163: Deep into the secret base

Under the gaze of Huang Mao behind him, Su Yue was already wearing a protective suit.

Disguised as the man from earlier, he slowly walked towards the iron door of the secret base.

Stepping into the dark, deep tunnel, he walked down a distance.

That heavy iron door appeared before Su Yue, with a narrow gap visible in the middle of the door.

Pale white light shone through the gap in the door, reflecting on Su Yue's protective suit.

Su Yue took a deep breath, already prepared.

Immediately, he reached out with both hands towards the heavy iron door and slowly pushed it open.

"Creak—" accompanied by the sound of the iron door rubbing against the concrete floor.

The white light emanating from the gap in the iron door also became more dazzling.

Su Yue watched as his whole body was enveloped by the white light coming from inside, and indistinct human voices reached his ears.

After the white light was dazzling, Su Yue gradually adapted to the light.

His eyes narrowed, and he looked carefully inside.

He saw that the scene behind this iron door was completely different from the outside, like two distinct worlds.

Unlike the overgrown weeds outside and the seemingly dilapidated, uncared-for concrete ground,

behind this iron door was a expanse of white.

The pure white walls reflected blazing white light under the illumination of the lamps.

And Su Yue's action of opening the iron door just now also attracted the attention of the personnel inside the base.

"Xiao Hu, what were you doing? So slow."

"Hurry up, come back and play cards." As several voices came from inside the base.

Su Yue followed the sound and saw a long table set up inside the base.

It looked like a long table used in a laboratory, but there were no items related to medicine or technology on it.

Only a stack of loosely piled playing cards, and chairs placed around the long table.

There were three people wearing protective suits, sitting at three different positions around the long table.

Each held a hand of cards, which they had already sorted, and were eagerly waiting, guarding the only empty seat.

Su Yue looked at the scene before him and immediately understood the current situation.

The empty seat at the long table was reserved for 'himself', which was Xiao Hu who had just gone out to relieve himself.

And the playing cards on the table had also been dealt.

Seeing this, Su Yue didn't say anything else, and casually responded in Xiao Hu's voice.

"Oh, coming." Then he turned around and closed the iron door, glancing towards the darkness outside during the process.

Although Huang Mao was well hidden in the darkness outside, Su Yue could still feel a gaze of both admiration and worry.

Su Yue did not close the door completely, and seeing that the people inside the base were not paying attention to him, he left a gap.

Then he quickly walked to the long table and sat down in the empty seat.

At the same time, Su Yue recalled the words spoken by the man he had stunned with electricity, Xiao Hu, when he went out.

So, as he reached out to pick up the cards, he asked with a hint of teasing:

"I wasn't here just now, you guys didn't peek at my cards, did you?"

As soon as these words were spoken, the atmosphere at the card table indeed became lively.

"Hey, Xiao Hu, you're overthinking it!"

"You know our card playing character, we would never do something like that."

The three of them almost simultaneously chuckled and responded awkwardly:

"Exactly, we win or lose purely based on luck."

"Besides, if your cards were good, it wouldn't matter even if we peeked."

Following the three people's words, Su Yue picked up his hand of cards with a skeptical expression on the surface.

However, upon closer observation, he noticed that the three people exchanged glances, with a hint of malicious intent in their eyes.

As if their little trick had succeeded.

Su Yue remained expressionless and began to examine the playing cards in his hand.

However, after observing for a while, Su Yue found that the cards in his hand were ridiculously bad.

There were hardly any good cards; the largest card was actually a Jack of Clubs.

Even with bad luck, it shouldn't be this bad.

Coupled with their exchanged glances just now, Su Yue had a faint guess in his heart.

Most likely, they took advantage of 'his' absence just now, not only peeking at his cards,

but also swapping out his good cards.

Seeing this, Su Yue didn't expose them, but just feigned distress:

"Oh dear, this luck is too bad."

And with his words, the three people in front of him seemed to be suppressing laughter.

At the same time, Su Yue noticed while sorting his cards.

They were all wearing protective suits now, and their hands were naturally covered within them.

And the unique material of the protective suits made it particularly slippery when holding playing cards; they could only barely grip them.

What attracted Su Yue's attention even more was that.

None of these people in the base were willing to take off their protective suits.

What was the reason for this?

Why were they still wearing these protective suits in this base?

Wouldn't it be more convenient to take them off and play cards?

Thinking of this, Su Yue couldn't help but feel suspicious.

