“What if he turns back into the way he used to be? Or what if he simply becomes someone else entirely and ends up as our enemy? What then?” Quan Xiaoyu asked in return.
In the past, Quan Xiaoyu’s concern for Xie Mingxuan had been limited to patiently persuading him, expressing sympathy for his plight, and perhaps feeling a little guilty.
But things were different now. Setting aside the fact that Xie Mingxuan had once saved them, they had spent every day and night together lately, hardly ever separating. They had always cared for Xie Mingxuan, whose intelligence was limited, as though he were a child. Their emotional bond with him had long since become something entirely different from what it had been at the beginning.
If the first possibility came to pass, perhaps they could still find a way to deal with it. But what if it was the second? Just thinking about it made Quan Xiaoyu feel that he would hardly be able to face the situation.
That was why he had never questioned any of Chu Tian’s decisions before. This time, however, he was uncharacteristically stubborn.
“Xiaoyu, there’s no way around this.” Chu Tian fell silent for a while before sighing. “We can’t keep preventing him from evolving just because we’re afraid, can we? We’re evolving, and the other ability users are slowly evolving too. And our enemies—the zombies—are evolving as well!”
“Look at Su Muxu. His mental ability level is clearly lower than Xie Mingxuan’s, yet has Xie Mingxuan ever managed to defeat him?”
Quan Xiaoyu remained silent for a long time.
Actually, ever since they had encountered Nizi, he had noticed Xie Mingxuan’s weakness. But because of his emotional attachment, he had deliberately chosen to ignore it. Now Chu Tian was forcing him to confront the issue whether he liked it or not.
He remained silent for a very, very long time, staring blankly at the spring water. Finally, he nodded.
Chu Tian pulled him into his arms and kissed his forehead. He understood just how much resolve it had taken Quan Xiaoyu to make this decision.
Afterward, they returned to the little house and finally gave Nizi’s crystal core to Xie Mingxuan.
This had always been one of his sources of food, and the fact that it had been left behind by Nizi seemed to evoke a strange mixture of sadness and familiarity in him. Xie Mingxuan, who understood little of what was happening, eventually swallowed Nizi’s crystal core.
His evolution did not immediately erupt into the intense process Chu Tian and Quan Xiaoyu had anticipated. Instead, Xie Mingxuan fell into a deep sleep.
None of his previous evolutionary changes had ever caused him to react this way. Quan Xiaoyu’s heart immediately leaped into his throat.
The others took turns examining Xie Mingxuan. Even Li Nan and Bai Mingxi could not find anything wrong with him.
After all, Xie Mingxuan was a zombie, not a human, and they had no particular experience dealing with a situation like this. They could only agree to take turns keeping watch whenever possible to prevent any accidents.
Meanwhile, the situation outside was undergoing subtle changes as well.
After the chaos Su Muxu had caused, the general knew that the secret experiments in the school basement could no longer continue. He needed to move everything out of there as quickly as possible.
The problem, however, was that the residence that had been slaughtered belonged to the second-most powerful figure at Dawn Base. Although the general was the most powerful person in the base, even he could not control everything single-handedly.
If Chief Gu investigated the incident thoroughly, he would soon discover the school. After all, Chief Gu possessed more power and resources within Dawn Base than anyone except the general himself. And Su Muxu had taken so many enormous creatures out with him—there was no way he could have left behind no clues whatsoever.
What the general did not know was that Chief Gu had already caught another person who knew part of the truth.
As for Chu Tian and his companions, the general had already developed murderous intentions toward them. Years of occupying a position of power had instilled a deep-seated instinct in him that told him one thing: these people absolutely could not be allowed to live.
But how could he eliminate them while still obtaining the secret of the crystal cores?
On the other side, the matter had become Chief Gu’s biggest political gambit.
The losses he had suffered that night might actually present him with an opportunity. How could he use the incident to his advantage, gain more influence in the political landscape of Dawn Base, and seize more political resources from the general? Those were his immediate priorities.
The secret of the crystal cores came second.
As an ability user himself, he was determined to obtain that secret, no matter what. As for whether Chu Tian and the others lived or died in the end, he neither cared nor considered it important.
There was just one condition: before he obtained everything he wanted, Chu Tian absolutely could not die!
Thus, while Chu Tian and his companions remained hidden inside the residence, both sides—each with their own ulterior motives—began making a new round of arrangements.
After checking the time, Chu Tian saw that it was nine thirty in the morning. The sky outside had long since grown bright. Only then did he and Quan Xiaoyu decide to leave the space. They could hardly remain out of sight for too long without arousing suspicion.
The problem was that Xie Mingxuan was still asleep. The three of them had entered the building together, and the entire world had seen them do so. They could not simply have two people emerge while the third mysteriously vanished into thin air.
