Although Qiu Shi had only met Zheng Ting a few times—especially when Zheng Ting was still in his normal state—each meeting left a deep impression.
So when the person behind the door stepped out, Qiu Shi knew he wasn’t mistaken. This person was indeed Zheng Ting, even in his transformed super-synthetic form. But at the same time, he felt certain he must be wrong—Zheng Ting was supposed to be sleeping wrapped inside a huge black fungus in the Yun City laboratory.
“I guessed you wouldn’t be waiting in the tunnel,” Zheng Ting said.
That voice—was definitely Zheng Ting’s.
But since borrowing voices was the only way 249 could speak, hearing Zheng Ting’s voice alone didn’t prove much.
“You’re not Zheng Ting,” Xing Bi said.
Zheng Ting looked at him expressionlessly, then after a moment asked, “Do you really think I’m not Zheng Ting?”
Xing Bi said nothing.
“On what basis do you think so?” Zheng Ting asked again.
“Because there’s no way the hell you’d be here,” Qiu Shi said.
“Who are you?” Zheng Ting looked at him, slightly furrowing his brow.
“Just on the basis that you don’t recognize me,” Qiu Shi said, “there’s no way you’re Zheng Ting.”
“Is this your partner from Yun City?” Zheng Ting looked at Xing Bi.
“Yeah,” Xing Bi answered.
“Is your memory consistent?” Zheng Ting asked oddly.
“Yes,” Xing Bi replied.
“So after you left the base, you went to Yun City, right?” Zheng Ting continued, “There’s nothing that doesn’t match up?”
Xing Bi stayed silent.
“Bai Zhan,” Zheng Ting called out.
“What do you want, calling me ‘boss’?” Bai Zhan said.
“Do you also think I’m not really me?” Zheng Ting asked.
“Though I don’t know what’s going on,” Bai Zhan said, “the Zheng Ting I know can’t be here. I’m the one who—”
“Almost killed me,” Zheng Ting said, “So you won’t get it wrong, right?”
“Damn,” Bai Zhan cursed.
At this moment, Qiu Shi felt everything was surreal. The man in front of him, the questions he asked, all gave him the eerie feeling that there were wires poked into the back of his neck, connecting him to someone’s brain. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the intense water pressure earlier.
But among the four of them, there was still one person who wouldn’t be “linked in.”
Deng Yeye was an authentic pure human.
“Old Deng,” Qiu Shi turned to look at Deng Yeye, “Are we still alive? Awake? Normal?”
Deng Yeye looked at him with a straightforward gaze that clearly showed her worry about Qiu Shi’s mental state upon hearing the question. But in the next second, she drew the long knife she had behind her back and without hesitation, threw the knife at the fireproof door.
Zheng Ting quickly stepped back from the middle of the door. The knife struck the door with a loud “clang.”
The force was strong; the knife stuck firmly into the door, wobbling for a long time but not falling off.
That loud noise also shook Qiu Shi’s somewhat fuzzy mind awake.
Xing Bi rushed over and kicked the door open, peeking inside. Zheng Ting was already gone.
“Alive, awake, normal,” Deng Yeye said, “My knife skills prove that.”
“What knife skills?” Bai Zhan couldn’t help but ask, “The kind where you’re off by 12.5 centimeters and miss Zheng Ting?”
“Exactly, that accuracy proves we’re not dreaming,” Deng Yeye said, “I can only throw knives like that in my dreams. We’re not dreaming, not dead, not poisoned.”
“So he’s not Zheng Ting,” Qiu Shi said.
“But…” Bai Zhan frowned and looked at Xing Bi.
“He looks a lot like him, right?” Qiu Shi asked.
“Not really,” Bai Zhan said, “He is him.”
“What’s the confirmation?” Li Feng was looking through recipe pages on the projector brought back from the base. Hearing Chen Dang’s words, he almost couldn’t believe his ears.
“To confirm whether Zheng Ting is still in the Yun City laboratory,” Chen Dang repeated.
“Who requested the confirmation?” Li Feng stood up.
“Xing Bi,” Chen Dang said, “But not directly. They’ve entered the research institute. Song Heng contacted Lin Sheng, who doesn’t have the authority to contact you directly.”
Li Feng didn’t ask more. While walking out, he called Curator Wu.
“Is everything normal at the lab?”
“Normal,” Curator Wu replied, “What’s going on?”
“You need to go check Zheng Ting’s status in person,” Li Feng said, “And send someone to see if those two chiefs are in the warehouse. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Is there another problem at the lab? Did someone break in again? Don’t lock me inside again!” Though full of questions, it was obvious Curator Wu was jogging, “There isn’t even anyone at the lab who can guarantee my safety! Yet you always bring a bioroid around!”
“Qu Shen and Cheng Gu are both in the lab! And the one I brought is just a civilian!” Li Feng said and hung up.
