Dow and Carbon-Based Monkey Breeding Guidelines

Chapter 988: Handan Dream (Part )

When he escaped from the dream, his whole body was in great pain, as if he had crawled through a mountain of swords and knives. Countless chaotic images pierced into his mind, and the last impression left was the fire. But he never felt the burning, because the fire was far away from him, maybe under the water, or above. He only felt the wetness seeping into the bones and falling deeper. Something was wrong. This thought made him anxious, but he couldn't take action. It was too late. There was nothing he could do.

A hot undercurrent rushed to his forehead. He opened his eyes and saw Shi Qi probing his forehead with his hand. The hand was gentle, but the skin was burning, like a piece of charcoal covered with thick ash.

Luo Binhan wanted to ask her what time it was, but he couldn't speak for a moment, only groaning vaguely. Shi Qi's expression became more anxious. "What's wrong with you?" she asked, "You seemed to be in pain when you fell asleep, but you didn't have a fever... Why is your temperature so low?"

Her voice was distorted, and there was a crackling sound of electricity in the aftertaste of each word. It took Luo Binhan a while to understand what she meant, and then he shook his head vigorously. He probably didn't have a fever, but just felt uncomfortable in his head. This discomfort was more like the feeling when he left No. 206 Dongyun Road before, perhaps caused by the dreams he had just had. Those chaotic dreams were full of familiar people, including Jing Huang, Zhou Yu, Zhou Yu, and for some reason, Fake and Chen Wei. There was a scene that made him a little confused: it seemed that Zhou Yu was talking to him, but this Zhou Yu looked a little strange, her expression and tone were a little different, and she seemed to be older.

"Are you okay?" Shi Qi asked again, "How about I take you to the hospital?"

Luo Binhan grabbed her hand. "No need." He said hoarsely, "The hospital doesn't need it... the water... is in the refrigerator..."

"Is the water in the fridge?"

Luo Binhan smiled helplessly at her. The one who stayed at home for a long time was Yu Xiaorong. She had to drink cold water all year round, not to mention in the summer.

Shi Qi quickly went to get him some water. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Luo Binhan forced himself to turn his mind away from the dream. He would be fine, as long as he stopped thinking about it for a while. At one point, he remembered the medicine Zhou Yu had given him, but these medicines had not been able to relieve his dizziness before, and when he left the hotel, he had put the entire weapon bag into the canvas bag and did not take the medicine out of the bag. If Shi Qi was asked to help find it, she would definitely touch the machete in the bag.

Shi Qi came back in a flash, holding a bottle of mineral water. "Only this and lemon juice." She covered the bottle with her palm, seeming dissatisfied with the temperature, "Shall I warm it up for you?"

Luo Binhan shook his head, took the bottle and drank two sips. His head still felt uncomfortable, but his body was no longer uncomfortable. "I'm fine," he pressed the bottle against his forehead, but he didn't feel how cold it was, "It's just that I've been too busy these days... too many things have happened."

"You really didn't look right just now. You must be sick. You can't just be tired."

"I was so angry at Zhou Yu that I had a headache."

"Be serious and stop joking."

"Okay. I guess I haven't gotten enough sleep lately. I can't sleep right now because I'm feeling sick. Can you get me some painkillers?"

"Where's the medicine?"

"Probably in the cabinet at the end of my bed in the bedroom." Luo Binhan said. Seeing Shi Qi was about to leave, he suddenly remembered that he had sent Yu Xiaorong out to buy medicine when he pretended to be sick last time. Later, she complained on the phone that he actually put the medicine under the bed casually, thinking that it was neither auspicious nor moisture-proof, and the medicine box that was specially classified and stored was thrown into the desk drawer casually, completely becoming a decoration. In fact, he didn't like that medicine box, which was wide and flat, and he couldn't open the lid without taking it out of the drawer first.

"My sister might have packed it up," he added hastily, "and if it's not in the cupboard, it must have been in the medicine box, which should be in the desk drawer."

