After the darkness!

Wang Mingde stopped at the end of the corridor and raised his hand to press on a spot on the wall.

Lin Yijue saw him tap the wall crack three times with the pad of his thumb, and a metallic scraping sound suddenly rang out.

The entire wall slid open to both sides, revealing a secret passage hidden behind it.

The dim emergency lights shone from deep within the tunnel, carrying a damp, musty smell, like a monster with its mouth agape.

"Come in." Wang Mingde walked in first, his leather shoes making a crisp sound as they tapped on the cement floor.

Lin Yijue slowly followed.

After walking about a hundred meters, the two arrived at a closed room.

The room has no door; you can easily see the entire layout by looking up.

The room is about 100 square meters in total, and it is fully equipped with a sofa, bed, bathroom, desk and so on, just like a regular hotel suite.

After entering the room, Wang Mingde opened the safe in the living room and took out a metal combination lock box.

He opened the combination lock box and took out two medicine bottles, one brown and one white.

"Treat the wound first." Wang Mingde took out some cotton swabs and pointed to the brown medicine bottle. "The monster's black blood is corrosive. Although it won't affect people like us, prolonged contact will still cause the skin to rot."

"What is this?" Lin Yijue asked.

"Nomeda disinfectant, made by Red Bull, costs 20,000 yuan a bottle, it's specifically for sterilization and disinfection." Wang Mingde noticed his distrust and pointed impatiently to the Red Bull logo on the bottle. "What? Don't want to use it?"

"No, I was just asking." Lin Yijue shook his head.

He then took off his clothes, took the cotton swabs, and began to treat the wound.

There were many wounds on his chest, back, and other arms, which were now turning purple.

As soon as the cotton swab touched it, he gasped. The medicine was icy cold, seeping into the bone through the wound.

After the air conditioning came out, I felt a tingling, itchy sensation.

"Do you need me to apply it to the back for you?" Wang Mingde asked.

"Okay." Lin Yijue nodded.

"You're quite impolite," Wang Mingde said.

Soon, about a few minutes later.

"The external injury should be healed in about two days. This stuff is expensive, but it works quite well and can speed up wound healing."

"It seems your bones are broken..." Wang Mingde glanced at Lin Yijue's chest and spoke very professionally, like a well-trained surgeon.

"Fortunately, the phagocytosis in your body is developing rapidly. After an injection of Black Tide Core Extract, you should recover in two or three days at most, given your current recovery ability." He said, pointing to the white medicine bottle next to him.

Then they found a syringe in the cabinet.

"Body-devouring?" Lin Yijue stared at the medicine bottle in his hand. "The 'kind' you mentioned before, are they people parasitized by this thing? The source of our strange diseases?" He seized the opportunity and asked immediately.

He desperately wanted to know the source of his strange illness.

The latter, whether it's the three levels of pain perception or the limitations on his own training, is already seriously affecting his life.

"Yes." Wang Mingde picked up the white medicine bottle and looked at it under the bright light.

"The Black Tide Factor erupts from the earth, burrowing into the human body and activating the phagocytic organism. This thing devours your life force, forcing you to seek out living things; in some ways, they are as intelligent as 'humans.'" He paused.

"Whether it's you, me, or the monster you're talking about, we all have a phallus within us."

Lin Yijue recalled the scene of the monster devouring the homeless man and the woman, and his Adam's apple bobbed: "You mean that monster was also..."

"Otherwise, why would I say it's one of our kind?" Wang Mingde asked. "Of course, it didn't survive the first form mutation."

He opened the white medicine bottle and looked at the dark blue liquid inside. "The Devourer will reorganize our genes. If we survive, we'll become stronger; if we don't, we'll become monsters that only know how to eat. Your current hunger is the Devourer Entity urging you to find energy; it can't wait any longer."

"So, the Kuroshio nuclear extract you mentioned?"

"Take it easy for now." Wang Mingde removed the syringe. "One injection can last for three months. It's very effective, especially for someone in the middle stage like you."

He said that he used a syringe to draw up all the medicine and handed it to Lin Yijue, "Give this to me."

Lin Yijue didn't take it, but instead looked at the man in front of her.

"Why should we evade the authorities? Why don't we seek help from government departments?" he asked calmly, expressing his doubts.

A region is a strange field that appears on Earth after nightfall.

Since the so-called Black Tide Factor emerged from the field and permeated the air, it meant that everyone had come into contact with it. Even if the probability of contracting the disease was very small, he did not believe that the state apparatus would not notice or take it seriously, given how bizarre this thing was and how it carried indiscriminate special properties.

"I know you're confused. I was just like you at first." Wang Mingde placed the syringe on the ashtray, plopped down, and lit a cigarette.

"The power of the state apparatus is still incredibly terrifying, even in this era, far beyond what ordinary people can imagine. As for why we need to avoid the authorities, we have to start with the nature of the Devourer."

He took a deep breath and exhaled a smoke ring.

"The probability of infection with the phage is not high, only about one in 200,000. After infection, according to statistics, there is an incubation period. The length of the incubation period is unknown. It could be three months, three years, or thirty years. Of course, it could also be a day, haha."

"After the incubation period, there is no active period; during this stage, 'muscle twitching' may occasionally occur."

"Generally, during the inactive phase, 60-70% of people will be infected, and then the population will enter the active phase."

During the active phase, due to the presence of phagocytoses, the body's metabolism is more than ten times that of a normal person. Therefore, after exercise, you will experience muscle burning pain, a persistent feeling of hunger, and a morbid craving for raw meat. This is the state you are in right now.

Wang Mingde glanced at Lin Yijue.

"So during its active period, the phagocytic will modify our bodies? But what does that have to do with the country?" Lin Yijue asked.

"Because after the active period, when hunger overwhelms reason, we will undergo a transformation. You can think of this as evolution. If the evolution is successful, we will remain rational; if the evolution fails, we will become the monster you are talking about." Wang Mingde said wearily.

"It's not that no one seeks help from government departments after being infected, but the result is that they are forcibly placed under care to prevent the transformation from failing. Of course, they also need to cooperate with various experiments during the process."

Lin Yijue fell silent upon hearing this.

He understands that the original intention of doing this was definitely good, but if it really happened to him, when he was the one involved, he really couldn't accept it.

He admitted that he was somewhat selfish, but that was the truth.

"You've already survived the first form?" he suddenly asked, as if he had just thought of something.