Chapter 29: Are you living well?
“Going home to find my mom.”
Two strange words in one sentence.
Home was not home, just one of the countless experimental areas.
But compared to the other cold and solemn hells, the architectural style here was a bit too magnificent. If an outsider were to wander in, they would most likely think it was a marine-themed resort.
The main color was sky blue, and a huge dome was inverted, like a pile of waves. Transparent aquariums were scattered in an orderly manner, sparkling.
Mom was not mom, just a researcher.
It was just that her researcher was a little different from the others.
She was her only experimental subject.
After finishing her mission outside, she changed back into her own clothes and appearance. Little Seashell passed through the hidden passage formed by the aquariums and walked into the depths of the experimental area.
Red sea fish floated in the water around her, like blood-stained feathers. When she passed by, they all turned to look at her in unison.
This scene was very strange, as if they were believers attracted by an unknown force, worshiping piously.
Their eyes were also shining.
They were countless miniature cameras.
“Little Seashell.”
This voice was like a ghost passing through the vast space. The girl who was called stopped, and the rosy color on her face slowly faded, becoming pale. Without the playful smile that always seemed to be acting spoiled, the maturity that matched her physical age returned to her face.
“Mom,” she called out softly.
Opposite her was a female researcher in standard attire: a white lab coat, white gloves, and a white mask. Her figure and appearance could not be seen clearly, and she had a silent, cold feeling, like a withered willow covered in white snow.
“You came back late, and you didn’t get any useful data.”
It was definitely not the intimacy of a mother scolding her daughter for coming home late.
As the other’s voice came from under the mask, her face became even paler, and her body trembled slightly.
She knew that most of her “colleagues” hated missions. On the contrary, she had always liked to go out. This way, she could at least escape from here for a short while.
It was just that the department kept a close watch on her, and there were not many missions that required her.
“Hand.” The researcher approached, and her shadow enveloped her.
A one-word command.
She dared not resist and slowly rolled up her sleeve.
The texture of the sweater was already soft and loose enough, but as it slid up, the dry skin was still worn and wrinkled, making one suspect that with a light flick, it would tear and peel off in pieces, and then, the slender blood vessels and weak white flesh would be exposed, like a fish that had been scaled and skinned.
She stared at the ground. She couldn’t see “Mom’s” eyes, but she could guess that the other would not be moved.
“Come here.”
The other took the lead and walked away, leaving a gray and white back.
She followed, and after a dim passage, she stepped into a lift. The light alternated, and the giant cylindrical aquarium in the center gradually became visible.
Knowing clearly what was about to happen, she trembled even more and called out in a low voice, “Mom…”
However, the researcher just turned around indifferently and picked up the injector. She would not let her go out of pity, and would not even say a word like “this is for your own good.”
Under that emotionless gaze, the latter could only bite her lower lip and take off her clothes.
It was like the process of making a certain food. A cut was made in the neck, a soft tube was inserted into the body cavity, and gas was filled inside, not too much, not too little, until the skin and flesh were separated and the texture was just right. After that, the opening was stitched up, and it was thrown into the water to fix its shape.
No living person would be treated like this. However, with a similar process, she was pushed into the water.
Before the water covered her head, she saw the “mother” who she shouldn’t have called mother, but who had indeed created her, her eyes much calmer than the ripples.
Such gentle eyes, such indifferent emotions.
Dozens of meters high, a giant culture vessel specially made for her, a cylinder made of glass. A tube was inserted into the back of her neck, and the sharp tip was pressed into the bone seam. The nutrient solution was poured into her body, filling the subcutaneous tissue. As she sank, a terrifying water pressure also rolled up.
If it were in the past, she would have thought that this was her punishment for being late. The later she came back, the longer the “punishment” would be.
But later she found that it was better not to be punished.
Punishment was emotional.
“Mom” had no emotions.
Fish eggs could not live for more than a month.
And she had lived for many years.
It was just the price of living.
…
The 110th to 120th floors of the North Building were all sealed off, and the incubation room was being renovated.
Not a single piece of related news was leaked. Witnesses like Cheng Ming were required to sign a confidentiality agreement as soon as they regained consciousness. But the atmosphere in the Defense Center was obviously more tense, a low pressure before a storm.
This was mainly reflected in the fact that all personnel were required to go to the Security Department for a unified physical examination on December 19th.
Cheng Ming, who had just been discharged from the hospital, was no exception.
Jiang Dexin had wanted to give her two more days off, but she had refused.
She had too much work piled up, and she was prone to not sleeping well.
It was only after this incident that Cheng Ming knew that the risk level of the Wave-Born Floating Flower Algaefungus was actually MR.
