Dow and Carbon-Based Monkey Breeding Guidelines

Chapter 981 The Man Behind the Scenes (Part )

One thing Robinson had forgotten for years was that he hated bicycles. Although he would express his love for cycling (or bungee jumping, swimming, equestrianism, golf, jet skiing) when the occasion required it, so as to make friends with the person he was talking to, in fact, he was impatient to do these things and would rather listen to Zhou Yu explain how they identified those crazy patients who secretly drank milk an hour before anesthesia surgery.

Bicycles are special. Unlike other sports that are fun on the surface but boring in reality, bicycles are purely personal grudges for him. One day - in other words, after the current turmoil is completely over - he will definitely ask Li Li to help him hack into Yu Qingshu's mobile phone cloud disk and mobile hard drive and delete all those ghost videos of him falling off his bicycle when he was ten years old.

How could he have imagined at the age of ten that there would be a day like this in the future: stretching his left foot forward and dangling it in the air, using only his right foot to pedal like crazy; pretending to put his right hand on the handlebar, but it was actually a purely decorative move, not even bending, relying entirely on his left hand to control the direction. This posture is easier said than done, and he didn't dare to imagine how he looked in the eyes of outsiders.

However, Miffy's doubts about the balance of the bicycle were reasonable. This simple human-powered machine was really mysterious once it started moving. He found that it was completely feasible for him to do so; the wheels flew forward, not caring which side of the pedal provided the power; the handlebars were labor-saving levers, with almost no resistance at high speeds, and one hand was actually enough; the real point was to ask him to try to keep his balance, which was not too difficult for him now. So suddenly, he became a master of bicycle stunts, and he couldn't help but think of the conversation he had with Li Li the night before about the problem of physical friction. It's not very glorious to admit this, but to be honest, he and Li Li stopped arguing for less than an hour, and he already felt a little empty. Miffy, this little monster, was completely a foreign guest when he spoke.

"We've been driving for fourteen minutes and fifty seconds." It swung on the handle and said, "According to my estimate, we've moved about four thousand five hundred meters."

Luo Binhan had no time to deal with it. He had to keep an eye on the road at all times to barely cope with the obstacles brought by his monocular vision. But he was not familiar with the roads in this area, and there was no map for navigation, so he could only walk in the general direction. Fortunately, he saw the river beside the road halfway, the river that was no longer covered by lotus leaves, so he tried to choose a road that was close to the river. In this way, he mostly did not walk in a straight line, but there was no better way.

  He stopped several times on the way to identify the direction and the road, and tried to find a nearby building with people in it to confirm whether he had left the range of electromagnetic interference. However, the direction to No. 206 Dongyun Road was towards a more remote and deserted place, so he found nothing, which made the white workshops more suspicious. Why did they have to be built there? Is there something special about that address? If so, why would Fake allow it to be kept?

Whenever he stopped to look around, or came across a relatively flat straight road, his thoughts fluctuated with these questions. There was an idea that flashed in his mind frequently, just as Miffy told him at the beginning, the current situation was a bit strange.

The box opened when he approached. It could even be said that it opened on its own initiative. He had just received the card when electromagnetic interference caused him to lose contact with Li Li. Didn't the timing of all this seem like some kind of deliberate design? Perhaps Zhou Wenxing simply borrowed a box with electromagnetic interference and shadow recognition functions to store his most important secrets; or perhaps this was a trap in itself.

No. 206 Dongyun Road is a trap waiting for him. This idea became clearer and clearer as time went by, but he still moved forward along the river because he didn't want to miss this opportunity. In any case, he had to see with his own eyes whether there was any abnormality there, or at least confirm the scope of the electromagnetic interference. If it was calm there by then, or it became an empty house with no one, he would never risk breaking in, but wait until the situation was clear before taking action. He could ask Miffy to find out the situation first, or try to contact Li Li first, and analyze with her how this mistake happened: How did Chilabin deceive her? What secrets are there in the white workshop? Maybe this is really a trap, but he doesn't necessarily have to step into it honestly. He just has to get to know this new enemy better.