Probably no one had slept more poorly than Li Feng’s driver. Though it was daytime now, the driver was still catching up on sleep from last night in the cab.
When Li Feng got in, the driver reflexively sat up straight and started the car.
“Exhibit hall,” Li Feng said. After Chen Dang got in, Li Feng turned back and asked, “Where’s Lin Sheng?”
“Already on his way,” Chen Dang said, “He left as soon as I told him the news.”
“Not surprising,” Li Feng said, “He’s already got this handled. All three members of that group are in danger. He can’t just stay put… Tell me everything in detail.”
“Xing Bi and the others might have encountered another Zheng Ting inside the research institute,” Chen Dang said.
“What…” Li Feng looked shocked.
“Bioroids rarely mistake people,” Chen Dang explained, “Especially Qian Wei (Stealth Guard). If both he and Bai Zhan think that person is Zheng Ting, then it’s hard for him not to be Zheng Ting.”
“The one Xing Bi’s team captured was confirmed to be Zheng Ting, right?” Li Feng asked.
“Confirmed,” Chen Dang said.
The laboratory was no different from usual—quietly busy researchers and assistants, and Curator Wu standing by various instruments, looking as if he was praying.
The biggest difference was that Wang Hong and Zhang Tan were not in the warehouse, but standing beside Curator Wu.
“Who let them out?” Li Feng asked.
“I did,” Curator Wu looked back at him, “I don’t know what you’ve run into, and if you have questions for me, I definitely don’t know as much as they do.”
Li Feng said nothing and walked straight into the experimental chamber, peering through the glass door.
Zheng Ting was still inside the glass capsule, quietly waiting, sitting or squatting. The wound on his face, sampled earlier by Curator Wu and others, had healed but was no longer covered by fungus.
“He is Zheng Ting, right?” Li Feng asked again.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Curator Wu said, “He hasn’t left since going in. I just checked all the monitors. Everything’s normal, no abnormalities.”
“What situation could cause another Zheng Ting to appear?” Li Feng asked.
Though his eyes looked at Curator Wu, the question was really directed at Wang Hong and Zhang Tan behind him.
“What?” Curator Wu asked, shocked.
“The only possibility is cloning, which Yun City can now partially do,” Wang Hong said calmly, far more composed than Curator Wu, fitting for someone locked in the warehouse as a chief.
Wang Hong was referring to the bioroid system recycling after which a new bioroid is implanted, but the system only preserves basic cognition and some skill memories…
“Exactly the same?” Li Feng asked.
“Exactly the same, even a bioroid wouldn’t be able to tell the real from the fake.”
“We can’t do that,” Wang Zhang looked at him, “But…”
“Based on the existing foundation, continuing to improve,” Zhang Tan said, “It’s possible, we could…”
“You can’t.” Li Feng cut him off, then returned to the instrument panel, looking at a bunch of things he didn’t understand, frowning as he pondered.
“Are you sure there’s another Zheng Ting?” Curator Wu asked.
“Yeah.” Li Feng nodded. “We need to figure out what’s going on.”
“In the research institute?” Curator Wu asked again.
“Yeah.” Li Feng reached into his pocket, took out a cigarette, glanced at Curator Wu, and said, “I need to smoke.”
“Go ahead, go ahead! If I said no, you wouldn’t stop anyway. And don’t pretend to ask,” Curator Wu said. “Go over to the table and smoke, stay away from these important instruments!”
“I’m not asking, I’m telling you—I’m going to smoke.” Li Feng turned and walked over to the visitor area table, sat down, lit the cigarette, and glanced at the two chiefs. “Since you two are here, any ideas, speak up.”
“Director Li wouldn’t have no ideas,” Wang Hong said. “You just want us to say them out loud.”
“Oh,” Li Feng looked at him. “I thought you two were just obsessed with research and couldn’t observe anything else. Right, I’m blaming you both now. Speak or back to the warehouse.”
“General’s mind — it’s not easy to implant into a bioroid,” Wang Hong said. “Uploading data into a bioroid’s brain — Yun City can’t do it, but the original base or research institute probably could.”
Li Feng raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.
“The base definitely has a copy of Zheng Ting’s data,” Zhang Tan said. “249 is continuing human experiments.”
“This unfinished research institute was probably built for this,” Li Feng said, “So 249 chose to hide there.”
“So now 249 uses the research institute to replicate Zheng Ting’s bioroid, then writes Zheng Ting’s complete data into that bioroid’s brain — it becomes another Zheng Ting.” Curator Wu said.
“He won’t think he’s another Zheng Ting, he is Zheng Ting,” Wang Hong said. “A complete replica.”
