"I’m giving you a week." The expressionless girl walked over. "I’ll handle things with Father and the City Defense Army. Tao Ge, your task is to find out the cause of the G09 malfunction within a week."
"Also," the expressionless girl looked at Tao Ge, who was surrounded by a group of medical personnel, "116’s capabilities are not lacking. Make sure to recruit him into the Hunter group. If he has any additional conditions that are not overly excessive, fulfill all of them."
"Today’s accident is entirely our responsibility." The middle-aged woman glanced at Cheng Ming, "Regarding the compensation issue, I think..."
"Handle it as you see fit," the expressionless girl said, "Moreover, although it’s hard to completely block the information, at the very least, we can’t let any rumors detrimental to the Bai Family spread. Everyone present today must sign a confidentiality agreement. As compensation, each person will receive an additional half-year salary, the same goes for the technical department."
"I understand." The middle-aged woman nodded.
Although it was called compensation, it was actually hush money—everyone understood this.
"Today’s selection ends here for now." Meng Yunfeng said, "Inform the other Hunters that due to the damage to the testing equipment requiring repairs, the recruitment point in the southern part of the city will not be open to the public for the next three days. They can either choose to wait or go to other recruitment points to participate in the selection."
...
...
Bai’s Military Industry, Lab No. 4.
A large sealed box sat on the lab bench in front of Tao Ge. Inside the sealed box, a dozen test tubes were inserted into the stand, each soaked with parts dismantled from the G09 mechanical skeleton.
The solvent in most of the test tubes appeared an emerald-like deep green, while a few were a pale green tinged with yellow.
Tao Ge, with two large dark circles under his eyes, glanced at the densely packed data on the computer screen next to him, rubbed his oily, messy hair in frustration, and pulled a somewhat deformed piece of chocolate from his pocket, swiftly unwrapped it, and shoved it into his mouth.
According to lab regulations, operators are strictly prohibited from eating in the lab, especially in labs specifically studying enigmatic objects—whether it’s food contaminating the experimental samples or samples infecting operators through food, both scenarios spell a catastrophic experimental accident.
Those violating this regulation will have a full year’s salary and bonuses deducted, banned from entering all labs for three months, and must submit a review report to the lab director...
But Tao Ge was exempt, as he was the lab director himself.
The young female assistant, who recently earned her master’s degree and hadn’t been out of academia long, noticed Tao Ge’s rule-breaking behavior, moved her lips, but eventually didn’t dare to point it out directly.
Since yesterday afternoon, Tao Ge hadn’t left the lab or eaten anything except for these chocolates, relying on the energy they provided to maintain his vitals... if he didn’t even eat chocolate, the assistant feared Tao Ge might collapse onto the lab bench from hypoglycemia.
Tao Ge once told her chocolate is a perfect food for researchers, providing high calories, containing caffeine to uplift spirits, and sugars to boost brain efficiency and promote dopamine secretion. Especially this chocolate tailor-made for himself—its caffeine content was over ten times that of regular dark chocolate, with enough sugar to completely neutralize the bitterness of dark chocolate. They were even, in the assistant’s opinion, sweet enough to be a bit cloying.
"It shouldn’t be... these data... aren’t wrong at all..." Tao Ge yanked a handful of hair while manipulating the mouse’s scroll wheel with the other hand.
Over a dozen nearly identical sets of experimental data scrolled across the screen, the flashing phosphorescence reflecting off Tao Ge’s glasses, making the bloodshot eyes behind the lenses seem slightly mad.
This female assistant had started her shift at 8 AM. The colleague who worked the night shift yesterday told her they’ve already accompanied Tao Ge in doing the same experiment nine times, and this morning, Tao Ge had her perform the same experiment four more times.
At 1:30 PM, after completing the thirteenth experiment, the assistant had a chance to run to the dining room outside to have a cold boxed meal before returning to the lab for the fourteenth experiment with Tao Ge.
The experiment was simple: dismantling parts from G09’s mechanical skeleton containing enigmatic biological cells, soaking them in stabilizers at varying concentrations, then detecting the frequencies of the extracted enigmatic mimetics, and comparing them with the initial mimic frequencies of G09.
The scorched mechanical skeleton was dismantled into pieces, piled on a workbench in the corner—at least a third of the entire skeleton’s parts underwent detection and comparison, yet even after the fourteenth experiment, no anomalies were found within the comparison results.
"Lee, pick out some untested parts from that pile. Choose two sets with strong residual mimic reactions..." Tao Ge’s exhaustion was unmistakable in his voice, "Prepare for the fifteenth experiment."
"Mr. Tao...you should take a break." The female assistant, known as Lee, finally couldn’t hold back and advised, "We’ve conducted fourteen identical experiments, and each one gave the same result. Maybe the issue isn’t with the G09..."
"Of course, I know the issue isn’t with the G09!" Tao Ge said irritably. "But can I repeat that to Bai Xiangsong word for word? Do you think Bai Xiangsong would believe me?"
Bai Xiangsong, mentioned by Tao Ge, was the current Patriarch of the Bai Family and the chairman of the Bai Group’s board.
"As for resting... haha." Tao Ge let out a cold laugh, "Do you think I even have the opportunity to rest?"
"But..." Lee wanted to say something but her expression suddenly changed.
Her lips parted slightly, pointing in astonishment at the sealed box.
"Mr. Tao..." Lee said, "Look at that test tube!"
Tao Ge sharply turned his head, seeing that one of the test tubes among the dozen had its solvent turned blood-red!
"How many minutes has it been with this test tube?" Tao Ge asked and before Lee could respond, began searching on the computer, "Experiment fourteen, sample number nine, immersion start time was 2:03:17 PM, and now it’s 2:34:05 PM...Under normal conditions, G09’s residual memes should have fully extracted within ten minutes..."
Tao Ge slammed the table: "Quick! Conduct a secondary test on this test tube!"
Assistant Lee suddenly snapped out of her daze and rushed to the console, carefully using mechanical arms to take out the test tube and insert it into an instrument that, in appearance, resembled a microwave oven.
A few minutes later.
"Mr. Tao! Detected a frequency segment drastically different from G09’s meme frequency! This mimic shows no link to G09’s own memes, almost ruling out the possibility of G09’s memes mutating!" Lee reported swiftly, "It’s foreign meme contamination!"
"I knew it! This is the key to G09’s malfunction!" Tao Ge took a deep breath, "Could this mimetics have come from applicant 116?"
"It’d be good if we could get his mimic sample... but this guy is a registered Hunter, not a Free Hunter, which makes things tricky." Tao Ge muttered cautiously, "White Corp is just a private corporation without the authority to test the mimics of registered Hunters... unless he volunteers..."
"No!" Tao Ge suddenly recalled something.
He pulled out his phone and started playing a video he’d watched many times over.
This was the footage of the confrontation between Cheng Ming and G09.
Tao Ge dragged the video timeline to near the end, adjusting the playback speed to 0.25 times.
At this speed, he could see every combat detail clearly, almost without a single omission.
"No... G09 went out of control first, and then the red spikes from 116 pierced into G09’s body, afterward the enigmatic cells of G09 decomposed... even if the external memes originated from 116, G09’s malfunction preceded it. Before that, 116 only wielded the weapons we provided hence, he didn’t have the opportunity to malfunction G09 through mimetic contamination..."