Chapter 967: Ten Minutes
"This won't work." Gao Xiaoyan immediately refused. "Luo Changren cannot leave with you."
"He's not of much use to you," Xu Huo said. Since it had already been confirmed that the survivors wouldn't suffer any aftereffects, the whereabouts of the vaccine weren't that important.
Gao Xiaoyan understood his meaning and said directly, "Unless he enters the game, the only way to leave W37 is death."
Whether Luo Changren had the vaccine, whether the vaccine he obtained was real, or whether it was effective—none of that mattered. If he left W37 alive, there was no guarantee that other base cities wouldn't use him as a pretext, just like the first SE virus outbreak.
"I can compromise. I won't take him away, but I need to ask him a few questions alone." Xu Huo paused. "Alone—no surveillance allowed."
"What are you planning?" Gao Xiaoyan regarded him with extreme distrust.
"As I said before, I hold the initiative." Xu Huo said. "The things I want to clarify have nothing to do with W37 Base Station. Whether you agree or not, I will see Luo Changren one more time. Unless you can be like Mayor Gao Zhen and sacrifice the small for the greater good."
Gao Zhen hadn't mentioned her term limit once during their conversation, which meant she wouldn't compromise for a single player. If she were still young and strong, Xu Huo might have had more trouble.
"You can take a gamble." Xu Huo added. "If you win, W37 Base City gains a friend."
"If you lose, W37's grand plans might collapse!" Gao Xiaoyan wasn't unaware of the relative importance between the base city and her sister's term, but watching her childhood brother go mad was something she couldn't accept either.
"You can bet big on the first round of your career." Xu Huo didn't give her time to think. He said directly, "You can come in now."
The communicator was immediately disconnected.
Almost at the same moment, Lou Jia led the Enforcement Team players into the office. They were players, and at a glance they could tell whether Gao Zhen was dead. Instantly, their eyes blazed with fury, seemingly about to spit blood. Yet they crowded at the entrance without making a move.
Because Xu Huo was standing behind Gao Zhen.
"Move aside!" Gao Xiaoyan shoved aside the Enforcement Team member standing in front of her and demanded furiously, "What are you trying to do?!"
Xu Huo smiled at the crowd, then wrapped Gao Zhen's body and crashed through the window!
"Mayor!" Dense shouts came from behind. Some immediately chased to the window, but when they looked down, they found Xu Huo hadn't descended toward the tree canopy pillars. Instead, he had broken through the third-floor window and re-entered the Government Hall.
In an instant, alarms blared everywhere, including instruments that detected mental power intensity. When they heard the unique warning tone indicating the intensity had exceeded the machine's upper limit of two hundred thousand, the faces of both those pursuing and those responsible for sealing off the Government Hall turned grim.
Every member of the Enforcement Team had to take cultural courses, which included classifications of different super evolution powers and their threat levels. If a Mental Super Evolver's mental power value exceeded two hundred thousand, that meant they could wipe out players of the same level and even counter-kill players one level higher!
"All C-rank and below, withdraw from the Government Hall!" Gao Xiaoyan immediately issued the order and said to the ponytailed man beside her, "Call back one-third of the B-ranks that were sent out."
W37 Base City didn't have a small number of B-rank players, but they weren't all concentrated in the Government Hall. Apart from dealing with some troublesome outer zone players in the city, they also had to allocate manpower to guard against other base cities, so temporary assembly was necessary.
But honestly, even if they all came back, how many would there be?
The moment Xu Huo brought Gao Zhen's body out, he used his spiritual realm to cover his range of activity and restrained the Enforcement Team members guarding Shangguan Xi.
At that moment, Shangguan Xi and the others only knew that the alarm had suddenly gone off. Before they could investigate what had happened, they saw Xu Huo open the door and walk in, carrying a dead person on his shoulder.
This time, even Shangguan Xi couldn't force a smile. His face twitched as he said, "Brother, let's make a deal. Next time you want to do something big, could you give us a heads-up first? One wave after another—my soles have worn thin from all this running."
The most affected, Zhu Feiyun, had already given up. "As long as we can clear the instance, anything goes. Tell us, what do you need us to do?"
"Distract the Enforcement Team." Xu Huo pointed at his watch. "Head toward the Bird Tower in ten minutes, circle around a few times, then scatter. I'll take over afterward. When it's done, I'll send you the specific location, and we'll clear the instance together."
The last half-sentence lifted everyone's spirits. Kuang Wenjun asked, "Is the Bird Tower important?"
She had already learned from Pan Qiao that Xu Huo had entered the Bird Tower.
"Consider it the final stage." Xu Huo nodded. "Don't make it too obvious."
The group indicated they understood the stakes. They exchanged glances and then dispersed on the spot.
Zhu Feiyun took the lead, destroying the still-forming barrier outside the Government Hall building. He threw on a clown costume and flew out. Kuang Wenjun and Pan Qiao followed closely, using space teleportation items to leave the tree canopy pillar directly. Shangguan Xi was last, tossing out a surfboard and leaping down from the Government Building.
Xu Huo went to where Luo Changren was resting.
Several of the players guarding him had left due to the alarm, leaving only three. It wasn't difficult to deceive their eyes. Xu Huo walked to the bedside without any concealment and said to the person lying there, "Stop pretending."
Luo Changren, who had been breathing weakly moments before, immediately opened his eyes. He even had the strength to sit up, a hint of gratitude in his gaze.
Xu Huo knew that the words Luo Changren had spoken before his "faint" were meant for him, intended to make him spread the vaccine. Luo Changren had remained "unconscious," so Gao Zhen naturally couldn't obtain the vaccine either, buying him some time.
Luo Changren had thought Xu Huo would leave immediately, but seeing him instead sit leisurely by the bed, his joy faded. "Gao Zhen is dead, isn't she."
Xu Huo nodded. "She said quite a bit before she died, but she mentioned very little about Dr. Zhang, who gave you the gene optimization evolution agent."
Luo Changren was slightly startled. "You know Dr. Zhang?"
Xu Huo didn't deny it, waiting for him to continue.
But Luo Changren seemed to realize something else. He made a condition. "I have to see the vaccine being spread with my own eyes before I can tell you."
"It's hard for me to take you away alone." Xu Huo said. "When you left the Bird Tower, you already hinted that the vaccine was inside. And you and Xiong Qing went there empty-handed. I can handle the vaccine matter."
"The vaccine is in the Bird Tower, but without me, you'll never find it!" Luo Changren said with certainty.
"Do you really think the vaccine works?" Xu Huo didn't believe that after all these years, Luo Changren hadn't noticed anything.
Luo Changren's expression gradually darkened. "What are you trying to say?"
"W37 Base confirmed two years ago that the SE virus is not hereditary. Furthermore, what you brought back isn't a real evolution agent, but a gene-destroying agent that can be injected or ingested to cause genetic mutations that directly affect the next generation's evolution." Xu Huo laid out the facts. "If the gene evolution agent was fake, then what is the vaccine he gave you?"
(Chapter End)