On the other side of the city, still inside that villa. After answering a phone call, the secretary Yang’s face instantly changed. He hurriedly rushed into the study room and said sternly, “the military secret service department demands to block all access to all the materials regarding the case and prohibits the local police to continue investigating, and they’ll send someone over to pick up Yingying. In addition, the publicity department has issued a ban on all media networks from reporting it.”
The eyes of the middle-aged man behind the desk revealed a sharp gleam, but it quickly faded.
******
At this moment, in a quiet corner of a private restaurant in Xu Jiahui, amongst many celebrities and superstars from all over the world, two beautiful women were chatting in low voices.
“Excuse me, I need to answer this call.” Sitting opposite Wen Luo, the long-haired girl apologized and stood up, she walked to the side and whispered, “professor Sun, mhm, I’m at Xujiahui.”
Her project was a military secret, that she did not dare to reveal even to her close friends.
From the other end of the phone call came an old man’s excited voice, “you need to come back as soon as possible… No, I will ask them to pick you up. Otherwise, it will be too late! The thing we found this time is more than enough to let us rebuild the model!”
“What happened?” The long-haired woman couldn’t help but ask.
The old man on the telephone was probably too excited, he blurted it out, “there was a car accident this morning, I can’t tell you much in detail over the phone, but there is one thing at the scene that doesn’t belong here!”
…
Chu Yunsheng was brought into a small white room blindfolded. When someone took off his blindfold, the strong light on the top of the room made his eyes unable to open for a while.
Chu Yunsheng thought that it was probably the unluckiest day in his entire life. He had never gotten up this early before. But he just got up this early once, it brought so many troubles to him.
To this point, he was no longer nervous. Instead, he was trying to think about what to do quickly.
The ID that the person, who came to him, showed him left him with no other choices but to follow him. That was the military ID of the People’s Liberation Army. Although he didn’t know that ID, the red words on the ID were not something that someone would want to joke around.
When leaving the hotel, he deliberately did not take his backpack with him. Because inside it, there was his ancient book. He believed that if he left it with Xiaohai, he would definitely take care of it for him.
With the current situation, it was much safer to leave the book with Xiaohai than keep it next to him.
The soldier indeed searched his body as he had expected. They even searched his shoes as well. Chu Yunsheng couldn’t stand it anymore and began to complain about it loudly. He was not a criminal, why did they treat him like this.
Maybe the complaint indeed worked, from outside the room came an officer like a middle-aged man, wearing a military uniform. He waved his hand to signal everyone else to leave the room.
“Mr. Chu, I’m sorry, it was just a routine security check to ensure this place’s safety. Please don’t get mad. My surname is Wang and I am in charge of the investigation of the accident this morning.” The officer signaled Chu Yunsheng to sit down and said slowly.
‘That accident again!’
Chu Yunsheng was so frustrated. The troubles that were brought by that accident, became bigger and bigger, it was now completely beyond even a criminal case.
Letting out a sigh of frustration, he asked dubiously, “Sir, the whole incident, I have already explained it to the district police in the police station, they also made a record, I believe that with your ability, you should have gotten it already? I can assure you that I didn’t hide anything, and there is no need for me to hide. I was waiting for my bus there and then I saw a car accident, and if you don’t believe me, I heard the police said, that there was a camera there too!”
The military officer Wang waved his the hand to signal Chu Yunsheng to calm down and said with a smile, “Mr. Chu, actually, the camera was facing toward the other side of the road, it could only see you at the stop sign, the place of the accident is outside it’s shooting range. This is the reason why we invite you here. please come here. We want to know some information from you directly. First, can you tell me if you saw this man at the scene.”
After saying it, he took out a photo from a folder and pushed the photo to Chu Yunsheng from the bright and clean table and tapped on it twice. And he probably thought that Chu Yunsheng might be worried about something else, he added, “and don’t worry, I have requested the protection for you. So don’t be afraid that what you said may offend anyone. I can guarantee that no one will do anything to you.”
