"In situations like this, I usually recommend neutralization." Song Yarong sighed, "Since you've decided to keep her, it's best to bring her in for a mimetic detection every day. If there's any issue, you can catch and resolve it early."

"Every day... What if she needs to carry out a long-term mission?"

"Then don't let her take on long-term missions if you don't want her to suddenly transform into an anomaly during the mission," Song Yarong said. "I would even suggest mimetic detection every eight hours to be safest."

"I might as well throw her in the containment zone," Sun Hang retorted. "I thought the Tai Sui meme was pretty stable. Those cultists have been lurking in Tianfu City for years without any incidents... And you, you should notice that the meme in your body is stable too, right?"

"But Jiang Yu is the most infected with the Tai Sui meme, apart from you." Song Yarong emphasized, "We have to be cautious."

"Then why aren't you cautious about me? By your logic, I'm the most dangerous, right?" Sun Hang joked with a smile.

"At first, I was quite wary of you." Song Yarong shrugged, looking helpless, "Then I realized that the higher-ups trust you so much. As a junior researcher, there's no point in guarding against you... Besides, those who have the authority to restrict your actions don't, and those who want to manage you don't have the authority... Even if you went berserk, no one in Tianfu City could stop you."

"What if I really lose control?" Sun Hang asked.

"Then I'd just close my eyes and wait to die," Song Yarong replied nonchalantly. "So I can only pray you don't cause any trouble... But then again, the director has so much trust in you, why should I worry about it? Even if I die, there are so many others to take the fall... Alright, Yang Qi gave you some rest time, if you don't go, she's going to lose her temper again."

"Does she lose her temper often?"

"She didn't use to, but ever since becoming your direct supervisor, her outburst frequency has skyrocketed," Song Yarong whispered. "Even her menstrual cycle became irregular... What have you done to her?"

"What does her irregular cycle have to do with me?" Sun Hang looked innocent. "That's probably from staying up late... If I could influence her cycle, I'd make it disappear for nine months instead of being irregular. You're talking nonsense."

"Good luck," Song Yarong nodded. "I heard that women become much more tempered after having kids."

"You're sure it doesn't make them more irritable?" Sun Hang tossed an empty paper cup into the trash. "And...why are you telling me to work on this?"

"I haven't seen Yang Qi care so much about another man before. If you have no chance, then I'd say no one else does either... Hey, it's been 19 minutes already, aren't you leaving?"

"Going, going, see you!" Sun Hang instantly turned around and dashed out of the operating room.

...

The meeting place with Yang Qi was the Beta Containment Zone on the second basement level of the research institute — it wasn't the first time Sun Hang had been here, but last time he went to the deeper Alpha Containment Zone.

Compared to the dangerous Black Dragon meme carriers, Chen Hongjuan hadn't yet reached the threshold for Alpha level.

The Beta Containment Zone was vast. Besides those freezers that were over a hundred degrees below zero, there were also four special laboratories of varying sizes. Chen Hongjuan was currently confined in the largest one, Lab One.

Through the one-way glass outside the lab, Sun Hang could see Chen Hongjuan now being restrained on a frame made of special alloy, tubes inserted into her nostrils and mouth, huge noise-canceling earmuffs over her ears, and her eyes covered by a VR headset.

"What's going on?" Sun Hang was puzzled. "It looks like some sort of special play..."

If it were Mr. Wang or Zhong Ling tied up like that, Sun Hang would find it quite pleasing to the eye... But with Chen Hongjuan, it only brought a feeling of disgust.

The coffee he had just drunk churned in his stomach, seemingly ready to rise up with gastric acid to his throat at any moment.

Chen Hongjuan herself was a middle-aged woman in her forties, plump and obese, and after anomaly transformation, her body underwent numerous grotesque changes — what was restrained on the frame no longer resembled a person but rather a mass of writhing, barely human-shaped corruption.

"Since her anomaly was caused by negative emotions," Yang Qi stared at Chen Hongjuan in the lab, speaking to Sun Hang without turning her head, "we're attempting to play videos and audios that can trigger negative emotions, and observing if her meme undergoes further changes."

"Videos and audios that trigger negative emotions?" Sun Hang was curious, "What kind?"

"Want to try?" Yang Qi picked up a pair of headphones from the hook, handing them to Sun Hang.

"Trying shouldn't be a problem... right?" Sun Hang glanced at Yang Qi and took the headphones.

Instantly, a chaotic noise filled his ears, like countless insects gnawing wood, mixed with the screech of nails on a chalkboard, and some heavy metal music from unknown instruments — assuming those damn sounds could count as music.

After listening for just ten seconds, Sun Hang felt uncomfortable all over, his mind becoming agitated, and a desire to smash something to vent surged within him.

"Pretty powerful." Sun Hang took off the headphones and returned them to Yang Qi.

"Want to watch the video?"

"No thanks, I completely believe these things can trigger negative emotions now," Sun Hang said.

"But Chen Hongjuan doesn't seem affected." Yang Qi sighed, "This experiment has been going on for almost half an hour before you came."

"No effect at all? Or you haven't detected any effect?"

"Neither the meme frequency nor brainwaves have shown any significant changes." Yang Qi pointed to the screen in front of her, filled with moving graphs, alongside serial numbers and acronyms Sun Hang couldn't understand.

"Could it be her cognition is distorted and she can't understand or hear them?"

"Can you understand the sounds from the headphones earlier?" Yang Qi turned to give him a look.

"No."

"There you go... Such sounds affect emotions without needing comprehension, the same goes for the videos," Yang Qi explained. "Moreover, in previous experiments, several findings proved her sanity hasn't completely disappeared."

"Hmm?"

"Researchers tried communicating with her in human language. Although she didn't provide meaningful responses, her brainwaves showed significant fluctuations whenever keywords like 'son,' 'Ling Xiao,' 'husband,' 'welfare subsidy,' and 'severing parental ties' were mentioned," Yang Qi elaborated.

"That doesn't prove she still has sanity," Sun Hang stated. "Maybe it's just obsessions left by Chen Hongjuan before her anomaly? After all, she became like this for that money."

"There's another experiment." Yang Qi handed Sun Hang a tablet.

On the tablet, a video played showing Chen Hongjuan fixed to a chair, with only her hands and head able to move freely. A mechanical arm delivered a document and a pen in front of her.

Chen Hongjuan grabbed the pen, poised to write, but when she saw the text on the document, she suddenly went berserk, tearing the document to shreds and snapping the pen in two.

The document was a replica of the parental severance agreement she was asked to sign during the day.

"She not only understands human language but can also recognize characters," Yang Qi said. "It wasn't a mere copy; we modified text size, fonts, and layout, yet she still recognized the document's content."

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