Except for the secret guards of Xing Bi's level, ordinary biochemical bodies cannot enter this place. Apart from the human staff who were here in the past, there are no more than twenty biochemical bodies that can enter the glass door. And the only ones who can enter the heavy iron door behind them are Xing Bi's five-man team. They are responsible for the highest level of security work in the base.
Yao Xiu is the assistant of the core area security department, managing the guides outside and a group of second-level guards who are responsible for general security work. She and these twenty-three second-level guards are biological bodies that are not allowed to enter, and once they enter, they will not be able to leave because they have no authorization.
After Yao Xiu recovered a little, Ji Sui handed her two supplements and asked softly, "Who asked you to stay here?"
"Director Liu," Yao Xiu held the supplement in his hand but didn't eat it, "His body is in the room on the second floor. He has been guarding here for five months. His lungs are injured and won't heal. The medicine I found for him is useless."
The scientific researchers who did not evacuate were basically killed in that battle.
Director Liu is the management director of the core area. The reason why he is still alive here is because he is not an experimenter in any research. He is just an office director who does not understand the content of the experiments and research.
"Did he ask you to stay here before he died?" Xing Bi asked.
"Yes, I put all the supplements and medicines I could find at the door first, and he moved in and put them away," Yao Xiu looked at the supplements in his hand, "When he was about to die, I took..."
She looked at the Level 2 guards standing quietly around her and said, "These are all the guards I can still find. There are no humans or other Level 1 biochemicals outside. There are only these Level 2s. I brought them in."
Compared with Xing Bi and other biochemical beings with relatively richer emotions, Yao Xiu's narration is very bland, without ups and downs of emotions, no obvious sadness, and no obvious pain.
Except for the first word "Xing Bi".
Qiu Shi slowly walked up the stairs, looking inside each open door, checking the environment and easing his mood.
Yao Xiu entered here five months after the war. During these five months, she had never left the base. When she entered the glass door, she knew very well that she might never leave again.
After those supplements were consumed, she and the twenty-three second-level guards would slowly starve to death in there.
But she still came in, and everything she kept was unknown except her promise to mankind.
The last human sample she studied might be Director Liu, who stayed here until his death.
Director Liu had turned into a pile of bones in the room in the corner of the second floor.
The table next to it was very clean, without any clutter, except for a slightly faded photo of a yellow dog under a small piece of glass.
This room must have been an office before, but the person who used to work here and his yellow dog are no longer in this world.
Qiu Shi also checked the rest of the rooms. They were all former offices, but there were basically no traces of their past. It didn't look like they had been cleaned up during the evacuation or escape, but rather that nothing had been placed there in the first place to ensure safety.
In the Yuncheng Laboratory, except for Director Wu's office which had some personal belongings, such as water cups, the other offices were empty. I wonder if this was a habit left behind by people who had left the base.
After Qiu Shi checked the room, he found that there was basically nothing outside except a large number of empty supplement bags and a small number of supplements that would be completely eaten in a month at most.
"We brought enough supplements," Ji Sui said, "enough for everyone. Someone will take you away from here to a safe place soon."
Yao Xiu ate two bags of supplements and gave the second-level instructions to those who ate the remaining supplements.
Those second-level players didn’t seem to be in very good shape either, and they had been in a state of long-term under-replenishment, but they were better than Yao Xiu.
If they had arrived a little later, these biochemical creatures might have died here.
"Do you want to go in?" Yao Xiu asked.
"Yes." Xing Bi said.
"Then what?" Yao Xiu asked again.
"Find out what's going on inside and then leave," Xing Bi said, "We're going to the east to find 249."
"Research Institute?" Yao Xiu asked.
"You know?" Qiu Shi immediately asked, "249 is in the institute? Do you know where the institute is?"
"Can you remember it?" Xing Bi asked.
Yao Xiu has been maintaining an "immortal" state with minimal intake for a long time. Many of his functions have been damaged and his memory has been affected. He needs to think when talking about the past.
"I'm not sure, but the base has sent a second-level submersible to the research institute. It's guard-level and requires diving skills," Yao Xiu said. "I asked the supervisor to sign for the person."
"Diving?" Ji Sui asked, "Is the research institute in the sea?"
"I'm not sure." Yao Xiu replied.
"If it's not in the sea, it should be in a place where this skill can be used," Xing Bi said, looking at Yao Xiu, "Any other information? How did you know 249?"
"He's been here." Yao Xiu said.
"249 has been here?" Xing Bidu couldn't control his emotions.
"When Director Liu was still alive, he destroyed all the electronic equipment," said Yao Xiu.
"Then..." Qiu Shi turned around and looked at the tightly closed metal door.
"All the systems inside are independent," Xing Bi said, "and are not connected to the outside world."
"Yes." Yao Xiu nodded.
