"Warm Welcome!"

This wasn't Zhou Rui's first visit to Xiang Kun and Xia Libing's breeding Research Base. He had come several times with Li Shiping and Ye Chong when it was under construction.

However, the first phase of the project was not yet completed at that time. When they came to check on the construction site, they were stopped by the brothers Liu Zhengyi and Liu Gaoshang.

When I came back this time, I still saw the two Liu brothers at the entrance, still wearing hard hats and yellow reflective vests, looking like foremen.

The car stopped outside the Research Base's large iron gate. Li Shiping, who was driving, rolled down the window, looked at Liu Zhengyi who was walking over, and said, "We're looking for Ms. Xia Libing. Is she in?"

Liu Zhengyi didn't reply. He glanced into the car and then nodded to his younger brother Liu Gaoshang, who was standing on the other side of the door.

The latter understood and pressed the remote control, and the door slowly moved to both sides.

Li Shiping drove a minivan carrying eight people into the Research Base. They found that it had changed dramatically compared to before. The first phase of construction was basically completed. The main experimental building was not tall, but it looked very well-designed.

The area they found last time was a wasteland, but now foundations have been dug and the second phase of construction has begun, expanding the area considerably.

But now there was no one on the construction site, and the construction equipment was quietly parked to the side. Even the place that looked like the workers' temporary dormitory was completely silent. After they rolled down the car window, they could only hear the tires rolling on the ground, and they could even clearly hear the sound of the vehicle's engine and the sound of the iron gate slowly closing behind them. Apart from that, the huge Research Base was extremely quiet. They couldn't even hear the wind, giving them the illusion of entering another world.

After the van stopped in front of the building, Zhao Feng couldn't help but turn around and look at Liu Zhengyi and Liu Gaoshang, who were still standing by the gate. He frowned and asked, "Aren't they coming over?"

Zhou Rui also turned to look at Liu Zhengyi and Liu Gaoshang in the distance. The two brothers were also watching them. Although he couldn't see their expressions or eyes clearly, he inexplicably felt that the two brothers seemed to be "watching the show." Especially the older brother, Liu Zhengyi, who was rather short and stocky. When he was at the door, his gaze towards them was quite strange. It wasn't friendly, nor was it hostile, but it had a kind of penetrating quality that was hard to describe, as if he could tell at a glance what they were doing there and what they were thinking. It was very mysterious.

"They seem to have been waiting for us there; they knew we were coming," Ye Chong said.

"You know them? They know about our collaboration?" Mi Qiao asked, puzzled.

"I don't recognize them. They seemed to have been the foremen here before," Ye Chong replied.

"So, you mean we should go in ourselves?" Wang De'an shook his head, opened the sliding door of the van, and got out first. "Let's go in first and talk to Ms. Xia when we see her. Anyway, Old He sent us here, so there shouldn't be any danger."

After getting off the vehicle, the group of eight entered the main laboratory building of the base.

The main gate was a sensor-activated glass door. After they filed in, lights suddenly illuminated the passageways on both sides of the lobby, leading to different side doors. A loudspeaker announced, "Welcome to the 'Chongyun Village's First Culinary Ingredient Research Base'! I am your guide, Alice! Go to the right! I will guide you on a tour of our magnificent Research Base! Go to the left, and I will guide you to meet our base leader!"

The voice belonged to a girl who sounded only six or seven years old, and it was quite pleasant. However, the content of the conversation left everyone, including Fang Pingfang, completely stunned.

What's going on?

"The First Culinary Material Research Base"?

"A great Research Base"?

"The base boss"?

The group exchanged bewildered glances, unsure how to respond. Wang De'an couldn't help but ask, "Could it be that Ms. Xia's daughter is playing a prank?"

"According to the information we've investigated, Ms. Xia doesn't have a daughter. Based on her work experience and records after graduating from university and graduate school, there's simply no way she had time to secretly have a child," Zhou Rui said, frowning.

"Is that someone else's child? Why would they let a child cause trouble at a time like this?" Mi Qiao said, puzzled, turning back to look at the Liu brothers standing by the gate through the glass door. "Should we go ask them? Or, do you have Ms. Xia's phone number?"

"We think we found a phone number in the information we looked up earlier," Ye Chong said, picking up his tablet to look it up, but the screen wouldn't light up.

"Strange." Ye Chong borrowed Fang Pingfang's tablet, but it also had no screen and couldn't be turned on.

At that moment, the little girl's voice rang out again. "This is not a prank! I repeat, this is not a prank! I am Alice, the manager of the Research Base. You have one minute to choose: either go right to tour the entire facility, or go left to see the boss!"

