Chapter 971: The Original Truth
"Impossible! Impossible!" Luo Changren searched the box over and over again, refusing to believe his own hands or his own eyes. Finally, he hugged the box with all his strength and turned it upside down, pouring its contents onto the ground, as if that could make the nonexistent things appear.
But after several shakes, the result remained unchanged. Slowly, he accepted the reality, then angrily threw the box away. "Who! Who took my potion!"
Xu Huo stepped on the rolling box, his expression indifferent. "Since the SE virus isn't hereditary, does a vaccine or potion really matter?"
Luo Changren seemed not to hear him, muttering a string of names under his breath, including Xiong Qing. He filtered through these names like he was screening them, then crawled toward Gao Zhen not far away. "Was it you! Was it you who stole my potion!"
Shangguan Xi, who had been traveling with them, looked at his state and whispered to Xu Huo, "Has he gone crazy? There's nothing in the box at all..."
"I'm not crazy!" Luo Changren turned back, his expression manic as he screamed at him. "I personally put the potion inside. How could it disappear? Someone must have stolen my potion... Was it you! Was it you!"
He pointed at Shangguan Xi first, then at Xu Huo.
Xu Huo looked at him coldly. "Is what you brought back really a vaccine?"
During the SE virus incident, the first to propose a gene-optimizing evolution agent was Luo Changren. He was also the one who went out to develop the potion and brought it back. In other words, from start to finish, he was the only one claiming the evolution agent could improve the gene pool of the W37 base station population. There was never a single official certification.
Although Base City 01 had announced results, given the SE virus incident, they had lost all credibility. The results other base cities announced after the incident, as Gao Zhen mentioned, were also impossible to verify. Instead, the outbreak of the virus in W37 indirectly confirmed one issue—the SE virus was not hereditary.
From this perspective, the fact that Luo Changren successfully brought back a gene evolution agent was itself suspicious.
Another suspicious point was the vaccine.
If Luo Changren had indeed gone through great trouble to bring back a vaccine, as he claimed, why didn't he hand it over to Gao Zhen immediately? Why did he have his companion hide the vaccine under the Bird Tower instead?
He might say he didn't trust Gao Zhen, but given that they didn't know how many more base cities would be infected, whether Gao Zhen used the vaccine to save people or not, the outcome would have been better than hiding it away. At least under those circumstances, Gao Zhen would have saved the people of W37 base station. But placing the vaccine under the Bird Tower saved no one.
As for the claim that the vaccine wasn't an antidote but merely a way to salvage potentially damaged genes in the next generation—that didn't hold up. The SE virus outbreak was accidental. Luo Changren couldn't be sure what effect the vaccine would have, so the sooner it was used, the better. If everyone died, where would the next generation come from?
Furthermore, the SE virus was a product of Base City 01. After the incident, how could Luo Changren assert with such certainty that the virus could damage genes? It was possible he was trying to save himself, but the fact that he went straight to Dr. Zhang and brought back a vaccine confirmed one thing: the gene-optimizing evolution agent had defects from the start, and he was well aware of it.
Given that W37 had already ruled out the SE virus's hereditary nature, what Luo Changren brought back was certainly not a virus vaccine but a potion specifically designed to treat the defects of the gene-optimizing evolution agent.
The fact that the gene-optimizing evolution agent had defects actually proved that the research results other base cities had published after the incident were close to the truth. This evolution agent required injection or oral administration, so the treatment potion would naturally be one-to-one as well.
Therefore, what Luo Changren retrieved was not a vaccine but a treatment potion for players.
"You were so certain about the effects of the gene evolution agent. It shouldn't be because you saw Dr. Zhang's experimental results. If I'm not mistaken, the first person to try the gene evolution agent was you." Xu Huo looked down at the gaunt man sitting beside Gao Zhen's corpse. "You knew best about the evolution agent's defects, yet you still brought it back to your hometown."
"Although Gao Zhen let you go back then, he must have come to his senses afterward. The SE virus isn't hereditary, and the gene evolution agent has major defects. So the vaccine you brought back definitely isn't real."
"That's why Gao Zhen arranged for people to keep an eye on Xiong Qing, to block him—the vaccine might not be real, but it wasn't necessarily completely harmless."
But whether he handed it over or not didn't really matter. She was going to reduce the population by at least half anyway. And when Luo Changren appeared in W37 empty-handed, it meant the items were in W37. As long as he couldn't escape, finding them was only a matter of time.
"Haha..." Luo Changren suddenly let out a low laugh. After a moment, he said, "Yeah, it really wasn't a vaccine. It was used to treat the aftereffects of evolution."
He touched his atrophied legs. "When Dr. Zhang gave me the evolution agent, he said that although it could greatly increase evolution rates in a short time, the aftereffects were more severe than ordinary evolution agents. The advantage was that these aftereffects could be delayed with medication."
"Anyway, every player eventually suffers aftereffects—either death or degeneration. Even a super player like Lawrence Li ended up in a wheelchair. If it allows you to become stronger in advance, what's such a cost?"
"Really? If it's as good as you say, then why did so many people die?" Shangguan Xi said sarcastically.
"That wasn't my fault." Luo Changren's expression turned cold. "Blame those greedy people from Base City 01 who secretly stole the mass-produced potion for their own research."
"Dr. Zhang said this potion might be hereditary, which is why I went to him for a solution after the incident. As for whether the SE virus is hereditary, I really don't know, because I only got two doses."
"Those two doses were for treating your aftereffects," Xu Huo said.
"Not entirely..." Luo Changren suddenly looked up at him, revealing a strange smile. "You never believed me from the start. Even after confronting Gao Zhen, you still didn't believe what I brought back was a real vaccine... Haha!"
"But let me tell you, besides the potion I needed, there was another one that Dr. Zhang specifically left behind—an antidote. I just don't know if it would be useful for the current dire situation in W37 base station!"
"Oh?" Xu Huo raised an eyebrow. "Why would Dr. Zhang leave behind an antidote?"
"Because potions and poisons are essentially no different. Improper use or arbitrary changes to the formula can produce unpredictable results." Luo Changren said as he crawled toward Xu Huo's feet. After some effort, he touched the box again and reached inside to search. "No one stole the potion. Xiong Qing and the others wouldn't. If Gao Zhen had gotten the potion, he wouldn't have asked me for it... It was you, wasn't it? You took my potion. Mental interference—what I saw wasn't real. The potion is still inside, isn't it?"
Xu Huo didn't speak. Luo Changren grabbed his pant leg. "Give me back the potion... I can tell you everything about Dr. Zhang!"
(Chapter End)