movement he made inside could be clearly seen. Outside, star bandits surrounded it with predatory stares, all kinds of ambiguous gazes lingering on his body.
Assistant An Mo and the three researchers were already waiting for him inside the laboratory. Yan Qiongyu glanced at the four of them. An Mo’s gaze flickered, not daring to meet his eyes, and the other three also avoided his gaze.
But very quickly, probably after noticing that he was still in restraints and realizing that he was now a captured prisoner, that there was no need to be so afraid of him anymore, one researcher deliberately raised his head and urged, “Hurry up and start working. Finish the Godmother’s request as soon as possible! This isn’t the CON base!”
After saying this, a sense of pleasure rose in his heart. What godson—so what if he called all the shots at the CON base? Now wasn’t he still in such a sorry state.
Yan Qiongyu placed his hands on the table, tapped his fingers twice, and looked at them as he asked, “Are you all Godmother’s people?”
It was still that same researcher, stubbornly lifting his chin. “Of course. We’re all people of the Utopia, eternally loyal to the Godmother! Do you really think the Godmother was forced away by you? The CON base was merely something the Godmother handed over to you!”
“I see.” Yan Qiongyu let out a small laugh and walked up to An Mo, his voice gentle. “An Mo, lift your head and look at me. What about you?”
An Mo subconsciously raised his head to look at him. “I—I was arranged by the Godmother to approach you.”
After he said this, he was unconsciously drawn in by Yan Qiongyu’s eyes. He felt a sudden, violent pain in his brain, as if it were about to explode.
A faint sound rang out, and red suddenly burst open in the laboratory. Fresh crimson splattered across the surrounding instruments and glass. An Mo’s head exploded, and the closest person to him, Yan Qiongyu, was covered in blood.
He smiled as he licked a bit of the blood that had splashed near his lips, then said to the three researchers who were frozen in shock, “What are you standing there for? Clean up the lab and start working. We still need to make the medicine for the Godmother.”
Only then did the three react, screaming as they looked at An Mo’s limp body collapsed on the ground.
An Mo had been the assistant closest to Yan Qiongyu. Yan Qiongyu could not completely trust him. In this regard, he was the same as Yan Mu.
So from the very beginning, he had planted a mental power suggestion in An Mo. Once An Mo looked into his eyes at close range, he would fall into a state of mental power stagnation, allowing Yan Qiongyu to easily blow up his brain with his mental power.
This was something he had learned from Yan Mu. When he was still in the Empire, those people had shown him Yan Mu’s criminal records, clearly describing how she had used her 3S-level mental power to blow up several people’s brains.
Although he didn’t want to be like her, he had to admit that using her method to deal with enemies was quite effective.
Yan Yan, the leader of the Yanlan star bandit group, had just returned to the spacecraft. Before she even had time to go see the Godmother, she heard the noisy commotion over here and hurried over.
“What the fuck are you all crowding around here for?” She waved away the pale-faced star bandits, saw the glass laboratory splattered with blood, and cursed, “Useless trash. Someone dies and you’re scared shitless like this!”
A star bandit who had happened to witness that scene earlier said weakly, “Boss, we’ve never seen anything like that either, a brain just exploding directly.”
Yan Yan irritably kicked him aside, walked into the laboratory, and dragged Yan Qiongyu out. Yan Lan had been delayed for a moment handling matters; when he saw his sister shove Yan Qiongyu into the interrogation room, he immediately followed after them.
“Sis, the Godmother still has use for him. Don’t touch him for now.”
Yan Yan sneered. “Don’t touch him? He just blew up someone’s head to provoke us. If I don’t teach him a lesson, do you think he’ll obediently listen?”
Yan Lan frowned. “Blown up with mental power? You didn’t put a mental power suppressor on him? Didn’t the Godmother say long ago that we can’t afford to be careless?”
Yan Qiongyu said, “It was indeed put on long ago. It’s just that I previously planted a mental power suggestion in that assistant, so I only needed a little mental power to set it off… Guess who else I’ve planted mental power suggestions on?”
Yan Yan cursed, stepped forward, and kicked his leg hard. Yan Lan clearly heard the sound of bones breaking and moved to stop Yan Yan. “Sis! Don’t let him provoke you and ruin the Godmother’s plans!”
Yan Yan flung his hand away and glared fiercely at Yan Qiongyu.
Over the past year, her star bandit group had been hunted down again and again, almost reduced to homeless strays. All of this was thanks to Yan Qiongyu. She wished she could kick him to death right then and there. To capture him, she had mobilized all the manpower left in the con base. This time, her star bandit group had lost quite a few people again, yet now she still couldn’t touch him.
“Didn’t they say he’s already developed that mutant pheromone drug? Keeping him serves no purpose. If the Godmother wants it, aren’t there still a few researchers who can make the drug? If not, we can just deal with Yan Qiongyu and go directly to the con base,” Yan Yan said, the murderous intent in her tone impossible to conceal.
Yan Qiongyu laughed out loud. He sat up from the floor as if he felt no pain at all, propping himself against the wall with one hand, looking at Yan Yan with an understanding gaze. “Leader Yan, it doesn’t feel good to have a huge mountain pressing down over your head all the time, does it? Your Godmother can no longer provide you with what you want, can she? Right now she’s only thinking about her own matters, completely disregarding whether you live or die… It would be great if she could just die, but how is it that she’s so tenacious, that she just won’t die no matter what? Don’t you think so?”
The expressions of both Yan Yan and Yan Lan changed. Yan Yan stared at him darkly. “What nonsense are you talking about?”
