Chapter 25: Aren’t you my companion?
This was great. Not only was she staying up late, she was pulling an all-nighter.
Cheng Ming wrapped a blanket around herself and brought it to her workstation. She slept in the break room for the first half of the night.
Just after midnight, she was woken up by the alarm. Her head was as heavy as if a mountain were pressing on her neck. She groggily grabbed her phone and took a look. For a split second, her thoughts were indeed, “Who am I, where am I, what am I doing, do I really have to suffer this…”
“If you keep this up, you might die suddenly,” her symbiotic partner was also woken up and said weakly, in a listless tone.
Two days of fruitless efforts had only completely disrupted her biological clock.
Cheng Ming threw off the blanket and stood up. She pressed a wet wipe to her forehead, forcing herself to wake up.
There was nothing she could do.
Looking at her own dark and shiny “hair” and her increasingly moisturized skin… she couldn’t seek outside help, so she had to investigate on her own.
This was the only possibility she could think of.
The monster that had turned into Huang Chengcheng had found her that night to collect her characteristic data for disguise. Although she couldn’t figure out how it was possible, since she had deliberately avoided any contact with it, and how could it be done with just the naked eye, without any high-tech scanning equipment.
And her most special feature was that she had control over the incubation room.
That monster was after the Wave-Born Floating Flower Algaefungus.
She had already carefully inspected the incubation room, and there were no unusual traces for the time being. Then she had spent a lot of time and found a few abnormal data in the vast number of records generated by the system every day.
The process of unraveling the mystery was like a real-life ghost story.
She found that “it” had already been here twice.
Very cautious.
Each time, it was for no more than ten minutes, and it was stopped at different checkpoints.
It was definitely a highly intelligent creature, not matching the characteristics of an MR-rank hydra.
As of now, it was still missing the last access code.
It would definitely come again.
This concerned her career, and there could be no mistakes.
Cheng Ming adjusted her mental state, brought a cup of tea into the operation room, and sat down in front of the computer to browse the values of the incubation room for the day, confirming that everything was working normally.
To avoid attracting unnecessary attention, she didn’t turn on the lights. The room was dark, with only the faint glow of the screen.
In such a quiet night, it was not easy to stay awake.
Fortunately, she had a parasite to keep her company and relieve her boredom.
“The main signs before sudden death are palpitations, chest tightness, difficulty breathing, dizziness… which are reflected in the cardiovascular system, respiratory system, and nervous system…”
Xiao Ming was holding her phone and muttering knowledge it had found somewhere, as emotionless as a student being called on by the teacher to recite in class.
“Are you done?”
And so, just ten minutes later, Cheng Ming couldn’t stand it anymore. She slapped away the mischievous mycelia and told it to shut up.
The clock quietly ticked to 2:30 in the morning.
The research institute’s water and electricity were supplied 24 hours a day. Cheng Ming got up for the second time to make a cup of tea. Her spirits had already slackened a lot.
She thought she would have to wait in vain all night again.
However, when she returned with a hot cup of tea, she blinked and found that there was an inconspicuous change on the screen.
A small line of words popped up in the corner—”Face recognition passed.”
The second line, “Fingerprint recognition passed.”
The third line, “Voiceprint recognition passed.”
…
The last line, “Access granted.”
She watched as the system, as if infected by a virus, automatically refreshed with a notification message that she would never have been able to see in real time.
The hot water in her hand seemed to have lost its temperature.
Her fingertips were cold.
It had come.
…
Thump, thump.
In a hidden, long-abandoned area in the basement of the biological experimental area, two hollow knocks echoed in the corridor.
“Team leader—” Han Xuhua knocked on the door and, after confirming that she had not gone the wrong way, entered the designated room. “Have the instructions from above come down yet?”
There were brown stains on the ground and walls that couldn’t be washed off. As she walked over, she felt that it was even more gloomy and oppressive than a morgue.
The interior had been rearranged. There were tables, chairs, and a sofa for receiving guests. It seemed that they had intended to turn it into an ordinary office, but in the end, it was still abandoned and had not escaped the fate of becoming a pile of miscellaneous items.
But young people were never lacking in vitality and were also good at imagining things. She didn’t think too much about it. Seeing her team leader now, she was even more excited. The little bit of indescribable strangeness had long been thrown to the back of her mind, leaving only anticipation.
The remains of the mutated creature that had been captured before had already been dissected and stored separately. Who would have thought that without the hydra, the body could still mutate and disappear so strangely.
