It was still dark, and Qiu Shi could still see the stars when he looked out the window.
I actually received a call from Li Feng at this time. I was so angry that I just felt confused.
"Go back to Yun early today..." Li Feng's voice disappeared before he finished speaking.
Xing Bi reached out his arm to cut off the call, and then covered Qiu Shi’s eyes with his hands: “Sleep.”
"Could something be wrong with him?" Qiu Shi had begun to sober up, but when Xing Bi covered his eyes with his warm palms, he immediately became confused again as if he had been drunk.
"If he really has something, he will contact me," Xing Bi said softly, "Sleep."
Qiu Shi stopped making any sound and soon fell asleep again.
Xing Bi lay sideways, resting his head on his arm, and looked at him.
Qiu Shi slept for about three hours in total before being woken up by Li Feng. Considering how tired he had been in the past few days, it would have been more appropriate for him to sleep for a few more hours and get up at noon. However, he knew that Qiu Shi might not be able to sleep that long, as humans are always short on time.
A few hours, in the long life of a biochemical body... Biochemical life, forget it, it hardly occupies any position in the long life of a biochemical body. They spend dozens or even hundreds of years thinking in the dark. Time can be very precise, but time has no meaning most of the time except time itself.
Every time he truly sensed time, it was nothing but pain. If the time was too short, he would not have enough time to save his teacher. If the time was too long, he would have killed so many of his kind...
"Yeah." Qiu Shi scratched his hair, interrupting his recollections.
But now, he has some other feelings and is reluctant to let go.
Decades passed in the blink of an eye, and before anything could happen, everything was over.
"Xing Bi." Qiu Shi called him with his eyes closed.
"Yeah." Xing Bi responded.
"Why don't you sleep anymore?" Qiu Shi asked in a daze with a heavy nasal tone.
"I'm a biological body," Xing Bi said, "I don't need that much sleep."
"You are awesome." said Qiu Shi.
"Yeah." Xing Bi smiled.
Qiu Shi fell silent.
I slept very deeply, without dreams and without any memories, but it felt very long, the kind of incomparably comfortable, long sleep that I had not felt for a long time.
But Qiu Shi still did not wake up naturally. He heard some confused voices and footsteps right beside his bed.
It felt like he was sleeping on the street outside, so he frowned and opened his eyes.
"Brother Shi!"
"team leader!"
A group of people shouted together in a mess.
He saw a familiar face in his daze.
"Fuck?" He woke up almost instantly from the shock, jumped up from the pillow, and subconsciously reached to the side.
Then he saw Xing Bi leaning against the window, neatly dressed, looking at the group of people calmly.
"You guys are crazy," Qiu Shi breathed a sigh of relief, "It's so early in the morning."
"It's almost time for lunch." said Zhao Yi.
"Lunch?" Qiu Shi was stunned and looked at Xing Bi, who nodded.
"We wanted to wait for you to wake up, but we ran out of time," Zhao Yi said, "The new second team has a mission today to escort supplies to Shidi."
"New Team 2?" Qiu Shi was stunned again.
When he saw Zhao Lu and Hu Xiaoling, he suddenly jumped off the bed: "You? The new second team?"
"Yeah," Zhao Lu smiled, "We've been added to the second team."
"Xiao Lei and the rest of the people will still be responsible for logistics and transportation." Hu Xiaoling said excitedly.
"You," Qiu Shi pointed at the tip of Zhao Lu's nose and turned to walk out the door, "Come out here."
As soon as he went out, he was hit by the cold wind on his head. Then Qiu Shi realized that he was shirtless and wearing only pajamas.
He turned and walked back, with Zhao Lu following behind him, holding his coat.
"Stop flattering me." Qiu Shi took the coat and put it on.
There was no one in the corridor, but there were soldiers walking busily on the street downstairs. It was obvious that they had a mission today.
"Didn't I tell you to tell me if you have any decision?" Qiu Shi looked at Zhao Lu.
"Brother Shi, I can't contact you," Zhao Lu also looked at him, "I only know that you are injured again."
"No injuries," Qiu Shi said, "but..."
