The Dust-Sealed Secret (Part 1)

In the basement of the Guarding Prosperity Building, Mr. Liang was looking at the interim report sent back by Fang Pingfang's investigation team.

Although they had no definitive findings, evidence, or clues yet, Mr. Liang was still paying special attention to their group.

Besides being in charge of the investigation of the "giant raptor," a well-documented "Blood-feeding Creature," the team also included Mi Qiao, who had a good understanding of the actual characteristics of "Blood-feeding Creature," and Zhou Rui's discovery of the very special new ant species, the "Ghost-Whisker Ant."

Mr. Liang felt that Fang Pingfang's group seemed particularly prone to encountering "special events".

These "special events" have been happening continuously since they explored the Qinling Uninhabited Zone last year and brought back the Rabbit Woodcarving.

Or to be more precise, strange things began to plague them from the moment they came into contact with the wooden carving in the cave in the Qinling Mountains.

Of course, this can also be considered a good thing for researchers.

After Zhou Rui sent one of the captured "Ghost-Whisker Ant" to a laboratory in Yang City for comprehensive testing, Mr. Liang also personally had direct contact with the ant.

He could be fairly certain that this ant, with its distinctive "antennae," physiological habits, and many differences from known ant species, was not a "Blood-feeding Creature," but whether it was related to "Blood-feeding Creature" remained to be confirmed.

After all, Mr. Liang knew very well that "Blood-feeding Creature" were not born that way, but were all transformed from ordinary creatures.

However, thinking back to the sudden thunderstorm when he hunted that "giant bird of prey" in Wushu Mountain, and considering that Chongyun Mountain and Wushu Mountain are not far apart, and that similar strange thunderstorms had occurred in Chongyun Mountain before, which even coincidentally killed two fugitives, Mr. Liang couldn't help but have a certain suspicion that made him tremble.

Could the seemingly unremarkable "Ghost-Whisker Ant" be connected to that...?

As Mr. Liang was reading the report, he faintly heard what sounded like fine sand falling onto the sheet metal from the ventilation duct at the top not far away.

The sound was very faint, almost imperceptible, and quickly disappeared, so Mr. Liang didn't pay much attention to it. Such faint noises were often heard underground.

Various pipes, machinery, electronic equipment, and their associated ventilation and heat dissipation equipment inevitably produce various noises during operation. His hearing is also much stronger than that of ordinary people, so it's normal for him to hear some of these sounds.

He was quite confident in the security of this underground secret space; the entire security system was designed and built under his supervision, and he knew the space inside and out.

Especially after the "Tai'e" method was successfully applied, this place became impregnable, a true impregnable fortress where "not even a mosquito could get in."

He didn't believe that anything—not even a small, special "Blood-feeding Creature"—could sneak in without alerting "Tai'e" or him.

He has a unique way of detecting "Blood-feeding Creature." If any "Blood-feeding Creature" other than himself, John Cavendish, and the two remaining creatures confined in separate spaces were to appear here, he would certainly be able to detect them.

Of course, if John had mentioned the strange noise he heard when describing how he saw the "rabbit meat" hallucination, it might have attracted more attention from Mr. Liang, even though he still couldn't find the source of the noise, even if he demolished the place.

After all, those "things" that caused the strange noises weren't just sitting still in one place.

Alice and her bald boss now know more about this underground space, its various crevices and pipes, than even the owner Mr. Liang.

In a hotel in Peng City.

Xiang Kun was in the room, was waiting for the results of Alice's mission.

Previously, when he entered the "Hyper-Sensory State" to deploy the "Super-Linked Object", he sensed that there was cognitive information representing Mr. Liang in the secret space under the building, and knew that Mr. Liang was down there at this time.

Therefore, Alice was specifically instructed to keep quiet during the mission and not to trigger the Rabbit Woodcarving's "Emotion-Infused Object" characteristic again, creating rabbit meat illusions that could severely impact electronic equipment and power supply, as happened last time.

Although he believed that even if Mr. Liang experienced the various visions created by Alice and saw the rabbit meat illusion like John, it wouldn't have any impact on him. After all, he knew it was related to the Rabbit Woodcarving, but he couldn't find the reason or clue, let alone imagine what Alice was doing now.

But his main goal now is to obtain the data from that underground storage device, and he wants to avoid anything that might cause complications.

