Chapter 116 – Qiu Yuming’s Whereabouts

Su Lifeng searched almost the entire surrounding area, but he still couldn’t find any trace of Qiu Yuming.

She hadn’t returned to the laboratory either.

After going back to the university, Su Lifeng still failed to find her, but he did hear another piece of news.

Her older sister, who had been waiting at the main gate all this time, had suddenly left not long ago.

“So her sister picked her up? Damn. I was too late,” Su Lifeng thought.

In any case, not finding her might be the best news of all.

Su Lifeng looked at the phone in his hand and silently decided that he would not be changing this number again for the time being…

One hour earlier.

“Hah… hah…”

“Ah!”

Qiu Yuming had already lost count of how many times she had fallen, but she knew she could only keep running forward.

After an unknown amount of time, Qiu Yuming finally made it back to the road.

What she also did not know was that by then, Liang Junyu had already used her phone to call Su Lifeng, and Su Lifeng was already on his way to rescue her.

“I have to find a way back to the laboratory…”

But trying to stop a vehicle headed for the suburbs at a time like this was far too difficult.

The army was continuing its advance, and almost all routes leading out of the city had been sealed off. The only roads still open were the ones leading to the laboratory and to the industrial district where Jiangnan Biomedical Group was located. Neither of those places lay along the normal routes out of the city.

Of course, even if someone did leave the city through those two routes, they would inevitably be stopped again before reaching the next city.

“What should I do?”

Qiu Yuming worked up the courage to stop several soldiers, but under the current circumstances, they simply could not spare the manpower to deal with the kidnapping case she was describing.

On the contrary, before she even had time to explain clearly, they had already run a quick blood test on her, then sent her back into the city without another word, behind the blockade line.

Standing amid the densely packed traffic and the crowds shouting all around her, Qiu Yuming suddenly realized that without any means of contacting anyone, her only option now was to go find her sister.

This world was changing even faster than she had imagined.

And at that moment, a deep unease inevitably surged into her heart.

Her sister coming here at a time like this… could it really be because something had happened?

Qiu Yuming did not know how she made it to the area near the university. She looked left and right anxiously.

The campus was bleak and desolate. Discarded trash and books lay everywhere on the ground. The once tidy grounds had no one to clean them anymore.

However, there were still large numbers of out-of-town students stranded on campus. Most of them had gathered together, either staring around blankly or crouching by the roadside. Faced with the situation before them, they had no idea what they should do. Those with “guts” had joined the mobs looting supplies, while those with a bit more foresight had gathered around the administration building, hoping to get more definite news and instructions from there.

When Qiu Yuming reached the gate, a student saw that she was alone and seemed lost, so he walked toward her. From a distance, a faint smile appeared on his face.

“Classmate, you…”

The student had only just opened his mouth when a figure walked over from the side. With a shake of the figure’s sleeve, a steel knife appeared, and in the next instant, the student was stabbed in the abdomen.

“Come on.” The figure pulled the knife out cleanly, turned, grabbed Qiu Yuming, and spoke.

Only after Qiu Yuming had been dragged away by the figure and the student collapsed to the ground did screams suddenly erupt all around them.

A few students worked up the courage to turn and look, only to discover that the corpse’s face had already begun to rot…

“You came too late. Once the army suppresses most of the unrest, they’ll quickly reach every key location in the city, and Ningnan University will definitely be one of them. But I heard that most of Ningnan University’s experimental equipment was moved to Jiangnan Biomedical. That really was a lucky break. Still, I didn’t dare wait for you around here.”

The figure dragged Qiu Yuming in one breath to a corner across the street, then rattled off a long string of words all at once.

By the time she turned around, Qiu Yuming was already staring at her in shock.

“Sis?” Qiu Yuming looked at her sister in disbelief, then at the steel blade in her hand.

Blood was still dripping from it…

Yet after having just killed someone, this normally refined sister of hers was still smiling.

“That thing just now was a Xenospecies. Ordinary people have a hard time identifying them at a glance, but we can vaguely sense them.” Qiu Muya knew what had shaken her sister and explained right away.

At the same time, she pushed back the hood of her trench coat, revealing long, curly hair and a face that bore some resemblance to Qiu Yuming’s, though hers looked more mature and carried a more refined air.

“Time is tight, so I’ll only explain this once.” As Qiu Muya spoke, she gently rolled her neck. During that motion, her eyes gradually turned into yellow vertical pupils, and the shape of her eyes changed slightly as well. When she looked at Qiu Yuming again, Qiu Yuming’s expression had become one of utter disbelief.

Qiu Muya raised a hand, showing her sharp claws, then lightly tucked her hair behind her ear.

The pointed ear, now covered in yellow down, twitched. At the same time, Qiu Muya’s soft voice sounded again. “You see? The Xenospecies and I share certain similarities. I am one of the Mutants. I have been for some time now. If not for today’s chaos, I wouldn’t have had any chance to come to Ningnan.”

“To get me here safely this time, we took a huge risk too… There were too many blockades to pass through along the way. But we understand why they’re there. It’s to keep large numbers of Xenospecies from gathering in the cities as much as possible. You live in the city, so you don’t know, but outside, things have already reached a state of war. From the looks of it, though, the major cities are almost there too.”

“We?” Qiu Yuming had taken in too much information all at once, and the question slipped out almost on instinct.

So the “Mutants” who had come here… weren’t limited to her sister alone?

“Yes. A few friends and I. We’re a group from Shencheng… I suppose you could call us a Mutant alliance. Of course, we haven’t really gotten things on track yet. For now, it’s just a few friends helping one another. We came this time to get in touch with one of the Mutants in Ningnan. This person can provide us with weapons.” As Qiu Muya spoke, she returned to her human form and pulled her hood back up.

“A Mutants… in Ningnan…” Qiu Yuming murmured, then suddenly reacted and asked, “Sis, can I go say goodbye to my friends? I was originally planning to leave without telling them, but on my way here… Anyway, I’m afraid they might worry.”

Qiu Muya looked at her with some difficulty and said, “We only got this chance because of today’s chaos. After this, we have to hurry back to Shencheng. And if our identities are exposed, the military won’t care whether we’re Mutants or Xenospecies. Either way, we’ll definitely be taken down first. I’m sorry. If it were just me, that would be one thing, but my friends are here too…”

Seeing Qiu Yuming’s helpless expression, she reached out and stroked Qiu Yuming’s cheek. “There will be a chance in the future.”

By the time Su Lifeng finished searching the farmland in the suburbs and arrived at Ningnan University, Qiu Yuming had already been brought by Qiu Muya to the outside of a teahouse.

If Su Lifeng could have seen it at that moment, he would definitely have found the place very familiar…

Creak…

As the door opened, a young girl’s face appeared behind it. She was very petite, and her smile looked warm and friendly. “You’re here. It couldn’t have been easy getting to Zhangjiayuan at a time like this, right?”

A trace of curiosity appeared on Qiu Yuming’s face. After glancing at her, the girl turned to the other young woman beside her. “This is your younger sister?”

“Yes. I only picked her up today. I heard she works at a laboratory,” the young woman said.

“Oh, really? Come in.” The girl stepped aside and smiled. “My brother has been waiting for you for a long time.”