Qiu Shi turned around and looked at Xing Bi who was leaning against the tree trunk.
"What did you say?" he asked.
"I was born for humanity and will never betray my friends." Xing Bi said in a low voice.
The strong feeling of oppression disappeared, and the indifference also disappeared.
Xing Bi's entire body was filled with sadness now. Even though his ability to move was controlled, Qiu Shi could still see endless sadness in his eyes.
And despair.
Different from the despair of refugees struggling in the disaster of the end of the world, Xing Bi's despair is painful, incomprehensible, and confusing.
Qiu Shi had recovered from his shock. Xing Bi was talking about the battle in Yuncheng that year.
Humans expelled all biochemical entities, chopped off the head of the biochemical entity in the founder's statue, and erased all traces of their existence in Cloud City.
From then on, Yuncheng has been a safe paradise belonging only to humans.
And perhaps no one will ever be able to see the full truth behind this.
What Xing Bi said, "I killed them all on behalf of their friends", should be part of the truth of that year that was submerged in darkness.
Yuncheng used bio-bodies to drive away and clean up the bio-bodies. The direct participants had their memories locked away and were put into hibernation capsules, beginning a dark journey that might never end.
Qiu Shi did not drive the car. He walked back to Xing Bi and squatted down slowly.
"Xing Bi?" He put his arm around Xing Bi's shoulders, let Xing Bi lean against him, and hugged him tightly.
Xing Bi said nothing.
"Let me sing a song for you." said Qiu Shi.
Xing Bi still didn't say anything.
Qiu Shi cleared his throat. This was probably the first time he sang in his 25 years of life, and the song he sang was a song he had only heard once.
Fortunately, this song is relatively simple, and for some reason, he remembers it very clearly.
"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you," Qiu Shi recalled the tune of the song, which was roughly the same, "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you..."
Xing Bi closed his eyes.
"How is it?" Qiu Shi lowered his head, "Did you sing it correctly?"
"Is this the only song you can sing?" Xing Bi said, his voice still very low.
"Yes," Qiu Shi said, "How was your singing?"
"It's out of tune." Xing Bi said.
"It's okay," Qiu Shi said, "I should be able to remember it if I think about it."
He closed his eyes and recalled that night, the swamp, the battle, the fire, and Xing Bi who sang to him.
"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you..." Qiu Shi started singing again.
A slight rustling sound came from the earphones, followed by Li Feng's voice: "Qiu Shi..."
Xing Bi was controlled by him, and the signal blocking caused by Xing Bi was lifted.
"Happy birthday to you..." Qiu Shi did not answer and continued singing.
"What birthday? Why are you singing it again?" Li Feng was confused by his singing.
"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you..."
"Have you found Xing Bi?" Li Feng asked.
"Happy birthday to you… "
Li Feng didn't say anything else, he seemed to be listening.
After Qiu Shi finished singing several times, he replied to Li Feng: "Xing Bi has been controlled. I will take him back later."
"The car is ready and can pick him up at any time." Li Feng said without asking more about singing.
"I'll go too." said Qiu Shi.
"I thought you were going back to the bunker." Li Feng said.
"I'll come back after I finish the report." said Qiu Shi.
"Okay," Li Feng said, "You... come back after you finish singing. Don't take too long. We have to finish dealing with it before we can notify Colonel Xu and the others. We don't have much time."
"I understand." Qiu Shi replied.
There was no sound from Li Feng over there.
Qiu Shi cleared his throat, took a breath, and was about to speak again when Xing Bi finally spoke up, "It's a completely different song."
Qiu Shi was stunned for a moment and then started laughing.
Xing Bi didn't laugh, nor did he say anything else. He still kept his eyes closed quietly.
"I'll drive over here," Qiu Shi said, "Official Li said time is tight."
Xing Bi did not answer.
Qiu Shi put him to the ground, quickly stood up, ran over and drove the car to Xing Bi's side.