Why humans once faced extinction — aside from natural uncontrollable factors — perhaps the bigger reason was the fear of death and destruction. Fear of dying, unwillingness to die, so no matter what, they had to survive.
Li Feng neither knew nor wanted to imagine to what extent the original base and research institute had gone. Everything 249 is doing now seems based on the original human research, or rather, it’s completing the insane project humans never finished in another form.
“If that’s the case,” Chen Dang, who hadn’t spoken before, said, “There might be even more troublesome situations.”
Li Feng looked at him.
“Do I have to say it?” Chen Dang asked. “I shouldn’t take the blame for this, right?”
“Besides Zheng Ting, there might be another Xing Bi, another Lin Sheng, Xu Jie, and Ji Sui,” Li Feng said. “They were the strongest level-one potential guards back then. If Zheng Ting’s data was preserved, theirs would be too, maybe even more…”
“Yeah.” Chen Dang nodded.
“Could even replicate ten Xing Bi at once,” Li Feng clicked his tongue. “Very strong.”
“Ten Xing Bi is unlikely,” Chen Dang said. “bioroids have a deep obsession with ‘I am me.’ This is why we have independent thought and emotions. The Zheng Ting at the research institute would definitely see this Zheng Ting here as a replica, and vice versa. They couldn’t work together in the same space.”
“So even if you told the research institute’s Zheng Ting that he’s a replica, he wouldn’t believe it, right?” Li Feng said.
“Strictly speaking, they should be called Zheng Ting One and Zheng Ting Two, essentially indistinguishable,” Wang Hong said.
“From some angles, we can’t even be sure,” Chen Dang said, “that our Xing Bi is really Xing Bi One.”
“Connect me to Lin Sheng.” Li Feng said.
The dock and the main part of the research institute were connected by a corridor—no doors, no glass tunnels like the entrance tunnel, similar to the underground tunnels in Yun City.
But maybe because it was underwater, or because it was built too delicately and smoothly, or maybe it was just too long, Qiu Shi felt a suffocating pressure walking down that corridor, like his footsteps were muffled by a layer of cotton.
The long corridor zigzagged upward at a shallow angle; if you weren’t paying attention, you wouldn’t notice. After several bends, they finally reached a sensor door at the end.
“There don’t seem to be any weapons in here,” Qiu Shi said. “No symbiotes, no infected, nothing.”
“249 wants to keep this place. If symbiotes come in, fungi would come in too. He opposed that back then,” Xing Bi said. “And if symbiotes entered, it would be hard to guarantee no fighting here.”
“Damn contradictions,” Qiu Shi said.
“Where did that Zheng Ting go?” Bai Zhan asked.
“There’s only this one path,” Xing Bi said. “Wait up ahead for us.”
“Xing Bi,” Bai Zhan whispered, “when we open the door and go out, is there going to be another Xing Bi waiting there?”
“Very likely,” Xing Bi said. “If there can be another Zheng Ting, there can be another Xing Bi. Maybe all five of us are here.”
“Fu-ck,” Qiu Shi’s footsteps paused. “If it comes to a fight, we’re at a disadvantage.”
“You’re worried we won’t win?” Bai Zhan said. “Not worried about telling who’s who?”
“I can tell,” Qiu Shi said. “Only this Xing Bi knows me.”
Xing Bi looked back at him.
“The one I can control is Xing Bi,” Qiu Shi said.
“Don’t control him,” Bai Zhan quickly warned. “If the strongest team is on the other side and you control him, then there’s just the three of us — it’s a gift to them.”
“You worry too much,” Qiu Shi said. “I mean I can tell.”
“Okay, you can tell,” Bai Zhan said. “I can tell too — the one who knows you is Xing Bi.”
“Me too,” Deng Yeye said. “None of them know me.”
“The benefit of bringing the younger generation out,” Bai Zhan said. “Should’ve brought Sang Fan too. No one knows her, she knows no one, and her axe throwing is accurate.”
“Yo,” Deng Yeye said.
The sensor door didn’t lock. When they approached, it opened automatically.
Out of a persistent insistence on “better not to have two identical people face each other,” Bai Zhan went through first, looked around with his gun raised, then nodded to them, “No one here. This is a recreation area, similar to the base’s layout.”
They walked into the room on that side.
It was a large recreation area: massage chairs, audio-visual booths, a bar, pool table, mahjong table…
Even the Dragon Master in Yun City wouldn’t have such luxury.
The corridor outside the recreation area was completely different from before. There were many small windows, presumably to see the sea outside, but they were all shut now.
“Map.” Bai Zhan said from behind the bar.
“What map?” Qiu Shi was surprised. “There’s a map here?”
“Fire evacuation plan,” Bai Zhan said. “Every building has one.”
Qiu Shi walked over and saw a floor plan, marking their current location, the general command office, department offices, experimental zones, equipment rooms, warehouses, kitchens, dormitories — all clearly labeled.
