Chapter 223
Chapter 223
Meanwhile, the incredibly brawny Deputy Director Chen was still pondering why the edamame smelled so bad.
He was trying to determine whether traveling across space and time had caused it.
When he saw Qin Ying suddenly behave herself and put down the edamame, he immediately grew wary. “What is it?”
Qin Ying pursed her lips and looked him up and down.
This big shot was over fifty and had lats so defined they could practically form the character for “benevolence.” She had no idea whether he had a temper to match.
After carefully choosing her words, she said, “I have several pieces of good news and one piece of bad news. Want to hear them?”
Deputy Director Chen had encountered plenty of walking disasters in his line of work and was very experienced with situations like this.
He looked at the bag of space-time-traveling edamame in his hand, then at Qin Ying. After a moment of silence, he asked, “Is there something else in your bag?”
Qin Ying nodded wordlessly. “A few little trinkets I dug out of a corpse.”
She opened her bag and began shaking out the items she’d found inside the Wax Corpse.
Deputy Director Chen remained relatively calm when he saw the badge and diary. But when she shook out a Specimen Bottle with an eyeball floating inside, his face turned slightly green.
Still, he quickly collected himself. “So this is what something contaminated with corpse wax smells like.”
Qin Ying grimaced at the thought, then couldn’t resist giving him a thumbs-up. “Your mental fortitude is first-rate.”
Deputy Director Chen waved off her flattery.
He didn’t throw away the bag of edamame. Instead, he set it aside.
Who knew whether he planned to keep it so he could trick someone else later?
Once that little interlude was over, Qin Ying continued her account.
There was little need to conceal what she had experienced in the tunnel.
She only left out how Black Seven and the others had died.
Qin Ying stroked Thunderbird’s tiny head. “I found it in that endless tunnel.”
Thunderbird didn’t even know what a lie was. As far as it was concerned, whatever Qin Ying said was true. It chirped noisily as she petted its head.
Deputy Director Chen glanced at Thunderbird and silently listened to Qin Ying’s story.
It wasn’t until she described meeting up with Zhang Lang and the others and entering the laboratory that his expression abruptly turned serious.
“You said there was some kind of artificial monster in there with an extremely narrow waist?”
When Qin Ying nodded in confirmation, he frowned and fell into deep thought.
He hurriedly examined the badge, then the diary inside the lead box.
At some point during his reading, his expression changed drastically.
Qin Ying had been watching him the entire time. At last, she asked the question she truly wanted answered.
“Is that New Blood connected to Zhang Lang and the others’ genetic experiments?”
The mutations displayed by Zhang Lang and Zong Li of the Cultural Preservation Bureau matched every characteristic the diary had described in test subjects injected with New Blood.
Qin Ying lowered her lashes. “Is the Cultural Preservation Bureau connected to that laboratory?”
Deputy Director Chen’s earlier demeanor vanished, his expression turning grim.
A long while later, he answered solemnly, “The Cultural Preservation Bureau was founded to protect ourselves and defend our homeland. We would never collude with practitioners of such twisted methods.”
Qin Ying gave him a sidelong glance.
He wasn’t lying.
But the Cultural Preservation Bureau was as full of holes as a sieve, and that still demanded an explanation.
Seeing the question in her eyes, Deputy Director Chen let out a long sigh. “I know you have many questions.”
“But to explain how things reached this point, we’d have to start with what happened more than twenty years ago.”
Despite broaching the subject, he did not continue.
He merely said, “The experiments conducted on Zhang Lang and the others are indeed connected to New Blood.”
“We’ve always hoped to find a way to successfully achieve Monstrous Beast Transformation, but there’s far too little New Blood left in existence.”
He gave a bitter smile. “For years, every country has spared no effort to search for the source material of New Blood.”
“Our country was the last to begin researching it, but who could have imagined that the source of everything would be right here within our borders?”
His explanation was frustratingly vague. When he saw that Qin Ying wanted to press him for answers, he hesitated before saying, “When you come to headquarters, the things you’ve found…”
He pointed at the badge, journal, and Specimen Bottle. “With these, you’re already qualified to learn more.”
Qin Ying understood that he had no intention of revealing the secrets here.
After lowering her head and thinking for a moment, she asked, “Is New Blood really that rare?”
Deputy Director Chen nodded without hesitation.
“In some respects, New Blood is even more valuable than Francium.”
“Other countries have always had us by the throat. Every year, we have to humble ourselves just to purchase a tiny amount.”
His expression darkened at the thought of that humiliation. “It’s pathetic.”
Qin Ying blinked. “Then what about the Marrow Fluid mentioned in the journal?”
“How much would this amount be worth?”
Sensing something odd in her question, Deputy Director Chen abruptly raised his head and stared at her.
With a faint look of distaste, Qin Ying pulled out a cloudy test tube wrapped in the lining of her backpack.
Pale yellow liquid sloshed inside the filthy, yellowed tube.
Deputy Director Chen sucked in a sharp breath and clutched his chest.
“Is that…?”
Hope flickered in his eyes, but he was equally afraid of being disappointed.
Qin Ying gave him little time to prepare himself. With a hint of wicked amusement, she nodded. “Marrow Fluid.”
“Marrow Fluid from the River God’s body.”
The wooden stool beneath Deputy Director Chen collapsed with a crash.
The old man landed unceremoniously on the floor.
He did not even seem to feel the pain. He merely stared blankly up at the test tube pinched between Qin Ying’s fingers.
When his face flushed a dark, liverish red, Qin Ying panicked for a moment. Afraid he might be having a heart attack, she was just about to call someone in to administer emergency treatment when Deputy Director Chen suddenly sprang upright with a kip-up.
“My dear ancestor! You’re my own blessed ancestor!”
“And you just shoved something like this into your backpack?”
Deputy Director Chen looked utterly heartbroken. He wanted to take it from her, but his hands were trembling too violently.
“Hold it steady!” he warned before charging out the door.
He ran like a bull on the rampage.
Before long, a whole team had surrounded the infirmary so thoroughly that not even water could have leaked through.
Dean Tan was escorted inside carrying a medical case, his face filled with confusion.
Holding both hands out as though receiving a live bomb, Deputy Director Chen carefully took the test tube from Qin Ying and placed it inside the Box used to preserve valuable medicines.
Outside the Box, he added layer after layer of protective wrapping.
Without the slightest delay, the Marrow Fluid would be transported back to Yunlan under the highest level of security, receiving priority clearance the entire way, before being placed aboard a flight to Jing City.
Deputy Director Chen rushed off as quickly as he had arrived, too busy to concern himself with Qin Ying for the moment.
Qin Ying received two bags of glucose solution in the infirmary. It was nearly afternoon by the time Deputy Director Chen finally returned, his expression solemn.
“Qin Ying, if that Marrow Fluid is genuine, what reward do you want?”
“This reward could completely change your life, so don’t answer carelessly.”
Qin Ying paused in the middle of feeding grains of rice to the Thunderbird. “I want to keep this bird. And…”
She looked Deputy Director Chen straight in the eye. “I want the highest-level clearance.”