“I’ll go down to keep watch.” Qiu Shi wiped his mouth.
“Hm?” Xing Bi looked at him.
“To avoid suspicion, so others won’t overthink.” Qiu Shi said.
“How much can others really think? At most, we just shared a kiss,” Xing Bi said, “And maybe…”
“That’s enough,” Qiu Shi interrupted, “You’re getting addicted to talking about it.”
“I’ll go down then.” Xing Bi said.
“I’m going to find Li Rui in the back,” Qiu Shi said, “So much happened today, I didn’t even get a chance to talk to them. Still no news from Xu Jie.”
“Alright.” Xing Bi nodded.
The two jumped out of the vehicle together. Xing Bi headed to the front of the convoy, Qiu Shi went to the car with Li Rui and the others in the back.
“Brother Shi.” Li Rui was a bit surprised to see him climb in.
“How’s it going? Have you rested a bit?” Qiu Shi asked.
“Not really doing much, no need to rest,” Li Rui glanced at Da Xiong, “He actually slept for a while, probably thinking about too many things.”
“You’re talking about me?” Da Xiong said.
“I’m fine anyway.” Li Rui said.
“If there’s news from Xu Jie’s side, they’ll notify us immediately.” Qiu Shi said.
“Can they keep in touch?” Da Xiong said, “We’re getting farther and farther away.”
“They can. The car behind us has equipment, once the antenna is set up, communication will be guaranteed,” Qiu Shi said, “Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried.” Qiu Shi said.
“I’m not worried,” Li Rui said, “Brother Shi, what if those symbionts just walk to Benquan City to surrender to Brother Xu Jie, but run off halfway?”
That question was obviously to show his “lack of worry.”
But Qiu Shi answered seriously: “It’s fine. If they run, they run. The final result will still be death. Those willing to go will definitely make it.”
“Hm.” Li Rui nodded.
“Can you write?” Qiu Shi asked.
“Yes.” Li Rui proudly lifted his chin, “What do you want to write? I’ll help.”
“Record the itinerary from the past few days,” Qiu Shi said, “What happened, stuff like that. I want to summarize.”
“Just say you’re lazy. You look illiterate, it’s understandable you can’t write this stuff,” Li Rui said.
“…Damn.” Qiu Shi looked at him, “Will you write or not?”
“I will,” Li Rui patted his chest, “Leave it to me.”
Having found Li Rui some work, Qiu Shi got out of the car, holding his gun as he walked alongside.
Both ends of the tunnel were already pitch dark. To avoid exposing the convoy in the dark, all the vehicles turned off their headlights and slowly moved through the tunnel.
If this tunnel were in Yun City, it could probably cross several large Black Mountains.
Qiu Shi slowly approached the tunnel wall and reached out to touch it.
Compared to buildings exposed to the sun and wind outside, the tunnel interior was better protected. Although the wall surface was visibly weathered, one could still feel the engineering’s precision.
“There’s a smell of blood.” Xing Bi’s voice came quietly through the earpiece.
Qiu Shi paused and took a deep breath, but seemed to smell nothing except the damp tunnel’s moss and various unknown fungi.
“Lead car, turn on the lights.” Ji Sui said.
The lead car turned on its headlights, shining forward down the tunnel, disappearing around a bend ahead.
Ji Sui and Feng Zhi stood at the front of the car, their shadows long on the tunnel wall.
They could see the damaged walls, large damp stains from water seeping out, and moss growing near the ground on both sides.
“No sign of people,” Xing Bi said, “But they hide well. We might not detect them.”
Suddenly, a synchronized sound of racking guns echoed in the tunnel as the bioroids all raised their guns.
“Must be a show to be so synchronized.” Qiu Shi said, keeping his gun ready.
Xing Bi said nothing but tapped his right arm with the gun, producing a “click.” Then Ji Sui and the others did the same, creating a series of neat “click” sounds.
“Damn,” Qiu Shi laughed, “You guys are impressive.”
Joking aside, in such a long tunnel, if anything happened it would be very dangerous. If they just lit two small fires at the ends, the smoke alone could suffocate those inside.