Alice, like a secret agent 007 who sneaks in on a mission, faithfully carries out his orders and methods.

Now that enough "Super-Linked Object" have been deployed in that underground space, Alice should theoretically have more control and be more confident when carrying out her mission.

Time passed second by second, Xiang Kun would occasionally enter a "Hyper-Sensory State," descending to the side of the Rabbit Woodcarving to observe Alice's actions.

This time, Alice finally did not disappoint him. Around six o'clock in the morning, she began transmitting the data she had "dug up".

Alice was very pleased with herself. In Xiang Kun's room, she controlled the lights to flash more than a dozen times, and then her voice came from the laptop. "Boss, I did it!"

Sitting in front of the computer Xiang Kun smiled and nodded, "I know." In fact, even if Alice didn't say anything, Xiang Kun already knew about it the moment she started converting the data through her ability to manipulate it.

"I expect to complete the transfer of all data by 6:50 PM today. Boss, your laptop has too little storage space, I'll save it to another device first," Alice said.

Alice obtains data from storage devices through the "Super-Link Object Matrix," then directly "transcodes" it to certain electronic devices in the Guarding Prosperity Building, converts it back into digital information, and then directly transmits this information back using the Guarding Prosperity Building's network.

To use an analogy, Alice is like someone stealing wheat from another's field, then using that person's threshing machine, filling their sacks, temporarily storing it in their warehouse, and finally transporting it home in their truck...

"Okay, once you've finished the transcoding, send me a portion to take a look," Xiang Kun said.

Xiang Kun had been curious about the data in the secret storage device beneath the Guarding Prosperity Building for a long time, so now he just wanted to see it as soon as possible to see if he could resolve some of his doubts.

"Yes, boss!" Alice replied, and the transfer progress bar for the first document quickly appeared on the desktop.

Xiang Kun poured himself a glass of water and sat down, rubbing his hands together expectantly. While waiting for the progress bar to finish, he simply picked up his phone and sent Lao Xia a message on WeChat: "Are you awake?"

He knew that Lao Xia was just as interested as he was in the data that "Shenxing Technology" and Mr. Liang had kept hidden so deeply, as if it were some kind of forbidden item, and that it had been taken offline and sealed away.

Alice's voice rang out first. "Should I wake Lao Xia up?"

"No need..." Xiang Kun said helplessly. Of course he knew why Alice was so eager. She felt that she had completed a "big task" and wanted to show off so that Lao Xia would praise her.

After a while, the first document was successfully transmitted. Xiang Kun began to examine it and found that it contained information on some new compounds. He knew that many laboratories in the secret department of "Shenxing Technology" were conducting research on new compounds when he was tracking Mi Qiao and spying on the secret research center of "Shenxing Technology" in Qicheng City.

This was confirmed after Alice completely took control of the dedicated network and most of the servers of the secret department of "Shenxing Technology". A large number of highly paid researchers in the secret department of "Shenxing Technology" were conducting special compound research and synthesizing certain special new compounds according to Mr. Liang's specific instructions.

But they knew nothing about the uses of these compounds.

Moreover, most of these new compounds are extremely unstable, making it difficult to even maintain their stability at room temperature and pressure, let alone apply them.

Xiang Kun frowned slightly. Could it be that the data they went through all that trouble to retrieve was just a "backup"?

Fortunately, as more documents were transferred over, data that was not previously available on the dedicated network server began to appear. Among these, what caught Xiang Kun's attention the most was Mr. Liang's own information.

He saw Mr. Liang's photos and files before the mutation. Just as he had guessed, Mr. Liang was Lu Qinliang, the son of Lu Cheng'an, the founder and chairman of "Shenxing Technology".

In the photo, Mr. Liang is lying in a hospital bed with a tube in his nose. He looks haggard, thin, and very weak, with no life in his eyes.

Just as rumored, Mr. Liang was paralyzed in his lower limbs at a very young age, and could only move his upper body.

However, contrary to the rumors, Mr. Liang was neither in a car accident nor fell down the stairs, but rather suffered from a rare disease.

As time goes on, the paralyzed areas will move higher and higher until the entire body below the neck is unable to move. This disease is somewhat similar to ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), but it is more troublesome, almost impossible to cure, and even difficult to control.

However, at the age of nineteen, Mr. Liang underwent a mutation.

The document details his mutation process in writing, but judging from the tone of the writing, he was not the one who recorded it, and there were no photos of the mutation at the time. It seems that there was a long gap between the recording time and the actual mutation time.