Shi Qi agreed and went. As soon as she entered the bedroom, Luo Binhan took the canvas bag that was left in the entrance back to the living room. He took out the weapon hanging bag and the card box from the bag, hid them in the bottom drawer of the coffee table, locked it, took out the key and put it in his pocket - now he didn't have to worry about Shi Qi or Yu Xiaorong opening the bag and finding the things inside. He could sleep peacefully at home for a night, and take these things to Zhou Yu's place to hide them tomorrow morning.

After finishing this task, he lay back on the sofa with peace of mind, waiting for Yu Xiaorong to come back and meet Shi Qi. This kind of life of deceiving people left and right really made him impatient, he just hoped to end the trouble peacefully, and not let it make a mistake in the end. Thinking of this, he glanced at the time on the mechanical watch again, it was almost four o'clock in the afternoon. It was just one day since Zhou Wenxing's death, which was really a happy time; if Li Li and Zhou Yu could catch Chilabin within seven days, they would still have time to take Xiaobin to guard the body of his accomplices! If they couldn't catch him, it didn't matter much, anyway, the problem on the moon could be solved by Zhou Yu alone - this reminded him that Momoro was still there, and he had to mention it to Zhou Yu tomorrow.

  There was a sound of cabinets being moved in the bedroom. Shi Qi said something to him vaguely, probably because he couldn't find the medicine in the cabinet at the end of the bed. Luo Binhan agreed casually and continued to think about tomorrow's affairs. There were no dangerous items in his bedroom, and Shi Qi was not the kind of person who would rummage around, at least he would not despise his privacy more than Yu Xiaorong. But when it comes to Yu Xiaorong, this matter is a bit strange: What reason did Li Li use to lead Yu Xiaorong away? Apart from him, Yu Xiaorong didn't have any acquaintances in the local area. What kind of news could make her go out for several hours in a row, and even bring Fina with her? That's not a pet that can be taken for a walk casually. Did Li Li ask Yu Xiaorong to do this in his name?

He wanted to open his phone and ask Li Li, but he was reluctant to contact her. After all, he was a little annoyed with her. This guy first kept the truth from him, then sent an old man to use both soft and hard tactics on him, and finally escaped. How is there anything like what a friend should do here? He thought they were friends in need after all. But this may also be his own wishful thinking - to be fair, he was the only one who was in trouble. Zhou Wenxing never expressed his intention to deal with Li Li, and the destruction of the planet was just a false threat. From Li Li's point of view, she was just fooling around with him, a fool who knew nothing. So, in the final analysis, the most hateful guy is still Zhou Yu.

Tomorrow, he will go to No. 206 Dongyun Road again, bringing the box with him, in case someone turns against him after getting the notebook. The box cannot be locked after it was opened, so he has to tie it up with strips of cloth cut from old clothes. This is not a safe way to deal with it, he'd better seal it more firmly...

Luo Binhan suddenly came back to his senses. He felt that something was wrong with the surroundings. The bedroom had been quiet for too long.

"Shi Qi?" He called out, loud enough for everyone in the farthest corner of the apartment to hear. "Are you still looking for medicine?"

No one answered. Luo Binhan stood up and took two steps toward the bedroom, then suddenly stopped. He repeatedly told himself that it was impossible, but reason told him to turn back to the coffee table, unlock the bottom drawer with the key, and take out the scimitar from the bag again. He drew the knife in his hand, hid the shiny blade under his sleeve, then tiptoed sideways to the bedroom door. The door was half-open, and the light inside was dim, as if the curtains were drawn.

He wanted to call Shi Qi a few more times, but was stopped by some strange atmosphere coming from behind the door. A hazy and terrifying image suddenly emerged in his mind: Shi Qi was rummaging through the cabinet, and a strange beast covered in smoke suddenly emerged from under the bed, pounced on her and bit off her throat. But this was really impossible, Zhou Wenxing was already dead, and he had checked the bedroom before.

Are you really that sure? A sinister and secretive voice asked quietly in his heart, sounding just like the Chilabin he imagined. This man dared to take the initiative to meet Zhou Yu, which meant that he knew some way to enter the dream and was quite familiar with Zhou Yu's style. Could he sneak into his home without Li Li's knowledge? And hide in his bedroom now?

