After Raising Monsters, I Was Loved by Everyone in the Wasteland – CH102

Chapter 102

Wen Xin wasn’t sure exactly how advanced the technology in this research facility was, but from his observations, it seemed well-prepared.

The building’s outer walls were coated with specially formulated fireproof paint. The inner walls were made of a silvery-white, malleable alloy resistant to fire, water, and electricity.

Each floor had its own independent fire suppression system, designed to remain operational even if the main controls failed. Multiple teams of security guards patrolled the premises, with rounds every ten minutes. The level of precision was airtight.

With such extreme safety measures, the likelihood of a fire was reduced by 99%.

Which is why this was all wrong—something about this fire was clearly unnatural.

An intense sense of crisis struck Wen Xin like a lightning bolt, jolting him upright from his folding bed.

Thick smoke had already seeped into the room. Wen Xin rushed into the bathroom, soaking a towel in cold water and wrapping it around his mouth and nose.

At the same time, he stripped off his white coat, dousing it in water until it was thoroughly soaked.

By the time the commotion of Wen Xin’s movements woke the Grey Egg, the fire had spread across the entire corridor.

Fiery orange flames roared and crackled, the surrounding temperature climbing rapidly. The air itself seemed to distort from the heat, turning the room into a runaway inferno.

Sensing the fierce blaze outside, the Grey Egg frantically banged against the observation window in panic.

Thump! Thump-thump!

The Grey Egg was tough, but the incubator was tougher.

Considering that newly hatched mutants could become aggressive and pose a danger to their handlers, all incubators had been constructed from special materials. The glass observation windows were as strong as diamond and could only be opened by triggering external mechanisms.

Despite its desperate pounding, the observation window didn’t budge.

The Grey Egg could feel the flames drawing closer, its fear escalating into a sky-is-falling terror.

How similar this was to the morning when Ding Pingle had subjected it to unbearable heat.

Just then, the incubator opened.

The trembling Grey Egg was lifted by a slender, pale hand and placed into a white coat drenched in cold water.

The damp fabric, carrying a refreshing chill, instantly shielded it from the room’s suffocating heat.

Nestled against Wen Xin’s chest, the Grey Egg heard his voice—a calm yet resolute reassurance.

“It’s okay. Don’t be scared. I’m here.”

In that moment, the Grey Egg, teetering on the edge of despair, found peace.

Wen Xin quickly opened the other incubators, not caring if flipping the eggs might misalign their embryos. He removed each egg, placed them one by one into his white coat, and folded the garment into a makeshift swaddle tied securely to his chest.

The door was no longer an option—the fire appeared to be spreading in from the corridor.

Wen Xin strode to the windowsill and opened the window to look outside.

There was no smoke or fire visible below, confirming his suspicion that the fire had originated on this floor.

Looking down further, he noticed that the three security teams assigned to protect the facility that night were all lying unconscious on the ground, immobile.

This wasn’t an accident. It was clearly an orchestrated attack.

Under the faint moonlight, clouds loomed thick and heavy.

Several beams of light from flashlights swept across the building where Wen Xin stood. Someone had finally noticed the emergency.

The security guards began shouting for reinforcements, while assistant researchers and interns arrived in a rush. Their clothes were disheveled, their hair in chaos. Upon seeing the fire engulfing the nursery floor, they screamed in panic, grabbing fire extinguishers as they ran into the hallways.

The fire was spreading too fast; Wen Xin couldn’t wait for the others to come to extinguish it.

The fact that the floors below hadn’t caught fire yet was a small blessing amidst the chaos.

He glanced down to estimate the height and felt the Grey Egg trembling uneasily in his arms. Gently patting it in reassurance, he turned and climbed out of the window without hesitation.

Clang—!

The external drainpipe groaned under the weight of a full-grown man, threatening to buckle.

Wen Xin’s expression remained calm as he gripped the pipe with his legs and carefully protected the eggs nestled against his chest. Slowly, he began sliding downward.

If everything went smoothly, at this pace, he could safely reach the ground in just two minutes.

But fate was rarely kind.

The fire soon reached the A3 nursery, and the precision instruments, unable to endure the prolonged high heat, finally exploded.

The blast triggered a wave of fire that surged through the windows. The superheated glass shattered outward, raining shards like a storm of knives down on Wen Xin below.

“Watch out!” one of the interns on the ground shouted instinctively.

With nowhere to dodge, Wen Xin made a split-second decision, twisting his body to shield his head with one arm.

Glass shards sliced into his exposed skin, and blood trickled down the cuts. Clenching his teeth hard, Wen Xin endured the pain.

When a piece of glass nearly pierced his head, he let out a faint, stifled gasp.

The bundle holding the Grey Egg gave a violent tremble.

Though he was badly injured, he had managed to avoid a fatal blow to his head.

As the glass stopped falling, Wen Xin didn’t pause for a moment. Ignoring the pain, he continued his descent.

