After the darkness!

Outside the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, the azure city skyline serves as a bright backdrop, with distant, towering walls faintly visible.

"You mean, Lucky's parents, they went through the portal?" Candy, who had been silent all along, suddenly spoke up.

His empty eyes lit up for a moment.

"It's very likely." Wang Mingde did not deny it, his tone remained calm, but his eyes became deep.

"While it cannot be 100% certain, this speculation is highly reasonable, considering their whereabouts, the way they left their 'marks,' and the changes in Lucci."

His gaze shifted to Lin Yijue. "That's why I called you all here."

"Hmm?" Lin Yijue was still looking at Lu Qi's information file when, in a daze, he recalled the original owner's childhood. Simply put, he was just loafing around.

"Not bad." Wang Mingde looked at Lin Yijue. "At least one of them likely successfully completed the second 'transformation' before they disappeared."

He paused briefly, seemingly assessing his words, "More importantly, the methods they used to accomplish the deformation...are different from the methods we currently know, which are based on brute force or pure energy impact."

The ash flower extract I developed is essentially an attempt to explore a relatively mild and controllable evolutionary path, and the inspiration for this comes in part from interpreting the research data of that couple.

Lin Yijue grasped the key information: "So, finding Lu Qi isn't just about protecting him, but also about finding them themselves? Finding out exactly how they did it?"

"Yes." Wang Mingde nodded. "If this child hadn't awakened, there's naturally nothing we could do. But since he's already like us, it's only natural for us to take action."

Besides, we're helping him, aren't we?

"How do we search? Do we have any leads yet?" Candy suddenly asked from the side.

"My people are already investigating, and we should have some leads soon," Wang Mingde replied.

He had barely finished speaking when a fast-paced drum kit started playing.

His phone rang.

Wang Mingde picked up his phone and answered the call.

"Okay, I understand."

hang up the phone.

Wang Mingde's expression relaxed, and he looked at Lin Yijue and Tangguo, "We've basically confirmed the location; it's in Xintian District. I've arranged a car here; you (Lin Yijue) and Tangguo can just go there directly."

"Xintian?" Lin Yijue was taken aback. That place was outside the third ring road, and its exact name was Xintian District. It was an old city area, famous for its large-scale ecological fields. Part of it bordered artificial forests. It was located in the north and south of Chunyang District, with a straight-line distance of more than 80 kilometers.

"Yes," Wang Mingde quickly confirmed. "I have reliable sources indicating that I've seen him. You can go directly there. As for me, I need to go to another place to deal with an emergency." Without stopping, he turned around and strode towards the back of the office.

"The driver is already waiting for you downstairs. I'll send you the details on my phone later." Before he finished speaking, he had already raised his hand and lightly patted a seemingly ordinary wall at the back of the office.

The wall slid open silently to the side, revealing a hidden door.

Wang Mingde's figure disappeared into it without hesitation.

The hidden door then closed silently and quickly behind him, and the wall instantly returned to its original state, as if nothing had happened.

Lin Yijue didn't waste any words. He picked up his silver cryogenic chamber, placed it on the table, and turned to leave.

The little girl behind him didn't say a word, but simply picked up her suitcase and followed.

The two left one after the other.

Downstairs, a black pickup truck was already waiting quietly, its engine humming softly.

The rear half of the vehicle was a cargo frame covered with a green tarpaulin, and it appeared to be filled with something.

The driver was a burly man with a buzz cut and a blank expression, wearing a company uniform. When he saw them come out, he took the heavy cryogenic box and put it into a specially made freezer.

Lin Yijue opened the back door and gestured for Tang Guo to go in first.

The girl remained expressionless, her head slightly lowered, and silently climbed into the car, shrinking into the inner window seat, her hands still habitually tucked into the large pockets of her coat.

Lin Yijue then sat down next to her and closed the car door.

The car started smoothly, drove away from the company building, merged into the main road, and headed out of the city.

Before long, as the speed picked up, the towering buildings outside the window sped by, gradually being replaced by slightly older buildings.

This is as we slowly drive away from the main urban area.

The carriage was completely silent, save for the low hum of the engine and the faint sound of the air circulation system.

Lin Yijue leaned back in his chair and glanced at the people around him.