On the way forward, he kept emphasizing these reasons to himself. They were indeed true, but there was another deeper and more secretive voice in his heart, saying another truth that should not be revealed: from a purely utilitarian point of view, he is now useless; his injuries are unlikely to improve in the short term, and the information and experience he can provide about the shadow have been exhausted, and this man named Chilabin - who is likely to be the creator of Shadow Lode - should be a technical person. The probability that he is also a blood recipient is very low, but the probability that he is proficient in some kind of technological power is very high. Such a person should be left to Cai Ji or even Anti-Pierre to deal with. As long as they can lock on to this person and understand his intelligence, the rest of the work will no longer fall into his hands.

Therefore, even if he really stepped on a trap, it would not have a fundamental impact on the development of the situation. In essence, he was just stepping on the mines in advance for the really important people. If he successfully cleared the mines, everyone would be happy; if the mines exploded in advance, they would also keep the seeded players for the next stage.

As he stopped to examine the road for the last time, an alternative explanation occurred to him, concerning the way the box had been opened.

"Cai Ji." He murmured.

"Who is that?" Miffy asked, "What's his relationship with the Chilabin you're looking for?"

"The box might have been prepared for him." Luo Binhan sorted out the thoughts that just popped up in his mind, "The conditions for opening the box... I think it might have been prepared for Cai Ji. This is a trap Zhou Wenxing left for him. Cai Ji has been avoiding him. Maybe he already knew about this, so he prepared this trap to lure Cai Ji to Chilabin."

"But you were the one who opened the box."

"It was an accident - he wanted Cai Ji to open the box at a certain time, but I killed him and took the box away."

"Why can you open it too?" Miffy asked. Robin Han didn't answer, so he asked again: "Does this mean that the place you are heading to is very dangerous for us?"

"To me," Luo Binhan said, "If the original target of this box was Cai Ji, they probably didn't expect you to be involved. You can be our secret weapon."

"I can quit too," said Miffy.

They didn't have much time to waste, so Robin explained the pros and cons to it very succinctly: if the planet was destroyed, it would not have enough time and resources to evolve to a level that could escape the atmosphere, and would only become a meal for something else, or fall into some worse situation. And even if it survived by chance, it would sooner or later be killed by the Wuyuan people who came to clean up the garbage if it dominated this planet covered with monsters. Fake and Jing Huang would know that it did not keep its promise to take care of him, and then it would be guilty. He didn't mean to embarrass it. If there was still a choice now, he would rather ask others for help, but the current situation was that it had to be there. So, it couldn't quit.

"So what do I get afterwards?" Miffy asked. "I can't get any reward?"

The question it asked surprised Luo Binhan. He never knew if this creature really had such dissatisfaction or even anger, but now he had to think carefully, because blindly threatening them would not be good for their fragile temporary alliance. He thought carefully and said, "After this matter is resolved, I can let you go and let you live freely in a deserted place."

"After this matter is resolved?"

"That is to say, after we get the Wuyuan people to help us," Luo Binhan reiterated, "you will be released under their supervision, and this is entirely possible. The 0312 among them did not make things difficult for you. As long as you don't eat humans here, I will tell them that this is Jing Huang's intention, and ask them to release you to any wild place. You can do whatever you want freely. Of course, this will probably have to be under the supervision of the Wuyuan people, but it will definitely be freer than you are now, right? But if you are unwilling to help me now, I will have to go by myself. What good will it do you if I die?"

Miffy's tubular mouth swayed silently for a moment. "Agreed," it said finally, "but I will judge the level of danger myself."

"I won't force you to rush into the line of fire," said Luo Binhan. He suspected that Miffy had reserved a portion of mucus in the glass tank - a part of itself? Or offspring in a sense? - But this did not affect the fact that the part that followed him had to take a big risk. It should care about its own life and should be rewarded. A temporary agreement was reached. Luo Binhan left his bicycle and walked towards the bushes beside the road. On the way here by bike, he had noticed that this road was different from the direction he came last time, but it was in line with the scene that Cai Ji had described to him at the time. After all, this time he was walking along the river.