The tunnel was not straight but curved. The bend ahead was still pitch black, gradually illuminated as the lights advanced.
After the bend, the tunnel became straight again, and the light reached forward, though the exit was still not visible.
At that moment, a strong gust of wind blew suddenly from the tunnel mouth ahead, and Qiu Shi smelled the faint bloodstain odor.
The blood smell wasn’t fresh. It was like the old, mixed scent he had smelled when recovering bodies of wounded or dead refugees.
Xing Bi’s footsteps ahead slightly hesitated.
Qiu Shi saw blood.
On the ceiling and both walls, there was blood—like someone had wiped their blood-soaked clothes along the walls forward.
When his visual and smell senses aligned, the blood odor instantly thickened.
The blood wasn’t fresh; its color had darkened.
“Did a battle happen here?” Qiu Shi whispered.
But the ground showed no traces of combat, no fallen items, no bullet holes or axe marks on the walls.
“This might be…” Xing Bi sighed softly, “Left for us.”
“What do you mean?” Qiu Shi asked.
“There’s bioroid blood,” Feng Zhi said, “Mixed with human blood.”
“Different?” Qiu Shi asked.
“Yes,” Ji Sui said, “We can tell.”
“That…” Qiu Shi felt a chill in his heart.
“Could be our people.” Song Heng whispered.
“Damn.” Qiu Shi clenched his teeth. “Did 249 do this?”
“There are two camps nearby,” Xing Bi said, “Not close, but enough time during our drive to do something.”
No one spoke further, their steps quickened toward the tunnel exit ahead.
Compared to their speed, 249 moved faster. While on the phone, 249 had already attacked Benquan City, and on their way eastward, hit the resistance groups here and “decorated” this tunnel.
This was why Xing Bi suggested to Li Feng to have the vagrants destroy camps. With single-point movement alone, they could never keep up with 249.
Though 249’s camps weren’t all at Zheng Ting’s level, there were more than the ones they knew. Vagrants were scattered everywhere and could destroy camps while scouting their strengths.
They just needed a little time for the message to spread and for the vagrants to mobilize.
Before that, their task was to move east, clear all obstacles, and reach 249’s hideout.
The tunnel exit appeared ahead, a distant circular bright spot.
And the blood smell grew stronger.
This mountain tunnel was divided into three segments, connected by two massive bridges over 100 meters tall. Except for the first long tunnel, the last two segments were about two kilometers each.
If 249 planned an ambush, this stretch was perfect.
The cannon on top of the heavy weapon vehicle at the back had already extended out from the roof, and the soldiers inside had all taken up their positions, weapons ready, prepared to fight at any moment.
But the tunnel entrance was now right ahead, and there was no sign of any movement.
Ji Sui quickened his pace, running toward the tunnel entrance, with Feng Zhi and Sang Fan following a little behind to provide cover.
“Outside is—” Ji Sui’s words cut off halfway as he hesitated for half a second, “there is a non-security-related situation outside.”
Qiu Shi didn’t understand what that meant, but he still followed Xing Bi and rushed out.
The bright light outside the tunnel made him uncomfortable at first, and after a moment, he could clearly see the situation outside and understood what Ji Sui had meant.
On the bridge connecting the two tunnels, there were a dozen or so people hanging.
To be precise, they were a dozen or so corpses.
All were naked, suspended in the air by ropes, their bodies covered in fresh blood. The fierce wind blowing through the valley made the corpses sway constantly, resembling a bizarre and cruel wind chime.
“F—ck!” Qiu Shi, having seen many bloody scenes before, still felt an indescribable surge of anger at the sight.
“Song Heng,” Xing Bi said, “are these your people?”
“Yes,” Song Heng replied.
“Keep watch,” Xing Bi lowered his gun and climbed the steel frame beside the bridge. “Take them down.”
Sang Fan ran forward to guard the tunnel entrance on the other side, ensuring safety before the convoy drove onto the massive bridge.
Feng Zhi and Xing Bi quickly climbed onto the steel beams at the top, cut the ropes, and the corpses fell. The remaining bioroids on the vehicle roof caught the bodies and placed them on the bridge deck.
