16 years

Chapter 120 "Artifacts"

This is in the early days of the end times.

People have not been completely defeated by this weird and elusive virus, and "researchers" are far from being irreplaceable.

The general public and the official concept are still stuck in the peaceful age, in the stage of "distinct rewards and punishments".

Shao Xuefan never wanted to be his superior research expert in this life, Liu Ruosong thought indifferently, even if he was, he could only be a criminal who committed crimes and meritorious deeds.

The sentry post quickly brought a reply from Zhao Jincheng. He handed Liu Ruosong a communicator, and the conversation on the screen was still going on, so instead of thanking the other party, Liu Ruosong nodded slightly, and walked away with his things. .

The sentry knew that he had high-level secrets to report alone, so he stayed where he was.He turned his head and looked at Shao Xuefan, who was sleeping soundly inside, through the door of the VIP lounge, and a chill came down his spine.

Liu Ruosong walked a little further, put the earphones on his ears, and called Uncle Zhao cautiously.

Zhao Jincheng's voice quickly came from the opposite side. Through the processing of the communicator, his voice seemed a little distorted, mixed with some inevitable noises, and it sounded rough.

But Liu Ruosong still felt a pang in his heart, almost unable to speak.

In his previous life, after Zhao Jincheng was transferred away, he never returned to the A Department Military Region.

Later, he inquired about Zhao Jincheng's situation. He heard that Zhao Jincheng's life was not very good after he went there-it was the end of the world, and the division between subordinates and subordinates in various places was not so obvious. Zhao Jincheng parachuted to other military regions. The situation is awkward.

In order not to affect the internal operation of the base, he could only verbally give up his command and only take charge of field work. From time to time, he even had to follow the field team to leave the base to carry out some necessary remote cleaning work.

Half a year before the end of his previous life, Liu Ruosong received an obituary from the Military Region of the B Department, saying that Zhao Jincheng was accidentally infected by a zombie during a field activity and had already died in the line of duty.

At that time, Shao Xuefan's research was still in the bottleneck stage. For some reason, he couldn't find the specific reason and change law of Fu Yan's gene change.

He even cast a net everywhere to catch fish, but unfortunately he couldn't find a sample that would not be infected by the zombie virus for him to compare.

But before Liu Ruosong came back, Shao Xuefan had come to a conclusion—this gene was man-made.

Shao Xuefan's conjecture has been around for a long time, but it was finally confirmed because of a piece of information in Liu Ruosong's hand.

When searching the research institute on the other side of city D, Liu Ruosong accidentally picked up a USB flash drive left by the researchers.The encrypted files inside are at a high level of confidentiality, and it took Liu Ruosong a lot of effort to find someone who successfully decoded part of it.

The document doesn't say exactly how they "raised" Irene, but it does mention the experiment between the lines.

Irene seems to have gone through some kind of "processing" before transforming from a normal physique into a petri dish physique that can absorb R-01.Before that, she was also incompatible with the source strain.

Most of the content in the USB flash drive cannot be decoded, and only the experimental records are disclosed.

According to records, after Irene, in fact, Joe Eden did not completely give up this "transformation"-for them, Irene can only be regarded as a failed semi-finished product.Because his stable state cannot survive independently, he can only use silver fish for medical intervention, which is far from Joe Eden's original expectations.

But it is a pity that this "processing" process should be very strict, and the success rate is extremely low-at least Joe Eden cast the net everywhere, but there are not many fish caught.

According to the experimental records, the initial success rate of this "transformation" is only about [-] out of [-].And in the next week, the test products will show rejection one after another, most of them will be directly transformed into zombies, and a small part will die directly.Over the years, besides Irene, Joe Eden had only made four transformations, but they were not as reliable as Irene, so they were all treated as failures by Joe Eden.

This document proves Shao Xuefan's conjecture, and also confirms that the Petri dish can be cultured artificially.

But correspondingly, Fu Yan’s situation has become a mystery—his life is traceable. In the first 18 years, except for going to school and sleeping at night, Liu Ruosong wished to be with him every moment. .And later, when he entered the military academy, his life became a traceable straight line, which could never have anything to do with Joe Eden's experiment.

Shao Xuefan couldn't explain this situation, so whether it was "artificial" or not became an unresolved mystery.

It is precisely because of this that Shao Xuefan was so paranoid to understand the relationship between Fu Yan and the zombie virus, as well as Fu Yan's metabolism, so he found some traces of biological genetic experiments on him.

Unfortunately, he failed.

Until Fu Yan was sent to the incinerator by himself, Shao Xuefan's drug research still stagnated, only staying in the initial stage of treating the symptoms but not the root cause.

Doing it all over again, Liu Ruosong wanted to understand this matter thoroughly.

He had a hunch that this should be the key to everything, and if he understood the truth about the petri dish, he would be able to reach the final outcome this time.