The others, seeing his situation, rushed forward to catch him. The moment Wen Xin safely landed, he exhaled a deep breath of relief.

Without sparing a thought for his own wounds, he untied the bundle on his chest, carefully cradling the eggs in his arms. Looking up at the others, he asked urgently, “Are there any incubators left elsewhere? It’s hatching season—they can’t be left out for too long.”

But no one moved.

At some point, the air had fallen completely silent.

The people around him, whether joyous, panicked, or despairing, were now frozen in place. They stood alongside the roaring flames like characters in an oil painting, suspended mid-action.

The entire scene, from the burning building to the empty courtyard, resembled a movie suddenly paused—a surreal and absurd spectacle.

Wen Xin’s grip on the eggs slackened, and they vanished from his hands.

The space before his eyes rippled like water disturbed by a pebble, concentric waves spreading outward.

As the ripples engulfed his vision, the scene abruptly shifted.

Wen Xin was back in the A3 nursery. The silvery-white alloy walls reflected a faint, cool light.

There was no fire. He wasn’t wearing his white coat, and the nursery was silent except for the soft hum of functioning incubators. The machines emitted steady, rhythmic beeps.

From the chaos of the fire to this tranquil scene, Wen Xin found himself momentarily disoriented.

Was this a new alternate dimension, or was he trapped in an illusion?

Deep in thought, Wen Xin walked to the incubator holding the Grey Egg and reached out cautiously to the observation window.

His hand passed through nothing but air.

It seemed the latter was true—everything he was seeing was an illusion.

Just as Wen Xin came to this conclusion, the fluorescent lights on the ceiling flickered violently before plunging the room into darkness.

In an instant, the hallway outside erupted with noise—voices shouting, footsteps scurrying, the cacophony of people gathering and moving in a flurry of activity.

“An unidentified data source has infiltrated the facility’s system! Disconnect the nursery from the central control network immediately!”

At this shout, Wen Xin heard a sharp, unmistakable sound: the circuit breakers shutting down. The noise was clear and distinct, coming from the A1 nursery next door.

Not long after, the same sound echoed from the A2 nursery.

Yet, the A3 nursery remained untouched. In the darkened environment, its incubators continued running as usual, their warm yellow lights casting soft glows on the floor.

In normal circumstances, such tranquility might bring comfort. But now, it filled Wen Xin with an inexplicable sense of unease.

Panic rising, he shouted, “Is anyone there? The A3 nursery hasn’t been disconnected yet! Somebody, please!”

His voice echoed into the corridor, but no one responded from the chaos outside.

Stepping through the doorway, he saw the bustling hallway where assistant researchers and interns had converged on the A1 and A2 nurseries. They were hurriedly transferring mutant eggs with a tense urgency.

“There are still unused incubators in the adjacent hatchery! Move them all out, quickly!”

Amid the frenetic activity, not one person paid any attention to the A3 nursery.

Wen Xin spotted a familiar figure and dashed forward, intending to stop Zhou Zhao.

But Zhou Zhao, preoccupied with the mutant egg in his hands, didn’t even glance up. As he ran, his body passed straight through Wen Xin’s outstretched arm.

Click.

A faint sound came from inside the A3 nursery.

Under normal circumstances, such a small noise would have been inaudible amidst the commotion. Yet Wen Xin heard it clearly—the soft, continuous clicking resonated in his ears as if amplified deliberately.

It was as though something in the void wanted him to hear it.

Wen Xin’s fingers curled tightly.

After nearly a week with the Grey Egg, he instantly recognized the sound: the tapping of an eggshell against the observation window.

The rhythm was urgent—desperate, even—a plea for help.

Wen Xin’s eyelashes quivered.

Logic told him there was no point in responding. This was merely an illusion or perhaps a glimpse of Xiao Hei’s past.

Yet before he even realized it, his feet had already carried him to the door of the A3 nursery.

Even though Wen Xin knew he might witness a heartbreaking scene, one that would cut into him like a knife, he couldn’t bring himself to look away when the Grey Egg needed someone by its side.

Yet Xiao Hei seemed to give in.

The presence struggling against its own violent instincts cast him a gentle gaze from the void, and the scene shifted abruptly.

When Wen Xin walked through the A3 nursery, he didn’t see the devastation he had expected.

Time itself seemed to have been gently rewound. The chaos of the previous night turned into a peaceful morning, with soft sunlight streaming through the windows and illuminating the wreckage.

The sudden disaster had already been brought under control.

Large scorched marks stained the alloy walls, and the acrid smell of smoke still lingered.

Interns, wearing masks, were busy cleaning up the ruined equipment from the explosion. A corner of a plastic panel had melted, and fine ash covered everything.

Eggs that had been shattered or cooked by the fire lay discarded on the floor like trash.

Zhou Zhao stood with another assistant researcher, both looking thoroughly distressed.

