After Being Parasitized by a Monster 79

Chapter 79: “Tell me about Cheng Ran.”

“Professor Cheng—”

Swish. With a friction so light it was almost silent, a sheet of drawing paper was taken from in front of Cheng Ran.

At first glance, the opposite side of this studio was a wide, one-way mirror. Clear and deep light came in, filling the interior with a dreamlike color. But even when Qu Ying, who was dressed in all black, came forward, there was no more shadow reflected there.

It was an electronic screen disguised as a mirror, like a central control center in a prison, monitoring the various key detention areas.

Few people knew about this mysterious first-level researcher from the evolution department, so Qu Ying was alone.

Her colleagues in the department suspected her of dereliction of duty, but in fact, in this experimental base, there was another person who had this authority, who was more free, more convenient, and could achieve it more secretly.

Cheng Ran had originally been looking down, her gaze on her chest, where a small seashell was lying quietly, pulling the fabric of her clothes into soft wrinkles.

Now, she slightly raised her eyelids.

Qu Ying bent down and picked up a red neutral pen.

Right by Cheng Ran’s hand, in the blank space of this drawing paper, she wrote a line of bright red words—Why did you let her go?

This line of words was pushed in front of Cheng Ran.

And she turned her head to stare at Cheng Ran, and what she asked was, “Can I see the surveillance?”

…

At 4 in the morning, Cheng Ming returned from the research institute.

Although her access was gone, she still had a memory of the structure of the research institute building like the back of her hand. After her abilities had been upgraded, it was even easier than before. She had not spent much effort to get into the long-lost incubation room and had taken a tube of blue, fluorescent algaefungus.

Then, she had chosen an empty laboratory, had poured the algaefungus into an ultrasonic cell crusher and had crushed it, and had obtained the upper clear solution by centrifugation.

The effect of the algaefungus was fusion. It could graft different animal cells together, form a chimeric cell mass, and affect the intercellular recognition mechanism.

She silently thought about the principle, and with this tube of liquid, she returned to her apartment and asked such a question, “What if I use live fungus?”

“That might cause an infection, melt the human cells, and form a super—large multinucleated cell sarcoma,” Little Seashell sat at the table and waited for her, and said, swinging her feet. “Do you want to try?”

She had requisitioned Yan Rong’s desk, which was large enough to accommodate a wheelchair, as a temporary experimental table. The sterilizer was on, and in the center was a round container that had been dismantled from some equipment, which was acting as a reaction bottle. She had connected a soft tube to the medical pod.

Cheng Ming put the fungal solution on it and, hearing the sound, she glanced at the “hair” that was quietly clinging to her in her peripheral vision.

The one that was fused in her was clearly a live fungus.

She said noncommittally, “You know a lot.”

“Of course,” Little Seashell jumped down from the edge of the table. “Every time Mom does an experiment, I’m right there.”

Her movements and tone were very light, and she always spoke with a coquettish end. As soon as the word “Mom” came out, Cheng Ming’s hand paused, and her heart suddenly felt a slight pang.

Very inappropriately, some bitter taste welled up from the bottom of her heart.

She understood that this emotion was probably jealousy.

She was jealous that when she had thought Cheng Ran was dead and could only miss her in her dreams, the other was inseparable from her mother. She was jealous that Cheng Ran had been absent for these seven years, leaving her with endless loneliness and sadness, and that the other had another daughter to accompany her.

MM221 was an experimental subject, and she was also an experimental subject. To Cheng Ran, was there any difference between them? Probably not.

“There is,” Xiao Ming interjected. “You have Cheng Ran’s own genes, she doesn’t.”

This Fish-Fungus would not let her have time to be sad alone.

Little Seashell turned her back to her, picked up the bottle of turbid fungal solution and looked at it. The liquid in her palm was emitting a familiar fluorescence.

“I’m so envious of you, sister,” her voice was so light that it was indistinguishable. “You don’t know anything.”

She injected the algaefungus into the nutrient solution.

Cheng Ming came back to her senses, understood what she had to do, walked over, and carried Yan Rong into the medical pod. She placed her in a suitable position, adjusted her to a side-lying position, and lifted the clothes that were covering her.

This was to draw bone marrow fluid. There were a large number of adult stem cells in the human bone marrow. As long as these cells were not destroyed and could be directionally activated, in theory, almost all injuries could be cured.

The posterior superior iliac spine puncture was a delicate job. Fortunately, the biology department had provided a high-tech medical pod, and these operations could be done by the instrument.

