Chapter 177
Chapter 177: Countless Test Subjects in Cages, Waiting to Die
Before Huang Da Zhuang finished shouting, Jiang Tea Tea vanished from the screen.
The speed was so fast it left the others stunned.
Shrink the Earth to an Inch let her enter any place—as long as there was space for her to stand.
The vault door couldn’t be opened, so she simply went in.
As for oxygen… she was a tree demon. Plant life. If she needed oxygen, she could create it.
Inside, her vision adjusted quickly.
From the outside, the vault looked ten meters long. Inside, it was far larger—more like a small house.
And it was packed.
Not just ledgers—other objects too, so many she couldn’t take it all in at once.
She conjured a light orb and tossed it into the air.
The vault lit up.
Gemstone necklaces, earrings, bracelets, brooches—everywhere. Firelight glittered in every color, bright enough to nearly blind her.
She touched her earpiece. “Sui Xuan Chu—”
No response.
No signal.
The vault blocked everything.
She reached for the nearest piece: a necklace laid on white velvet, pale gemstones around the edges, a large emerald in the center like a star held by stars.
It was heavy. At least three jin.
Even if she didn’t care for jewelry, the fire in it screamed value.
And since she was already here…
One item was taking. Ten items was also taking.
No need to be polite.
She pulled an empty box from her storage button—a box that usually held nutrient fruit—and tossed the necklace into it. Then she swept through the vault like a storm.
She filled two boxes—each able to hold fifty jin of nutrient fruit—with jewelry alone.
Then she found stacks of old coins and gold. She didn’t leave those either.
Everything went into her storage button.
Finally she found the ledgers.
Old. Handwritten. Stained by time.
She flipped through a few pages, confirmed what they were, and swept them into her storage button without hesitation.
Then she left the vault.
The moment she reappeared outside, signal returned to the shared channel, and Sui Xuan Chu’s voice hit like a flood.
“Roommate—are you okay?” He sounded like his heart was in his throat. “You scared me to death. There’s no oxygen in a vault like that. Why would you do something that reckless?”
If anything happened to her, his uncle would peel his skin off.
Did she even know how important she was? How much his uncle cared?
Jiang Tea Tea replied lightly, as if she’d stepped out to buy tea. “I’m fine. I can hold my breath.”
“Good news: I got the ledgers. I also picked up a few… other nice things.”
“Since I’m already warmed up, I’m going to check Lang Yin Feng and Lang Luo Feng’s bedroom next. See if there’s anything else.”
Sui Xuan Chu exhaled hard, still shaken. “Okay. Be careful. If anything feels wrong, retreat. Safety first.”
“Received,” Jiang Tea Tea said.
The shared live feed shifted.
She appeared inside Lang Yin Feng and Lang Luo Feng’s bedroom.
Gemstones were embedded in the walls, giving off a soft pale glow that made the room feel warm and cozy.
The decorations followed a Tian Yuan style—flowers and greenery everywhere, wallpaper painted with cute chibi figures like a child’s room.
The air was scented with floral incense. Soft music played under the sound of running water. A canopy draped over the bed, creating a small private world.
Jiang Tea Tea blinked straight into the canopy and stood at the bedside.
Inside, Lang Luo Feng was curled around Lang Yin Feng, holding him as he slept.
Lang Yin Feng buried his face against her, sleeping like a child—completely trusting, completely dependent.
By their sleeping posture, they looked deeply in love.
Jiang Tea Tea stared at them for a long moment, then turned away. She moved around the room and slipped into the study.
The study matched the bedroom—childlike Tian Yuan style, filled with cute, simple decor. Nothing looked expensive. Nothing stood out.
If anyone walked in, they would never imagine the first-floor hall or the three underground levels.
The contrast was too stark. It made Lang Yin Feng and Lang Luo Feng look like an ordinary, kind married couple.
Jiang Tea Tea searched. No clues. No obvious valuables.
Before leaving, she planted bugs and cameras in every corner of the bedroom and study. Then, using Shrink the Earth to an Inch, she traveled to the crime site eighty kilometers away.
The shared feed broke into static.
Sui Xuan Chu and the others saw the picture flicker. Jiang Tea Tea heard harsh crackling in her ear.
She stopped. “Zhang Ting Zhou, what’s going on? Why is it so noisy?”
Zhang Ting Zhou’s reply came steady and grim. “Interference. Not ordinary. It’s built by stacking the natural magnetic field. Any electronic equipment that enters will be disrupted.”