Fang Pingfang could clearly hear the annoyance and impatience in the little girl's voice, as if she felt looked down upon and disrespected. She tentatively raised her voice and asked, "Who is this 'base boss' you're talking about? Is it Ms. Xia Libing? Is she with you? My name is Fang Pingfang, and these are my colleagues. Old He sent us to find Ms. Xia. Can you tell her?"

"You have 19 seconds left." The little girl's voice was even colder.

Zhao Feng suddenly took the lead and walked towards the lit corridor on the left. When the others saw him move, they subconsciously followed him in that direction. After all, the little girl's cold voice made them uneasy, and they were unsure what would happen if they didn't make a choice when the time came.

They hadn't walked far when they suddenly heard a clicking sound of mechanical shafts behind them. They turned around abruptly and saw that the electric outer door outside the glass door had begun to descend, and soon it separated the inside from the outside.

Then, with a snap, all the lights went out in the right-hand aisle, which they had no choice but to go.

"Since you're in such a hurry to see the boss, then let's go." The little girl's voice rang out again, seemingly a little annoyed that they hadn't chosen to go to the right to tour the entire base.

One by one, the lights behind them went out, while a light suddenly shone through the small door in front of them. Fang Pingfang, Zhou Rui, and the others were almost instinctively "pushed" forward by this light.

After passing through the small door, there was a relatively wide corridor, and in front of it was a huge glass wall, which seemed to be a partition of an experimental area.

But the lights behind the partition were completely dark, so they could only see the reflection of their side through the glass. This made them want to go closer and press their faces against the glass to see what was behind them, but they were also worried that there might be something terrifying behind them.

They stood at the doorway, the lights in the back hallway all off. Zhao Feng whispered, "Do you remember what we were investigating before we were ordered to stop?"

Wang De'an immediately followed up. "The bird attack on the passenger plane... you mean, the little girl who appeared on the wing..."

Zhou Rui murmured, "That 'little girl' also appeared in Chongyun Village. That's right... she is... she is..." For a moment, he couldn't think of a suitable way to describe her.

After their reminder, the others also secretly concluded that the little girl's voice, which guided them through the base's broadcasts and controlled lights, was very likely the same "little girl" who had appeared outside the passenger plane and scared the two thieves into calling the police in Chongyun Village.

Thinking about it this way, it suddenly seems quite reasonable. Otherwise, why would any parent allow their child to control the electrical circuits and broadcasting system in such a place, especially under such obvious "clearing" conditions?

So they walked in step by step, thinking that when they reached the glass, the light behind it would turn on.

Halfway there, suddenly a light came on on their left, startling them.

Although they were convinced that since Old He had sent them to find Xia Libing, there was no danger here, and that Xia Libing, Xiang Kun, and even the elusive "little girl" wouldn't have any ill intentions towards them, the sudden change in lighting still made them inevitably a little nervous.

They looked in the direction of the lights and found that it was an elevator lobby with an elevator on each side of the corridor.

As they looked over, the elevator doors on the right slowly opened, and the little girl's voice rang out again. "Get on the elevator, I'll take you underground."

The little girl's tone was flat, revealing neither joy nor anger, but when she asked them to enter the elevator, she said, "I'll take you" underground, which was truly strange.

But as soon as the little girl finished speaking, the lights behind them began to snap and go out in sequence, forcing them into the darkness and leading them toward the elevator lobby.

After everyone else had entered the elevator lobby, Li Shiping followed, frowning as he said, "I have a feeling I can't quite put my finger on... I think I can sense that there are living things behind that glass wall, and quite a few of them..."

"No way, Lao Li, don't say things like that to scare people. Just because you think there are people doesn't mean there are people. What do you mean by 'living things'..." Zhou Rui complained. Li Shiping's words made his scalp tingle.

"Because I 'know' that it wasn't a person, it was a 'living thing,' possibly some kind of animal. Didn't I say before that I felt a little different after I woke up today? After we left the villa area, that feeling lessened a bit, but after entering Chongyun Village, especially after entering this 'Research Base building,' that feeling came back, and it was much stronger than in the villa we were staying in... I even felt that the walls of these buildings were whispering to me, sending me messages..." Li Shiping said, frowning.

If Zhou Rui or Ye Chong had said this, everyone would have instinctively thought it was an exaggeration or a joke. But since it was Li Shiping, the most low-key, steady, and eldest among them, the feeling and impact it had on them was completely different.

"Old Li..." Zhou Rui was about to say something when the lights in the elevator lobby suddenly went out again.

So the group instinctively stepped into the only elevator that was still lit. The elevator had been in an automatic open state before they entered, but it closed immediately after they were all inside, at an extremely fast speed.