No intelligence, but dangerous.
“You were directly soaked in the fungal solution at that time. It’s really a blessing that nothing serious happened,” Jiang Dexin sighed with lingering fear, which made her feel a little guilty.
After reporting that she was safe, she didn’t chat much and hung up the phone on the grounds that she still had to clean up the house.
After not coming back for a while, the apartment was indeed covered in dust.
Halfway through cleaning, Qu Ying came.
This time, she brought a whole box of nutrient and inhibitor supplements and put them down on the coffee table in the living room. “Twenty, half and half.”
Closing the door, Cheng Ming was stunned for a moment when she turned around. She couldn’t help but ask, “Sister Yingying, did you rob the department?”
Qu Ying glanced at her. “For tomorrow’s physical examination, you’d better inject at least two inhibitors before you go.”
Her tone was serious, and Cheng Ming frowned slightly. In that case, the specifications of this examination were quite high.
“But…” she subconsciously hesitated a little.
“What?”
“Nothing. I’m just worried that it will affect my body.”
“It won’t affect you,” Qu Ying said naturally.
Cheng Ming didn’t dare to say that she was worried about Xiao Ming. She guiltily changed the subject and, seeing her hurried appearance, asked, “Is there something wrong?”
“Yes,” Qu Ying nodded. “I have a new mission soon. It could be for dozens of days, or a few months. I will be completely out of contact.”
This news came suddenly, and Cheng Ming looked up in surprise.
Qu Ying took the opportunity to press on her forehead, and her black and white eyes were as clear as a contract written in black and white, allowing no room for doubt.
She said, “Live well, okay, little one? Don’t be in the hospital again when I come back.”
…
Qu Ying left.
The winter was deeper, and the night was colder.
The apartment was empty. Cheng Ming sat on the edge of the bed in her pajamas after taking a shower, picked up a small knife, and after a simple disinfection with iodophor, she made a cut on her little finger.
She waited quietly for a moment and, not surprisingly, found that the wound was still healing at an unusually fast speed. Only the bead of blood that had seeped out was still embedded in its original place, about to fall but not yet falling.
Her enhanced cell regeneration ability was not affected by the reduction in Xiao Ming’s conscious activity.
Normal embryonic development should rely on the stable aggregation of cells through intercellular interactions. However, the growth of this parasite might be tightly bound to her. At its birth, the dividing cells had dispersed and, with the flow of blood, had penetrated every corner of her body, truly a case of “you are in me, and I am in you.”
At least on a cellular level, they were already inseparable.
Looking at the faint scar on her fingertip, Cheng Ming made a calm judgment.
She couldn’t just sit and wait for death.
Her body was still safest only when it was in her own hands.
She wiped off the blood with a tissue, put the unused band-aid back in the drawer, suppressed her potential anxiety, and got under the covers to sleep.
“Xiao Ming—” she stopped abruptly after saying these two words.
Without her handy little housekeeper, Cheng Ming had no choice but to get up again, trudge two steps in the cold air to the switch, and click, the room was plunged into darkness.
Lying down again, she returned to the not-so-warm bed and closed her eyes.
Why hadn’t she realized before that it was so cold at night.
…
The next morning.
Squatting in front of the supplies that Qu Ying had sent last night, after a long hesitation, Cheng Ming finally only injected one inhibitor and closed the drawer.
She went out at the designated time, took the shuttle bus, and arrived at the health monitoring center of the Security Department.
In her memory, she had only been to this place once for her entry physical examination. After that, if there was anything, the Security Department would come to her. She no longer remembered the internal structure of this place. Fortunately, there was someone to guide her throughout the process.
The previous hydra incident had not caused such a large-scale investigation. This time, the appearance of the fish egg had not only blocked the news, but had also been so troublesome. The Security Department was very concerned and vigilant about this fish monster impersonation incident—she could easily read this information.
It was a blessing in disguise. The virus had caused the parasite in her body to be severely damaged, which had helped her cope with this physical examination.
Internal medicine, surgery, blood routine, brain CT… the routine items were, as expected, uneventful.
In addition, there were special instruments that she had not seen before, such as a holographic detection imaging system, which would record the entire state of the human body, including bones, muscles, internal organs, and blood circulation, and compare it with the person’s past physiological data and the normal average data. There was also a biophoton spectroscopy analysis system, which was a body surface scan to detect the weak and ultra-weak photon radiation of a living body, and to determine whether there were any abnormalities through spectral analysis.
For these two items, Cheng Ming’s report showed abnormalities.
The inspector looked at the results and then at her, and his brow furrowed. “Your brain radiation value is a bit high…”
This was very dangerous. The fish egg had parasitized the brain, and her data would inevitably arouse suspicion.