They had repeatedly checked the morgue, but had not made much breakthrough. The main suspicion at present was that the hydra had reproduced by budding, leaving a bud in the human body to deceive everyone before it died.
Another new type, another new trouble.
What to do next required further instructions from above.
“Mm,” Yan Li handed over a heavy helmet. “Sit down and put it on.”
Obeying orders was a basic quality of a soldier.
Han Xuhua did not suspect anything. She took it and put it on properly, then asked, “Why haven’t they come yet? Team leader, did you miss sending the message?”
Yan Li said, “No need.”
This answer was very abrupt. Han Xuhua looked up and, through the sealed mask, found that her team leader’s eyes were a little strange.
Her back felt a little cold. She opened her mouth to ask, but her throat was stuck. Her muscles relaxed, and her vocal system was out of control. She couldn’t speak.
Yan Li looked at her and said, “You just need to take a nap.”
Soon, her vision, hearing, smell… all five senses were lost.
Under the effect of the hypnotic gas released by the helmet, her body went limp and she collapsed into the sofa, losing consciousness.
The door closed and did not open again.
Yan Li looked down at her watch. The scheduled time had already passed.
Just as a hint of a frown was about to appear on her brow, a light and cheerful female voice came from behind her—
“Hello, are you Team Leader Yan?”
She turned around and saw a young girl who looked to be just an adult standing behind her, appearing and disappearing like a ghost, and extending her hand to her with a smile.
She was wearing a long sweater and wide-leg pants. The collar was high up to her chin, and the pant legs were low to the instep, covering her very tightly, making it impossible to see her specific physical features.
The skin on her wrist was pale and thin, and the faint blue blood vessels below were clearly visible. She seemed to be malnourished, but when her gaze moved to her head, her cheeks were full and rosy, and she seemed to be well-fed.
“MM221?” Yan Li confirmed.
“Don’t call me that, it doesn’t sound good.”
She smiled, and there were dimples on her lips. She was very sweet, like a girl who had been raised in a honey pot, and she even sounded like she was acting spoiled when she spoke. “Mom gave me a name, it’s—Little Seashell.”
Looking at her appearance alone, who would have thought that this was another secret weapon of the Security Department.
Yan Li shook her hand.
But she remained cautious and never took off her gloves.
She was a little puzzled, “Mom?”
Just as she was about to withdraw her hand, she paused and saw that the other’s sleeve had moved up slightly, revealing a small section of her arm. There seemed to be… fish scales on her skin.
“It’s my researcher.”
This girl, named “Little Seashell,” turned around as if no one else was there and walked to Han Xuhua’s side.
“Is it her?” she held her hand and squeezed it.
She felt for a blood vessel, took out a syringe with practiced ease, and inserted it.
After drawing a small amount of blood, she looked up, pressed the plunger, and dropped it into her mouth.
Yan Li watched this scene, her expression unchanged.
But in the spirit of scientific inquiry, she asked, “Does it have to be blood?”
MM221, her identity was of extremely high confidentiality.
Not to mention a newcomer like Han Xuhua, the other team members also did not have the authority. Therefore, these things could only be done while Han Xuhua was unconscious, and in the subsequent missions, she, the main character, would have to temporarily disappear.
Secondly, it was also because she was a newcomer.
On the one hand, her age and figure were suitable. She was young and thin. When she wore clothes, she was slender and thin, easy to replace. On the other hand, she was not yet familiar with the other team members, so it was not easy to expose herself.
After about five or six minutes, Little Seashell turned back.
Her figure seemed to have changed somewhat.
“No.”
The light above was dim, and her face seemed to have merged. Her facial features were slowly adjusting, and her voice was also being fine-tuned with each word, gradually becoming similar to Han Xuhua’s.
She said with a smile, “As long as it carries genetic information.”
…
Biological Research Institute, 113th floor.
The operation room system was showing a negative pressure warning, a liquid leakage warning, a facility failure warning, and even a health monitoring abnormality.
In the incubation room, several containers had cracks, and one incubation container had been accidentally completely shattered, spilling the culture medium all over the floor.
But because the building materials of the research institute were of the highest specifications, the floor perfectly met the three main points: smooth, non-slip, and non-leaking. And so, the algaefungus that had overflowed flickered with fluorescence and slid leisurely on the floor, like a room full of overturned stars.
In this brilliant sea of stars, Cheng Ming caught the “little thief” who had used her identity and tried to destroy the most important basic materials of the research institute.