Only then did he have time to carefully examine the other person.

He looked very young, only thirteen or fourteen years old, and seemed to really dislike talking.

It was as quiet as a soulless doll.

Sitting in the chair, my feet dangled in the air, the heels of my round-toed leather shoes kicking the air unconsciously, as if I were still doing that habitual movement on the carpet in the office.

The light in the carriage cast a faint shadow on her calm, almost blank face.

"Um... have you done a similar mission before?" Lin Yijue broke the silence and asked casually.

Candy seemed like a video recorder that had been played; without turning her head, she spoke surprisingly quickly: "I've done it twice, both times to recruit people."

"Did they all succeed?" Lin Yijue asked instinctively.

"The target... is gone."

"It's good that everyone has succeeded and gained experience, but like us... that's it?" Lin Yijue was taken aback.

Candy finally turned her head slightly, revealing half of her expressionless face:

"Once we arrived too late, and by the time we found him, he had already exploded and gone completely out of control, becoming a polluter who would bite anyone he saw. Another time we found him, he was still alive, but before we could even name him, he exploded again, so we had to physically clean him up."

Lin Yijue: "..."

He remembered again the little girl in the green sweater at the milk tea shop, who was always crying.

"...Isn't it said that the transformation is most likely to be complete when the body is deformed? Is the probability of getting out of control high during the normal infection stage?" he asked subconsciously.

"It depends on luck." Candy turned her face back to the window, her voice still calm. "It also depends on how fragile you are. If you're physically strong, you'll naturally last longer."

Of course, it also depends on the phallus within the body, how ferocious it is. Wang Mingde should have told you about the types of phalluses, it's related to that thing.

Lin Yijue seemed to be deep in thought.

"Have you changed shape?" He asked purely out of curiosity.

"without."

"How old are you? You look very young."

"Fourteen." A very straightforward answer.

Then, Candy finally turned her gaze away from the window completely. For the first time, her large, empty eyes stared directly at Lin Yijue's face, and her pink lips pursed slightly.

"You're amazing."

"Huh?" Lin Yijue was completely confused.

"What do you mean?" he asked instinctively.

"Because you talk too much."

The tone was not accusatory; it was more like simply stating an obvious fact.

"She talked even more than the previous two missions where the objectives were tied together." After she finished speaking, she added:

"The first person I met was even more talkative than me. It's a pity he didn't leave his mouth after the explosion; you're even more talkative than him."

Lin Yijue: "..." This has annoyed the other party.

He felt a little uneasy under her gaze and explained earnestly.

"Mainly... it's my first time participating in this kind of activity, so I'm a little nervous. Plus... I'm a newbie, you know, pretty weak, so I'm not confident and I'm a little flustered... so I tend to talk."

Candy didn't say anything, she just smiled.

She didn't believe the other party was really weak.

If she were truly weak, Wang Mingde would never have allowed her to act alongside him.

"I'll be there in an hour, I need to rest."

After she finished speaking, she very decisively turned her face back to the window.

They said they were resting, but they didn't even close their eyes.

"You should get some rest."

Seeing that the other party didn't want to chat, Lin Yijue stopped talking and instead sat down and closed his eyes to rest.

He is truly resting.

After all, rest can calm the restlessness of the body's internal organs and restore the body's fatigue level.

*

*

Xintian District.

It is different from Chunyang District or Xinniu District.

Even in the city center, apart from two wide main roads running horizontally and vertically, the streets and alleys are mostly narrow and congested.

The air was also filled with a more primitive scent, a mixture of fertilizer, plant humus, and a faint earthy smell.

Most of the buildings here are low and old, many of which are converted from factory buildings left over from before nightfall.

Most of them were dilapidated.

This is the damage caused by the rapid proliferation of plants after nightfall.

If you continue driving along the main road for another half hour, you will leave the city area and see large areas of rectangular ecological fields.

These ecological fields are not planted with grains, but with layers of black algae seedlings.

These algae are specially processed to release an odor that animals find repulsive, thus effectively reducing the probability of being harassed by aerial beasts.

Real leafy greens or grains only exist in the high-standard farmland of the underground city.

Instead of venturing into the ecological farmland area, the car turned into a mixed area consisting of old factories and cheap rental housing.

