A month had passed since the tsunami. Once the foundation for the new house was laid, construction proceeded at an astonishing speed.

The Sentinel seemed to have inexhaustible energy, often leaving Hua Mu dumbfounded and filled with regret—why wasn’t all that energy being spent on her?

Fortunately, the Young Lady still possessed some restraint and reason. Gazing at her slightly swollen leg, she silently swallowed her bitter tears.

Recuperation was always a tedious affair, especially in a predicament like theirs. Aside from occasionally developing Luna’s abilities, Hua Mu spent most of her time poring over the large box of documents.

She had already tallied the documents: 132 volumes in total, covering 38 projects. Sorted alphabetically, there were two projects for each letter from A to L, and one for each from M to Z.

This was clearly just the tip of the iceberg of the entire “Angel’s Hand” project, but a staff member with access to 32 projects was certainly no low-level employee.

The project names were quite arbitrary. While most were named after cancer cell lines—such as “A431,” “A549,” “RAJI,” and “MCF-7″—there were also projects with ambiguous names like “Bazinga” and “Bleach.”

While organizing the files, Hua Mu had noticed that not all projects followed the letter-and-number naming convention, but it was only after Bai Zhen’s explanation that she realized just how arrogant and utterly callous these so-called scientists were.

It took Hua Mu a long time to finish reading about the two projects that began with the letter A. One reason was the abundance of technical jargon that she only partially understood; the other was that she kept getting distracted by the sight of Bai Zhen at work.

Each project consisted of three to four volumes of data. The observation reports seemed to have been recorded by the project staff, with only one volume containing the discussions and summary records of the two project leaders.

Since many projects were conducted in parallel, Hua Mu saw the two leaders citing results from other projects in the logbooks. The “Hela” project quickly caught her attention.

Hela was both the name of a goddess of death from a certain mythology and the name of the first cancer cell line to be successfully cultured in vitro. Compared to other cell lines, it proliferated much faster and had even contaminated many other cell cultures during laboratory cultivation.

By maintaining telomerase activity during division and thus avoiding the Hayflick limit, Hela cells were known as “immortal” cells.

This project was clearly of paramount importance, even receiving strong support from the royal family of a certain eastern empire—one of the reasons it piqued Hua Mu’s interest.

She skipped all the other projects between A and H to read its files first.

The Hela project’s original goal was to cultivate the legendary Dark Sentinels, who supposedly didn’t require Guide-hormone. Because the experimental subject was created using royal genes authorized by a certain monarch, its status within the entire plan was unique—many other projects, it could be said, were in service to it.

For instance, the results of the “Bleach” project—a name that could be interpreted as “to whiten,” or, by extension from a once-popular manga, “death god”—were ultimately incorporated into Hela.

It possessed the abilities of both a Sentinel and a Guide, had a rapidly regenerating body, could mature quickly, and would never die. Unable to feel pain or emotion, it was the most ideal, powerful, and dangerous weapon.

However, Hua Mu never learned the final outcome of the experiment. The last few pages of the file had been torn out.

She was so engrossed in her reading that she even forgot to make lunch.

Hua Mu still felt her skin crawl at the cold descriptions, her heart ached for the cruel trials the test subjects endured, and she still believed such experiments were a gross violation of ethics and morality.

But on the other hand, she couldn’t help her curiosity. She couldn’t stop herself from wanting to explore, from wanting to know the outcome.

If a young lady like her, who had almost no exposure to the field of scientific research, felt this way, how could those scientists not have been driven to madness?

Judging from the preceding records, the project’s probability of success was extremely high, yet the missing result left Hua Mu with a sense of loss. This feeling startled her, immediately putting her on guard.

She was actually anticipating the result?

Hua Mu tossed the documents onto the table, annoyed with herself. She must have been bored on the island for far too long to get so engrossed in something like this.

When Hua Mu still hadn’t made lunch, Bai Zhen saw her lying motionless in her chair from a distance. Fearing she was unwell, she dropped her work and hurried over.

“Miss, what’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell?”

Bai Zhen had felled the surrounding trees, creating a clearing of several hundred square meters where they could work and rest. A lounge chair was placed in the shade for Hua Mu to relax and read.

“It’s nothing… I’ll make lunch right away. You should rest for a bit.”

The taro had been simmering in the embers since morning and should be cooked through by now. She figured she’d just make a cured meat and mushroom soup to go with it.

“Let me make lunch. You should get some rest.”

Seeing her listless expression, Bai Zhen grew concerned.

“I’m fine, just tired from reading. I’ll just make some soup. Go wash your hands. The mushrooms we dried this time turned out well. You’re in for a treat.”

There wasn’t much of the seafood sauce she’d made before left, so Hua Mu had to turn her attention to mushrooms. Fortunately, Bai Zhen was a Sentinel who had grown up in the tropics and could tell which ones were edible.

