117: Forced confession

The burly man nodded without a word after receiving the order and turned to another room. A moment later, he handed a briefcase to Wen Hengtang, who was waiting at the door, and closed it behind him.

Wen Hengtang walked back, placed the briefcase on the table, and opened it. In front of Yan Zhuohua, he took out two vials of injections, one yellow and one white.

“These are all good things newly developed by the Biological Institute.” Wen Hengtang picked up a syringe and drew some of the white liquid. “This one is for amplifying perception. Just one milliliter can amplify it five or six times.”

“So now I can give you a chance. Tell me all the secrets, detailed data, and design structures of the mecha project, and these drugs won't be used on you. I can give you a quick end instead.”

“I'm not a Researcher, how would I know?”

“You're not a Researcher, but you're the one who test-piloted it. This matter caused quite a stir, so information is relatively easy to buy.” Wen Hengtang spoke with confidence. “You lied to me about being in solitary confinement for two months; you were actually learning the project's materials and training to use it, weren't you?”

“You guessed right. Unfortunately, there's no reward.”

“You really don't want to talk?” Wen Hengtang shook the syringe in his hand at Yan Zhuohua.

Yan Zhuohua did not speak.

“Then there's no other way.”

Wen Hengtang walked over with the syringe and pushed the medicine into Yan Zhuohua's arm.

“I know you've undergone drug resistance training, so I specifically went looking for this drug.” Wen Hengtang's eyes held a hint of triumph as he looked at Yan Zhuohua. “Don't you think I know you very well?”

“It's not exactly a secret; it's not hard to find out.” Yan Zhuohua answered him indifferently.

“True.” Wen Hengtang returned to the table and picked up the other syringe. “So, haven't I come to ask you about the secrets?”

“Then I'm afraid you've found the wrong person.” Yan Zhuohua watched as he drew some of the yellow medicine with a new syringe. “I won't tell you.”

“Once this drug is injected, it won't metabolize for a day or two, and there's no specific medicine to suppress it. It hurts a lot. When paired with the one from just now...” Wen Hengtang chuckled twice and walked back to Yan Zhuohua with the syringe. “I'll ask you one more time: will you talk, or not?”

Yan Zhuohua lifted his eyelids to glance at him, then closed his eyes again, ignoring him.

Wen Hengtang injected the second medicine into Yan Zhuohua's hand as well.

“Let's have a chat.” Wen Hengtang casually tossed the used syringe onto the table.

The drug took effect very quickly. Yan Zhuohua felt waves of intensifying pain spreading from the injection site to his entire body.

“Weren't you unwilling to chat?”

“I'm willing now. Whatever you want to ask, I can tell you.”

Constantly talking to someone while they are in pain can exhaust their mind, making it easier to weaken their defenses and thus simpler and faster to get the desired information.

Wen Hengtang was currently using this logic, and Yan Zhuohua understood it very well.

Logically, he should have refused to chat, but Yan Zhuohua still nodded.

“Sure, I do have many things I want to ask.”

The drug's effects had fully set in, and the sensation of pain quickly expanded to his whole body. Yan Zhuohua's fingers tightly gripped the armrests of the chair, and his breathing soon became rapid.

“Let's talk in chronological order. Why did you swap me and Yan Qinghe?” Yan Zhuohua's voice had already begun to tremble.

Wen Hengtang was indeed answering every question now. “We were wary of your weapon development and truly curious about what you could research. So, swapping the children back then was to plant a disaster for the current Yan Family. According to the original plan, once you succeeded, we could control Yan Qinghe by manipulating the Zhao Family and Zhao Zijing, thereby throwing the Yan Family into chaos so we could seize control of your new weapon.”

Zhao Mingting had indeed said that their plan was to make Yan Qinghe fall in love with Zhao Zijing to control the Yan Family. What Wen Hengtang was saying now matched up. As for controlling the new weapon, it likely meant obtaining all existing data while simultaneously destroying our side's future research progress.

“You didn't lie to me.” Yan Zhuohua forced out a sentence with difficulty.

“Why would I lie to you? You're going to die sooner or later anyway.” Wen Hengtang was completely indifferent.

“Then, why kill my father?”

“You mean Yan Jinming?” Wen Hengtang took a moment to react. “Oh, because we found your research was too advanced, completely exceeding our initial predictions. We feared it would be difficult to fully control even if the plan succeeded, so we had to weaken your strength and disrupt your research process. Ideally, we wanted to make you retreat in the face of difficulties and give up on continuing the research.”

So they had to eliminate the head of the Yan Family, the main force behind the research. Once the head died, the Yan Family could only struggle for self-preservation and would withdraw from weapon research. The withdrawal of the biggest player from the project would certainly cause the research to stagnate. At the very least, it would give those people time to consider how to continue targeting Huaxia's weapon development.

Only, they likely didn't expect that Uncle's appointment in the face of crisis and Jiang An's full support while living at the Yan Family for several months would actually allow the Yan Family to weather that crisis smoothly.

“Then you... really miscalculated...” Yan Zhuohua's speech had become intermittent.

“Yes, miscalculated.” Wen Hengtang sounded somewhat self-deprecating. “The task was handled very successfully, but the goal was not achieved.”

Yan Zhuohua was unable to speak for a long while; seeing this, Wen Hengtang very 'considerately' spoke for him.

“I guess you next want to ask why we revealed the child swap early when you were fifteen.” Wen Hengtang's guess was indeed correct. “It's very simple. You went out of control.”

Yan Zhuohua looked up at him with a tremble.

“We specifically chose the child of that thug, hoping you would inherit Ning Wei's worthlessness and be good for nothing, while Yan Qinghe would also be raised as a little thug. That way, we could stir up internal strife in the Yan Family to achieve our goal.”

Saying this, Wen Hengtang let out a sigh.

“We just didn't expect that not only would Yan Qinghe be very excellent, but you could actually reach a level at fifteen that made us wary. Setting aside whether your imminent inheritance of the Yan Family would allow the family to take a step further in the future, just speaking of the short term, you had secured your position as the head of the Yan Family early. Five years later, what could we use to make a Yan Qinghe who knew nothing compete with you?”

“Therefore, we had to make you leave the Yan Family early, or trigger the struggle between you two ahead of time. Otherwise, if we had proceeded according to the original plan, it would have been too late.”

It was likely more than that; his departure meant the heir to the Yan Family needed to be retrained. They certainly believed that Yan Qinghe, raised by a thug, would inevitably be unable to be trained into a qualified heir. However, they had clearly miscalculated again; he had simply left without being at odds with Yan Qinghe. In the heir's courses, Yan Qinghe not only learned well but also surpassed all other heirs. Though he was still quite far behind Yan Zhuohua.

Thinking of this, Yan Zhuohua was very happy. He even endured the intense pain throughout his body to force out a long sentence.

“Then you guys are truly unlucky! Scheming for over twenty years, every single thing was accomplished, but not one of them achieved its intended effect.”