Chapter 767: Like Being Stabbed in the Heart

Chapter 767: Chapter 767: Like Being Stabbed in the Heart

Because her blood type was too special, lab mice wouldn’t work.

In every experiment, progress is made through repeated failures.

It’s like solving a problem—only after getting it wrong and carefully reviewing your steps do you learn where the issue lies and how to improve.

Annabelle Linton now understood what Simon had meant by ’It’s not that there’s no solution, we’re just out of options,’ and his comment that the ’initial prototype’ had been ready for a while.

’Just as Mia Holloway had said, with so much time having passed, it was impossible for them to have made zero progress on any experiment. So, the initial prototype must have been ready for a long time.’

’But there was nowhere to test it.’

’In the past, they always tested experiments on lab mice. But this virus was specifically created to target her blood type, so mice couldn’t be used as test subjects.’

’Which meant the only possible test subject... was her.’

’But experiments weren’t guaranteed to succeed on the first try.’

’In the past, for any given experiment, they would first inject a lab mouse with the virus. Then, they would administer various potential antidotes, one by one, and carefully observe the results.’

’But as expected, initial prototypes rarely succeeded. A mouse, already infected with the virus, would then be injected with a failed antidote. Very few survived...’

’So, it all boiled down to one thing: they had developed an antidote, but they had no way to test it.’

’Mr. Holland was afraid something would happen to her, so he didn’t dare use her for the trial.’

Annabelle Linton understood Mr. Holland’s perspective.

’It was just as Simon had said. Their only choice was to take desperate measures, as there were no other options left.’

’But how could they make any progress or achieve a breakthrough without running the test?’

Annabelle Linton closed her eyes, her mind already made up.

...

「The Basement.」

The very same basement where Annabelle Linton had been imprisoned in her previous life.

Vivian Yates was bound with ropes, her entire body suspended from a frame behind her. The sight was, to put it one way... both pathetic and ridiculous.

She’d lost track of how many days she’d been tied up here. All she remembered was being captured a few days after sleeping with Leona Grant, and she had been hanging here ever since.

It was dark. Pitch-black. The kind of darkness where you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.

SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK...

A few filthy, stinking rats crawled over her body, scurrying ever upward.

Even after all this time, Vivian Yates was still terrified.

She shrieked in terror, "Get off! Get away from me! Help! Somebody, help me!"

BANG!

Following the loud crash, the door was kicked open from the outside.

The sudden light from outside stung Vivian Yates’s eyes, and she reflexively turned her face away.

Her vision had deteriorated significantly from being in the dark for so long.

For at least two minutes after the door opened, she could see nothing but a vast, blinding whiteness.

Forcing herself to endure the stinging ache in her eyes, Vivian Yates looked toward the spot where she sensed a presence. The sight made her heart clench painfully.

Leona Grant was sitting in a chair directly in front of her, watching her with cold indifference.

He was dressed just as she remembered him: a black suit over a white shirt.

The shirt was impeccably ironed, crisp and neat, utterly out of place in this squalor.

The boy from her memories, the one who had been so, so good to her, had ultimately locked her in this place with his own hands.

Tears streamed down Vivian Yates’s face. She bit her lip, staring at him without a word.

If it were Annabelle Linton, Leona Grant’s heart would ache at the sight of a single teardrop or the slightest frown. But for Vivian Yates, there was only apathy and a thinly veiled disgust that poured from his eyes.

Even that subtle display of emotion felt like a knife twisting mercilessly in Vivian Yates’s heart.