Chapter 622: Ending of the Sinful
A’Ji gestured at the second set of papers with his chin. “As for this guy, he’s a serial killer who wreaked havoc in Dragon City for a few years. Thirty-seven identified victims died horribly in his hands, and there are plenty of other innocent souls who died for no reason, but the city was never able to figure out who they were.
“So, this guy is also in the top 200 of the Supernatural Tower’s bounty list.
“Unfortunately, his attacks were very elusive, so no one ever found any clues about him. When his crimes were exposed, he immediately changed his appearance and snuck into the lair, causing the cases that he committed to become old cases that could never be solved.
“This one, too. Three years ago, he was the mastermind behind the ‘Murders of Door 529’. Due to a conflict in a crystal trade, he killed his long-term business partner and his family of twelve. He even burned the crime scene, and the fire expanded so much that it burned two houses. This killed nearly one hundred innocent people. At that time, his ranking on the bounty list was 99.”
A’Ji identified all the research subjects in the pictures.
They were either evil robbers or inhuman serial killers. All of them had the blood of at least dozens of innocents staining their hands.
Based on their numerous crimes, they were all malicious criminals who would be considered to have gotten away easily even if they were cut to pieces.
Instead, they ended up in Saber Jin Wanhao’s hands and went through brutal experiments that were much worse than being cut into pieces. Their deaths were also ten times more painful than being cut thousands of times.
A’Ji told Meng Chao and Lu Siya that since thirty years ago, the rumor that the lair was a paradise for crime and a safe haven for wanted criminals had begun circulating in Dragon City.
Many infamous wanted criminals had fled into the lair after they were driven into a corner in the outside world once they committed heinous crimes. They then disappeared without a trace and lived beyond the law.
Hence, the first thought among many of the superhumans was to flee into the lair after they made major mistakes due to entering spirit energy deviation.
What they did not know was that this was a rumor Saber Jin Wanhao had released intentionally.
His goal was to lure all the wanted criminals into the lair so that he could kill them.
The lair was truly a foul place with all sorts of people inside. The environment was bad, and when the secret police or bounty hunters entered this complicated maze, they were usually very confused and had to return empty-handed.
But this was the same for wanted criminals who just arrived.
To avoid being captured by the secret police and the bounty hunters as well as turn all the spoils from their crimes into resources universally used in the lair so that they could continue living luxurious and pleasurable lives, they had to get into contact with the gangs. Some of them even tried getting Saber Jin Wanhao’s protection.
As the master of the lair, Jin Wanhao naturally had plenty of ways to capture the wanted criminals without anyone noticing.
The information and data Meng Chao and Lu Siya found were just the tip of the iceberg.
Over thirty years, Saber Jin Wanhao had captured no fewer than one hundred wanted criminals and sent them all into the “underground grotto”, as Meng Chao put it.
He first used various cruel methods to figure out their hideout’s location, then squeezed out the last drop of these evil people’s bone marrow and blood to fill up his treasure trove.
After that, he turned those people into cultivation tools. He used them to conduct tests of new fighting styles, spirit energy magnetic fields, and gene medicine.
In conclusion, he did not even waste those people’s bones. He insisted on squeezing out all of their value and used them until they were reduced to ashes.
Meng Chao and Lu Siya’s hearts filled with fear.
They did not expect that over the past thirty years, countless wanted criminals who everyone thought lived free lives in the lair had been killed by Jin Wanhao.
But the wanted criminals deserved it for what they did.
Jin Wanhao’s methods were sinister and brutal, but there was a saying that “A mighty man builds his success on ten thousand corpses”. The Underground Emperor had naturally left behind plenty of corpses and spilled a lot of blood to become who he was.
“Based on what you said, over the years, Saber Jin Wanhao didn’t kill a single innocent person?” Meng Chao asked tentatively.
“He couldn’t avoid killing in fights for control over the lair and his interests in the gray industries,” A’Ji said. “But there has never been a normal person or innocent person who appeared in this secret lab. All those who died here are infamous people from the bounty list.
“If you don’t believe me, once you leave this place, you can go to the Supernatural Tower’s database and search for the information about these wanted criminals. I can promise you that you’ll find exactly what I told you.
“You’d know it, too, if you thought about it carefully. There was no need for Jin Wanhao to experiment on normal people.
“They’re weak. The martial arts and medicine suitable for them aren’t anything that Jin Wanhao would use.
“Besides, even if Jin Wanhao really wanted to test some sort of martial art or medicine on normal people, as long as he was willing to spend money, many volunteers from Leprosy Village and the lair would fight one another to help him. The testing agency and outsourcing service for research subjects in this area are well-developed as well.
“Since there are proper methods, why would he go about it sneakily and do something so inhumane?
