The banquet was nearing its end, but Zhou Yi had no intention of staying. He and Alfred had both gotten what they wanted. There was no need to stay any longer. Neither he nor Charisse had any desire to continue socializing.
Leaving Ashford Manor with Zhou Yi, they took a car back to the hotel. As soon as she entered her private space, Charisse showed a sense of relief. She impatiently kicked off her high heels and walked barefoot on the carpet in the room.
"What's wrong, darling? Didn't you have a good time?" Zhou Lan, who had been waiting for Charisse to return, looked at her young daughter in this state and immediately began to ask about her well-being. This was, after all, Charisse's first time attending such a banquet, and it was under the premise of concealing her Mutant identity. So, Zhou Lan couldn't help but worry.
"I'm so fed up with all this nonsense, annoying people everywhere, and I can't even eat in peace." Charisse untied her hair bun, trying to free her ears. "And these clothes that are practically suffocating me, oh God! I swear, I'll never attend another banquet like this again."
"My Darling, this is just the beginning." Zhou Yi kindly reminded her. "You'll definitely experience more things like this in the future, so it's best not to be too absolute in your words."
"Don't even think about it!" Charisse directly made a big 'X' with her arms. "You can flirt with pretty girls in a place like that, but what can I do there? Wait for others to flirt with me? Spare me! You know if that situation continued, I'd really be unable to resist teleporting them into the wall."
"Phew! That's really torture!" Zhou Yi, whose secret was exposed, whistled and consciously stopped the argument.
"Darling, you'll get used to it. Just let things be; it won't always be this unpleasant." Giving her son a look, expressing dissatisfaction that he, as an older brother, hadn't done his part, Zhou Lan hugged her daughter and began to comfort her.
Charisse snuggled into Zhou Lan's arms and said sweetly, "Mommy is the best. I want to sleep with you tonight, okay?"
"Oh, you're such a big girl. Why are you still like a Child?" Zhou Lan playfully tapped her nose, certainly not saying no.
Looking at the sky, Zhou Yi, feeling it was getting late, said in due course, "Well then, good night, Mom and Charisse. Sweet dreams!"
"You rest early too, Darling!" Zhou Lan nodded, pulling Charisse towards the dressing mirror. She still needed some time to remove Charisse's makeup.
"Go away, go away. You annoying big brother!" Charisse waved at Zhou Yi as if shooing flies. It seemed she deeply resented his behavior of leaving her to go flirt with girls.
Shaking his head helplessly, Zhou Yi pushed open the door and walked out. It wasn't time for him to rest yet; he still had some things to arrange regarding the recent news.
Entering his room, he locked the door to prevent anyone from coming in to find him. Zhou Yi had already put on his special flat glasses and began to contact Medusa.
"Medusa, search for a detailed map of Raccoon City for me. Also, mark all buildings under Umbrella's name."
"Yes, Sir. According to the data, there are a total of 1,744 buildings under Umbrella's name in Raccoon City. These include the Raccoon City Umbrella Branch, Raccoon City Central Library, Raccoon City Sports Center, Central Primary School, Umbrella Medical Center, and other large facilities, as well as various subsidiary companies, employee dormitories, cadre sanatoriums, etc."
In Zhou Yi's vision, a huge 3D city map appeared. It was a new city built with investment from Umbrella Corporation, encompassing several sparsely populated towns. It was also a unique city where most industries belonged to a single company.
As Medusa responded to Zhou Yi's request and began to mark the buildings under Umbrella's name, red dots began to appear one after another on the map of the entire simulated city. By the time Medusa finished speaking, most of the city was already covered in these vivid red colors.
Clearly, it would be unrealistic to distinguish which of these city buildings was the surface cover for Umbrella's underground research center.
"Medusa, remove the public facilities for me and keep only the buildings used internally by Umbrella and requiring certain permissions." Zhou Yi issued a new command, beginning to filter through them. He believed the answer must be hidden in one of them.
"Sir, if you wish to do this, I need your authorization to infiltrate Umbrella's internal System and access its internal data. I must warn you that doing so will largely expose your whereabouts and may cause unnecessary hostility. Are you sure you want to proceed?"
Considering her Master's position, Medusa voiced her opinion. In her inherent logical thinking, such an action clearly went against Zhou Yi's interests, and if such a command were to be executed, authorization was required.
"I'm sure. Medusa, try to ensure your safety, with not being counter-tracked by the opponent as the primary goal. As for whether the opponent pulls the alarm, ignore it."