He struggled through the dense bushes and came to the end of the river. It turned out to be a slope, with lush grass sloping down to the lake with thick algae. The remains of the pier were just a hundred meters away. There he and Li Li had argued about the feasibility of resurrection after death. The clover and a few pieces of exposed broken cement were still the same as the last time they came. And looking all the way from the foothold to the opposite bank, he finally recognized the so-called "lizard footprints"; the pier was the heel, and the winding and uneven shoreline on the opposite side outlined four short round toes, and several factory buildings like white paper boxes lay between two toes.

The fountain with the abstract moth carvings was still there, too small to be seen from across the lake, but the fountain on top was gone. There were several people standing in the field in front of the factory, with their arms and shoulders drooping, doing nothing, talking to each other or strolling around. Luo Binhan looked up at the sun and estimated that he had spent no more than half an hour, and it was definitely not time for lunch break.

This situation was not in his original assumption. Obviously, this place was also affected by the box. It seemed that the electromagnetic interference range was at least ten kilometers, which meant that the entire new and old industrial area would be affected, and even the edge of the city would not be spared. In the face of facts, he could no longer have illusions and could only accept that he and Li Li had caused a big disaster, and it was mainly caused by him. But now was not the time to regret, the situation in front of him was really confusing.

This den—if Zhou Wenxing really had an accomplice named Chilabin, and he was hiding in these factories, then it could indeed be called a den—did not look like a den at all. The people in the factory showed no signs of evacuating. All the people outside were idle, even the security guards were wandering back and forth behind the open glass door, occasionally sticking their heads out to look around. They didn't look like they were on guard at all, but more like they were puzzled, just like any office worker who suddenly encountered a power outage in the office building, except that no one took out their mobile phones to entertain themselves.

Luo Binhan only watched for a while, then retreated back into the bushes, used the grass and trees as cover to make a half circle, and returned to the lakeside from another low and hidden location. This time he paid close attention to the corners of the factory, wondering if there were any lurking sentinels monitoring the environment; he did not find any sentinels, but more people came out of the factory and wandered around. In a blink of an eye, they formed groups of three or five, sitting in groups on the grass, raising their hands in turn to speak, and sometimes people stood up and danced, or even quarreled fiercely with each other. Less than a few minutes later, several of the quarrelers were ready to fight, until they were forcibly pulled apart by the people around them.

  If these people were all performing, they were too absorbed in it. Luo Binhan crouched in the shadow of a willow tree, watching as these people gradually split into two sides, with some standing on the sidelines to watch. He was full of doubts, wondering what these guys were doing. Didn't they realize that something was wrong? Or did they not know the inside story at all? Did Chilabin just hire a group of ordinary people to work here every day? But if that was the case, what were they arguing about at this moment?

He began to sneak closer to the factory. The sun was shining brightly, and the lakeside area was empty. If he wanted to avoid being discovered, he could only take a long detour along the distant bushes. This was not an easy task for him now, but fortunately, time was not as urgent as before - he was sure that the gang had no intention of escaping, nor did they intend to be on guard against any intruders. If this place was really a trap, then the deadly mechanism would only be inside the factory, not outside.

When he arrived at the back of the central factory building, covered in sweat and broken branches, those sitting on the grass were still arguing; they were arguing with real emotion, and the smell of gunpowder spread far away with the angry shouting, and even Luo Binhan, who was dozens of meters away, could hear a few words.

"Of course it's your fault!" he vaguely heard one of the voices shouting, "What else could it be!"

Another, quieter but more excited voice began to argue with him. "None of us violated the rules. No! I'm putting it right here! No one! It was your people who made the wrong decision! Do you think you can get away with it by putting the blame on someone else first?"

"This matter must be reported."

"Then go ahead! Let's see who's afraid of who!"

