Dimensional Store: Welcome to the Apocalypse Apartment - Chapter 173

Chapter 173

Gu Huaiwei played the role of an amnesiac perfectly, looking at Sister Yu with a dazed expression and humming in agreement a few times without offering any opinions.

“The Aliens invented the term ‘Bonding’ to sugarcoat the reality,” Sister Yu said, her hand resting on a nearby petri dish. “No matter how pleasant the phrasing, it can’t hide the fact that their reproduction is essentially parasitic.”

Bonding-a beautiful word for a hypocritical ritual. It made humans feel respected by the Aliens while masking the nature of their exploitation.

Gu Huaiwei looked around. Containers lined both sides of the Laboratory. Some of the humans inside had completely transformed into Aliens, while others still retained human faces, their expressions twisted in agony.

“Are they still alive?” Gu Huaiwei noticed that these half-human, half-ghost monsters could still blink.

“Yes.” Sister Yu nodded, her voice filled with reverence. “These people are all volunteers. They willingly participated in these experiments for the Dawn Alliance, dedicating their entire lives to the cause.”

Gu Huaiwei pressed further, “Voluntarily? Is it to enhance the human physique? Or to help humans break their dependence on Magnetic Value?”

“A bit of both, but their primary motivation is human reproduction.”

Sister Yu suddenly turned around, her eyes-shaped like broad beans-gazing fervently at Gu Huaiwei. She took Gu Huaiwei’s hand and drew a cross in her palm.

“Aliens use human bodies to lay eggs, giving birth to many small Aliens. Over time, the human population will only dwindle until we face extinction.

“You generously left your blood with us. Your blood contains immense energy. After it was introduced into the bodies of the first generation of volunteers, the Aliens that laid eggs through them had a one-third chance of producing a human child.

“And when a human of that lineage undergoes Bonding with an Alien, there is a fifty-percent chance of giving birth to a human… This probability increases with each generation of Bonding until the parasitic reproduction of the Aliens is completely broken.”

These humans were indistinguishable from ordinary humans on the outside.

In fact, they looked even healthier than normal people.

“Are there any blood samples left?”

“The first-generation samples are all used up. The remaining high-concentration blood is within the bodies of these volunteers,” Sister Yu sighed. “Since you disappeared, the Dawn Alliance has been on a decline. We tried to extract higher concentrations of blood from the volunteers, but we failed. Miss Gu, we still cannot manage without your guidance. This time, please don’t leave us again.”

As an impostor, hearing Sister Yu say this only made Gu Huaiwei want to slip away as quickly as possible.

They passed through the Laboratory and arrived at the room for the Baptism.

The room was filled with massive, vertically standing mirrors, all covered with white cloths. In the center of the floor, a Sun Cross Mark was drawn with golden powder. Sister Yu had Gu Huaiwei stand in the dead center of the mark and then pulled down all the white cloths covering the surrounding mirrors.

Gu Huaiwei first touched the patterns on her hand to signal Lin She that it was time.

Then, she secretly pulled a mirror from her pocket to check her surroundings.

She noticed that the edges of those mirrors emitted the same halo as her own body… The mirrors in this room and the patterns on the floor all contained a special power. This power had been left behind by her sister, and it transcended the realm of science.

Gu Huaiwei had been sickly as a child. Her sister had balanced science and theology, taking her to see doctors while also seeking divine help. Having been ill for so long, her sister had become something of an expert herself, even self-studying subjects related to fate and the Eight Trigrams.
The arrangement of these mirrors closely resembled the Five Elements Mini-Game she and her sister used to play when they were little.

Seeing Gu Huaiwei standing still, Sister Yu reminded her again, “Miss Gu, please stand in the very center of the mark.”

Gu Huaiwei kept her hands in her pockets as she strolled leisurely into the center of the Sun Cross mark.

Her five senses were incredibly sharp.

When she had passed the Laboratory earlier, her body had instinctively felt a trace of a chill. However, after entering this room, that subtle, spiderweb-like sense of danger had vanished, replaced by a feeling of tranquility.

It felt as if she were in her own bedroom.

Thinking Gu Huaiwei was afraid, Sister Yu made a special effort to comfort her before the Baptism Ritual began.

“Don’t be nervous. Once the ritual begins, you will see some images in the mirrors, and scenes you’ve never witnessed before will appear in your mind. This is all normal. The ritual won’t harm you; it will only bring clarity to your chaotic mind.”

“Mhm,” Gu Huaiwei replied. She didn’t say much, but her mind was constantly racing.

This so-called ritual was more like a brainwashing Formation.

And where she stood now was likely the position of the Formation Eye.

Gu Huaiwei’s gaze drifted back and forth between the mirrors and the patterns on the floor.

To be honest, she had never really believed in this sort of thing.

When her sister had researched these topics in the past, she had watched from the side, treating it as nothing more than the cheap tricks street peddlers used to scam people out of their money.

Gu Huaiwei didn’t believe in it, but she knew how to analyze it.

Back before she started her company, her sister had used these things to earn extra cash on the side, and Gu Huaiwei would help her talk a big game to fool the marks.

But now that the Dimensional Store had appeared and Gu Huaiwei had traveled through different Dimensions and witnessed so many non-human creatures, she had gained a newfound respect for these phenomena.

This Formation was essentially a Five Elements Trap Formation centered on the element of Metal. Using the mirrors as a medium for Metal, it funneled the entire power of the formation toward her to induce hallucinations.

Breaking such a non-offensive formation wasn’t difficult. Based on the principle of Five Elements Mutual Generation, with Wood being the point of generation, one only needed to break the cycle to escape.

To put it simply, she just had to saw off the wooden frames of the mirrors.

It required zero technical skill.

Gu Huaiwei thought that if the formation really did activate later, she would try the Formation Breaking Method described in the books to see if it actually worked.

After Sister Yu pulled all the white cloths off the mirrors in the dimly lit room, Gu Huaiwei’s reflection did not appear in any of them.

“How is this possible?” Sister Yu looked at the empty mirrors in shock. “Why is your past not showing in the mirrors?”

“I don’t know,” Gu Huaiwei shrugged, looking at the dark mirrors. “Maybe your mirrors are broken because they’re so old?”

“These aren’t my mirrors. These were left behind by the past you.”

Sister Yu didn’t dare to rush into the formation. The Baptism Ritual had never failed before. The mirrors were supposed to reflect the participants’ past and present lives, allowing them to see their future path and strengthening their resolve to join the Dawn Alliance.

But when it came to Gu Huaiwei, nothing appeared in the mirrors.

Why couldn’t her past be seen?

Why couldn’t her future be seen?

Gu Huaiwei lowered her eyes. This thing had been left behind by her sister. If it were truly a good thing, it would definitely have an effect on her.

The fact that it didn’t work could only mean one thing: family doesn’t screw over family.