Seeing his attitude was much better than the tall, rich, and handsome man, the dissatisfied feeling of being forced to come here also reduced slightly. However, when he picked up the photos to have a look, he was dazed for a second.
It was that cleaner again!
Chu Yunsheng’s headache was getting even worse, he immediately put down the photo and said, “No.”
The military officer Wang frowned and reminded him, “Mr. Chu, don’t jump to the conclusion so quickly. Please look at it again and think carefully. This is a serious matter, but it has nothing to do with the car accident. I hope you can understand it.”
Hearing what he said, Chu Yunsheng had no choice but to pick the photo up and look at it again. After carefully looking at it for a while, he said it again, “I’m sorry, but I really have never seen this person before.”
The military officer thought for a moment and then said, “okay, Mr. Chu, the man in the photo has been in charge of cleaning near your community. He has lung cancer. According to his colleague’s description, he often coughs violently. Based on those descriptions, can you think again. Especially, did you hear anyone cough at that time?”
Chu Yunsheng squinted his eyes to take a quick glance at him. He pressed his lips and thought that it was impossible to conceal this matter now, so he simply nodded and admitted, “when I got up in the morning, I did hear someone coughing on the street, on the balcony, but it was on another road. So I don’t know whether it was this person or not.”
The military officer Wang nodded heavily and wrote down, “this information is very important. Now we can be sure that it was him.”
Chu Yunsheng did not know what he meant. So far, everything was too mysterious to him. Thinking about people saying that the cleaner was mysteriously missing, he could not help but ask, “why?”
The military officer did not raise his head, he just kept writing something while saying, “because according to the municipal records, there were no other cleaners nearby at the time, and since you did hear someone coughing on the road, it could only mean he was indeed working at that time. What happened was…”
Then he suddenly stopped, raised his head and looked at Chu Yunsheng curiously.
“I, I just heard from a colleague, saying that on the Internet, people said that this person mysteriously disappeared, so, so… I am just curious, curious!” Chu Yunsheng avoided his curious eyes and hurriedly explained.
But the military officer Wang’s expression suddenly changed and said with certainty, “your colleague was right! He indeed disappeared. That is why we also need you to see something!”
Chu Yunsheng regretted a lot. He cursed at himself silently in his mind that why he was being so nosy. Didn’t he have enough trouble already?
“Mr. Chu, please follow me. This is a military area. For your safety, please don’t run around without any permission.” The military officer Wang packed up the document and made a “follow me” hand gesture.
This time, there was no way Chu Yunsheng could leave. Therefore, he could only grit his teeth and follow him.
After passing a corridor and taking an elevator, they finally arrived at an inner hall, which was the size of a basketball court. It was surrounded by four security doors leading to a larger hall filled with all sorts of machines.
In addition to the heavily-armed soldiers, behind the security door, there were countless people in white coats, moving around hurriedly busy doing something.
This time, not only Chu Yunsheng needed to do the whole body examination, even the military officer Wang was no exception. Then only after they were asked to put on a white coat were they finally allowed to go in. Anyone could easily tell that there must be some top-secret thing going on inside the door.
“Mr. Chu, this way.” The military officer Wang was still that polite. It made Chu Yunsheng feel slightly better, and his unwillingness was also slightly reduced.
Soon, two people arrived outside of an independent lab one after another. The wall of the lab was reinforced with steel, very tight. After checking the document, they finally arrived at the destination.
There were about two dozen people in the white coats in the room, old and young, but now they all surrounded a transparent glass-looking box. From time to time, they would all exclaim in amazement.
“Professor sun, they’re here, and there’s a girl.” The military officer Wang looked at his watch and said, “she should be here soon, too.”
From the crowd, came out an old man. Quickly glancing at Chu Yunsheng, his eyes still had a trace of excitement. “How may I address you?”
The military officer Wang introduced on behalf of Chu Yunsheng, “this is Chu Yunsheng, the only witness at the scene.”
“Oh, hello hello, I’ll call you, little Chu.” That old man pulled Chu Yunsheng aside and said hurriedly, “I have a question that I must ask you. Did you see the cleaner disappear in person?”
