CAT Chapter 26: Anchored Without Meaning (2)

After drawing a sample of Ling Yi’s blood, Lin Si placed it into the machine for processing and then took Ling Yi to Zone 9.

— This was Ling Yi’s first time stepping into this place.

The Zone 9 was very different from other areas. In other zones, the corridors twisted and turned, with walls embedded with numerous doors, leading to rooms of various sizes. While maintaining precise divisions of labor, they maximized the efficiency of space usage.

But here, it was simply divided into several floors.

Each floor resembled a massive circular graveyard, hundreds of times larger than the experimental body storage hall in Zone 6, where Ling Yi had woken up.

Oval-shaped cryo-chambers were densely arranged, stacking into a dark mass beyond the reach of sight.

Ling Yi thought of the scenes he’d seen in those educational documentaries about slave ships transporting Black people.

However, here the air was clean, the temperature suitable, and the people in the cryo-chambers slept soundly. There was no disturbance, no physiological needs, which made it much better than those slave ships.

Between the cryo-chambers, in the narrow corridors, hundreds of small robots moved along preset trajectories, monitoring the various data of the sleeping bodies to ensure everything was normal.

Zone 1 and Zone 9 were always the most energy-consuming areas on the spaceship. Zone 1 consumed so much energy due to the extremely powerful cosmic simulation system and frequent high-energy physics experiments. In contrast, Zone 9 had to keep tens of thousands of life-support systems running at all times. Zone 9 was never just a simple freezer. Pure cryogenic freezing couldn’t guarantee that people would wake up after falling asleep. Human cryopreservation required many complex technologies to support it.

After entering Zone 9, Lin Si walked to a processing desk on one side of the hall.

Behind the silver-white office desk sat two middle-aged women, the only two permanent residents in Zone 9. Their job was to handle applications, perform freezing and thawing operations, and also evaluate the daily monitoring results from the small robots, determining whether medical assistance was needed from Zone 6 in case of anomalies.

Logically, as the head of Zone 6, Lin Si should have interacted with these two women quite a lot and have a good relationship with them.

However, that was not the case. Ling Yi, with his sharp eyes, noticed that when Lin Si walked over, the two middle-aged women showed a clear expression of indifference.

“What are you here for?” one of the women asked in a cold tone.

She was aloof, and Lin Si, who was never one to be warm and friendly, naturally responded with his usual indifferent expression: “To select personnel for thawing.”

The woman replied, “The number of active personnel in Zone 6 has already exceeded the limit for the past three years.”

Lin Si said, “The project requires it.”

The woman lifted her gaze slightly. “You’d better come up with a thawing permit from Zone Two.”

Lin Si tapped a few times on his communication wristband, and at the same moment, the woman’s wristband buzzed.

Lin Si said, “The Marshal granted the skeletal project an SS clearance level. I don’t need a thawing permit.”

The woman snorted slightly and pulled up a form. “What position are you preparing for this individual?”

“My assistant.”

“Assistant…” The woman sneered coldly. “Oh, I remember now. Your last assistant just applied to freeze themself. No one can tolerate working with a devil for long.”

Lin Si said nothing.

Ling Yi widened his eyes. The woman’s demeanor and attitude made him deeply uncomfortable, as if she harbored immense hostility toward Lin Si.

He wanted to rebut the woman’s words, but Lin Si shot him a faint look, silently stopping him.

The woman continued, “Besides, I don’t think it’s necessary for you to thaw another assistant. There are perfectly capable personnel in Zone 6 who can handle the job.”

“Because my requirements are extremely stringent. The assistant will be involved in the neural chip implantation project. You should know that this has never been a research focus of Zone 6,” Lin Si said, his tone flat and emotionless. “The final stage of the experiment involves brain processing on live subjects. If you’re willing to bear the consequences of experimental failure, I can go back to Zone 6 and randomly select an assistant right now.”

His tone was calm, but the underlying aggression was unmistakable. Anyone who had interacted with Lin Si knew this about him—Lin Si was an inherently fierce person.

Simply dressed in a white shirt, seated behind his desk, he left an immediate impression on anyone who saw him: young, cold, unfeeling, and ambitious. He never flaunted his sharpness because he was the sharpness itself.

Sometimes, Ling Yi felt he didn’t know this version of Lin Si at all.

His first impression of Lin Si had been entirely different: the man who held him in a secure embrace when he awoke, overwhelmed by unbearable pain.

That was the Lin Si he believed in, even if that version rarely appeared.

Snapping back to reality, Ling Yi found that the two were still engaged in their unkind exchange.

“Your reasoning is indeed solid. I’ll grant you screening clearance,” the woman said coldly. “But remember this: you’d better not end up choosing to freeze yourself one day. When that time comes, I won’t be able to resist injecting something… unpleasant into your bloodstream.”

Lin Si remained expressionless. “I’ll be waiting for all of you in hell.”

Ling Yi stared at them in confusion, unable to understand why the conversation had taken such a dark turn. It seemed like the woman bore a deep grudge against Lin Si. Meanwhile, another silent woman remained focused on her terminal, entirely indifferent to the exchange.

He recalled that, aboard the ship, aside from Zheng Shu and Tang Ning, Lin Si seemed to have no close relationships at all.

Ling Yi clutched Lin Si’s hand. Feeling Lin Si gently squeeze back, he finally felt a little reassured.

No matter how others saw Lin Si—whether they called him a “wizard” or, worse, a “devil”—it had to be because they didn’t truly know him. That had to be the reason.

Lin Si, having secured screening clearance, walked to a massive floating holographic display and began inputting parameters.

 The candidate’s age couldn’t be too old. They needed enough energy to handle the daily heavy workload. They had to specialize in neuroscience and brain science, be an exceptional researcher, and ideally have experience in interdisciplinary collaboration since neural chips were a quintessential product of cross-disciplinary research.

At that moment, the woman’s slightly hoarse voice rang out. “Even I know there’s someone who perfectly matches all your criteria. Yet you’re still running a search—because you don’t have the guts to face her, do you?”

Meanwhile, the search results appeared.

The top match, ranked by relevance, was someone named Su Ting. She was unexpectedly young, with light brown hair in the photo, facing the camera with a bright and cheerful smile.

Her profile showcased her academic achievements, affiliated labs and university, as well as her mentors.

Ling Yi spotted Ye Selin’s name.

At the same time, he recalled that the name Su Ting had come up last night.

At that time, Lin Si had been telling him how much Ye Selin’s students adored her. “Once, she cut her hand on a shard of glass. My junior—her name is Su Ting—burst into tears the moment she saw the wound.”

The person listed after Su Ting also met Lin Si’s requirements, but Su Ting’s credentials were clearly far superior. It was obvious who was the better fit for the thawing process.

Lin Si remained silent for a moment. Finally—after a hesitation that couldn’t be feigned—he confirmed Su Ting’s profile.

“Poor girl,” the woman laughed harshly. “When she wakes up, she’s going to lose her mind. Her most beloved mentor isn’t on this ship, but someone who shouldn’t be here is.”

Lin Si cast her a cold glance before walking out of the hall.

Ling Yi couldn’t stop himself from turning back to look at the slowly closing silver metal doors. He caught a glimpse of the woman staring at him. Just before the doors shut completely, her expression broke into a crazed, nearly hysterical look, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.

“Lin Si—” her voice was hoarse, “you’re going to hell!”

The doors closed, and Ling Yi turned back, realizing that the hand Lin Si had been holding had slowly loosened its grip.