The wound on his chest didn't hurt, but it was an injury after all. He didn't have much strength to lift Xing Bi. In addition, Xing Bi was heavier than a human of the same height. Qiu Shi felt that his wound was stretched open before he got Xing Bi into the car.
Then he gritted his teeth and dragged the person who had been killed by Xing Bi to the back of the car and tied it to the rear of the car with a rope.
"I actually wanted to release the control," Qiu Shi asked Xing Bi to lie down in the back seat and fastened him to the seat with a seat belt, "but... you still have a 28-day limit. It seems that the only people who can save you are Li Feng and Director Wu, so you have to cooperate."
Xing Bi looked at him.
"Okay," Qiu Shi patted him on the face, turned around and jumped into the driver's seat. He looked at the map and confirmed that it was safe within the scannable range. He started the car and said, "Drive now."
The car drove around the overturned patrol car and the body of a man who had been killed by a punch to the chest, and headed towards gap number one.
What Xing Bi said should be about the memory of that year. After the contact with Li Feng was restored, he did not mention it again. He didn't know whether Xing Bi's locked memory was opened or something was triggered in the process of killing the subject. In short, if Xing Bi didn't say anything about it, he wouldn't let Li Feng know.
And he didn't want to ask any more questions.
“But sometimes, I don’t want to know everything.”
He still remembered what Xing Bi said, but he didn't know what it meant at the time.
Now that he thinks about it, if these are the things in those locked memories, Xing Bi might not want to remember them anymore.
There was a car from the exhibition hall parked at the gap No. 1. After Qiu Shi parked the car, the first thing he did after jumping out of the car was to go around to the back door to take a look.
"There is no transfer box." Li Feng said and waved his hand.
Several people in lab coats ran over and carried Xing Bi onto the car on a stretcher. The subject that was brought back was also kept in the same state, put into a sealed box, and transported to the laboratory together.
"Get in the car," Li Feng tilted his head towards Qiu Shi, "My car is following behind."
Qiu Shi got on the exhibition hall's car and sat next to Xing Bi's stretcher.
Several experimenters have already started to use instruments to scan Xing Bi carefully, and dense data are constantly displayed on the display screen next to him.
"Where is Director Wu?" Qiu Shi asked.
"Preparing in the laboratory." replied an experimenter.
"How is Xing Bi doing?" Qiu Shi asked.
"It looks basically normal at the moment. There are a lot of shrapnel injuries, but they are not serious." The man glanced at him and said, "Do you want to treat your wound? Is it stretched?"
Qiu Shi lowered his head to look at his chest and found a large red spot on his clothes.
"Let's talk about it when we get there," he said.
To get to the exhibition hall, Qiu Shi would pass through several roads that were familiar to him. When he looked out through the gap in the window, he found that the atmosphere in the inner city had completely changed.
The peaceful and tranquil peace of the past is gone.
Apart from many places where the interior of the mountain was exposed due to the explosion, there were very few pedestrians on the road. At a glance, most of the people you could see were wearing uniforms from the Security Bureau or the City Defense Bureau.
In many places, it can be seen that the damage was not caused by the symbiote's sneak attack, but was the style of looting and smashing by refugees that is very common in the outer city.
"Have any refugees entered the inner city?" Qiu Shi asked.
"Yes," an experimenter nodded, "there were quite a few conflicts and many people died."
Qiu Shi didn't say anything. When he heard "many people died", his first reaction was the pool of minced meat and bones in the fertilizer pool. He suddenly felt like vomiting.
He dry heaved twice at the beginning and tears came out.
"Any head injuries?" a medical assistant asked.
“No,” Qiu Shi said, “I’m just… maybe hungry.”
The medical assistant handed over a can.
Qiu Shi was stunned, his stomach churning, but he had no choice but to take it.
To be honest, he should be thankful that the person didn't hand him a can of meat. Relatively speaking, the canned vegetables would have given him a less strong feeling.
Although he didn't want to eat the canned vegetables, in order not to show it too obviously, Qiu Shi still opened the can, quickly pinched the vegetables into his mouth and ate them in a few bites, and also drank the soup in two gulps.