"If we go in now," Qiu Shi asked, "can 249 follow us in?"
"No." Yao Xiu replied.
"In the time you've been here..." Qiu Shi wanted to say more than a hundred years, but ultimately avoided this heart-pounding number. "Have you been here before, 249?"
"No more," Yao Xiu said, "Director Liu said he needed media for communication and storage, a phone, a computer..."
"Storage?" Qiu Shi was stunned.
"His replica will be hidden somewhere. If we cut a line, maybe a replica will be left in a storage device," Xing Bi said. "Although the replica will not be complete data, it will always be a hidden danger."
"Is there anything in here that he is interested in?" Qiu Shi asked.
"As for the hiding place, the research institute has not been fully built yet. In comparison, the base is more suitable for him," Xing Bi said, "As long as the independent system inside is connected to the outside..."
"Fuck." Qiu Shi suddenly felt very fortunate. For whatever reason, the hidden biochemical organisms nearby had been guarding the base, and 249's symbiote had not been able to enter.
"Let's go out and contact Sang Fan and the others first," Xing Bi said, "We need to be on guard before we go in. The people from 249 will definitely follow us."
They helped Yao Xiu slowly walk up the stairs, preparing to send her to the medical vehicle in a while.
Ji Sui, the first one to go up to the second floor, paused in front of the glass door and gestured to them to stop.
Qiu Shi stood on the stairs, looked over there, and raised the gun in his hand in shock.
"Fuck!" He looked at the group of people standing outside the glass door, "What the hell is going on?"
Members of Sang Fan's team stood in a row in front of the glass door with their hands raised. Behind them was a row of men in black, pointing guns at them.
No one moved, they just stood there quietly, no one knew how long they had been standing there.
Xing Bi slowly walked up the stairs and stood in front of the glass door.
Because of the glass door, there is no communication between the inside and the outside, and the communication is also blocked.
"Who is it?" Qiu Shi asked.
"Biochemical body." Xu Jie said.
"Of course I know it's a biochemical. The one who can make Sang Fan raise his hands and stand still must be a biochemical," Qiu Shi said, "Who is it? It can't be an ordinary biochemical who can beat Sang Fan and his men."
Sang Fan also brought two newly activated first-level submersibles. Although they did not have as much experience as Xing Bi and his men, their combat effectiveness was not weak. The human soldiers were equipped with more advanced equipment. Now three submersibles and five human soldiers were standing there in a row with guns pointed at them.
Xing Bi walked towards the glass door.
"Don't open the door." said Qiu Shi.
“… Am I crazy?” Xing Bi said.
"I talk a lot," said Qiu Shi.
"I want to turn on the intercom." Xing Bi reached out and pressed twice on a small screen next to the glass door.
Qiu Shi heard some noise coming from outside.
The sounds inside and outside can be heard by each other.
"We can't beat them," Sang Fan shouted.
"I see," Xing Bi said as he approached the glass door, propped his arm on the glass and looked out, "Who is it?"
Someone put away his gun, walked past Sang Fan, and stood in front of Xing Bi.
“When she first said she was Xing Bi,” the man said, “I thought she was trying to scare me.”
This person was dressed similarly to Jiang Cheng, with his entire body covered except for his eyes, so his appearance could not be seen clearly.
"Are you the ones guarding this place?" Xing Bi asked.
The man did not answer, but looked at Ji Sui and Xu Jie behind him again: "The strongest undercover team actually has three people, this is a big deal."
The biochemical beings who have lived in this chaotic world outside for more than a hundred years have already developed distinct personalities. The biochemical being in front of him has a hoarse voice and a distinct bandit tone. If Qiu Shi had not been sure that he was a hidden guard, he would have thought he was more like a vagrant.
"Name." Xing Bi looked at him.
"It's been a long time since anyone called me by my name," he was silent for a while, "Bo Zhan."
"Bai Zhan?" Ji Sui took two steps forward and stood next to Xing Bi. "The voices don't match."
"Do you know him?" Qiu Shi asked Xu Jie in a low voice.
"I know all the secret guards." Xu Jie also answered in a low voice.
"The system is damaged," Bai Zhan pulled down the black mask that covered most of his face, revealing his face, "It's good enough that he can speak."
"I thought you already..." Xing Bi looked at him.
"Is he dead?" Bai Zhan asked.
"Yeah." Xing Bi responded.
"Not yet." said Bai Zhan.
"Have you been here all the time?" Xing Bi asked.
"Yes," Bai Zhan nodded, "I want to see who will come back here in the end, besides those symbiotes, will it be you or humans?"
Xing Bi turned around and glanced at Qiu Shi.
"We need to go in," Xing Bi turned back to look at Bai Zhan, "We need someone to stand guard outside."
"Them?" Bai Zhan glanced at Sang Fan.