Chu Yunsheng immediately shook his head, and said positively, “no, I only saw the broom fly away, I did not see anyone.”
“Are you positive?” “The old man asked again.
“I am just an ordinary civilian, why would I lie to the police and them?” Chu Yunsheng pointed to The military officer Wang and said.
“Such a shame, a shame!” The old man’s eyes revealed the disappointed look, but he quickly collected himself and said, “there is one more thing. You need to take a look. little Zhao, can you get the photos for me, please.”
“Yes, professor.” from the crowd walked out a girl, with delicate eyebrows, dainty nose, and a bookish charm.
When she took a stack of photos, walked to them step by step, Chu Yunsheng did not know why all of sudden he felt that this scene was so familiar to him.
The girl, the old man, and the jade pendant on the girl’s neck…
Has he seen them from somewhere before?
Why did he have this kind of feeling again?…
……
“Professor.” The girl handed the photo to the old man, and then took a quick look at Chu Yunsheng while feeling strange that why this man was staring at her without the slightest scruple.
“Little Chu? Little Chu?” The old man waved the photos he had in his hand and said. Seeing Chu Yunsheng was staring at his best female student, he could not help but smile.
“Ah… what is it?” Chu Yunsheng recovered and looked at the old man. But he was still frowning his brows.
“These photos were taken at the scene. Look at this. Did you see how it appeared?” The old man simply laughed and then quickly went back to the main topic again.
Chu Yunsheng took over the photos and checked it one by one. In those photos, it clearly showed a bloody ball-shaped cocoon-like slimy mucus organism. It looked very disgusting. But in the next new photos, it showed that the organism rolled to a puddle of water on the other side of the road, which just happened to be in Chu Yunsheng’s blind spot. But the girl sitting in the driving position should be able to see it. No wonder the girl was so afraid at that time and wanted him to stay. It turned out that she was scared by this thing.
Indeed, it looked really frightening, and without knowing that the cleaner was missing, it was very natural for her to mistake the mangled mass to be a part of the dead body!
After looking at it for a while, Chu Yunsheng shook his head and pointed to the photo, and said honestly, “I was in this position at that time, so I didn’t notice anything in the water. I’m sorry.”
The old man took over the photo in disappointment, just when he was ready to tell Chu Yunsheng that he could leave now, from outside the door, walked in two more people. One of them was still a military officer, whose rank seemed to be several levels higher than the military officer Wang, and the other one was a pale-faced girl.
The military officer Wang immediately made a military salute. The senior officer only nodded his head and then turned around and said softly, “don’t be afraid, Yingying. After the professor finished asking your questions, Uncle Wu will send you home. okay?”
The girl nodded her head like a well-behaved kid and then made a slight bow to professor Sun. The old man also smiled at her…
Chu Yunsheng was so exasperated that he almost vomited blood. Because of her, he was dragged into all this mess. But look at her, having a senior military officer to pick her up and send her home, and from the way that the senior military officer said, it was as if she was the victim.
Sure enough, people from different backgrounds would be treated differently.
The girl also seemed to recognize Chu Yunsheng. When two of them had eye contact, Chu Yunsheng suddenly remembered that during the meeting this morning, he also seemed to find that he had a strangely familiar feeling toward the girl as well. So he immediately began to examine the girl from head to toe carefully, attempting to find something on the girl that could help him to figure out why he had such a feeling.
Seeing Chu Yunsheng was staring at the new girl in an unrestrained manner again, the old man finally could not stand it but cleared his throat a few times to remind Chu Yunsheng, and then said softly to the girl, “We need to ask some information from you. Can you have a look at those photos and tell us if you saw this thing at the scene, if yes, when did you discover it?”
The girl took the photo, took a look at it, then she began to shiver, her face became even paler, and just when she was about to speak, from the transparent box, someone exclaimed in surprise, “older Sun, quick, quick, come over, it begins to split again!”
Hearing this, the old man hurriedly turned around and walked towards the transparent box. Looking up and down, he quickly waved his hands and said, “quick, quick, take photos and videos!”
