356: Chapter 356 triggers a new quest.

The door hadn't been closed for long before it was pushed open again.

Lu Jianchuan and Shen Mingyuan walked in one after another. Lu Jianchuan was carrying a black storage bag, while Shen Mingyuan was empty-handed. After entering, Shen Mingyuan scanned the room, his gaze lingering on the pile of cat food for two seconds before landing on the hospital bed.

"How is it? Not better yet?" Shen Mingyuan asked.

Wei Ziqing leaned against the headboard and sighed.

"How could it be that fast?" He lifted his left arm, the bandages still snowy white and tight. "Even though transforming again can refresh my status, I'm currently in the middle of an upgrade. I can't transform, so I have to just lie here."

Shen Mingyuan nodded. "Alright, alright."

Lu Jianchuan walked to the bedside, placed the storage bag on the nightstand, and patted it.

"Get well soon," he said. "The two of us are going out for a walk. This is for you."

Wei Ziqing looked down, and his eyes lit up.

"Oh, it's—" He reached out and pulled the bag over, unzipping it for a peek. A smile immediately appeared on his face. "Great, it's the game console I bought before. Thanks, Brother Lu, for bringing it over."

"You're welcome," Lu Jianchuan said. "We're heading out then. You just stay in bed."

As the two turned to head for the door, it was pushed open once again.

This time, it was Golden Bone who entered.

He was wearing his usual dark gray jacket with his hands in his pockets. After entering, he first nodded to Wei Ziqing, then looked at Lu Jianchuan and Shen Mingyuan.

"You two might not be able to go for that walk."

Shen Mingyuan paused and turned to look at him.

"What's the favor?" His tone carried a "just as I thought" kind of resignation. "Why is there more work to do? Has it been this busy lately?"

Lu Jianchuan also turned around. He didn't speak, but his gaze held the same questioning look.

Golden Bone walked over and patted both of their shoulders—one for each, with a moderate force that felt somewhat reassuring.

"Well, it can't be helped," he said. "It's something related to the Universe above."

Golden Bone led the two out of the Medical Department, through two corridors, and out the east side door, straight into a black off-road vehicle waiting at the entrance.

The driver was a young face they hadn't seen before. Seeing the three get in, he asked nothing and stepped directly on the gas. The car drove out of the headquarters base, merged into the city traffic, and headed north.

Shen Mingyuan sat in the back seat, watching the street scenery flash by outside the window. After waiting a while and seeing that Golden Bone had no intention of speaking, he took the initiative to ask, "Can you tell us now? What does the business with the Universe have to do with us?"

Golden Bone, sitting in the passenger seat, turned his head back.

"There's a space station," he said. "As you should know, our country has people stationed in the sky year-round. Among the group that went up this time, there's a special situation—someone was pulled in through connections, and he even brought his girlfriend along."

Lu Jianchuan's brow twitched.

Golden Bone continued, "There are some things stored in that space station. Part of it consists of virus samples not found on Earth, recovered from outer space. The other part is an unknown life form discovered recently, similar to an insect, which is in a state of hibernation and has been kept at low temperatures."

Hearing this, Shen Mingyuan's expression had already changed.

"The one who got in through connections," Golden Bone paused, "ignored the warnings of the handover personnel and operated against regulations. The specific details are still being investigated, but the result is—the virus samples and that unknown life form have both escaped from the isolation zone."

The car was silent for two seconds.

Lu Jianchuan spoke up, "What's the situation now?"

"There's still someone conscious on the space station who sent back a garbled communication. After that, we monitored a craft detaching from the space station and descending toward the ground," Golden Bone said. "Normally, it should be someone coming down in an escape pod. But the trajectory of that craft is a bit strange; it doesn't look like a normal manned craft's landing."

He looked at the two of them.

"We're worried that what's inside isn't a person. It's the virus, or that thing that escaped."

Shen Mingyuan took a deep breath.

"So you need us to... meet the flight?"

"We need you to put on hazmat suits and go to the site to confirm," Golden Bone said. "If there's a person inside, save them. If it's something else, contain it or destroy it. GUPA's technical team is already on the way; they'll bring all the disinfection equipment and isolation gear. But in case something really does get out, you two are the last line of defense."

He paused.

"Your combat power is getting stronger and stronger; you're fully capable of handling this. So, please."

Lu Jianchuan and Shen Mingyuan exchanged a look.

"No problem," Lu Jianchuan said.

Shen Mingyuan also nodded, then suddenly remembered something and looked at Golden Bone. "What about you?"

"I'm going too," Golden Bone said. "The reason I called you two is that I have to go as well. We'll go together."

The car continued driving north. Half an hour later, the three of them transferred to a VTOL transport aircraft, the roar of the propellers filling the entire cabin. Through the porthole, the city on the ground gradually shrank, replaced by continuous mountain ranges, followed by more desolate, brownish-yellow land.

The plane kept flying west.

About two hours later, the pilot's voice came through the communication channel: "Approaching the estimated landing zone. Ground control is in place."

Shen Mingyuan leaned toward the porthole and looked down.

Below was a vast desert, with yellow sand stretching to the horizon, no vegetation or water source in sight. The direct sunlight cut the shadows of the dunes into sharp geometric shapes.

At the edge of their vision, a few black dots could be vaguely seen—those were the GUPA ground personnel who had arrived early and set up temporary monitoring stations and isolation tents.

The plane began to descend.

Shen Mingyuan's gaze remained fixed on the sky. Suddenly, he raised his hand and pointed at a moving point of light in the distance.

"Over there."