Finally, we stopped in front of a small shop with a simple "Changlong Grocery Store" sign.

The shop is located at the end of a row of dilapidated tin-roofed storefronts, with dusty farm tools and some woven bags piled up at the entrance.

The driver said something briefly through the intercom, then pointed to the grocery store: "Contact person, Tian Dajin, is waiting for you inside."

Lin Yijue and Tangguo got out of the car.

Candy still had her hands in her coat pockets, her movements slightly stiff.

Lin Yijue took a deep breath of the earthy air, trying to suppress the restlessness rising within him due to entering an unfamiliar environment.

The grocery store was dimly lit, the shelves were covered with a thick layer of dust, and most of the goods were covered with a layer of grease.

A thin, middle-aged man wearing dirty old canvas overalls and with a cigarette dangling from his mouth was squatting behind the counter, counting a pile of screws.

Hearing the door open, he looked up, squinting at the two people through his smoke-filled, cloudy eyes.

"Tian Dajin?" Lin Yijue asked directly, his tone calm but purposeful.

The man didn't speak, but gestured towards the inner room with his lip.

Lin Yijue understood and went inside with Tangguo, one after the other.

The room was cluttered with miscellaneous items, with only a light bulb hanging overhead emitting a dim yellow light.

As soon as the two sat down, Tian Dajin picked up the phone, dialed three times, answered two, and then got up.

"We've found him. He should be the one you're looking for. He's at the Crown Hotel in Xintian City now. That place is very expensive. He doesn't look like someone who has run away from home."

Lin Yijue and Tangguo exchanged a glance, somewhat surprised that the clue had come so directly.

Just in case, I took out the other person's photo and handed it over.

Tian Dajin glanced at it and nodded affirmatively.

"It's him. I called and asked. They're a group of people, seem to be classmates. What kind of gathering are they having?"

"Okay. Thanks." Lin Yijue nodded.

Tian Dajin waved his hand, indicating that they could leave, and then squatted back down to fiddle with the pile of screws.

The two quickly left the grocery store and returned to their car.

"Crown Hotel," Lin Yijue said to the driver.

The driver nodded, and the vehicle started again, driving along the bumpy streets and main road into the city.

"How come this isn't what I expected? It wasn't a missing person or someone who ran away from home. How did it turn into a class reunion?" Candy asked, frowning.

"I don't know, but it's normal for young people that age to have some whimsical ideas. As long as we find the person, that's fine." Lin Yijue didn't take it seriously, as long as the mission could be completed.

Candy didn't speak, she just nodded.

With a hum, the car sped up again, rushing towards the increasingly bright road boundary.

*

*

Deep in a more desolate, almost abandoned old warehouse district on the edge of Xintian District.

This place is far from the planned lights and human habitation of the ecological fields.

The huge corrugated iron factory building was rusted, and most of the windows were broken, revealing a dark interior.

The air was filled with a strong smell of engine oil, rust, and mold.

Only a few pale beams of light fell on the ground.

A tall man wearing a gray hooded windbreaker, zipped up to his chin, with only his eyes showing, walked into a factory.

Follow the fire escape to the stairwell and go down.

basement one.

Compared to the dirty and messy upper room, the basement was noticeably cleaner and brighter.

There was another glass door right at the very front.

The door opens using facial recognition.

Inside the huge basement, in front of a row of worktables, stood a middle-aged man wearing a white lab coat and gold-rimmed glasses.

The man was operating a black metal box that resembled a portable computer, with complex data streams and biosignal graphs flashing on the box's screen.

The tall man glanced at the screen on the box and bowed his head in front of the middle-aged man.

"Someone seems to have their eye on the 'Prince,'" he said in a shrill voice, like fingernails scraping against a blackboard.

"That's normal. After all, it's a piece of fatty meat that everyone wants to eat." The middle-aged man didn't even look up, continuing to fiddle with the computer. His eyes were fixed on the increasingly active biosignals on the screen with fervor.

"Have you found out where they came from? Can we physically drive them away?" He finally spoke after two seconds.

"No, the other party hid very well. They entered suddenly, and the vehicle registration information was fake. We couldn't find anything. They came prepared."

"The information channel we're using is Wang Xiuwei's information channel," the man replied.