Several young people in the white coats had already set up their cameras and started either taking photos or filming the transparent box.
Because of the commotion, the crowd also appeared a gap. Through the gap, from the angle of Chu Yunsheng and the girl, who had just arrived, they could see the box inside was containing a bloody, slimy mass, that was oozing mucus everywhere. Its size seemed to be many times larger than what it was in the photos.
The new girl blurted out a scream, covered her mouth immediately, but she was so scared, that her legs were shaking in fear constantly!
Chu Yunsheng was exactly the opposite. No one knows why, unexpectedly, he began to, step by step, walk to the box. For the safety of the people in the lab, the military officer Wang next to Chu Yunsheng wanted to pull him and stop him, but he was stopped by the senior military officer Wu.
The box itself was as big as a glass display counter, and the bloody, slimy mass expanded so dramatically that it suddenly filled the entire box. The group of people in white coats around the box were looking at each other in shock.
“Puff!”
Suddenly, a crack opened in the bloody mass, and in the slimy crack, there was a pair of sharp mouthparts hidden inside, making a rasping sound.
Then, from the mouthparts, a green, hot, smoking slime was suddenly spat out at the transparent glass, rapidly corroding the transparent box.
“Shit!” a man in white coat shouted loudly, “quick, call the security! Li Qing, you take people and ready to change the B2R box, it is very corrosive!”
But it was too late. The green slime was smoking hot, and almost nothing could exist under its corrosion. In less than a blink of an eye, it was able to turn the box that was trapping it earlier, into a puddle of liquid.
Seeing this, all the people in the white coats panicked. They were running around, taking anything they could find, and planning to use those things as weapons.
The bloody, slimy mass broke free from the box, howled angrily, and once again revealed its mouthparts and spat out a green mucus at the nearest person.
“Ah!”
The man gave a shrill scream, as the hot, smoky slime burned through his clothes. Under the strong corrosion, his body began to melt quickly and some parts of his body fell to the ground piece by piece like a lump of rotten meat. It was a very ghastly sight.
After all, the military officer Wang was still a soldier, after the initial shock, he immediately took out a pistol and ready to shoot, but again he was stopped by the senior officer Wu.
“No! Don’t kill it!” The officer Wu said resolutely, “everyone, get out of here at once. Guards! Protect professors!”
“Yes, yes, don’t kill it! we need it alive! We need a live sample!” Professor Sun also recovered from the shock and said loudly. He hurriedly stopped the guards, who had just run in and were about to shoot without knowing what happened.
While talking, the bloody mass spat another slimy mucus again, the painful and panic screams once again appeared in the lab. From outside, more and more soldiers heard the scream and wanted to run into the lab with their weapons. But the people in the white coats inside the room desperately wanted to run outside.
Instantly the doorway was blocked.
“Back, Move back!” The senior officer Wu, who was the calmest person, shouted to the soldiers at the door.
As for Chu Yunsheng, he was originally standing at the back. But when the crowd of the people in the white coats were running toward the door that was behind him, he was also pushed back all the way until he was pressed against the door. Beside him was the officer Wu, and in front of him was the girl named Yingying.
In the face of the frightening bloody, slimy monster, and after hearing the panic screams repeatedly, under the intense panic, Chu Yunsheng almost died from regret. He did not know what was wrong with him today, why did he have to get up so early today, and get involved in so many troubles.
Seeing the man in the white coast, who had been hit with the smoking hot mucus, was quickly turned into a skeleton, Chu Yunsheng’s stomach was convulsed with sickness, and his heart was pounding rapidly, almost jumping out of his throat.
The officer Wu’s order quickly worked. The soldiers outside no longer swarmed inside but began to spread out with guns in their arms. Seeing the escape opportunity, the people inside quickly flocked to the exit, wanting to squeeze out of the door.
As if the bloody, slimy mass had wisdom in it, it shrank suddenly and bounced from the lab table, leaped over the crowd of the panicked people in white coats. While it was still in the air, it opened its mouth wide from above and swallowed the military officer Wu from his head.