After Mr. Liang mutated, he first bit his caregiver, then was subdued by the caregiver, and finally Lu Cheng'an made the decision to give Mr. Liang 200 ml of fresh chicken blood.

As for how Mr. Liang, whose body was already mostly paralyzed at the time, persuaded his father, the document does not record it in detail, but it must not have been that easy.

The document also included photos of the caregiver's injuries. The caregiver's injuries weren't serious, but she was clearly quite frightened.

The information then became disjointed, likely because the content Alice transmitted was not arranged in the original order, but rather was scrambled.

Xiang Kun wasn't in a hurry. As long as Alice got all the data over, he would be able to see it sooner or later.

Next, he saw a lot of detailed information and research reports on "Mutated Creature," which were, of course, referred to as "Blood-feeding Creature" in the documents.

Judging from their format, some of these research reports are clearly transcribed from scanned paper materials, which appears very professional, while others are in electronic format and are recorded in a very casual manner.

Xiang Kun also found Guo Tianxiang's file. The information was very limited, only marked with "high risk" and "location uncertain," with no other information. Judging from the last record and storage time in the document, it was January of this year, which means that Mr. Liang specifically entered Guo Tianxiang's information into it in January.

In addition to "Guo Tianxiang", Xiang Kun also discovered information on two other Mutated Creature, which were entered on the same day in January.

One of them was the "mutated spider" in the Qinling Uninhabited Zone. Of course, Mr. Liang's information did not specify "spider," but only "unknown Blood-feeding Creature." There was very little related information, only some photos taken by Fang Pingfang and Li Shiping's original investigation team, and even a photo of the Rabbit Woodcarving was included in the information.

However, it wasn't Fang Pingfang and her team's investigation data that confirmed the presence of "Blood-feeding Creature" there, but rather Mr. Liang's personal on-site confirmation later, as he had a unique method of identification.

The other document records a "Blood-feeding Creature" that is still imprisoned in that underground space; it is a mutated butterfly. The information on it is much richer, including various close-up, clear photos, infrared imaging, and other types of photographs, lists of various characteristics, and experimental records for various characteristics.

He then saw several records about "Mutated Creature," most of which lacked specific information and only had the tag "unknown Blood-feeding Creature," recorded in January of 2019.

It seems that Mr. Liang would turn on the power to the storage device at a fixed time every now and then, perhaps once a year, to input some information related to the "Mutated Creature".

The "mutated giant bird" and "mutated ants" that appeared in Wushu Mountain were only discovered after that day, so they may not have been recorded yet?

But why do that?

Why not have researchers from the secret department of "Shenxing Technology" do this? Didn't they all sign confidentiality agreements?

If they were to do it, it would obviously be much better than Mr. Liang's report. Mr. Liang's report felt somewhat perfunctory and casual.

Why not store this data on a private network for researchers to access?

Does he not even trust the people in the secret service?

But surely there must be at least one trustworthy researcher. Normally, setting viewing permissions to allow a select group of trusted researchers to view and participate in the research is standard practice. Otherwise, what's the point of spending so much money and building such a large team?

You know, even his "junior," who hasn't been mutated for less than a year and whose laboratory hasn't even been built yet, has Lao Xia's help!

As Xiang Kun read the transmitted document, he continuously tried to understand Mr. Liang's perspective, judging the reasons and purposes behind his various actions.

He discovered that some of the data scanned from paper documents had specific dates, dates that predated even Mr. Liang's mutation.

Clearly, these were not recorded by Mr. Liang.

So where did he get it from?

Xiang Kun thought of the "Non-Normal Biology Research Center" behind "Shenxing Technology".

Just as she was looking at the document, her phone vibrated. It was Lao Xia's reply, a blank emoji—meaning she had woken up.

Xiang Kun replied, "Alice succeeded. Do you want to see what she sent back with me?"

Lao Xia responded with an OK gesture.

Then Xiang Kun didn't need to worry about it anymore. He knew that once Lao Xia went to turn on the laptop, Alice, eager to take credit, would immediately have everything ready.

He continued browsing the newly transmitted documents. After reading a few more simple documents about "unknown Blood-feeding Creature," a document resembling an incident investigation report appeared, causing him to sit up straight. The chair beneath him even groaned.

I missed 12 o(><)o