He frowned, not knowing how to tell Zhao Lu.
"We are worried about you, and you are worried about us," Zhao Lu said, "but right now there is nothing we can do except to contribute our efforts to make this situation pass quickly."
"Have you been officially assigned to the second team?" Qiu Shi asked.
"Yes," Brigade Zhao nodded, "There are many people who want to join the Hero Team 2, but we applied, and Captain Yang discussed it with Zhao Yi, and they felt that we were suitable."
Qiu Shi didn't say anything. It was indeed appropriate. It turned out that if there was any unexpected situation outside the city and action was needed, it would be him and Zhao Lu.
They have tacit understanding, unity, and good fighting ability.
"We have to grow too," said Zhao Lu.
"Oh," Qiu Shi glanced at him, "You sound like Li now."
"If I had his brain, you probably wouldn't have to worry." Zhao Lu said.
Qiu Shi sighed and said nothing more. He just patted Zhao Lu on the shoulder and asked, "How long will it take for the mission to be back?"
"I'll be back in about three days, and I'll bring some equipment with me," said Zhao Lu.
"Okay, got it," Qiu Shi said, "In fact, when you can't contact me, just find Li Feng. He knows whether I am alive or dead and what I am doing."
"You are different now, so we can't keep asking questions," Zhao Lu said. "It would make us brothers seem particularly ignorant."
"But we are no different from before." Qiu Shi emphasized.
Zhao Lu hugged him: "We all know, Brother Shi."
Time was quite tight, so after chatting with the new second team for a few minutes, Zhao Yi took them off.
Looking at these people wearing neat uniforms, carrying guns, going downstairs swiftly, jumping into the big black car, and driving towards the intersection east of the town, Qiu Shi felt dazed.
"Pack up," Xing Bi came over, "we have to leave too."
"Why did Li Feng call me so late at night?" Qiu Shi pulled his coat and walked back into the house.
"It's not the middle of the night anymore," Xing Bi said, "it's closer to early morning."
"Why did Li Feng call me so early in the morning?" Qiu Shi took off his coat, picked up his clothes and started putting them on.
Xing Bi laughed: "Remind us to return to Yuncheng as soon as possible."
"You didn't call me," Qiu Shi said, "it doesn't look like an urgent job."
"There's no rush for now," Xing Bi said, "Director Wu and the two chiefs have reactivated Zheng Ting's super communists."
Qiu Shi's action of putting on clothes was frozen in mid-air: "What the hell is this?"
"Ji Sui and Xu Jie are still in Yuncheng," Xing Bi said, "They went to control the situation. There's no problem now."
"It's not unjust that the two chiefs were locked up," Qiu Shi frowned. "If it weren't for them, Director Wu would never have been so bold as to do this."
"Let's go back and see the situation. It's not impossible if Zheng Ting is activated." Xing Bi said.
Qiu Shi put on his clothes, put a piece of cleaning glue in his mouth, chewed it for a few times, and suddenly turned to look at him: "Could this be Li Feng's conspiracy? We just told him about Zheng Ting yesterday, and Zheng Ting was activated in the middle of the night."
"Not really. I'll go back and see what the situation is," Xing Bi said. "No one can force me to do this if I don't agree."
"Really?" Qiu Shi said, "Anyway, I feel like Li Feng can always find a reason to threaten me."
"He just doesn't need you to threaten me." Xing Bi said.
"Then I won't go back to Yuncheng." Qiu Shi said.
Xing Bi laughed: "You have many more weaknesses than me."
We still have to go back to Yuncheng. Even if we set out to find that research institute right now, we have to go back to Yuncheng to get some supplies and see if Qu Shen has found any relevant information.
But Li Feng was actually waiting for them at the entrance of the tunnel.
He was squatting on a protruding rock, looking like an exile who had just been expelled from the inner city for committing a crime.
"Is that Li Feng?" Qiu Shi lowered the car window. "What is he doing?"
"City walk." Xing Bi parked the car in front of Li Feng.
"What?" Qiu Shi didn't understand.
"Go to the laboratory." Li Feng stood up.
