Central Base, Abnormal Ability Research Institute.
In Conference Room 01, on the sixth basent level, several people in white lab coats sat on either side of a long table, heads down and busy with their work.
At the head of the long table, Zhou Jinyu lowered his eyes to the docunts before him. His expression was as gentle as ever, but the eyes hidden behind his lenses were exceptionally cold.
So people had been too hasty with the experints over in South City. It was only a matter of ti before sothing went wrong, and he had no interest in cleaning up soone else’s ss.
What he hadn’t expected, however, was for soone to drag him into the fire.
He didn’t know who had pulled strings behind the scenes, but now, everyone believed that the new base commander who had been parachuted into South City—Zhou Yi—was his man.
But in reality, other than sharing the surna Zhou, they didn’t have a single thing to do with each other.
In fact, he hadn’t even known who Zhou Yi was before the man appeared out of thin air.
What he found even more surprising was that soone was trying to use this change of command in South City to ddle with the matter of the seeds...
The seeds were the Abnormal Ability Research Institute’s leverage over the bases. They could never be handed over.
However, Ye Xin had always been the one in charge of the seeds.
Thinking of Ye Xin... Zhou Jinyu frowned slightly.
Back when the Blood-colored Asura was a world-renowned na, Zhou Jinyu had just been a greenhorn who had recently joined the Abnormal Ability Research Institute, still doing nial tasks at the bottom. He hadn’t actually known much.
But he had a sharp mind and a heart full of ambition.
After the legendary Blood-colored Asura suddenly vanished without a trace, Zhou Jinyu had keenly sensed sothing was amiss. He then began to systematically get close to Ye Xin...
But that woman, Ye Xin, was much smarter than he had imagined...
In those years, he had served her hand and foot. And while he had managed to vaguely uncover a few things, he never got close to the core of the secret.
It wasn’t until the G01 Project was restarted that Zhou Jinyu guessed sothing from Ye Xin’s reaction.
After that, he began digging through old files in the Abnormal Ability Research Institute’s archives.
Unfortunately, he was still a step too slow.
By then, all public records on the Blood-colored Asura had been completely destroyed.
And with his level of clearance at the ti, he couldn’t access the more classified files.
Still, Zhou Jinyu keenly sensed sothing from the letter ’G’ in the G01 Project.
So, he gave up on the lead with Ye Xin and began targeting the young Xv Yiyisan instead.
’Young people are always a bit reckless, after all.’
Besides, he’d heard that Xv Yiyisan was a child the Blood-colored Asura had personally dug out of the rubble with his own hands...
Sure enough, with just a little manipulation, he pried the na "Miss Gu" from Xv Yiyisan. Connecting that to the ’G’ from the G01 Project, Zhou Jinyu finally began to grasp the edge of the core secret...
Using this as his breakthrough, he sched and toiled for several years, finally securing the position of director for the Abnormal Ability Research Institute’s external affairs departnt.
However, that wasn’t enough.
’Because the way Ye Xin sotis looked at him was always filled with sothing that made very uncomfortable... Pity? Or perhaps... mockery?’
Zhou Jinyu knew it was all because of the Blood-colored Asura.
Because he could never find out who the Blood-colored Asura was, nor what earth-shattering secret was hidden behind his disappearance!
But Zhou Jinyu did know that the Blood-colored Asura’s power was imnse; he was the only superpowered individual to have broken through to the Divine Rank after the apocalypse began.
So had even prophesied back then that the Blood-colored Asura might hold the secret to human immortality.
Imnse power, the secret to immortality... It was enough to drive anyone mad.
And Zhou Jinyu, of course, was no exception.
Yet, such a person had suddenly vanished after the end of the apocalypse.
And of those who knew the truth back then, so were dead and others were missing. Very few remained.
Originally, it would have been very difficult for Zhou Jinyu to uncover this secret.
But now, an opportunity had presented itself.
Zhou Jinyu had thought that soone trying to ddle with the seeds would inevitably provoke Ye Xin. However, two days had passed since the news spread, and there was still no reaction from her side.
Sothing was wrong.
Very wrong.
Zhou Jinyu’s sharp instincts told him sothing was up.
