Dragon Raja 3; Chapter 12: Zero (2)

Dragon Raja 3

With a “click,” the padlock popped open and fell straight down! If such a heavy padlock hit the floor, it would definitely alert the nurses upstairs, and Renata would be finished! She quickly lunged forward to catch it.

In doing so, she ended up pushing open the door to Room Zero with her head. The room was dark, empty, with a faint smell of decay wafting out. The white curtains billowed slowly, stained with some black residue. The light from the searchlight filtered through the gaps in the wooden slats, revealing, on the left side, rows of iron racks filled with glass medicine bottles, and on the right, a cast-iron operating table covered in yellow rust. Suddenly, Renata realized what the stains on the curtains were—blood. This was an operating room. It wasn’t surprising for an operating room to have blood, but she shivered violently. It felt less like an operating room and more like a meat processing factory.

Then she heard faint breathing. In the dark corner, beyond the reach of the light, there seemed to be something like a bed, and on it lay a pale, human-like figure wearing a straitjacket. That kind of garment was made of sturdy white linen, with over a dozen wide straps sewn across it. If a child misbehaved particularly badly, the nurses would put them in a straitjacket. Renata had worn one once, and when the straps were tightened, she could only lie rigidly on her back, completely cocooned like a pupa. Even moving her neck was difficult; it was truly worse than death. Compared to wearing a straitjacket, being put in solitary confinement felt like a luxury.

There was actually a disobedient child locked in Room Zero. She didn’t know how long he had been in the straitjacket. After wearing one for a few hours, even the most unruly child would become as meek as a lamb.

Renata boldly approached. This time she saw more clearly—the corner held not a bed but a cast-iron recliner. It was just wide enough for a person to lie halfway on it, with many holes above and below to secure the straps on the straitjacket. Renata suddenly felt pity for this child. When she was put in a straitjacket, she had at least been thrown onto a bed in solitary confinement, but this boy was tied to an iron chair, unable even to wriggle.

Yet, this child was sleeping so peacefully.

It was a boy—someone Renata had never seen before. He wore an iron-wire mask, and through the mask, she could see an Asian face, delicate to the point of frailty. His black hair covered a broad forehead, and his eyebrows were dark and straight. Renata quietly watched him, listening to his even breathing, and her mood gradually relaxed. Seeing him sleep so peacefully made Room Zero seem less frightening. The smell of medicine and blood faded away, and the searchlight on the wall shone like a full moon.

“So pitiful,” Renata whispered softly.

She didn’t know how to help this boy; his lips looked chapped, so she went to the water pipe to gather a small handful of water, dripping it onto his lips through the iron mask. After the water soaked in, the boy’s lips seemed a bit more vibrant, which made Renata a little happy.

She picked up Zorro and walked towards the door. Just then, a voice behind her said, “No rush to leave, Renata.”

“He doesn’t look quite normal,” Bondarev said.

“We performed a corpus callosotomy on him,” the doctor replied. “This surgery was originally used to treat epilepsy. It severs the nerves connecting the two hemispheres of the brain, causing each half to work independently without communicating.”

“So he became dumb?”

“No, not dumb—split personality. Imagine it: in the same person’s skull, two brain halves are working separately, without talking to each other. They would feel as though there are two selves within their body, unable to figure out who they really are. The left and right hemispheres are responsible for different functions—desires are governed by the left brain, while morality is managed by the right. The left brain likes attractive women; the right brain urges you to be a gentleman. Normally, the two sides converse and reach a unified decision, but after the corpus callosotomy, a patient may split into a ‘moral self’ and a ‘desire-driven self.’”

“Like having the ‘good me’ and ‘evil me’ awake at the same time?”

“Exactly. We use this surgery primarily to limit the abilities of these children.”

“What kind of abilities?”

“The extraordinary abilities brought by perfect genes. All these children possess genes from dragons. We gathered them in this orphanage and injected them with hallucinogens, triggering hallucinations while awakening their potential.” The doctor gently stroked the boy’s hair, like a hunter caressing his beloved hound. “What we ultimately awaken is not so much an ability as the divine power itself.”

“Next, let us witness a miracle,” the doctor said, stepping back slowly. “Don’t stand within five meters of him. I must warn you, this is a potentially lethal experiment.”

Bondarev tensed, his muscles bulging under his uniform. He was a rigorously trained soldier who could break a wolf’s neck with his bare hands; he had no need to fear this frail boy. But he didn’t dare underestimate anything supernatural, keeping himself in a ready-to-act state. The doctor once again struck the black wooden clappers. The boy’s empty eyes lit up, a faint golden color rising in them. He slowly turned his head to look at Bondarev, as if a cold-blooded animal were examining its prey.

“Trying to kill me with just your eyes?” Bondarev said.

“Make a threatening move towards him,” the doctor said, tossing Bondarev the Makarov pistol.

Bondarev flexed his fingers, suddenly half-crouching into a standard aiming stance, the gun pointed directly at the boy. The weight of the gun was substantial, and surprisingly, the doctor hadn’t removed the magazine. The golden color in the boy’s eyes suddenly surged, and Bondarev could see a violent, murderous intent in them! The boy uttered some strange syllables, and ripples appeared in the air around them. In just a few seconds, Bondarev felt the air growing thicker, like gel, enveloping him, making it impossible to struggle. Even worse, this glue-like air was flowing into his respiratory tract, the strange air gel behaving like a soft tongue, soon to reach down into his lungs. If someone’s lungs were filled with gel—there was only one outcome: death!

Bondarev instinctively pulled the trigger. The bullet left the barrel, spinning visibly in the gelatinous air. The air kept slowing its speed, but the steel-core bullet had immense penetration power, and it was headed straight for the boy’s eye. The bullet would have been enough to blow the boy’s skull open. Bondarev was trained by the KGB: if he fired, it was either to kill or not to shoot at all.

The boy’s pupils turned molten iron in color, and his power surged once again. The bullet froze an inch before his eye, its rotation gradually stopping. Despair flashed in Bondarev’s eyes—what kind of terrifying power was this! He no longer had the strength to pull the trigger again; he was going to die.

The boy in the straitjacket woke up, his black eyes sparkling with an unusual liveliness, as if ripples were swaying deep in his pupils. He looked at Renata, smiling silently.