Lu Yan used his M2 ability, Four-Dimensional Split, to create another physical form of the floppy-eared rabbit omega from a later point in the timeline. The form fell from Lu Yan’s body and landed on the ground.
“You stay here and protect Lanxing. Don’t mess this up.” Lu Yan said, pointing at his clone.
“Mm-hmm.” The rabbit form replied.
Lu Yan’s M2 ability, “Four-Dimensional Split,” is a summoning-type ability that allows him to manifest his self from the fourth-dimensional timeline within the three-dimensional world. From a macro perspective, it appears as an infinite number of clones, but each clone is not a mere illusion meant to deceive the senses; rather, they are physical entities possessing the same offensive power.
The weakness of this ability is that if one of the entities is injured, all entities in the timeline behind it will also be injured. In other words, if the entity clone used to protect Bilanxing is injured, Lu Yan will immediately sustain the same injuries, even if he is not present.
To avoid this situation, Lu Yan summoned a rabbit entity from a later point in time. Summoning an entity from a later timeline consumes more energy, but it has a significant advantage: whether the summoned rabbit entity is injured or killed, it does not affect the original entity’s condition.
The more physical clones there are, the higher the chance of injury, and the shorter the duration of the ability. If only one physical clone were summoned, Lu Yan’s glandular energy should be able to sustain it for an hour. However, if a rabbit clone from a later point in the timeline were summoned, the duration would be reduced to a quarter of that—fifteen minutes.
The ventilation shaft was only 0.35 meters wide and tall. Fortunately, Lu Yan was naturally small, and rabbits have more flexible bones than other species, so he could crawl through the extremely narrow shaft. However, the bomb box couldn’t fit—its width and height were both larger than the shaft.
Lu Yan gritted his teeth, opened the bomb box with great care, and attached each of the remote-controlled bombs to the inside and outside of his combat suit.
By now, the temperature inside the vent had become extremely high; even the slightest static spark could lead to irreversible consequences. Having taken a biochemistry course, Lu Yan was well aware of the explosive power of these bombs. If one were to detonate on his body, he would be obliterated in an instant.
Lu Yan glanced back at Bi Lanxing one last time. Bi Lanxing gave him a subtle “you can do this” gesture. Lu Yan nodded, turned around, and slowly crawled into the ventilation shaft.
Bi Lanxing sat far away in the corner, watching Lu Yan’s movements from below, without uttering a word to stop him. He had just ordered Lu Yan to continue the mission in his capacity as deputy squad leader. Therefore, if the mission failed—or worse, if Lu Yan was injured or killed as a result—he would bear full responsibility. Within the Alliance, such an offense carried a severe penalty: disregarding superior orders, acting on one’s own authority, and causing the death of an Alliance member was punishable by death.
Lu Yan had always been simple-minded and had only a superficial understanding of Alliance law, but Bi Lanxing had studied the relevant statutes one by one; he was fully aware of the consequences.
There are so many ways to express love, but absolute trust is the hardest to achieve.
The rabbit entity standing guard beside Bi Lanxing obediently crouched next to him, its body pressed against his.
With the bleeding from his wounds finally stopped, a hint of color returned to Bi Lanxing’s face. He mustered his strength and asked in a faint voice, “Which time period are you from, Lu Yan?”
The rabbit entity by his side replied truthfully, “Fifteen minutes from now.”
The rabbit’s body was burning hot, its skin flushed a burn-like red. Its legs and arms appeared injured, and it curled up into a ball, unwilling to move.
“If I hold you, will he be able to feel it?”
“No… he won’t. I’m the rabbit from his timeline’s future. Only if you hold the version of him from the past will he be able to feel it.”
“Hmm, all right.” Bi Lanxing forced himself to raise his hand, patted the rabbit’s head, and comforted it, “You’re great too. Rest for ten minutes, then we’ll dash out and circle around to the warehouse to meet him.”
“Okay.” The rabbit’s physical form lowered its head; its rabbit ears twitched, and its already flushed face turned even redder.
Inside the ventilation shaft, Lu Yan moved with extreme caution, trying to make himself as small as possible, but it was nearly impossible to keep his clothes from brushing against the walls. He’d only managed to crawl in thanks to the rabbit’s racial advantages. The steel walls of the ventilation shaft were scorching hot. After crawling just a few meters, the palms of Lu Yan’s hands were already red and burning with a searing pain.
As he continued crawling inward, the air gradually grew thinner. Lu Yan took a deep breath; the thin air was thick with the smell of rust, and the scalding air burned his nostrils all the way down to his lungs.
According to the factory floor plan they had studied, the distance from the incubation room to the drug preparation room was seventy-three meters, with a warehouse in between.
