Forbidden Zone of Deception

Chapter 80 Gu Insect Contamination Experiment
At noon, Li Hua squatted in the corner of the stairwell in the teaching building, the light from his phone screen reflecting on his face. The WeChat video request notification sounded for a long time before the other end finally answered.

"Hua Hua?"

The mother's face appeared on the screen against a backdrop of a plain white wall.

"Mom, where's Dad?" Li Hua asked in a low voice.

The father's face suddenly appeared in the frame: "I'm here, Hua Hua. Do you have enough living expenses?"

"That's enough. You don't need to worry about me. You're all pretty busy today, aren't you?"

The mother's fingers unconsciously traced the edge of the screen: "Business has been good at the store. Why do you look so pale? Did you stay up late again?"

The mother's voice suddenly rose, and the furrowed brows on the screen could crush a crab.

Li Hua subconsciously shrank his neck: "I'll study until midnight."

"Midnight?!" Her mother's voice was like a razor blade scraping against glass. "How many times have I told you? You have to be asleep before eleven! Look at your face! Studying until midnight? Nobody believes that! Were you playing games on your phone in bed again? Tell the truth!"

Li Hua thought to himself: If I tell you the truth, you'll think I'm crazy.

The father's face flickered at the edge of the frame, his lips moved a few times, but in the end he just sighed. In Li Hua's memory, her father was a silent man from birth, always standing behind her mother like an outsider. He was probably married through an arranged marriage in the past, with no real feelings between them.

"Your dad didn't do well in school, that's why he ended up like this!" The mother suddenly turned her accusations on the father, "And now, you're doing the same thing every day—"

Just then, Li Hua suddenly noticed his father winking at him from behind his mother. This was a secret signal between father and son, telling Li Hua to hold back and not say anything.

The mother impatiently turned her slightly stiff neck: "Don't change the subject! You have to be in the top fifty of the grade in next week's monthly exam, do you hear me?"

Suddenly, the father reached out and pressed down on the mother's shoulder. This action caused his sleeve to slip up, revealing a scar on the inside of his wrist—Li Hua knew at a glance that this was the mother's handiwork, and it also matched the father's consistently cowardly character.

"Hua Hua," when it was finally his father's turn to speak, he murmured, "Eat well, rest well, eat less instant noodles, and play fewer video games."

Before her father could say more than a few words, her mother took the phone and sternly instructed him again: "In any case, your studies come first. We still have to keep busy at the shop here. I'll contact you again tonight."

The video call then ended.

Li Hua sighed. He had actually made the video call hoping to change schools. What happened last night was terrifying.

Especially this morning's roll call.

Someone is absent from class again!

unknown reason!

But what could he say? Changing schools right at the start of senior year? Especially after his mother's reaction just now, how could he possibly bring it up?

Then your mother will say, "You're just like your father, you can't stick to your studies and you only know how to blame your environment!"

In this way, not only would he suffer, but his father would too. Li Hua really didn't want to see his father caught in the crossfire and suffer an undeserved disaster. A grown man, scrimping and saving every month to get only a tiny bit of money from his wife, unable to even afford a pack of cigarettes, and still having to transfer some money to himself.

To be honest, Li Hua was very curious as to why her father and mother didn't divorce. Would they suddenly announce after she finished her college entrance exams that they had actually gotten their divorce certificate a long time ago but had been keeping it a secret from her?

Cheng Mi pushed open the glass door of the convenience store and walked towards the counter.

"Auntie, I asked Li Hua, and he said that Lin Xiaoyu and I came here together?"

After arriving at school today, he specifically asked Li Hua what the phone call yesterday meant, and only then did he understand the whole story.

The proprietress was tidying up the cigarette cabinet when she heard this, she paused and said, "Yes, didn't you come to buy Coke yesterday? That girl's face was frighteningly pale, she looked like she was anemic."

What did she buy?

"She didn't buy anything," the shopkeeper suddenly lowered her voice. "But you, you stared at her for a long time."

Cheng Mi felt a chill run down the back of her neck.

He doesn't remember it at all.

Lin Xiaoyu is definitely a beauty of class beauty caliber; otherwise, Luo Fan wouldn't have written her love letters. If he and she had been to the convenience store yesterday, how could he not know?

"Was there something wrong with her at the time?"

The proprietress's hand, which was giving change to a student, suddenly trembled, and the coins clattered onto the glass counter. "Didn't I just say she looked anemic? That child's skin looks like it's been coated with lime!"

Upon hearing this, Cheng Mi felt a chill run down his spine.

"Madam, are you sure you're not mistaken?"

"Of course, I would never forget you, Cheng Mi, even if I misremembered someone else."

what's the situation?
Just then, someone nearby called out, "Boss lady, a pack of cigarettes, please."

"Hey, you're here! I'll go attend to some customers first. Take whatever you like, you can pay later!"

Cheng Mi bit her lip and walked out of the convenience store.

Lin Xiaoyu...did she really come yesterday morning?

He was so upset at noon that he had no appetite.

Suddenly, he stopped.

grayish-white skin...

He raised his hand and looked at it.

He wondered if it was just his imagination, but he started to feel that his skin... seemed to be losing its color?

"No, no, it must be the effect of suggestion, it must be!"

Afternoon. First period.

