"What are you thinking about?" Dr. Ji walked up behind Lu Feng. Lu Feng stood in front of the laboratory window, and before him were the brightly lit Garden of Eden and Twin Towers.
It was only after he got closer that he discovered the Colonel was not aimlessly unfocused. He was playing with a communicator, and the still-lit screen was on the contacts list. Dr. Ji glimpsed an unfamiliar name.
"Hubbard—who is this?" Dr. Ji stood next to him, eyebrows raised. "You have a friend I didn't know about?"
Lu Feng did not answer, and Dr. Ji did not pursue it any further. In front of this Colonel, it was normal for questions to not be answered.
As he said that, the little snow-white spore emerged from Lu Feng's shirt collar, seemed to carefully examine the doctor, and then swiftly dove back in to hide.
"It's so small," Dr. Ji said with a smile.
Lu Feng pulled it out, then put it in the palm of his hand. The spore, which had originally grown to be as big as a human's palm, was now only the size of a jujube pit. It desperately tried to hide itself in Lu Feng's hand, seemingly terrified of Dr. Ji.
"I won't chop you up today," Dr. Ji said. "You've become too small. Be good and eat more of the nutrient solution, and once you get a bit bigger I'll chop you up again."
Lu Feng shot a cold look at Dr. Ji.
Crossing his arms, Dr. Ji drawled, "It's not like you're the one getting chopped up. What're you being so pissy for?"
Over the recent days, the base had realized that there was no way of explaining the reason for the spore's inertia using existing biotechnology. They settled for the fallback option, or in other words, they could only go all in and have all the researchers focus on a different direction. Today, they had finally come up with a way to manufacture hyphae extract. After the extract was diluted, the base planned to sprinkle it on the surfaces of important equipment. They were going to use this method, hoping that the inert spore would produce inert extract and that the inert extract would create a protective layer or that it would simply infect the equipment with its inertia, either of which would make it so that there would be no more worries of the equipment getting infected. After all, ever since the distortion began, even glass and wood could infect each other. Since that was the case, the extract was also capable of infecting other substances.
They had even promptly sent twenty liters of the dilution to the Underground City Base by plane.
In this regard, the higher-ups of the Lighthouse had remarked self-mockingly that science had failed and that they'd begun planning to use incomprehensible witchcraft. However, they had no other option because all sciences seemed to have failed, and nobody knew what they should place their hopes in.
Dr. Ji reached out. "Let me play with it for a bit."
Naturally, he didn't obtain anything. Lu Feng didn't even spare him a glance.
But Dr. Ji still stared at the hint of the spore's white hyphae that were still showing. "Tomorrow we can manufacture another liter of extract. It's quite a lot now. The base demanded that we first ensure that the artificial magnetic pole's key apparatus is protected."
Lu Feng curled up his fingers, and not even a hint of the spore's hyphae showed anymore.
"Don't be like this," Dr. Ji said. "Although the relationship between you two is very good, it doesn't mean you need to go so far as to protect it like it were your own son. Colonel Lu, have you noticed that ever since you came back from the wilderness, you've become less devoid of emotion?"
Lu Feng still said not a word, so there was only Dr. Ji's endless chatter within the room. He would always become more talkative when he was nervous. Over the past month, the amount he had spoken shot straight up.
Three minutes later, Lu Feng asked, "When will you start using the extract?"
"The Lighthouse is still discussing it because we have no way of ruling out the possibility that all matter will begin to fuse together after the distortion begins. At that point, the most likely result would be that it has no effect, and the best result would be that it confers its inertia to us. In the worst-case scenario, it'll turn all of our equipment into completely useless mushrooms."
Lu Feng finally spoke, his cold voice sounding like it was frosted over. "If this possibility exists, why use it regardless?"
"Those of you at the Trial Court like to strangle all negative possibilities, but the situation is different now. You know that no matter what we do, the situation will not be worse than it is now. After one more meeting, the Lighthouse will be able to decide whether to use it or not."
"Exactly what is inertia?" Lu Feng asked.
"No infectivity."
The spore emerged from Lu Feng's hand, then climbed along the uniform fabric to just below the epaulet that was on the side farther away from the doctor.
Lu Feng turned slightly, and the subtle movement revealed the vestige of something on the windowsill.
It was a small bottle of liquid with a label pasted on it, and on the label was a handwritten "mixture-III." Next to the bottle was an empty syringe.
Dr. Ji's gaze turned apprehensive.
"That's the extract of a hybrid-class xenogenic. What are you planning to do with it?" he asked. "Don't mess around with the stuff in the laboratory, it's very dangerous."
As Lu Feng looked at him, he said something that really had no discernible connection to their current conversation topic. "When we were at the Underground City base, there was no magnetic field, and contactless infections and distortions were occurring."
For a moment, the doctor didn't follow his train of thought, so he only nodded.
"Many of the soldiers who entered the Underground City together with me to provide assistance were infected, but I wasn't," Lu Feng said.
Seeming to have understood what he wished to say, the doctor didn’t speak and just quietly looked at him.
"If the spore exhibits inertia, then An Zhe would also exhibit inertia," Lu Feng said.
Dr. Ji nodded.
"But he could change between mushroom and human form. Furthermore, when he was in human shape, his genetic examination was devoid of abnormalities," he said flatly. "Therefore, if I've already been infected by him and acquired inertia, there's no way for you to tell."
"Yes, I acknowledge that. We thought of that from the beginning as well," Dr. Ji said. "But what's the point? It's precisely because we're unable to detect this type of infection that we made the decision to spray the extract over a wide range. Only when the waters ebb will the rocks show themselves. We won't be able to know whether the extract can protect humankind until the day that complete distortion arrives."
"But there's also the risk of everything turning into fungi," Lu Feng said.
"So what?" The doctor looked at him. As though he had some sort of ominous premonition, his tone of voice became more aggressive.
"Infect me with monster extract. If I'm still human after the half-hour buffer period, it'll prove that An Zhe has already passed on his inertia to me and that there are no adverse reactions. The extract will be usable."
The doctor looked at him without the slightest trace of surprise in his expression, as though he had guessed long before that he would say such a thing. As he looked at Lu Feng, his gaze gradually turned cold and weighty. With a shake of his head, he asked, "Why is it you?"
"The amount of time I spent with him was very long, and I had stayed with him in the period of indiscriminate infection after the incident with the Underground City Base as well," Lu Feng said, his voice flat. "If he was capable of infecting others, then the one most likely to have been infected is me."
"It's me." Dr. Ji let out a grim laugh and looked straight at Lu Feng as he approached the other man and raised his voice. "After the incident with the Underground City, you only accompanied him for a little while before leaving. The one who was with him the entire time was me. We slept in the same room. He was as well behaved as a kitten, we were as close as a man and his shadow, and we've had a lot of intimate contact that you wouldn't want to know about—if you could be infected, then why couldn't I?"
"You still have much to do." Lu Feng was not at all provoked by his words. He said, "You can't take the risk."
"You clearly knew this was a risk, didn't you?" Exasperated, the doctor took a few breaths. In a loud voice, he asked Lu Feng, "I can't take the risk, which means you can? Is self-sacrifice something so commemoration-worthy to you?"
Lu Feng said nothing. Dr. Ji snatched the bottle, which had already been opened, from the windowsill. Then he savagely jammed the needle tip inside and pulled the plunger, swiftly filling the syringe barrel.