Just then, the elevator chimed with a crisp ding—someone had arrived.
Jiang Lian abruptly released Zhou Jiao. His tentacle vanished without a trace.
Zhou Jiao snapped out of it and quickly distanced herself from him.
A young man stepped out, carrying a paper bag. "Zhou-jie, Dr. Jiang, you're not done with the autopsy yet?"
He looked to be around twenty-five, handsome and gentle in demeanor, with a smile that made people instinctively trust him.
The young man set the bag down, took off his lab coat, and walked into the sterilization room. "I figured, with your usual speed, it'd be wrapped up in under thirty minutes. I even brought you a late-night snack."
Only then did Zhou Jiao remember: there was still a high-level mutant buried in the pile of corpses. She'd let lust cloud her mind and actually forgotten about it.
She muttered a curse under her breath and shot Jiang Lian a glare.
To her surprise, he was already staring at her—eyes dark, unblinking.
His Adam's apple bobbed slightly, as if still savoring the kiss from moments before.
Pervert.
Zhou Jiao coldly averted her gaze.
The young man emerged from the sterilization room. His name was Xie Yuezhe. He had returned from the U.S. just last year and stayed on in Yucheng due to his specialization in aquatic mutants.
Xie Yuezhe was emotionally intelligent and socially smooth—conversations flowed naturally around him, and no one ever felt awkward. Even someone as reserved as Zhou Jiao found herself more talkative when chatting with him.
She gave him a small nod. "What did you get for the snack?"
He smiled warmly. "Cheesecake. This late at night, the cake shop by the gate was the only place still open. Not sure if you like cake?"
"I love cake," Zhou Jiao said sincerely. "Especially cheesecake. Thanks."
Xie Yuezhe chuckled. "No need to thank me."
Zhou Jiao peeled off her rubber gloves and reached for her phone. "How much? I'll transfer it to you."
He held up a hand to stop her. "It was only like ten or so yuan. No need." Then, glancing at her with a teasing smile, he added, "If you really want to repay me, how about treating me to dinner tomorrow? With all this rain lately, a hotpot would really hit the spot."
Zhou Jiao couldn't help but laugh. "You've even thought about the menu. What else can I say? Sure."
Xie Yuezhe turned serious again. "So—what happened? What made you and Dr. Jiang take so long?"
Zhou Jiao's impression of Xie Yuezhe shot up.
Now this was what a normal colleague looked like.
Not like a certain lunatic—saying weird things, doing even weirder things—who out of nowhere insulted her, and then kissed her.
And not just kissed her, but did it with a cold, disgusted look on his face, while his movements were ravenous—like a starving beast. He'd gripped the back of her head, sniffing, sucking, greedily swallowing her saliva.
Pervert. Maniac.
Then again, that was what Jiang Lian was—a pervert and a maniac.
Zhou Jiao exhaled slowly, pushing Jiang Lian's insane behavior out of her mind, and explained to Xie Yuezhe about the high-level mutant.
He frowned. "That's serious. We need to handle it carefully. High-level mutants are completely different from low-level ones. The low-levels only parasitize and consume—they attack anyone who gets in the way of that. But high-level mutants are aggressive and highly contaminating. Even plants can be infected… Ordinary people stand no chance against them."
He paused, then reassured her in a gentle voice, "Don't worry. Once a high-level mutant enters a human host, there's a 2–4 hour embryonic phase before full integration. That gives us enough time to contact Special Ops."
Zhou Jiao's impression of Xie Yuezhe skyrocketed again.
Under normal circumstances, his words wouldn't have seemed so remarkable—but when compared to Jiang Lian, Xie Yuezhe felt like a rare gem of rational humanity.
She smiled at him. "Thanks."
She was strikingly beautiful, with refined, cold features. Her eyelid crease was deep, yet hidden beneath the upper lid—only when her gaze shifted did a clean, inky line appear, adding an understated allure to her eyes.
Xie Yuezhe's throat went dry. He forgot to respond.
He really liked Zhou Jiao.
Why else would he remember that she liked cheesecake?
At the last department dinner, he had noticed her standing quietly in a corner, plate stacked with golden-baked cheese toasts. She ate them one by one until the gathering ended, not once complaining of the richness.
Since then, every time he passed a dessert shop, he couldn't help but glance inside.
Today, finally, he'd found a chance to make a gesture.
And for some reason, Zhou Jiao was actually responding—not keeping her usual distance. She'd even smiled at him.
His heart thudded hard in his chest.
Could this mean… he could get closer to her? Closer still?
He leaned slightly toward her, about to test the waters—when a voice suddenly spoke from behind:
"How do you plan to contact Special Ops?"
Xie Yuezhe froze. He turned around.
Jiang Lian was standing behind them, removing his gloves finger by finger. His presence was clean and sharp as frosted glass at dawn—but the gaze behind his glasses was cold, almost mocking:
"Phones stopped working a while ago."
Xie Yuezhe's face changed instantly.