There were seven bodies in total—four humans and three bioroids.
“This is their contact station we’re heading to,” Song Heng examined the bodies, “This is a small squad of theirs, probably intercepted during a mission.”
The bioroids’ neck systems were all completely destroyed, forcibly ripped out by hand.
The humans had their necks twisted and their throats slit to bleed out.
The symbionts from the two camps attacked this squad simultaneously, likely with a level-one or a controlled level-two hidden guard.
Only hidden guards had such a lethal killing skill.
Xing Bi said nothing further, bent down, and closed the wide-open eyes of each of the corpses one by one.
When he closed the third person’s eyes, black patterns began appearing on the back of his hand.
After closing all their eyes, he slowly straightened up, the black markings on his neck gradually spreading upwards.
“Since the symbiosis is temporarily irreversible,” he looked at the lined-up corpses on the ground, then raised his head to the sky, “let 249 know that even if it’s through this method, he will never be the leader.”
Qiu Shi said nothing, only fixed his gaze on Xing Bi’s eyes.
Before this mission, Xing Bi’s powers that had erupted in the lab were already astonishing, but other than briefly controlling a few symbionts and infected at the previous camp, he hadn’t used much more.
This scene clearly enraged him.
And this method was probably the “best solution” available right now.
However, Xing Bi didn’t control Ji Sui or Sang Fan—he refused to turn his own kind into thoughtless puppets. That was his bottom line.
“How should we dispose of these bodies?” Feng Zhi asked Song Heng.
“According to your method is fine.”
“Throw them off the bridge,” Song Heng glanced down the hundred-meter-deep valley below, “to save time.”
“Mm.” Feng Zhi nodded.
Sang Fan picked up a corpse, walked to the edge of the bridge, and pushed it over.
Everyone silently threw the bodies one by one; the wind was strong, and as the bodies disappeared into the dense green valley below, there was no sound.
“Detecting moving targets,” the lead vehicle driver’s voice came through the earpiece, “coming down from the mountain, most likely infected.”
“Number?” Xing Bi made a hand signal, a few bioroids didn’t get on the vehicle but jumped onto the roofs instead.
Qiu Shi glanced back and saw Li Rui, who had somehow gotten out of the vehicle and was looking this way. He gestured toward Li Rui: “Get in the car now!”
Li Rui quickly jumped back inside.
“Over a hundred,” the lead vehicle responded through the earpiece, “there are also some inside the tunnel.”
Qiu Shi returned to the vehicle and set his gun in the firing port.
Xing Bi didn’t get on the vehicle but turned and dashed into the tunnel, saying, “Follow me.”
The convoy started and followed closely behind Xing Bi, entering the tunnel.
Visibility inside the tunnel was poor. Qiu Shi didn’t open the map in front of him but didn’t need to either. He could already see through the rear tunnel entrance the infected leaping down from the mountain.
“Blow up the entrance,” Xing Bi ordered.
A loud explosion followed, and the tunnel entrance began to collapse. Another blast soon after, and the light from the tunnel entrance vanished.
At this time, the driver’s screen was filled with tiny bright dots—infected flooding in from the tunnel entrance ahead.
Sang Fan and the others crouched on the roof began shooting forward.
“There are symbionts mixed in,” Ji Sui said.
Qiu Shi couldn’t see Xing Bi at the very front of the convoy, so he opened the roof firing port, leaned out half his body, mounted his gun, and fired at the infected on both sides while trying to locate Xing Bi.
Before he could find him in the mass of infected surging forward, there was suddenly a moment of silence inside the tunnel. The infected all stopped moving, then suddenly swarmed in groups toward one direction.
Xing Bi had taken control of the infected, and they attacked their previous masters.
“Rush out!” Xing Bi’s voice sounded.
The convoy accelerated and rushed forward.
“Blow it up.” Xing Bi ordered again.
Qiu Shi looked back. After the convoy rushed out of the tunnel, the entrance was blasted shut by two cannon shots, trapping the infected and their masters inside.
Xing Bi ran across the bridge. The infected standing on both sides of the bridge stood silently, watching Xing Bi rush into the last section of the tunnel.