"Yes, Sir. Please wait!" Medusa began to execute Zhou Yi's command without compromise. In the World of networks, she infiltrated Umbrella's internal network through limited external access and began searching for the data Zhou Yi needed within its internal files.
In front of such an Advanced artificial intelligence, Umbrella's firewall was like an undefended wall, and Medusa quickly obtained what he wanted from the internal data.
"Sir, I have found the data you wanted. According to your requirements, there are three buildings that meet your criteria."
Medusa said, and began to display the detailed information of these three buildings in front of Zhou Yi.
Umbrella's Raccoon City Branch Building: Requiring employee access to enter. Located in the heart of Raccoon City.
Umbrella Medical Center: Some areas are exclusively for Umbrella's internal senior management. Located in the southeastern part of the city, near the commercial center.
Umbrella Cadre Sanatorium: Exclusively for high-level cadre training and vacation. Located in the southwestern suburban area of Raccoon City.
"One out of three, this kind of thing can't be openly displayed to the public." Zhou Yi muttered a couple of sentences and continued to give orders. "Medusa, collect all information about this cadre sanatorium for me. I want to know everything about it."
"Data acquisition in progress. High-level encrypted data detected. Continuing retrieval." It seemed that Umbrella had implemented very strict protective measures in this area. Although Medusa was working hard, the speed of obtaining information was far from as fast as it was initially.
But fortunately, she hadn't disappointed Zhou Yi.
"Umbrella Cadre Sanatorium, a high-level company asset. The following confidential data has been retrieved: personnel roster, building expansion report, material input report, and experimental status report. Details of the data are as follows!"
Just as Medusa began to report her findings, suddenly a large patch of crimson appeared in Zhou Yi's vision. Medusa's voice also became urgent.
"Warning, unknown data has begun to impact the System. Reverse search has begun, firewall under attack, estimated to fail in ten seconds. Disconnecting all external links."
The image in his eyes flickered a few times and then immediately dimmed. After about a minute, the image was transmitted again. And at this moment, Medusa's voice came from his ear.
"Sir, we have been attacked by an unknown program. It can be predicted to be an intelligent program within Umbrella. The following conclusion can be drawn: Umbrella possesses an Advanced artificial intelligence no less capable than me. Your recent command has triggered the opponent's defense System. I apologize, the data was not completely preserved. To ensure safety, I abandoned the data that had not yet been fully downloaded."
"That's enough, Medusa. As long as everything is safe!" Rubbing his temples, Zhou Yi felt that watching Medusa perform a cyber intrusion was even more exciting than fighting himself. Although he didn't know why artificial intelligence was so prevalent, it was good to have some gains.
"Show me your results!"
"Most of the highly confidential member data in the personnel list has been destroyed by the opponent. Currently, only a partial list of security personnel remains. This is the person with the highest position remaining in the current data."
Medusa displayed an image of a woman with dark brown hair. She was a good-looking woman who appeared to have undergone professional military training, exuding a capable aura.
Alice Jojovich: Security Director of the Umbrella Cadre Sanatorium, graduated from West Point Military Academy, has executed special orders multiple times. Later dismissed for disobeying orders, invited to join Umbrella Security Company, underwent three years of training, promoted to cadre of the Security Center due to excellent performance, transferred to Raccoon City one year ago as the Security Director of the Cadre Sanatorium.
"Good figure, but not what I'm looking for. Is there anything else?" A Security Director was not the information Zhou Yi wanted, so he continued to question his intelligent assistant.
"Some experimental status reports are still preserved, but they are damaged and only partially retained."
"Show them to me!"
Two documents appeared in Zhou Yi's eyes, including descriptions of experimental materials, photos recorded at different times, and some preserved experimental reports.
The experimental materials were incredibly diverse. From the materials in the report, he saw not only commonly used White mice, chimpanzees, and humans but also less frequently used creatures such as lizards, pythons, and sharks. It seemed their experiments were not limited to humans.
Comparing with the experimental reports, Zhou Yi found that most of the materials showed reports of Death. The most frequently mentioned sentence in the report was that "cell chromosomes undergo high-speed changes, organisms undergo enormous changes, the experiment develops in an uncontrollable direction, and the experiment terminates."
This seemed to indicate one thing: the experiment did not seem to be progressing smoothly because it lacked stable controllability. Such a thing could never be called a success.
As he continued to flip through the report, Zhou Yi discovered a problem. There were no records of human experiments in the report, which had clearly been intentionally deleted by the opponent during the attack. This situation could only mean one thing: human experiments had different results. But what exactly was different?
Flipping through the limited available data, Zhou Yi began to analyze it carefully. And when he reached his final conclusion, his expression was no longer very good.