Stormy weather. A high-level mutant. No working phones—
All these variables pointed toward something deeply ominous.
Zhou Jiao quickly asked, "What about the satellite phone?"
Jiang Lian replied, "That's down too."
In truth, it wasn't.
But he had plenty of ways to turn this place into a dead, silent island.
Why? He wasn't sure.
But then, human behavior often wasn't logical. It was instinct—programmed into the genes.
Since he had chosen a human vessel, accepted the flaws of unrefined human DNA, he had to endure some of its more foolish instincts.
Zhou Jiao saw the look on Xie Yuezhe's face and, after a moment's thought, took a cheesecake from the bag he'd brought and placed it in his hand. "It's okay. This doesn't need to be solved tonight. The lab has containment measures—we can prevent the contamination from spreading. We'll notify Special Ops tomorrow."
She wasn't good at comforting people, so the subject shift was a bit abrupt. "Have a piece of cake. Might help calm your nerves."
Xie Yuezhe's gaze flickered. He took the cake and said quietly, "Thank you, Zhou-jie."
"What are you thanking me for? You bought it," she replied with a small laugh. "Also, stop calling me 'Zhou-jie.' I'm probably not much older than you."
Xie Yuezhe grinned. "Well, if I call you 'Jiao Jiao,' I'll probably get scolded, so I figured I'd play it safe and be polite."
...
Jiang Lian watched the scene with no change in expression—but behind his lenses, his pupils had constricted to near-pinpoints, revealing something cold and inhuman.
He didn't understand.
Xie Yuezhe's solution was incorrect.
Yet Zhou Jiao still approved of it.
That defied the rules of sexual selection in the natural world.
In nature, the kind of male a female chooses determines the course of the species' evolution.
The male birds-of-paradise were a prime example—evolving extravagant feathers just to attract mates, even at the risk of predators.
If there really were a high-level mutant capable of blocking all electromagnetic signals, Xie Yuezhe wouldn't help her survive—he'd lower her odds.
And yet, she continued to send him signals of pleasure.
So strong, Jiang Lian could smell her sweet scent from a meter away.
Sweeter by far than when his lips had pressed against hers, when he'd breathed her in with desperate hunger.
As a female, favoring such a weak male… was sheer stupidity.
Jiang Lian removed his glasses and pulled a cloth from his pocket, wiping the already-spotless lenses.
It was a mechanical gesture—an attempt to suppress the agitation bubbling inside. It was a habit of the real Jiang Lian.
But he wasn't the real Jiang Lian.
He didn't even need glasses.
The restlessness didn't subside—instead, it curdled into a dangerous irritation.
Jiang Lian put his glasses back on and glanced toward the yet-unopened corpse on the table. His expression darkened.
There were only three people in the lab. Zhou Jiao noticed the shift in his gaze immediately, though she didn't know why.
She had already examined that corpse—death by suffocation from algal infection.
The lungs were choked with thick, green strands of seaweed, still squirming slightly when cut open.
Dealing with plant mutants required a flamethrower. She'd gritted her teeth, extracted the algae with tweezers, torched it for ages, made sure it was all dead, and then archived the case.
Did she miss something? Was there another mutant in there?
She didn't notice when Jiang Lian's sharp, upright frame split open ever so slightly, releasing a single glistening tentacle.
It darted like lightning into the corpse's pallid skin.
As if jolted by an invisible defibrillator, the body convulsed violently, face contorting.
From the heart outward, vein-like black-purple lines radiated beneath the skin. Bones cracked audibly.
With a sickening crack, a row of jagged bone spurs shot from its elbow—
Zhou Jiao turned—and her pupils instantly contracted.
There really are other mutated species!
She made a quick decision, taking three steps in two to rush to the control panel, bringing up the isolation device's screen and pressing the activation button.
The AI, however, coldly informed her:
"No pollutant source detected."
"Current situation does not meet the activation conditions for the isolation device."
Zhou Jiao couldn't help but curse.
The situation doesn't meet the conditions for starting the isolation device? What situation would meet those? Is Godzilla coming back to life?
She had no choice but to abandon the isolation device and instead brought up the emergency weapon screen. With a beep, her iris was scanned and a Taser-gun was dispensed.
Her rank wasn't high enough to exchange for anything better, so she only got the standard Taser-gun. But even though this gun could release an electric current of 1 million volts, if the mutated species' shell had insulating properties, it would be nothing more than a useless piece of scrap iron.
Xie Yueze also reacted quickly, inputting his iris information into the console, but like Zhou Jiao, he could only exchange for a Taser-gun.
At the same time, the corpse's joints let out a horrifying creaking sound, its arms and legs spasming, twisting into an unthinkable, grotesque angle, as if it wanted to struggle and sit up from the morgue table.
The safe zone was visibly shrinking.
A chilling sense of crisis crawled up her spine, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
Zhou Jiao held her breath, gripping her Taser-gun tightly, taking a silent step back, and mouthed to Xie Yueze:
"Hide."
