The woman pulled out a black card from the sponge compartment of the suitcase and placed it in front of Cheng Ming.
"This is an anonymous savings card with gold worth six million stored inside. With this card, you can withdraw the gold or exchange it for equivalent cash at any bank under the Xiazhou Federal Bank Union," the young woman said. "As long as Mr. Cheng is willing to provide your mimetic sample, this card is yours."
...
...
At eleven in the evening, Tao Ge, having just finished a dinner with fellow researchers, sat in his car and lit a cigarette.
He rolled down the car window and silently observed the commercial street across the road.
Compared to the bright lights of the commercial street, this side of the road seemed much quieter, even the streetlight intervals were much further apart, and the dimly lit green belt resembled a monster’s nest with occasional rustling sounds emanating from it.
There was one hour left until Cheng Ming submitted the "final investigation report." Once he submitted this report, the G09 research project would be officially abandoned at tomorrow’s board meeting. All related information would either be archived or destroyed, and he would no longer be the chief engineer of Bai’s Military Industry’s technology department...
Tao Ge finished a whole cigarette in one gulp, and just as he was about to light another, a woman dressed in a business suit knocked on the car window on the passenger side.
Tao Ge unlocked the door, and the woman opened it and sat in the passenger seat, then frowned and waved her hand in front of her nose.
"I told you not to smoke in the car; the smell just won’t go away," the woman complained. "It stinks."
"Then I won’t smoke next time." Tao Ge casually tossed the just-lit cigarette out.
"Who cares about next time? It’s not my car anyway," the woman said, pulling out a metal tube from her pocket and handing it to Tao Ge. "Here, the thing you wanted."
"Thank you."
"That Cheng Ming is quite easy to deal with, not as difficult as I imagined. Besides, he didn’t want your money." The woman handed the black card back to Tao Ge.
"Why not?" Tao Ge was somewhat surprised.
"He said the Bai Group had already compensated him a lot, and he hadn’t done anything," the woman reiterated. "Since G09 is a Bai Group project, he was willing to provide his mimetic sample for free."
"This person... isn’t bad," Tao Ge seemed at a loss for a suitable word momentarily, settling for the very general "not bad." "If there’s a chance to interact with him in the future..."
"Never mind the future; think about yourself," the woman advised. "If the experiment results prove G09’s malfunction is unrelated to Cheng Ming, then what will you do?"
"If that’s the case, it proves there’s indeed a severe flaw with G09," Tao Ge said. "Then I’ll really have to start over, just like Meng Yunfeng said..."
"Are you willing to accept that?"
"What choice do I have if I’m not? Compared to those researchers who’ve lived half their lives without achieving anything, I’ve already been quite lucky." Tao Ge shrugged.
"Good that you can see it clearly." The woman patted Tao Ge’s shoulder. "I was initially worried you might resort to something drastic, but since you say that, I’m relieved. I won’t disturb you today; next time, you owe me a drink."
With that, the woman opened the car door and stepped out.
"Yeah, I’ll buy you a drink next time," Tao Ge nodded. "At Dragon City’s best tavern."
Tao Ge pressed down the accelerator, and the car sped towards the laboratory.
...
Putting on a white lab coat, gloves, and a full-coverage protective mask, Tao Ge went through the disinfecting room and entered the laboratory.
Turning on the lights, the laboratory, with only Tao Ge present, seemed very spacious. He quickly stepped to the lab bench and turned on the power for all the pre-arranged experimental equipment.
Once all the devices’ indicator lights were lit, Tao Ge took a deep breath, pulled out the metal tube given by the young woman from his pocket, and carefully inserted it into one of the machines.
As the equipment inside emitted a buzzing sound, the laboratory lights began flickering intermittently.
"Is the voltage unstable?" Tao Ge wondered, glancing up. "The experimental equipment and lighting should not be on the same circuit..."
Just as he pondered this, there was a "click," and all the lights in the laboratory went out, plunging it into total darkness.
"Power outage? Circuit tripped?" Tao Ge held his breath as he took out his phone from his pocket, intending to use its light to check the circuit breaker, but found that the screen wouldn’t turn on.
It seemed completely dead.
Tao Ge felt something wasn’t right.
The laboratory was too dark, so dark that one could hardly see anything—even though he remembered that the curtain on the window outside was only half-drawn when he entered. Even if all the lights went out, the moonlight and distant lights from outside should filter in, at least preventing the room from being pitch dark...
"Could it be due to... Cheng Ming’s mimetic sample?" Tao Ge’s neck stiffly turned towards the device with the inserted metal tube.
However, the expected anomaly occurred in another direction.
The computer connected to the equipment mysteriously started up — or, more accurately, its screen spontaneously lit up, because both the screen and the tower’s power indicators remained off.
The illuminated screen remained black, as though stuck behind the operating system, a stark white cursor continuously blinking in the top left corner.
Tao Ge stared intently at the cursor, thinking twice before tentatively asking, "...Cheng Ming?"
The cursor blinked twice, then disappeared.
Suddenly, numerous gray-white specks appeared on the black screen, flowing like liquid beneath the glass substrate. Gradually, they converged to form a blurry human face.
Tao Ge could vaguely distinguish that it was a girl’s face, and she was very pretty.
He couldn’t see the details clearly, but for some reason, he felt this blurry, ever-changing dynamic face was quite beautiful, possessing an alluring charm.
"Who... who are you?" Tao Ge couldn’t help but ask.
The face formed by dots on the screen suddenly smiled at him.
...
...
Next day, ten in the morning.
Meng Yunfeng surveyed the Hunters sitting at the bottom and couldn’t help but feel the words "rabble" arise in his mind.
Compared to Xiazhou’s Free Hunters, these Hunters gathered from across the Federation were significantly lacking, especially in team cooperation, where they had little experience.
Training this rabble into a hunting team capable of hunting large anomalies within a week was about as challenging as turning an eighty-year-old grandmother in a wheelchair into an elite soldier.
Just as Meng Yunfeng felt the onset of a headache, one of his confidants suddenly burst in anxiously, pulling Meng Yunfeng to the backstage.
"What’s wrong? What happened?" Meng Yunfeng asked.
"Instructor, Tao Ge... is dead," the confidant said.
"What did you say? Tao Ge is dead?" Meng Yunfeng was shocked. "Who killed him?"
"According to the lab footage, Tao Ge committed suicide."
"Instructor, Tao Ge... is dead," the confidant said.
"What did you say? Tao Ge is dead?" Meng Yunfeng was shocked. "Who killed him?"
"According to the lab footage, Tao Ge committed suicide."