"Look at your shit." Sang Fan was obviously not convinced. She had never been defeated by anyone since she was appointed.
Bai Zhan laughed: "Who did you learn this from?"
"You all come together," Xing Bi said, "bring your men with you and stand guard together."
"Are you commanding me?" Bai Zhan asked.
"Yes." Xing Bi glanced at him.
"Where does your confidence come from?" Bai Zhan asked again.
"How long have you been waiting for us here?" Xing Bi asked.
Bai Zhan didn't say anything.
"Twenty-one minutes." Sang Fan said.
Bai Zhan turned his head and glanced at her again.
Xing Bi tapped the glass door gently: "We can hear it if you knock a few times, but you didn't. You don't know what we are doing. I'm afraid you will affect us and cause an accident."
Bai Zhan folded his arms and looked at him, still without saying anything.
"You could have stopped us from coming in, but you didn't," Xing Bi said, "Where did the confidence come from? You gave it to me."
"What are you doing in there?" Bai Zhan asked.
"We were just going in to investigate," Xing Bi said, "but now the plan has changed. We need to destroy the storage device to eliminate the possibility of 249 hiding."
Bai Zhan was silent for a while: "She has to listen to me."
Xing Bi looked at Sang Fan and said, "Follow his instructions."
"Yeah." Sang Fan responded in a hoarse voice.
"We need to get Yao Xiu out first. She needs a medical vehicle," Xing Bi said. "You and your people should stay five meters away from the door."
Bai Zhan didn't say anything, just made a gesture and slowly retreated with his men.
"Guard the door." Yao Xiu said.
The second-level undercover guards inside raised their guns in unison and pointed them at the glass door.
At the same time Xing Bi pressed the door-opening button, Ji Sui and Xu Jie also raised their guns.
When the door opened, Qiu Shi helped Yao Xiu out: "Sang Fan."
Sang Fan came over, held Yao Xiu back.
"Arrange someone to take her to the medical vehicle." Xing Bi said.
"Yeah." Sang Fan nodded.
Qiu Shi retreated back into the glass door and it closed again.
"We don't know how long it will take," Xing Bi looked at Bai Zhan, "but the symbiote will definitely come."
"Yeah." Bai Zhan responded.
"Don't let them get close." Xing Bi said.
"Yeah." Bai Zhan responded.
Xing Bi looked at him and was silent for a while: "Thank you."
Bai Zhan didn't say anything, but put his mask back on.
Xing Bi turned off the intercom system, and the silence inside the glass door returned to its previous state.
Bai Zhan outside began to make arrangements. He left three of his men outside the glass door, and Sang Fan took his men out with him.
"Let's go in." Xing Bi turned and walked downstairs.
"Can this person be trusted?" Qiu Shi was a little worried.
"Reliable." Xing Bi said.
"He was Professor Song's last student," said Ji Sui.
"Ah." Qiu Shi glanced at Xing Bi.
"The teacher was arrested, and he tried to stop Zheng Ting and was injured. Later, when we evacuated," Xing Bi said, "he helped us, but I didn't see him again when I left. I thought he was dead."
Qiu Shi suddenly understood why Xing Bi said "thank you" so solemnly just now. This should be the thank you that he didn't have the chance to say back then. "We're going in now." Xing Bi stood in front of the metal door.
"Yeah." Qiu Shi responded.
Xing Bi took out a small bottle, which was the one that Xing Bi and his team carried on their uniforms. They had used this thing to collect fungal samples when they went on missions before.
Xing Bi pulled his hand over, pricked his finger with something, and collected the blood in a bottle: "If we fail to open this door in more than 20 seconds..."
"I don't care about things that far away." Qiu Shi put his fingers in his mouth and sucked them, then rubbed them on his clothes twice, interrupting him.
This core area is a place where people can come and go without returning at any time. Xing Bi simply wanted to make arrangements for his final arrangements, but he didn't want to listen.
Xing Bi smiled and didn't say anything else. He just put his finger into the password box.
A blue light flashed in the code box, and the metal door in front of him rose up from the bottom without making any sound.
"Can I follow them in from the bottom?" Qiu Shi asked when he heard the sounds of machines humming in succession.
"You will be cut into human slices." Ji Sui said.
"Oh." Qiu Shi responded.
After Xing Bi entered, Ji Sui and Xu Jie followed him in. The door fell in front of Qiu Shi and closed again.
"One, two, three, four..." Qiu Shi suddenly panicked the moment the door closed and began to count in a low voice.
But when I counted to twenty, the door still didn't open.
He realized that it was impossible for Xing Bi and the others to start operating the moment they entered.
So from which second should we start counting
What's the count now
"Fuck your ancestors." He cursed in a low voice.
Then Xing Bi's voice was heard coming from the password box: "Qiu Shi."