While they were blaming each other, Luo Binhan had already touched the outer wall at the back of the factory. After a month, this place still hadn't been fenced. All the signs seemed to reveal some personality traits of the owner of this place. He was either another foreign guest who lacked local common sense, or a careless and lazy person who didn't care about the details. He walked half a circle along the back wall to make sure there was no passage to enter or exit on this side.

Miffy poked her head out of her helmet. "What are they doing?" she asked in a voice as thin as a gossamer. "Is this the norm for your species when facing invasions?"

Luo Binhan hissed at it. He was still not sure if there were really no surveillance outside. Maybe there were micro-detectors or something like that on the wall. But after waiting for a long time, the only movement he caught was the increasingly violent quarrel on the fountain grass. Moreover, he could tell that these people were well-educated. The quarrel was quite boring. Except for some professional terms and foreign words that he didn't understand, they were just accusing the other side of violating the rules. They actually called out their names one by one, trying to prove that the other side had done more bad things.

He wanted to get some details, but he was distracted halfway through. Really, listening to these people quarreling was a waste of time. They quarreled from who had occupied the transmission electron microscope to who had misadjusted the temperature of the reagent library. The final climax fell on the most shameful theft, because someone had stolen someone else's breeding group. This person suddenly became the focus of the most suspicion and had to defend his innocence to many voices at the same time.

Luo Binhan was too lazy to listen any more. He looked down and saw that Miffy was listening with great interest. She had grown a sixth ear without realizing it. So he pinched one of the long radio tubes and cruelly pulled it to his mouth. "Don't worry about those idiots outside." He gave an order to Miffy's long tube ear, "Go check out the situation inside."

This time Miffy did not object, probably thinking that these people who were wholeheartedly immersed in quarreling were not a big threat to it. It obediently slid into the grass, as flat as a puddle of dark green water, and flowed silently to the front door. Luo Binhan leaned against the white wall, waiting silently, and began to wonder what was going on. What on earth were these people quarreling behind him doing? They didn't look like a group of evil servants under the command of the devil, or crazy scientists who had lost their humanity. They were just some idiots working in the laboratory, surprisingly ordinary, and funny boring. What was Chilabin going to study by gathering so many people? Was he going to come up with some secret weapon to paralyze Li Li?

Miffy came back with a smug look on her face, swaying like a slug that had won a battle. "I cleared the defenses on the first floor," she said. This was not what Robin Han had asked her to do. "You can go in now."

"What did you do to those security guards?" Luo Binhan asked vigilantly.

"That security guard," Miffy corrected, "there was only one on the ground floor. He was standing inside the door watching the fun. I went around to the top and covered his face, suffocating him for a while. But I guess he will wake up soon."

Luo Binhan said nothing, but crouched down and slid into the front door as fast as he could. He regretted not telling Miffy clearly before asking her to explore the way, but he had no right to blame her for acting on her own. As a creature that can freely generate organs, Miffy certainly doesn't understand how easy it is for species like them who cannot live without respiratory tracts to die accidentally.

The idiots on the grass were still busy arguing and breaking up the fight, and no one was looking towards the front door. However, there might be other people in other buildings nearby who might come out and catch a glimpse of him at any time, so Luo Binhan took the risk of running a few steps, like a wisp of gray smoke blown into a crack by a strong wind, and sneaked into the interior of the factory without anyone noticing. It was so dark inside that you couldn't see your hand in front of you, and there was not even an emergency light, which was also what he expected.

He hid in the quiet and deserted darkness, waiting for the excruciating pain in his legs to ease while groping for the security guard knocked down by Miffy. He first touched the security guard's shoes, then felt his heartbeat and pulse. The man was not dead, and he was about to wake up. He immediately took off his coat, cut off the sleeves with a knife, stuffed them into the man's mouth, and then tied the man's hands and feet tightly. When he finished all this, the man woke up completely and made a vague groan. Luo Binhan pressed the back of the knife on his neck so that he could feel the pressure of the blade on his skin.

"Hold on," he said in the darkness, "answer me a few questions first."

(End of this chapter)