In the end, Bai Mingxi had to make the sacrifice. He changed into an outfit similar to the clothes Xie Mingxuan usually wore and wrapped himself up so thoroughly from head to toe that not a single part of him was exposed.
Fortunately, Xie Mingxuan always kept himself covered up, and no one had ever seen his face or heard him speak. As long as Bai Mingxi stayed tightly wrapped and followed the other two, impersonating him would not be difficult.
The only problem was that he was practically suffocating under all those layers.
As a result, Chu Tian once again became the target of his complaints. Bai Mingxi nagged him without end.
Before leaving the space, Chu Tian addressed the other two seriously.
“After what happened last night, the situation outside will be completely different. We can no longer proceed according to our original plan. Things have become rather serious.”
At his words, the other two grew solemn as well.
“The higher-ups at Dawn Base will probably want to kill us to silence us,” Bai Mingxi guessed.
Chu Tian nodded. “There must be high-ranking officials involved in these secret experiments. Now, those people will definitely be getting nervous.”
“Then… what about Chief Gu?” Bai Mingxi asked hesitantly.
Chu Tian shook his head slightly. “I don’t think he knew about the experiments. But he’s definitely the kind of person who would sell us out the moment it suited his political interests. The secret of the crystal cores alone isn’t enough to give us the leverage we need.”
“Originally, no matter what happened, they had no reason to risk a direct confrontation with us over the secret of the crystal cores. They would have been wary of our strength and wanted to preserve their own forces. But things are different now. To protect their biggest secret, they might be willing to pay any price to make sure we die here.”
“Damn it!” Bai Mingxi cursed.
“Then… why don’t you stay inside the space and let me find a way to leave alone?” Quan Xiaoyu said with a frown. “They might not be fast enough to catch me.”
Chu Tian shook his head. He needed only one sentence to dispel that idea.
“They have modern weapons. If they decide to hunt you down, they could simply launch indiscriminate bombardments. This already battered land would suffer even more destruction. Xiaoyu, the space can never be the fundamental solution to our problems.”
“Let’s go out and find a way to send some information to the capital. Though, I’d rather hope that the commotion we’ve caused by coming here has already caught the capital’s attention.”
As he spoke, all three of them appeared together inside the locked, empty room.
When they opened the door, someone was already waiting outside to receive them.
The three exchanged glances.
Ordinarily, the person who should have come to greet them would have been the steward. Unfortunately, he had died in the conspiracy the previous night. It was rather a pity.
The person now waiting respectfully before them was Chief Gu’s personal head of security, a third-level fire-type ability user.
He treated the three of them with reasonable respect. Although he had waited for quite some time, he had not approached to disturb them, instead waiting for Chu Tian and the others to open the door themselves.
Once they appeared, he politely conveyed Chief Gu’s greetings on his behalf and then passed along the invitation for them to meet with him.
Everything was as Chu Tian had expected. He said nothing more and simply followed the head of security.
Quan Xiaoyu stayed beside Chu Tian, while Bai Mingxi only had to continue playing the silent, uncommunicative Xie Mingxuan and follow behind them.
As they entered the meeting room in the main residence, the first person they saw was Chief Gu. This important figure had been busy for days, and he had now gone two consecutive nights without sleep. His eyelids were puffy and his eyes bloodshot, yet he still forced himself to smile and offer the three visitors a polite greeting.
However, Chu Tian and Quan Xiaoyu also spotted someone they had never expected to see here!
Jia Lunxu!
That man really had an astonishingly persistent knack for survival!
Quan Xiaoyu found it unbelievable. After so many disasters and several devastating battles, how had this man managed to remain alive and well to this day? Thinking about it, perhaps his own death in his previous life really had not been so unjust after all—not when he had to contend with someone as hard to kill as a cockroach.
Even Chu Tian gave Jia Lunxu several extra glances, though his observations were much more meticulous.
The man before them was no longer the wretched figure who had been captured several months ago. Now he wore a perfectly tailored suit and looked full of energy. His previously stagnant ability had begun to show faint signs of breaking through its current level and advancing once more.
As for the arm Quan Xiaoyu had once severed, it was now firmly in place. Whether it had grown back or been replaced with some kind of prosthetic was unclear. His arm was concealed beneath his suit, and he wore a white glove on that hand, making it difficult to tell anything at a glance.
At that moment, he was smiling at the three of them with practiced insincerity, but the venomous hatred in his eyes was impossible to conceal.
And standing beside him was someone else whom none of the three particularly wanted to see—the general’s daughter!
The confrontation from the previous day, along with the threats she had made as she left, was still fresh in their memories.