Realizing something was wrong, neither of them spoke. In tacit agreement, they split up and began checking separately.
Every corpse remaining in the crevices was missing its gland.
The uneven skin around their necks was dry and grotesque, revealing a ring of wounds that looked as though they had been brutally blasted apart by an electromagnetic light blade.
Unfortunately, the underground chamber had been sealed for far too long. Although these human tissues, weathered over many years, appeared intact, they could no longer withstand careful examination or testing.
But compared with every other possibility, the most likely explanation was that their glands had been deliberately dug out.
The odds that every victim had been a Beta were simply too low.
After all, the cheap laborers hired to mine were almost entirely ordinary Alphas from the lowest social strata. There were very few Betas among them.
According to the official explanation, Alphas had the advantage: they possessed special mental-power fields and were born with stronger physiques, allowing them to find ways to save themselves in time when collapses or other accidents occurred.
On top of that, mining cycles lasted far too long. Large numbers of Alphas gathered deep underground were prone to emotional agitation, synchronized susceptible periods, and collective □□ incidents targeting Betas…
Elio’s Notes: The source contains genuine □□ censorship in this chapter. The missing wording is preserved rather than reconstructed.
In short, the job was far too dangerous for Betas.
Although this hiring rule had already driven countless impoverished Betas in Zone C into a corner and forced them into sex work, its reputation on StarNet was quite good.
People believed the Imperial military was looking out for lower-class Betas and protecting their personal safety.
Looking back now, that almost did seem true… Compared with Alpha miners sprayed with gunfire and cut apart by electromagnetic blades, the Betas’ personal safety really had been protected perfectly.
There was an indescribable irony to it. Ultimately, Zone C was simply too poor. Jobs and opportunities were genuinely scarce, and anyone with even a little ability saved enough money to run away.
The military, meanwhile, cared far more about mineral production. It saved money for soldiers’ welfare, weapons, and equipment, and had no spare capacity to solve civil problems that had taken root over a century.
At least with the military stationed here, public security in the residential areas around the mine had improved considerably. Far fewer people died mysteriously in the streets, and space pirates did not dare come near.
This was the safest area on the mining planet, and housing prices were several times higher. Over the years, patrolling officers and soldiers had saved the lives of countless refugees and victims of persecution.
So nobody could have imagined that, inside this one safe area where people could finally catch their breath, there were countless remains of Alphas who had been deliberately murdered and harvested for their glands, nearly doomed never to see daylight again.
Yin Chen’s StarNet system came with A-9 high-level privileges, allowing him to access the roster of every registered miner. To be cautious, he scanned the implanted chip in every corpse and compared the records carefully.
“That’s right. They’re all Alphas, and their glands really were surgically removed.” Holding his long blade, Yin Chen split open one corpse’s skull and lowered his eyes to inspect it. “Their mental seas were severely damaged, atrophied, and ruptured. That means they experienced extreme fear and despair before death, and their brains instinctively exhausted all their power in pursuit of the slightest chance of survival.”
“Something this vicious… Who did it? Don’t tell me it was that Eldest Princess again.”
“The Eldest Princess was still young at the time. Her reach alone couldn’t extend into Zone C, and she couldn’t have perfectly concealed a mass murder scene or remodeled the mine into its current structure.
“If these harvested glands had another use, they would have required urgent transport under rapid freezing. Whoever led the battalion back then cannot be separated from this. This was a premeditated murder carried out through cooperation.”
Yin Chen reasoned thoughtfully as he cut open the corpses’ heads one after another, verifying the theory again.
Song Zang’s expression was equally grim. He thought of Yin Chen’s strangely magnificent mental-power field and the gland that provoked such powerful rejection…
Illegal organ transplantation was becoming more and more likely. Perhaps both sets of victims involved in the transplant had unknowingly and unwillingly been dragged into this depraved revelry belonging to those at the very top.
