Chapter Forty-Seven: The Autopsy

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Nangang New City, an underground safehouse.

A young woman was giving her report, but her bright, dewy eyes wandered absently from side to side.

Her hair was a cascade of large, wavy curls, half-veiling her face. She wore a form-fitting black combat suit reserved for ability users, her sultry figure straining the fabric, exuding a languid, careless air.

Councilor Yao lounged in a soft chair. His hair, though still black, was thinning. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a rugged face marked by triangular eyes that lent him a sinister, venomous look.

His throat bobbed slightly as he spoke, voice slow and measured. “So the bodies have been found?”

“Three were found. One is still missing,” the young woman replied with casual indifference. Her voice was husky and magnetic.

After days of searching, the rescue team had finally recovered the corpses of Yao Zhenyuan and his companions on the desolate island.

“One body’s missing?” Councilor Yao’s eyes narrowed, glinting with a serpent’s malice. “Whose is it?”

The young woman seemed to care little for her superior, lazily retreating a few steps before collapsing into a sofa, crossing her long legs. “No idea. Go see for yourself—they’re all laid out in the morgue.”

“Zhang Lingfei, remember your place,” Councilor Yao said coldly. “Your father may be Speaker, but you are not.”

“So why do you bother avenging that pathetic son of yours? If he lost his life, he clearly wasn’t up to it,” Zhang Lingfei retorted as she stood, tossing her curls with disdain, and strode towards the door.

She held little regard for Councilor Yao, her nominal superior, and even less for Yao Zhenyuan.

Instead, she found herself intrigued by Ji Cheng, the man her grandfather praised so highly. In her mind, if anyone had managed to kill that little bastard Yao Zhenyuan, it must have been Ji Cheng.

Councilor Yao’s gaze followed Zhang Lingfei’s departing figure until she vanished from sight, then he finally looked away.

He was silent for several moments, then drew out his phone and made a call.

Ten minutes later—

A single-pilot airship rose sharply from the underground hangar. After a brief circling maneuver, it turned southwest, heading for the city’s edge.

—Airspace intrusion warning. Airspace intrusion warning.

“Radar confirms it’s ‘The Predator.’ That’s Councilor Yao’s craft. Notify everyone to grant clearance.”

The Predator’s jet-black hull sliced through the sky, its edges razor-sharp, minimizing drag like the blade of a knife.

“Ground control, clear me a landing pad immediately,” Councilor Yao barked directly into the airship’s comms.

Soon, several helicopters lifted off from the parliamentary building’s rooftop helipad, vacating more than four hundred square meters.

The Predator soared in from high altitude, crossing the city in an instant before descending slowly onto the pad.

The craft, less than twenty meters long, monopolized the entire expanse, yet no one dared utter a word of protest.

“Councilor Yao, sir! This way, please. An escort will—”

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“Out of my way.”

Councilor Yao spat the words and brusquely shoved aside the staff before heading downstairs.

Beep.

—Identity confirmed. Access granted.

He entered the lift platform and spoke a few words into the camera. With a thunderous rumble, the machinery brought him to the basement level—the morgue.

“Have the bodies been examined? What’s the conclusion?” he demanded as he entered, barely restraining his impatience at the sight of several white coats bustling about.

A white-haired old professor stepped out from the crowd in deference.

“Councilor Yao, you’ve come in person,” the professor said, gesturing for him to follow. “This way, please.”

They proceeded to the deepest part of the room and stopped.

“Based on the three bodies recovered, it appears all died from attacks by a mutated animal known as a bottle-cap spider.”

The professor opened a specimen case, using forceps to extract a piece of human tissue. He placed it under a biomicroscope and beckoned Councilor Yao to look.

“If you examine closely, you’ll see fine, serrated wounds along the tissue edges, with traces of acidic corrosion—classic signs of a bottle-cap spider attack.”

He picked up a remote and pressed a few buttons. Immediately, the room’s holographic projectors displayed a swarm of bottle-cap spiders, then a forest scene and a river.

Four simulated human figures appeared, fleeing in terror from the forest towards the riverbank. The spiders, a metallic torrent, quickly overtook them. One figure was instantly swallowed by the swarm.

The remaining three, beset by attacks, staggered toward the river and eventually plunged in.

The projection paused.

The professor enlarged the three figures, making their wounds clearly visible.

“As you can see, we reconstructed the scene based on the bodies. Each suffered severe bites to vital areas—neck, chest—and deep, bone-revealing wounds to the limbs. This matches the bottle-cap spiders’ attack pattern perfectly.”

The projection continued while the professor explained:

“After jumping into the river, the severe chemical pollution exacerbated their injuries, and they quickly lost all signs of life.”

“We found the bodies downstream, buried in the riverbed silt.”

Councilor Yao glared at the professor, relentless. “Is it possible they were killed first, and the bottle-cap spiders used to cover it up?”

“Highly unlikely. Look here.” The professor pointed at the microscope, pausing to catch his breath after so much explanation.

“The serrated marks on the tissue edges don’t match perfectly with the spiders’ dentition. This means the victims’ muscles were still pliable when bitten—rigor mortis hadn’t set in. If they’d been dead long, the muscle would be rigid, and the bite marks would match exactly.”

Councilor Yao grunted. “I know about bottle-cap spiders. They’re not very aggressive. I find it hard to believe my son and his men could fall to such creatures.”

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The professor shook his head. “True, bottle-cap spiders are not aggressive, but they’re always migrating and spinning webs. If you happen to cross their path…”

He trailed off, pulling out a field photograph.

The image was poorly lit but still revealed a terrifying trail of crawl marks stretching from the forest to the river gorge.

“Could it really have been the spiders?” Councilor Yao wavered. He knew his son had paid little attention to basic knowledge of mutated animals, and it was entirely plausible he’d be ignorant of the spiders’ habits.

From the photo, the webbing route clearly led to the river. They’d run in panic, not realizing they’d blundered right into the spiders’ path.

The professor lowered his voice. “On an uncharted wild island, to kill four gene-injectees and then find bottle-cap spiders before rigor mortis sets in… The odds are slim, extremely slim.”

Councilor Yao fell silent.

Seeing this, the professor sighed to himself. This councilor was a vengeful, solitary man; if any selection candidate was behind this, even now as an ability user, he would not let the matter rest.

After a long pause, Councilor Yao finally shook his head. “I don’t believe it.”

“Councilor, if I may. All the selection candidates were just gene-injectees; only handguns were issued. To take on four at once would be… hard to imagine.”

Before awakening abilities, the combat gap between gene-injectees was not great—and those chosen for selection were all elites.

“No, among the survivors, there is one…” Councilor Yao seemed to remember. “Ji Cheng. He’s capable of it.”

His position as councilor gave him access to the truth: Ji Cheng had been captured by the Black Island Organization and forced into their secret lab, only to escape by his own hand. He had also fully assimilated the gene prototype.

According to the post-event evaluation, Ji Cheng’s combat effectiveness as a complete assimilator was equal to two or three people with ninety percent assimilation.

“Even if my son and his bodyguards were above average, with a surprise attack and the right environment, Ji Cheng could have managed it.”

Councilor Yao’s face was grim.

The professor bowed slightly. “That’s the situation, your… uh!”

To the horror of those present, Councilor Yao’s arm transformed into a withered branch and plunged into the professor’s abdomen.

A sickening sound.

The old man’s clouded eyes filled with confusion, but soon his body began to rot and bubble, dissolving into a pool of multicolored slurry.

“Councilor Yao, what are you—?” The remaining white-coated staff trembled violently, their faces ashen.