Luo Binhan sneaked behind the door. He leaned over to observe the room, and saw Shi Qi sitting quietly on the bed with her back to the door. The curtains in the room were indeed all drawn, so the room was as dark as eight or nine o'clock in the evening. But he could still see clearly that there was no blood or scars on Shi Qi's body, and the lines of her shoulders were rising and falling steadily with her breathing. She was looking down at something, and she was in a good mood. Her feet tapped the floor lightly, and her body swayed slightly from side to side from time to time.

He breathed a sigh of relief, but still had doubts. "Shi Qi," he called softly.

Shi Qi responded briskly but didn't look back at him.

"Did you find the medicine?"

"medicine?"

Luo Binhan's arms, which had just relaxed, froze again. He quietly stepped into the room and said in a normal voice, "Yes, didn't you come in to look for medicine? Is there any in the cabinet?"

"The cabinet...is not in the cabinet..."

He had already reached the end of the bed. Shi Qi was still mumbling like a child. He noticed that the cabinet door at the end of the bed was not closed tightly, and he guessed that Shi Qi had opened it. He continued to walk forward, looking over Shi Qi's shoulder and saw something glowing on her chest. It was a cold and hazy light, drifting and changing like fog from time to time. His face changed, and he took a big step forward and grabbed Shi Qi's shoulders.

Shi Qi turned around and looked at him. There were actually two lines of tears on her face, but she was smiling at the same time. That was not a normal smile, but an innocent and even obsessed look, an expression that only children, fools and drunks would have. Luo Binhan looked at her in astonishment and saw her raise her finger in front of him. "Look," she said with a happy smile, "it's glowing!"

Luo Binhan looked down. She was holding a bloated and strange glowing object at her fingertips. It was translucent blue-green, as if it was filled with flowing water under its skin. It had no facial features or legs, but only four wings of similar size growing on a bulging round bar, which looked like some simple butterfly ornament made of resin glue. But it was alive, struggling clumsily and stiffly at Shi Qi's fingertips. There was no sharp spot on the thing, so it could not do anything to Shi Qi. It just kept flashing a faint light, as if it was gasping for breath.

Shi Qi pinched it with her fingers and laughed happily again. Her laughter was crisp and rapid, even a little crazy and sharp, just like a child who was shouting and laughing while playing. "Look at it," she said contentedly, "How beautiful! I'll take it to my mother to see!"

Luo Binhan looked down and saw more than a dozen soft candy butterflies of different colors scattered in front of her, with changing dim lights from her abdomen to her knees. This scene made her look very unreal, like an illustration in a fairy tale book. Her joyful smile with tear marks was so detached from reality that he felt his hands and feet were cold. He turned his head to look at the desk. The drawers had been opened, not only the first drawer where the medicine box was placed, but also the bottom drawer. He walked over quickly to check and saw that the iron box that had been hidden in the deepest part had been opened. There were only half a dozen unused blank postcards and four glowing candy balls inside. The last time he saw these candy balls, they were all pale, but now they were as colorful as the butterflies on Shi Qi's body. He immediately closed the lid of the iron box and threw it back into the deepest part of the drawer.

He had made another mistake. A big mistake. It wasn't like there were no dangerous items in his bedroom, and he had forgotten all about it. There was not only Fina's favorite ring toy, but also a small space storage device and the contraband candies he had brought from Upsilon. Shi Qi must have confused the box of postcards with the medicine box he had mentioned; she opened the box and exposed the intermediate sugar eggs to sunlight, and they hatched. Sugar seeds grow trees, trees produce fruits, fruits shrink into eggs, and finally hatch into active sugar worms - just like what he had seen on the Upsilon spacecraft. Upsilon did say that these candies were not harmful in nature, just the most common smuggled goods... But what race was that based on? Sugar City factories in various star realms were developing new varieties, but less than half of the finished products would eventually be sold publicly, because the others could not be harmless to all races! And that was the full race under the Sugar City standard, which only included the creatures they usually dealt with, not Shi Qi. Besides, what he had in his hands were contraband—seeds that someone had stolen from the Sugar City factory, or seeds that someone had grown using stolen technology. Could there really be no mistakes here?