The 2ml of bone marrow fluid was a bit viscous in the syringe, like an oil drop, and the red was very thin. Yan Rong’s hematopoietic function was clearly failing.

MM221 rolled up her sleeves and exposed her arm, and simply did a sterile treatment.

That skin was too unusual, and Cheng Ming couldn’t help but look at it. The pale and weak epidermis was pitted, with countless remaining scars, old and new overlapping. The deep parts that had not healed well were black and purple, and the surface was pale and swollen.

A mermaid’s self-healing ability was strong, but these marks were still so clear. One could imagine how much trauma the flesh and blood had suffered.

Her arm was soaked in the solution. Without using a blade, she blinked her eyelashes, and the tweezers went under the surface of the liquid. At the original wound, she bluntly dissected a new wound.

A faint blood color spread out, and it was turned into a dark brown by the faint blue fluorescence.

The healing process was visible to the naked eye. The newborn granulation tissue was pushing and struggling, like a needle and thread that wanted to stitch up the opening, but it was torn again by the metal tip.

Cheng Ming frowned as she watched, but the other’s back, although it was trembling a little, her hand was still quite steady. She didn’t know if it was because she was already used to it.

She went forward and injected the bone marrow into the nutrient solution as well. From the side, she saw MM221’s lowered eyes. It was not so much pain as it was a daze.

Connecting the scene she had seen at the breeding base two months ago, Cheng Ming basically understood the principle of these processes.

This was the manufacturing process of radiation genetic disease drugs.

The R&D raw materials of the special medicine were related to mermaids.

The mermaid’s own super strong self-healing ability was the best “drug guide” to stimulate the activity of stem cells. And the algaefungus was the bridge between different animal cells, which made the unknown substance that was responsible for the activation function lose its judgment and transfer this ability to the human cells.

But she also remembered that the original treatment principle was proposed by Chu Xiuru sixty years ago. At that time, there was no large-scale ocean pollution… was there a deeper origin between the two?

This conflict between the land humans and the ocean Jiao—perhaps, it could be called a war—had started a long time ago.

The alarm was set for twenty-five minutes. When the time was up, the bell rang, and the piercing sound brought back her wandering thoughts.

Little Seashell yawned and pulled out her hand, saying, “It’s done.”

She took a piece of gauze, but it was not for bandaging, but just to wipe off the extra liquid. The split wound was writhing and healing, and the number of cells in the container increased, and the solution became more turbid.

Cheng Ming turned off the dialysis machine, collected the separated bone marrow cell fluid, and was about to re-inject it into Yan Rong’s body.

During this process, she was fully focused and very nervous.

She hadn’t moved Yan Rong out of the medical pod because she was afraid that there would be a rejection reaction like in the biology department, and the rescue would not be in time.

The treatment fluid was pushed to the end, and she stood by.

Ten minutes passed, half an hour passed, an hour passed… Cheng Ming was always watching the life monitor on the medical pod. The slightly fluctuating physiological indicators had all stabilized, and a faint yellow halo had seeped in from the edge of the curtain. So far, there were no abnormalities.

221 was forced to sit on the side and accompany her, bored. She rested her chin on her hand and was dozing off. She said, “Don’t worry, my sister, there can’t be a problem.”

Cheng Ming ignored her.

Her trust in this “sister” who had appeared halfway was very limited.

Seeing her stubbornly insist on continuing to wait, 221 rubbed her eyes and stood up, “Then I’ll go to sleep myself.”

“Sit down,” Cheng Ming did not turn her head.

Looking at her own reflection on the curved glass surface of the pod lid, it was like a kind of inner reflection. She said, “Tell me about Cheng Ran.”

…

The biology department was unusually lively tonight, and several buildings had not slept all night.

First, the distribution staff were coming in and out, moving monsters and biological samples. The researchers in the experimental area were coming and going, collecting data. Then, several armed military vehicles drove directly to the bottom of the main building, and the high-level leaders began to gather and receive them in a hurry.

In the conference hall, the central large screen was playing a part of the underground footage and the current autopsy progress.

It was replayed for the second time. Along with the person in charge’s voice, there was a sudden, loud thump, which made the teacups in front of everyone clatter a few times—

“Are you saying that the defective product from below ran out and caused trouble in the Defense Center for several months before it was caught?” Xia Guangsha slammed the table. “I told you before to destroy it directly, destroy it directly! Why did you have to leave it for some observation experiment! It has killed so many of our comrades. Don’t tell me it was also a part of the experiment?”

