Chapter 55 – The Real Expert

Su Lian jumped in fright, staring at the phone in horror, too scared to speak.

After all, the owner of that phone was lying in the trunk right now…

This was Su Lian’s first time experiencing anything like this, so her reaction was hardly surprising.

Su Lifeng, on the other hand, was much calmer. Only when he looked at the caller ID on the screen did a strange expression flicker across his face.

Tang Tang…

Seeing the look on Su Lifeng’s face, Su Lian mustered her courage and leaned over for a glance. Her eyes immediately widened. “Isn’t that-“

“Shh.” Su Lifeng made a silencing gesture, then answered the call and turned on speakerphone.

“Hello?” Tang Tang’s somewhat nervous voice came through at once. “I-I just heard you went to find Su Lian and the others. Um, you aren’t mad at her brother, are you? Please don’t be. I was thinking, why don’t we let her brother join us too? Bring him along tonight. As long as he sees Su Lian become a ‘Miracle Life’ with his own eyes, he’ll definitely understand us… Hello? Say something. Is that okay…?”

Click. Su Lifeng hung up. Beside him, Su Lian had already covered her mouth, disbelief written all over her face. If she hadn’t heard it with her own ears, she never would have imagined that Tang Tang actually knew about this.

After a long while, she slowly asked, “That ‘Miracle Life’ thing… it means becoming a Mutant, right?”

“Probably,” Su Lifeng replied.

Thinking about it that way, Xie Yu and his accomplices might have lured so many people to the Spatial Gate to turn all of them into Mutants. But Su Lifeng still had a faint feeling that, judging from Xie Yu’s personality and behavior, the matter might not be that simple.

“The human heart is more complicated than the Xenospecies,” Su Lifeng thought with a quiet sigh. After becoming a Mutant and gaining that inhuman power, a person’s original mindset would naturally change. Perhaps that, too, was part of the mutation process.

“Brother,” Su Lian said suddenly after a moment of silence, “Tang Tang was misled too. She thought she was really doing this for my own good, so…”

“I know. If that’s really the case, I won’t blame her.” Su Lifeng nodded, though a faint sense of unease still lingered in his heart. He just couldn’t say what it was.

… After the call was abruptly cut off, Tang Tang listened to the busy tone on the other end, and a trace of sadness appeared on her face.

She put down the phone and was about to search through her contacts when she suddenly remembered that she no longer had Su Lifeng’s number.

When she scrolled to “Su Lian,” she hesitated. Just then, a text message came in.

“Notify the candidates. Preparations for the assembly at Jinli Warehouse can begin. Tonight is very important for them, and for the entire world. Also, make sure you’re prepared. Don’t let anything go wrong.”

The moment she saw those words, Tang Tang couldn’t help breaking into an excited smile. When she looked at Su Lian’s name again, she pressed her lips together and turned off her phone. “Su Lian, I guess I’ll see you tonight.”

… After Gouzi drove the car all the way to the outskirts, Su Lifeng had him head back. What he was about to do next was, after all, a little too shocking.

Although Gouzi had initially earned his trust, Su Lifeng had no intention of letting him know everything for the time being. His home and the warehouse, especially, were both extremely important to him.

“When you get back, keep an eye on any deaths or disappearances in the area. And watch your own safety,” Su Lifeng instructed.

Gouzi agreed readily, then took out his phone and made a call, presumably to have someone come pick him up.

Once Su Lifeng saw that Gouzi had made arrangements, he drove toward the warehouse. On the way, he also called Jiang Yushi and the others to say he would come pick them up.

“No need. Shen Fei and Qiu Yuming are both here. Xiaomei and I are going to find a car, take them back first, and buy some groceries on the way… Don’t worry, we’ll be extremely careful,” Jiang Yushi added.

The Xenospecies hadn’t reached the point of flooding every street yet, so Su Lifeng had no objections to that decision. “All right. Stay with Cheng Xiaomei. Don’t split up under any circumstances.”

“Okay.” After hanging up, Jiang Yushi felt a little puzzled. Why had he specifically told her to stay with Cheng Xiaomei?

But she only thought about it for a moment. Maybe she was being too sensitive. Perhaps Su Lifeng’s main point had been the second half: that they shouldn’t be alone.

“He really does care about us,” Jiang Yushi couldn’t help lowering her head and smiling. Even if the word was “us,” it still included “me,” didn’t it?

By now, Qiu Yuming had overcome her fear of the specimens and was curiously observing the various testing processes in the lab. Naturally, she had seen Jiang Yushi take the call, and she had also noticed the involuntary smile on Jiang Yushi’s face.