They were willing to play cards so awkwardly rather than take off their protective suits.

Could it be that there was still a source of black scale disease infection within this base?

"..." Just as Su Yue was thinking.

The man sitting to Su Yue's right suddenly knocked on the table.

Then he reminded him with a serious expression:

"Hey, we agreed beforehand, these cards aren't just for fun."

Immediately, the man glanced at the several boxes of ointment piled up next to them.

"Later, whoever loses the most will have to go deliver the medicine to them."

As the man's words fell, Su Yue keenly noticed the key point.

"Deliver medicine?" Su Yue thought to himself.

"Could it be that there are still black scale disease patients hidden in this base?"

And just then, several loud noises suddenly rang out from behind Su Yue.

"Bang! Bang!" It was the sound of kicking an iron door, coming from deeper within the base.

Su Yue's position at this moment was facing the main door leading into the base.

But such heavy thudding sounds came from behind him, as if from an even deeper, more secluded area.

Su Yue was startled in his heart, but did not deliberately turn around to check.

"The person who loses the most has to go deliver medicine? This is an opportunity I can try to get."

"I can also see what the situation is like in this strange base."

At this time, the other two employees also laughed and chimed in:

"Oh, we know, we won't go back on our word, right Xiao Hu?"

Hearing this, Su Yue chuckled awkwardly, feigning difficulty.

This scene made the people around him reveal a smirk of successful trickery again.

But how could they know that this act of swapping cards actually made things easier for Su Yue?

He didn't even need to deliberately lose; after all, with this terrible hand, there was no chance of winning.

Soon, the card game began, and Su Yue just watched as they each started their performance.

"Straight... consecutive pairs."

"Bomb! Straight... I only have one card left."

After two rounds, Su Yue had barely had a chance to react, and the three people's hands were already nearly empty.

And Su Yue, holding his terrible cards, chuckled inwardly.

On his face, he still had to cooperate by showing expressions of surprise at times, and distress at others.

"Damn, your cards are all so good? That's not logical."

The three of them were still chuckling inwardly, but pretended to ask:

"Xiao Hu, you can't even play? Don't you have a bomb? Your luck can't be that bad, right?"

Su Yue simply closed his hand of cards, patted his forehead through the protective mask, and shook his head repeatedly.

"Really can't play, sigh, you guys keep playing."

"Heh heh, then I won't be polite." The person sitting to Su Yue's right said this and directly threw out the remaining four cards in his hand.

"Bomb, I'm out." Immediately after, the remaining two also seemed to have planned it.

They threw out two consecutive pairs, also clearing their hands.

Only Su Yue was left holding a hand of cards, just like at the very beginning of the game.

Except for the change in the order of the cards, he hadn't had a chance to play a single one.

"Alright, this hand is really bad, continue."

Su Yue said this, feigning annoyance, and threw the cards onto the table.

And the card game continued.

After the cards were dealt again, Su Yue examined the playing cards in his hand.

Looking at the playing cards in his hand, most of which had images, and two dazzling jokers.

With such good cards, Su Yue was instead clicking his tongue inwardly.

This time, it was his turn to perform.

With such good cards, how to lose without anyone noticing was also a technical skill.

...

After some maneuvering, Su Yue watched as the other three successively cleared their hands.

Only then, as the last one, did he discard the single card in his hand.

And before this, Su Yue had even broken up the bomb of kings in his hand.

Fortunately, this did not attract their attention; they just thought that 'Xiao Hu's' card skills were poor.

They even deliberately teased: "Oh, I thought you had good luck."

"So you played so aggressively earlier, but in the end, you still held onto them."

Along with the three people's teasing, a sound of the iron door shaking came from behind Su Yue again.

And compared to before, this sound seemed a bit more urgent.

Immediately after, the three people sitting in front of Su Yue exchanged glances.

One of them pressed down Su Yue's hand that was about to shuffle the cards, and said with a fake smile:

"Hey, Xiao Hu, you've already lost two rounds in a row."

"We'll abide by the bet, you go deliver the medicine first, it won't be too late to play when you get back."

Hearing this, Su Yue was actually eager to leave this card game and couldn't be bothered to act with them.

So, hearing the other party's suggestion, Su Yue clicked his tongue, feigning difficulty.

"Oh well, alright, alright, consider me unlucky."

Immediately, as if resigned to his fate, he reluctantly stood up.

He stepped forward, picked up a box of ointment, and walked towards the deeper part of the base.

