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Chapter 263 The Secret of the Silver Liquid

The day after the underground fortress was completed, Lu Zhao cleared out an empty room in a corner on the third floor to use as a laboratory.

He brought in an analyzer, a radiation source, and several microscopes that had been salvaged from the hospital; the metal table edges were still covered in rust that hadn't been wiped off.

Xiaoling stood at the door, twisting the hem of her clothes with her fingers, the veins on her wrist gleaming with a faint silver light.

"Come in." Lu Zhao pushed up his glasses and took a glass tube from the drawer. "Just two milliliters, it won't hurt."

Xiaoling sat on the examination table and rolled up her sleeves. The silvery liquid under her skin swam around like a live fish, gathering into a small bulge in the crook of her elbow.

Lu Zhao held the specially made syringe close, and as soon as the needle tip touched his skin, the silver liquid suddenly shrank into a thin stream and ran towards the back of his hand.

Xiaoling pursed her lips: "After I had it removed last time, it grew back on its own."

“That’s normal.” Lu Zhao changed his perspective. “It’s a characteristic of nanoscale self-healing materials.”

As the syringe was inserted, the silver liquid suddenly coated the needle. Lu Zhao stared at the slowly flowing liquid in the glass tube, his Adam's apple bobbing.

The molten silver first solidified into beads in the tube, then dispersed into mist, and finally became a fine network structure, each step like a test of something.

"Look under the microscope." He pushed the slide toward Xiaoling.

Under the lens, the silver liquid molecules are frantically recombining, the hexagonal structure breaks apart and then reassembles into a spiral, the spiral scatters into starlight, and the starlight gathers into a honeycomb.

Xiaoling shrank back: "Is it changing?"

“It recombines 37 times per minute.” Lu Zhao pulled up the data. “Ordinary matter should have decomposed long ago.”

He turned around, turned on the radiation source, and put the glass tube inside. "Try this."

When the radiometer jumped to a dangerous level, a thin film suddenly appeared on the surface of the silver solution.

Lu Zhao looked closer and saw that the patterns on the thin film were exactly the same as the patterns on the inside of the jade bracelet.

“Protective layer,” he noted on the tablet, ““its thickness adjusts automatically according to the radiation intensity.”

Next came the strong acid test. When the silver solution was dripped into concentrated sulfuric acid, it first shrank into a sphere, and a transparent viscous liquid seeped out from the surface of the sphere. The viscous liquid reacted with the acid to produce bubbles.

Five minutes later, the silver liquid emerged from the bubble, its shape intact.

Xiaoling stared at the glass dish: "It seems to know how to protect itself."

"The best part is yet to come." Lu Zhao took out a piece of mouse skin with scratches from the incubator. "This was scratched yesterday, and I applied some silver solution this morning."

Xiaoling looked closer and saw that the skin at the scratch was smooth and even, and even the pores were the same as the surrounding skin.

"It's healed?"

“Cell activity increased by 30%.” Lu Zhao pulled up the comparison chart, “but there was no excessive proliferation, as if there was an intelligent system controlling the repair progress.”

He turned off the device. "Xiaoling, the thing inside you isn't ordinary alien technology."

Xiaoling looked down at her arm, where silver liquid swayed gently under her skin: "I've had strange dreams since I was little."

I dreamt of a tall, blue figure, and a person in a white coat pushing a syringe into my arm.

There were many other children, just like me, with silver sheen on their arms.

Lu Zhao turned the tablet towards her, displaying a timeline he had compiled: "The year you were born, a scientific expedition team went missing in the southwest. The report mentioned 'unknown metallic liquid,' which matches the characteristics of the silver liquid in your body."

He paused, then said, "You might be their test subject. This thing is designed to fuse human and Weaver genes."

Xiaoling's fingertips turned white: "Will I turn into a monster?"

“No.” Lu Zhao pointed to the microscope. “It’s balancing the two genes, not devouring them. You’re more stable than an average person right now.”

