Two terrified old men

"Coming!"

Su Jin straightened his clothes and opened the door.

Sun Ya stood before him, his face slightly puffy.

Su Jin smiled. "Professor Sun, it looks like I really am immune to infection. Those Flesh Balls are crucial to us. I studied my abilities last night, and both my strength and speed have improved. Protecting myself from zombie attacks should be much easier now."

"Wonderful. It looks like things could change dramatically from here on out. Staying alive isn't as hard as we thought, but we still need to be thorough." Sun Ya managed a smile. "Let's keep observing your condition for a while."

Noticing something was off, Su Jin frowned and asked, "Professor Sun, did something happen yesterday?"

Sun Ya looked embarrassed. After a moment's hesitation, he said helplessly, "There was a problem. We made a basic mistake... Some lab mice went missing. Two of them. We haven't found them yet, but I've moved everyone to the sixth floor."

"How serious is it? Were they infected mice?" Su Jin's expression grew grave.

"No," Sun Ya said, then added, "Our experiments showed that organisms don't have a hundred-percent infection rate. It depends on the mass of rainwater they absorb. The greater the mass, the higher the chance of infection. Mice become infected very quickly, so once we tested some and confirmed they were fine, we put them in another cage."

"It was the mice in that cage that went missing. But no matter how we look at it... there's no way they could have escaped. We turned the room upside down and still couldn't find them."

"The strangest thing is, after the first mouse disappeared, we reinforced the containment. While we watched them, none showed any sign of trying to escape. But when we left for about an hour and came back, another one was gone."

"Where are the mice now?"

"Still in the lab on the fifth floor. Old Wei put on several extra layers and is watching them in there. He doesn't even dare look away."

"Take me there!"

Su Jin headed out first, returning to the fifth floor with Sun Ya.

When they entered the laboratory in the side bedroom, Wei De was sitting in a chair, arms folded, watching the mice.

The mouse cage was made of thick iron wire and enclosed in a glass tank, with thick wooden boards and stones securing the top.

Crude as the setup was, there seemed to be no possible way for the mice to escape.

"Professor Wei, found anything?" Su Jin went straight to the point.

Wei De shook his head helplessly. "They're fine when someone's here, but disappear when no one's around... I really don't understand it. If only we had electricity and a video camera."

"I have one. Where's my stuff?" Su Jin asked.

Sun Ya brightened. "Nobody touched it. We moved it all to the sixth floor."

"Good. Wait here a moment."

Ten minutes later, Su Jin returned to the room.

He deleted the porn from his phone, plugged it into a power bank, and started recording, propping it up in front of the mouse cage and adjusting the angle.

Wei De and Sun Ya stood outside the door, whispering to each other with shock in their eyes.

"Did you see that device? The image is so clear. That was fingerprint unlocking, wasn't it? What kind of technology is that?"

"It really is incredible... Capacitive? Ultrasonic? That shouldn't be possible either. It's too small. The battery is probably lithium, though. It draws quite a bit of power, so it needs an external battery."

"I saw the interface on that device, and the casing design... That's definitely a consumer device. No country is capable of producing something like that. Could this kid be an alien? Or maybe he got hold of alien technology. Could this rain have something to do with him?"

"Now that you mention it, he sometimes slips these formal phrases into his speech, and he's always making strange comparisons. It really does feel a little abnormal."

"Stop talking. He's looking over."

"What are you two chatting about?" Having set up his phone, Su Jin walked out of the room.

"Ah, nothing." Sun Ya sounded slightly nervous. "Say, Xiao Li, what model is that video camera of yours?"

"An imported one. A new model. Let's leave for a bit and check it when we come back." Su Jin added, "We're seriously short on manpower, and we've waited long enough already. I'll go downstairs, cut open the corpses, and recruit some more people. Then we can come back and look together. You two should go upstairs and rest. Lock the door. No matter how good those mice are at squeezing through gaps, they won't get out of this room."

"Sure, sure. Go ahead." The two old men hurriedly stepped aside for Su Jin.

Su Jin looked from one to the other. "What's gotten into you two?"

Sun Ya forced a miserable expression. "Uh... I'm sorry, Xiao Li. I messed things up."

"Ah..." Su Jin shook his head with a smile. "Professor Sun, you're both experts. At a time like this, we're all in it together. Little problems are inevitable. As long as everyone's safe, nothing else really matters. I'll be off."

Su Jin left, and the two old men stared at the empty doorway, swallowing in unison.

"So do you think he's really an alien?" Wei De immediately asked.

"I can't think of any other explanation. But we can understand all that technology. It doesn't seem advanced enough for interstellar travel, does it?"

"Why don't we just ask him? Keeping it bottled up feels awful!"

"No!" Sun Ya pressed a hand against Wei De's chest and said bitterly, "There's no need. We've known Xiao Li for days now. You can see what kind of person he is. Whatever he does, it's for our good. The rain probably has nothing to do with him. He doesn't understand any of it."

"He saved our lives, and everyone in this building is counting on him. Honestly... these two days while he was in trouble, I felt worse than when my wife died a few years ago."

"What if we bring it out into the open, and he peels off his skin to reveal a monster underneath... How am I supposed to live with that?!"

"I don't think that's likely," Wei De reasoned. "The way he operates his device and its dimensions are suited to the human body. Besides, the writing on it seems to be pictographic... His species might be similar to ours."

"Even a little different is too much! Unless he looks exactly the way he does now, I won't accept it!"

Sun Ya took a deep breath and said wearily, "Old Wei... let's just pretend we didn't see anything and help him wholeheartedly. None of us can take any more upheaval."

"Right... Xiao Li is a good kid. I've got nothing else to say." Wei De sighed, then abruptly changed tack. "Say... that girl Qing Dai is unusual. Do you think Fu Hu was actually cuckolded by an alien ages ago, and the child isn't his?"

"Tsk, oh, for... You're this old, and normally you barely say a damn word. How are you so filthy-minded?!" Sun Ya glared up at him and snapped, "We don't even know if he's an alien!"

"I'm just exploring the question with you."

"Stop exploring! You can't research everything. What if you stir up trouble? Come on, let's go!"