Chapter 1949: Chapter 972: The Origin of Long Yi
After placing the first aid kit into the groove, the originally empty secret room indeed revealed a different scene: what unfolded before the eyes was a dark and long passage.
Long Yi’s eyes lit up the instant the passage appeared, just like a child who had wandered away for days finally seeing the harbor of home.
He hurriedly rushed into the passage.
Gu Jiao stepped forward to follow.
In fact, Gu Jiao had always been curious, where did such spaces come from, and through what means are they left in this time and space?
It seemed unlikely that they were created by a single hand, as ancient developed energy and infrastructure were insufficient to carve out such a base within just a few decades.
Gu Jiao also considered whether it came from a research institute in a past life, but she quickly dismissed this guess.
The equipment in the operating room was far more advanced than that of the research institute.
Long Yi pushed open the door at the end of the passage; a strong light flashed, and Gu Jiao instinctively raised her hand to block it.
Long Yi unhesitatingly dashed into the room, and once Gu Jiao adjusted to the light, she too walked over.
To Gu Jiao’s surprise, it was not an operating room but rather a fully equipped laboratory.
In the center was a rectangular experiment table made of special metal, with nothing on it, as if the Grandfather had tidied it up beforehand.
Apart from the wall with the door, the other three walls were lined with shelves about three meters high, filled with transparent glass vessels.
Inside these vessels were soils of varying colors and compositions; some soils had successfully nurtured plants, while others were acidic and decayed, with no living plant organisms.
The latter case accounted for the vast majority.
And all these… were for cultivating purple herbs.
Looking at these failed experiment samples, Gu Jiao could almost imagine how the Grandfather repeatedly planted purple herbs and failed each time, until he eventually sank into collapse and despair.
There were no more discoveries in the laboratory, as if all the endless hardships had been deliberately erased by the Grandfather.
Long Yi came to the shelf on the right-hand side upon entering, pressed a switch on the wall, and with a click, it seemed that a lock had been opened.
Then, Long Yi gave a gentle push forward.
Turns out there was a hidden door on that wall.
Seeing Long Yi enter through the door, Gu Jiao followed him in without a second thought.
The scene before her left her utterly amazed.
It was neither an operating room nor a laboratory, but rather a… small indoor playground.
Long Yi jumped in with open arms, diving into a pool of blue and white ocean balls.
He was too large to be submerged by the balls, so he buried his head into them.
Apart from the ocean ball pool, there were trampolines, iron bridges, climbing walls, rainbow ladders, and other children’s play facilities here.
However, if scrutinized closely, these play facilities differed from those in past-life malls; they had greater difficulty, steeper slopes, and various data monitoring.
“So, is this a place for Long Yi to play, or a training ground?” Gu Jiao murmured.
Long Yi went on to ride his childhood pony; unfortunately, he was already very big, and could only sit on it with arms and legs curled, feeling awkwardly cramped.
Even so, he began to rock on it.
Gu Jiao felt there was more to this place than merely being an indoor playground and was watching keenly when suddenly, a mechanical sound emanated above the front: “Beep~”
Soon after, a slender green light scanned over, first falling on Long Yi, sweeping from head to toe.
Then a rotating detector above spoke: “Mengmeng, welcome home.”
Indeed, it called him Mengmeng.
When Long Yi left, he was only five years old. How did it determine Long Yi’s parameters after so many years?
While pondering, the green light from the detector scanned over Gu Jiao, the light at its source flickered twice, and the mechanical voice sounded again, its tone noticeably cold: “Unidentified intruder detected, should it be eliminated?”
A row of gun barrels emerged from the walls and pointed directly at Gu Jiao!
Gu Jiao’s brow twitched.
In the next moment, Long Yi shot up intending to pull Gu Jiao over, but before he could make a move, the detector spoke.
“System pause.”
“System error.”
“System reboot.”
“System overload.”
Gu Jiao was completely clueless about what was happening; after another series of beeps, the detector hung downwards, crashing.