"Where's your driver?" Qiu Shi looked him up and down. To be honest, he had known Li Feng for such a long time, but he had never seen him appear in the city so openly. After all, whether in the inner city or the outer city, as long as there was any problem with material supply, everyone would shout to burn down the supply office and chop off the corrupt officials.
"The driver's wife was having a difficult labor," Li Feng got into the car and sat in the back seat, "I asked him to drive to the hospital."
Qiu Shi didn't ask much. In that era when it was rare to see children being born, encountering a difficult birth was a very desperate thing.
"How is Zheng Ting?" Xing Bi asked.
"After an injection," Li Feng said, "I think he's almost awake."
"What are Director Wu and the others going to do?" Xing Bi asked again.
"I want to estimate the time of the formation of the supercommunists," Li Feng said, "and then determine the development patterns of their nests and camps, and try to predict the time of their possible attack."
"That sounds reasonable." Xing Bi said.
"It's not unreasonable to do it," Li Feng said, "but it's too hasty... Didn't the generation in Xima Town find out anything else?"
"I've told you everything I found out." Xing Bi said.
"There is no such bridge in the data," Li Feng said. "Qu Shen checked and found almost no data from the institute. However, there was a mention of such a project, but it was not completed because too much money was required."
"Not finished?" Qiu Shi looked back at him.
"It's possible that it really wasn't completed, but the main body is definitely there," Li Feng said. "Another possibility is that it was completed in secret, which is not surprising."
This kind of secret project is probably like a laboratory hidden in an exhibition hall. Director Wu recently hosted a visit organized by the inner city and served as a tour guide. He seemed friendly and easy-going.
It's completely different from the one today with a big bump on his forehead.
"Director Wu, you..." Qiu Shi looked at him. He didn't want to ask, but the blue and purple bag was too eye-catching. "What's wrong?"
"Ask your dear Director Li." Director Wu turned around and led them inside. "Zheng Ting is awake now and has not shown any aggressive behavior. We have no way to get close to him, so we can't accurately monitor his body data. But he did react to sounds, lights, graphics, and pain before..."
Qiu Shi followed Xing Bi silently. Director Wu's description was very detailed in order to provide a reference for Xing Bi, but it sounded a bit uncomfortable. However, Director Wu was full of enthusiasm for transforming and researching humans, and would not have any extra feelings for biochemical organisms.
It’s not like I haven’t seen supersymbionts before, but every time I see them, they blend in with the surrounding black fungi in the dim light. I can’t see them clearly, and I don’t want to see them clearly.
When Qiu Shi walked into the experimental cabin and saw the super-communist Zheng Ting completely covered in black fungi in the glass cover, which was fully displayed under the surrounding lights, he was still a little surprised.
In particular, the hole in his chest that was made by Xing Bi can still be seen. Such an injury cannot be healed by a biological body and needs external repair. However, Zheng Ting's injury has been covered by black fungi, and the wound tissue cannot be seen, as if it was an existing structure of the body.
However, the fungus did not completely cover his entire body. Half of Zheng Ting's face, which was originally invisible, was exposed, with black bloodstains.
"We used a robotic arm to cut off a part of the fungal tissue from his face," Wang Hong noticed that Qiu Shi was staring at that half of his face, "one was to observe the combination of the fungus and the skin, and the other was to test his response to pain stimulation. There were some other tests originally, but Director Li said to pause, so we didn't continue." "You guys go out," Xing Bi said.
"You can do whatever tests you want," Wang Hong said. "We will be nearby and won't interfere."
"Come out." Director Wu waved his hand.
"This is a super symbiote, not an ordinary symbiote," Zhang Tan looked at Xing Bi and Qiu Shi hesitantly, "If something unexpected happens..."
Xing Bi didn't say anything. He turned around and looked at the two of them. After a few seconds, black lines slowly extended along the side of his neck to the left side of his face.
"Get out." Xing Bi said. The moment he opened his mouth, the black lines appeared like a net, suddenly covering half of his face.
Wang Hong and Zhang Tan were stunned for less than a second, then quickly walked out of the experimental cabin. Xing Bi turned around and glanced at Director Wu.