This deputy minister of the headquarters, who was in charge of combat affairs, was wearing a military uniform. His eyebrows were thick and his eyes were sharp. When he glanced at them, it was a fierce collision of black and white, and his aura was even harder than the metal chest badge on his left chest.

The scene was silent.

Xia Guangsha said, “Go to the Thermal Weapons Department and apply for a □□, a uranium bomb, and if that doesn’t work, a cobalt bomb! Immediately, clear out those hidden dangers below!”

A few senior researchers from the core area were also called to the conference hall. They were all disheveled from staying up all night, and they were all surprisingly drowsy, treating the leader’s angry reprimand as a lullaby.

Until they heard this, they couldn’t take it anymore.

A person jumped up from his seat on the spot and shook his head like a rattle, “No, no! No, no!”

But he couldn’t say why it was not possible.

Xia Guangsha looked over, “If you let them infiltrate again, do you believe that you’ll have an egg in your brain tomorrow?”

Seeing that the other’s anger was about to explode, Chu Lanying next to her simply flipped through the observation report of the underground experimental area for the past ten years, looked up and smiled warmly, and explained:

“They were doing an ecological experiment. There was originally a large amount of water stored below. After it was abandoned due to the accumulation of radiation, it just happened to simulate the current seawater environment, and a self-circulating small-scale ecosystem has been formed. It’s a very rare sample.”

The monsters that hadn’t died were gradually adapting to the nuclear radiation. Even if they were living in a twisted and painful way, they were still alive.

“That’s right, that’s right!” The researcher who couldn’t say anything just now immediately said with a stern expression, “And it has always been very safe before. The first and second basement levels could even be used normally. Those defective products have never run up. There must be another reason! It’s so abominable! Who is harming us!”

With Chu Lanying in front, the director of the biology department, Tan Shuqin, followed and said, “Let’s leave it for a while. The gene test results are not out yet. I’m afraid there are still living little comrades below. We need to organize another search and rescue.”

…

Abandoned underground experimental area.

There were indeed still “little comrades” alive.

Han Xuhua was woken up by being pushed.

At that time, there was a sudden accident. When she had gone down to the sixth basement level, she had gotten separated from her teammates. She had stepped on nothing and had fallen into a narrow gap, and had fainted. Until now, it seemed that someone had dragged her out.

However, there was no light, and the night vision was just a mosaic. She couldn’t see anything clearly.

The radiation concentration here was too high, and the combat suit had automatically switched to the lowest power consumption state to maintain basic life support, a fully enclosed oxygen supply and a constant temperature system. There was water under her, and something was pushing and pushing around her. The touch was sticky and tough, like a big tongue trying to push her to another place.

The moment her consciousness returned, she remembered that a moment ago, they were fighting against a monster, and this was the monster’s nest. She was horrified, and with a jump, her upper body swished up. The result was that she hit an unknown metal structure, and a deafening clang was heard.

Bang! Her helmet was buzzing, and along with it, her skull seemed to have turned into a swarm of bees singing in chorus. The little bit of clarity she had had was shaken back to the chaotic era.

While she was unable to resist, the thing was even more restless. A claw-like thing had hooked on the back strap system of her combat suit and was dragging her around like a bundle, sometimes horizontally, sometimes in a sharp turn, sometimes suddenly in the air and weightless, and sometimes a hard object protruding from the ground would hit her waist and back with a thump, like a heavy hammer that almost knocked her internal organs out.

She had never suffered such a humiliation. Han Xuhua felt that her throat was on fire, and she really wanted to curse, or to hold a grenade and die with it, but she couldn’t even adjust her posture.

After this long and torturous journey, finally, like throwing away a piece of junk, she was thrown into a pile of miscellaneous items.

It was said to be miscellaneous items because when she was sinking, she had supported herself with her hand, and had only felt that there was everything, soft and hard, long and square, and it was sticky like a swamp.

And after throwing her away, the unknown creature on the other side had stopped moving.

If it were Cheng Ming, she would have been more cautious and would have remained motionless. She would have suspected that the other creature had another plan, and would have tried to get more information before taking the next step… however, this was Han Xuhua, who had been reckless since she was a child.

Supported by an inexplicable anger, she jumped out on the spot and grabbed a flare and shot it—

Like a black and white film suddenly appearing, two black shadows were dragged out by the flash marks.

The magnesium-aluminum powder whistled and shone as it rushed towards the wall thirty or forty meters away. The ground was covered with biological grease, and the high-temperature fragments fell with a thump, and it burned into a raging fire.