Shi Qi started singing beside the bed. She sang the tune of "Lu Bing Hua", but the lyrics were all messed up. "The stars in the sky are shining brightly," she sang as she fell on the bed, tapping her feet on the edge of the bed, "Mom's butterflies are far away——"

Luo Binhan threw the dagger on the table, grabbed a pillow from the bedside, tore off the pillowcase and walked to Shi Qi. He grabbed three or five butterfly gummies on her legs - in fact, they were more like some kind of fruit, and they felt as soft as ripe persimmons - and stuffed all these damn alien contraband into the pillowcase. He didn't need to worry too much about himself, because these things would take more than ten minutes to have some effect on him, which he had tried on the Upsilon spacecraft before.

He quickly stuffed all the butterflies on Shi Qi's body into the pillowcase. They were not very mobile, and they could only flutter around stupidly after being put into the pillowcase. Only the one Shi Qi was holding was left, but she seemed to like this one the most and was unwilling to give it to him. He wanted to grab it when she was not paying attention, but she pressed her hand between her back and the bed, and kicked him twice with her feet.

"Okay," Robinson coaxed her, "give me that thing. It's not for playing with."

"My mother gave it to me." Shi Qi twisted his arm and said, "It's only given to me. Go away."

Luo Binhan wanted to laugh but was also panicked. He tried his best not to show a horrifying expression, but continued to coax the drunk Shi Qi with a pleasant face. "Just let me take a look," he asked humbly, "What did your mother give you? Don't you want everyone to know that she gave you something good?"

Shi Qi looked at him in confusion for a while. "Who are you?" she asked a little fearfully.

"Your mother sent me to find you," said Robin Han. "She said she wanted to check if you had lost something she gave you. Did you lose it? Can you show it to me?"

He thought this would make Shi Qi cooperate, but he didn't know what was wrong with his tone, and she became a little angry. "It's always like this." She pouted and said, "I always feel that I can't do anything right and I don't understand anything."

"She's just worried about you. Come, show me the stuff."

"I won't give it to you. She sent you here to spy on me."

Luo Binhan felt like there were a bunch of butterflies flying around in his head. He wiped the cold sweat off his face with his sleeve. "You're right," he said, "She's too nosy."

"I always feel that I am right." Shi Qi kept talking, his smile disappeared in an instant, and tears welled up in his eyes again, "This is good for me, this is how it should be... As if she is living a good life! She just wants to satisfy herself, how can she say it is for me? She just wants me to be obedient!"

"Yes, yes," Luo Binhan said perfunctorily, using the same tone he used to deal with young Yu Xiaorong, while wondering if he would hurt her if he tried to snatch her away. "She's making no sense."

"What she said is all empty talk." Shi Qi said sarcastically, "I think everything she said is right and will make my life better. Doesn't she just want to win?"

She cried and screamed, waving her hands in the air angrily. Luo Binhan took the opportunity to grab her wrist and snatched the last butterfly out. He stuffed it into the pillowcase, immediately ran to the kitchen, stuffed the pillowcase and the things inside into the iron pot, poured water, covered it, and turned the stove to the highest fire.

Upsilon told him that these things would quickly become inactive under continuous strong light or high temperature, and the hypnotic gas that had been emitted from the inside would also become ineffective. He ran back to the bedroom and opened all the windows to let all the remaining gas in the room dissipate.

When he returned to the bedside, Shi Qi had calmed down. She was no longer struggling or talking nonsense, but her face still had the expression of a drunk, half-awake person. Luo Binhan took her pulse, which was a little fast, but not much faster than that of an ordinary person. Her breathing was also stable, but her eyes were unfocused. He laid her flat on the bed again, with a pillow under her head, to observe if she had any signs of vomiting or suffocation. Her various manifestations were relatively stable, but she had not yet fully regained consciousness. As she stared at him blankly like a stranger, a terrifying thought arose in his heart. The hair on his back stood up, and his tongue felt numb. Cai Ji's voice echoed in his ears: Be careful of retribution.