Director Wu was an acquaintance of the two of them, so he was not as panicked as Wang Hong and the others, but it was the first time he saw Xing Bi in this state as a symbiont.
"Call me if you have any questions." He said to Qiu Shi, turned and walked out, closing the door.
Perhaps it was because of Xing Bi's condition. Zheng Ting, who had been standing still in the glass cover, slowly moved to this side of the glass cover and looked at Xing Bi.
Xing Bi also walked over and stood in front of him.
"Come in." Zheng Ting suddenly spoke, and the sound coming from his broken chest was just like what he heard that night, with a tearing sound of air flow.
"Have you contacted 249 directly?" Xing Bi asked.
Zheng Ting didn't say anything, only the hissing sound coming from his chest could be heard.
"You felt it that night, right?" Xing Bi raised his hand and supported himself on the glass. "So you told us that Donglin had betrayed us."
Qiu Shi was stunned for a moment, and it took him a while to realize what Xing Bi meant.
Just like the time when Xing Bi killed the patrol team, when he killed the main body, he felt his past memories because of his injury, so on the night of attacking the camp, he used the hand holding the blade to directly smash Zheng Ting's chest, and also made Zheng Ting feel something he had forgotten, or directly felt what Xing Bi felt.
Qiu Shi had never figured out why Zheng Ting's super-communist revealed the news of Donglin's rebellion at that time. Now he suddenly understood that Zheng Ting wavered at the last second.
"Zheng Ting, look at me."
"Xing Bi."
"it's me."
"haven't seen you for a long time."
These conversations, which sounded fragmented at the time, seemed to become complete.
"Humans are cruel," Zheng Ting said, his broken voice filled with hatred, "to us."
"The same goes for your leader," Xing Bi said. "I saved your life, but he made you become like this."
"I volunteer." Zheng Ting said.
"You won't have any other choice if you don't want to," Xing Bi said, "You will lose the chance to resist and live in his mind. Zheng Ting, what are we most afraid of?"
Zheng Ting slowly approached the glass.
"I'm afraid I'll be gone." Xing Bi said.
Zheng Ting was silent.
"You are gone," Xing Bi said, "Zheng Ting, you are gone."
Zheng Ting's huge black body began to tremble, and the black spores on his body were spinning and dancing in the glass cover. The disinfection system in the cover was triggered, and the polluted air was continuously drawn upwards. The fungal masses growing on Zheng Ting's body danced upwards like tentacles.
"You are just his thought jar now," Xing Bi said in a hoarse voice, steady and calm, without any emotion, "and he has not transcended the thoughts given by humans. He has everything that makes you despair, human cruelty, human greed, human exploitation, betrayal, indifference..."
Zheng Ting punched the hood: "These are all given to you by humans."
"But I'm still alive. As an independent individual, I'm still here," Xing Bi said, "and I can still change. But when you gave yourselves to 249, you died. All of you ceased to exist."
"Xing Bi!" Zheng Ting roared. The fungus in the hole in his chest trembled violently and began to continuously extend outward. The black color on his body seemed to be growing. "Human, if you treat me like this... you are not a friend... Only if you are strong enough..."
"No one is the strongest." Xing Bi raised his right hand and pressed it on the glass cover. Dark black patterns instantly spread all over his hand from his wrist forward.
Qiu Shi felt his breathing become a little rapid. This was a change in Xing Bi that he had never seen before.
And when the black color began to appear on the glass cover from his fingers, his left hand, which had been behind his back, quietly clenched.
"What is this?" Director Wu looked at the image on the surveillance screen in shock. "When did he acquire such ability?"
The black color spreading from Xing Bi's fingertips was slowly covering the glass cover, which was shocking to the eye.
"He can become a super-communist," Wang Hong was so excited that his voice was shaking, "He is the best research subject. We can..."
Li Feng pointed the gun directly at his head: "I find that you two are more suitable to stay in the warehouse."
Wang Hong fell silent.
"Have you ever seen him like this?" Li Feng turned and asked Lin Sheng who was standing behind him.