At three o'clock in the afternoon, Su Wanqing and Lin Che pushed open the door and came in. The blue markings on Lin Che's arm had climbed up two inches, peeking out from the cuff, like a snake gleaming with an eerie light.

"Look at this." Lu Zhao pulled up a video. The silver liquid sample was placed in the time acceleration zone. All other substances were rapidly oxidizing, but the silver liquid flow rate was the same as the normal environment. "Anomaly in resistance to time."

Su Wanqing leaned closer to the screen: "Can it be replicated?" "We need more samples," Lu Zhao shook his head, "but at least it shows that Xiaoling's ability isn't a burden."

He switched the data, “Comparing Lin Che’s blue pattern, your matter has similar fluctuation frequencies, but Xiao Ling’s is more like an adapter, while Lin Che’s is more like a modifier.”

Lin Che touched his arm: "The weavers are divided into two factions?"

“That’s possible.” Just as Lu Zhao finished speaking, Lin Che suddenly grabbed the table for support.

Blue stripes flashed intensely on his neck, and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.

"What's wrong?" Su Wanqing grabbed his wrist.

Lin Che closed his eyes, his voice hoarse: "I heard... the water calling."

He staggered a couple of steps, “and saw blue buildings, submerged in silver liquid. Pipes were connected, and the liquid flowed through them, just like Xiaoling’s dream.”

Xiaoling grabbed his other hand: "I dreamed about it too! Blue house, silver pipes!"

Lu Zhao quickly scanned Lin Che's arm, and the monitor kept beeping: "Mutation level 28%, 5% higher than yesterday."

He pointed at Lin Che's neck, "The blue scales have moved onto his face."

Lin Che took two deep breaths, and the blue markings slowly subsided: "I could feel the waterworks was polluted just now. Something is flowing into the underground water veins in the northwest." He opened his eyes, his pupils glowing with a pale gold, "I can see the entire city's water system, like a glowing net."

Su Wanqing took out her phone and brought up the city map: "Exact location?"

"Underground, at the abandoned chemical plant." Lin Che tapped the map with his knuckles. "The water is hurting, it's hurting terribly."

The laboratory suddenly fell silent. Xiaoling stared into Lin Che's eyes, the silver liquid vibrating gently on her wrist.

Lu Zhao lowered his head to record the data, and the tip of his pen left a dot of ink on the paper.

Su Wanqing's phone rang; it was a monitoring alert from the command center. She opened the screen, and saw a doctor taking a man's temperature in the emergency room of the Central Hospital.

The man's arm was covered in black lines, like an unyielding blob of ink.

“System analysis,” she said, glancing at her watch.

"An unknown bioactive substance has been detected. It is recommended to mark it as a Level S risk."

Su Wanqing retrieved the patient's information: "35 years old, waterworks maintenance worker, developed a fever three days ago."

The screen suddenly went blank. A person dressed in black rushed into the emergency room, grabbed the man, and dragged him away.

Just as the security guard was about to stop him, the man in black pulled out a silver cube and waved it around, causing the guard to freeze in place.

The entire process took 27 seconds, and the surveillance camera only captured the corner of the black-clad figure.

Lu Zhao leaned closer to look: "A time-stopping device?"

“The Weavers.” Su Wanqing turned off the monitor. “The infection has started, two weeks earlier than expected.”

Lin Che clenched his fist, blue lines dancing between his fingers: "We need to stop the pollution from the waterworks."

"Notify Xiao Ran first." Su Wanqing took out her walkie-talkie. "Have him bring the engineering team to prepare the filtration equipment."

She turned to look at Lu Zhao, "Can you speed up your research?"

Lu Zhao pushed up his glasses: "Xiao Ling needs to come and draw two milliliters of sample every day."

Xiaoling rolled up her sleeves: "I'll draw it now."

As the silver liquid entered the syringe again, Lin Che suddenly grabbed Su Wanqing's hand.

His palm was burning hot, and the blue lines crawled half an inch up her wrist before suddenly retracting.

"What?" Su Wanqing asked.

“Water says,” Lin Che stared out the window, “that the pollution is spreading faster than I thought.”