The researcher scolded him, “How could you forget to disconnect the control system for the A3 nursery?”

Zhou Zhao ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “Damn it! Things were chaotic! I was called over to help somewhere else—how was I supposed to keep track of everything?”

“But you were responsible for A3—”

“How the hell was I supposed to handle over a dozen eggs by myself?! This is all because of those interns. They’re all so high and mighty! If just one of them had agreed to stay in the A3 nursery and remind me, would this have happened?”

The assistant researcher could only sigh repeatedly, at a loss for words.

Nearby, an intern approached cautiously, asking how to handle the eggs that had been damaged.

“What else can we do?” Zhou Zhao snapped. “Send them to the incinerator.”

Hearing this, Wen Xin felt as though a sharp claw had seized his heart and squeezed tightly.

The intern, too scared to provoke Zhou Zhao further, quickly nodded and complied without protest.

Amid the cluster of discarded mutant eggs, no one noticed that one dull, grey egg trembled faintly, trying to move.

But Wen Xin saw it.

He saw the Grey Egg struggle to make itself known, only to be carelessly thrown into a box by an inattentive intern.

Shattered eggs rained down upon it, burying its small body and snuffing out its feeble, unnoticed efforts.

The intern carried the box full of broken eggs toward the incinerator.

Workers passed by carrying corpses from the previous night’s disaster. The stench of blood filled the air, death’s presence clinging to everything.

No one noticed the Grey Egg’s faint signs of life as the box was carried into the incinerator.

Wen Xin tried to follow the intern into the facility, but an invisible barrier stopped him from moving forward.

He could do nothing but stand there as a deafening explosion erupted from within the incinerator. Amid the chaos, someone screamed at the top of their lungs:

“Something hatched inside the furnace—a mutant! At least an A-rank!”

That was the last thing Wen Xin saw in the illusion.

His consciousness snapped back to his body. As his vision realigned with reality, cold sweat dripped down his temple and onto the egg nestled in his arms.

The fire suppression system was manually activated by the security team, and the flames were brought under control.

Among the crowd rushing about, Wen Xin spotted Zhou Zhao.

The egg in Zhou Zhao’s arms had cracked open. The damage hadn’t been caused by the heat itself, but by the series of explosions triggered by the overheating equipment.

Zhou Zhao was furious, his face pale and twisted with despair. “Who the hell started this fire?! WHO?!”

He wasn’t alone in his breakdown. Many others, interns and researchers alike, were in similar states of distress.

This was the critical hatching period for the mutant eggs. During this time, their shells became partially softened and couldn’t withstand sudden impacts.

When the explosions occurred, only a small number of eggs had been spared; most had succumbed to the disaster.

Wen Xin surveyed the destroyed mutant eggs, letting out a quiet sigh. He didn’t spare Zhou Zhao or the other researchers in white coats another glance.

Instead, he reached into the bundle of eggs he had carried, locating the Grey Egg and cradling it in his hands. Gently, he stroked every inch of its shell with care.

Finally, his gaze settled on the pointed end of the egg, which he recognized as Xiao Hei’s forehead. He extended his tongue and gave it a light lick.

Among mutants, licking the forehead was a gesture of recognition and affection—a silent form of comfort.

Wen Xin hoped this gesture might soothe the scars lingering in Xiao Hei’s memories.

As his gentle licks continued, a faint cracking sound echoed from his palm.

The Grey Egg was hatching.

When mutants were born, they often couldn’t suppress their inherent aura. In truth, they didn’t even try.

The moment they broke out of their shells, crossing the threshold of life and death, their instinct was not to conceal their presence but to announce it boldly—to roar and release their aura in all directions, declaring their arrival to the world.

The aura of an A-rank mutant rippled outward like an invisible wave, causing everyone nearby to stumble in its wake.

Heads turned in shock, their eyes wide with disbelief as they stared at the Grey Egg in Wen Xin’s hands.

Wen Xin was just as startled.

When the shell cracked, his entire body stiffened. His first thought was that he had been too rough, accidentally breaking the egg with his licking.

But relief came swiftly as he saw a tiny black paw push its way through the crack.

Wen Xin dared not move.

For all his life experience, he had never assisted in the hatching of a mutant before. He was terrified that even the slightest mistake might hinder the little one’s emergence.

The hatchling, however, was far more determined than he anticipated.

With all its might, it used its head to push open the eggshell, crawling out entirely. Its body was slick with moisture, and its delicate, undeveloped scales gleamed softly, still pliable to the touch.

Seeing this juvenile version of Xiao Hei, Wen Xin couldn’t suppress the joy welling up inside him. He reached out, wanting to gently touch the little creature.

But before he could, the small black hatchling—its eyes not yet open—precisely wrapped its paws around his wrist.

It sniffed Wen Xin’s hand carefully, then suddenly lowered its head and, with a solemn reverence, kissed the center of the young man’s palm.