He calmed himself down and told himself that this had nothing to do with retribution. He was the one who did the bad thing, but Shi Qi was the one who suffered. What kind of karma was this? This was just a simple mistake, caused by his constant negligence and carelessness. It didn't have to be linked to anything else. He should also believe Yupsilon's assurance: these specially cultivated sugar tree fruits are not poisons, but they will emit strong hypnotic gases during the activation period, making it easier for the user to release emotions. This is how they were originally used, to create a carnival atmosphere in certain celebrations. Shi Qi has a low resistance to this thing, but that doesn't mean it is toxic to her. He himself had tried it with Yupsilon before, and he even ate one of them. It felt like drinking too much liquor, and the reaction was less than one-third of Shi Qi's.

But Shi Qi's reaction was too intense. He had never thought that ordinary people's endurance to this kind of thing was so low. Just like what Momoro said at the beginning, some candies could reach a lethal dose for him before becoming addicted, and this hypnotic component might also be highly toxic to Shi Qi... He had actually thought of using this thing to joke with Zhou Yu, thinking it was harmless anyway. Now he had no choice but to call Li Li immediately and ask her to give Shi Qi a medical examination as soon as possible to see if her body had been damaged.

Just as he was about to go to the living room to get his phone, Shi Qi blinked twice. She suddenly regained consciousness as if a power button had been pressed, and she sat up abruptly and looked at Luo Binhan.

"Shi Qi!" Luo Binhan called out, "Do you recognize me now?"

Shi Qi did not answer him. She looked around the room palely, as if looking for the disappearing glowing butterflies. "What are those?" she asked in a trembling voice, with sternness and fear in her eyes, "What did you put in the drawer? I... I just..."

She obviously remembered what had just happened. While Luo Binhan was still thinking about what to say, she had already come to her own conclusion.

"You suddenly want to go abroad to Europe with me." She murmured, retreating to the other side of the bed. "You asked me to turn off my phone just now... Who are you trying to protect yourself from? Why did you put this kind of medicine in the room?"

Robinson began to realize which way she was interpreting the whole thing. "Shi Qi," he said quickly, "it's not what you think!"

"Are the police already targeting you?" Shi Qi said as he quickly glanced back to see if the escape route to the door was clear. "How did you get injured? Is Zhou Yu also involved in this matter?"

She looked like she was about to jump out of bed and run for her life, so Luo Binhan had to rush to block the door. "Let me explain," he said as gently as possible, "Shi Qi, it's really not what you think. What you saw just now was not medicine, but sugar..."

This statement is probably not very clever. "Sugar?" she asked incredulously, "You call this thing sugar? Oh my God... Do you always use this thing? Or do you sell this thing? You actually make money from this thing?"

She began to retreat in the opposite direction, all the way to the open window. "Stop!" Luo Binhan shouted, "Shi Qi! Don't do anything stupid!"

"Don't come over here." Shi Qi said coldly leaning against the window.

"Okay, I won't go over. But you have to listen to my explanation: things are really not what you think. I'm not hiding from the police, nor am I doing the kind of business you think. What you just saw was not the kind of drug you thought. Shi Qi, think about it carefully. You didn't eat those candies at all. You just took them to a sunny place and shone them, right? Then they changed color and grew wings... These are all what you saw with your own eyes. They are not hallucinations caused by taking drugs. Let me ask you, have you ever heard of such a bizarre drug before? You don't even need to get close to smell it, but it can make you drunk and have hallucinations?"

A subtle embarrassment flashed across Shi Qi's face. Needless to say, she must remember how she behaved under the effect of hypnosis. Luo Binhan did not dare to show any expression that could be interpreted as ridicule, and could only say as seriously as possible: "It is not something that can be made by us, and I have never given it to anyone. Your contact with it was completely an accident."

"Then why is it hiding in your bedroom?"

Luo Binhan never thought that the opportunity to confess would come so suddenly, but Shi Qi was clinging to the window, with both hands already on the windowsill. If she jumped from here, she would surely die.

"You have to listen to me patiently," he coughed twice with difficulty, "This thing was... given to me by aliens."

(End of this chapter)