On the night before the mid-month exam, Bai Chunian sat in front of his laptop reviewing recordings of the trainees’ rapid-response shooting and breach identification shooting drills. Not all trainees who passed the final assessment at the training base would choose to join the Alliance Special Agent Unit. Some hoped to join the Alliance Bomb Disposal Team or the Alliance Medical Association instead. Because of that, breach identification shooting had become an extremely important subject. In urban counterterrorism combat, rapidly entering a narrow enclosed space and identifying combat targets is a required skill.
When he reached the recording of the thirty-something-th trainee, the laptop suddenly blue-screened. Lines of white garbled code appeared along the left side of the display.
“These little bastards must have been playing games on my computer while I was gone. Got it infected with a virus, huh?” Bai Chunian casually pressed the Esc key a few times—no response. He pressed Enter—still nothing. Even after forcing a shutdown and restarting, there was still no reaction.
He closed the laptop, patted it a couple of times, and opened it again.
Sure enough, the blue screen was gone.
In its place was a completely white desktop. At the center of the screen, a black symbol slowly appeared.
The shape looked very much like a crawling worm.
Bai Chunian rested his chin on his hand and watched the screen change with boredom. When a line of text appeared, he was not surprised at all.
The worm-shaped icon on the desktop did not disappear. Instead, a text cursor appeared in the upper left corner, and as it moved, a line of black text rapidly formed:
“9100, I want to make a deal with you.”
Bai Chunian yawned and spoke toward the laptop’s microphone. “Hey, brother. Got a mic? I am too lazy to type.”
The cursor paused for a moment, then continued typing:
“No.”
Bai Chunian said, “That is fine. As long as you can hear me talking.”
Another line appeared on the desktop:
“If you want your four young trainees to come back alive, I advise you to listen to my proposal.”
Bai Chunian picked up a red pen, pulled out a stack of theory exam papers from the bookshelf, and began grading them while answering casually, “First, do not call me by my number. Second, threatening me with a few human lives does not bother me at all.”
More text appeared:
“I thought that after three years integrating into human society, your attitude might have changed. At the very least you would have become a little more hypocritical like humans. But that is fine. Our ultimate goal is the same.”
“You must be the reptile Omega the chairman mentioned. You hacked into the ATWL exam system, altered the test questions, and sent notification emails to various factions. That was all you, right?”
Reptile Omega: “Yes. I currently possess the complete unpublished data on every experimental subject from Institute 109. You may now randomly choose any experimental subject to verify that my statement is entirely true.”
The speed at which Bai Chunian graded the exam papers did not change. “Conditions?”
Reptile Omega: “Go to Enxi City and escort Doctor Lin Deng from Enxi Hospital to a location I designate.”
“Wow.” Bai Chunian sighed without expression. “Then Doctor Lin Deng must be very important to you and your companions. The price for this commission will have to be a little higher.”
Reptile Omega: “What do you want?”
Bai Chunian said, “Leave me a way to contact you. Whenever I need information in the future, you will provide it.”
Reptile Omega: “Your appetite is rather large.”
“Of course. If you could find someone else capable of helping you, I would not ask such a high price.” Bai Chunian tapped the finished exam papers against the desk. “I never force anyone into a deal, but are you confident you will never need my help again?”
Reptile Omega: “I agree. Please keep your promise.”
Bai Chunian rested his head on the desk and closed his eyes for a moment. “First tell me what is going on with Experimental Subject 408.”
Reptile Omega sent over a brief page of information.
Special Operations Weapon No. 408: Samael
Status: Omega in cultivation stage
Appearance: No different from a human, but with no pupils. The entire eyeball is red.
Differentiation Ability: “Circulating Virus.” After infection, the target enters the early stage within twenty-four hours. Once the infected person becomes aware that they are already ill, they immediately enter the late stage of infection.
Late-stage symptoms: Disorder of the nervous system, declining vision, intelligence, and mobility. Internal organs and skin gradually rupture and bleed. The infected will indiscriminately bite uninfected individuals, spreading the circulating virus through bodily fluids.
Cultivation Direction: Infectious disease–type biochemical weapon.
“Ah, sounds like a combination of rabies and Ebola hemorrhagic fever.” Bai Chunian became interested. “What are the symptoms in the early stage of infection?”
Reptile Omega: “I will only give you more detailed intelligence after confirming that you have already departed for Enxi City.”
Bai Chunian said, “That is all?”
Reptile Omega: “……”
Reptile Omega: “Although you do not care about the safety of those human children, I still have a piece of information to give you for free. They are already trapped inside Enxi Hospital and cannot contact the outside world. I can only reach them through a landline phone inside the hospital. I will let you listen to a recording of the call.”
The recording was somewhat noisy, but the voice of the firefly Omega could be vaguely recognized. There was a restrained tremor of tears in the voice.
“This is the Alliance Bomb Disposal Team. We are trapped inside the Enxi Hospital building. There are crazed infected patients everywhere now. All the senior members of the Bomb Disposal Team have been killed. Only the four of us trainees are left protecting the doctors. If anyone can hear this, please help us contact the Omega Alliance headquarters and request support.”
Bai Chunian remained unmoved.
Reptile Omega: “After you arrive in Enxi City, I will contact you.”
The animated worm icon on the screen crawled away clumsily, and the laptop desktop returned to its original state. The trainees’ assessment recordings were still playing.
Bai Chunian had no mood to continue reviewing the footage and closed the video.
This laptop had been issued to instructors and was usually only used for playing recordings or editing training videos for lectures. It was rarely used for personal matters. The desktop wallpaper was a group photograph of the training base—those silly, cheerful trainees crowding around several instructors, all smiling at the camera and flashing peace signs.
He closed the laptop and sent a request to the chairman for solo support, then sent Lan Bo a message as well.
At that moment, Lan Bo was soaking in the fish tank watching television. The television was playing Titanic. Lan Bo held a small basin filled with glowing blue jellyfish, staring intently at the screen and occasionally tossing one into his mouth to chew.
When Rose and Jack were about to fall into the water, Lan Bo held the basin under the television as if to catch them, his expression blank while pearls rolled down his face.
His phone suddenly chimed. It showed a voice message from Bai Chunian:
“Baby, I have to go to Enxi City on a business trip for a few days. The signal might be bad, so I could lose contact. Do not worry about me. Even when I am not calling, I am still thinking about you.”
After listening to the voice message, Lan Bo tossed his phone behind him and went back to watching television.
Bai Chunian sat inside the deafening helicopter. On his upper body he wore a sleek black leather vest fastened with brass buttons, and on his lower body a pair of utility pants strapped with ammunition belts along with mid-calf combat boots. Wearing black fingerless protective gloves, he held his phone with both hands and waited. He stared for a while at the photo on the lock screen, but when no reply came, he muted the phone and slipped it into his pocket.
The helicopter hovered over Enxi City and slowly lowered a rope ladder. Bai Chunian hooked himself onto the rope and descended rapidly, landing on the tallest structure in the entire urban district of Enxi City—the Observatory Tower.
The night sky was like an inverted abyss. Crouching on the towering summit, Bai Chunian lazily gazed down at the city submerged in silent darkness.