"No." Lin Sheng said.
"Qiu Shi," Li Feng pressed the headset and answered Qiu Shi's call, "What's the situation? We can consider controlling it."
"No." Qiu Shi answered very straightforwardly.
"Reason?" Li Feng asked.
"My partner didn't lose control," said Qiu Shi.
"Your partner may endanger your life." Li Feng said.
"No," Qiu Shi said, "It's impossible."
Li Feng didn't say anything else and lit a cigarette.
Director Wu was staring at the screen nervously at the moment and didn't even care that Li Feng was smoking in front of a pile of important equipment.
"Old Wu," Li Feng said, "Did you see that? Zheng Ting was originally shaken, but you activated him without permission and made a lot of trouble. This once again proved to him that humans do not regard biochemical bodies as friends."
Director Wu turned and looked at him.
I noticed that he was holding a cigarette in his mouth and moving his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he remained silent.
"Zheng Ting is someone who has direct contact with 249. If we can't get any clues from him," Li Feng said, "we will have to spend a lot of manpower and resources to go out and look for him. This loss..."
"Don't put such a heavy accusation on me," Director Wu said in a low voice, "I know your tricks too well!"
"Then you refute it." Li Feng said.
Director Wu stared at him for a long time without saying anything. Finally, he took the cigarette from his mouth with some annoyance and threw it into the cup next to him.
"Mine." said Zhang Tan.
"Shut up!" Director Wu cursed.
"Lin Sheng," Li Feng turned and looked at Lin Sheng, "How do you feel?"
“… It was quite enjoyable.” Lin Sheng said.
"I'm asking if Xing Bi's... website has any impact on you," Li Feng said.
"No." Lin Sheng said, "Xing Bi has no control."
"Yeah." Li Feng nodded, thought about it and asked again, "Then what are you happy about?"
"I don't know, maybe it's a kind of happiness that humans can't understand." Lin Sheng looked at Xing Bi on the screen.
When Xing Bi took his hand away from the glass cover, the black lines quickly faded away, and his hands, face and neck quickly returned to normal.
The black nets covering the hood had completely obscured Zheng Ting, and it was impossible to see his condition inside.
"Xing Bi." Qiu Shi called Xing Bi.
"Yeah." Xing Bi turned around.
"How is it?" Qiu Shi asked.
"It's okay." Xing Bi walked up to him, reached behind him and took his left hand.
Qiu Shi's left fist was a little stiff, and Xing Bi pinched it several times before he opened his fingers.
He pinched his palms, leaving several deep marks.
"Are you so nervous?" Xing Bi pressed gently on his palm.
"Well," Qiu Shi breathed a sigh of relief, "I'm not afraid of you losing control, I'm just afraid that Zheng Ting can come up with some other tricks."
"No," Xing Bi said, "He didn't hold it back before he died last time, and he won't be able to hold it back now."
"He...how is he now?" Qiu Shi glanced over there.
"Think." Xing Bi said.
"Does he have any clues about 249?" Qiu Shi asked.
"Of course there is," Xing Bi said, "but they may not tell us."
"Xing Bi," Lin Sheng's voice came from the headset, "We need to go in now and disinfect them."
"Come in." Xing Bi said.
"Xing Bi," Director Wu probably couldn't wait for the disinfection to be over and they left, so he asked anxiously, "How did you do it?"
"I don't know." Xing Bi said.
Director Wu did not ask any more questions.
When Xing Bi and Qiu Shi came out of the experimental cabin, Director Wu and Wang Hong and Zhang Tan were not there, only Li Feng was sitting on the chair.
"I was afraid they would see you continue asking questions," Li Feng said, "so I asked them to step aside."
"Zheng Ting..." Xing Bi looked back, "Don't move yet."
"Okay." Li Feng nodded and stood up, "Xing Bi."
"Hmm?" Xing Bi looked at him.
"Let's talk." Li Feng said.
"What to talk about?" Qiu Shi asked immediately.
"Humans and biochemical organisms." said Li Feng.
The author has something to say:
To be continued tomorrow⊙▽⊙.