“Fuck!”
Chu Yunsheng shouted in fear. He was just standing next to the officer Wu. The bloody, slimy monster almost touched his face when it swallowed the military officer Wu. It made his hair stand on end, standing so close to the monster.
Behind him, the women’s piercing screams and the men’s frightened voices appeared again
Seeing the senior officer Wu was swallowed alive by the monster, the soldiers outside were all stunned. It was the first time for most of them to see this thing, so they all moved back in panic and did not know if they should fire or not.
The slimy monster was probably not big enough to swallow officer Wu as a whole, the officer’s two feet were still kicking its mouthparts.
In less than a few moments, however, the feet stopped moving. Clearly, the man was dead. But the slimy monster was still squirming its body as if it was tossing its prey from side to side in a great rage inside its mouth while growling. Until the end, it spat out a pile of slimy skeletons, and a pair of undamaged feet.
It was a living person just a moment ago, but in just a blink of an eye, the person already became a skeleton. Seeing such a horrific scene, all the people in the lab were stunned and fell silent.
The monster seemed to have no interest in the soldiers behind him. It roared and wriggled its way towards the crowd inside the lab. And the person, who was the closest to it, was Chu Yunsheng.
“Shoot it, shoot it!”
Chu Yunsheng panicked and tried his best to move back and shouted.
However, no one knew whether it was the order earlier or the soldiers were too scared to shoot, none of the soldiers moved.
The monster was moving closer and closer, the mouth-like crack opened again to reveal the sharp mouthparts. The people in the white lab coat behind Chu Yunsheng finally woke up, turned around and ran backward. In the middle of chaos, someone suddenly pushed the girl and Chu Yunsheng forward in a panic. Both Chu Yunsheng and the girl behind him instantly staggered toward the monster that was heading towards them.
‘It’s over!’
This was the only thought in Chu Yunsheng’s mind.
This thought caused him to suddenly lose the strength in both of his legs. It resulted in him falling to the ground much earlier, and the girl behind him was also tripped over by him.
The girl’s face was as pale as a ghost, and she was so frightened that she could not even scream. At such a close distance, Chu Yunsheng could see the girl’s terrified expression and the monster clearly. However, all of sudden, Chu Yunsheng seemed to remember something, but it disappeared in the next second again.
But at the moment before the monster was about to spit the corrosive mucus again, countless fragments in Chu Yunsheng’s eyes stormed out with raging roars from his pupils and went straight into the girl and the monster.
The monster suddenly moved back in fear. Its mouthparts were retracted, and it was making strange grunting noises that no one seemed to understand.
But Chu Yunsheng understood it, though it was only just one word. However, he did not know why he understood the word.
“… Master? …”
Chu Yunsheng wanted to get up so badly, however, because of the girl, whenever he tried to get up in panic, he would be tripped over by the girl again. But the strange thing was that although each time he would fall toward the monster, the monster would retreat immediately as if it was scared of him,
It was still very chaotic inside the lab, and outside the lab, the soldiers still did not move. But what everyone did not know was, that in the middle of this chaos, a camera in the corner was quietly recording everything from the beginning.
The identity of the girl underneath Chu Yunsheng, the military officer Wang knew about. So he quickly ran over to them, attempting to drag both of them up. Fearing that monster would also attack him, he had already drawn his gun. And the hand that he used to help Chu Yunsheng, was the hand that he held the gun.
The bloody monster suddenly squirmed violently and the gap was wide open again and let out a raging roar.
“Shoot it!” The officer Wang did not dare to hesitate again. If he did not issue the order now, more people would die.
At his command, the soldiers did not hesitate to pull the trigger, many bullets went straight into the monster’s body, making the monster let out seemingly painful screams. But the strange thing was that it was still desperately moving and twisting its body in front of Chu Yunsheg. It was as if it wanted to use its body to block all the bullets for Chu Yunsheng.
At the same time, its body was quickly expanding, shrinking, and changing repeatedly…
“Oh my god!” Professor Sun stammered, “it, it’s evolving! Rapidly evolving!”