“As for superhumans, if they didn’t commit crimes, they would be protected by the Supernatural Tower. Besides, every superhuman has a family and a complicated network of connections. If he captured such superhumans, he might be able to get away with one or two people, but if he captured a lot of them, there’s no way he wouldn’t leave traces.
“While wanted criminals are hated by everyone. To escape being captured by the secret police and the bounty hunters, they took it to themselves to cut off all their connections with the outside world. They even changed their appearance and threw away their names. Doesn’t that make them the best pray?
“Even if these people were reduced to ashes in the secret lab and didn’t appear for more than ten years, everyone would just think that they changed their identities and are still living freely in the lair!
“Tell me, wouldn’t Jin Wanhao just be wasting their identities of wanted criminals if he didn’t capture them and use them for experiments?”
A’Ji cackled.
Even though he was still hung upside down and could not move an arm, his casual demeanor and words that treated the fierce wanted criminals as pigs waiting to be eaten made Meng Chao and Lu Siya’s skin crawl.
Speaking of which, if Saber Jin Wanhao’s cruel experiments only involved evil wanted criminals, Meng Chao really did not find anything wrong with it.
Even though he and Lu Siya were public figures and held the image of model superhumans, they were not actually moral prudes.
To Meng Chao, as long as he could help Dragon City escape from the apocalypse, plenty of things that were considered problems to the world were not actually problems to him.
“So, Jin Wanhao spent his entire life’s blood, sweat, and tears to build this secret lab and killed more than one hundred wanted criminals here? Just what sort of experiments did he conduct that couldn’t be brought to light?” Meng Chao asked patiently.
A’Ji’s eyes roved about. In the end, he stared at Meng Chao.
“What do you think?” A’Ji asked slowly. “Saber Jin Wanhao was someone who had already reached Deity Realm and had unparalleled power. He ruled over the lair and was so rich that he could rival the government. But he was in his twilight years, and all the injuries he gained when he fought and trained madly while young started acting up. His life was about to come to an end. What would the Underground Emperor want the most at such a time?”
Meng Chao pondered this for a while. “Red Brows Su Lun told me that Jin Wanhao built this underground lab as his personal cultivation room and medical room. It was to prolong his life and let him retain some fighting strength.
“He recruited Red Brows Su Lun’s mother for the same reason. After all, she was a talented genius when it came to creating drugs.
“But all that we see isn’t as simple as prolonging someone’s life and helping them retain their fighting strength.”
A’Ji cackled again. “Of course not. The supreme fighters of the older generation, like Saber Jin Wanhao and Battle God Lei Zongchao, are the pioneers of life science and spirit energy martial arts. When they were groping blindly in this area, they did not have anyone providing guidance and giving reminders to them.
“They walked through mountains of corpses. They might have obtained peerless power, but the price was also great. It led to numerous injuries. They not only affected their bones, but were so severe that their cells and souls were affected as well.
“If Saber Jin Wanhao relied on normal medicine and surgery to prolong his life, at most, he would only retain his life. He wouldn’t be able to retain the glory of the Saber and the power of the Underground Emperor. There would even come a day when he would lay paralyzed in bed and struggle to breathe for thirty years before he died. Jin Wanhao would never want that!”
“Then, what did Jin Wanhao want?”
“It’s simple.” A complicated but pleased expression appeared on A’Ji’s face. He said firmly, “Jin Wanhao wanted to regain his youth. He wanted to become young again!”
Meng Chao and Lu Siya were silent for a long time.
For a period of time, they could not tell whether this was a ridiculous joke or a really crazy plan on which the Underground Emperor had actually spent decades, unimaginable effort as well as all his resources.
“Is it really possible for someone to regain their youth?” Meng Chao mumbled.
“Theoretically speaking, why not?” A’Ji said. “Meng Chao, you and the Vortex as well as plenty of other superhumans plus superbeasts have relatively terrifying regeneration abilities.
“When you get wounded, your cells split up, copy each other, and reproduce at a crazy speed so that you will heal swiftly.
“The new skin is as tender as a baby’s. It means that the cells inside have just been born. They’re filled with life and have endless energy.
“Since the cells in your entire body can be regrown, as long as all the cells in your body were switched out at once, why couldn’t you regain your youth and obtain a new life?”
Meng Chao wanted to say that those were two completely different matters, but when he thought about it carefully, in his previous life, he had seen all sorts of strange and amazing creatures in the boundless Other World. Plenty of races had abilities that Earthlings would never dream of possessing while they were on Earth.
The world was large, and all sorts of amazing things existed in it.
And in the Other World, this thing might not be as ridiculous as it sounded.
Besides, Jin Wanhao was the Underground Emperor.
All of the emperors in the past wanted immortality, and it was not strange for Jin Wanhao to have such a desire as well.