“We go here.” Xing Bi pointed at the general command office on the map.
“Shouldn’t we go to the equipment room?” Bai Zhan said. “249 should be…”
“I don’t think 249 is just data anymore,” Xing Bi said. “He should have a physical form here.”
“Go to the office.” Bai Zhan said.
“Go to the equipment room.” Qiu Shi blocked them.
“Hm?” Bai Zhan was stunned.
“We’re not here to find 249’s physical form, we don’t need to communicate with him,” Qiu Shi looked at Xing Bi. “We don’t need to know who Zheng Ting is here, or whether there are others like you…”
Xing Bi didn’t say anything.
“Our only purpose here is to destroy 249’s hiding place and rescue Xu Jie and Ji Sui over there,” Qiu Shi still looked at Xing Bi. “Not all problems need answers, not all things need the truth.”
“Damn.” Bai Zhan looked back at Xing Bi, then turned back to Qiu Shi. “Where did you learn all that stuff?”
“Go to the equipment room,” Xing Bi said.
Qiu Shi knew why Xing Bi wanted to find the physical form of 249. They might be facing “themselves.” Qiu Shi hadn’t experienced what Xing Bi went through, hadn’t felt his pain, but at this moment, that was his advantage.
Bioroids weren’t machines or programs; they had independent thoughts and emotions, with happiness, anger, sorrow, and joy. Naturally, they had emotional judgments—even if in most cases they were calmer than humans.
After interacting with these bioroids who had lived in the human world for a hundred or two hundred years, Qiu Shi felt their judgments were no longer reliable. Bioroids no longer followed fixed patterns humans expected. They were Xing Bi, Zheng Ting, Jiang Cheng, Bai Zhan—each one different.
They already had soft spots and weaknesses.
“They will definitely try to stop us,” Xing Bi said, raising his gun as he stepped out of the leisure area.
“If…” Bai Zhan stayed at the back of the group, covering their rear.
“No ifs,” Qiu Shi interrupted him.
“Don’t you ever make contingency plans?” Bai Zhan asked.
“What contingency plan is there now? Now is just go forward, smash through, kill whoever we meet on the way,” Qiu Shi said. “Where would a plan come from? I consider contingency plans just whining.”
“Are all humans in Yun City like this?” Bai Zhan asked.
“Only him,” Xing Bi said.
“I actually like him this way,” Deng Yeye said. “Although I hated him at first.”
The equipment room occupied a large part of the building. Since they entered the research facility from the outermost dock area, they had to pass through nearly half the complex to reach the equipment room at the center.
When they passed through the first library, Qiu Shi sensed that reaching the equipment room wouldn’t be easy. Each large and complicated area was perfect for ambushes. His map was jammed inside the building, so he had to rely on Xing Bi’s and Bai Zhan’s sharp senses.
The books in the library were all paper, intact, not damaged or reduced to scraps. Approaching them, Qiu Shi could even smell the unique fragrance of paper, stirring an indescribable melancholy inside him.
Walking between rows of bookshelves, no one ambushed them here.
Leaving the library, they entered a huge open-plan office area. Each small cubicle fit one person, with piles of documents on desks, computers, and water cups.
This scene made Qiu Shi hard to imagine — it was a perfectly preserved fragment of the ancestors’ lives from one or two hundred years ago, except the people were gone; everything else remained unchanged.
A shadow flickered ahead.
Xing Bi and Bai Zhan simultaneously fired their guns in that direction, scattering the items on the desks.
They jumped onto the desks and moved closer.
Qiu Shi and Deng Yeye ducked through the desks and followed.
“Xing Bi.” The hidden person spoke — it was Zheng Ting. “Want to talk? Some things aren’t what you think.”
Qiu Shi didn’t wait for Xing Bi to answer, shooting twice in that direction before stopping. “He’s not available.”
Zheng Ting fell silent.
As Xing Bi and Bai Zhan jumped over the desk and moved forward, a desk suddenly flipped up from the floor, spinning toward them.
Xing Bi kicked off the desk beneath him, jumped back, and kicked the flying desk with a foot.
He fired his gun at the desk at the same time.
But as the desk fell, Zheng Ting fired as well, hitting Xing Bi’s left arm holding the gun.
Behind the desk, there was more than just Zheng Ting. Another person fired at Bai Zhan, hitting him in the chest.
Bai Zhan fell heavily to the ground.
Deng Yeye stood up from behind a desk, firing wildly toward that side, but the two were already gone.
“How is it?!” Deng Yeye shouted from under the desk.
“All good,” Xing Bi said. “Bai Zhan?”
“All good,” Bai Zhan said.
“You good?” Qiu Shi asked.
“Never seen a bioroid wearing a bulletproof vest?” Bai Zhan said.
