Team 404, the Broke Squad

Zhong Xuezhi looked Feng Zhengqing up and down and asked, "How many days have you gone without sleep?"

He hadn't noticed back in the park, but now he saw that most of the vitality had drained from Feng Zhengqing's eyes. The man looked downright dazed.

Feng Zhengqing slowly held up three fingers, his voice drifting. "Three whole days and nights... without a wink."

He had plunged headfirst into preparations for research on improving the Hallucinogen Antidote, only for a Variant invasion to suddenly break out...

Dr. Feng felt that once he made it through this ordeal, even if he didn't become mushroom fertilizer, he would probably ascend to immortality.

Seeing this, Zhong Xuezhi showed no sympathy whatsoever. Instead, he started giving him grief. "I told you to stop staying up so late, but you wouldn't listen. Feeling the pain now, huh?"

"Your health is your greatest asset. Eat well and get enough sleep, and you'll live longer and do more research. And another thing..."

"Stop preaching!" Feng Zhengqing hastily interrupted, pressing a hand to his forehead and drawing in a breath. "Hiss... my head hurts..."

Watching Feng Zhengqing clutch his head in both hands, Mu Yi couldn't help grinning. So he wasn't the only one who thought Zhong Xuezhi sounded like he was chanting scripture.

After enjoying himself for a moment, he turned his attention to the junior assistant following Feng Zhengqing.

One look told him that the assistant's bioelectric activity wasn't in good shape.

The light had already shifted out of the healthy color range into a dark green tinged with gray, as though heralding a gradual loss of vitality.

Mu Yi narrowed his eyes slightly and stared at the assistant for a long time.

When the assistant turned around and exposed his back, Mu Yi's eyebrows suddenly rose. He had spotted something interesting.

Over the assistant's left latissimus dorsi, a small section of the bioelectric transmission pathways glowed a conspicuous scarlet.

They flickered between bright and dim, flashing red in stark contrast to the dull colors elsewhere on the assistant's body.

Mu Yi also noticed that the closer the assistant came to the observation chamber containing the Zombie Fungus, the faster that scarlet cluster of bioelectric signals flashed, as if it were particularly excited.

As he watched, Mu Yi grew excited too. Bracing himself against the cabinet top, he hopped down and walked straight up behind the assistant.

Then he reached out and gave him a gentle push.

Caught completely off guard, the assistant pitched forward against the glass wall. Mu Yi could clearly see that the cluster of light on his back had grown even more excited.

Its flashes practically took on a distinctive rhythm.

More remarkably, the bioelectric signals inside the Zombie Fungus in the observation chamber flickered a few times as well, seemingly responding.

Mu Yi caught every one of these hidden interactions and broke into a broad grin. It looked like he had discovered something incredible.

His push and grin, however, left everyone else in the room utterly baffled.

The assistant straightened up in confusion and looked timidly at Mu Yi, reaching behind himself to rub his back. Somewhere back there felt a little itchy.

Zhong Xuezhi immediately stepped forward, pulled Mu Yi to his side, and asked quietly, "What are you doing?"

Mu Yi offered no explanation for the moment, only telling the assistant, "Sorry. Accidental contact."

The assistant shook his head to indicate it was fine, then hugged his notebook and moved behind Feng Zhengqing.

Mu Yi had always acted in eccentric ways, so nobody took this little incident to heart.

After watching, they gathered close again and resumed discussing serious matters.

Feng Zhengqing lifted his transparent face shield, tipped his head back, and took several swallows of the Bitter Yang Tea he carried with him, forcing himself to perk up.

He told Zhong Xuezhi, "Based on the information you've provided, we estimate that once Zombie Fungus spores successfully infect a host, their incubation period is approximately one week."

"If we can't find every infected host within that week..."

Feng Zhengqing smacked his lips at the bitter taste in his mouth and continued, "Then we might as well eat and drink our fill, lie down, and wait to die."

Zhong Xuezhi fell silent for a moment, then asked, "Does the institute have any leads?"

Feng Zhengqing sighed and answered, "We're already rushing to develop a new detector specifically for Zombie Fungus spores."

"But there's no guarantee it'll work. Even if it does, it'll probably take another day or two."