As is customary, the homeroom teacher will take attendance.

"Before roll call, I have two announcements. First, I announce that Li Hua will be our class's Chinese language representative."

"Hey?"

"There's a mistake. He should be the English class representative!"

"What are you going to do about Song Yu?"

Cheng Mi subconsciously looked at Li Hua.

"The second thing is that this new semester should give the senior class a fresh look, so we need to put together a blackboard bulletin. I've selected the candidates, and the theme of the bulletin is the spirit and demeanor of the senior students. It should be educational and entertaining. Li Hua, Song Yu, Qi Lan, and Ning Xuan, the four of you will be in charge. Before school ends today, please give me a rough draft of the bulletin."

"Hey?"

"Blackboard bulletin?"

"I'm not very good at drawing."

"However, Qi Lan's art grades are indeed quite good."

"Finally, let's begin taking attendance."

Soon, Liu Yan said, "Cheng Mi."

Then, Cheng Mi said, "Here!"

next moment……

Everyone, including Li Hua, turned to look at Cheng Mi!
"When did you get here, Cheng Mi? Where did you go this morning?" Li Hua looked at Cheng Mi with a look of horror: "I didn't even notice you sitting here!"

Then, Cheng Mi slowly turned her pale face and said, "What are you talking about? Didn't I attend classes here all morning?"

Liu Yan then said, "Please wait a moment, I will go and inform Director Chen."

Meanwhile, in the monitoring room.

Security captain Li Jun repeatedly checked the classroom surveillance footage.

His seat remained empty until Liu Yan called out Cheng Mi's name.

Then, the video will show obvious frame skipping, as if a second has been cut. Immediately afterwards, Cheng Mi appears in the seat!
Soon, Director Chen arrived and, following procedure, led Cheng Mi into the Academic Affairs Office.

Li Hua felt goosebumps all over his body and immediately moved Cheng Mi's seat to the back.

He remembered clearly that Cheng Mi was definitely not in her seat when class started!
Most importantly... Cheng Mi was sitting in a seat against the wall! He couldn't get around to sit there!

after class.

Liu Yan entered the experimental building and her private laboratory.

Ten minutes later, her worms were writhing wildly in the petri dish.

At this moment, the Gu worms were trying to devour the contaminated grayish-white chunks of meat that Jiang Jin had cut out.

Once gray worms are implanted inside the meat, they will die immediately.

Under the cold light of the laboratory, the grayish-white piece of meat was wriggling slightly in the petri dish.

Jiang Jin's knife skills were extremely precise—the meat was cut into perfect cubes, each side as smooth as a mirror, but thick, grayish-white mucus kept oozing from the cut surfaces.

Wearing rubber gloves, Liu Yan gently pressed her fingers against the surface of the flesh, feeling a strange elasticity that resembled neither muscle tissue nor fat.

“Begin the experiment with the Corrosive Bees,” Liu Yan said into the recording equipment, her voice echoing slightly in the empty laboratory. “The sample is taken from the grayish-white chunk of meat that Jiang Jin cut yesterday. After cutting, it was stored at -20°C for half an hour.”

Immediately afterwards, three Soul-Eating Bees fluttered down. They seemed unusually excited by the scent emanating from the meat, and their wingbeats suddenly accelerated.

"start."

The first Soul-Eating Bee landed on the surface of the meat, and the Gu worm quickly pierced the meat with its sharp mouthparts.

The unexpected turn of events occurred without warning.

The worm's abdomen had just swelled to twice its original size when it suddenly stiffened and fell.

With a calm expression, Liu Yan quickly picked up the dead insect with tweezers and placed it under an electron microscope—the insect's internal organs had all begun to corrode, and tiny grayish-white fleshy buds had grown from its mouthparts!
"The second one, go."

The second worm met an even more bizarre fate. Upon contact with the mucus, its body rapidly dehydrated and shriveled, eventually becoming an empty shell. Even more terrifying, a microscope revealed that its inner surface was riddled with tiny, grayish-white holes, as if it had been completely devoured from the inside by some kind of microorganism.

The third worm didn't even get close to the piece of meat. At about five centimeters from the sample, it suddenly spun wildly in place, then crashed into the edge of the petri dish. Its rusted body shattered, and bodily fluids with red rust sprayed out.

Liu Yan brought up the real-time imaging on the electron microscope, and the image on the screen made her pupils widen slightly—

A cross-section of the meat, magnified 400 times, reveals a perfect honeycomb structure. Each "cell" is filled with a grayish-white slime, which is visibly eroding the microscope lens.

Upon witnessing this scene, Liu Yan's SAN value began to drop to nearly 60%!

At this moment, the truly terrifying phenomenon occurred—

The slime wasn't organic matter at all, but rather composed of countless nanoscale grayish-white particles. Each particle pulsated rhythmically, as if possessing a collective consciousness.

Suddenly, the screen flickered. A blurry humanoid silhouette gradually took shape in the mucus, and it even raised its "hand," pressing it precisely onto the microscope's imaging plane!
At this moment, Liu Yan's SAN value dropped by 60%!

Without further hesitation, she took out a piece of meat from her watch, ate it to replenish her SAN, and then quickly put all the contaminated pieces of meat back into the red storage box!
(End of this chapter)