Chapter 953: Genetic Virus
"SE virus?" Xu Huo repeated.
Having already let the cat out of the bag, Teacher Ai looked at him with a grave expression. "Who exactly are you?"
"What else could I be?" Xu Huo smiled faintly. "Just a player trying to clear the instance."
He paused, then stepped past Teacher Ai to glance at the retired security guard behind him, holding the "Mini Mushroom Cloud" in his hand. "I came here for a friendly chat. How about we avoid causing trouble for each other?"
Teacher Ai had witnessed the power of the "Mini Mushroom Cloud." He raised a hand to block his companion. "Even if we could escape from him, we'd be severely battered. Besides, neither of us knows if the person standing before us is real or fake."
The square-faced man looked confused, but Teacher Ai stared at Xu Huo. "When you escaped the training base, you used spiritual power. You could affect a B-rank player. Your evolution level probably isn't as low as you claim, just at the threshold."
Xu Huo nodded. "I like dealing with smart people. It saves a lot of trouble."
"W37 is hunting you down—a retired player disabled for years and a security guard retired from the lab. I'm also curious who you really are."
"But that's not my main concern. I want to know about the SE virus."
"You're only here to do an instance. What use is knowing this to you?" Teacher Ai refused to budge.
"I'm a good person." Xu Huo's expression was calm, his indifferent attitude casting doubt on the truth of his words. "Clearing the instance is one thing; spreading the virus is another. If the living sample really carries the SE virus you mentioned, I'll dispose of it after clearing the instance."
Teacher Ai was slightly stunned. "That sample from the W19 lab really is in your hands!"
Xu Huo didn't deny it. "The Enforcement Team is hunting you now. Given your condition, it'll be hard to accomplish anything. You've been holed up in W18 for years—you didn't expect W37 to have developed to this point, did you?"
Whether it was player strength or the government's cohesion, it was better than any other base city. Not exactly a monolithic block, but finding a loophole wouldn't be easy.
Worse still, a retired security guard was under government surveillance. It was obvious W37 had been watching him for a long time, which was why Teacher Ai was surrounded the moment he showed up. With layers of encirclement, they couldn't move an inch, forcing them to blow up the building to create chaos.
Teacher Ai and the square-faced man fell silent. After a moment, the former spoke. "I can tell you..."
"Old Ai!" the square-faced man shouted, cutting him off.
Teacher Ai raised his hand. "The companions who came to W37 in the early years are mostly dead now. We can't even leave the city."
"What makes you so sure he'll help us?" The square-faced man wasn't just targeting Xu Huo; he asked sharply, "Don't forget the comrades who died!"
Teacher Ai didn't respond with anger but said calmly, "Do you have a better idea? If it's the original sample infection, W37 will fall soon."
The square-faced man opened his mouth, then turned and said, "What he says might not be true."
Xu Huo pulled out his phone and played the video he had casually recorded.
Seeing the children scratching at their lesions, the square-faced man's expression shifted from suspicion to disappointment, a hint of despair seeping through the gloom. He stood aside and said nothing.
Teacher Ai's face wasn't much better. After a moment, he calmed his anger and said, "The SE virus is the virus that once destroyed over a dozen base cities like 06... You examined the bodies on the train. Do you have any specific data on the virus?"
"I confirmed it's the same virus collected from W18." Xu Huo said. "As for whether it's the original sample you mentioned, I don't know. You've seen the bodies too—you can't judge by the naked eye."
"If the infection in the quarantine zone is from another living sample, the development speed in the video is almost identical to the original sample. There will be deaths within twenty-four hours, and the entire base city will be contaminated within forty-eight hours." Teacher Ai said. "Air, water, food, soil—everything in sight is a transmission medium."
Xu Huo had a general idea about the transmission medium, but he hadn't expected it to connect to the side mission in this way.
A forty-eight-hour countdown meant that before the virus completely engulfed the entire city, players had to take action. Although the side mission didn't explicitly state what to do, it was like the side mission he encountered in Clown City—requiring the player to make a subjective choice.
The dimension game still ostensibly adhered to universally recognized moral values, so he should make a positive choice. That also aligned better with the meaning of the countdown.
"Is there any way to stop the virus from spreading?" Xu Huo thought for a moment and then asked. "The SE virus didn't just disappear for no reason back then, did it?"
Teacher Ai looked at him with great surprise. "It did disappear on its own. Because killing people was never the main purpose of this virus's development. The initial infection symptoms gradually weaken with each batch and over time."
"The wider the spread, the more people are infected in sequence, the weaker the virus becomes. That's why some people eventually survived."
The outbreak in Base City 06 was unusual to begin with, so it wasn't strange that the virus was man-made rather than accidental. But not with the purpose of killing... Xu Huo thought of the children born to the infected.
"Is this a genetic virus?"
Teacher Ai and the square-faced man both showed expressions of grief. The former said, "Yes, the SE virus is a genetic virus, originating from Base City 01. The original intention of its development was merely to weaken the strength of other base cities... For such an absurd reason, so many people died. And the descendants of the infected, due to genetic damage, would no longer produce evolvers, cutting off the entire base station's future..."
Hearing the last sentence, Xu Huo first felt doubt. "Are you sure the SE virus can destroy evolution genes?"
This conflicted with his speculation about W37. Based on Gao Xiaoyan's performance and the base city's relaxed attitude toward instance players, it was hard to say the base city was completely unaware. Whatever their purpose, the upper echelons of the base city shouldn't be foolish enough to sacrifice future potential.
Moreover, he didn't believe the SE virus truly had the lethality to destroy evolution genes. Most of those infected back then had died, and the survivors were few. Their children would be even fewer, making it impossible to verify the conclusion that "no more evolvers would appear."
"I've seen the experimental data on the SE virus. The experiment did achieve that result." Teacher Ai, exhausted, leaned against a nearby shelf. After catching his breath, he continued, "If the virus spreads in W37, players won't be affected. But the ordinary people living in this city will die in a very short time, producing a large amount of virus. This virus will then contaminate other base cities through air currents and rivers, forming a new round of infection until the virus weakens."
Xu Huo narrowed his eyes. As an engineer, this man knew a bit too much.
(Chapter End)