The car moved very slowly through the narrow canyon.
Kids always get drowsy in cars—Xiao Hu cried for a little while, then quickly fell into a deep sleep.
I held the walkie-talkie in my hand, staring at it for a long time before finally taking a deep breath and pressing the talk button:
"Suo Tian."
After a pause, his voice came back: "Mm?"
I hesitated, just about to ask him about today's events, when Shen Feng cut in: "Chen Yang, some things are better asked in private."
Hearing this, I looked over at Shen Feng, thought for a moment, then nodded at him.
Into the walkie-talkie, I switched to another matter: "Is Rongrong's condition stable for sure?"
From the moment the black-clad man handed Rongrong over to us until now, she had remained asleep, so I truly didn't know how she was doing.
"The child's illness can't be cured at the root—we can only keep her stable. But as long as she doesn't get stimulated, there shouldn't be any problems." It was the bearded man's heavy voice, and from his tone he seemed to have something weighing on him.
"Don't worry. She's basically fine now. For over a month her condition has been very stable. We've done a series of tests, and aside from occasional agitation, she's never once lost control." Bruno's clumsy Chinese came through the radio, carrying an odd layer of comic relief.
After a moment, the bearded man's voice returned, heavy as ever: "How are we supposed to explain this when we get back to headquarters? T-Team is completely wiped out."
I froze, glancing at the others in the car.
Their faces showed the same shock—none of us had expected T-Team to be entirely annihilated.
"Even if we hadn't made a move, headquarters wouldn't have kept them around long. Out here in the wilds, their hearts were already straying—they dared to try anything." The middle-aged man's voice was grim as well.
"Ah, you Chinese have a saying: 'An eye for an eye, a never-ending cycle.' But in the end, none of you can seem to break free of those words." Bruno sighed.
As soon as he said this, everyone in the car turned their eyes to the walkie-talkie in my hands, waiting for Bruno to continue, as if my device were Bruno's sharply defined face itself.
Sure enough, after a short while he spoke again: "Tell me, Suo Tian—don't you have anything to say about this? When you report back to the Commander, this isn't going to be easy to explain. After all, the Commander never gave a direct order. Those researchers were still valuable headquarters assets. And T-Team too. This whole mess… right now it all looks like it was triggered by personal grudges."
Personal grudges? The few of us exchanged looks.
Could those so-called grudges really be because of us?
"What else were we supposed to do? Wait around for them to grab the chance to take out our Boss first?" The bearded man's tone was still heavy, clearly edged with irritation.
After a brief pause he went on: "Hey, I'm talking to you, Yang. What the hell's wrong with you? Why'd you team up with that wild woman, huh? Back then, didn't Lao Jiang from Group B tell you himself? You can't blame the Boss for that."
That "wild woman"?
A sharp, unfriendly face flashed through my mind—T-Sister?
"He's passed out," came a slightly familiar voice in reply.
I thought hard for a moment before suddenly recognizing it—Nan An!
That meant Dr. Yang must be in his vehicle under watch.
"Stop the bleeding. Make sure he doesn't die," Suo Tian, who hadn't spoken all this time, finally said.
"It's already done."
"Eh… maybe it's better that he fainted. Otherwise he'd be stirring things up again. That old man's stubborn as a bull's horn—once he decides on something, no one can change his mind." The bearded man sighed.
"Bruno," Suo Tian called.
"Hm? What is it?" Bruno answered.
"These past few days—what exactly has been happening here? Tell me in detail."
"I don't know much about outside matters. I only know that three days ago we suddenly got word that residents outside began dying off from some sudden illness. We were ordered to check the situation and bring bodies back for study. When we arrived, Dr. Yang told us to take the survivors inside and put them into quarantine. That's when we saw Miss Chen and the others already in the building. At first, I only thought something was off. After we brought Miss Chen back, I even volunteered to have her placed in Section D under my watch for observation. But the moment she was put in Section D, the T-Team captain told me that Dr. Yang had ordered me reassigned elsewhere."
After Bruno stammered out a long string of words, he paused for quite a while before continuing:
"Dr. Yang's attitude was very firm. He refused to allow me back into Section D, and instead sent that old man surnamed Sun, along with Dr. Liu and Researcher Xu, to take charge there. My qualifications to even enter Section D were revoked."
"Hmph, that Yang fellow is clever. That old man and those two women are all his people," the bearded man sneered.
Bruno didn't respond to him and went on:
"Then I specifically went to the data room to have a look. Apart from the blood test from the first day, there hasn't been any record of Miss Chen's data since. So today when I heard they conducted an SX examination on Miss Chen, I was very surprised. A high-level test like that should have produced an entire file's worth of documents."