Though the lunch wasn’t lavish, Hua Mu’s skillful touch made it appetizing. Sliced cured wild boar simmered with bamboo fungus made for a delicious broth and helped conserve their sea salt. The taro, eaten with a dip of oyster sauce, fish sauce, or mushroom paste, needed no other preparation.

Bai Zhen didn’t find the meal perfunctory in the least and ate with great relish. Hua Mu, however, found it difficult to eat. Propping her chin on her hand, she let out a soft sigh.

“Sigh…”

“Miss, what’s wrong? Are you unhappy?”

The Sentinel racked her brain, trying to recall if she had said or done something to upset her.

Hua Mu glanced at her and sighed again.

It was all this useless Sentinel’s fault. She’d left Hua Mu with too much idle time to read and let her mind wander.

“M-Miss, did I do something to…”

“No!” Hua Mu snapped, exasperated. It wasn’t about what she did, but what she hadn’t done!

“Then why are you…”

Never mind, she thought. She knew Bai Zhen was only being considerate.

“It’s from reading all that stuff. Tell me, how can human beings be so cruel sometimes?”

Because cruelty is human nature.

Bai Zhen pressed her lips together, silent for a moment before asking slowly, “Do you think they were cruel?”

“Of course they were. Creating life just to conduct human experiments is a heinous crime, no matter how you look at it.”

“But they called it science, for the sake of human progress… or evolution. They said the path of human development has always been paved with lives. Don’t conventional laboratories conduct animal experiments?”

“How can that be the same? Human experimentation should only exist within clinical medicine, and it must strictly adhere to the principle of informed consent. To equate humans with animals… what kind of sophistry is that? The argument of some extreme animal rights activist?”

“Then what if these research subjects were ‘non-human’? You’ve read some of the files. Setting aside the views of the two project leaders, you can see from the reports alone that the researchers never treated the test subjects as human. After genetic editing, some of the individuals had genes from who-knows-what creatures mixed in. They could no longer be called human.”

Hua Mu didn’t know why Bai Zhen was saying this. It was clear she wasn’t trying to defend those people; rather, she seemed to be searching for an answer.

“I don’t know who gave them the right to define what is human. Did God? In my eyes, every one of those test subjects was a living, breathing human being. Furthermore, the moment they used human genes in their coding, they were already conducting human experiments. Rather than calling the subjects non-human, aren’t the researchers the ones who are less than human?”

Curiosity is more of an animal instinct, common not only to humans but to many animals as well. It could be called a major driving force for both animal survival and human progress. And as scientists, these researchers would naturally possess a greater spirit of exploration.

But what makes humans human, what allows them to maintain their arrogance and look down upon animals, is that they abide by so-called ethics.

In Hua Mu’s view, it wasn’t that human life was inherently nobler than an animal’s, but that the lives of one’s own kind were the final line in the sand for a species that had already placed itself above all creation. It was the ultimate restraint humanity imposed upon itself. If an individual could not abide by it, they were unworthy of being called human. If society as a whole could not, then society itself would collapse.

Bai Zhen stared at Hua Mu, seemingly stunned.

“What’s… wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?” Hua Mu touched her own face, confused. “Is there something on my face?”

Bai Zhen smiled and slowly shook her head. “No, Miss. I just think you’re absolutely right.”

Hua Mu loved hearing Bai Zhen praise her, and she beamed with pride.

“Of course. How could I possibly be wrong?”

“Then what do you think… should be done if these test subjects survived and were to return to society?”

It was a very practical question, though one that should have been addressed decades ago.

As heir to the throne, even without deliberate instruction, Hua Mu would subconsciously consider the issue from that position. This was both her contradiction and her most admirable quality.

“They aren’t the ones at fault; they’re victims. If they were rescued and had a chance to return to society, I believe the state would have an obligation and a responsibility to make proper arrangements based on their individual circumstances. Children with physical defects would, of course, need to receive the necessary medical treatment. Healthy children who are too young to remember could be placed with ordinary families to be raised. Those who are older would need psychological counseling to help them lead normal lives. If that’s not enough, a dedicated foundation and agency should be established to handle these cases. Didn’t you say before that these kinds of experiments are still being conducted in some dark corners? From a long-term perspective, this is essential.”

Bai Zhen nodded in praise. “Miss, you will surely become an excellent queen.”

Hua Mu lifted her chin, a proud look on her face. But her satisfaction lasted only a few seconds before the reality of their situation caused her spirits to droop.

“What’s the use of talking about being a queen now? Queen of this island? Queen of the animals, the forest, the ocean? I don’t even have a single subject!”

The Sentinel suddenly grew bold and took her hand, saying with earnest solemnity, “Miss, you still have me. I am your subject. I will respect you, protect you, care for you… and love you. Even if I am your only subject, I will make you a queen like no other.”

Oh my god!!!

Hua Mu was about to explode!!!

Her Sentinel was so, so, so full of surprises! What kind of divine sweet talk was this? It made her want to start a raging fire with some dry wood right then and there!

Queen-play, huh? Not bad at all!