As Yin Chen cut open the heads, he kept a tracking hover-camera active, recording the gruesome state of the corpses and their completely hollowed-out mental seas from every possible angle.
He uploaded all the high-resolution images and detailed videos to the StarNet AI verification system to prove that none of the footage had been forged, that he was authorized to perform temporary autopsies, and that every piece of material could be submitted as evidence in court.
Once the evidence carried an officially verified watermark, Yin Chen sent it directly to Lieutenant Colonel Hall to test his reaction.
【Yin Chen: Multiple serious murder cases occurred inside the mine. Report this to the First Legion immediately. There can be no delay.】
【Hall: Received! Sir, please make sure you stay safe!】
【Hall: Judging by the degree of weathering, the victims died at least fifteen years ago. Sir, I believe Lieutenant Colonel Richard, who was stationed here at the time and is now a general in the Third Legion, is strongly suspected of assisting and participating in these crimes. Should I include that in the report?】
【Yin Chen: If you’re afraid of dying, file it under my name and issue an emergency military order placing him under arrest for fifteen days.】
【Hall: As long as I don’t die, this could promote me three ranks in one go. Sir, let me do it!】
Yin Chen: …
This mediocre officer had been frustrated in his career for years. He certainly had a sense of justice, but after forcibly attaching himself to Yin Chen as a powerful backer, he made no effort to hide his desire to climb upward either.
Lieutenant Colonel Hall wore every thought on his sleeve, which actually made him fairly hard to dislike. They could maintain a somewhat friendlier relationship in the future.
After briefly communicating with him, the two stopped wasting time and continued exploring forward along the narrow, seemingly endless tunnel.
The underground air barely circulated. The temperature remained relatively constant, dry and cold, with an old, stagnant heaviness to every breath, though it was not nearly as bone-chilling as the surface.
As Song Zang walked, he actually began to feel a little hot. He was just about to take off the bulky down jacket when his vision suddenly blurred.
Without giving him any choice, Yin Chen hoisted him onto his back, securely supporting his thighs and even giving them a few discreet squeezes.
Song Zang jumped in surprise and hurriedly wrapped his arms around Yin Chen’s neck. Perhaps he accidentally used too much force, because Yin Chen suddenly let out a muffled grunt.
“Song Zang, are you trying to strangle me?”
It sounded like a reprimand, yet also like hoarse flirting.
Song Zang mussed up his hair, lowered his eyes, and revealed a faintly malicious smile. Through the suppressant patch, Song Zang deliberately kissed Yin Chen’s damaged gland, then gently bit it.
The sensation, amplified several times over, made Yin Chen’s entire body tense. He pressed his thin lips together and refused to say another word.
Satisfied, Song Zang stopped deliberately tormenting him. Breathing in the rose fragrance that had quietly grown richer, however, he showed no mercy with his mouth. “Serves you right for deliberately scaring me today. Does it feel like ants are crawling all over you, hm? Still want me to kiss you?”
“I won’t scare you anymore. Wait until we return to Zone A. The hygiene here is poor.”
Yin Chen’s voice became even huskier. His tone sounded calm, but the surging restlessness inside him could not be concealed at all. The increasingly gorgeous, luxuriant floral scent betrayed every trace of desire.
He liked it. He really wanted it… Song Zang nearly went dizzy from the fragrance and understood Yin Chen’s thoughts perfectly.
That was pheromones’ greatest disadvantage, and also their greatest advantage.
An untimely atmosphere of intimacy rose between them. Unfortunately, they did not get to remain close for long before another strong artificial smell overwhelmed it.
At the end of the tunnel, the view suddenly opened up, accompanied by the endless cold mechanical sounds of working robotic arms.
Mining robots designed specifically for the mine came in three forms: robotic arms for precision extraction, mobile miniature islands responsible for prospecting, and automated safety □□, all monitored and controlled by AI and considered extremely safe.
The robots had dedicated ore-transport routes that operated day and night, so they never occupied the same area as human miners.