“That must have been Senior Su calling… She looks so happy,” Qiu Yuming thought enviously.

Then she looked at her own situation… Mm. All she had was Shen Fei, who would excitedly pull out a test tube of murky blood and flesh every so often and wave it at her like he was showing off a treasure.

By now, his eyes were already bloodshot, and his white lab coat was splattered with quite a bit of “thawed” bloody fluid.

Every time he turned and grinned at her, Qiu Yuming felt a shiver run through her heart.

“Sigh. Senior Su already left, but I just had to show off and stay behind. I really brought this on myself…” Qiu Yuming propped her chin in her hand and silently lamented.

…

Wooo-!

In the alley where Xie Yu had died, a police car was currently parked at the scene.

A police officer was facing an old man on a bicycle, taking his statement.

He was the one who had seen the wrecked motorcycle and the bloodstains on the ground and called the police.

“Could it be that this guy thought he’d have to pay for damaging the wall, got scared, and climbed up and ran off on his own? Look, there isn’t that much blood. Maybe he wasn’t hurt too badly?” the old man said as he answered questions, letting his imagination run wild.

The officer immediately felt a little awkward. Had this old man ever seen anyone who rode such an expensive motorcycle worry about paying for a wall?

However, the motorcycle’s registration information made the officer frown… Xie Yu. Wasn’t he the sole survivor of that bizarre family annihilation case from not long ago? Although the case had later been closed as deaths from natural causes, it was so strange that it had long since spread throughout police circles. As for Xie Yu, the “rich second generation” type whose uncle and adoptive parents’ family had just died so tragically, yet who showed not the slightest grief and immediately started spending money like water, plenty of officers remembered him for that alone.

Some people had even concluded that Xie Yu had definitely been the killer; they simply had no evidence.

“All right. Thank you for your cooperation.”

After saying the routine line, the officer reported the situation back to the station, then went to examine the scene with his colleague, feeling rather uninterested.

He had no good impression of Xie Yu.

But just then, he heard his colleague suddenly call out, “Hey, what do you think this mucus is?”

Mucus? Wasn’t it blood?

“Who cares what it is? Find his contact information and call to notify someone…” the officer said impatiently.

Less than five minutes later, another off-road vehicle pulled up beside the police car with a piercing screech of brakes and stopped.

The officer immediately frowned, but once he saw who got out, he straightened at once. “Chief!”

The chief merely nodded at him, then turned to another person stepping out of the vehicle and said, “Director Wang, this is the place.”

Director Wang? The deputy city bureau director? The officer was instantly shocked, and confusion filled his heart. Was this tiny matter really enough to draw in such a big shot?

What happened next startled the officer even more. Behind Director Wang, three more people got out, their waists bulging in a way that clearly indicated they were armed. Judging from their chilling gazes and ramrod-straight posture, they obviously weren’t ordinary people either. After the three appeared, they did not center themselves around Director Wang. Instead, a middle-aged man with a troubled expression stepped out from among them and walked straight past the officer toward the motorcycle.

SWAT? Or special forces? The officer was bewildered and uncertain. He had too little experience and truly couldn’t imagine who could make Director Wang cooperate to this extent, much less what about this case was worth taking seriously.

The middle-aged man scraped at the mucus the officer had ignored, observed it for a while, then carefully examined the dried bloodstains on the ground.

In the end, his expression unchanged, he turned his head and nodded. “That’s right. It really was him. But judging from the situation, we may have arrived too late.”

Director Wang immediately revealed a hint of regret. “This… Back then, we did think he was somewhat suspicious of murder, but we never thought in that direction. If you hadn’t come to me today, Captain Lv, saying that he very likely was one, I never would have imagined it.”

The officer was completely lost. Was what? What had that middle-aged man figured out from a bit of blood?

“It’s fine. I only recently started investigating this thing in earnest myself. It doesn’t matter if this lead is dead. After coming to Ningnan, I’ve found another new lead,” the middle-aged man called Captain Lv said grimly.

“Captain Lv, your health is what matters…” After Director Wang said this, even he felt the words sounded pale and powerless. Over this period of time, much of his own hair had turned white. And besides, even among the people around him, there seemed to be few he could actually trust… Most importantly, he was increasingly doubtful whether they could really hold out.

Captain Lv’s arrival had allowed him to relax, at least a little. Although Ningnan had already secretly transferred in more troops, there were not many “experts” in this field. Captain Lv counted as one. It was just that Ningnan had to be a place of heartbreak for him.

After all, in that maritime disaster, his only daughter had died. At the time, she had already been a senior at Ningnan University…