“How is it? Are you okay?”
Qin Sang had hidden near the old factory until the main official force had left, then quietly made her way home.
As soon as she arrived, her parents grabbed her, asking for details. Xu Lin was also at the house.
“I came back to check on things,” Xu Lin said. He would have been worried if he hadn’t seen her with his own eyes. If today’s operation hadn’t required his support from behind the scenes, he would really have gone with Qin Sang. However, two people moving together would have increased the chance of being spotted. Although he wasn’t entirely sure, Xu Lin knew Qin Sang had her ways of protecting herself. In the end, he decided not to go with her.
“I’m fine, perfectly fine~” Apart from being covered in a bit more dust, Qin Sang was perfectly alright.
“By the way, Qu Meijing was rescued. Her younger sister was captured along with her.”
Hearing this, Qin’s mother remembered the request Qu Meijing had made last time when she came to help voluntarily.
“Her sister isn’t going to move in with her too, is she?”
Qin Sang shook her head. “I don’t care. If she wants to bring someone to live here, we can just ask her to leave.”
Having Qu Meijing live there was one thing. But her sister probably wasn’t a good person. It was the apocalypse; she really couldn’t be bothered with catfights.
Seeing this, Xu Lin brought up Fang Ming’s current situation.
“He’s been arrested. We still don’t know exactly which force is behind him yet.”
Qin Sang said, “It’s good that he’s caught. By the way, the security bars on our house…”
One of the security bars on their house had been cut, and the hallway door had been pried open quite a bit. Finding someone to repair them would be troublesome. Qin Sang even slightly regretted not stocking up on a few extra doors when she was hoarding supplies.
As they were talking, a commotion started downstairs.
It was past nine in the evening. Many people downstairs were moving around and getting some air. Seeing Qu Meijing being brought back by an official vehicle, everyone gathered around curiously. They all knew she had been taken yesterday. They hadn’t expected her to be found so quickly.
Someone even directly sent Qin’s mother a voice message: “Hongxia, Hongxia. That tenant of yours has been rescued.”
Qin Sang saw her mother happily gossiping on the phone. She glanced at Qu Meijing’s condition and then dismissed it. She turned back to tell Xu Lin more details about the inside of the underground lab.
After that, Qin Sang washed up, ate something, and went to sleep.
She should be able to sleep well tonight.
Then, the next day, someone came knocking.
Hearing someone was looking for her, Qin Sang thought it was Qu Meijing’s sister. After all, when Qu Meijing came back last night, she had repeatedly refused to take in her sister, to the point of pleading with the officials.
But when she came out of her room and saw the visitors, she raised an eyebrow.
Xu Lin had been planning to go back to work early this morning. But upon seeing the visitors, he decided to stay. Seeing Qin Sang come out now, he quietly went over and said, “People from the Academy of Sciences. The one in the middle is Professor Su, the two on the sides are other professors. The ones following behind are security personnel.”
Qin Sang gave a slight nod and didn’t bother with formalities.
“May I ask what you’re here for?”
Professor Su stood up directly and introduced himself to Qin Sang.
This opening caught Qin Sang off guard for a moment. Interesting.
Professor Su had no idea what Qin Sang was thinking. He had come today to formally invite Qin Sang, to ask for her help with some minor research. Before that, he wanted to apologize for Fang Ming’s actions.
“Fang Ming is currently under interrogation. On behalf of the Academy of Sciences, I extend our deepest apologies for the losses he has caused you.”
Professor Su was being quite formal, but Qin Sang was very direct. “So, what compensation is the Academy of Sciences prepared to offer me?”
Don’t call her materialistic. Although she’d heard Professor Su had a decent reputation, she really didn’t like dealing with such departments. Especially in the current state of the world. If there was something to discuss, put it on the table. If they could cooperate, fine; if not, forget it.
The two accompanying professors saw this and spoke up somewhat unhappily, “Young lady, why are you so calculating?”
Qin Sang tilted her head, glanced at Xu Lin, and gestured: maybe you should talk to them?
Xu Lin chuckled and nodded. “Professors, regarding your purpose for coming, if it’s related to Fang Ming, then we hope the Academy of Sciences will compensate for the losses he caused. You can state your other purposes. But we don’t guarantee cooperation.”
“Hey, aren’t you from the Information Group?”
Xu Lin replied, “After work, I’m just an ordinary resident.”
The two professors were choked by his words. Professor Su quickly explained, “We’re here to ask Comrade Qin Sang for a favor.”
He had heard before coming that Qin Sang was a relatively direct young person. Professor Su found these kinds of personal favors difficult to navigate.
Qin Sang said, “State what the favor is first. Whether I can help or not, I’ll give you a direct answer.”
Seeing this, Professor Su had no choice but to state his purpose directly.
“Fang Ming targeted you because he discovered that you can attract mutant insects.”
Qin Sang thought to herself, just as I suspected. But she said aloud, “Is there evidence for that? It’s not like mutant insects only appear in our city of Huashan anyway.”
After all, mutant insects had appeared near her three times, and she wasn’t the least bit afraid of them.
