Chapter 53 – Tongwan Hospital (7)
◎ A Big Moth ◎
“What are you doing?”
The moment the secret door opened, Song Ke appeared behind Zhuang Qingyan like a ghost.
The two people’s gazes collided unexpectedly. After a few seconds, Song Ke turned her head and glanced at the open door.
In the mysterious silence, Zhuang Qingyan’s heart beat a bit faster.
At a time like this, as long as Song Ke shouted, An Qiwen and the others would be attracted over.
Although he hadn’t done anything guilty, he couldn’t explain the current situation at all.
Song Ke hesitated for a moment, didn’t shout or scream, just looked at Zhuang Qingyan quietly, and stared at him.
Then she subtly turned on her tiptoe and moved to the doorway, blocking Zhuang Qingyan’s figure perfectly.
“You, hurry up,” Song Ke urged softly.
Zhuang Qingyan smiled slowly.
Anyway, Song Ke had chosen to stand on his side.
Even though it wasn’t said out loud, in that moment just now, there was a strange understanding flowing between them.
Zhuang Qingyan seized the time, flashed into the dark room, glanced around, and indeed, as An Qiwen had said, it was just an ordinary control center with nothing noteworthy, let alone any forgotten important information, top-secret data, and so on.
However…
The control center controlled the access system of the entire laboratory. The logs of visitors stored in different areas were interconnected, and one could still find some traces of the people who entered and exited U-Lab over the past decade.
Zhuang Qingyan unlocked the panel, rapidly inputted the commands with his fingertips, and deleted all the data from the access control.
Then he surveyed the area, picked some equipment that could be taken, and stashed them all into his space.
The silver wheelchair slid out silently, the secret door closed slowly, and Song Ke leaned against the wall, staring at him without blinking.
Zhuang Qingyan nodded, “All done.”
Song Ke didn’t ask what he had done inside. She took the wheelchair and pushed him to catch up with An Qiwen and the others.
They had been gone for two or three minutes, but because everyone’s attention was focused on the fish-like zombies, they were fortunately not discovered.
After clearing the zombie fishman’s body, the road became clear again, and An Qiwen led the group to proceed, reaching the depths of U-Lab.
After leaving the cold and oppressive research lab, the light suddenly brightened, and before everyone’s eyes was a glass conservatory.
It was hard to imagine that in such a grim and eerie place like U-Lab, there was a dreamlike transparent garden. Artificial sunlight from the top freely poured in, brightening and warming up the room. The garden was lush with vegetation, fresh air, and the display cabinets on both sides held many intact insect specimens, vivid and lifelike.
“The last set of data, once it’s copied, we’re done,” An Qiwen connected the chip to the cabinet-like instrument and began the data transfer.
The mission was about to be completed. He relaxed his nerves, rubbed his neck, and stretched the tense shoulders.
“Uncle An, what kind of machine is this?” Xu Xing asked as she approached.
“This? It’s a visitor system’s information cabinet. Inside are all sorts of miscellaneous data, we’ll take it back and see if it’s useful or not.”
“Oh,” Xu Xing responded obediently.
He turned his little head, looking left and right, curious about everything but refraining from reaching out.
The little guy was quite smart. How could he touch things randomly here? It was portrayed that way on television, with stupid cannon fodders breaking things or accidentally touching something, only for a super powerful monster to come out, leading to everyone’s demise!
He was not that kind of idiot!
Xu Xing’s gaze fell on a specimen inside a display cabinet.
There was a giant insect specimen, seemingly a kind of moth based on its appearance. Its grayish-white antennae were thick and short, with pitch-black compound eyes. The spread-out wings were covered in brown and black scales, with brush-like ripples around, making it dizzying after a while.
Xu Xing blinked. Just now, the large moth specimen seemed to have moved.
He rubbed his eyes in disbelief and then his eyes widened slightly.
He hadn’t seen it wrong; it moved again!
Xu Xing shivered, subconsciously wanting to grab his sister’s leg. But when he raised his head, he realized that Song Ke was pushing Zhuang Qingyan a bit away from him. He didn’t dare to run around, so he settled for the next best thing and tugged on An Qiwen’s sleeve nearby. “Uncle An, that specimen is moving!”
The garden was extremely quiet. Not only An Qiwen but also the others heard Xu Xing’s warning.
Song Ke looked alert, looking at the glass walls, the control desk, and the display cabinets one by one.
There were too many; there were at least a thousand specimens here. Which one was Xu Xing referring to?
Soon, everyone figured out which one it was.
A giant flapping moth with a body length of over forty-five centimeters flew up leisurely. As it flapped its wings, a flurry of fine powder drifted down from the air, resembling a gentle rain.
“Vertical-striped poisonous moth, female. Don’t inhale those dust,” Zhuang Qingyan quickly warned, “…they are all its eggs.”
