Suspicions

Beside the image was a series of AI-generated data analyses, including the time of death and primary fatal factors.

Tu Ran's gaze lingered on the time of death for an extra two seconds.

The mastiff's death indirectly corroborated her earlier suspicion.

"Ran Jie, our mission should be complete now, right? Can we report back to Team Leader Li Wenchuan?" Ding Naiqing asked Tu Ran cheerfully.

Their team had found the alien so quickly—it was incredible.

He could brag about this to plenty of people.

Tu Ran stared at the half-human, half-snake corpse on the ground, looking thoughtful. "Don't report yet. Something feels off."

"What's off?" Ding Naiqing asked, puzzled.

The guards exchanged confused glances. Hadn't they already caught the alien? What else could be wrong?

At that moment, Li Wu, who had been standing at the back of the group, spoke up. "This alien made it through the Executive Department's interrogation this morning."

Tu Ran nodded in agreement. "Guard Li is right. There are three possibilities for how Naya Rivera passed the Executive Department's screening. First, she was possessed after the interrogation. But based on the data Guard Wang just showed us, the mastiff's time of death was before the Executive Department arrived this morning."

"Second, the Executive Department's main method for this interrogation was having two people who knew each other ask questions back and forth, with the other answering. Since Naya Rivera passed, the person who questioned her—and was questioned by her—is highly suspicious. There's a strong chance that person has also been possessed by an alien."

As soon as she said this, the guards erupted in agitation.

"Aren't there only seventeen aliens? Could there be more than one here on the farm alone?" the guard surnamed Wang asked.

Tu Ran couldn't answer his question at the moment. Given her limited experience in this world and her equally limited brain capacity, she had no idea what the current situation was either.

But she always remembered the words Xi Chunzhi had left her: alien infection.

If aliens were infectious, and one alien could infect many people, then the current situation would make sense.

"This is just my speculation for now. As for whether there's a second alien, we'll need to meet the person who helped Naya Rivera later."

"So what's the third possibility?" one of the guards asked eagerly.

"The last one is that this parasitic alien has the ability to obtain human memories, which is why it could answer the questions," Tu Ran said.

"That... can't be, right?" Ding Naiqing muttered in doubt. "Of all the parasitic aliens the Pioneer Team has encountered so far, not a single one could obtain human memories."

"Just because we haven't encountered one doesn't mean they don't exist. We'd never encountered an alien from the reptilian order either, but now we have," Tu Ran said grimly. "Our understanding of the Threshold is less than one or two tenths of what's out there. Anything is possible."

Ding Naiqing's brow remained furrowed. Tu Ran knew what he was worried about—if an alien capable of inheriting human memories appeared, the Federal Government's entire system for identifying aliens would collapse, and humanity would lose yet another advantage against them.

But for Tu Ran, that was secondary. The terrifying thought was the second possibility.

"Naiqing, explain the situation here to the other members in the group chat first, and ask if they've found anything suspicious on their end."