However, Cheng Ming was prepared and handed over her two discharge reports—the last time she had a fungal infection, and this time she had a viral infection.
The other party took them and looked at them carefully. Instantly, his gaze changed from vigilance to pity.
Walking out of the Security Department building with all her limbs intact, Cheng Ming adjusted her hat to cover her head tightly. As the cold wind blew in her face, she felt as if a stone had finally been lifted from her heart.
As expected, most of the time, her worries were unfounded. Unless a targeted test was conducted based on the suspicion that she was already under suspicion, such as gene sequencing, it was impossible for other methods to discover Xiao Ming.
She had not known in what form this monster had parasitized her before, and had had many terrifying imaginations, such as it being cooped up in one of her organs, clinging to the gap between her cerebral cortex and skull, or that her body had actually been quietly replaced, and that one day when it left her, it would tear her flesh…
Now it was confirmed that it was a complete fusion.
It could not leave her.
And neither could she.
The Security Department’s location was closer to the shore. The land heated up quickly, and the wind blew from the direction of the sea, carrying a unique cool and moist water vapor.
She put on her coat and hat and quickened her pace towards the exit gate. Suddenly, she saw in the reflective glass of the guard post opposite her that a dark shadow was rapidly approaching from behind.
Her heart almost skipped a beat. She looked again and saw that it was a member of the Security Department in uniform, a thin and tall young man, striding towards her.
Her heart was slightly suspended. Was he coming for her? Why? Was there a problem with her physical examination report?
Cheng Ming stopped and was about to turn around to ask when, just as she had turned halfway, a huge force pounced on her, almost breaking her waist.
Two powerful arms, like pliers, twisted her upper body.
Unlike her dazed and terrified state, the other person was overjoyed.
“Cheng Ming!” This person grinned without any image, completely forgetting that he was still on duty. “It’s really you! The biology class representative!”
As soon as this special name was called out, Cheng Ming was stunned. Her eyes gradually widened, and she found a trace of long-lost familiarity in that strange face.
“You’re—Xiao Hua?” she tried hard to remember. “Han Guohua?”
Suddenly meeting an old classmate, her head was spinning.
“Hey, hey, my name is Han Xuhua! How did you remember my name!” The latter was dissatisfied and squeezed her neck.
It had been so many years. The fact that she could remember two words meant that their relationship had been pretty good back then… Cheng Ming pushed her hand away and asked in disbelief, “When did you come here?”
“I was about to ask you when you came here!”
The world was really small.
But both of them were locals. After finishing their studies and coming back to build their hometown, the probability of them running into each other was already higher than others.
It was just that she had had a bad relationship with her class in junior high because of that incident. She was also young and impetuous, and children didn’t know how to leave a way out. She had directly quit the class group chat after graduation and deleted everyone with one click.
And compared to her aloofness, Han Xuhua was the type of person who could get along well with anyone. Thanks to the fact that her personality hadn’t changed much, except for being darker and thinner, Cheng Ming had only met a few happy puppies like her who didn’t know what distance was in her life, so she could quickly pull out the corresponding image from her memory.
“Where do you work? The research institute? As expected, a great scientist! I thought you would do this back then—”
She was so happy that she couldn’t stop talking, and Cheng Ming didn’t even have a chance to interject.
“Han Xuhua,” a stern female voice came from the earpiece. It was so close that Cheng Ming could hear it. “Report to the left hall on the first floor!”
“Ah! I’m doomed!” Han Xuhua almost jumped up. She quickly let go of her and rushed out, almost knocking Cheng Ming’s hat askew.
Then she turned back with the speed of lightning and said quickly, “Class representative, let’s get together when you have time! Not these few days, I might be punished… Anyway, I’ll contact you later!”
Before she could finish her sentence, she had already flown more than ten meters away.
Cheng Ming was dazed the whole time.
It was a full ten seconds before she remembered something was wrong—at least give me your contact information!
…
10 AM, North Building of the research institute.
On the 113th floor, construction workers were dismantling old parts and installing a new biometric system. The corridor was filled with the sound of electric welding and machinery.
“Huh? Why is the elevator coming up?” At this moment, someone suddenly said.
Of the four main elevators in the North Building, three had been withdrawn from the parking authority of these ten floors. One was left for the workers to carry large tools upstairs. The one that was running now was the one that theoretically no one but them would use at the moment.
The number on the display screen had passed the 110th floor and was still slowly rising.
Seeing this, the people who were close by stopped what they were doing and held their breath to look over. The team leader was a member of the Security Department, responsible for supervising the work and confidentiality. Seeing this situation, he was about to send a text message to the security station to ask if there was a malfunction.