"In other words, you also have no idea how those people all suddenly fell ill and died together?" the middle-aged man asked.
"That's right. We never handled the corpses again afterwards—they were dealt with by Dr. Yang and his group. But I'd guess it was probably some kind of infectious disease."
"Infectious disease?" the middle-aged man said.
"What infectious disease? If you ask me, it was more likely the source of an infection left after someone deliberately did something."
"What do you mean by that?" Bruno asked.
"I've never heard of an infectious disease that could make a whole group of people die suddenly in a single day. Even putting aside whether such a thing exists, just looking at how those people got sick makes it obvious it wasn't that simple. Rather than an infectious disease, I'd say it looked more like… poisoning."
When Zhou Wen's voice came through the walkie-talkie, all of us were stunned for a moment before realizing it was him.
"Poisoning?" Bruno repeated doubtfully, then suddenly seemed to recall something:
"Speaking of poisoning, I did see in the data that a large amount of toxic substances had been extracted from the fabric of Shen Feng and the others' clothes."
Hearing that, I immediately glanced at Shen Feng's clothing.
In the back seat, Uncle Gazi hurriedly pulled Tingyun off of him and began slapping at his own clothes:
"What the hell? How could our clothes be poisonous? We wash them with laundry powder, they're clean! How could they be poisonous?"
The car jolted unsteadily.
Jun Di took Tingyun into his arms and asked:
"Could it be that you picked something up somewhere you went?"
At those words, Uncle Gazi suddenly looked as though something had struck him.
He slapped his thigh hard and shouted to us:
"I've got it!"
"Got it? Got what?" Xu Shu asked doubtfully.
"Miss Chen, hurry and ask him whether all of us had that poisonous stuff on us, or only some of us."
Prompted, I pressed the talk button and asked:
"Bruno, do you remember if that toxic substance was found on every one of them, or only on some?"
There was a pause before Bruno answered:
"Every one of them. Except for you and the child—your data didn't show anything, so I can't be sure—but as for the others, I checked them specifically."
"Are you certain?"
"Of course I'm certain."
At that, I turned to look at Uncle Gazi.
He had already heard the words coming through the walkie-talkie.
After thinking for a moment, he said to us:
"From the time we were locked up together in the morning, it was right after that Qian boy collapsed with symptoms. Then we all went into the house. The only way we could all have picked up those toxins together was in that house. But in that house there was nothing else that could've contaminated us. So I thought about it—could it have been that we all got splashed with that white froth those people spewed out without realizing it?"
"Exactly!" Shen Feng quickly followed up.
"That explains it. Following the chain of reasoning, it's entirely possible they all died because they were poisoned. Otherwise, what kind of illness could take people's lives in such a short time?"
"So then… someone poisoned them all together?" Han Xue shrank her neck and asked timidly.
The moment she spoke, a chill ran down my whole body, goosebumps rising all over.
If things really were as we suspected, then that group under Yang's were simply beasts.
What kind of grudge could drive them to slaughter so many people?
"Was it Yang who did it?" The middle-aged man must have pieced most of it together as well, for he asked bluntly.
"It shouldn't have been him," Bruno said.
"For a long stretch of time before that, Dr. Yang had been in Section D looking over the data. And since the toxins could trigger such a concentrated, mass fatal outbreak, it proves the timing was very short. Otherwise, the effect wouldn't have been so immediate."
Hearing this, I couldn't help but interject: "Then who could it be? In the valley, who had such a deep grudge against Uncle Qian and the others that they had to poison and kill dozens of lives?"
"In that case, it's really hard to pin down," Bruno admitted.
"There's no longer any clear target."
"Don't kid me—it had to be Yang," the bearded man cut in stubbornly.
"He hates the Boss down to his very bones. Killing off that many people makes it hard for the Boss to answer to headquarters, and on top of that, he drags Miss Chen and the others into it, tormenting them for days. Isn't that all just playing right into his hands? If we hadn't come back early today, and that SX test kept scanning Miss Chen for a few days straight, would she even still be alive?"
It seemed there really was some kind of bitter grudge between Yang and Suo Tian—something mutual, no doubt.
Otherwise, Suo Tian wouldn't always lose control whenever Yang's name came up.
The carriage fell silent for quite a while before Xu Shu finally spoke softly:
"What are you all thinking about?"
Shen Feng turned his head slightly toward the back of the carriage, his voice low and heavy:
"We're thinking… if it wasn't Yang who did it, then who was it?"
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