Although she was a little late, when she arrived, the other party was about to tamper with the culture medium delivery pipeline. The moment she discovered that its purpose was to pollute the algaefungus, Cheng Ming hurriedly pressed the emergency exhaust button. The variable air volume system was activated, and the internal pressure was reduced.
The double-layer airtight doors were urgently sealed, and all the ventilation and cleaning systems were turned on. The air supply valve was opened.
The machinery on all four sides was buzzing, and the incubation room had become a dangerous place, suitable for fungus but not for humans.
The pressure dropped by 10Pa.
Breathing was a little difficult.
In addition to the fierce struggle just now, her blood oxygen was exhausted, she was dizzy, and she heard auditory hallucinations. Cheng Ming gasped for the air that she didn’t know if it was still clean, and stared at the unknown creature under her, as if she were seeing an indescribable horror scene—
She saw a familiar face.
Although she had prepared herself psychologically, at this moment of direct confrontation, the preparation was clearly not enough.
Her own face appeared on another strange body, and the impact was far greater than any more disgusting or more terrifying monster.
And this body that it had occupied and transformed was clearly on the verge of exhaustion. It could only barely maintain the normal operation of the upper part of its physiological functions. The head was intact, but some of the lower tissues had already shown signs of necrosis, and a faint smell of a corpse floated in the increasingly thin air.
Cheng Ming knelt on its back, feeling the bones beneath her dry and grating against her hands, and the flesh was swollen and bulging, as if the abdominal cavity had already rotted into a mass of mucus. If she were to poke it lightly, the soft and rotten internal organs would burst out.
The pressure dropped by 20Pa.
“Why are you stopping me?” it finally spoke.
It was still wearing the clothes it had worn when it had disguised itself as Huang Chengcheng and stolen from her. It turned its head 180 degrees, and with her face and her voice, it frowned slightly and squinted its eyes, with a puzzled expression.
It seemed extremely incomprehensible.
But to Cheng Ming, this question was so absurd and bizarre that it almost made her laugh.
She gritted her teeth and gasped, “If I don’t stop you, should I help you?”
Worried that she would accidentally squeeze it and make it burst, she slightly relaxed her grip.
“Isn’t that right?” The resonance organ was released, and its voice became smoother. It blinked its eyes, and even looked a little innocent and pitiful, staring at her sincerely, with genuine confusion. “Aren’t you my companion?”
Companion…
Companion?
Companion again!
This time, this sentence… was it referring to her, or Xiao Ming?
The pressure dropped by 40Pa.
Cheng Ming was like a statue, motionless, her breathing even heavier. She stared at it, afraid of missing any more information.
And the mycelia, which had been a hands-off manager since subduing the enemy and had been secretly eating the algaefungus on the side, also stopped moving.
“You even gave me a bath.” The last sentence was already like a thunderclap on a clear day, making her head buzz. She didn’t expect there to be an even more bizarre sentence, “I remember your smell.”
What did it mean, she gave it a bath? At most, she had let it wash itself…
Wait a minute.
Cheng Ming’s eyes slowly widened.
It was the transparent “sea urchin” that had repeatedly and boldly used her bathtub—the larval form of the mutated hydra, the planula larva?
So, it had never harmed her all along, and had even treated her as one of its “own”?
But how could a hydra have the ability to change its form?
Under the blue fluorescence, everything was coated with a psychedelic color. The bright parts were still not clear, and the dark parts were even darker.
Cheng Ming looked at the face that was so close to her, the facial features that were exactly the same as hers. She was shocked and uncertain, and confusion and fear were intertwined in her heart like a dense net.
Her hands were shaking.
Her whole body was shaking, and even the mycelia that slowly covered her, trying to comfort her, were of no use.
Xiao Ming was calling her, but she couldn’t hear it.
The pressure dropped by 80Pa.
It was difficult to get oxygen, and her head hurt even more.
Her lungs were desperately contracting and expanding in her chest, like a dying creature that was unwilling to be exhausted.
The most important thing right now was not the principle behind its imitation of humans.
She had grasped something in a flash of insight.
The planula larva was transparent and could float in the humid air for a long time without being discovered… The pendant had always been hanging on her chest, and she had discovered the secret of the red seashell before she took a shower… In order to find out the truth, she had asked Jiang Dexin for leave to go home, and it had been quietly following her all that time…
The messy fibers were twisted into a long thread.
Cheng Ming pulled out the pendant from under her collar and, word by word, gritted her teeth. It didn’t sound like a question, but like she was chewing the flesh of her enemy—
“Do you recognize this?”