Ding—
The hall door opened.
A young person, dressed warmly, walked out. She pulled down her heavy coat hood, revealing a woolen hat underneath, bright and tender yellow, which instantly dispelled the cold and desolate feeling of the wind and snow.
She smiled and showed her ID card, “Employee ID 7086, Cheng Ming, one of the people in charge of the 113th floor. I have special access.”
Although she had Teacher Jiang to back her up, the feeling of being rushed by work was fatal to Cheng Ming’s personality.
So after the physical examination, she came to work without stopping.
She needed to check the condition of the algaefungus and collect and organize the data that had been left behind for so many days.
After passing through the modified and reinstalled access control system and entering the sealed area, she threw her coat in the break room, changed into a full set of clothes and shoes, and walked into the dim incubation room.
The internal repairs had been completed. Looking at the clean and new floor and the obviously moved culture tanks, she had a strange feeling of a victim returning to the scene of the crime.
After inspecting and recording once, she finally walked to the two specially marked incubation tanks and, once again, violated the regulations and took off her protective suit.
Although the last deliberate sabotage incident had been stopped in time, some of the algaefungus had been disposed of because they had been exposed to the air and light. The rest was all the more precious. These two tanks had cracks in the glass at that time, but they had not been determined to be contaminated for the time being. Therefore, they were separated from the others and left for observation.
The culture tank had a reserved sample port for manual operation. She opened the cover, picked up a syringe with one hand, inserted it into the vein of her left wrist, drew about 1mL of blood, and injected it into the culture medium.
The slightly darker liquid was like ink spreading in water. It was not obvious in the dim light, and the faint ripples spread out and quickly dissipated.
She pulled her clothes back on and, while waiting for the wound to heal, she looked at the thick glass in front of her. Her reflection was reflected on it, and she couldn’t help but feel a little dazed. The stinging pain remained on her skin, but her expression was so calm that even she felt strange.
She used to be very afraid of pain, but now she was getting more and more used to hurting her own body.
The fungal solution did not show any changes for the time being.
Cheng Ming dressed neatly and went out to do other work first.
Six hours later, she returned again.
The incubation room was highly automated, and each incubation tank had a concentration calculation system, which mainly recorded the proliferation of the algaefungus through the photoelectric turbidimetric method.
She tapped on the digital display a few times and exported the growth curve within 12 hours.
At this time, the capacity of the algaefungus was far from its maximum, and it should be the time of the fastest proliferation. The analysis image was completely presented. Seeing the trend of suddenly slowing down in the middle, Cheng Ming only had the word “as expected” in her heart.
The virus that had infected her was indeed targeting the Wave-Born Floating Flower Algaefungus. Perhaps this virus was a “weapon” that the fish monster had deliberately brought ashore.
And, the fungus in her body was indeed the Wave-Born Floating Flower Algaefungus.
This algaefungus also had a dimorphic form, so it was a filamentous body when it parasitized her, and a single cell in the culture medium? Then what was Xiao Ming in essence? A strange fish that had been named “Jiao” by the Security Department, but a moldy and mutated version?
She watched quietly for a moment, put on her gloves, took out 10mL of the fungal solution from the sample port, and sealed it in a bag.
Then, she went up to the large instrument laboratory on the 126th floor.
The usage authority that Jiang Dexin had approved for her had not yet expired.
Entering the empty electron microscope room, Cheng Ming operated in an orderly manner, drying, preparing samples, and observing.
After repeatedly adjusting the samples and parameters, she finally obtained a clear image.
The acquisition of hospital treatment methods would ultimately have to rely on the experimental breakthroughs of the research institute.
She bent over and stood in front of the electronic screen, looking at the abnormal particles adhering to the algaefungus cells displayed, and carefully examined them frame by frame.
Finally, she picked up her phone and sent a message—
“Teacher Jiang, I’ve discovered a virus that can inhibit the proliferation of the algaefungus.”
…
When she returned to her apartment, it was already completely dark.
At this time, Jiang Dexin should be working overtime and discussing new topics with the researchers of the virus group. Cheng Ming, the proposer, had taken leave and left first.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to wait. She was more eager than anyone to find out about this virus. It was just that she had found that there was something wrong with her body.
She had endured it until she entered the door, and bang, she slammed the room door shut. She leaned against the hard wooden board and raised her hand. Every finger was trembling.
The indoor lights were cold and faint. Strange patterns spread on her thin nails, and strands of red silk wrapped around the nail cover. With a light flick, they squeezed out of the gap, like slender insects sliding down.
It was blood.
