Infiltration

Lu Bai pulled his cap lower, picked up the broom, and placed it in the cleaning cart. Then he pushed the cart toward the Research Center building at an unhurried pace.

He wore an orange-and-white cleaner's uniform, along with a mask and gloves. There was no need to deliberately look for blind spots in the security cameras. He simply pushed the cart openly along the paths between the tents.

The two soldiers at the Research Center entrance only glanced at him and made no move to stop him.

Lu Bai pushed the cart naturally into the building, passed through the lobby, and stopped in front of the elevator.

It was ten at night. Warm-toned lights illuminated the entire lobby, but there weren't many people in the Research Center at this hour. The brighter it was, the more empty and quiet it seemed.

The elevator doors opened. Lu Bai calmly pushed the cart inside, glanced at the security camera in the upper-left corner of the elevator, then openly pressed the button for his floor.

"Good job. Keep it up. When the elevator doors open, there'll be two researchers drinking coffee in the lounge on your left. Ignore them and keep going straight. You'll come to a T-shaped corridor. Walk to the end, then turn right," Agu said through the micro earpiece.

Lu Bai's expression didn't change. He only gave a barely perceptible nod to show he understood.

Ding-dong~

A pleasant chime rang, and the elevator doors opened again.

"Careful. Someone's about to come out of the lab on your left."

Lu Bai dawdled out of the elevator, looking just like an overworked wage slave forced to work overtime, too afraid to complain, and reduced to slacking off in protest.

Sure enough, the lab door opened. A balding Mediterranean Man in a lab coat yawned. When he saw Lu Bai, he said, "Thanks for the effort."

Lu Bai nodded to the Mediterranean Man and silently walked past him. After a couple of steps, he suddenly turned around. "I don't think I've seen you before."

The Mediterranean Man paused. "I'm probably in the lab most of the time. It's normal that you haven't seen me."

"You're the ones who are really working hard." Lu Bai's gaze unconsciously drifted to the bare patch on the man's head.

After parting ways with the Mediterranean Man, Lu Bai's journey continued without incident.

Agu, who was directing him remotely from inside a tent, always managed to warn Lu Bai in advance. It was hard not to wonder how he was pulling all this off.

If it was some kind of Silver Ability, its power seemed downright outrageous.

"Is that the place?"

Lu Bai stood in a blind spot, looking toward a set of heavy isolation doors not far away.

"Yeah. Next, I'll interfere with the two operators in the Monitoring Room. That should give you about ten seconds. You'll have to hurry. You remember the password, right?"

Lu Bai took the broom out of the cleaning cart, went around to the corridor, and pretended to pass by the lab.

"Go."

As soon as Agu spoke, Lu Bai turned toward the keypad and tapped out the sixteen-digit password at lightning speed, entering it in less than three seconds.

Bzz—pfft.

The lab's isolation door opened, then shut.

Lu Bai carried out the whole sequence smoothly, as if he'd rehearsed it countless times.

"Beautiful!" Agu's voice was noticeably more excited.

"A cleaner? What are you doing in here?"

A bespectacled man in a white lab coat, around twenty-seven or twenty-eight, stared in astonishment at Lu Bai, who had just walked in.

Lu Bai: "..."

He lowered the broom in his hand and let out a long sigh. "You're making this difficult for me."

"These lab coats are pretty good quality."

Lu Bai tugged at the coat a couple of times. He looked over the researcher he'd tied up like a dumpling and seemed quite satisfied.

"W-what are you trying to do? I'm just an assistant. I don't know anything," the researcher asked cautiously.

"Hmm... Let me think about where to start."

Lu Bai rubbed his chin and suddenly asked, "This lab isn't researching vaccines, is it?"

It was phrased as a question, but his tone was quite certain.

The bespectacled researcher seemed to realize Lu Bai wasn't planning to do anything to him and relaxed a little.

With his wits returning, he spoke more coherently. "That's right. Professor Jiang is leading the vaccine research. Professor Jiang's lab isn't on this floor."

"Don't you have something to say?" Lu Bai asked softly.

In fact, ever since he entered the lab, the other end of the earpiece had fallen silent. Not a sound had come through.

Agu's voice came through: "Oh, I'm listening. But I suggest you make a run for it right now. The Rapid Response Force should already be downstairs at the Research Center."

"No rush."

Lu Bai didn't panic, and his tone didn't even quicken. "Have you reached the lab where the vaccine is?"

"You figured it out, huh? A little slower than I expected."

Agu's voice came through the earpiece with some distortion, but his smugness was still unmistakable.

At that, Lu Bai smiled faintly. "So you're actually a researcher at the Research Center, right?"

From Agu's point of view, since Lu Bai had given up his chance to escape, he didn't mind chatting for a bit.

"Oh? What makes you think that?"

"I'd had my suspicions. After all, if all you did was secretly stash a wad of gum in the Monitoring Room and use the security cameras to learn what was going on inside the building, you'd have a lot of blind spots.

"But you know this building very well. With the strength of a Silver level Ability, you couldn't have gathered such detailed information in just a few days.

"You can't stick a wad of gum on everyone you meet. That would be disgusting. I'd rather believe you'd surveyed the place in person. The only way to do that without arousing suspicion would be to work here and come and go as you pleased.

"Oh, and there's one more thing you might not have noticed. Medical staff come to disinfect the shelter every day, but the smell of disinfectant on you is especially strong."

Lu Bai had realized long ago that Deadly Duelists were assigned random starting identities.

Compared to his high-school-student start, a researcher's identity offered far more flexibility.

Agu fell silent for a few seconds before asking curiously, "You're more perceptive than I thought. So why did you obediently follow my plan?"

Lu Bai took out the tiny earpiece and crushed it between his thumb and forefinger.

Only after that did he put on an innocent smile, tinged with a hint of mockery. "Your plan?"

On the fifth floor of the Research Center, in a lab lined with rows upon rows of test tubes, a white curtain was pulled aside. Zhou Zongming cursed as he squeezed out of a storage room crammed with medical equipment, then glared at Agu, who had broken in in the middle of the night.

"I must be crazy. I really listened to that kid and hid in here for half the night. And that little bastard really didn't lie to me."