Yan Qiongyu looked utterly miserable and couldn’t even stand up, yet the look he gave the two of them carried pity and amusement as he deliberately said, “Isn’t that so? Leader Yan is already impatient to break free from the Godmother’s control. You’re worried that my arrival will improve Yan Mu’s condition, so you want to deal with me.”
Yan Lan watched his sister’s expression and subconsciously tightened his grip on her hand. “Sis, he’s trying to sow discord between us. Calm down first. He’s destined not to live much longer anyway. Once the Godmother gets what she wants, he’ll have to die. There’s no need for you to act now. Doing so will only displease the Godmother.”
Yan Yan glanced at him and finally relaxed. “Don’t worry about his leg. Let it stay broken… Making the drug doesn’t require legs.”
Yan Lan comfortingly patted her shoulder. “I know. I’ll handle it. Sis, you’ve been too tired lately. Go rest.”
Yan Qiongyu watched the interaction between the siblings with considerable interest. Yan Yan turned and left. Yan Qiongyu gestured to Yan Lan toward his hands. “Deputy Leader Lan, please help me undo this. Making the drug doesn’t require legs, but hands are needed, right?”
Yan Lan unlocked his handcuffs and warned him, “You’d better behave yourself and stop deliberately provoking her.”
Yan Qiongyu smiled noncommittally.
He washed away the nauseating stench from his body, changed into new sterilized clothes, and his foot injury was simply treated. For the time being, he could only rely on a wheelchair to move around.
When he returned once more to the cleaned-up laboratory, the three researchers were waiting for him there with deathly pale faces. This time, no one dared to shout at him, and no one dared to meet his eyes.
Yan Qiongyu’s manner was natural, just as it usually was at the CON base, as he assigned them tasks. He took out culture boxes and various semi-finished medicinal solutions from the transport crate. On the surface, he appeared to be working seriously, but in reality he was thinking about the situation here.
He hadn’t had much contact with the Yanlan star bandit group. Along the way, he realized that this entire star bandit group should be Yan Mu’s largest experimental subject from the past, an experimental subject different from those of other Utopias.
In other Utopias, the alphas living there had all used drugs that destroyed mental power. As a result, these alphas’ levels would drop drastically, their offensive power would be greatly weakened, and they would also be easily controlled by omegas’ mental power.
But among this portion of alphas in the Yanlan star bandit group, there did not seem to be any signs of weakened mental power. So the fact that they were so obedient, willing to submit to the two omega leaders, Yan Yan and Yan Lan, and not influenced by pheromones, was very likely because of other drugs researched by Yan Mu. Judging from the leftover materials at the CON base, it should be pheromone-destroying drugs.
Before he came to the Utopia, Yan Mu had already been researching drugs that destroyed pheromones. Unlike Yan Qiongyu’s mutant pheromone drugs, which aimed to eliminate the influence of pheromones, Yan Mu targeted the destruction of the body’s mechanism for receiving pheromones. This kind of drug made alphas and omegas insensitive to pheromones, while also damaging the body and shortening lifespan.
She had tested this immature drug on herself, which was why the pheromones inside her body were a complete mess. The star bandits on this ship also looked short-lived, almost like pitiful worker bees manufactured to protect that pair of siblings. She seemed deeply devoted to the siblings, which was utterly disgusting.
If he wanted to kill Yan Mu, he could do it right now.
What he needed to consider was how to use her death to create an opportunity to escape, preferably dealing with those two siblings together to eliminate future trouble.
ততততততততততত
Yan Mu gently beckoned to Yan Yan at the doorway. “Come here.”
Yan Yan walked over and sat beside Yan Mu’s bed. “Godmother… do you really have to die? If I kill Yan Qiongyu, won’t you die?”
Yan Mu laughed softly. “You silly child, what foolish talk is this. Even without him, I would die sooner or later. He only allows me to die more willingly.”
“But after I die, you and Yan Lan will need to find someone new to formulate your drugs. I spent so many years allowing you to have physiques comparable to alphas, but your conditions are unstable, and you’ll continue to need drugs to maintain them in the future. Pay close attention to your physical condition.” At this moment, Yan Mu’s earnest, attentive manner really did resemble that of a mother.
Yan Yan carefully held her hand. “Godmother, don’t worry about us. My brother and I will be fine.”
She would always remember how, in their childhood, it was the Godmother who took her and her brother away from that filthy, terrifying place. Their biological mother had sold them for a better life, while the Godmother gave them everything and became their new mother.
They had known since they were young that the Godmother was using them for experiments, but they were willing.
If not for the Godmother, they would not have been able to possess the power to control their own lives. They would have been like those miserable omegas, forcibly occupied and marked by others, powerless over themselves, passed from one alpha to another.
But now, she had to watch helplessly as the Godmother she respected and depended on the most walked toward death, powerless to stop it.
Seeing her reddened eyes, Yan Mu asked, “Yan Lan said you wanted to kill Yan Qiongyu just now?”
“I…” Yan Yan lowered her head, like a puppy that had done something wrong.
Yan Mu gently stroked her head. “No need to rush. When I die, Yan Qiongyu will die with me. For now, don’t be impatient.”
Yan Qiongyu was her child, but she was unable to love this child. He was just like those nauseating, foul-smelling pheromones inside her body—things she wanted to erase.
She had once been willing to let him live because she thought he was still useful, but she was about to die, and then he no longer deserved to live either. It was she who brought him into this world, and it would also be she who took him away.
She wanted her shame and pain to vanish together with her life.