"Thank you." He threw the empty can into the trash bag next to him and wiped his hands on Xing Bi's clothes.
The medical assistant's hand holding the paper to him froze in the air.
"Sorry." He took the paper and wiped his hands, then wiped Xing Bi's clothes.
Xing Bi had kept his eyes closed. He had not opened them since he got on the car. He looked like he was asleep and very calm.
Qiu Shi didn't know whether Xing Bi was in the same state when he was in the transfer box or hibernation cabin.
Quiet and lonely.
As if it has nothing to do with this world.
Laboratory in the basement of the exhibition hall.
The place that Qiu Shi is most familiar with in the inner city, apart from the warehouse of the Security Bureau, is probably this laboratory.
This huge room is filled with various instruments, and the corridor extending out has hibernation cabins on both sides.
And that transparent glass cover.
Now Xing Bi returned to the cover and sat there quietly.
"Those twenty-eight days." said Qiu Shi.
"Remove the time limit." Director Wu said.
Someone from the experimental team walked into the glass cover and poked Xing Bi on the back of his neck with an unknown object. Then someone operated the instrument next to him and stopped Xing Bi's countdown.
"Release control." Director Wu said.
The people in the experimental team released Qiu Shi from his control over Xing Bi.
Xing Bi, who was sitting with his head down, slowly raised his head. His eyes swept across the faces of the people in the room and stopped on Qiu Shi's face.
"Xing Bi," Director Wu took the microphone, "Welcome back, how do you feel?"
"Not very good." Xing Bi said.
"I will give you a comprehensive examination now," Director Wu said. "At the same time, you and Qiu Shi need to report to Director Li about your visit to Donglin. He will also ask you some questions. Only four of us will be left in the laboratory."
Although Xing Bi seemed to have returned to his previous state on the surface, and was basically very quiet and cold in the laboratory, Qiu Shi still felt that Xing Bi was not doing well.
It's not about whether he is under control or not, but about his emotions.
Qiu Shi glanced at Li Feng. Li Feng was a shrewd man. Most of the time he didn't know what Li Feng was thinking. Now he didn't know what Xing Bi meant to Li Feng.
"Let's talk about Donglin first," Li Feng sat on a chair, leaning against the back, looking very relaxed, "There humans and biochemical organisms coexist there now, and there are also some symbionts, is that right?"
"Yes." said Qiu Shi.
"Do you know the origin of the biochemical body?" Li Feng looked at Xing Bi, "Do you know anyone, Xing Bi?"
"No," Xing Bi said, his voice steady and formal, "but they know me."
"Do you know his name?" Li Feng asked.
"Chen Dang." Xing Bi said.
"Is the mayor still the same Mayor Luo?" Li Feng continued to ask.
"Yes." Qiu Shi said, "But many of the human residents have been replaced. Most of the old residents were killed or driven away, and those who stayed behind... said nothing."
Li Feng nodded.
He quickly sorted out Donglin's current situation in his mind through Qiu Shi and Xing Bi's brief narration.
The situation in Donglin Town is more complicated than Li Feng had imagined. The mayor chose to accept biochemical bodies and symbionts, but it seems that his methods are not gentle. The original human townspeople have basically been replaced.
The current Donglin Town is an armed town with equipment that is no less than that of Yuncheng, and it also has biochemical organisms and symbiotes. Even the humans are not all ordinary humans. He does not want anyone to know this for now. He does not know what this means to the top leaders of Yuncheng, but this secret cannot be kept for too long. Mayor Luo said in the words that Qiu Shi brought that he would contact Yuncheng to seek cooperation again.
Once the communication is restored, Donglin will not contact Li Feng, but directly the general or Mr. Long.
Li Feng tapped his forehead a few times with his fingertips quickly. He had to meet Mr. Long again in private as soon as possible.
"The situation of the Symbiote Corps," Director Wu looked at Xing Bi, "Can you answer accurately in your current state?"
