I Am a Salted Fish in the Interstellar Era - Chapter 35

“Disappeared?” Feng Xiao looked at the virtual screen displaying the location of Shi Yu’s brain-computer interface, almost fainting.

They had been chasing all night, running back and forth without catching up, and now the location of the brain-computer interface had vanished!

Luo Xiaci was tracking the location through a terminal number. The disappearance of the brain-computer interface’s location could mean two things: either the brain-computer interface was destroyed, or the signal was being blocked.

Either situation did not bode well.

Gu Qianqian rubbed his hands together and said, “Let’s go directly to the headquarters of Sea Blue Star Express, isn’t that where her location was blocked?”

Lu Dongyan silently nodded, feeling an inexplicable sense of foreboding.

–

Shi Yu suppressed the urge to vomit rising from her stomach and pulled at Xie Yuyan, who was about to walk further in, “Are you crazy? How can you just walk into this place recklessly?”

In this vast space, there were tall glass jars displayed one after another, with monster-like beings floating inside them. They were humanoid, but some had tentacles, some were covered in scales, and others were entirely furry, their appearances indiscernible.

Countless conduits covered the floor, each connected to the large glass jars.

Xie Yuyan turned around under Shi Yu’s pulling, and only then did she notice how terribly pale he looked, a horror beyond words. Shi Yu even doubted if he would pull out “Judgment” and destroy this place on the spot.

Xie Yuyan shook off Shi Yu’s hand and hurried inside. His body was already damaged from controlling “Judgment” twice, and with the floor covered in messy conduits, he stumbled and nearly fell.

Seeing his reckless demeanor, Shi Yu quickly followed and steadied him, scolding, “What’s gotten into you? Even if you’re scared, there’s no need to lose your composure like this, you—”

Right, even fear shouldn’t cause such a loss of composure.

Especially since the man in front of her was none other than Xie Yuyan, the seasoned commander of the Judgment Corps, who had seen countless horrors and remained unflappable on the battlefield. His current state was truly unreasonable.

Shi Yu helped him to stand properly, and suddenly he asked in a low voice, “Do you know what these are?”

Hearing the repression in his voice, Shi Yu moved her lips but before she could reply, she heard him continue, “There’s a universal convention in the universe that prohibits any country or organization from conducting genetic modification experiments.”

And yet, the monsters before them had human features but were clearly not human.

Xie Yuyan closed his eyes, avoided Shi Yu, and then took out a long tube light, breaking it and throwing it inside, illuminating the control console.

Staggering and avoiding the dense conduits on the floor, Xie Yuyan made his way to the console.

Shi Yu, with pursed lips, followed and saw him manipulating the intelligence to stick the virtual tentacle to the console.

Soon, numerous virtual screens popped up from the console, each displaying a monster’s image and research data below.

Shi Yu heard a cold snort.

“I’ve been researching for three years now, and I’m about to go insane. Why does it keep failing? The gene chain extracted from K-II can’t be fused with human genes at all, and various mutations occur. All subjects grow under the effect of the drugs but don’t exhibit vital signs.”

“This is irrational. My research is theoretically sound. Where did I go wrong? K-II is also starting to weaken. What should I do?”

Xie Yuyan read the two paragraphs emotionlessly, ending with a cold laugh.

Just then, footsteps sounded from outside. Shi Yu immediately picked up the two tube lights from the ground and dragged Xie Yuyan to hide in a corner.

“Why is this door open?” Shi Yu heard someone ask in a low voice.

“Don’t worry about that. We need to move K-II immediately. That thing is out of control; even the Black Armored ones can’t stop it. If we don’t leave now, it’ll be too late!” a woman’s voice responded.

Shi Yu looked down at Xie Yuyan. In the darkness, she couldn’t see his face clearly but could feel him lowering his gaze, lost in thought.

Shi Yu reached out to poke him, and when he looked up, she touched the ruby earring on his right ear, hinting at him to check who it was.

Xie Yuyan shook his head, placing his index finger to his lips, signaling Shi Yu to be silent. They then heard two people hurriedly entering and heading to the console.

The console was activated, and the light from the virtual screen illuminated the faces of the two newcomers. Shi Yu could now see that the man operating the console was in his thirties, wearing glasses and a white lab coat. The woman beside him held an energy gun, vigilantly scanning their surroundings.

Soon, Shi Yu felt the wall behind them trembling, and at that moment, the two people at the console looked their way.

With quick reflexes, Shi Yu pulled Xie Yuyan behind a large glass container, just as the wall behind them opened, revealing another huge glass container.

Cold air spread out with a hissing sound, and the lights above the glass container turned on.

Shi Yu almost cried out when she saw the person inside the container.