Xie Yueze nodded, gave Zhou Jiao a deep look, and turned to leave.
The corpse struggled more fiercely now, its purple-black veins creeping over every inch of its skin. Sharp bone spurs sprouted from its elbows, knees, and back, as if it could leap from the morgue table at any moment.
Drip.
Drip—
The sound of sticky liquid dripping became clearer, and the stench of decay grew stronger in the air.
Zhou Jiao wanted to leave, but she realized there was still an "extracurricular personnel" without a weapon.
Looking up, she saw that the "extracurricular personnel" was standing in front of the morgue table, hands in his pockets, his cold and sharp eyes behind the lenses casually inspecting the mutated corpse.
Zhou Jiao: "…"
Let him die then.
Unfortunately, her moral standards were too high—she was a law-abiding citizen—she couldn't just watch him die. Gritting her teeth, she ran over, grabbed his collar, and pulled him to run.
Almost at the same time, the corpse's chest suddenly exploded, splattering a mass of sticky liquid!
The liquid seemed to have high corrosive properties, and with several sizzling sounds, the floor of the laboratory instantly caved in, exposing the tangled mess of wires beneath.
Zhou Jiao immediately thought something was wrong. Sure enough, the white incandescent lights above flickered weakly a few times before going out with a bang. The control panel's screen also went black due to a lack of voltage.
The thing she feared the most had happened—the lab's power went out, and she was being hunted by a high-level mutated species.
In the intense sense of crisis, she unconsciously glanced at Jiang Lian beside her—under the dim light, she could only see the slight movement of his Adam's apple.
He allowed her to drag him by the collar without saying a word.
Although she couldn't see his eyes clearly, she knew he was looking at her, his gaze direct and piercing, inspecting her indifferently.
Or rather... she should have felt uncomfortable, and even reprimand him for his impolite and untimely gaze.
But the reality was, she was blushing from his gaze, her heartbeat quickening.
What was going on with her?
Just now, she intentionally didn't maintain social distance from Xie Yueze, wanting to see if it was just Jiang Lian who made her feel this way, or if she felt the same with everyone. But unexpectedly, no matter how close she was to Xie Yueze, her heartbeat remained calm, and her face didn't feel flushed.
But now, just with Jiang Lian looking at her from a distance, her heart couldn't help but race, fast and hard, to the point where her ears hurt.
And it was happening in such an extremely dangerous situation.
Zhou Jiao pinched her palm hard.
Her palm became sweaty, moist and sticky.
Her reaction was so intense that it seemed to surpass the feeling of infatuation.
What exactly was it like...?
Before she could ponder it further, the mutated corpse was already moving toward them.
She yanked Jiang Lian into the disinfection room, kicked him inside, and then turned to face the mutated corpse alone.
The Taser-gun's power was limited. She didn't expect it to kill the mutated corpse but only hoped it could stall it for a while, giving her time to drag Jiang Lian, this burden, to meet up with Xie Yueze.
Zhou Jiao took a deep breath, pushed the magazine into the gun's chamber, and pushed aside her distractions, straining her ears to detect the location of the corpse—
She had received professional shooting training, and sound location wasn't difficult for her. What was difficult was adjusting to the psychological pressure when facing a high-level mutated species.
She minimized her breathing, carefully listening to the corpse's footsteps and the sound of dripping sticky liquid.
"Drip, drip—"
As time passed, the dripping sound grew closer, bringing a chilling sensation, pressing tightly on her nerves—
"Don't rush," she told herself, "the closer it gets, the higher my chances of hitting."
But with every step closer to death, the distance became even smaller.
In midair, it almost felt like an invisible timer was floating, its second hand ticking away, each tick making the atmosphere heavier and more oppressive.
Zhou Jiao wasn't sure if it was just a hallucination, but she even seemed to smell decay and the salty scent of the sea.
No more waiting.
She raised the gun, turned her head, listened, aimed.
Pulled the trigger—
"Bang!"
Blue arcs of electricity shot out suddenly, and the two electrodes spun and struck the corpse's upper body, releasing an electric pulse with a sizzling sound!
The flash of electric light instantly illuminated the corpse's face.
Zhou Jiao's expression changed immediately.
It was a head completely devoid of human features. The face had been hollowed out, leaving only a pitch-black shell, filled with swollen green algae, with a purple-black... snake in the center?
This snake had no scales, no eyes, and no mouth.
Zhou Jiao could feel it was buzzing with an unsettling sound of agitation directed at her.
That sound was so strange, full of terrifying malice, making her skin crawl.
She couldn't describe the shiver that ran down her spine at that moment—like when one faces something incomprehensible, resulting in auditory hallucinations from the confusion in their mind, or like when one faces an overwhelming natural disaster and feels an intense fear from the inability to escape.
It was like lightning lighting up the world.
She shuddered and suddenly realized that her reaction to Jiang Lian felt more like something else.
It wasn't infatuation.
It was more like fear.
A fear she had never felt before.