"No, no, no! Please, sit! It's nothing serious!" Song He said with an awkward laugh, grabbing Lao Zhao by the arm and making him sit down.
"You absolutely mustn't violate regulations. You can't ruin my reputation in my later years." Lao Zhao broke into a sweat. "Tell me what it is first. Once I'm sure it can be handled properly, I'll eat."
"You know about Chenghuang Oasis Company's farmland in North Africa, right?"
"Of course I do. It was even reported in the news."
"Have you heard about the insect plague?"
"I saw some... rumors online." Lao Zhao chose his words carefully.
"How should I put it? It's a rumor, but it isn't one either." Song He said, "Someone put boxes of insect eggs into our irrigation system. The bugs that hatched from them were called Pearl Millet Sand Fleas. I examined their genes, and there were obvious signs of artificial editing."
Lao Zhao froze.
"Pearl Millet Sand Fleas were only the carriers. What the enemy really wanted to do was unleash a massive outbreak of Actinomycetes. They even specially created an extremely advanced strain of Actinomycetes." Song He continued, "It could cause disease outbreaks in farmland and destroy huge amounts of crops."
"Isn't this biological warfare?" Lao Zhao was shocked. "Damn it, take them to an international court! Whoever caused losses for you, make them pay ten or a hundred times over—and they have to go to prison!"
"The losses weren't that great. I developed the antidote." Song He said, "We definitely can't let the enemy off, but the problem right now is that we don't know who released the insect-egg boxes."
"It can be investigated." Lao Zhao said, "Give me the boxes. No matter what they're made of—metal or plastic—we can analyze their trace components to determine which