Chapter 102 – Crossing Planets to Love You?

By the time Su Lifeng arrived in the district where the television station was located, several nearby streets had already been completely sealed off. Crowds of people and vehicles were being held outside the cordon, clashing with the police from time to time.

“What the hell is going on?”

“Was everything he said true? Does that mean our families weren’t burned to death in an accident, but because you wanted to silence them?”

“No way. You have to give us an explanation today! Otherwise we’re not leaving!”

“If it was just a prank video, why won’t the mayor come out and speak? What’s the point of sealing everything off like this?”

“Does that kind of creature really exist? Did the mayor turn into that because of those creatures?”

“Su-Ge, do we really have to go in under these circumstances?” Gouzi asked Su Lifeng from inside a car not far away, turning his head toward him.

This time, Su Lifeng was the one driving. Although Gouzi had managed to survive yesterday, his bodily functions had been severely damaged. At the moment, he could barely walk.

After being absorbed by a Xenospecies once, that kind of injury was not something human medical treatment could repair. At most, it could keep him alive. Returning to his previous state of health was impossible.

Gouzi himself knew that very well, but to him, simply surviving was already lucky. So when Su Lifeng went to pick him up, he had gotten into the car without the slightest hesitation.

Su Lifeng lowered his phone. Several major social media apps had already been shut down, but some forums were still very active. Posts like “these creatures can cure many human diseases, and the government’s concealment of them is utterly malicious” were appearing one after another. For a moment, Su Lifeng did not know whether to marvel at these people’s “innocence” or at the Xenospecies’ astonishing strategy. Perhaps they still could not fully think about human behavior in a human way, but they had already learned how to make use of humans.

The mayor’s personal appearance and twisted argument had directly shifted all recent problems onto the state, while also drawing out a huge wave of brainless remarks along the lines of “welcome the Xenospecies, embrace the Xenospecies, the Xenospecies are supreme.” Of course, there were also posts questioning how abnormal the recent deaths had been. For example, certain bizarre cases where people disappeared for one night and then turned into dried corpses were very likely caused by the Xenospecies. Some people even brought up the post Ye Long had made, trying to use it to prove that the appearance of the Xenospecies was, for humanity, nothing less than a massive disaster.

After thinking it over, Su Lifeng casually made a post of his own: “Before you consider what the Xenospecies can do for you, think carefully about why they would do those things. Ask yourselves whether you understand this kind of creature at all. When facing species that live on Earth just like us, such as chickens, ducks, and fish, humans still pen them up and raise them as food. Even among humans, people divide one another into camps in all sorts of ways and then slaughter each other. So just how big do you think your face is, for you to believe that an unfamiliar creature from outer space would cross planets to love you, or even sacrifice itself for you and devote itself selflessly to you?”

After that passage, he also added a large amount of data on death cases, including cases he had learned about from the news and even those he had experienced personally. In any case, after this incident broke out, the government probably would not be able to hide these things anymore. There were also plenty of people making all kinds of guesses, and he was just one of them. It was just that compared to those guesses, the details he provided and their authenticity were far more detailed and shocking, even to the point that they made people feel as if they had been there themselves. His focus was not on the Xenospecies, but on the state of those corpses and what they were like once dissected.

After all, humans did not understand the Xenospecies. But surely their feelings toward their own kind would be different. On this point, no one understood it more deeply than Su Lifeng.

After a brief hesitation, Su Lifeng was just about to reveal a little more information about the Xenospecies when he noticed another new trending post. The poster explained in detail the biggest condition required for the Xenospecies to “help” humans become Mutants: the Xenospecies themselves had to be sacrificed by humans. However, key details like “killing them with your own hands” and “the traits left after a Xenospecies dies” were not disclosed. It seemed they had been deliberately withheld. Su Lifeng thought it over, then directly copied the contents of that post over as a supplement. After that, he took out his SIM card and crushed it between his fingers.

Before heading out today, he had already bought more than a dozen cards precisely so he could swap them out at times like this. As for whether anyone would believe the post, or how many people would believe it, that was no longer something Su Lifeng could control. He had simply said what he wanted to say. That was all.

“The poster’s username is ‘Half a Piece of Candy’… Could it be that Tang Tang?” Su Lifeng guessed. He had no idea how Tang Tang had managed to escape from that sealed-off shopping mall wearing only a top and a pair of panties. Or maybe when someone opened the shop door, they had simply escorted her straight to the police station…

By the time Su Lifeng finished changing cards, he happened to hear Gouzi’s question. However, he did not answer Gouzi directly. Instead, he switched to a completely unrelated topic. “Gouzi, how much do you know about the current gray areas and underground forces?”

“I can only say I’ve heard about most of them. I mainly help people keep watch over venues, so I’m a bit more familiar with that side of things.” Gouzi was no longer as cautious and ingratiating toward Su Lifeng as he had been in the beginning, but this straightforwardness was actually the greatest respect he could show Su Lifeng. Besides, the reverence in his eyes whenever he looked at Su Lifeng could not be faked in the slightest. “But if you want to know, Su-Ge, give me three days… no, two days, and I can investigate most of it for you. Aside from things on the official side that I can’t ask around about, ordinary underground forces are all tangled together. Sometimes, just finding one small-time thug is enough to dig up a lot of information. This is something I know well.”

“Good, as long as you know it. As for asking around, there’s no need.” After Su Lifeng said this meaningfully, he opened the car door without waiting for Gouzi to reply. “We’re getting out.”

A short while later, Su Lifeng led Gouzi around to a building. The instant the policeman standing at the intersection not far away turned his head, Su Lifeng sprang out with Gouzi. With a light tap against the ground, he borrowed force from it, and in the next moment, he had grabbed onto a window more than three meters above the ground.

By the time the policeman looked back this way, Su Lifeng and Gouzi had already flipped inside through the window. The policeman swept his gaze over the building, saw nothing unusual, and turned his attention in another direction again.

“Whew.” Su Lifeng let go of Gouzi’s shoulder. Gouzi immediately exclaimed in awe, “Su-Ge, why do I feel like you’ve gotten stronger again? Carrying my hundred-plus jin1, you were practically walking on flat ground!”

“It’s not that impressive.” Su Lifeng hesitated for a moment, then added, “Actually, I should be able to carry about two hundred jin now, if it’s a jump like that just now.”

In the spirit of academic rigor, he felt he ought to correct Gouzi’s statement.

As for Gouzi’s instant speechlessness… Uh, was that something he actually shouldn’t have corrected?

“All right. From now on, we need to be even more careful. If my guess is right, aside from a large number of police and possibly even the military, there are also quite a few Xenospecies here…” Su Lifeng walked ahead and lowered his voice as he spoke.

Footnote:

1. Jin(斤): A jin (斤) is a Chinese unit of weight. One jin equals 500 grams, or about 1.1 pounds.