After crawling through the dark, narrow ventilation shaft for nearly ten minutes, moving away from the incubation room, Lu Yan finally felt the temperature around him begin to drop.
But his wrists suddenly gave way, and Lu Yan collapsed helplessly inside the duct, breathing weakly.
His skin was a deep, almost burn-like red, and his lips were cracked and dry from breathing through both his mouth and nose.
Lu Yan’s vision grew blurry; he was crawling forward purely on sheer, inexplicable willpower.
He didn’t know how long he’d been crawling, but the sound of his elbows striking the ventilation duct’s walls had faded—it seemed he’d reached the warehouse. Now, with a single use of his J1 ability, “Hideout of the Cunning Hare,” Lu Yan easily slipped through the spatial portal into the warehouse, avoiding the need to break in from the front and trigger the alarm.
Once inside the warehouse, Lu Yan could finally breathe deeply. Without a moment’s hesitation, he groped his way through the darkness to the center, removed a bomb from his body, and attached it to a concealed spot at the very bottom of a shelf.
Lu Yan planted a total of three bombs in this warehouse, which was stacked with various chemicals, placing them in three locations that would be difficult to search.
However, his communicator was now completely dead, cutting him off from the others. Lu Yan’s situation was extremely precarious; he couldn’t afford even the slightest misstep.
Just as Lu Yan was placing the third bomb, he suddenly heard a heavy, labored breath.
“……” Lu Yan’s movements immediately grew even lighter, his fingertips trembling slightly as he attached the bomb.
The heavy breathing did not fade away but gradually subsided on the other side of the wall, just a wall away from Lu Yan.
Lu Yan swallowed hard, his toes touching the ground lightly as he silently moved away from where he had been standing. Then, with lightning-fast reflexes, he sprang up and clung to the edge of the escape route he had created earlier.
With a thunderous crash, a thick, bucket-like, ghastly-green arm punched through the warehouse’s outer wall. The massive arm swept aside the shelves filled with potions as if they were nothing, reaching over to grab Lu Yan’s leg.
Gagantel had been waiting right outside the warehouse.
A searing pain like a bone snapping shot through his leg. Lu Yan struggled and kicked frantically, crawling recklessly toward the “Cunning Rabbit’s Den.” But that arm, veins bulging, held him as easily as one would grab a rabbit, dragging Lu Yan inch by inch out of the “Cunning Rabbit’s Den.”
In a moment of desperation, Lu Yan reached into the holster at his thigh and drew his silenced pistol, firing several shots at the giant hand’s fingers. The hand winced in pain and loosened its grip slightly. Lu Yan seized the opportunity to crawl back into the “Hideout of the Cunning Hare” and closed the black hole.
Back inside the ventilation duct, Lu Yan crawled forward frantically. Behind him came another thunderous crash as Gagantel’s fist punched through the wall and the duct, reaching in along the pipe. His filthy fingertips brushed against the fluffy tail of the rabbit that had slipped out of Lu Yan’s combat pants, coming within mere centimeters of Lu Yan’s rear.
Lu Yan darted forward suddenly, finally crawling to a spot where Gagantel couldn’t reach him, and fled forward in a disheveled state.
He glanced back. A hole had been smashed in the vent, but Gagantel’s arm was no longer there. Having escaped danger for the moment, Lu Yan lay sprawled inside the vent, panting heavily, his face buried in the crook of his arm. His left leg ached terribly; he didn’t know if it was broken.
Before long, Lu Yan lifted his head, his eyes bloodshot. He wiped his nose forcefully; due to the burns, the tears streaming down his face stung his skin like salt water, causing excruciating pain. He could only choke back his tears while continuing to crawl forward with the bomb strapped to his back. Ahead lay the mononene preparation room—their primary target for this demolition mission.
He estimated the distance in his mind: ten meters, nine meters, five meters, three meters… he was there. Lu Yan slowly came to a stop.
Through the ventilation duct, Lu Yan heard that familiar, heavy breathing again.
“You’re really a persistent ghost… waiting to ambush me in the preparation room…” Lu Yan had been crawling for too long; he couldn’t straighten his body, and his limbs had gone numb. This monster was terrifying, and its name was terrifying too. From now on, Lu Yan would never dare to play Plants vs. Zombies again.
“Let’s wait and see if he leaves… At worst, we’ll die together. I’m not going to let you get the better of me, you big oaf…” Lu Yan clutched the detonator in his hand and muttered to himself, “Anyway, if these bombs on me go off, the whole factory will blow to smithereens… Wait, why should I be the one to die? If Brother Chu can pull it off, so can I. What makes me any different from him? A little white rabbit, a big white cat—it doesn’t really make a difference. That’s right, it doesn’t make a difference.”
Lu Yan’s hand, gripping the remote, was so stiff it kept trembling, and his legs began to shake as well.
