For Zero, no matter how dark life in Venus Eden Garden was, there was always a beam of light supporting her, and that was Xiaoqi.

Even though they had already said goodbye, with no idea when they would meet again, what did it matter?

A few years, a decade or more... as long as she escaped from here and fought to survive, there would come a day when she would reunite with Xiaoqi.

By then, Xiaoqi would surely be living a wonderful life, becoming a model like she dreamed, wearing beautiful clothes every day, capturing her most beautiful moments, living in a big villa with several floors, raising a black Labrador, maybe even finding a sunny and reliable boyfriend~

No matter how long they are apart, those who suffered through childhood hardship together would eventually reunite!

Zero believed in this so firmly.

Until...

On the night of December 6th, Year 146 of Dawn, at 19:23, in Lab 1 of Venus Eden Garden, the "Brain Stimulation Project" proceeded as usual.

Xiaoqi was restrained on a mechanical chair, wearing a device on her head that delivered electric shocks to the brain, just like it had countless days and nights before.

But this time, she would never walk out of the laboratory again.

Her face was covered with bloodstains left by the strong electric shocks, spreading like a spider’s web, hideous and terrifying.

That small head leaned powerlessly against the mechanical chair, eyes, ears, mouth, and nose all oozing blood, and under the damage of the electric currents, the blood was not even the normal reddish-brown but charred into a deathly black.

Her pupils dilated almost to occupy the entire iris, those murky eyes never closing even in death, staring unfocused ahead, directly at Zero who was brought in.

All their visions for future life were nothing more than wishful fantasies.

The research personnel in Lab 1 were conversing beside the mechanical chair, some hesitating, some indifferent, more anxious.

"Luo Group, she was supposed to be able to leave today, and we still used her for the supercurrent experiment, isn’t that a bit much..."

"What’s too much? She’s one of Eden Garden’s people, from birth to adulthood, everything she ate, wore, and lived in was paid by us, isn’t it only natural to make some sacrifices for Eden Garden?"

"Yeah, but there are so many experimental subjects, can’t we just find some younger ones, no need to grab someone who was about to leave for a supercurrent experiment..."

"Once she’s out of Eden Garden, she’ll be under the Social Training Bureau’s jurisdiction. A good experimental subject given away, for what? We might as well use her and contribute to the Brain Stimulation Project."

"Sigh, alright, you have a point."

"I’ll run the model calculations again, reload the data, and continue the supercurrent experiment. This time, use Zero."

"Luo Group, could this model be wrong? Over a dozen have died, every age group of subjects tried, one dies each time, don’t end up ruining Zero too."

"This model is the result of over two decades of my continued deduction and compilation, it can’t possibly be wrong! It’s just that we haven’t grasped that most crucial piece of data yet."

"So many subjects have died, I know everyone is criticized from above and under great pressure. But remember, we’re doing this for the grand vision of all humanity!"

"Once the Brain Stimulation Project succeeds, our civilization will take an unprecedented step, and the human species will stand shoulder to shoulder with the divine."

"And we, will be the pioneers of this great era, our names marked in history, to be passed down through countless ages!"

"Continue the supercurrent experiment. Get rid of the corpse, put Zero on!"

Zero couldn’t remember how she was dragged onto the mechanical chair.

Her consciousness was vague, blurry, as if an eraser was continually rubbing away her memories, erasing the moments spent with Xiaoqi, yet not completely, leaving behind pieces full of tattered traces.

"Supercurrent experiment, Mode 1, start!"

Intense pulses of electric current poured into the brain from both temples, Zero’s small body tensed uncontrollably, each part twitching in neural reaction, yet she felt nothing.

She was born a monster who couldn’t feel pain. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

"Red signal, Mode 1 data error, failure."

"Locate the error source, reload the model data. Supercurrent experiment, Mode 2, start!"

The companion she had spent countless days and nights with had now become a lifeless corpse, lying limp on the cold floor.

Researchers yanked Xiaoqi’s hair to drag her away, occasionally complaining about the black blood staining the sterile floor.

At this moment, a very strange feeling spread in her heart, Zero didn’t know how to describe it in words, her heart seemed to be torn apart, wanting to open her mouth to cry out loud, but her throat felt like it was blocked by something, not allowing any sound to come out.

"Red signal, Mode 2 data error, failure."

"Impossible... such problems shouldn’t appear... try this set of data! Supercurrent experiment, Mode 3, start!"

Xiaoqi’s body was placed into a body bag, at first not placed well, with an arm sticking out, the researchers stepped on it with a shoe to shove it in like a toy.

Intense pain, despair, accompanied by an irrepressible urge to vomit, raged wildly inside Zero.

She felt warm liquid flowing from her eyes, unsure if it was bleeding from the supercurrent or tears, or both.

Various negative emotions pressed in, the body shivered without any warning, feeling as if all light around was disappearing bit by bit, as if the entire world turned black.