With a pen in his hand, Fang Mo wrote on a yellow paper, "2 milliliters of Opening Meridian Solution concocted with 5 milligrams of Fire Thorn leaves." As he wrote down the information, his attention remained locked on Wen Yang.
Wen Yang breathed raggedly as his body expanded. Sweat reduced in size as it poured down his hot skin. His eyes were unfocused, staring at nothing in particular. Wen Yang's tanned skin grew redder by the second, as if he had stayed for hours under the sun. As he breathed, air left his nostrils like a steam locomotive.
The ropes binding Wen Yang to the chair snapped as his body expanded. With bloodshot eyes, he glared at Fang Mo and rose from the chair. Fang Mo didn't move to stop him; he simply continued jotting down the test subject's physical reactions as if he were just a bystander.
"This Opening Meridian Solution is a failure," he muttered, setting down the pen and paper.
Wen Yang staggered forward, his entire body trembling like a leaf in the wind. But he never took another step. From his seven orifices, he bled. His eyes lost their light. His body collapsed, dead.
"B-Brother Yang!" One of the two remaining brothers awoke just in time to witness Wen Yang's final breath. His eyes widened in terror as he stared at his brother's lifeless body, then at Fang Mo.
Fang Mo shot him a glance. "No need to panic. You'll be joining him soon enough."
Fang Mo turned and walked toward the laboratory's exit, leaving the two bound men behind. Frantic screams echoed through the room, but he no longer paid them any mind.
The laboratory sat inside a man-made clearing. There were no trees and barely any vegetation within ten meters of it, except for a few patches of weeds and scattered grass.
Fang Mo walked in a straight line toward the forest and climbed a tree. His time in Africa's savannah and South America's rainforest hadn't been for nothing. The thick canopies allowed only sparse beams of moonlight to pierce the forest. Hidden in the darkness, Fang Mo perched himself on a thick branch.
From his satchel, he pulled out a twenty-centimeter-long blowgun and three darts. "I hope they don't make me wait too long," he muttered. Like a lion waiting for its prey, Fang Mo sat silently on the branch for twenty minutes until, finally, the bushes below rustled.
"Is this the place?" Five men dressed in black leather emerged into the clearing. Their mouths and noses were covered by makeshift masks fashioned from shredded cloth. Each carried a weapon, ranging from wooden clubs to small knives.
Fang Mo glanced down at them with disdain. Did I expect too much from them?
Since he knew someone had seen him taking the brothers and had gone as far as to follow him, he expected they would come prepared. The ragged cloth masks served as a crude barrier against airborne powder. Still, Fang Mo thought they would have sent more people. They had underestimated him by sending only five.
Well, five is good enough for today. I can at least test eight of my concoctions.
"Yeah. He should be inside. Let's hurry, this isn't far from General Wan's camp. If this guy's connected to the military, we need to kill him and vanish fast." The man who answered was the same one who had followed Fang Mo. A scar ran across his face, partially hidden by the mask.
His words made Fang Mo sneer in greater contempt. They know there's a chance I'm with the military, but didn't even bother to confirm it before attacking.
While the group of five thugs stepped closer to his laboratory, Fang Mo lifted the blowgun toward his lips. The blowgun's effective range wasn't high, at most ten meters of distance. When the thugs were halfway to his laboratory, Fang Mo shot the first dart.
The dart struck the man at the back of the group in the neck with pinpoint precision. He didn't even have time to cry out before losing consciousness and collapsing to the ground.
"Dong Shi was hit!" The sound of his body hitting the dirt alerted the others. These were men who lived with their lives hanging by a thread—their reaction speed was no joke. But even so, they were still a step too late. By the time they turned around, Fang Mo had already fired another dart.
The second dart hit another man squarely in the chest, piercing his leather jacket with ease and injecting poison directly into his bloodstream. Like his teammate, his body hit the ground heavily.
The remaining men weren't fools. After two shots from the same direction, they quickly identified Fang Mo's general location, even if they couldn't yet see him.
"The bastard's hiding up a tree back where we came from!" Scar-face shouted, sprinting toward Fang Mo's position. The two others ran close behind him. They had barely covered two meters before another dart came flying their way.
With the cover of darkness, the dart's speed, and the short distance, evasion was impossible. Another body hit the ground. Only Scar-face and one gang member remained.
Despite losing three companions, they didn't stop. Fang Mo had struck when they were in the middle of the clearing, with nothing to use for cover. Their only hope was to reach him and take him down.
"Give me a step!" Scar-face barked as they arrived beneath the tree where Fang Mo was hiding. The short distance allowed him to spot Fang Mo, but he wasted no time with unnecessary words.
The man beside Scar-face threw his dagger upward, aiming at Fang Mo to buy a moment, then cupped his hands together. Fang Mo twisted his torso to the right, narrowly dodging the blade as it grazed his shoulder and sliced through his sleeve.
Scar-face stepped onto his companion's hands. The man shoved his arms upward, giving Scar-face the boost he needed to reach the tree branch. Gripping the branch where Fang Mo was, Scar-face hauled himself up with both hands.
By the time he climbed onto the branch, Fang Mo already had a dart loaded in his blowgun and another in hand. He aimed downward and fired. The dart hit the thug below square in the chest.
The thug's body went limp, collapsing like a felled log. Scar-face, watching Fang Mo ignore him to target his companion, scowled. "Bastard." He lunged toward Fang Mo, thrusting a short sword at his chest.
Fang Mo saw him coming and smirked. "This tree's too small for both of us." He threw himself backwards off the branch, his back facing the ground. Scar-face's sword sliced through empty air.
Mid-fall, Fang Mo fired once more. The dart struck Scar-face in the side of the neck. His body stiffened, then went limp, tumbling out of the tree. Fang Mo landed on his back, cushioned by the bushes. Scar-face wasn't as lucky. He crashed down with his neck hitting the ground first. The impact snapped his neck, snuffing out his life in an instant.
Fang Mo rose to his feet and glanced at Scar-face's corpse. He sighed. "What a waste of a healthy body. Looks like I won't be able to test eight concoctions tonight after all."
He put the dart back into his satchel and dragged the bodies one by one into his laboratory. When the two Wen brothers saw Fang Mo bringing in more bodies, the last traces of hope in their eyes faded completely. They recognized the bodies as people from the Mountain Tiger Gang, and knew no more help would arrive tonight.
Fang Mo didn't bother tying them up for now. The poison ensured they wouldn't wake for at least three hours, if not longer. Besides, he didn't even have enough chairs for everyone.
His cold gaze fell on the Wen brothers, who trembled under it. A cruel smile tugged at his lips. "Now then… shall we continue the experiments?"
"P-Please… let us go. I'll do anything," one of the Wen brothers begged, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. Fang Mo retrieved another vial of Opening Meridian Solution and injected it into him.
With the yellow notebook in hand, he resumed his annotations. "2 milliliters of Opening Meridian Solution concocted with 2 milligrams of Fire Thorn leaves."
The second test subject exhibited symptoms similar to his now-deceased brother, though milder. Instead of succumbing in under two minutes, it took nearly five. Fang Mo calmly noted the result.
"Fire Thorn is too potent." His gaze drifted toward another prepared dose, mixed with eight milligrams of Fire Thorn, but he knew it would be pointless. The outcome was obvious.
"Let's try Flame Orchid next," he muttered, turning his emotionless gaze toward the last surviving Wen brother, whose face had gone ghostly pale.