A young boy was suspended in an unknown liquid, naked, with long silver hair floating around, covering his critical areas. He was looking down, making it impossible for Shi Yu to see his face from her angle.

Shi Yu instinctively glanced at the Little Beauty with silver hair beside her, the faint fragrance wafting again. She couldn’t tell if the scent was coming from the Little Beauty or somewhere else in the room.

At that moment, the woman at the console shouted, “Who’s there?”

Without hesitation, she pulled the trigger, firing energy bullets towards them. Shi Yu quickly pulled the Little Beauty aside and returned fire. Her movements were swift, and her marksmanship extremely accurate. The woman’s energy gun was knocked out of her hand by a shot, and her wrist was grazed by an energy bullet, bleeding soon after.

Cursing under her breath, the woman’s body was covered by a black adaptive exoskeleton, enhancing her strength and speed significantly as she charged at Shi Yu, shouting, “Get K-II out of here!”

“Be careful,” Shi Yu whispered, then dashed out from behind the glass container. Holding her energy gun, she fired continuously at the woman, who, now equipped with the adaptive exoskeleton, was much stronger and faster than before, easily blocking the energy bullets aimed at her.

Shi Yu narrowed her eyes, and suddenly, two dark gold curved knives appeared in her hands. As the woman swung her fist at Shi Yu, she thrust the newly appeared curved knives forward. The woman reacted in time, twisting her wrist to avoid getting stabbed by the knives.

How could Shi Yu give her a chance to escape? The woman’s speed was fast, but Shi Yu’s was faster. With a deft twist of her fingers, the direction of the curved blade she was holding downwards suddenly changed, tearing through the woman’s wrist and splattering vivid blood.

The woman, in pain, withdrew her hand, and Shi Yu immediately kicked her in the abdomen. The woman flew backward as Shi Yu, without holding back, threw the curved blade. With a scream from the woman, her hands were pinned to the wall by the blade, with blood flowing profusely.

From the start of their confrontation to now, only a dozen seconds had passed. The man in a white lab coat, seeing this scene, staggered a step, and then an energy gun was pointed at his temple.

Xie Yuyan’s icy voice sounded by his ear: “Who do you work for, and who ordered you to conduct experiments here?”

The man trembled, catching a glimpse of silver hair from the corner of his eye, which made him shake even more. He immediately grasped the brain-computer interface on his wrist.

Xie Yuyan pressed the cold muzzle against the man’s temple: “Talk if you don’t want to die, or I’ll make your life worse than death.”

The man clenched his teeth, his cheeks trembling: “I… I… I’m just responsible for participating in the experiments, I don’t know who the backers are.”

Xie Yuyan lowered the energy gun, and with a bang, an energy bullet grazed past the man’s ear. The sound of the gunshot caused the man to close his eyes in pain, his ears ringing as if stuffed with a constant alarm, contorting his face in agony.

The hot muzzle of the energy gun was pressed against his temple again, but this time Xie Yuyan remained silent. However, the man understood his meaning and said through clenched teeth: “I really don’t know. The previous person in charge died during the insect race invasion. I was his assistant. After his death, I took over his research following the orders from above. I really don’t know anything—”

Another shot rang out before the man could finish speaking, and he collapsed to the ground with wide eyes.

Xie Yuyan immediately crouched down to connect his brain-computer interface with the man’s, only to find that the information within was being destroyed at a visible rate.

Seeing that nothing useful was obtained from the man, Shi Yu squatted beside the woman, waving her hand in front of her: “Not dead yet, right? Tell me who you are, and I might spare your life, how about that?”

The woman glared at her viciously, her body severely injured and unable to maintain the exoskeleton camouflage.

After glaring at Shi Yu, she suddenly laughed. Shi Yu, sensing something was wrong, quickly retreated as the collar around the woman’s neck exploded without warning, splitting her body and head in two, crashing to the ground with blood spattering around.

Shi Yu frowned and quickly approached Xie Yuyan, whispering, “How did it go?”

“The data was destroyed too quickly; only a bit was intercepted,” Xie Yuyan said, touching the virtual screen with his fingers before pushing it towards Shi Yu.

He walked over to a glass container holding a silver-haired young man, looking up from below.

Shi Yu read the words on the virtual screen.

“K-II, genetic level SSS+, gene linkage nearly perfect, suspected insect race royal evolution…”

Shi Yu’s eyes widened as she looked at the humanoid monsters in the neighboring glass containers and then back at the silver-haired youth in the glass container in front of Xie Yuyan.

With a series of questions in her mind, just as she was about to ask the Little Beauty what to do next, the silver-haired youth in the glass container suddenly moved, lifting his head and opening his eyes.