The faces of everyone turned grim, hurriedly covering their mouths and noses.
But an even bigger crisis was yet to come.
After the mother moth appeared, countless young moths flew out from the corners of the walls, the control desk, the cabinets, and even from the shadows of the trees. They had extremely bright and vibrant colors—yellow-green, yellow-brown—with long hair covering their tarsal joints. They looked fuzzy, but combined with the grayish-white, they presented an obvious zombified appearance, far from being cute. They could be described as creepy.
Zhuang Qingyan quickly recited a series of numbers, “SFP2056.”
Song Ke was puzzled at first but then lightning-fast recalled the capsule warehouse they had just passed by. Experimental subject SFP2056, the lepidopteran vertical-striped poisonous moth. According to the last experimental record, it was still alive!
So… this mutated poisonous moth was hiding here and using the glass garden as a warm bed to hatch its larvae!
Zhuang Qingyan’s reminder was correct; those flying all around were definitely not dust but its parasitic eggs.
It was utterly disgusting!
Su Cha’s dagger was swift and precise, killing one larvae with a single swipe. However, there were simply too many of these mutated insects, and they couldn’t be killed off.
Lin Youyou’s extraordinary singing ability was nearly useless in this situation. Every time she opened her mouth, she would inhale a multitude of bugs.
Luckily, they had two awakeners capable of causing a group damage. Xu Xing unleashed a blizzard, while An Qiwen was surrounded by a surge of purple electricity. Their abilities covered the garden, and a brilliant light filled the air.
However, the larvae were like wildfire, cut one down, and another immediately took its place, becoming more and more numerous.
No one knew how many eggs this poisonous moth had laid. There were countless little creatures dancing wildly in every direction, blocking their vision with a bright yellow color and muffling their hearing with the sound of flapping wings. Soon, they couldn’t see each other clearly.
A terrifying moth disaster had arrived.
“Focus on capturing the big ones,” An Qiwen gritted his teeth and shouted these three words.
He controlled the lightning to shuttle through the larvae swarm, attempting to find the culprit, the mother moth. The idea was correct, but doing this was as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack.
Song Ke pushed Zhuang Qingyan towards Xu Xing and An Qiwen. The two of them, by continuously releasing their abilities, barely managed to create a vacuum zone, temporarily preventing the larvae from coming closer.
Then she faced the surging wave of larvae and ran her fingers over the control desk. A blue light burst forth, and in her palm, a peculiarly shaped spiritual weapon took form. Looking at the lower half, it resembled a long-handled halberd, flat and straight in structure, with a horizontal blade edge and a vertical hilt. However, the upper half was vastly different, featuring a hooked iron mesh with countless tiny barbs and blades, which were extremely sharp.
Holding this iron racket, Song Ke rolled and moved towards An Qiwen. “Lend me so-some ability.”
Without a second word, An Qiwen released a dark purple thunder snake, tightly coiling around the mesh.
On the surface of the spiritual weapon, the interweaving blue-purple energy glowed. With a single push from Song Ke, she jumped onto a counter, swinging the iron racket in the air.
Crackling sounds filled the air as the larvae that hit the iron mesh were first caught by the barbs and blades, then roasted by the lightning. The powerful electric currents lit up along the mesh, and the smell of burnt protein filled the air.
The larvae’s bodies were instantly charred, falling like raindrops.
Holding her homemade electric racket, Song Ke jumped and danced around the garden. The swarm of larvae seemed to sense the danger and huddled together, trying to evade. However, they couldn’t escape. With crackling sounds, a large number of them were electrocuted.
The chaotic scene, after this action, suddenly became absurd and comical.
An Qiwen encountered an awakener with this kind of style for the first time. His eyes widened in astonishment, forming a complete circle. Countless thoughts piled up in his mind, ultimately condensed into a sentence, “Oh my goodness, impressive, really impressive.”
After a thorough cleanup of a large number of larvae, Song Ke finally found the hiding mother moth. The massive poisonous moth was lurking above them, circling around the artificial light sphere and continuously dispersing parasitic eggs. Song Ke swung her electric racket and fiercely struck towards it!
The purple lightning and barbs emitted a dazzling light. The poisonous moth leaped into the air and skillfully evaded the attack.
Song Ke pursued, striking in the opposite direction. The mother moth agilely evaded, and the mesh brushed against its wings. It received an electric shock and got pricked, causing half of its body to shiver, yet it didn’t fall off!
“Not good… It’s resistant,” Zhuang Qingyan said with a grave expression, throwing out a terrifying speculation.
“!” Song Ke was shocked.
She almost forgot that this poisonous moth was an experimental subject. U-Lab had undoubtedly conducted various modifications on it. Since it managed to survive, its genes had definitely mutated, perhaps more than once!
