Chap­ter 3 — Beau­ty and the Beast begins at the heart of Pro­fes­sor Max­on’s com­pound, where a piv­otal moment unfolds behind the closed doors of his mys­te­ri­ous lab­o­ra­to­ry. Two weeks had passed since a crit­i­cal break­through had brought new ener­gy to their sci­en­tif­ic work. Von Horn, ever wary of the con­se­quences, con­tin­ued to keep his weapon close, mis­trust­ing the unsta­ble nature of the beings they were bring­ing to life. Their lat­est progress had made the pro­fes­sor more obsessed, focused on prov­ing his the­o­ries with a cre­ation that could blur the lines between inven­tion and human­i­ty. Despite von Horn’s reser­va­tions, he was drawn into Max­on’s zeal, curi­ous yet con­cerned about the poten­tial con­se­quences of their suc­cess. The loom­ing sense of dan­ger was nev­er far, hid­den beneath sci­en­tif­ic ambi­tion.

Away from the lab­o­ra­to­ry, Sing Lee had his own con­cerns and qui­et­ly fol­lowed his instincts. His path led him deep into the sur­round­ing jun­gle and even­tu­al­ly to the shore­line, where he stum­bled upon a sin­is­ter con­ver­sa­tion. Budu­dreen, the ship’s first mate, was seen speak­ing with Rajah Muda Saf­fir, a tall and impos­ing fig­ure with dan­ger­ous inten­tions. Their hushed dis­cus­sion cen­tered on abduct­ing a white woman to offer as a prize to the Rajah, their words sharp­ened by the sug­ges­tion of silenc­ing any wit­ness­es. The impli­ca­tion was clear—Virginia Max­on was in grave dan­ger. Sing Lee, unable to con­front them direct­ly, retreat­ed qui­et­ly to con­sid­er his next move. He knew that open con­fronta­tion would be risky, but allow­ing the plan to unfold unchecked was unthink­able.

Mean­while, in the court of mys­tery, eth­i­cal lines were being test­ed. Max­on and von Horn debat­ed the very nature of the beings they had made. Von Horn argued for destroy­ing the imper­fect ones, call­ing them abom­i­na­tions, but Max­on clung to his belief that these crea­tures, though flawed, held pur­pose and poten­tial. He saw them as part of a greater plan to change human­i­ty, per­haps even to replace it. Their con­ver­sa­tion revealed not only a philo­soph­i­cal divide but also the dan­ger­ous extent of Max­on’s ambi­tions. Von Horn’s frus­tra­tion was build­ing, caught between loy­al­ty, desire for Vir­ginia, and fear of what their cre­ations might become. In con­trast, Maxon’s resolve was absolute, unwa­ver­ing in the face of grow­ing risks.

That night, Sing Lee returned to the lab in secret, dri­ven by a need to dis­rupt what he could not open­ly oppose. His entry result­ed in the break­ing of a vat—one con­tain­ing what would become the thir­teenth cre­ation. By morn­ing, the out­come of his inter­fer­ence was vis­i­ble. A man­like fig­ure emerged—physically per­fect, with no signs of the defor­mi­ties that plagued the ear­li­er ver­sions. Though dazed, his demeanor was calm and almost inno­cent. Pro­fes­sor Max­on looked upon him with awe, hope­ful that his mas­ter­piece had final­ly been born. Num­ber Thir­teen had awak­ened, but no one knew yet what kind of soul lay with­in.

At the same time, Vir­ginia, feel­ing iso­lat­ed and uncer­tain of her place with­in the com­pound, chose to wan­der out­side the walls. Her reflec­tions on von Horn—his charm, his secrecy—left her con­flict­ed. The jun­gle around her, once a refuge for thought, now became a set­ting of dan­ger. Unknown to her, one of the ear­li­er failed exper­i­ments, Num­ber One, had bro­ken free. See­ing Vir­ginia trig­gered in him a ter­ri­ble long­ing, one born not of under­stand­ing but of instinct. He saw in her some­thing he lacked—beauty, grace, and acceptance—and this drove him to act with con­fused des­per­a­tion.

Virginia’s scream shat­tered the qui­et morn­ing and alert­ed the camp, send­ing Max­on and von Horn rac­ing through the trees. They reached the site too late to stop the encounter, but its impact was imme­di­ate. The truth of Max­on’s work—its hor­ror and its recklessness—was made man­i­fest in that sin­gle moment. Vir­ginia had seen what sci­ence had cre­at­ed when guid­ed only by ambi­tion. And while her father might see promise, she saw per­il. Num­ber Thirteen’s emer­gence and Num­ber One’s obses­sion would become sym­bols of the twin out­comes of the professor’s unchecked genius. As fear min­gled with moral uncer­tain­ty, the foun­da­tions of trust and safe­ty began to crum­ble.

The chap­ter offers more than just a dra­mat­ic turn of events. It lays bare the con­se­quences of pow­er pur­sued with­out restraint and the dan­ger of see­ing peo­ple as projects. Through Virginia’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, von Horn’s envy, and Maxon’s blind­ness, read­ers are remind­ed that beau­ty and mon­stros­i­ty often lie not in appear­ance, but in the choic­es that shape us. In that world, even a per­fect face might hide chaos, and even a beast might long for more than instinct allows.