Star Hunter.

Chapter 295 Zebra Virus

Unlike humans, Black Viper's robots don't have personal lives. Therefore, they are always on missions when they go out. Any matter requiring Black Viper to send out robots is significant, like the previous incident involving "Aquamarine." To spur on those academicians at the Royal Academy of Sciences who were constantly trying to enhance their own reputations, the person behind it orchestrated that event. However, since then, research on Aquamarine has progressed rapidly, with remarkable results. This shows that leaders are born strategists.

That said, Xilin did not receive any news about major events within Black Viper when he arrived here. Although Guan Feng has not completely let go yet, and Xilin is just in an adaptation period, if it were a truly major event, Xilin should not have been left uninformed.

Although the robot hadn't told Xilin about the incident before, it wouldn't hide it from her now that she had asked.

"We're here to monitor suspected virus carriers," the robot said.

"A suspected virus carrier?" Xilin wondered, as he had not heard anything about virus carriers since arriving on this planet.

"Yes." The robot explained the cause of the incident and related information to Xilin.

A virus has emerged in the Empire, which the people at the Royal Academy of Sciences' Institute of Virology have called the Zebra Virus. This doesn't mean the virus is related to zebras, but rather that the symptoms it causes resemble the striped pattern on a zebra's coat.

Initially, it manifests as a change in skin color, with two alternating colors appearing, which deepens as the condition progresses. Nerves and muscles are severely affected; muscles become alternating between softened and hardened areas, mirroring the color distribution on the skin surface.

Whether the muscles are overly soft or overly hardened, they will cause inconvenience to the human body, eventually leading to a complete loss of mobility. The body's conditioned reflexes become sluggish, and nerve conduction in the body is blocked, but the nerves in the brain remain relatively normal. The patient remains conscious until death.

It has to be said that this is torture. Unable to move, unable to speak, even facial expressions begin to fade, leaving only the eyes to convey emotions. As the condition worsens, the pupils begin to change color, becoming the same color as the stripes on the body.

It all started when a patrol of soldiers from the eleventh star system detected an energy signal on an uninhabitable, uninhabited planet and went to collect energy minerals. However, they found five people who had been dead for several days, along with some excavated energy minerals next to them.

The energy mines on this planet aren't located on the surface, making it difficult for the patrol team to detect them deep underground. If these five people hadn't dug some out, the patrol team wouldn't have detected any energy signals at all.

Since it's an energy mine located deep underground, how did these five people know about it? Clearly, there were more than just five people there, because the patrols saw traces of a spacecraft landing. However, they didn't see any spacecraft when they arrived on the planet, meaning they actually had companions. It's just that their companions abandoned them.

The five dead men had no wounds on their bodies. The patrolmen pulled open their protective suits and saw the horrific state of the five men. Their bodies were covered in two-tone stripes, some bluish-red, some blackish-purple, and some blue-yellow—symptoms caused by different viral mutations.

The soldier who pulled off the protective suits on the five people noticed something was wrong and immediately reported it to the others. He then took a sample of the deceased's blood for scanning and analysis, and found that the cause of death was a virus.

The soldiers, all wearing protective suits, returned to the fleet after gathering some information. Upon their return, they underwent six rounds of disinfection in the sterilization room. However, unexpectedly, shortly afterward, the soldiers' fingernails began to show two different colored stripes. Initially, they didn't feel any discomfort, but having witnessed the five dead bodies, the soldiers were quickly sent for examination. None of them returned to the fleet.

Because of the presence of this unknown substance, ordinary virus scanners cannot detect it at all, and analyzers can only determine whether the cause is a virus or something else based on the patient's physical condition. Furthermore, many sterilization devices cannot completely kill this single-stranded virus.

  

The soldiers did not kill the virus by performing six sterilization processes in the sterilization room; they only temporarily deactivated it. The virus will regain its activity when conditions are right.

The samples they collected from the five deceased were later sent to the Royal Society of Science, where they were classified as a Level 1 hazardous substance by the Institute of Virology. The Royal Society of Science also named this new virus the Zebra Virus.

The entire patrol was quickly quarantined, and three days later, under the examination of a scanner specifically designed for this type of virus manufactured by the Royal Society, more than 60% of the patrol members were diagnosed with zebra virus infection.

However, quite a few people had come into contact with the patrol team, and the virus spread further and further, from one planet to another, from one star system to another.

Because the incubation period varies in length, even if the Royal Academy of Sciences rushed to develop a detector to detect latent viruses, this increased the difficulty of the task. With so many planets and countless people, how could they possibly capture every single one and use a detector to scan them?

The higher-ups are now trying to suppress this matter, and the Black Viper team has started working on it. Because human movement is not very convenient, apart from the military's special operations departments, the Black Viper's robots are mainly responsible for secretly tracking and searching for the initial variants and original forms of the virus.

