Chapter 306 - 305: Can’t Trust Anyone...

Chapter 306: Chapter 305: Can’t Trust Anyone...

At the end of the corridor, where the light shone through, stood a very familiar figure: Owen Foster. He was the butler of the Lancaster family, Felix Foster’s adoptive father, and one of the people Asher trusted the most.

His complexion was poor. He furrowed his brows, shot me a glance, and signaled the men behind him to make a move. "Seize them all."

Felix looked at Owen with equal shock. "Dad?"

Owen ignored Felix, looking at him with an unfamiliar gaze. Felix quickly calmed down and said nothing.

Owen was actually a member of the Resistance?

"Why?" I asked. Why betray Asher’s trust? As a member of the Resistance, he had been lurking by Asher’s side for so many years.

"What makes you so sure that the Young Master isn’t a member of the Resistance?" Owen asked meaningfully.

I fell silent, speechless. At this point, if someone told me a stray dog on the street was the leader of the Resistance, I’d believe it. Everything, from beginning to end, seemed to have come full circle, returning to the original starting point. From the appearance of the first serial killer victim, to Cecilia Caldwell’s death, to my rebirth... and one victim after another turning into perpetrators, it was like a meticulously orchestrated play. When the curtain finally fell, it turned out that the original few people were still the most suspicious.

Owen was a member of the Resistance; could Asher really have noticed nothing at all? I didn’t doubt Asher’s feelings for me, but I would doubt his motives. If Asher was part of the Resistance, was "killing" Cecilia his pledge of allegiance to the Genetics Organization to better hide his identity?

My palms were sweating. I lowered my head, not daring to overthink. Asher wouldn’t kill me. Absolutely not. Perhaps Asher used to be a part of the Resistance, but because of what happened to Cecilia, he broke ties with them due to a difference of opinion? These were merely guesses. Until I saw Asher, I couldn’t get an accurate answer.

"No one fight back," I said, turning back to look at everyone. We needed to stand down for now and see what the Resistance intended to do.

"You plotted all of this just to find the president of Astraeus Group?" I asked Owen warily after we were brought into a room.

"Our true purpose is to expose the secrets of this ship to the public, so everyone knows... the conspiracy behind this organization," Owen said flatly.

Some things were meant to fester in the gutter. Once exposed to the light, they would die.

"And the president of Astraeus Group is the nutrient that feeds the bloodsuckers in the gutter. We must drag him out and eliminate him right in front of the Genetics Organization, so they can finally understand what true, agonizing pain feels like," Owen continued in a deep voice, seemingly harboring a profound hatred for the Genetics Organization.

"Why do you hate the Genetics Organization?" I could understand my own hatred for them—because they never treated the experimental subjects as human beings, and our very births were a massive conspiracy. But what about Owen?

"Probably because he was also hurt by them?" Ace said sarcastically, standing not too far away from me.

Owen remained silent, but I could more or less guess that it had something to do with his family.

"I once... learned about the so-called Genetics Organization because of the Lancaster family. They claimed that as long as you had money, power, and status, you could bring the dead back to life through this so-called gene cloning technology..." Owen sneered. "They said they could extract DNA to clone an identical person with the same genes... and perhaps even the exact same personality.

"I believed it. I begged them to preserve my sister’s remains. I thought that once I had the money and power in the future, I would definitely resurrect her... I didn’t even hesitate to become their pawn, acting as their informant within Lancaster Group..." Owen muttered softly.

He had originally belonged to the Genetics Organization.

"They told me that President Marcus Lancaster had become a traitor to the organization. Not only did he cut off their funding, stalling their project’s progress, but he also attempted to stop their research on cloning and genetics. Under their brainwashing... I leaked President Lancaster’s information... and allowed the organization’s people to kill him!"

Owen was trembling all over. He was probably truly regretful because he was the one who had gotten Marcus Lancaster killed. The Genetics Organization had deceived him. They didn’t clone his sister as he wished, and they had even caused Marcus’s death. When Owen finally realized the truth afterward, he began his counter-crusade against the Genetics Organization.

"It’s a pity that you merely stepped off one point of no return and onto another." I looked at Owen and walked up to him. "Did Asher know?"

The Resistance members stopped me, preventing me from getting too close to Owen.

Owen looked at me with a profound gaze. "Truth and lies... require you to feel them with your heart."

"Who killed Cecilia Caldwell?" I motioned for Owen to raise his arms. I wanted to see... if he was the one who had killed me.

"Do you think I’m the one who killed Cecilia?" Owen laughed, voluntarily raising his arms.

Clearly, it wasn’t him. Owen was relatively tall and, despite being middle-aged, had a sturdy build. At a glance, he definitely wasn’t the person who had killed me. In the memories I had just before I "died," my killer had a red birthmark on his arm. Who on earth was it? In my memory... the person wasn’t sturdy; they were even somewhat frail, and the red birthmark on their arm was particularly prominent.

I looked up warily around the room. Aside from Owen, there was the leader of the Resistance, the person wearing a human-skin mask and using a voice changer. Who was his true identity? Why disguise himself so thoroughly? And what about Peach’s voice that I had heard outside the door... where did that come from? Did I mishear it?

"They know too much. Kill them all," the masked leader said in a deep voice through the voice changer.

"Kill them? Then who will help us expose all of this?" Owen didn’t seem to want to kill us. He looked at Felix. "Besides, my son is among them."

"Merely an adopted son," the leader retorted, somewhat annoyed.

"Even a dog earns your affection if you raise it long enough," Owen interrupted.

"Gee, thanks," Felix muttered through gritted teeth. "You hid yourself really well, old man!"

Owen ignored Felix and spoke again. "From the very beginning, the rules of our game were to involve the police, the forensic doctors, and the imperfect victims. You should know, gathering everyone on this ship wasn’t easy. If they all die... our goal won’t be achieved."

I watched Owen and the masked man cautiously. I couldn’t shake the feeling that things weren’t as simple as they currently appeared.

"Find the president of Astraeus Group first!" The masked man’s voice was low. He shot Owen a warning look before turning and leaving.

Owen ordered the men beside him to keep an eye on us and then walked straight out.

"How much of his words can we trust?" I asked, looking at Felix, Lucas Grant, and the others.

"The closer we get to the end, the less we can fully trust anyone. They’re all seasoned actors..." Zeke Shaw rubbed his temples, obviously still reeling from the shock.

Even Owen was a member of the Resistance. Was there anyone left by our side who could still be trusted?

"Stop it, my head hurts. At this point, I suspect even my own mother is part of one of these two extremist organizations," Lucas said through gritted teeth. He cast a dark glance at Felix. "Your dad is in the Resistance. You aren’t one of them too, are you?"

"I’m just a high school student, thanks. You flatter me," Felix scoffed. He sat on the floor, ignoring Lucas, but for some inexplicable reason, I felt he was acting guilty...

"Captain Lowell definitely isn’t..." Lucas looked at Zeke. Right now, other than Zeke, no one could be trusted.

Then, Lucas looked at Julian Fletcher. "Your mom being part of the Genetics Organization is shocking enough as it is..."

Julian subconsciously looked at Ace and me. He lowered his head and spoke with guilt. "I used to wonder why my mom brought Cecilia back in the first place. I thought of many reasons, and I even resented Cecilia because of it, but the one thing I never expected was that my mom wanted to closely monitor and observe an experimental subject..."

I didn’t say anything. I just sat on the floor, pulling Adrian Lancaster and Stella into my arms.

Zeke was right—the closer it got to the end, the less you could fully trust anyone. Take Gigi, for instance... Ever since she guided me to find Adrian and Stella, I had harbored suspicions about her.