His mind wandered aimlessly, and Zhao Jincheng waited on the phone for a while, but he didn't see him talking, so he thought it was a bad signal, so he hid a few times in doubt.

Liu Ruosong hurriedly regained consciousness, and then poured out his prepared remarks to the other party. This time, he did not say that Shao Xuefan was talking in his sleep like fooling the sentry, but told the "truth", saying that he had seen it with his own eyes.

"Are you sure?" Zhao Jincheng was very cautious: "Xiao Liu, this is not a joke."

"I'm sure, Uncle Zhao." Liu Ruosong held the metal USB flash drive in his hand, he lowered his eyes, staring at the gap between the tiles in front of him, and said slowly: "I went to him this time because he asked me to take a field shoot I didn't know Shao Xuefan before, and I didn't cooperate with him before, so I was surprised that he came to me suddenly, so I checked his situation secretly."

"You also know that I have a friend who is a private detective." Liu Ruosong said softly, "The other party told me that something was wrong with him, so I went to see him with Wu Diao—it was a coincidence that suddenly that day There was an assassin who wanted to hunt him down, but because Wu Diao was there, the other party failed."

"Killer?" Zhao Jincheng asked, "Who?"

"I don't know, the three-edged army assassin is very skilled, not like ordinary gangsters." Liu Ruosong said: "When Wu Diao confronted them in the living room, Shao Xuefan and I hid in another place. The opponent's troops were divided into two groups, except for the killer. In addition, someone took a virus sample from Shao Xuefan's small building. At that time, I thought it was a competitor who came to steal his experimental results. Out of selfishness, I didn't tell Wu Diao to take the risk of chasing him, but now it seems... that Maybe it's the virus this time."

Liu Ruosong was not afraid of Zhao Jincheng going to ask for proof. This time was different from the first time. In order to save Shao Xuefan without any trace, he had a fight with Fu Yan for a while.The two of them were not together at the time, so Fu Yan didn't know what he was doing at that time.

In this case, no matter what Liu Ruosong said, as long as he opened his mouth, Fu Yan would definitely believe it.

Zhao Jincheng was so shocked that he could only hear his rapid breathing over the phone for a while.

"You...you mean, this virus was created by Shao Xuefan?" After a long time, Zhao Jincheng recovered his voice.

"I don't know, Uncle Zhao." Liu Ruosong said, "But if it wasn't him, he should know the source."

Everyone knows that Shao Xuefan is a high-level talent who has just returned from overseas. Zhao Jincheng had already thoroughly read his information when he first received the rescue mission. At this time, Liu Ruosong woke him up almost immediately.

He doesn't know how much more experience and experience than Liu Ruosong, so he subconsciously cares about it.

"Don't scare the snake away." Zhao Jincheng said: "Stay him first, bring him back under control, and we'll talk about it later. The white-headed kite has already gone to pick up his students. When the time comes, we will contact his students and see each other. Know how much, and then interrogate separately."

Liu Ruosong knew that at this point in time, Shao Qiu and Fang Sining were already in the hands of Joe Eden.

But the news of the other party's disappearance has not come back, and the kidnapping letter is still far away. Even if he offered to support the other party, Zhao Jincheng would not listen to the command of a young man like him.

And now, he has more important things to do.

Liu Ruosong glanced down at the USB flash drive in his hand, then slowly retracted his five fingers and held it in his palm.

"I know, Uncle Zhao." Liu Ruosong said, "But just to be on the safe side, I want to go to Shao Xuefan's base."

When he restarted for the first time, his eyes were darkened, and he went to the base because he was worried about Fu Yan, and he didn't pay much attention to that place the whole time.

In the second restart, he relied too much on Shao Xuefan, thinking that everything would be fine with the other party, so he didn't even think about revisiting his old place.

But this time is different.

If he wanted to suppress Shao Xuefan, he needed that sure-fire video.And he also wants to take over all the achievements that the opponent has not had time to make, so all the information of B-92 is especially important.

He told Zhao Jincheng about the U disk matter with mixed truth and falsehood, and finally mentioned his major intentionally or unintentionally.

Zhao Jincheng was obviously not suspicious. He pondered for a while on the other side of the phone, weighed it for a while, and finally agreed to Liu Ruosong's request for investigation, but asked him to escort Shao Xuefan back to the Yancheng Base first.

Liu Ruosong knew that Zhao Jincheng let go so easily because the other party had never experienced restarting.

In Zhao Jincheng's eyes, he is still the young man with a meek temperament and a good temper.After being a member of the military for so many years, not to mention what a moral model he is, at least he is a good person with integrity and kindness.

Compared with the "experts and scholars" who have been abroad for many years and their whereabouts are uncertain, it is obvious that this nephew who has grown up under his own eyes is a little closer.

So between Shao Xuefan and him, Zhao Jincheng almost subconsciously chose to believe in the latter.