This was the real core region where radiant iron was produced, making the hundreds and thousands of human mine workers look like a completely pointless joke.
The enormous underground cavern spanned nearly a thousand square kilometers and was filled everywhere with robots in different forms. Half were charging, while the other half worked diligently. The transport conveyors were arranged in an orderly network extending in every direction, able to collect ore from every remote corner and move it upward in batches.
The core radiant-iron extraction zone was saturated with a strong, cold metallic scent mixed with the smell of some unfamiliar machine oil Song Zang did not recognize.
As they approached step by step, an egg-shaped camera standing at the top of a conveyor suddenly lit up red.
“Warning. Unauthorized personnel approaching…”
Yin Chen calmly interrupted it. “A-9 confirmation. Authorization granted. Begin secondary safety scan.”
“Reporting, Sir: authorization information has been recorded.”
“Reporting, Sir: scan complete. Mine Level Sixty-Six. Environment confirmed safe. No suspected severely harmful organic organisms detected. Please remain cautious of insect bites to avoid accidental itching or viral infection.”
The detailed scan report ended there, and the guns and artillery hidden in the darkness, poised to strike, slowly retracted into the walls.
The steel mechanisms enclosed by compacted earth once again became smooth, flat walls, sealed so perfectly that no abnormal traces could be seen.
“Sir~” Still lying on Yin Chen’s back, Song Zang leaned close to his ear and called softly in an affected voice.
Yin Chen’s steps paused again. His breathing deepened slightly, and for once he negotiated with Song Zang in a remarkably pleasant tone. “I won’t seduce you tonight. We can continue tomorrow, okay?”
“Hmph. You’d better not.”
“I keep my word.”
And just like that, a cheerful and amicable ceasefire agreement was reached.
Song Zang still took off his down jacket. He refused to let Yin Chen carry it and casually tied it around his own waist. Because the hem was so long, Song Zang had to wrap it around himself twice before making sure the thick coat would not interfere with his movement.
It looked like a huge, bulging bundle tied around him, which was a little ridiculous. Song Zang did not care. He had already made every possible fool of himself in front of Yin Chen and had completely stopped caring about his image.
Yin Chen rather liked him dressed this way. Round and puffy, he looked cute from head to toe.
“Song Zang, a cat-ear headband would suit you better than me.”
Holding his blade, he casually used the tip to dismantle part of a conveyor that had temporarily stopped working, chatting idly with Song Zang.
Song Zang tilted his head to inspect the ground beneath the conveyor, carrying his gun and excavation tools while watching for more mechanisms. He replied casually, “I know, but I don’t like myself. I only like you…”
Clang!
Before the sentence had even ended, Yin Chen overturned half of the steel magnetic conveyor in front of them with his bare hands. It weighed roughly half a metric ton, and beneath it lay a base of lighter-colored soil.
Song Zang was just about to praise him when Yin Chen turned and stared at him with an icy smile. His voice was sinister. “Say something like that again and I’ll cut out your vocal cords.”
“You’re so mean.”
Song Zang muttered under his breath but did not talk back. Looking deeply aggrieved, he took the labor-saving automatic telescopic hoe and stabbed viciously into the pale layer of soil.
They had picked this tool up from the underground chamber earlier. It had luckily escaped being crushed by the “collapse,” and there was neither rust nor corrosion on it. It made digging extremely easy, and its material was clearly professional grade.
The radiant-iron hook at the tip of the hoe flashed with a dark, cold gleam in the dim mine. It would probably be excellent for killing people too, one clean strike per person.
Song Zang had not even finished playing with it before Yin Chen snatched the hoe away, behaving rudely, forcefully, and with a thoroughly vicious expression.
Yin Chen gave a cold laugh, completely ignoring the accusation in Song Zang’s eyes. He simply could not stand watching Song Zang do manual labor, nor could he stand hearing Song Zang insult himself.
In this world, only Yin Chen was allowed to insult Song Zang. Song Zang himself was not.