“Hey!” Qiu Shi shouted, and moved closer. He found that there was no screen and no small hole to see inside. “I’m here!”
"Authorization successful," Xing Bi said, "Put your finger on the sensor key."
"What is a sensor key..." Qiu Shi took a look and saw a small blue light, so he pressed his finger on it.
Something pricked his fingertips.
"Fuck," Qiu Shi was shocked, "I have to bleed just to open the door."
The door began to rise, he bent down and looked inside, and saw Xing Bi's legs.
"Can we get in now?" he asked.
"Yes." Xing Bi said.
Qiu Shi didn't wait for the door to open completely, he just squatted down and went in.
When he stood up, he quickly hugged Xing Bi, hugged him tightly, and then quickly separated.
When he looked around, he discovered that behind the metal door was a spacious hall. Under the bright lights were various instruments that Qiu Shi could not understand at all, but he could see that it was divided into different areas, and the things in each area were different.
Some were instruments, similar to the surgical treatment cabins he had seen in Donglin, and some were rows of shelves, with neatly stacked cubes filled with wires and small green lights flashing on them...
There is also a huge surveillance screen in the middle of the hall. He is very familiar with this thing. It is the same as the one in the surveillance room of the Yuncheng biochemical warehouse, but it is much larger and can monitor a much larger area.
However, perhaps the connection with the outside world has been cut off, and the monitoring areas displayed on the screen can be seen as various locations inside this metal gate.
Qiu Shi could still see several of them in the picture.
"Take these out," Xing Bi said, standing in front of two rows of cubes flashing green lights.
"Does 249 want to come in and live in these blocks?" Qiu Shi asked.
"Yeah." Xing Bi glanced at the time.
"Are those over there the same?" Qiu Shi pointed to the rows of shelves against the wall on the other side. Unlike these cubes, the cubes on the shelves over there were not plugged in to wires and had no flashing lights.
"That's a bookshelf," Xing Bi said, "those are books."
"...What?" Qiu Shi was stunned.
"Go take a look," Xing Bi began to pull the blocks on the shelf out of the slots that held them, "illiterate apocalypse man."
Ji Sui and Xu Jie also started drawing cubes.
Qiu Shi wanted to help, but he felt that they were moving too fast. He was also curious about the books over there. For a corpse collector who had only attended a refugee school for a few days, these things were very attractive, so he walked over there.
After taking only two steps, an alarm suddenly sounded in the hall.
"Oh shit!" He glanced down at his feet, fearing that he might have stepped on some kind of trap.
Short beeps echoed around, making people panic, and the various buttons below the central monitor began to flash, light up, and go out...
"What's that noise?" Qiu Shi turned around.
"We are destroying this place," Xing Bi said, "and the alarm has been triggered. If it were before, we would have been caught within two minutes."
"Who caught him?" Qiu Shi asked.
"We." Xing Bi replied.
It took Qiu Shi two seconds to react, and he felt as if time and space were dislocated.
He walked to the shelf on the wall amidst the flashing lights and alarms, feeling panicked and anxious.
These were indeed books, but unlike the books he had in mind, all the books looked the same, with black covers and golden words.
These words became a little difficult to recognize under the flickering lights around, so Qiu Shi pulled out a book at random.
Before he could turn the page, the place where the book was originally placed lit up, and a projection almost the same size as the book appeared in front of him.
"Introduction... Contents... What's the introduction..." He stared at the words above.
This should be the electronic version of the book's introduction. It was very detailed, and the densely packed words made his eyes a little dizzy.
It took him a long time to realize that what he was holding was a catalog, or a switch. The projection was the content of the book. When the book was taken out, the content was projected in front of him. Judging from the titles of the books that could be chosen, the content contained in it was far more than just one book...
"Xing Bi," he took a few steps back slowly, looking at the wall-high bookshelf in front of him and the densely packed books on it, "These are a lot of books, not just the ones I saw. If I bring them back to Yuncheng..."
"We can't take it away this time," Xing Bi said, "but we can try again."
"Yeah." Qiu Shi put the book in his hand back to its original place, turned around and walked quickly back to Xing Bi, and began to help them take apart the blocks.
A shelf was emptied, and the blocks that had been pulled out had their wires unplugged and were scattered all over the floor.
"An unread pre-recorded message." A flat female voice suddenly sounded amid the alarm.
"Fuck, what?" Qiu Shi raised his head in shock.
Even Xing Bi and the other three paused and looked towards the control console in the middle at the same time.
"An unread canned message."
The author has something to say:
To be continued tomorrow.
Ah, the time has been very unstable these past few days. It will probably be more stable starting from Thursday. If you are afraid of waiting these two days, you can just come and see it later.
I'll correct the typos later. I'm going to have a meal first. OK