As the convoy crossed the bridge, Qiu Shi noticed black fungi spreading from the infected’s feet, as if rooted into the ground, preventing their movement.
Qiu Shi knew this was a power Xing Bi had demonstrated in the lab. Seeing this now, a subtle unease deepened in his heart. He didn’t know if Xing Bi’s current state was dangerous or what consequences might follow.
But there was no way to stop it. These suddenly appearing infected numbered at least two or three hundred, combining forces from two camps. Without this method, Qiu Shi didn’t know how else they could escape with minimal casualties in the shortest time.
Xing Bi also had another purpose with this speed: to find the super symbiont.
An attack of this scale must have a super symbiont accompanying it. Killing the super symbiont would sever 249’s control over the camps.
The last tunnel had no infected, and the convoy quickly followed Xing Bi through.
But just as Xing Bi rushed out of the tunnel entrance and the convoy followed, a large black net fell from behind Xing Bi, blocking the convoy ahead.
The lead vehicle had no time to brake and crashed straight into it.
The net was woven from metal and some kind of elastic fabric. The lead vehicle wasn’t going very fast and didn’t break through but got caught in the net and continued forward a bit before being pulled back by the net’s strong elasticity.
The following vehicles couldn’t slow down in time and collided with each other one after another.
Using the momentum of the crash, Qiu Shi leapt off the roof.
The bioroids who had been on the vehicle roofs also used the momentum to leap forward, slashing at the net with their knives as they jumped.
At the net’s right front, the roadside greenery was completely blackened. A super symbiont stood in the blackened bushes—this was a temporary small camp.
Xing Bi walked toward the super symbiont.
Two main bodies rushed out from behind the super-symbiont; their movements clearly showed they were hidden guards.
The net had already been cut open. Ji Sui and the others charged out, and the soldiers on the vehicles also rushed to the tunnel entrance with their weapons ready.
But at that moment, the super-symbiont raised its head.
A sharp, piercing sound echoed, and Ji Sui and Sang Fan froze in place.
“Explode!” Feng Zhi, who was not a symbiont and thus unaffected, stepped forward and pulled Ji Sui and Sang Fan back into the tunnel.
The soldiers in the rear vehicles hoisted cannons and opened fire toward the super-symbiont.
But the super-symbiont only swayed slightly and wasn’t significantly harmed.
As Feng Zhi and a few other bioroids prepared to charge forward, Xing Bi’s voice came through the earpiece: “Don’t come over.”
One of the main bodies had already rushed in front of Xing Bi and swung a blade toward his throat.
Xing Bi raised his hand to catch the strike; holding the knife, he pulled back. As the enemy was dragged closer, Xing Bi’s other hand reached out to grip the enemy’s neck.
The moment his hand touched the neck, black patterns spread from Xing Bi’s hand onto the enemy’s neck and then his face.
At the same time, the second main body stopped in place, maintaining the stance it had used to block the super-symbiont.
The super-symbiont’s piercing sound continued, but Xing Bi dragged the first main body forward and slammed it into the super-symbiont’s body, then punched into it.
The super-symbiont’s shrill sound ceased.
“Come out,” Xing Bi said in a steady voice.
The super-symbiont neither moved nor made a sound.
“Ji Sui,” Qiu Shi felt something was off but couldn’t say what, “kill it.”
Several bioroids charged forward and simultaneously stabbed their blades into the super-symbiont’s neck.
“Get away,” Xing Bi said, his voice filled with killing intent.
Ji Sui noticed something wrong too; he reached to grab Xing Bi’s arm to pull him away, but Xing Bi suddenly swung his arm forcefully, flinging Ji Sui aside.
Qiu Shi didn’t hesitate and punched down with his left fist.
Li Feng sat in the corner of the command room, watching a screen showing a map with several highlighted locations.
After the news about the pale green small cylinders in Yuncheng spread, feedback had started coming in. The speed of the nomads was faster than he had imagined. Although no nomad group had truly broken into the camps yet—they only tested their intentions by holding small items scavenged from brief skirmishes within camps—they were already able to mark the camp locations based on that information.