As the elevator began its descent, the electronic display screen for the floors did not show any downward direction or floor indication. Instead, it displayed a bizarre dynamic image of a triangle constantly transforming into a square and then back into a triangle.

The lights inside the elevator suddenly dimmed, turning a dark red, creating an extremely eerie atmosphere.

Zhou Rui couldn't help but whisper, "Have you guys seen Resident Evil? In it... never mind..."

The descent was brief; the elevator quickly came to a stop, and with a "ding," the doors opened. The little girl's voice rang out again. "Welcome!"

The lights came on in the stairwell ahead, and above the front was a small screen. In other places, it would probably be used to display advertisements or corporate promotional videos, but here, it was displaying surveillance footage—specifically, footage of them walking out of the elevator.

But when they looked at the ceiling from the angle where the surveillance camera should be, it was completely bare, and they couldn't see any surveillance cameras.

Zhou Rui, who had just stepped out, subconsciously wanted to go back to the elevator, but before he could turn around, he heard the elevator doors closing rapidly—the speed at which they closed was completely unreasonable.

This place is so eerie!

In a conference room on the ground floor of the main laboratory building of the Research Base, Xia Libing sat in a computer chair, leaning slightly forward, her left elbow resting on the armrest, supporting her cheek, watching the monitoring footage projected on a huge projection screen at the other end.

Those images were naturally of Fang Pingfang and others entering the Research Base.

After learning that Fang Pingfang and the others were coming, and that she was going to connect with some of the secret departments of "Shenxing Technology" for research, and even preside over the research on future "Mutated Creature," Xia Libing came here alone to prepare. She asked the Liu brothers to temporarily stop the construction site, gave the workers red envelopes, and told them to go to town to have fun.

As for other content, Alice will naturally handle the preparations. She only needs to know Xiang Kun's plans and what level of information to provide to "Shenxing Technology" and "Non-Research Center".

Alice volunteered to "welcome" Fang Pingfang and her group because, according to Xiang Kun, Fang Pingfang and the others would directly cooperate with Xia Libing and be under her "leadership." She would control the research direction, and then they would direct the research of "Shenxing Technology" and be responsible for various specific branches.

In this way, Fang Pingfang and the others will inevitably come into contact with Alice at the data and virtual levels in the future. Therefore, Alice, with a sense of ownership, wants to leave a good impression on them.

Alice originally intended to use the introduction of the base to show off her abilities, instill strong confidence in them, and make them trust "Invincible Alice" in future collaborations.

But their reaction made Alice unhappy; she felt looked down upon.

Thus, this "road to welcome" transformed from showing off into intimidation.

Xia Libing did not stop Alice's behavior. She had watched Alice's personality development after she gained the ability to manifest, and knew that although Alice was sometimes temperamental and mischievous and quirky, she still knew the importance of things and knew what Xiang Kun valued most and what he didn't care about when looking at a matter.

Therefore, no matter how scary, show off, or test Alice, she will always ensure the safety of Fang Pingfang and the others and prevent them from being harmed.

Just like Alice's threatening tone, saying "Make your choice in one minute," and even urging them with the timer, saying "19 seconds left," Xia Libing knew that even if Fang Pingfang and the others didn't make a choice within one minute, Alice would at most turn off the lights, "drive" them to the left ahead of time, or make some strange noises to create a commotion, or even secretly slow down the timer, counting the last 10 seconds as 30 seconds...

On the other hand, Xia Libing was also observing Fang Pingfang, Zhao Feng, and the others' reactions through Alice's "Welcome Path." Although Xia Libing had already learned a lot about Fang Pingfang, Zhao Feng, and the others with Xiang Kun and knew their information very well, these reactions and specific behaviors still helped her understand their current status and their different thoughts about the upcoming meeting.

At the same time, Xia Libing was also observing Alice's behavior and reflecting on her psychological development.

Not only was she extremely familiar with the information on Fang Pingfang and the others, but Alice was as well. Alice even had the eight-person cognitive model built by Xiang Kun, so she should have a rough idea of their various possible reactions.

However, it is quite clear that when Alice initially made her "welcoming plan," she did not incorporate their model or conduct prior probability analysis to arrive at a "plan" that was most likely to achieve her goal.

Only after they chose the left side instead of the right side to tour the entire base did Alice begin to operate the cognitive model in detail—this was to avoid any accidents that could cause injury.

Our event assistant posted a title event, which is open to readers with a fan value of disciple level or higher. Interested readers can click on the post in the comments section to participate. Ten title accounts [All-You-Can-Eat Hamburger] can be earned each month.