Fortunately, Song Zang had a very good temper. He folded his arms and stood to the side resentfully, secretly letting his gaze drift toward Yin Chen’s waist as it tightened with exertion, then toward the lines of his hips and thighs beneath his military trousers. He silently stared for a while…
What a body for a uniform.
The best body in the whole world for a uniform.
Bewitched by beauty, Song Zang unknowingly lost every bit of resentment.
Feeling refreshed as though nothing had happened, he tilted his head and asked curiously, “Baby, can we really dig something out like this?”
Yin Chen nodded. “I can sense an unusual power buried underneath.”
“Actually, I can too, but…” Song Zang exhaled. “What I sense as unusual covers this entire mechanical mining zone.”
Beneath nearly a thousand square kilometers of crisscrossing conveyors and densely packed robots… faint pale-green shadows flickered everywhere.
Song Zang narrowed his eyes, sounding troubled. The harder he tried to focus, the less clearly he could see. Those drifting green afterimages resembled the visual hallucinations he experienced when he was extremely nervous.
But Song Zang genuinely was not nervous at all.
Exploring an instance was one thing, but spending a long stretch of uninterrupted time alone with Yin Chen deep inside the mine was, in Song Zang’s eyes, no different from a date.
Yin Chen turned and looked at him with an almost imperceptible hint of scrutiny, then reached out and patted his head. “The green could really be there. It may not be a hallucination. Have you noticed that the composition of this soil is unusual?”
Song Zang thought for a moment, then realized. “This is soil for growing flowers! It smells like fertilizer granules, and if you dig deeper you can see moisture… Don’t tell me there’s a flower underneath?”
Sure enough, clues related to the main mission could be found inside the mine.
Yin Chen gave an “Mm.” He stared at the deep pit, now nearly the height of an adult man, then suddenly grew impatient, threw aside the iron hoe, and frowned. “Shoot it with your gun. This is too slow.”
“Okay.”
Song Zang was not surprised by his impatience. He hefted his heavy modified gun and switched it to the most powerful dual-shot mode.
The electromagnetic arc and laser beam finished charging in a second and fired simultaneously, blasting into the depths of the pit like artillery shells.
The powerful recoil and shock wave spread outward. Song Zang’s wrist went numb, and he conveniently toppled into Yin Chen’s arms, weak and helpless.
“Warning. Danger detec…”
Bang!
Song Zang flicked up his wrist and shot the noisy machine to pieces as well.
Honestly. Bursting out and shouting like that was getting in the way of him and Yin Chen cultivating their relationship.
The electromagnetic firepower was more than strong enough. The layer of green shadow visible only to Song Zang suddenly deepened several times over. It seemed to be some strange kind of penetrating perception, something nobody else possessed but him.
More abnormalities followed immediately. Ferocious cracks trembled open throughout the pit, and without warning a thorny shrub branch shot out, moving like a tough, freely slithering venomous snake as it lunged straight at Song Zang.
Song Zang did not dodge. He allowed the branch to wrap directly around him.
The dark-green plant, covered in tiny thorns, hooked tightly around his wrist. As though trying to take root and merge with him, it repeatedly squeezed and ground against Song Zang’s delicate skin, leaving deep, bloody pressure marks.
“Yin Chen, don’t touch me.” Song Zang deliberately reminded him.
Yin Chen really did not move him. He only pressed one hand firmly against Song Zang’s shoulder, his eyes somewhat cold as he said with a faint smile, “Song Zang, I really want to chop you to death right now.”
“I know. Don’t be angry.”
Song Zang casually soothed him while studying the injury with great interest. His venous blood gradually stained the thorns red, soaking the deep green into an even darker black.
That trick of drawing blood had appeared on the little dachshund before too. Something underground was frantically absorbing his nutrients, scrambling to break free from beneath the earth. Countless enormous branches twisted and surged, like invisible mud pythons arching their backs, turning into earth dragons that rolled and writhed through the ground.