“Don’t be afraid, Lu Yan. Lanxing is waiting for me. He’ll die from blood loss. I have to go back and save him. That’s right, I can’t die. What will Lanxing do if I die? There’ll be no one to sit with him in class. So many little girls want to be his desk partner—that just won’t do.”
Gagantel’s breathing hadn’t faded into the distance; it seemed he was lying in wait in the preparation room. The moment Lu Yan stepped out, he’d likely run right into him. If it were just a matter of running away, Lu Yan might still have a chance of survival, but if planting the bomb was involved, then it was anyone’s guess.
Time ticked by second by second. Lu Yan glanced at his watch—it was already 8:00 PM. It must be dark outside by now. The files mentioned that Gagantel had poor eyesight; if he could use the cover of night, he should be able to find an opening.
Lu Yan closed his eyes briefly, rolled over, and a dark hole—a rabbit’s burrow—appeared on the side of the ventilation duct. He pulled out a bomb, clenched it in his hand, and darted out. The moment he emerged, he quickly attached the bomb to the underside of a control panel, then rolled away from the spot, crouching on the ground and holding his breath.
The preparation room was lit only by a faint yellow glow. As Gagantel saw Lu Yan emerge from the hole, he immediately set off in pursuit. With every heavy step he took, the ground rumbled and trembled.
Lu Yan covered his mouth and desperately squeezed himself into the shadow cast by the preparation table.
Gagantor, dragging his massive iron blade, turned around with clumsy, heavy steps, crouching slightly as he slowly searched the area.
The iron blade scraped against the floor, emitting a shrill, grating noise, drawing ever closer to Lu Yan.
Lu Yan didn’t dare breathe a single breath, holding his breath until he was nearly suffocating, afraid to make even the slightest sound.
A massive blue foot landed beside Lu Yan, emitting a putrid stench of decay.
Gagantel passed by the preparation table where Lu Yan was hiding and moved on to inspect another machine.
Only when the shadow was far enough away did Lu Yan dare to breathe. After taking a few shallow breaths, he shifted slightly and pulled another bomb from his chest, attaching it to the very bottom center of the preparation table.
Basically, destroying this equipment would make it very difficult for Shan Yening to survive. Lu Yan still had two spare bombs on him; if the opportunity arose, he could attach them to the other machines and blow them all up at once.
Lu Yan slowly backed out from under the preparation table.
As he backed away, a capless carbon pen on the preparation table’s logbook suddenly rolled off and clattered to the floor.
Lu Yan froze for a moment, then heard the shadow of that massive creature on the wall shift slightly, followed by a roar like an elephant trumpeting.
“I heard that!” Lu Yan scrambled out and took off running. He now had two options: one was to retrace his steps back into the rabbit hole he’d crawled through and crawl back to the heated room; the other was to run straight out through the wall that Gagantel had smashed open.
“If it’s Lanxing… he’ll be waiting for me outside.” Without looking back, Lu Yan charged toward the hole in the wall.
Bi Lanxing, waiting in the保温室, glanced at the time and patted the rabbit entity resting beside him. “By now, Lu Yan should have reached the preparation room. Let’s go out now.”
The rabbit form glanced at the stiffened infected standing guard at the door—driven back by the intense heat and too afraid to enter—and bit her lip. “There are at least forty or fifty of them blocking the entrance… Let’s go.”
Bi Lanxing had regained some strength; he braced himself against the wound on his chest and stood up, striding quickly toward the entrance of the thermal chamber.
Just as he was about to release his poisonous vines to clear a path, Lu Yan’s rabbit form suddenly caught up and squeezed in beside his left side, pushing Bi Lanxing to the far right of the doorway.
“Save your strength,” the rabbit form said, pressing down on his hand. “We still have to back up Lu Yan later… Once we burst out, you go right, I’ll go left—we’ll split them up.”
“Alright.” Bi Lanxing nodded. This tactic matched his own plan. The infected zombies assimilated by Gagantel were highly mobile but lacked the ability to think; splitting them left and right would temporarily throw them into confusion, making it easier to break free.
“I’ll count to three, then we charge together.” The rabbit entity hopped up and down twice to make sure its legs were still up to the task.
“One, two, three, go!”
Bi Lanxing cast a Poison Ivy Armor on both himself and the rabbit entity, then pushed forward with his gun in hand. The poison vine armor could negate one instance of physical damage regardless of its strength, so squeezing through the doorway wouldn’t take long.
The zombies, drawn by the scent of blood, closed in, desperately gnawing at the poison vine armor covering his body. Bi Lanxing’s fingers sprouted into vines, which he used to claw at the wall and pull himself outward.
Suddenly, feeling a moment of weightlessness, Bi Lanxing sensed a powerful shove from behind, and carried by inertia, he flew several meters away along his vines.
