"If you can find it, you'll be a great mother, saving your own child."
"If you can't find it, or refuse to look, then I'm sorry, Jonathan—your useless mother couldn't save you, or maybe your cruel mother abandoned you. But Jonathan, you don't have to feel alone. Even if you die, I'll keep making your little brothers and sisters."
"Maybe they'll keep dying, but they'll keep coming, one after another. Until your mother succeeds, until one of them survives. Then I'll promise that child a life of freedom in the sunlight."
Creak—the chair groaned as Adam Zade stood up, turning his back to Susan Soo and speaking in a low voice: "You have four hours to think. But Jonathan's time is limited, so I recommend you don't waste it. After all, I don't want to have to sedate you and stash you away for months again."
Smack! In a burst of angry resolve, Susan Soo yanked the IV needle out of her arm and swept the peeled apple onto the floor. Thin and frail, she sat up abruptly. She didn't cry, but her eyes were bloodshot. She said nothing to Adam Zade, didn't look at him, just staggered but stubbornly pushed open the door, biting her lip as she walked out.
This was New Mexico, in the underground lab. Yang Qi recognized the layout at a glance—she'd been here before, right where they'd found the old priest. Unlike the ghostly, abandoned look it would have later, right now the replica Tiberius Laboratory was bustling, researchers hurrying everywhere. Some faces were new, but most were the old hands brought out of hyperspace.
Susan Soo recognized them in a daze—the ones who'd sedated her and messed with her body back then. The voices she heard were those same highly skilled "old subordinates."
Now, those people hurried past her, dodging to the side when they saw Susan Soo, faces flushing pale and red, not daring to meet her eyes.
Susan Soo didn't look at them, either.
She pushed past everyone blocking her way, pain still flooding her body. Her weak legs could barely hold her up, ready to collapse at any moment, but Susan Soo stubbornly kept moving forward. An hour later, she'd covered a distance an ordinary person would walk in fifteen minutes. Sweating and gasping, she forced herself onward without stopping.
Everyone along the way stepped aside for her, every door opened for her, every head bowed—but it wasn’t out of reverence, more out of guilt and avoidance. Susan Soo felt no honor in this special treatment; her heart held only cold despair and burning hatred.
She saw those incubation tanks.
Standing in the midst of this jungle of incubation tanks, a wave of evil and oppression crashed over her. Everywhere was Cold War-era industrial style: huge steel pipes, thick cables dragging along the floor, roaring exhaust fans, tanks bathed in green light, and the constant hum and buzz of noise—the scent of original sin sent chills down her spine.
“To prevent light from harming the embryos, we designed this place to be darker,” Zade stepped out of a ripple in space, standing beside Susan Soo, cane in hand like a gentleman. “Even though I’ve been careful, the death rate among the Zade Scions is still high. I started with nearly two hundred thousand samples; now, only these are left.”
Susan Soo staggered forward, gently touching the glass surface of a tank. Zade Scions? No, they weren’t truly Zade’s children, and Susan didn’t hate them. These, and the unborn child in her belly, were all sacrifices to Zade’s madness—just like her.
“Your eyes are still stubborn, but it seems you don’t hate them,” Zade’s voice was no longer flippant, just cold as ice. He didn’t come closer, standing far behind Susan in the darkness, and even the shadows seemed to fear him. “That’s good. From what I know of you, maybe you want to save them too. But I advise you not to overreach—saving Jonathan should be your top priority.”
Susan Soo pressed her left hand to her belly, face utterly blank. She would never show emotion in front of Zade—she refused to be weak before that bastard. It was her last bit of stubbornness and pride.
But the emotions from memory were overwhelming, surging and clear, reaching deep into the heart of everyone who shared those memories.
Two conflicting thoughts clashed fiercely—hatred so deep she wanted to burn everything down, but another thought kept flickering like a wavering flame.
She held her belly, feeling the presence of new life. This child wasn’t born of love, not even a fleeting moment of passion. What he carried wasn’t love, but conspiracy, deception, hatred, pain, and original sin.
But... a movement inside her belly—the fetus was stirring.
But it wasn’t a happy flutter—Susan Soo felt the pain as if it were her own. Zade had forcibly implanted the Superhuman Key; even in the embryonic stage, this child was immersed in suffering.
Is this what they call a mother’s bond with her child?
A tiny tremor shot out from her belly, striking at the core of Susan Soo’s heart.
Her vision suddenly blurred.
She looked at the countless incubation tanks before her. The embryos inside, just like the child in her belly, were all suffering.
I want to relieve their pain.
I want to end all of this.
But how should I do it?
Or rather, what method should I use?
Left, or right?
A choice of fate.
“Let’s make a deal.” Susan Soo’s mind was in turmoil, and Zade spoke up at just the right moment: “You keep working on Project X—give me the cure for genetic collapse—and I’ll promise Jonathan the best life. I’ll accept him as my son, make him my heir, and the vast Zade family will be his to inherit.”
Silence.
A long silence.
Then Susan Soo shook her head.
“No.” She finally spoke, her voice strained, every word tearing at her throat: “He can’t... be your son... you don’t deserve... to be his father...”
Zade wasn’t angry at her words—he was pleased.
He understood what Susan Soo really meant.
“Then I’ll give him the chance to choose. If he wants to be my heir, he’ll be first in line. If not, I’ll let him go wherever he wants. How about Hong Kong? I’ll send him there, give him a fortune he could never spend. And as for these Zade Scions,” Zade gestured at the endless forest of tanks, “if they’re cured of genetic collapse and survive, I’ll give them the same chance to choose.”