Song Zang was held securely in Yin Chen’s arms.
“Warn… ing: collapse… bzzzt…”
The mechanical warning stuttered into life again, then quickly cut off.
The two men, still wrapped around each other, were completely entangled by plant branches, yanked into the air, and flung upward. Then the entire ground plane directly flipped over with a thunderous rumble.
Large sections of conveyor were forcibly torn apart. Cameras hanging in every corner and hidden gun barrels were shaken loose and scattered everywhere. The mining robots were more cautious: the instant they detected the ground shaking, they stopped operating, attached themselves in batches to the steel magnetic belts, fled toward the upper levels of the mine, and entered a self-protective standby mode.
Song Zang swung his legs dozens of meters in the air and stared in astonishment at the disaster-movie spectacle before him.
He never would have expected that they would not need to dig any deeper themselves. Whatever was buried below had actually turned the earth over and come up on its own.
And the thing hidden in the depths differed somewhat from what Song Zang had imagined.
He had expected something underground to emerge as… an absurdly enormous monster flower, perhaps large enough to trigger the kind of terror people felt toward gigantic objects.
The truth was exactly the opposite.
Looking across the dim space, he saw only a few pitiful specks of light.
A tiny, single-petaled wild rose grew alone on one rose branch.
It was pinkish white, a delicate and beautiful low-saturation gradient. The petals were plump and moist, but the sepals supporting them were slightly yellowed and curled. It was malnourished, and its future looked precarious.
The little flower was buried among crisscrossing thorny branches, drowned in a deadly sea of writhing green snakes, forced to tremble and bob along with their movement.
Countless broad, serrated leaves gleamed with an oily, lush dark green, looking even more vigorous than the single rose that had managed to bloom.
They covered and enclosed the fragile pink-white flower, squeezing it and stealing the wild rose’s growing space.
Many thick branches also bore drooping flower buds of different sizes, all listless from lack of nourishment.
Song Zang could not help blinking his dry eyes. He had no idea why, but it seemed he had really developed some kind of superpower. One glance was enough for him to tell their state of health.
He realized those disgusting buds would never bloom. They resembled strings of malformed parasitic tumors, helplessly clinging and biting into the swollen branches.
The branch protecting the wild rose, meanwhile, was the thinnest and weakest of all.
It had been robbed of nearly all its nutrients, yet still managed to produce a plump, vivid flower. That truly had not been easy, Song Zang thought silently.
If you wanted a flower to bloom well, you needed to prune away some unnecessary bud-bearing branches so the nutrients could concentrate in the core. It was the simplest piece of flower-growing knowledge.
“Want me to cut away everything that’s in the way?” Yin Chen had reached the same conclusion. “Everything except that flower is useless.”
Song Zang nodded. “Cut me a path so I can get over there. Thank you, baby. I suspect… my blood might be able to nurse it back to health.”
Yin Chen raised an eyebrow in displeasure but said nothing. He simply lifted his hand and cut through the huge branch hooked around Song Zang’s wrist and supporting both of them.
Just before the sensation of falling hit, Yin Chen’s terrifying mental-power field abruptly spread outward, extending all the way to the end of the mine cavern. Gorgeous blood-red light flowed through the air and lowered Song Zang safely to the ground.
A top-tier Alpha’s mental power could compress and crush several small interstellar craft, let alone these hideous, restless branches.
Yin Chen effortlessly pinned every one of them to the ground. They writhed and thrashed furiously like maggots, but it was completely useless.
A broad, safe path opened in front of them.
Song Zang quickened his pace and ran toward the wild rose. He grabbed its frail branch, held up the striking blood on his pale wrist, and coaxed softly, “Can you survive if you drink my blood? Then drink. Hurry and grow up.”
The thorns pricked his palm until it tingled slightly. Apparently, this little flower only looked weak. Killing an ordinary human would probably be effortless for it.