Bi Lanxing used the momentum to retreat, glancing back to see if the rabbit entity had managed to escape.
But things didn’t go as he’d expected.
The rabbit’s physical form hadn’t run away. He’d shed the Poison Ivy Armor and was clutching it to his chest. How could the relentless zombies possibly pass up such tender flesh? Dozens of mouths tore into the rabbit’s body, and within mere seconds, the rabbit was covered in blood.
Drawn by the strong scent of blood, the monsters’ interest in Bi Lanxing waned instantly.
The rabbit’s body had a leg torn off and a section of its forearm ripped away; its blood-soaked ears hung limply among its fur. Yet, as if feeling no pain, it gazed peacefully at Bi Lanxing.
“I only exist for fifteen minutes. Don’t be sad. There are countless Lu Yans across the timeline. We… all the rabbits—one-year-olds, two-year-olds, ten-year-olds, twenty-year-olds, forty- and fifty-year-olds… we all love you.”
“The twenty-five-year-old rabbit said… we got married. That day, you wore a white suit and held flowers that grew from your own hands. I… really want to see that.”
“Lu Yan.” Bi Lanxing’s eyes widened.
“You must go find him!” the rabbit’s physical form sobbed quietly.
Bi Lanxing took a few laborious steps back, then turned and sprinted toward the preparation room where Lu Yan was.
The rabbit’s physical form relaxed only after seeing him leave. Clutching the poison ivy armor in her arms, she closed her eyes. There was less than a minute left before the physical clone would vanish.
The vines woven into the Poison Ivy Armor slowly grew around him, wrapping and enveloping him, using their tough bark to fend off the bites of the Stiffened Ones. Among the tangled web of vines, delicate little flowers slowly bloomed.
Bi Lanxing used the vines to scale the high factory walls, using the increasingly close roars to pinpoint the locations of Gagantel and Lu Yan.
After scaling the wall of the preparation room, Gagantel’s massive form came into view; Lu Yan was suspended in midair, held by one leg.
Lu Yan mustered all his strength to swing himself up from his upside-down position, grabbed Gagantel’s fist, and pulled out a silenced pistol, firing several shots at his eyes.
Gagantel roared in pain, clutching his eyes. Lu Yan seized the opportunity to climb onto the back of his neck and attached a spare bomb to his thick gland.
By now, Lu Yan’s expression was borderline frenzied; bloodthirsty and utterly irrational, he had only one thought in his mind: kill this bastard.
But a handgun was no match for an A3-class test subject. Gagantel quickly regained his vision and reached behind his neck with his massive hand.
From a distance, Lu Yan spotted Bi Lanxing and, after securing the bomb, leaped toward him.
Bi Lanxing immediately released vines to catch him.
A massive palm shot out between them, snatching Lu Yan back from midair.
Gagantel clamped his grip tightly around Lu Yan’s waist. The pressure sent searing pain through Lu Yan’s ribs; it felt as though his internal organs were being forced out through his mouth.
“Lu Yan! ” Bi Lanxing’s vines wrapped around Gagantel’s arm and yanked downward with all his might, but the meager strength of an M2-class Alpha was no match for an A3. Gagantel snapped the vines in two, his mouth slowly widening as a foul stench wafted out from the gaping maw—which had grown wider than his face—before he tossed Lu Yan inside.
Lu Yan clutched the detonator in his hand, his body wedged between Gagantel’s upper and lower teeth. He shouted at Bi Lanxing, “Lanxing, go back and tell my dad—I killed an A3 test subject. I did it!”
Just as he was about to press the detonator, a vine wrapped around his wrist, and a set of poison vine armor instantly formed over his body.
Gagantel bit down with all his might, only to feel something incredibly tough wedged between his teeth.
As the poison vine armor shattered, Lu Yan seized the opportunity to wriggle free from his mouth. Bi Lanxing leaped up to catch him, pinned him to the ground with his body, and vines began to wrap around them in tight coils.
“You’re really something, Lu Yan. I underestimated you before.” Bi Lanxing knelt on the ground, using his back to brace against the vines above him. Even though he knew these vines couldn’t stop Gagantel’s blunt blade, he knew that if the blade came down, the first to be cut in two would be himself.
Lu Yan’s throat was choked with blood; he coughed for a long time, then laughed weakly as he gasped for breath: “What a pity… Bai Chunian didn’t see this… If I die, he’ll definitely write on my tombstone, ‘This was a stupid rabbit. He died because of his own stupidity.’ He just won’t admit that I’m the real boss of the family. How annoying.”
“Stop muttering now that death is upon you.” Bi Lanxing lowered his head and, hidden among the layers of vines, pressed his lips against Lu Yan’s.
Their fingers were intertwined, their palms pressing down on the detonator.