"Yes." Xing Bi said, "The number of people is unclear. They will appear in the form of a team. The main body is level one, and the team members are both level one and level two. They can block control information outside the team members."
"That is to say," Director Wu said, "when they act in small groups, such as you, you cannot forcibly control them."
"Yes." Xing Bi replied.
"Can you do it?" Li Feng asked, "If I give you a few symbiotes, can you control them like this?"
"I haven't tried it." Xing Bi said.
"It's okay," Li Feng said, "We can try later."
"What about symbiotes that don't adopt this method?" Director Wu asked, "A single symbiote? Can it be controlled?"
"Yes, but if you have enough experience, you can also take the initiative to defend yourself from being controlled." Xing Bi said.
"It depends on the strength of the host and the controlled symbiote," Li Feng said, "Do you know about Donglin's shielding system?"
"It can block all communication signals," Qiu Shi said, "and it can also block the biological signals of the symbiont."
Li Feng looked at Director Wu and said, "I should have sent you there to learn from you."
“We can do it,” Director Wu said, “but it won’t work just on my part, and it won’t work even with you.”
Li Feng smiled and said, "It's OK as long as you can do it."
Li Feng had a pretty good understanding of the situation of Donglin and the symbiote. After summarizing it, he found that there were basically no major problems and could report it directly to Colonel Xu.
The next problem is not so easy to deal with.
"Old Wu." Li Feng looked at Director Wu.
"Nothing good will happen if you call me that." Director Wu frowned.
Li Feng took out a gun and pointed it at Director Wu: "You are forced to turn off all recording and video equipment, and keep everything you hear confidential."
"I can go out." Director Wu stood up while turning off the equipment.
"You can't go out, sit down," Li Feng shook the gun, "There is a technical problem, and you need to be present."
Director Wu sighed and sat back in his chair.
Qiu Shi looked at Li Feng. In the past, when Li Feng held a gun, he didn't feel anything.
It is true that Li Feng is a black-hearted official, but on the surface, Li Feng does not look evil. On the contrary, he is gentle and polite, a little thin, and his fighting ability is not strong.
But now, when Li Feng holds the gun again, Qiu Shi's eyes will flash before his eyes the scene of him shooting and killing the captain. He did it decisively and quickly, without any hesitation, and his shooting skills were very accurate.
If Director Wu does not cooperate and Li Feng has no other way to solve the problem, Qiu Shi feels that Li Feng will fire the shot.
"Xing Bi," Li Feng stood up, walked to the glass cover, and looked at Xing Bi, "Can you describe to me what happened when we killed the symbiote team today?"
"Normal cleaning." Xing Bi replied.
"Process," Li Feng held up the glass cover with his hands and looked at Xing Bi closely, "I know you only trust Qiu Shi among the people here, but only if I understand the situation can I help you, as well as the biochemical bodies and symbionts that will be activated later."
Xing Bi didn't say anything. His eyes passed from the side of Li Feng's face and fell behind him.
Li Feng moved aside so that he could see Qiu Shi.
After being silent for nearly ten seconds, Xing Bi spoke, his voice as hoarse as usual, calm and without any emotion: "The main body controlled five symbiotes at the same time, and there were seventy-six infected people, who attacked our two vehicles separately."
"Yeah." Li Feng nodded.
"There are too many, there is no way to clear them one by one," Xing Bi looked at Qiu Shi, "Qiu Shi's car attracted some of the infected, and I used the terrain to cover and blow up the rest."
"Was the symbiote also killed in the explosion?" Li Feng asked.
"No," Xing Bi replied, still looking at Qiu Shi, "Kill one by one, and then track the main body."
"How do you find the subject?" Li Feng asked.
This question was probably a bit sensitive. Xing Bi withdrew his gaze from Qiu Shi's face and glanced at Li Feng's face: "Through the brain of the symbiont."
Li Feng frowned: "How is it..."
"With my hands." Xing Bi replied.