Lu Jianchuan looked in the direction of his finger. In the sky, a slender black shadow was emerging from the clouds, trailing an unstable trajectory as it glided toward the heart of the desert. Its speed was fast, but as its altitude dropped, it gradually became clearer—it was a small craft, shaped like an enlarged reentry capsule, but with scorch marks from high temperatures on its surface and several obvious damaged spots along the edges.

Golden Bone walked to the porthole and took a look.

"That's it, alright."

The plane began to adjust its course, flying toward the craft's estimated landing point. In the desert below, those black dots had already started moving, the dust kicked up by the vehicles forming a long trail of smoke in the sunlight.

The urgent voice of ground personnel came through the comms channel:

"All units attention, the target is about to enter visual range. Special bullets loaded, disinfection equipment preheated, be ready to lock down at any time. Move, move, move—"

The craft finally plunged into a depression between the dunes, kicking up a massive cloud of yellow sand.

Once the dust settled, the oval reentry capsule was wedged at an angle in the sand, its surface scorched into charred black patches by atmospheric friction, with several obvious tears along the edges as if they had been violently ripped from something. The hatch was half-buried in the sand, with only the upper half visible.

GUPA's ground personnel had already fanned out, their black hazmat suits particularly striking against the yellow sand. Twenty or so muzzles were pointed at the capsule from various angles. The bullets weren't ordinary metal rounds—inside the transparent magazines, one could vaguely see a flowing light-blue liquid, a special inhibitor specifically designed for evolved creatures.

Lu Jianchuan and Shen Mingyuan stood at the rear of the fan-shaped perimeter, about fifty meters away from the capsule.

Beside Lu Jianchuan stood a black off-road motorcycle with wide tires suitable for desert terrain, which had just been unloaded from the transport plane. He wasn't wearing a hazmat suit, only goggles to protect against the sand, and his gaze was fixed on the damaged reentry capsule.

Shen Mingyuan also wasn't wearing a hazmat suit, but there was an unusual presence beside him.

A three-meter-long insulated box lay on the ground, its lid open. A large Azure Snake slowly slithered out of the box, its scales shimmering with a jade-like luster in the sunlight. It raised its head, its amber vertical pupils scanning the distant capsule, then the figures in black hazmat suits, before finally landing on Shen Mingyuan's face.

Shen Mingyuan crouched down to meet its gaze.

"I know you don't like these kinds of situations," he said, his tone like he was negotiating with an acquaintance. "But this is a special case. We don't know what will come out of there. If something tries to run, I need you to help me stop it."

The Azure Snake's vertical pupils showed no emotion, just staring at him.

"Just this once," Shen Mingyuan said. "After this, tell me whatever you want. As long as I can get it, I will."

The Azure Snake remained silent for a few seconds—or rather, snakes are always silent. But it moved. It slowly turned its head, gave the nearby Lu Jianchuan a look that Shen Mingyuan couldn't decipher, then turned back and gave a slight nod.

The movement was extremely slight; if one hadn't been staring, it would have been almost unnoticeable.

Shen Mingyuan breathed a sigh of relief and stood up.

"Deal."

Golden Bone had walked over to them at some point. He looked at the Azure Snake, which had slithered back into the insulated box with only its head poking out, then at Lu Jianchuan's motorcycle, and finally at the two of them.

"I'm just wondering one thing," he said. "Why aren't you two transforming?"

Lu Jianchuan shook his head.

"If we can avoid transforming, we should," he said. "The consumption is too high, and aren't we in an upgrade period? Our status isn't that stable. We can transform at any time if really needed, but there's no need to show our trump cards right from the start."

Golden Bone looked at him for two seconds and nodded.

"Fine, use your own judgment."

He turned and walked forward, giving orders over the comms as he went: "All units attention, prepare to open the hatch. Hazmat team advance, assault team provide cover. Once confirmed as a living person, move them out immediately. If anything abnormal is found, fire at will."

On the sand ahead, four figures in fully sealed hazmat suits had already approached the reentry capsule. Two held transparent shields, and two held breaching tools, their movements slow and cautious.

One of the shield-bearers approached the hatch and signaled—the door was jammed and needed to be pried open.

The breachers stepped forward, their tools pressing against the door seam, the hydraulic device emitting a faint hiss.

With a muffled "thud," the hatch was pried open a crack, then it flipped outward entirely, slamming onto the sand.

Every muzzle instantly pointed inside the capsule.

It was very dark inside, hard to see. A cloud of white smoke billowed out—a mixture of cooling gas and sand dust.

After waiting for about ten seconds, a figure in a damaged spacesuit crawled out of the capsule.

His movements were sluggish, as if he had exhausted all his strength. There was a large bloodstain on the spacesuit's visor, obscuring his face. He crawled out of the hatch and lay prone on the sand, motionless.

"It's a living person!" the hazmat team member in front shouted. "Heartbeat detection normal, body temperature normal, no virus leakage detected!"

Another voice followed immediately: "Performing surface parasite scan... Scan complete, no unknown life forms attached!"

Golden Bone ordered over the comms: "Get him out, full-body check, strip him layer by layer. Prevent internal parasites or latent infections."

The four hazmat personnel stepped forward, carefully lifting the person from the sand and placing him into a stretcher-type transparent isolation bag, then zipping it up. The isolation bag was lifted into a specially modified transport vehicle. The doors were shut tight, and the disinfection spray inside the cabin immediately activated, white mist visible through the observation window.

In the distance, Lu Jianchuan and Shen Mingyuan watched all this and breathed a sigh of relief at the same time.

"The person is alive," Shen Mingyuan said. "At least what came down was a human."

Lu Jianchuan nodded but didn't speak.

Over at the transport vehicle, someone removed the person's visor. A pale, blood-stained face was revealed—it wasn't Chen Yuan, but an old acquaintance who had winked at Chen Yuan during the docking, Zhang Xiaodong.