After calculating the dates, Xilin asked, "Did Xi Kai leave during the Black Viper handover meeting because of this?"

"Yes, but Emperor Lansa contacted Lord Xi immediately."

"However, if we know this virus is so dangerous, why haven't I received any news for so long? And if the situation worsens, why would the Three Kings let Yuan Xingming and the other two run around everywhere?"

"Feng Shou said not to let you know yet. Besides, the virus is still under control in the Eleventh Star Region, so many things haven't been made public. I think the Three Kings probably also think that this place is too far from the Eleventh Star Region. So they haven't restricted the three princes. If an infected person appears in this star region, the people protecting the three princes will definitely forcibly take them back."

Xi Lin glanced at him; Guan Feng hadn't completely relinquished power yet. His words still carried more weight than Xi Lin's. However, Guan Feng's decision not to involve Xi Lin wasn't out of reluctance to relinquish his power, but rather because he didn't want Xi Lin to be involved in this matter.

Previously, Guan Feng wasn't involved in virology research, so even though he focused on academics within Black Viper, he hadn't participated in any research projects related to viruses and molecules. Xi Lin, however, was different; Guan Feng was afraid Xi Lin would get involved. The initial research on novel viruses carries the greatest risk, and this was Guan Feng's way of protecting Xi Lin.

No wonder Gu Chang'an and Christian Lang have already handed over power, but Guan Feng hasn't yet. He knew about this all along, so he didn't relinquish control. Verbal handover doesn't count. Once power is truly handed over, the Black Viper's robots will undergo a new program command reprogramming. The people responsible for changing this main program command are the decision-maker, a member of the royal family, and the executor, Xi Kai. Both of them have clearly been informed by Guan Feng beforehand.

What is the current mortality rate?

"Ten percent of those infected with the virus have already died, thirty percent are in critical condition, and the rest are in the early stages of infection. This virus mutates very quickly and has many derivatives. Therefore, a satisfactory antibody has not yet been developed. The drugs that have been produced can only prolong the lives of patients as much as possible," the robot said.

"The transmission route hasn't been determined yet?" Xilin asked again.

"The virus can be transmitted through the respiratory tract and bodily fluids, and it may also be present in bodily secretions. To date, everyone who has been in contact with the patient has been infected."

"How are the mutants doing?"

"Even mutants are not immune. The virus mutates at a faster rate in their bodies."

Xilin fell silent.

The robot continued, "Later, the military and Black Viper launched a joint investigation and discovered that the planet discovered by the patrol was not the initial point of the virus's emergence. There are now two viewpoints: one is a conspiracy theory. They believe it was a deliberate act, a setup to release the virus as revenge against the Empire. The other viewpoint, predominantly held by the Royal Academy of Sciences, presents experimental results suggesting that such viral molecules could not have been artificially created, but rather a naturally occurring novel molecule, highly accidental."

"You got the molecular diagram, right? Let me see it," Xilin said.

A flash of light appeared in the robot's eyes, and two beams of light shot out, converging to form a 3D image in front of it. The image showed the structure of a highly mutated virus, with the molecular diagram of all the atoms composing the virus clearly displayed. It was a single-chain viral molecular conformation.

Human DNA is a double-stranded helix, which is relatively stable, but single-stranded DNA is much less stable, let alone single-stranded viruses.

Xilin pointed to a black circle in the molecular diagram and asked, "What does this represent?"

"Unknown substance".

"Not even a clue?"

"No, this is a substance that has never been seen before. The people at the Royal Academy of Sciences and the research group within Black Viper have not yet provided any useful information, but they have all pointed out one thing: to figure out this substance, we must start with the original virus. However, the primary variants in the virus samples we have obtained so far only account for a very small portion, and the original has never been seen at all."

That's why the people at the Royal Society of Virology reject conspiracy theories and favor the idea that things naturally form. But is arguing about these things useful at a time like this? Neither side has made any progress.

"Send me all the information about this zebra virus." Xilin turned on the communicator in his hand, which had a secure receiving function and could store a large amount of information.

The robot did not refuse and directly transmitted all the information it knew to Xilin.

"Did you come to this planet because you discovered carriers of the virus?"

"It's not confirmed, just being tracked. Because of this wedding, some nobles from the Eleventh Star Region came out. Although the Eleventh Star Region is currently under lockdown, it still treats the upper-class nobles leniently. When they came out, they were scanned and no virus infection was detected. But we were instructed to track and observe them, and take immediate measures if anyone is found to be infected."

Xilin nodded. "So who are you following? Where are they now?"

The robot mentioned a person. This person was one of the people who entered the room later.

"Continue to observe, and notify me if anything unusual happens."

"OK."

Xilin waved his hand, and the robot's figure faded and disappeared again.

Xilin stood outside for a while longer, digesting the information the robot had transmitted to him. Then he returned to the room, which was still noisy. Naimi and a few others were talking about the "vegetable pancake," while Yuan Xingming and the others were recounting their glorious achievement of making a large sum of pocket money by betting on the racing competition.