Jiang Tea Tea lifted a brow. “Fine. I’m switching to offline recording. I’ll go in and look myself. Wait for me.”
Sui Xuan Chu and Cheng Lin Yue spoke at the same time—one voice tight with fear, the other low and urgent. “Roommate—Sister Tea—remember: the mission is important, but you matter more than the mission.”
Jiang Tea Tea answered, unbothered. “Relax. I treasure my life more than anyone.”
She was the Tea Tree Clan’s sole pride. If danger came, others would become her fertilizer before she ever let herself lose even a single tea leaf.
With the shared signal cut, dawn crept in—around four a.m. The sky began to pale.
No one slept. Everyone waited in their rooms, tense and focused.
Jiang Tea Tea walked through the underground complex.
It felt like an apocalypse lab city.
Dim lights. Rot. The stink of blood. A cold that seeped into bone.
Mechanical devices. Glass containers. Things hanging from ceilings, mounted on walls, suspended in the air, standing on the ground.
Inside each container were naked beastfolk, half-beastfolk, pure humans—male, female. They looked asleep.
Some stood upright. Some curled into themselves. Some had been dismembered.
Every container carried a label: date, species, date of death, cause of death. Most causes were listed as death from live injection.
Their eyes were wide open. Frozen in terror. Faces twisted.
Whoever did this had a sick sense of humor—preserving them in a way that made it obvious they’d died in panic and despair.
The room of containers stretched as far as she could see.
For proof—because she had to record it—she walked through.
Then she realized it was connected.
The area holding beastfolk corpses connected to the area holding animal specimens.
And that connected to a room of pure human specimens too.
Embryos. Newborns. Children. Teenagers. Adults. Elderly.
Every stage. Every specimen.
Jiang Tea Tea recorded it all, then found the records room.
Handwritten ledgers took up an entire room, stacked wall to wall.
She flipped through enough to confirm what they were, then swept them all into her storage button without hesitation.
When the ledgers were gone, she searched the only desk in the room.
She found a thick handwritten journal.
She opened it.
Her eyes moved fast—ten lines at a time. As she flipped, she committed everything to memory.
When she finished, she left the records room and welded the door shut with magic power.
Then she moved toward the staff living quarters.
Around five a.m., they began waking.
She recorded them one by one—close-ups of faces.
At six, at seven, she followed as they moved into their work area.
Dozens of staff. Each with their own lab room. Each room equipped with the most advanced equipment.
On every lab table were living test subjects.
They injected drugs. They cut flesh with knives.
Some subjects lay silent like corpses, enduring everything without resistance. Others struggled and screamed until their voices cracked.
Jiang Tea Tea recorded each subject’s face, each room’s equipment, then slipped away.
She expanded her magic power, following the strongest concentration of living presence until she reached a place that reeked of life.
Ten massive cages.
Suspended five meters above the ground.
Each cage held more than ten people—beastfolk, half-beastfolk, pure humans, cubs.
Ten cages.
Over a hundred living beings.
Waiting to be dragged onto a lab table and cut apart.
Jiang Tea Tea exhaled slowly.
She didn’t alert them. She recorded their faces in silence.
As she left the crime site, she destroyed the electrical system.
Power died.
The labs fell into darkness, and the test subjects gained a brief moment of respite.
Morning wind brushed her face as she surfaced.
Back at the Lang family estate, Cheng Mian and Mo Jing Chun were standing with Lang Yin Feng and Lang Luo Feng at the entrance, watching the vast lawn. The Lang family children had shifted into beast form and were running drills, training their abilities.
Cheng Mian spoke with deliberate flattery, like he was impressed. “Yin Feng, Luo Feng—your children are not only talented, they’re disciplined. They’re training at five or six in the morning.”
“Unlike ours.” He sighed theatrically. “Our kid is on vacation and still hasn’t gotten up. Worse—he’s afraid we’ll wake him. At midnight, he sent a message telling us not to call him in the morning because he wants to sleep in and enjoy his vacation.”
Mo Jing Chun sighed dramatically too, playing along. “Exactly. Last night before bed, I even told Brother Cheng Mian our cub had become more mature after a year at military academy.”
“And less than three hours later, at midnight, we got that message from him. I felt like I slapped my own face red.”
“If our child could be half as well-behaved as yours—Beast God willing—we’d burn incense and thank the heavens.”