"... I understand," Li Feng nodded, "Did you find the subject afterwards?"
"Yes, normal cleaning." Xing Bi said.
Li Feng looked at him.
"But the subject destroyed itself." Xing Bi said.
"The main body self-destructs?" Li Feng was stunned for a moment, then turned back to look at Director Wu, "Is anyone checking the main body that was brought back?"
"We are checking it," Director Wu said. "We will have the result in half an hour."
"Then what?" Li Feng continued to ask.
Xing Bi did not answer immediately. A trace of pain flashed across his face and his eyes were no longer calm.
"Xing Bi." Qiu Shi stood up, walked to the glass cover, and put his hand on it.
Xing Bi looked at him and slowly raised his hand. Qiu Shi thought he was going to put his hand against his, but Xing Bi didn't. Instead, he put his hand next to his.
There was a deep wound in the middle of Xing Bi's palm.
"Was it the other party who was injured?" Li Feng asked immediately.
"Yes, before he self-destructed," Xing Bi said, "and then I saw it, or... remembered it."
"What did you remember?" Li Feng asked.
"Thinking back to the past," Xing Bi tilted his head slightly and squinted his eyes, "I thought about how I cleaned up the biochemical bodies in Yuncheng."
This was probably an answer that Li Feng had not expected, and it was also a history that he did not fully understand. He was stunned.
"Only some of the first-level submersibles were able to escape," Xing Bi said, "the rest were destroyed. With the cooperation of our partners, 437 biochemical bodies were destroyed and sealed."
When he heard the word "partner", Qiu Shi felt that breathing was a little difficult.
The so-called cooperation is more about control and threats.
"Those born for humanity will never betray," Xing Bi said, "We are human, my friend."
"Your partners back then," Li Feng said with some difficulty, "were all soldiers, right?"
"Yes." Xing Bi replied.
"So you killed the patrol team out of anger and hatred," Li Feng said, "because they were wearing the same clothes as those people back then."
Xing Bi didn't say anything and shifted his gaze to Qiu Shi again.
Qiu Shi looked at him without saying anything.
"Director Li," Director Wu's voice came from behind, "What are you doing..."
"Director Wu doesn't know either? These things." Li Feng turned around and sat back in his chair, letting out a long sigh.
"How could I possibly know all this?" Director Wu said, "I'm afraid Mr. Long and the general don't know all of this either."
"Xing Bi," Li Feng calmed down and asked again, "Who did you carry out the mission with back then?"
"Lin Sheng." Xing Bi replied.
"This is troublesome." Director Wu's voice was shaking.
"What a trouble." Li Feng glanced at him and lowered his voice, "Lin Sheng's memory has not been solved yet."
"Lock my memory again." Xing Bi said.
Li Feng turned and looked at Director Wu.
"This is possible..." Director Wu is very familiar with the biochemical body. He frowned and said, "Your memory has not been unlocked. What you see and feel are the other party's memories. These memories will cause your information to overflow and autonomously..."
"You mean his memory is locked, and the things he remembers now were originally locked," Li Feng interrupted Director Wu, "so there is nothing to lock now, right?"
"Yes." said Director Wu.
"Fuck." Qiu Shi cursed.
He had not experienced the pain personally, but anyone with a brain could imagine how painful such an experience was. Qiu Shiguang felt despair when he saw the refugees struggling to enter Yuncheng before death came, let alone cleaning them up with his own hands.
No matter how close they are to humans, those biochemical bodies are still Xing Bi's kind, with thoughts and emotions just like him.
The hatred that erupted from such pain was enough to make Xing Bi overturn the patrol car and kill a group of people the moment he recalled it.
But now, the pain that he chose to bury back then may follow him forever...
Qiu Shi just felt that his whole body was cold.
Xing Bi didn't react too strongly, just looked at him.
"Xing Bi," he flicked the glass cover lightly, looked at Xing Bi, and said in a low voice, "Will you hate me?"
The author has something to say:
Continue tomorrow\\^O^/.