Unfortunately for the little white flower, it had encountered an unreasonable player like Song Zang. It could only pitifully tighten its branches and, using all its strength, struggle to prick a few shallow holes into his wrist.
The flower branch carefully sucked Song Zang’s blood, nearly choking several times on the excessive amount of nourishment.
Perhaps there truly was too much nourishment, because another unbelievable transformation occurred.
The thin, fragile little white flower suddenly grew larger right before Song Zang’s eyes, as though by magic.
A single petal rose even taller than Song Zang himself.
As the branch trembled and bent, the wild rose swallowed Song Zang whole. He sat dazed in the center of the flower, turning to look at the translucent pink-white chamber around him, as though he had been carried into a dreamlike little house from a fairy tale.
The wild rose’s fragrance was rich but not cloying, carrying a fresh, natural wildness. After breathing it in for only a short while, Song Zang discovered signs that his battered mental sea was beginning to heal on its own.
Was this the flower feeding something back to him in return for being nourished with his blood?
Song Zang hurriedly shouted outside, “Yin Chen, don’t start cutting randomly!”
Yin Chen: …
Yin Chen had absolutely no intention of doing that.
He was busy hacking apart the buds that would never be able to bloom.
Something smelled wrong inside them, a mixture of human corpses and all kinds of sinister things.
Yin Chen deliberately sliced several open along the edges and discovered all sorts of writhing… miniature exotic-beast embryos and larvae inside. Some were egg-laying species whose shells had not yet formed, with shadows flickering inside translucent membranes.
The so-called flower buds were actually incubators for exotic beasts.
Exotic beasts alone would have been one thing, but Yin Chen also saw insectoid eggs.
Dense clusters of oval eggs filled the buds. If one was broken open and examined closely, a fetus with humanlike limbs could be seen curled inside.
These were insectoid eggs, mixed among the exotic-beast larvae and raised together by this rose plant.
Without the insectoid eggs, the remaining nutrients might have been just enough for the other buds to bloom. But with hundreds upon hundreds of eggs added…
None of them would ever get the chance to flower, creating a bizarre and delicate equilibrium.
The Rose Empire was not the only power using the mine to pursue dark objectives. The insectoids were doing the same. Both sides believed their schemes were hidden, but the Rose Empire was clearly lagging behind.
Yin Chen had no time to think it through slowly. The mental-power field he had casually spread out was suddenly driven back by a strange force and shattered to pieces.
The monster larvae, which should still have required a long period of incubation, inexplicably began mutating at astonishing speed, killing one another and desperately fighting to steal nutrients from their own kind.
A head almost identical to a human’s grew from the side of the seemingly harmless white goose’s neck.
The soft kitten’s pink paw pad split open, and a sinister, forked blood-red tongue slid out.
The branch nurturing a mouse bud brutally pierced through the grizzly bear’s abdomen and continued drawing strength from its torn flesh to nourish itself.
Without hesitation, Yin Chen crushed the insectoid eggs covering the ground beneath his boots, then started a fire and used his laser-charged gun to intensify the flames. In an instant, the rapidly heating air filled with scorched odors and a bizarre mixture of roasting meat scents.
“Song Zang, can you breathe?”
“I’m fine. The mission’s almost complete!”
Song Zang was still feeding blood to the rose.
With nothing else to do, he opened a floating virtual mirror and examined his eyes.
They were a deep, vintage oxblood red, like aristocratic jewels from an earlier century. But that was not the most frightening part.
Song Zang saw his own “tattoo.”
Black-and-gold patterns shimmered with flowing light, bleeding into a dark red gradient as they descended from the side of his neck deep across his back.
Song Zang moved the mirror behind his collar and took a high-resolution photo.
It was an elaborate, magnificent double rose, its blood-red petals edged with uncanny black.
Crimson Glory.
The mysterious pattern gradually became complete, blazing with light.
A system screen appeared immediately afterward.
【Clear Requirement: Do you know how to grow flowers? (1/3)】