Chapter Ninety-Three: You Zhi's Difficulties

The private laboratory set aside for Yulia by her older brother was lavishly appointed. Not only was it equipped with every sort of instrument and device, but food, drinks, clothing, and daily necessities were all prepared in abundance as well.

Even if one stayed inside for a month without stepping outdoors, it would still be nothing worth mentioning.

Yet in Yulia’s own words, “This? Please. My lab in the Steel Capital is way better than this.”

And at that very moment, Ye Chen was accompanying this research maniac through a frenzy of data testing.

What was the one thing the Sanctuary most never lacked? Aside from researchers everywhere, it was recovery potions.

Staring at the bottles and jars tossed all over the floor, he finally understood what madness looked like in a female researcher.

He had warned Yulia that he was merely a frail newly awakened one, with an internal essence value of fifty-eight.

Then Yulia had very generously produced several crates of recovery potions with a restorative strength of fifty.

His internal essence value kept refilling again and again, but all that liquid stubbornly remained in his belly.

Ye Chen no longer even remembered how many times he had gone to the toilet that night.

And that was not even the most lethal part. The truly murderous thing was that Yulia, without Ye Chen’s permission, had casually turned the dial all the way up to fifty-eight.

A full-capacity test.

The recovery potion in Ye Chen’s hand had never once left it. The moment he finished one bottle, a beauty handed him a second, taunting him as she urged:

“What are you staring at? If you’re a man, then keep going!”

Ye Chen: “...”

The next morning, the laboratory door finally opened with a creaking sigh.

The first to burst out was Ye Chen, pale-faced, potbellied, and dark-ringed about the eyes.

Behind him came a sultry voice calling after him:

“Don’t leave in such a hurry. Have one more bottle and top yourself up a little. Look how exhausted you are!”

To Ye Chen, that voice sounded no different from the whisper of a demon.

He turned back and looked at the smiling woman, forcibly swallowing the nausea surging in his stomach, and glared at her viciously.

Every step he took now came with the sloshing sounds of water in his belly.

Yulia stepped out after him with long legs and high heels, walking with elegant ease. There was not the slightest sign of fatigue on her face; instead, her eyes gleamed, and she looked full of energy.

She casually pointed to one of the research assistants. “Take him to the rest room and let him recover. I still have something to discuss with him tonight.”

The little assistant stood there dumbly for quite some time.

Was it he who took advantage of you, or was it you who ruined him... That thought rose to his lips, but he did not dare say it aloud.

Ignoring the strange looks from the people in the great laboratory, Yulia carried a stack of research drafts and hurried off toward her brother’s office.

As for Ye Chen, he increasingly suspected that the reason Yulia had tormented him all night was because he had not told her everything.

Yulia’s words from the night before were still etched into his memory:

“Don’t try tricks in front of your sister again. I am a fire you cannot afford to play with.”

...

With a bang, the door to Yuzhi’s office was shoved open.

Yulia had never had the habit of knocking when entering her brother’s room.

The man seated behind a mountain of documents startled so violently that the pen in his right hand skidded crookedly across the page, writing a letter askew.

A bit of ash shook loose from the cigarette in his left hand, falling neatly onto the papers in front of him. Startled, he hurriedly brushed it away.

Just as he rose to admonish the intruder, a stack of research drafts was flung into his arms.

“Take a look. These are the research notes for an independently awakened artifact.”

Yuzhi, the chief director, changed expression with remarkable speed, his anger instantly turning to delight.

Although Yuzhi leaned toward historical research, that did not mean he had no interest whatsoever in awakened artifacts.

Likewise, when Yulia first joined the Sanctuary, she had also dabbled in every research field; only later did her focus gradually narrow.

The opening of the draft was a summary of the research:

Fifth independent awakened artifact. Function: storage, with spatial and temporal attributes.

Current tested storage volume: one cubic meter. Movement of objects in or out consumes one point of internal essence.

Objects stored inside can have the passage of time adjusted by a dial. The faster the time flow, the greater the consumption of internal essence.

When the user’s internal essence approaches infinity, theory suggests that one second outside could correspond to a hundred years within the space.

Correspondingly, when the scale falls into negative values, the slowing of time likewise decreases by the same ratio.

Most important of all: this independent awakened artifact can store living beings.

As for whether the storage space can be expanded, no method is yet known.

The rest of the draft consisted of records from the testing process.

Yulia spoke as if to herself:

“The grand continental exhibition opens tonight, and the auction for internal-essence stones is also tonight. I’m planning to take him.”

Chief Director Yuzhi looked past the papers and asked, “You want to raise his internal essence value?”

“Yes. I have money, I’ll pay for it myself, all right? I still have other hypotheses I need to verify.”

“No, just take my research funds.”

“No, I want to spend my own money.”

The siblings locked eyes. Hostility flared at once, and it seemed the air itself crackled with invisible static.

This was about who the research would belong to.

“Half and half.”

“I’ll pay half.”

The two spoke at the same time.

Yulia revealed a wicked smile, as though her little scheme had already succeeded.

Chief Director Yuzhi could only sigh helplessly. “I just hope you’ll go back and keep Grandpa company sooner rather than later, and that next time you’ll stop wandering around my place! The research task Grandpa gave me still has no progress at all, not even the slightest lead. The Sanctuary of the Capital of Energy has remained obscure for many years. At the very least, leave me something to show for it.

“Besides, the Research Bureau has made another major breakthrough in the artificial awakening of the body system. You saw the results of Doctor Gu Yi’s work last time.

“Now there’s a saying going around Headquarters that I’m not even as good as the Research Bureau, which only recently got into the field.”

At that, Yulia’s mood soured. She took off her glasses, fixed her beautiful eyes on her brother, and said coldly:

“The Zero Potion was a major achievement of your Research Bureau in the Capital of Energy. I won’t even bring that up for now.

“But do you dare say you don’t know the source of the First Potion?

“And how many lives were buried behind it—do you dare say you don’t know that either?”

Chief Director Yuzhi fell silent. He stole a glance at his younger sister, then lowered his head and pretended to keep reading the draft.

“All right, stop pretending. I know that cowardly look of yours.”

“What do you mean, cowardly? If you’re not a coward, go stand up to the city lord for me.”

Rarely, Yuzhi put on a brave front.

Yulia said nothing. After a long while, she let out a quiet sigh.

“Yes. What you said isn’t wrong.

“Though the Sanctuary has its own independence, after all, it was built upon the great capitals.

“Without guarantees of resources, our research cannot proceed. Sigh... in the end, we still cannot escape being constrained by them.”

Yuzhi rose and walked over to his somewhat dispirited sister. He patted her head and said in a gentle voice:

“Let’s do our own work well first, so long as we do not forget the original purpose for which the Sanctuary was founded.

“So stop putting all your energy into awakened artifacts. The history surrounding humanity’s disappearance deserves attention too.”

Yulia curled her lip inwardly and thought:

Even the Headquarters of the Sanctuary has failed to solve that riddle. How could I alone lift the veil?

Studying history is nowhere near as interesting as studying awakened artifacts.