The electric racket was too large. It was better suited for group attacks, and using it against the mother moth alone made the target too obvious.
Moreover, An Qiwen’s lightning ability had minimal effect on it.
Song Ke thought for a moment and shouted, “Xiao Xing, freeze it!”
Xu Xing, with a serious expression, nodded vigorously. “Okay!”
A small amount of ice and snow appeared in front of him, and Xu Xing kept his eyes fixed on the mother moth, controlling his ability unsteadily.
Also possessing a B-level AOE (area of effect) ability and being more experienced, An Qiwen saw what was going on and kindly advised him, “Don’t use your eyes; use your ability. Allocate a bit of your mental energy to control it more precisely.”
Xu Xing took a deep breath inwardly, calming down. The flight trajectory of the ice and snow became more stable. He held his breath and focused, controlling his ability with great concentration. In a swift movement, he teleported near the poisonous moth, and the ice and snow broke into tiny ice crystals, some landing on its wings.
The movements of the mother moth showed a slight delay.
It was only a moment, but it was a rare opportunity!
How could they eliminate it in one go?
Among these people, one possessed the strongest ability to obliterate the evidence.
Song Ke’s mind raced, and she extended the iron flail back towards Su Cha.
“Le-lend me some a-ability,” she said.
Su Cha hesitated for a moment, then without refusal, placed the dagger on the spiritual net. A dim green light poured out.
Song Ke smoothly borrowed the ability and leaped into the air!
The blue-green racket swung heavily towards the mother moth. The mother moth had just been frozen by Xu Xing and struggled desperately. It flew upwards, about to escape the attack range. With a flick of her wrist, Song Ke extended the length of her spiritual weapon, and the poisoned mesh hit its body squarely.
“Splat—”
A pungent corrosive odor filled the air. The mother moth, from its abdomen to its wings and antennae, was eroded inch by inch by the toxic liquid, turning into black viscous fluid.
Success!
The larvae lost their leader, and in a headless and aimless manner, they attacked persistently, but they were no longer a threat.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Song Ke transformed several more electric rackets, attaching An Qiwen’s abilities, and distributed one to each companion, starting to deal with the moths in the garden.
Crackling sounds filled the air as the green and yellow larvae piled up on the ground, gradually reaching the height of everyone’s ankles.
After spending some time cleaning up, the garden finally fell completely silent.
An Qiwen had already completed the data retrieval, and the murky air was no longer suitable for lingering.
Song Ke and the others withdrew.
There were still some unexplored areas in U-Lab, but An Qiwen’s mission was only to retrieve data. Since that was accomplished, there was no need to continue staying. The others were also not particularly interested. Just thinking about it, apart from the various strange experimental creatures, there was nothing else inside.
They were, however, very interested in the iron rackets Song Ke had transformed.
“Ke’er, you’re really something. How did you come up with this?” Lin Youyou observed the iron racket, poking the fine thorns on the mesh with her slender fingers, and they instantly cut her skin. “Give this to me, we did contribute, after all.”
An Qiwen also seemed quite pleased, holding onto the iron racket tightly. He hadn’t expected that his ability could be used in such a clever way.
Song Ke wasn’t stingy, and everyone had exerted a lot of efforts inside just now. She slightly controlled her mental energy, cutting off her connection with this batch of spiritual weapons. She straightforwardly said, “Here, for all of you.”
…
Back in Tongwan, the temporary team parted ways. An Qiwen had to return to the hospital, and Lin Youyou also informed them of the upcoming arrangements. The famous celebrity from District C, after a period of excitement, had visibly lost weight, but she appeared much more resilient.
Lin Youyou smiled at Song Ke. “Just to make it clear, I’m not trying to avoid my debt.”
“The top 32 game is about to start, and given my job nature and some personal matters to handle, I have to return to Ferrara tomorrow.”
“As for the remaining two tasks, I’ll owe you for now. You can contact me when you need them.”
Song Ke nodded.
She didn’t have any other tasks at the moment, so there was no need to stop Lin Youyou from leaving. Anyway, whether it was Ferrara or Tongwan, catching Lin Youyou as a coolie wouldn’t be difficult.
The three members of V587 returned to their residence. Xu Xing kept yelling about parasites, parasites all the way. Zhuang Qingyan and Song Ke were made itchy all over by his words. Originally, they weren’t worried, but Xu Xing scared them with his remarks, so they rushed back to their rooms and took a shower.
…
With one hand supporting the crutch, Zhuang Qingyan came out of the bathroom, wiping his wet hair. He casually glanced and saw someone sitting on his bed.
Also with wet hair, dripping down to the shoulders, the small face looked extremely serious, staring intently at him.
Oh, it’s time for the settlement of accounts.
Zhuang Qingyan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
The next moment, he sighed softly in his heart.
She didn’t even knock on the door.