Uh, the crisis was resolved just like that?
Three seconds later, it restarted, first retracting the guns, and scanned Long Yi once again.
This time, its tone was much lighter: “Mengmeng, today is a beautiful day, welcome home.”
And then that was it, it did not scan Gu Jiao again.
“Is Grandfather here?” Gu Jiao asked it.
It did not answer.
“Is King here?” Gu Jiao called Grandfather by his codename within the organization.
It still did not answer.
“Long Yi, talk to it,” Gu Jiao said, turning to Long Yi.
Long Yi looked up at it, thought for a moment, and sincerely educated it: “You need to speak.”
It indeed responded, its tone light with a hint of laughter: “Does Mengmeng want to chat?”
“Jiaojiao has something to ask you,” Long Yi said.
The detector began scanning Gu Jiao.
“Unidentified intruder detected, should it be eliminated?”
“System pause.”
“System error.”
“System reboot.”
“System overload.”
The detector crashed once again.
Gu Jiao sighed: “Seems not possible.”
She had hoped to retrieve some information related to Grandfather from its database.
Whether it was a system malfunction or Grandfather had programmed avoidance measures was unknown, he really departed cleanly, leaving not even a word.
…
Nevertheless, the trip wasn’t entirely fruitless.
Long Yi showed Gu Jiao his bedroom; the place where he slept during childhood was unexpectedly a hibernation pod.
At the bottom of the pod, it recorded various characteristics of the hosted life form.
“K93 system, intelligent life form, grade, S.”
Is this Long Yi?
Long Yi is a life form from an alien system?
No wonder he’s so powerful?
But how did Grandfather encounter such a powerful Long Yi?
Seems inseparable from the first aid kit.
Long Yi lay back in his hibernation pod, arms crossed over his stomach, obediently, with the same pose and expression as in childhood.
Gu Jiao asked him: “Long Yi, do you remember when was the first time you met your father?”
Long Yi shook his head.
Thinking of something, Long Yi sat up, went to his desk, opened the drawer, and took out a photo of Gu Jiao from her past life.
In the photo, she was carrying out a covert mission with a cold expression, wearing a red camisole dress, and a crescent jade pendant.
This was exactly the one she gave to Xuanyuan Qi.
Long Yi, having had his memories erased by Jianlu’s people, subconsciously remembered this jade pendant. When assassinating Xuanyuan Qi, he saw the pendant on Xuanyuan Qi’s neck and abandoned his mission.
Gu Jiao pointed at the photo and asked: “Did your father ever tell you who she was?”
Long Yi nodded solemnly and said: “She is the most important person in his life, and someone I must protect when I meet.”
…
Xiao Hen was drinking tea with Chang Kun in the courtyard, occasionally glancing toward the house.
Chang Kun chuckled: “If Little Marquis is curious, you can go in and take a look.”
Xiao Hen replied coldly: “Curious about what? Curious about a man who spared no means to create Dark Night Island for my wife, plant purple herbs, treats her better than I do, and keeps her constantly thinking about him! I am not curious!”
Chang Kun: … Well, then stop shaking your leg when you talk?
Gu Jiao and Long Yi only came out after a full 2 hours.
Xiao Hen’s side glance flew straight to Gu Jiao, he feigned calmness: “Finished looking?”
Gu Jiao replied with a hum, her mood somewhat low.
Seeing her look so heartbroken over another man, Xiao Hen was incredibly agitated and nearly jumping up.
He asked calmly, “Did you find anything?”
Gu Jiao shook her head: “No, he erased everything too cleanly, as if afraid I’d discover something here.”
Xiao Hen raised his hand, gently stroking her head: “He didn’t want you to be sad.”
Xiao Hen figured, if it were him, he would certainly do the same.
His sacrifices weren’t for her gratitude, but for her to live without any attachments or burdens.
So, she doesn’t need to know he once dwelled in hell, she need only move forward, towards the light.