Seeing that Sang Luoluo did not seem to be pretending, He Fei finished the remaining vegetables in great mouthfuls.
After the meal, He Fei took Sang Luoluo home, returned the vehicle, then had to hurry to the hospital to look after Wei Xing.
Wei Xing still had a persistent high fever, but his life was not in danger.
The tasks Evolved Humans completed were all recorded in dedicated Evolved Human posts on the base website. Sang Luoluo opened the official website, where the number and details of her completed tasks were listed beneath her avatar.
Today's work had not been tiring, but it had taken a lot of time.
She had just washed up and eaten a serving of egg noodles when He Fei messaged her to say he would be heading out on a mission tomorrow. Captain Qi had assigned someone else to look after Wei Xing. He did not know when he would return, so they probably could not do tasks together for the next few days.
Sang Luoluo replied that she understood. They had only teamed up temporarily anyway, so she did not dwell on it.
A notification told her a delivery had arrived. It was the mineral water bottles she had ordered, now stacked neatly in the passage outside her door.
Sang Luoluo hurried outside and put all 10,000 mineral water bottles into her space. Entering the space, she unpacked them with her mind and began bottling Spirit Spring water. Bottle after bottle emerged from the sealing machine as though on an assembly line.
She worked until nine that evening before finishing all the bottling and stacking them in the time-frozen area. It was still early for bed. The potatoes she had planted earlier had already put out tiny sprouts and were growing well. Plants grown in the soil inside her space grew a little faster than those outside, and they did not suffer from disease or pests.
She used her mind to prune the apple trees across the ten mu of orchard. She had done all this often before, so it took no effort now.
By eleven, she had finished the work. Planning to get up early tomorrow, she went to bed early.
The next day, Sang Luoluo was woken by the beeping of her wristwatch.
Sang Luoluo checked it. It was a task sent by the base Guard, asking her to leave now and visit the base laboratory.
They gave her Dr. Wang's contact information and told her to contact him when she arrived.
Sang Luoluo sat bolt upright in alarm. What was going on?
Could someone be coveting her spatial ability?
Or had she gotten herself into some other trouble?
But on second thought, they were asking her to go there herself and contact someone after arriving. The message said they were contacting her about a task, so there probably would not be any problem, right?
Even if she did not go, the base would find a way to make her go. After turning it over in her mind, Sang Luoluo decided it would be better to make the trip.
She quickly washed up, had soy milk and fried dough sticks, and remembered to rinse her mouth before heading out in her wheelchair.
She drove her wheelchair along the familiar route to the base and followed the map to locate the base laboratory.
It was another towering building not far from the Guard's office building, built with a very high-tech look.
Sang Luoluo slowly drove her wheelchair inside. People bustled through the lobby, looking very busy. They all wore matching lab uniforms, and some wore specially made monocles that looked both fashionable and thoroughly high-tech.
Seeing that everyone was too busy to notice her, Sang Luoluo called Dr. Wang.
Dr. Wang was holding a morning meeting, with many researchers seated before him. The holographic projection above the conference table listed various sets of experimental data, all from mutated plants and animals found outside Base 71.
Dr. Wang had just reached a key point when his wristwatch rang. He had to pause and step outside to take the call.
"Hello, is this Dr. Wang?"
A young woman's voice came from the other end. The moment Dr. Wang heard it, he recalled yesterday's snake venom samples. The venom's toxicity had not diminished at all. At first, he had thought the mutated snakes in the wild had mutated again. Only after working overtime on experiments all night had he discovered that the venom had not mutated and would still deteriorate over time. Some special preservation method must have been used on the return journey to keep the venom exactly as it had been when freshly extracted.
Full of questions, he had summoned the Guard captain who had brought back the venom while working overtime. When Captain Qi arrived, he had thought to himself that it was the familiar S17 Squad.
Dr. Wang had explained his puzzlement to Captain Qi and asked how the venom had been preserved during transport.
Qi Feng had explained what was special about Sang Luoluo, a spatial Evolved Human. After hearing Dr. Wang's explanation, he, too, realized that her spatial ability exceeded his expectations. Items placed inside seemed to remain unspoiled. That mutated tiger, for instance, had looked just as it had when freshly killed after being brought back, and the blood inside its body had not yet dried. He had already noticed something unusual about Sang Luoluo's ability then.
Now Dr. Wang was curious too, and since this concerned scientific research, Qi Feng did not dare conceal anything.
Dr. Wang had been very interested after hearing this. Evolved Humans at the base were developing in more and more different directions, and no one could say for certain what kinds would emerge in the future. The base could only manage them under a unified system and offer generous rewards so they would contribute to the base.