“Then, would you be willing to undergo a health check-up?” Qin Sang shook her head again.
But seeing their reluctant expressions and thinking of Professor Su’s reputation, she said directly: “You’ve all been misled by Fang Ming. Go investigate everyone who has come into contact with mutant insects.”
Qin Sang didn’t say more. These professors weren’t fools. The fact that they had come meant they had likely been convinced by Fang Ming.
Sure enough, after hearing Qin Sang’s words, the group thought it over and left. Before departing, they left her 50 catties of rice and 10 catties of cured sausage as an apology. As for compensation in credits and repairs for the damaged security bars and door lock at her home, that would have to wait until Fang Ming’s crimes were officially confirmed. Qin Sang didn’t mind that.
“Is that Fang Ming treating me like I’m some kind of mythical figure? I don’t believe I’m the only person in the whole country who attracts mutant insects.”
Huashan City had her family. But in other regions, the people who encountered mutant insects surely shared common traits.
If the Academy of Sciences was diligent, they would definitely discover these commonalities.
Professor Su and his group, who had left, actually already knew these commonalities.
“Lao Su, the lab is so busy. You dragged us all the way to this place to find some young person. What a waste of time. She seemed unreliable, unremarkable, and not special at all.”
“Exactly. She wasn’t even willing to cooperate with a check-up. Lacks any sense of civic duty at all.”
Professor Su shook his head, thinking that his visit had actually been a major discovery.
With Fang Ming’s arrest and the exposure of the suburban underground lab, a lot of information was slowly coming to light as Fang Ming and others were taken into custody.
Among it, Qin Sang’s uniqueness was something Fang Ming had personally mentioned.
In fact, the Academy of Sciences had long known that people with good health, spatial abilities, and the ability to absorb energy were more attractive to mutant insects.
This was data compiled from various major regions across the country.
But Qin Sang was special.
Fang Ming had kept it hidden before, so Professor Su truly hadn’t known about Qin Sang. But last night, Fang Ming talked, voicing many suspicions about Qin Sang. That’s why Professor Su made the trip himself.
If Qin Sang really could attract mutant insects as Fang Ming claimed, it meant she must have abundant energy within her.
The Academy of Sciences already had some simple instruments that could roughly measure the energy levels within a person.
What Professor Su most wanted to know was Qin Sang’s specific condition. He also wanted some of her blood and hair for research. If they could unlock this secret, countless people might benefit. At the very least, people with more internal energy had stronger physiques.
If Qin Sang knew Professor Su’s thoughts, she would have unhesitatingly turned and run away. She couldn’t bear the burden of humanity’s future. Besides, what secret did she have? As long as everyone exercised more and practiced the things left behind by their ancestors, anyone could absorb and condense the increasingly dense energy in the air.
——
For the two days following this visit, no one else came knocking. Of course, in between, Qu Meijing sent Qin Sang a message, repeatedly telling her that if anyone came looking, to just not open the door.
Qin Sang agreed, but no one showed up. She lived two peaceful days like that.
However, on the evening of the third day after the incident, the news exposed the underground lab.
The report was very detailed, not like pre-apocalypse times when things were often hushed up.
After watching the live news broadcast, Qin’s father and mother were shocked once again. Hearing about it from their daughter was one thing, but seeing those images with their own eyes was another.
“How could those people dare to lock up so many people to feed to mutant insects?”
Qin Sang had wondered about that too. But it was hard for normal people to understand the insane. The most likely reason was that feeding humans to mutant insects enhanced the insects’ abilities, which could then be used for some nefarious purpose.
In the news report, the anchor timely read out some information. It was pretty much exactly as Qin Sang had guessed. As for why most of those captured were spatial ability users, the authorities didn’t say.
But the Qin family knew that people with spatial abilities absorbed energy more easily. To mutant insects, such people were a delicacy.
Seeing this underground lab, Qin Sang was almost certain that before long, the mutant insects in this world would undergo significant evolution, either directly or indirectly absorbing energy.
However, Qin Sang thought this would take a year or two, maybe even longer. After all, biological evolution takes time.
But she never expected the timeline to be so short. So short that it caught everyone off guard.
August 8th was the day the high-temperature disaster struck. From that day on, temperatures rose day by day. By late September, the temperature had already broken past 85 degrees. At such a temperature, even after the sun went down, the ground temperature struggled to drop.
Water and electricity were even scarcer than before. Basically, the tap water supply nationwide had been cut off. People relied on water trucks for their daily water needs. As for the difficulty with electricity, it was because of the intense heat; air conditioners and refrigerators were being used on a massive scale.
Fortunately, the various underground shopping malls, underground parking lots, and civil air defense works that had been cleared out earlier were now ready. Large swarms of cockroaches and mosquitoes occasionally appeared, but people had grown accustomed to them.
It was under these circumstances that many people started moving into these open public areas. Those who had looked down on these spaces before were no longer stubborn in the face of this extreme heat.
And it was precisely when people were moving in large numbers that the insect tide erupted.
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