Thanks to Peter's care, when Sirin left, Libero and Lunani were not harassed by others. Instead, they made a few friends and started chatting happily.

As for Gray Cat, he was quite the party animal, sometimes even joining in the commotion with Yuan Xingming and the others. However, his ears, which kept twitching, told Xilin that he was actually paying attention to his surroundings, including Xilin's meeting with the robot and their conversation.

Upon seeing Xilin enter, the gray cat stopped eating the snacks on its plate, jumped onto Xilin's shoulder, and asked, "What are you going to do?"

"Let's take a look first, and then we'll study that thing after the wedding."

The gray cat seemed distracted, its paws clenching as it scratched at Xilin's clothes on his shoulder. After hesitating for a while, it finally blurted out, "I think you'd better not get involved."

"Why?" Xilin walked to the sofa and lay down, kicking Yuan Xingming, who was flushed from drinking and about to pull someone over to drink with him, aside.

"I think this virus is very dangerous."

"Even you think it's dangerous?"

"No, not really. I'm sure I can withstand it. If the robots aren't afraid, why should I be? But you can't. You're a completely organic life form, and this virus is different from anything I've encountered before. Especially that unknown substance; I can't figure out exactly what it is either," the gray cat said, its ears drooping.

Xilin remained silent. Gray Cat shared the same thought as Guan Feng, but Xilin didn't want to avoid the issue like this.

"Hey, Xilin, let's not worry about that, okay? At worst, we can just give up the Black Viper leader position and be free hunters, wouldn't that be better?" Graycat was somewhat nostalgic for his old life in the Star Covenant.

Xilin lifted the gray cat off his shoulder and scratched its chin. "Want to go back?"

"Hmm, I miss them a little." The gray cat tilted its head, revealing its chin for Xilin to scratch.

Xilin naturally understood who the "they" the gray cat was referring to, and he longed to go back as well. But he couldn't.

While scratching the gray cat's chin, Xilin's thoughts returned to the zebra virus. From the information the robot had given him, Xilin learned that Black Viper had collected 10,000 highly active virus samples from patients. However, more than half of these 10,000 highly active viruses were advanced variants of the zebra virus, and the rest were mostly intermediate variants. Just as the robot had said, primary variants were rare, let alone finding answers from the original virus.

Whether artificially synthesized or naturally formed, the more advanced the virus mutation, the more it conceals the original formation method. The robot does not have the analytical configuration diagram and analysis diagram of the primary mutant. If Xilin wants to know, he must personally ask for it. However, once he asks for the data on the primary mutant virus, Xilin will be considered to have truly participated in this work.

Xilin was neither afraid nor opposed to this kind of research work, but Guan Feng was probably not the only one who opposed Xilin's participation.

That makes sense. If it really is a high-risk virus, and something happens to Xilin, there will be no one who can replace him. At least at this stage, no suitable person has been found. Even the other members of Black Viper who are not familiar with Xilin probably wouldn't agree. Their opposition won't shake Xilin much, after all, Xilin is one of the three giants of Black Viper. It's just that it might be a bit troublesome at that time, and there will definitely be no shortage of delaying tactics.

"Hey, Xilin, what are you thinking about so intently?!" Pelle pushed Yuan Xingming aside, put his arm around Xilin's shoulder, and told him about the few pretty girls he had just seen.

Xilin listened with a smile. When Peter offered to introduce him to a few noblewomen, Xilin refused. He wasn't used to the aristocratic manner; it felt like selling oneself. The way those noblewomen looked at Yuan Xingming and his companion reminded Xilin of wolves in the forest, making him feel uneasy. If it weren't for the unpredictable nature of Yuan Xingming and his companion in public, those noblewomen probably would have forced themselves on them.

Xilin kept a close eye on the robots' movements. Although Gray Cat was very reluctant for Xilin to get involved, it had to keep a close eye on the robots' movements. Gray Cat wondered to itself, if it found an infected person, should it forcefully knock Xilin unconscious and drag him back to have its second grandfather lock him up, or should it adopt a softer approach and pretend to be sick?

Anyway, the past two days have been relatively peaceful. I raced with Naimi and chatted with a few racing enthusiasts about our thoughts and experiences. Nothing major happened.

And so, the wedding finally began. Xilin delivered the gifts with Yuan Xingming and the others. The key figures from the Luoer and Gleason families who were receiving the guests were all smiles. They didn't dare to mess with Yuan Xingming and the other two, but they were willing to do what Xilin wanted. After all, there was a difference in how people with royal blood were treated.

Seeing those people's meaningful smiles and overly friendly faces made Xilin's skin crawl, so he made an excuse to go outside for some fresh air. But before Xilin could catch his breath, his communicator rang.

After glancing at the characters on the communicator, Xilin answered, "Director Guan, what's up?"