Chapter 156: The Situation Has Become More Complicated

Chapter 156: The Situation Has Become More Complicated

Sam sat there with two massive dark circles under his eyes, his hands flying across the keyboard in a frenzy. On the screen, strings of complex genetic sequences were running through their final comparative analysis.

A crisp system notification chimed, and a densely packed red analysis report popped up on the large monitor. Sam's face instantly contorted into something extremely strange.

"Penelope, the supercomputer analysis results are in. This situation is way more complicated than we thought."

Sam swallowed hard, his fingers pulling up a microscopic simulation of cellular phagocytosis. His voice couldn't hide the shock.

"Jonathan wasn't lying about one thing—the X-3 specific antibodies in your body are devouring your hematopoietic stem cells like crazy, pushing your genetic chain to the very edge of a catastrophic collapse."

At those words, Penelope's fingers tightened sharply around her coffee cup, the liquid inside rippling violently.

Dominic's fists, hidden beneath his hospital gown sleeves, clenched instantly. The veins on the backs of his hands bulged, and his eyes churned with savage killing intent.

"But!"

Sam suddenly raised his voice. He quickly switched to another comparison image of bone marrow stem cells, his tone becoming extremely agitated, even carrying a hint of anger.

"Jonathan said his bone marrow could suppress the antibody backlash—that's an absolute, complete lie. He's been deceiving you!"

Penelope slammed down her coffee cup. The base hit the glass tabletop with a dull thud. Her sharp eyes locked onto Sam like a vise.

"Speak clearly. What the hell is going on!"

Sam pointed at the red and blue data lines crisscrossing the screen, his words coming faster, afraid to miss a single detail.

"We extracted the bone marrow compatibility data from your previous medical records and ran a deep fusion test with your blood samples."

"The results show that Jonathan's bone marrow stem cells not only can't suppress the antibodies—they actually act like a catalyst, accelerating the antibodies' mutation and reproduction!"

"Those so-called life-saving injections he's been giving you every month are actually an extremely potent nerve-paralyzing compound. They're just masking the pain of your body's accelerating collapse."

Sam's words hit like a sledgehammer, slamming into Penelope's head and leaving her somewhat dazed.

So Jonathan was never some savior. He'd been using this incredibly vicious method to forcibly squeeze out every last bit of value from her body.

Jonathan had known all along she wouldn't live long, so he'd schemed to use this so-called 'favor' to keep her under his thumb.

Penelope suddenly laughed coldly. That laugh carried endless mockery and bone-chilling ice, sounding particularly eerie in the empty monitoring room.

"What a Jonathan. What a Hartwell family. They really think I'm some fool they can manipulate at will. Since they want to play, I'll play with them to the very end."

Just as she was about to issue a counterattack order, the red warning lights on the main console suddenly began flashing wildly without warning. A piercing alarm instantly echoed throughout the entire top floor.

Sam jumped in fright and rushed to the keyboard to check the situation. The genetic sequences on screen were instantly overtaken by a massive black skull icon.

The skull icon twisted continuously on the screen. Then, an encrypted email with a countdown timer popped up directly—the countdown showed seventy-two hours remaining.

"Penelope, it's a public email from Preston's side. They forced their way through our building's perimeter firewall and delivered this thing directly to all the executives' inboxes!"

Sam was sweating profusely in panic. He tried using a reverse-tracking program to lock onto their IP address, but they were using an extremely complex dynamic relay—completely untraceable.

Penelope stared coldly at the red countdown jumping on screen. Her eyes held no panic whatsoever, only that excitement a hunter feels when seeing prey caught in the net.

The email's content was extremely brief—just a few sparse lines—but every word reeked of Preston's exasperated madness and cruelty.

"Penelope, you really think freezing my capital chain means you've won? You're too naive."

"Within seventy-two hours, bring the original antibody sample from your body to the designated location in Aurelia to meet me. Otherwise, I'll turn Harborview City into a sea of flames."

"Your friends, your employees, and that bodyguard of yours who doesn't fear death—they'll all pay an extremely heavy price for your stupidity."

This death threat was a blatant provocation. After his capital chain was severed, Preston had completely torn off his hypocritical mask and become a thoroughly deranged beast.

Dominic looked at the threatening content on screen, his lips curling into an extremely bloodthirsty cold smile. He reached out and pressed his hand on Penelope's wheelchair backrest, leaning down slightly.

"Aurelia, huh? Perfect—my blade hasn't seen blood in a long time. Penelope, this time I'll go with you to take down that bastard's base."

Dominic's breath carried a scorching heat, gently brushing against Penelope's ear. That arrogance and obsession unique to him inexplicably made her feel incredibly secure.

Penelope tilted her head slightly, meeting Dominic's deep eyes directly. She didn't mock him as usual but instead nodded extremely seriously.

"Alright. We'll go together and collect every debt they owe us, with interest."

Just as the atmosphere between them became extremely subtle, the monitoring room's heavy metal door was suddenly slammed open from outside.

Sebastian tumbled in, practically crawling. He clutched a paper document stamped with a 'Top Secret' seal, the whole man wheezing like a broken bellows.

His usually refined image had completely vanished. His tie was askew, his forehead covered in cold sweat, his face pale as if he'd seen a ghost.

"Penelope, we have a major problem. I just used my family's core intelligence network to forcibly retrieve the top-secret original files from that human experimentation back then."

Sebastian rushed to the main console in a few steps and slapped the document directly onto the glass tabletop. His fingers trembled as he flipped to the last page's genetic comparison results.

He raised his head, those fear-filled eyes locked onto Penelope, then turned extremely stiffly toward Dominic, who was leaning on the mobile hospital bed.

"The original genetic sequences in this file show your name on the report, but the Subject 07 who was actually injected with the X-3 toxin back then—it wasn't you at all!"