He stared intently at the Light Screen in front of him, which displayed Gu Xi’s file.
Just then, one of the people sitting further down the table suddenly looked up. "Mr. Zhou, we have a situation."
Imdiately after, several others began to report in quick succession. "Mr. Zhou, Number Three is on the move..."
"Mr. Zhou, a ssage just ca in from Miss Chen. Mr. Xiao has flown to the Southwest to inspect military affairs!"
"Mr. Zhou, there’s an anomaly with the signal from Mr. Fang’s office!"
"Mr. Zhou, our satellites detected an abnormal energy fluctuation over South City Base last night..."
"Mr. Zhou, the Superpower Special Team..."
As the reports flooded in one after another, the usual gentle expression on Zhou Jinyu’s face turned grim.
It was as if everyone had coordinated their actions. All at once, everyone was making a move.
And yet, Ye Xin and Dr. Qi remained completely still...
’This isn’t right.’
Zhou Jinyu took a deep breath to suppress his agitation, and his face quickly returned to its usual gentle expression.
"Alright, I understand. Everyone, back to work."
After everyone had left, Zhou Jinyu sat in the conference room for a while longer before finally raising his hand to dial a number.
...
After Gu Xi and Wei Heng dealt with the private breeding farm, they took another spin through the mountains, scooping up a layer of topsoil to enrich the mutant plant reserves in their space, before finally driving back toward South City Base.
But halfway there, they ran into Qi Xiang.
Wei Heng and Gu Xi exchanged a look and stopped the truck.
"Don’t go back to South City Base." Qi Xiang opened the door, deftly climbed into the passenger seat, and squeezed in next to Gu Xi. "We need to get back to the farm, quick."
Wei Heng turned and leaned over, asking, "What happened?"
But as soon as he moved, Qi Xiang recoiled, covering her nose and mouth with one hand. She wrinkled her brow in disgust. "What’s that sll on you? You stink."
Wei Heng was speechless.
He doubtfully lifted his arm and sniffed. ’That can’t be right. I definitely rinsed off in the mountain stream and changed my clothes before getting in the truck...’
Gu Xi glanced at Qi Xiang. "Did soone give you trouble?"
"Not exactly." Qi Xiang faced the window, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "But not long after you two left last night, a real pest started following ..."
Wei Heng understood imdiately. Thirty seconds later, the big truck made a sharp U-turn and sped off toward Camp No. 9527.
On the way, Gu Xi asked Qi Xiang, "You just left like that? What did Zhang Cheng say?"
"What else could he say? He just kept trying to pry information out of ." Qi Xiang thought for a mont, then added, "Oh, right. He seed really concerned about those Crystal Cores. When I was leaving this morning, he even subtly hinted..."
At that, even Wei Heng looked over.
Qi Xiang lowered her voice. "...that keeping the Crystal Cores from the mutant animals would cause big trouble for us. From the way he was talking, it sounded like he wanted us to hand them over to him to ’deal with.’"
Gu Xi frowned slightly, lost in thought.
Wei Heng, however, asked sarcastically, "And what did he plan to trade for those Crystal Cores?" He couldn’t possibly be expecting to get them for free, could he?
’Last night, it was just him and Gu Xi. Anyone else would have been in trouble.’
’We’re talking about dozens of high-level mutant animals!’
"I didn’t ask about that," Qi Xiang said after a mont’s thought. "But as I was leaving, he seed to casually ntion sothing about the seed agency rights, saying sothing like ’it all depends on the farm’s attitude’..."
’Was that a probing threat? Or was he trying to propose a trade?’
’Or maybe... The farm? The Crystal Cores?’
Gu Xi suddenly thought of sothing and turned her head to Wei Heng. "Change of plans. Let’s go see Lu Shiliu."
Wei Heng paused for a second, but without asking a single question, he steered the truck toward Lu Shiliu’s place.
Qi Xiang was dying to ask, but seeing the grim expression on Gu Xi’s face and rembering they hadn’t slept all night, she managed to hold her tongue.
’Whatever Gu Xi is going to do at Lu Shiliu’s, I’ll find out once we get there, won’t I?’
’Besides, Gu Xiaoxi won’t keep it from . Why be in such a hurry to know?’
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