"Remember, don't have any contact with them."

"Lest you bring back the infection to us."

Just as Su Yue was holding the box and slowly walking towards the deeper part of the base.

A person's voice came from behind, as if kindly reminding him.

Su Yue's eyes narrowed; he also wanted to figure out what the situation was.

Immediately, he stepped forward and continued walking towards the deeper part of the base.

The entire secret base was brightly lit, with long, narrow fluorescent tubes embedded in the ceiling one after another.

There was no dark place at all.

And Su Yue followed the sound of the iron door shaking, getting closer and closer to the source of the sound.

From the sound, it was not difficult to judge that the person making the noise seemed to be becoming increasingly agitated.

Su Yue carried the medicine box and walked all the way into the depths.

When his vision could already see the brightly lit, heavy iron door at the end, he couldn't help but frown.

He saw a fence-like iron door blocking the middle of the passage.

And behind this iron door were several men also wearing protective suits.

At first glance, their appearance seemed not much different from those guarding the main base door.

However, upon closer inspection, it was not difficult to find that,

their protective suits had all been torn and tattered.

Especially the areas around their arms, which were almost entirely exposed to the air.

A man was gripping the bars of the iron door with both hands, shaking the door with extreme impatience.

The sound of kicking the door just now should have also been made by him.

And looking at the arms of these people, their arms were covered in dark brown blood scabs.

From a distance, it looked as if their arms were covered in black snake scales.

"black scale disease..." Su Yue thought to himself,

The specific situation was also the same as what he had just guessed.

It seemed these people were employees of a research base.

Perhaps they were accidentally infected during the process of researching or releasing the virus.

And the truck that drove out of Norman Pharmaceuticals late at night, loaded with a truckload of ointment, was provided to them.

Moreover, Su Yue could judge from their current symptoms,

that the degree of infection among these employees was clearly more severe than that of the patients received by the hospital.

Perhaps due to their identities, they also didn't want any risk of exposing the plan.

The mastermind behind it controlled all of them within this base, cutting off any possibility of them leaving.

Su Yue analyzed inwardly while holding the medicine box and approaching.

Thus, it seemed this was not a secret laboratory with concrete evidence.

It was just a detention room used by Norman Pharmaceuticals to guard infected internal employees.

However, this trip was not without gain.

These infected employees must have resentment regarding their current situation.

Being locked up in this underground base like livestock.

If Liang Yuzhu could apprehend them, it would count as having secured a group of informed witnesses.

And as Su Yue walked, the employees behind the iron fence also saw the person coming.

When they saw the cardboard box Su Yue was holding, this group of infected employees seemed to have seen a lifeline.

Their eyes showed fervor, and the action of scratching their bloody arms also slowed down a bit.

"So slow? Hurry up! Bring the medicine over!"

The man whose arms were gripping the iron bars shouted loudly towards Su Yue.

"Coming, what's the rush? This batch of medicine just arrived."

Su Yue responded, feigning impatience, and finally stopped just before reaching the iron fence.

Seeing the pairs of hands reaching out from behind the fence, Su Yue frowned slightly.

Besides the patients he had briefly passed by in the hospital before, this was the first time he had directly faced so many infected people.

He did not approach rashly, but stayed in a relatively safe position.

He placed the box containing the ointment on the ground, and then kicked the box over with his foot.

"Swish—" accompanied by the sound of the cardboard box rubbing against the ground.

The box finally stopped in front of the fence door, and the employees behind the door seemed to have long been accustomed to this.

With eyes full of longing overflowing from their sockets, the man squatted down, reached for the box, and pulled it closer.

He grabbed handfuls of the ointment inside and threw them to the few people behind him.

Su Yue watched as they distributed the medicine and began to apply the ointment to the affected areas on their arms, like squeezing toothpaste.

Only then did they reveal expressions of satisfaction.

As if some pain that had been tormenting their nerves moments ago had vanished in an instant.

"Whoosh—" After a brief moment of relief, the leading man glanced at the applied medicine.

Seeming to recognize its effect, he couldn't help but curse:

"Damn it, it's still this kind of inhibitor that only provides temporary relief!"

"Didn't the lab side have ointment that can cure the root cause? Why aren't they giving it to us yet?"

"Exactly, applying this kind of inhibitor all day long is just treating the symptoms, not the root cause."

"How much longer does he plan to keep us locked up? When can we get out?"

Along with the complaints from the employees behind the fence door, Su Yue was also capturing the information within them.