"Who are you?" Cheng Ming thought for a moment and decided to reply to a message.
"The first table by the window," the other party immediately responded.
Cheng Ming looked up and saw a young woman sitting at the first table by the window. She wore a white blouse on her upper body, paired with a knee-length skirt and slightly sheer black stockings. A blazer was casually draped over the back of an empty chair next to her.
The woman’s features were quite pronounced, seeming not to be of pure Xiazhou descent. The roots of her dyed black hair revealed part of its original pale golden color.
The young woman smiled and waved at Cheng Ming, signaling him to sit at her table.
With a hint of doubt, Cheng Ming carried his orange juice over and sat opposite the woman, asking, "Do we know each other?"
"No," the young woman replied.
"Then how do you know my phone number?"
"The registration form," the young woman said. "Every Hunter who participates in registration must fill out their contact information, right?"
"So, are you speaking with me on behalf of the Bai Group?" Cheng Ming asked, puzzled.
He instinctively felt that the woman’s backers were not the Bai Family.
If the Bai Group had something to discuss with him, there was no need for such elaborate measures.
"It’s not very convenient here. Mr. Cheng, could you join me next door?" the young woman asked.
"Not convenient, as in the store has surveillance cameras?" Cheng Ming inquired.
"Yes," the young woman did not shy away from the question.
Slightly surprised by her straightforwardness, Cheng Ming nodded regardless.
"Please follow me," the woman stood up, grabbing the blazer from the chair back.
The suspicious woman led Cheng Ming into the hotel next to the water bar. She did not pause at the front desk but went straight to the elevator.
"What do you want with me?" In the cramped elevator cabin, Cheng Ming could clearly smell the shampoo fragrance emanating from the woman.
From a third-person perspective, this woman seemed like part of a ploy by the Bai Group, just like the two nurses arranged by Cheng Ming’s bedside. But Cheng Ming knew well that her identity wasn’t that simple.
If she was sent by the Bai Group, there was no need to avoid the ubiquitous surveillance on this street.
She brought Cheng Ming to the hotel because the guest rooms were among the few surveillance blind spots on this street.
The woman smiled silently in response to Cheng Ming’s question.
With a "ding", the elevator arrived at the sixth floor. The woman took out a room card from the pocket of her blazer and opened the door to room 601.
It was a large room with a king-size bed. The light pink beddings carried a hint of ambiguity, and the "paid use" marked boxes of condoms on the bedside table seemed to suggest something.
Dragging out from under the bed, the woman opened a metal suitcase with a combination lock in front of Cheng Ming. Inside was a set of highly sophisticated instruments and a sealed disposable blood collection needle.
Cheng Ming was not unfamiliar with this setup; it was the tool for collecting blood samples from the infected. The infected’s blood contained free-floating mimetic sequences from mysterious creatures, but these would rapidly deactivate once the blood left the infected’s body. To successfully collect mimetic samples via blood, it required special processing to ensure the sample’s viability.
This set of instruments, worth millions, was designed for that purpose.
For an infected person with relatively stable mimetic sequences like Cheng Ming, a blood test was required every three months. Even during long-term tasks away from home, they must undergo regular mimetic testing at local Mysterious Creature Research Institutes to ensure the stability of the infection process.
"Are you trying to draw my blood?" Cheng Ming frowned slightly. "You want my mimetic sample?"
"The person who wants Mr. Cheng’s mimetic sample is not me, but Tao Ge, the chief engineer of the Bai Group’s technology department," the young woman explained. "On the day Mr. Cheng underwent the combat assessment, he was seated among the interviewers. Mr. Cheng should remember him, right?"
"Yes," Cheng Ming replied calmly. "But as a private institution, the Bai Group collecting registered Hunters’ mimetic samples without approval would be a violation, wouldn’t it?"
"The one who wants Mr. Cheng’s mimetic sample is Tao Ge, not the Bai Group," the young woman shook her head. "If Mr. Cheng hasn’t lost his memory, he should recall the incident when G09 went out of control?"
"Yes,"
"Tao Ge invested half his life and effort into the G09 project. The mimetic sequence of G09 is highly stable and under normal circumstances should not lose control. After conducting a series of tests, Tao Ge believes the loss of control was due to a special reaction between Mr. Cheng’s mimetic sequences and G09’s. To confirm or eliminate this possibility, he requested me to collect Mr. Cheng’s mimetic sample," the young woman explained.
"If that’s the case, then why avoid the Bai Group’s oversight?" Cheng Ming asked.
"Because the Bai Group has decided to halt the development of the G09 project. Tao Ge believes that only by obtaining Mr. Cheng’s mimetic sample is there a chance to revive the project," the woman sighed. "As one of Tao Ge’s few friends, I’ve watched him develop G09 from scratch. This project is like his child. Cutting it down would be akin to killing his only child..."