By the time Dr. Wang and Qi Feng finished talking, it was late at night. Thinking it inappropriate to notify Sang Luoluo at that hour, he had instructed his assistant to contact her first thing the next morning.
Now that he had received Sang Luoluo's call, Dr. Wang was rather excited. This was an entirely new ability. Put to good use, it could help their laboratory cut a great deal of expenditure.
"Yes, speaking. You're Sang Luoluo, right?"
Hearing what sounded like an elderly man's voice on the other end, Sang Luoluo replied gently, "Yes. I'm already in the lobby of the base laboratory."
Dr. Wang immediately said with a smile, "Please wait a moment. I'll have my assistant come down to meet you."
Dr. Wang immediately returned to the meeting room, sent his assistant downstairs to meet her, then continued the meeting and discussion.
Sang Luoluo saw a young man in his early twenties wearing a fitted research uniform. He was quite handsome. After stepping out of the elevator, he scanned the lobby, his gaze settled on her, and he put on a professional smile. He strode over to Sang Luoluo, bent down, and spoke in a clear, cool voice. "Hello, are you Ms. Sang Luoluo?"
The sight of his professional smile immediately brought Sang Luoluo back to her senses. She had been absorbed in admiring a handsome man when she suddenly remembered that she still had a head of unevenly cropped hair. Uh, she washed up and kept herself fresh every day, but she had forgotten about her hair.
She would have to find a hair salon and get it properly trimmed later.
She cared about her appearance too. The letdown of seeing a handsome man immediately switch to a professional smile upon looking at her felt awful.
"Yes."
"I'm Dr. Wang's assistant, Jian Cheng. You can call me Assistant Jian." Jian Cheng's voice was clear and cool, and there was a hint of formality in his speech.
"All right."
Jian Cheng pushed Sang Luoluo into the elevator, saying as they went, "Dr. Wang is in a very important meeting right now. It will probably take another hour to finish, so you'll need to wait in the reception room."
"All right," Sang Luoluo said.
The reception room was on the thirty-third floor. Jian Cheng pushed Sang Luoluo over to the floor-to-ceiling windows, placed a bottle of purified water on the table beside her, and asked her to wait there.
Jian Cheng went off to attend to other work.
Sang Luoluo gazed at the view beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. She could see almost half the base city from here, with residential districts stretching into the distance as far as the eye could see, and densely packed streets both wide and narrow.
In the distance, she could also see the energy shield above the base. This was what protected the base's interior from radiation. According to the information she had found online, the energy shield was connected to the base laboratory.
After looking for a while, Sang Luoluo searched online for information about the base laboratory. That search revealed just how important it was. The base's radiation suits, heavy armor, and all sorts of Guard equipment came from the base laboratory. In addition, various everyday utility devices, biological agents, and more were all laboratory products.
In other words, the base laboratory had plenty of money and plenty of standing.
An hour soon passed. Hearing footsteps, Sang Luoluo looked up to see an elderly man of about sixty in a lab uniform approaching. He sat down opposite her.
"Let's talk."
Sang Luoluo nodded.
Dr. Wang said, "I've learned that your spatial evolution ability is very unusual. Besides having the capacity of fifteen trucks, it can keep the items placed inside in their original condition without deteriorating. Is that right?"
"Yes," Sang Luoluo said. "How did you find out?"
"Through the base's Evolved Human system, of course," Dr. Wang said. "You don't need to be afraid. I mean no harm, and I won't use you as a test subject. Base law prohibits experiments on Evolved Humans, so you can put your mind at ease. I simply noticed that your ability was unusual and wanted you to help the laboratory with a few tasks."
Sang Luoluo breathed a sigh of relief and asked, "What tasks?"
Dr. Wang said, "If your space is that large and can also prevent items from deteriorating, then it could certainly be used to store special items. You see, our laboratory has many samples that require special preservation. Creating the very specific environments they need is extremely costly. If your space can preserve them for us, we could save that expense entirely."
Sang Luoluo thought what he said made a lot of sense. Using her really would be economical.
Sang Luoluo did not refuse. It was good to have value. "How will the payment be calculated?"
Dr. Wang smiled. "Your ability is unusual, and you'll be working for the base laboratory, so I can authorize the highest task payment for you. Before that, I need to test your item storage ability. I have a few samples of snake venom here, freshly extracted from venomous snakes. Put them in your space, then come to the laboratory at this time three days from now and hand them to me. You must not leave the base during these three days of testing. I'm concerned it might affect the experimental data."
"I'll pay you 1,000 points."