Two Birds with One Stone

"Smart." Tu Ran praised without hesitation.

Xie Xu fell silent on the other end.

Tu Ran dropped low, slipping beneath the legs of an aberration.

Shen Yunhe and Min Tao behind her were caught off guard by her move. They bristled at it, but there was no denying it was the best route, so they grudgingly followed.

"Are you planning to abandon the Songwu Experimental Base? I've noticed a lot of the equipment in these rooms has been moved out." Tu Ran casually pushed open a lab door. Inside, there was nothing but a giant bed and a few white metal cabinets.

She pushed open several more doors in succession—all of them looked the same.

Moving all the valuable instruments and equipment in such a short time was no small feat.

A thought struck Tu Ran.

"Did you plan to abandon the Songwu Base long ago?"

As if there were a delay on Xie Xu's end, two or three seconds passed before he said, "Yes."

Tu Ran frowned, puzzled. "Why?"

"The Songwu Base was infiltrated by other forces. Classified research projects leaked time and again, causing massive losses to the Federation. To salvage the situation, the base activated its emergency response plan: relocate the base, lay off researchers of other surnames, and obtain management approval. From now on, the Songwu Research Institute no longer falls under Federal Government administration—it belongs to the Xie Family as a private research institute."

"And the aberrations up there? You're just giving them up?" Tu Ran's eyes remained fixed on the aberrations around her as she dodged nimbly, not forgetting to press Xie Xu for answers.

"We want them, but we hadn't gotten around to moving them out before things went wrong here."

He said it lightly, and Tu Ran couldn't detect a hint of reluctance in his voice.

But she knew full well that all those aberrations up there—every kind imaginable—had been bought with money. To end up in this state, the losses were no less severe than having research data stolen by another family.

"I'm starting to think the people who shut off the anesthetic spray weren't targeting me—they were targeting you."

Their losses far outweighed hers.

"It's both." Xie Xu said, "They had their eyes on the experimental base, and they had their eyes on you. Sending you here let them kill you and destroy all the aberrations in the base, hurting the Xie Family. Two birds with one stone."

Tu Ran stepped over an aberration that had been knocked out by the poison. "So it was the Wells Family who sent them?"

"Yes. The reason we decided to implement this emergency response plan was that the Wells Family had stolen classified documents concerning research on human inner cores."

Tu Ran cursed, calling them a bunch of cunning bastards.

"Do you know that the Wells Family has been digging inner cores out of pioneers' bodies?"

"Yes." Xie Xu's voice was calm.

"Do you know they have a secret laboratory under the Medical Department?" Tu Ran pressed.

Xie Xu was taken aback on the other end—clearly, he hadn't known about that.

The Medical Department was under the Federal Government, and the Federal Government was controlled by the Xie Family. For the Wells Family to build a lab right under the Xie Family's noses, acting so brazenly—no one would have ever expected it.

"I'll handle the lab. You need to get out of there now." Xie Xu's voice grew urgent.

"What's wrong?" He rarely lost his composure like this.

"A bomb of enormous yield has been buried beneath the base. If it detonates, the entire base will be leveled." Xie Xu spoke quickly.

Tu Ran quickened her pace. "When does it go off?"

"Uncertain. Can't detect it."

Tu Ran wanted to curse. "Who buried it?"

"Not the Xie Family. The poisoned aberrations still have research value—if everything blows up, there'll be nothing left." Xie Xu was anxious she might get the wrong idea. "I've detected a squad of fifteen people approaching your position. They're likely the ones who buried the bomb. They haven't left yet, so the bomb won't detonate for now. You have plenty of time to retreat."

So she was safe for the moment.

"Send me their location." Tu Ran said.

"What are you planning? You should get out of here first."

"I know what I'm doing." Tu Ran was getting impatient.

She didn't feel like explaining. Right now, she just wanted to get to those people.

She'd make sure she had enough time before the explosion. She wasn't about to gamble with her life.

Xie Xu didn't try to persuade her further. He simply sent her their location. The visor displayed a route, guiding Tu Ran forward.

Min Tao and Shen Yunhe had no idea Tu Ran was no longer looking for an exit but hunting people down to vent her anger. They followed behind her without suspicion.

They were close to the target. Tu Ran stopped. Shen Yunhe and Min Tao also halted, waiting for her next instruction.

"There's a squad up ahead—most likely the ones who shut off the anesthetic spray and trapped us in here," she said through her helmet. "I'm not letting them off. This is our chance for revenge. Once they leave, we'll never get another opportunity. You can either leave, or you can come with me."

"Let's go together." The two spoke almost in unison.

Ever since being trapped in the base and provoked by Diao Hongzhi, they'd been holding in their frustration the whole way. Now that they finally had a chance to settle accounts with the culprits, how could they let it slip away?

Tu Ran had Xie Xu share the squad's location with Min Tao and Shen Yunhe. The three split up.

The aberrations were either dead, downed, or too dazed to pose any threat. The three focused all their attention on that fifteen-man squad.

Tu Ran circled to their front, Min Tao to the rear, and Shen Yunhe to the middle—a three-pronged pincer.

The squad leader was the first to notice something wrong. His visor showed three small red dots closing in on a cluster of small green dots—green representing his squad members, red representing other lifeforms.

He instinctively assumed they were aberrations and didn't think much of it.

Aberrations couldn't see anything in this environment, so they must just be wandering over by coincidence.

But soon, he realized something was off. The trajectories of the three red dots weren't random. They were organized, converging from three directions to surround his squad in the middle.

"Prepare for action!" He shouted immediately.

But it was already too late.

Tu Ran calmly pulled the trigger, firing a shot into his thigh.

He staggered and dropped to one knee.

His teammates behind him immediately lunged forward, shielding him. Unable to pinpoint the enemy's exact position, they could only fire blindly in the direction the shot had come from.

Shen Yunhe and Min Tao opened fire from behind them, and two more people crumpled to the ground.

Tu Ran also repositioned, firing three shots from the side and taking out three more.

She only planned to keep the leader alive—everyone else was to be silenced.

In an instant, five of the fifteen-man squad were dead and the leader was wounded. The survivors' nerves were strung taut, their hands gripping their guns trembling slightly as they swept their fire following the red dots on their visors.

"She's over there!" The squad leader, gritting his teeth in pain, didn't dare let his guard down. He kept his eyes fixed on the red dots on his visor, his gun trained on Tu Ran's current direction as he bellowed, his index finger pulling the trigger first.