Gu Ziyun looked into his deep and serious eyes, her long eyelashes trembled, and she unconsciously looked away. She felt a little shy under the man's gaze.
At this moment, Li Ling smiled slightly and continued, "Take me for example, I also have my own secrets, which cannot be easily told to others."
Friends should trust each other. As long as we believe in each other and trust that we won't do anything to hurt each other, and do our best to help each other when we are in trouble, that's enough.
Let's each keep our own privacy; that won't affect our trust in each other, will it?
Gu Ziyun bit her lip, lowered her head and fell into deep thought. After a while, she looked up at Li Ling and chuckled, "Yes, I'm very happy to have you as a friend."
Li Ling chuckled, started the car, and drove out of the area. He only continued speaking after reaching the main road:
"That's right. You're at the prime of your youth right now, so don't dwell on so many unhappy things. Be more lively and cheerful. What would you like to eat today? I'll make it for you when we get to the shop later."
Gu Ziyun didn't respond for a moment, and after a long silence, she said softly, "I went for a check-up this morning, and the doctor said I only have six months to live."
She spoke about her life and death, but there was not a trace of fear in her tone.
Li Ling paused on the steering wheel, pulled the car over to the side of the road, but remained silent.
Gu Ziyun continued, "The doctor said there is only one way to treat this, which is to get a bone marrow transplant from my biological parents. Although you have taught me to practice qigong over the past six months and my physical condition has improved a lot, the improvement can only delay my symptoms for a while. To get a real cure, I still need to get their bone marrow."
She paused for a moment, then continued, "Actually, I've always kept a deep secret in my heart, one that even my adoptive parents don't know."
Li Ling didn't ask any questions, but listened attentively. Although he knew what Gu Ziyun was talking about, he would wait for Ziyun to tell him herself, because only when she told him herself would Li Ling be a friend she truly recognized.
Sure enough, Koo Ja-yoon began to talk about something she had kept hidden for ten years—
“When I was very young, I don’t know from what age, maybe right after I was born, I was adopted by an organization and used as a live experimental subject along with a group of other children.”
"Back then, we kids were like lab rats. They would regularly inject us with a gene serum extracted from death row inmates with extreme violent tendencies, supposedly containing the brutal genes of those inmates."
Every two days, we would be injected with the drug, followed by frequent blood tests. At that time, one or more children among us would die every day from the painful effects of the drug's energy transformation.
These dead children will be dragged away like garbage. So every time I receive the injection, I'm afraid—afraid that one day I'll be dragged away like that too.
At this point, tears welled up in Koo Ja-yoon's eyes, and the painful memories made her body tremble slightly.
Li Ling reached out and wiped away the tears on her face. Turning to look at her fair and delicate face, he felt a pang of pain in his heart. Thinking of how this girl had been used as a live experimental subject since childhood, living a life of utter darkness, Li Ling felt a surge of murderous intent towards the people in that organization.
Feeling the warmth of Li Ling's hand, Gu Ziyun felt as if she had found support, and her heart gradually calmed down. Her trembling body slowly subsided, and she took a deep breath and continued:
“At that time, we were constantly threatened with death. To be honest, I was very scared. I was afraid that one day I would not be able to withstand the medication and would become one of those children who died in agony.”
“In addition to living in fear of death every day, we are also forced to watch videos of death row inmates being killed. They tie us to chairs with our hands and feet bound by chains, making us unable to move.”
We couldn't close our eyes to avoid seeing it; our eyes were forced open by the tools, leaving us staring directly at those bloody and disgusting scenes. "Wishing Star of All Realms and Worlds"
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Chapter 129 Painful Memories of the Abyss (Part 2)
"And so it went, day after day. I had no concept of time, because for me, every day there was like being in hell."
One day, after another physical examination, they told me that I was lucky to be a Level 1 Ability User among these children.
They told me that ability users are divided into three levels, from lowest to highest, with level three being the worst and level one the best. I was one of the few level one ability users, and from that day on, I was designated as a key experimental subject.
"Level 1 ability users have a very high level of brain development. They taught me all kinds of knowledge, and I was able to learn them very quickly. It was also during this period that I came into contact with computers, and this contact was like opening a door to sunshine for me."
At this point, Gu Ziyun chuckled, a glimmer of hope appearing in her eyes.
She continued, "After getting access to computers, I was able to find all sorts of information. From that day on, I secretly collected data and secretly thought about how to escape."
I didn't want to live in this agonizing hell any longer, but I couldn't find a chance to escape. So I just waited, cooperating with them in all sorts of experiments every day.
"Because I am a Level 1 Ability User, the organization's higher-ups pay more attention to me. During this period, they use all sorts of cruel and inhumane methods to test my abilities."
I remember once they blindfolded me, tied me to a pillar, and then shot arrows at me to test my ability to control objects with my mind.
On another occasion, they took me to a closed room and put in several hungry and ferocious wolfhounds, making me fight with these wolfhounds that had become even more bloodthirsty due to hunger. They even kindly threw me a small knife.
"Heh, luckily, in the end I was the one who killed those wolfhounds, instead of being eaten by them by the hungry ones."
Li Ling listened silently. Although he had seen the movie, he still felt a chill in his heart. This made him hate that organization to the core. These people were no longer worthy of being called human beings. They were comparable to the Japanese devils during the War of Resistance Against Japan.
He could imagine what a cruel living environment it must have been. Those bastards deserved to go to hell. Li Ling clenched his fists.
For a little girl who is only seven or eight years old, she was exposed to the cruelty of the world and the malice of those around her at a very young age, which also shaped the 'witch' in the movie.
Koo Ja-yoon continued, "Because of our high level of brain development, we kids have shown superhuman abilities, but the real drawbacks have also begun to emerge—"
One day, during an experiment, a child with Level 1 abilities suddenly had his head explode. At the moment of the explosion, all the mental power within his mind erupted. Several other researchers present, unable to withstand the child's explosive mental power, also suffered mental destruction and died.
"It was at this time that the organization's higher-ups realized that we Level 1 ability users were beyond their control. They wanted to destroy us and keep the children whose abilities were not well developed and who could be controlled."
"On that very day, they took us, the children with Level 1 abilities, to a room in the base. But when we were taken to that room, a group of men in black wielding iron bars were already waiting there."
They looked at us with disdain, constantly banging their iron bars, as if we were a pile of abandoned trash. Then, at the command of one of their leaders, the group of men in black swung their iron bars toward our heads.
"I still clearly remember that a little boy had his head smashed in front of me, and bright red blood splattered on my face. It was from that moment that I realized that we, the people being experimented on, could only truly die if our heads were smashed open."
At this point, Gu Ziyun looked at Li Ling with a sorrowful expression, "Heh, we're just a bunch of monsters, aren't we?"
More tears streamed down her face.
Li Ling took a deep breath, gently wiped away Zi Yun's tears, and shook his head, saying, "This isn't your fault. Don't take other people's mistakes upon yourself. In my eyes, you will always be the pure and lovely Gu Zi Yun, not a monster!"