“We need to increase the number of watchtowers providing exchanges,” Li Feng quietly told Colonel Yu beside him, “add more outward.”
“Hmm, but only slowly, within supportable distances,” Colonel Yu replied.
“Of course,” Li Feng nodded.
“Director Li,” a communicator approached, “the convoy is trying to reach you.”
“Alright.” Li Feng immediately stood up and quickly walked to the communications desk, signaling the operator to move him to the nearest station.
“Any news on your side?” Qiu Shi’s voice came through, sounding much like when they last talked two hours ago.
“Reinforcements have passed Benquan City. Xu Jie has gone ahead. The people in Benquan have also reached Xingchuan,” Li Feng said. “The nomads have begun looting everywhere. Immunes arranged by Chen Dang will move closer to you. They’ll do their best to scout ahead along your route.”
“Mm,” Qiu Shi responded. “We’re resting at Song Heng’s liaison station now; we’ll depart at dawn.”
“How’s Xing Bi?” Li Feng asked.
“As usual, not awake,” Qiu Shi said.
“Still… black?” Li Feng asked.
“Yes,” Qiu Shi answered.
Li Feng felt Qiu Shi had indeed matured a lot. Despite Xing Bi’s condition, Qiu Shi remained calm. His voice was weary but contained no other emotion, which surprised Li Feng.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“What do you think I’m doing?” Qiu Shi said. “Do you think I’m doing well? What a stupid question.”
Li Feng smiled. There was growth, but at heart, he was still the undertaker.
“Curator Wu suggested minimizing contact for now,” he said. “Especially Ji Sui and the other symbionts—Xing Bi’s control is unstable; it might affect them.”
“Yeah, I know. He’s isolated in the vehicle now,” Qiu Shi said.
“You shouldn’t have too much contact either,” Li Feng said.
“…I didn’t,” Qiu Shi said.
“You’re definitely in the vehicle,” Li Feng said.
“Get lost,” Qiu Shi said.
“He’ll wake up,” Li Feng said. “Don’t worry. Get some rest when you can. It won’t get this difficult again; reinforcements will increase.”
“You don’t sound like yourself at all,” Qiu Shi said.
“That’s another side of me,” Li Feng said. “Sometimes I show it, afraid I’ll forget if I hide it too long.”
“I’ll contact you if anything happens,” Qiu Shi said.
“Okay,” Li Feng said.
When Qiu Shi got out of the communications vehicle, Li Rui and Big Bear were standing outside.
“Your sister has arrived at Xingchuan safely,” Qiu Shi said.
“How’s Brother Xing Bi?” Li Rui asked.
Qiu Shi walked toward the vehicle isolating Xing Bi. “Still not awake, but it won’t be long. Don’t worry.”
“I’ll guard by the vehicle,” Li Rui followed. “You should get some rest.”
“No need,” Qiu Shi glanced at him. “They have beds inside. You two should go rest.”
“I’m not going,” Li Rui grumbled. “They won’t even let Xing Bi’s vehicle in.”
“For safety,” Qiu Shi said. “That’s normal.”
“I’ll just sleep in the vehicle outside,” Li Rui said.
“Don’t get near that vehicle,” Qiu Shi warned. “You’re not immune, and inhibitors aren’t foolproof.”
“Got it.” Li Rui stopped.
Qiu Shi opened the vehicle door and got in.
Xing Bi lay inside, much the same as before.
Qiu Shi leaned closer and saw the black patterns on Xing Bi’s face were fading, but very slowly. This condition made him feel that if Xing Bi used his control ability one more time like this, he might turn into a super-symbiont.
He sat down in the adjacent seat and sighed softly.
“Happy birthday.” Xing Bi suddenly spoke.
“What?” Qiu Shi lunged forward. “Xing Bi?”
Xing Bi didn’t open his eyes but repeated, “Happy birthday.”
“Happy birthday to you,” Qiu Shi didn’t understand what it meant but recognized Xing Bi was singing. Although he had long forgotten the tune, he forced himself to sing along, “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you… how many times now? Happy birthday to you…”