The fire was flamboyant and tore out countless ghost shadows. The visibility was very poor, but it was better than nothing. And so, she saw the thing that had dragged her here.

What kind of creature was that? It seemed to be a humanoid, but it was too far from the image of a human. It had no hair, and it was crawling on the ground, using its appendages to crawl. The first pair of appendages were raised, and they were very much like human hands. Its back should have been attached to an exoskeleton, just like some kind of soft-shelled sea creature, but there was too much exposed body surface. The wrinkled skin was bulging with pustules and cracks, and tissue fluid and plasma were dripping, and the flesh and blood were sticky and indistinguishable.

Just like it had dragged her, right now, this monster was dragging a new “bundle” over.

The attire was familiar. Han Xuhua looked closely, and her heart was pounding like a drum—

If there were no accidents, it was a teammate who had come down with her.

She was both shocked and suspicious, and the hand that was on her waist and wanted to take a weapon paused.

About two or three meters away, the monster threw down the new bundle and turned its head to leave again, completely ignoring whether she was dead or alive.

Looking at the pile of unrecognizable corpses at her feet, Han Xuhua understood a little—was this their granary?

While the fire was not yet extinguished, she looked around and searched, and in a few seconds, she saw the exit not far away. A colorful gate, with the sign of a safety passage on it, was clearly visible.

This… just like this? It didn’t kill her, and it didn’t guard her. Was it not afraid that she would run away?

Instantly, she had some contempt for the intelligence of these monsters.

Her teammate was still alive, just unconscious. After confirming this, while the monster had not returned, she quickly dragged the person up and went to the exit.

The safety passage was to ensure the safety of people, so entering from the outside required authority to unlock, but going out from the inside, in theory, only required a human identity.

She pushed aside the electronic screen that was covered with sticky liquid, and after the authentication operation was completed, she faintly heard a light click. Han Xuhua’s heart was filled with joy, and she pushed hard—the gate did not move.

She pushed again, and it still did not move.

It was over, there was a password.

Her heart sank, and what was worse was that at this moment, a swaying shadow was reflected on the rusty and faded metal in front of her. She turned her head, and in the dazzling backlight, the monster was close at hand.

A thick black shadow came, and she didn’t have time to grab her weapon. Just as she was about to dodge, the other’s target was not her. Thump! A loud bang, and the monster pounced on the human-height metal gate. Along with a sharp screech, it rolled to the ground, and a cold wind blew in from the deep and dark passage in front.

The door was open.

It turned out that it had to be pulled to one side.

Han Xuhua: “…”

Before she could react, the wet and purulent monster had jumped up again and had knocked them out one after another. When she came back to her senses, Han Xuhua was already pressed to the ground by her teammate, and the gate’s self-set elastic setting had caused it to close in just three or four seconds, and thump! it had locked them, the humans who had accidentally entered, outside.

In the last second of the gap, the strange creature behind the gate quickly crawled away. Before it disappeared, it turned its head and glanced at her.

Although its face was distorted, its facial features could still be vaguely distinguished. The pair of eyes that were embedded in that terrifying appearance were very much like human eyes, with more white than black.

Han Xuhua: ?

Was it an illusion? Was it just looking at her with contempt?

Looking at the radiation index again, it had dropped to a normal range in an instant. She adjusted the protective suit mode, spared some electricity for lighting and restored the network and communication, and only then did she find that she had been trapped for nearly forty hours.

She couldn’t send a message. She had to go up at least three more floors to communicate with the outside world for help. She hadn’t had a drop of water or a grain of rice for two days and two nights. Now, she had to drag her teammate and climb the stairs.

Han Xuhua was moving at a turtle’s speed. She felt that she had climbed from the Archean Eon to the Cambrian explosion, from the Permian to the end of the Triassic mass extinction… she turned her head and looked, and she had thought too much. It turned out that she had just gone up one floor.

Instantly, she felt a great despair.

She even wanted to go back and negotiate with the monster. Since you’ve already sent the Buddha to the west, why not just throw them to the surface?

…

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to send them.

It was that Cheng Ming was a little unable to hold on.

So much trouble.

She covered her forehead and sat up from the sofa. The distance was far, and the connection was poor. This was the limit. Her neural abilities were overused, and her head was now hurting so much that she wanted to saw off the top of her skull and take out her brain to rub it.

The conidia she had left had taken effect. She wanted to explore the environment under the experimental area and see what the biology department was hiding. As for saving people, it was just a matter of convenience. If she couldn’t, then it was their fate.

Fortunately, her old classmate was lucky every time.