Volume 3, Chapter 20 – Harvest【1】

When she regained consciousness in this new body, Hannah immediately noticed the Bai Xiang standing in front of her.

Her first impression was: young… Next she was drawn in by those eerie golden eyes, and only then did she pay attention to the face and overall appearance.

Even the eyebrows and eyelashes were white, which meant that white hair definitely was not dyed.

Hannah could feel an even stronger pressure coming from Bai Xiang than when she herself had been in the giant lizard form. She did not know the exact reason; she only knew that if she wanted to keep living, she absolutely had to remain humble before this mysterious powerhouse.

So she bent deeply at the waist and introduced herself in a very earnest tone.

“ Hannah-jinlis .”

“Thank you for saving my life.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” Bai Xiang’s reply made her heart jolt. “Give me a reason not to kill you first.”

Have young people these days really become this hot-tempered?

Hannah frowned.

Seeing how young Bai Xiang looked, she had chosen the “sincerity approach” to lower the other party’s guard.

There is that saying that you do not hit someone who is all smiles. Even a powerhouse would not immediately execute a humble, deferential servant. On that front she felt she had already done an excellent job.

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But it was useless.

Bai Xiang simply would not bite no matter what she tried.

In fact, she had gotten things exactly backwards. If she had stayed in the giant lizard form, Bai Xiang really would not have killed her.

A beast monster that, while intelligent, still had a hazy understanding of things and enormous plasticity was far easier to train than a crafty human. Before Bai Xiang developed a spirit-pointing method effective on demonic beasts, she could not guarantee absolute control over Hannah. Compared to taking that risk and working with Hannah, Bai Xiang would rather stab her through with one sword and refine away the knowledge and memories in her soul.

Of course, there was no way to absorb every last memory. Given Dr. Hannah’s status and the sheer volume of knowledge she possessed, the waste would be substantial.

But there was no helping that.

Faced with this sort of choice, Bai Xiang would never take a risk.

Hannah had clearly also grasped why Bai Xiang was so wary. After thinking for a moment, she said to Bai Xiang, “In the freezer you just took the ‘mental-stimulation reagent’ from, there is also a box of ‘Original-Form Suppressant’.”

Bai Xiang had already locked onto her qi presence, so she walked around to check without worry and found that inside there was indeed a small honeycomb-structured box holding twenty-four vials of reagent.

“‘Original-Form Suppressant’ was originally my secret medicine for controlling this body. When it… what I mean is, when my child, falls into a berserk state, injecting ‘Original-Form Suppressant’ can suppress it.” Hannah explained.

“But later I discovered it had another effect. Once my consciousness started taking the lead, my brain tissue was constantly being rejected by this body. That meant I had to inject one vial of ‘Original-Form Suppressant’ every twenty-four hours to prevent potential gene collapse. For me, it is a necessity.”

Bai Xiang understood. “You want me to use this thing to control you.”

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Hannah bowed humbly again. “If that is what it takes to let me live……”

“Since you do not want to die, why did you take such a huge risk?” Bai Xiang indicated the long-haired female corpse with a look, the corpse that had been Hannah’s own body.

“The meaning of a scientist’s survival is to explore the unknown.” Hannah said. “It is the same no matter the field; the only difference is direction. And for a scientist who has already made major breakthroughs in a certain direction, compared to killing her immediately, forcing her to watch her own results, and a one-of-a-kind result at that, be destroyed before her eyes is far crueler.”

“So you did it to save this body, your ‘child’?”

“Exactly！” A fanatical light shot from Hannah’s eyes.

“The biochemical warriors under Yao Qingyuan, were they modified by you?” Bai Xiang asked.

“Those lizard troopers? That was me.” Hannah admitted with a nod.

“During his plan, another unit of Condensing-the-Aspect modified humans with no identity records appeared, almost two hundred of them. Was that your work as well?”

The moment she asked, Bai Xiang was already prepared to draw her sword and cut Hannah down. Because this question was not just about clearing up a few tiny mysteries. Based on her own speculation, that unit of cultivators had appeared in this world by piggybacking on her little aunt.

In other words, those two hundred modified people were the results of research on Bai Nianchan’s corpse. If Hannah answered “yes,” that would mean she had taken part in desecrating Bai Nianchan’s remains.

In that case, she had to die.

There would be no room for negotiation.

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“The biochemical people? That was not my responsibility.” Hannah frowned in confusion, then shook her head. “That was Dr. Evan’s work. He and I do not walk the same path; we are enemies, if anything.”

“But your ‘child’ told me you are the highest person in charge here.”

“Not for a long time.” Hannah sighed. “The memories it got from me are incomplete.”

Afraid Bai Xiang would not believe her, she decided to spell things out.

“I believe you have already seen my research direction… I have always devoted myself to uncovering the secrets of the ancient demon clans, to letting their glory reappear in the world and turning them into our allies.”

Bai Xiang did not doubt that. The misshapen fusion monsters she had seen, and even Hannah herself, were strong evidence for that claim.

“I have poured all my energy into this. I simply do not have the bandwidth to tackle some side topic like ‘biochemical people’.” Hannah spread her hands. “Unfortunately, my research was not going well. It was not until just a few days before the boss, that is, Yao Qingyuan, launched the plan that I finally made a breakthrough.”

Her meaning was obvious. With efficiency that low, her project was not qualified to burn that much funding. Maybe Yao Qingyuan had valued her at first, but as time went on, another team, Dr. Evan’s team, the one in charge of studying Bai Nianchan’s remains, made breakthroughs, and the support from the Prince’s Manor naturally tilted their way.

The logic checked out.

Biochemical beasts and biochemical humans were indeed different, even conflicting directions.

Bai Xiang’s face stayed cold. “Where is Dr. Evan now?”

“He ran.” Hannah’s voice dropped a notch. “He killed everyone… tricked them into going down to sublevel three, saying there was an exit there, then flooded it and drowned them.”

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“You are not people of Great Yu. Why are you here?”

“You do not know?” For the first time, shock appeared on Hannah’s face. “There have always been outside forces behind Yao Qingyuan. That does not just mean those mysterious types; it also includes real outsiders, the Sami Federation.”

“You all came from the Sami Federation?”

“I did. I graduated from Bluebridge University. Dr. Evan is a Ruffen, from the Ruffen Federation that sits above Sami.”

“Is this military support?”

“If I said no, would you believe me……” Hannah could only give a wry smile.

Though she had gone completely mad over her experiments and had not paid attention to what was happening in the outside world during this period, she was not stupid. She could guess that even if Yao Qingyuan failed, Great Yu’s losses would not be small.

In something like this, once outside assistance was uncovered and you claimed it was not military in nature, who would believe you?

If it all came to light, Great Yu and Sami might well end up at war.

“In that case, you should have a lot of outside channels.”

“I……”