And once development succeeded, they would still have to carry out large-scale screening and put it into practical use... A deadline of just one week was so tight it left them struggling to breathe.

Feng Zhengqing didn't spell everything out, but everyone present understood perfectly, and their expressions were all grave.

A few seconds later, Qiu Cai, who stood behind Zhong Xuezhi, spoke with some hesitation. "What if... we asked Grandpa Feng to come out of retirement and perform a divination?"

"No!" Feng Zhengqing rejected the suggestion at once. "With my grandfather's current health, he can't predict the outcome of a life-or-death crisis like this. There's a very high chance he'd lose his own life in the process."

Qiu Cai raised a hand and slapped himself across the mouth, his face full of apology. "Forget I said anything..."

As his words faded, the atmosphere grew heavy again.

Amid that gloom, Mu Yi waggled his two thick black eyebrows in turn.

Divination? Prediction? Old Mr. Feng's innate ability was predicting the future?

That ability sounded pretty badass. Mu Yi was intensely curious.

Unfortunately, this wasn't the time to investigate that question.

Mu Yi cleared his throat, looked at Feng Zhengqing, and asked, "Do you have any instruments here that can visualize bioelectricity?"

Feng Zhengqing paused, then replied, "We do."

Mu Yi asked again, "Any portable ones?"

Feng Zhengqing was rather bewildered, but still answered, "There's one in my lab. Do you need it?"

Mu Yi nodded. "Can someone fetch it now?"

"Sure." Though baffled, Feng Zhengqing didn't drag his feet. He immediately turned and instructed the assistant behind him to fetch the bioelectric sensor.

Once the assistant had left, Zhong Xuezhi tugged on the slightly loose sleeve of Mu Yi's protective suit and asked, "What do you want it for?"

Mu Yi gave a couple of little hums and said, "To play with."

Zhong Xuezhi's eyes immediately widened. "Play with? Do you know how much one of this institute's instruments costs?"

If they broke it, selling the two of them together wouldn't cover the damages!

Mu Yi couldn't resist rolling his eyes. "Could you have a little dignity? You look like such a cheapskate!"

With a distinct lack of dignity, Zhong Xuezhi rubbed his gloved fingers together and admitted honestly, "I'm broke."

At those words, the four people standing behind Zhong Xuezhi nodded in unison, indicating that they were broke too.

Mu Yi: "..."

Great. Not just a squad of bottomless pits without a healer, but a broke squad too.

Five minutes later, the assistant returned to the observation room carrying the portable bioelectric sensor.

He stopped two paces away from Mu Yi, then handed the sensor over.

Mu Yi took it and examined its design. It was half the length of an adult's arm, with a blue display. At first glance, it looked a little like a rearview-mirror dashcam.

He found the power button by touch and pressed it. As soon as the screen lit up, a confirmation window popped up asking, "Would you like a beginner's guide?"

Pretty considerate.

Mu Yi curled his lips into a smile, tapped to confirm, and began operating it according to the guide.

Once an image of bioelectric signals appeared on the mirror-like display, Mu Yi calmed the Pheromones within his body and aimed the scanner at the Zombie Fungus in the observation chamber.

The bioelectric image produced by the sensor, however, wasn't particularly good.

On the screen, the network of interwoven light was extremely sparse. Many of the finer strands hadn't been detected at all.

Nor was it scarlet. The machine had uniformly converted it all into bright green.

Mu Yi thought for a moment, then aimed the sensor at Feng Zhengqing's assistant.

Sure enough, the currents coursing through the assistant's body were also bright green. The conspicuous scarlet patch on his back wasn't shown as distinct, and the sensor couldn't capture its breathing-like rhythm of flashes at all.

A machine was still a machine. It lacked finer detection and couldn't display the subtle changes in bioelectricity.

Mu Yi made this assessment while considering how he could reasonably hint to Feng Zhengqing later that the institute's equipment needed an upgrade.

He held the bioelectric sensor and peered at it for ages, while Zhong Xuezhi, standing behind him, peered along for just as long.

Finally, Zhong Xuezhi asked in puzzlement, "What's so interesting about this?"

Mu Yi was watching with such fascination, but it didn't look all that fun.