Chapter 1544 You Gave Her a Chance to Live
The Jellyfish Seal sat nearby, but she paid it no attention.
Silence filled the room. Zaid couldn't decipher her thoughts; she had always been impenetrable to him.
Isolde took a sip from her glass, a slight smile curving her lips. "What about that person you mentioned before? Octavia's daughter?"
"Still alive," he replied.
Isolde raised an eyebrow. If he had truly intervened, the girl should be dead by now.
"Seems you've granted her a chance at life," she remarked.
"Simply killing her would be too... mundane," Zaid said, thinking of the subjects in the observation rooms, those reduced to experimental livestock.
His original plan for Selena had been precisely this—to bring her to BK, let her taste the sweetness of leadership, gain her trust, and then bring her to the research facility. She would have been his lab rat, completely at his mercy.
But he had miscalculated. When faced with the leadership position, Selena hadn't been tempted at all. Instead, she'd focused on building a life with Raymond. Pathetic.
Later, when he discovered she was at Mystic Prison, he abandoned all pretense of civility. But Lawrence and Walter's support had arrived too quickly, and with Emilio causing chaos, Zaid had been forced to retreat, exposing his whereabouts in the process.
Isolde stared at her glass, then raised her hand dismissively. "I'm tired. You may leave."
As Zaid and Atlas reached the door, her voice followed them. "The facility is recommending someone for a chairman position. Zaid, prepare your credentials. I'm putting your name forward."
The research facility had twenty chairmen who communicated with the core personnel. Despite his years there, Zaid had never risen to this level—the nomination process was notoriously stringent. This was his opportunity.
Becoming chairman meant unlimited access to the pills developed by the facility, no longer subject to rationing. A smile spread across his face. With those toxic pills, he could easily dispatch Selena or Raymond—and ensure they died in the most undignified manner possible. His mood lifted considerably.
"Understood. I'll prepare the documents immediately," he said.
Once the door closed, Zaid headed straight for his quarters—a suite Isolde had secured for him and Atlas whenever they returned to the facility.
When Atlas entered his own room, he carefully removed the leaves he'd collected from his bag. Opening a glass cabinet, he added them to his extensive collection of leaf specimens—a habit he'd maintained for a decade. Throughout these years, always trailing behind Zaid, he'd rarely had time to himself.
At five years old, when he first met Zaid and glimpsed the blue sky, he had been transfixed by something entirely foreign to him.
In the research facility, he had only known transparent glass walls and white-coated doctors. His food had been raw meat, consumed with bare hands like an animal, driven by pure instinct. Many others like him remained in the facility; Atlas was fortunate to have glimpsed the outside world, while countless others didn't even know what a leaf was.
Atlas gazed happily at the wall of leaves, a smile playing on his lips.
The door opened as Zaid entered, raising an eyebrow at the collection. "You brought back more leaves?"
"Yes," Atlas replied.
"Why collect these things?" Zaid asked. With all their money, Atlas could collect any treasures he wanted. Why leaves?
Having never spent much time confined in the facility, Zaid couldn't understand how precious these leaves were to someone who had never seen the outside world.
"I just like them," Atlas answered.
When mimicking Zaid, Atlas spoke articulately and clearly, but when being himself, his responses came with a slight delay.
He rarely showed his true self except when back at the facility. Outside, he instinctively imitated Zaid, as if this were the only way to interact normally with others.
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