Listening to Lv Bai's tease, Ah Gu's lips curled into a smile: "Thanks for the reminder."
Before the words were out, he quickly pulled the trigger.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
The dark muzzle fired three bullets consecutively.
The bullets pierced through a workbench, sending a stack of documents flying.
No blood splattered.
In fact, Ah Gu wasn't aiming at Lv Bai at all; his actions seemed more like a tactic to divert Lv Bai's attention.
The next second, he put away the pistol and turned to rush into the isolation chamber in the central area of the laboratory.
Click~
He locked the chamber door and stared at Lv Bai through the palm-sized bulletproof glass without speaking.
The rapid response team in the hallway heard the gunshots from the laboratory and immediately accelerated their efforts to break down the door.
Lv Bai glanced at the bullet marks at his feet and calmly walked over to help Zhou Zongming up first.
"What's the point of doing this? If you didn't hide in here, you might have escaped."
Ah Gu chuckled self-deprecatingly.
"Actually, there's one thing I didn't lie about. My two abilities aren't suited for direct combat, so I might as well not even try. If I ended up beaten black and blue by you, it would be quite embarrassing."
Zhou Zongming, barely recovering, almost gasped when he heard Ah Gu's words. He twitched the corner of his mouth.
Recalling the military skills Ah Gu had displayed during this time, he couldn't help but glance at Lv Bai.
Bang!
The laboratory door was smashed open by a battering ram, and a large number of heavily armed rapid response team members poured in.
Initially, two members were prepared to directly restrain Lv Bai, but upon seeing Zhou Zongming standing beside him, they hesitated.
Luckily, Zhou Zongming was still clear-headed. He turned and explained the situation to the squad leader with as few words as possible.
Soon, more than a dozen team members surrounded the isolation chamber, and since they weren't sure about Lv Bai's intentions, no one moved him aside.
"I don't think you'd give up so easily," Lv Bai said, touching the thick isolation door.
Zhou Zongming also approached, knocking twice on the isolation door: "Inspector Gu, if you put down your weapon and come out voluntarily, as long as you explain the situation, we'll certainly handle it appropriately."
Ah Gu smiled silently, ignoring Zhou Zongming entirely, only staring at Lv Bai, as if to memorize the flaws in his plan.
"When Company Commander Zhou appeared in the laboratory, I should have realized the plan had a problem and tried to deal with him. But I never expected you'd escape from so many gun barrels."
"If it were another Death Fighter, your plan might have succeeded."
Lv Bai's smile was exceptionally kind.
"Yes, I indeed underestimated you."
Ah Gu sighed, unbuttoning the collar of his shirt: "Luckily, I always like to have a backup plan."
"What do you mean by that?!"
Before Lv Bai could speak, Zhou Zongming interrupted, demanding an explanation.
Ah Gu said: "Human efforts against a virus usually follow two big directions, which you can simply understand as cure and prevention, corresponding to antidotes and vaccines. The challenges of both these directions are vastly different."
"If the difficulty of developing an antidote is like a nine-story building, the challenge of vaccine development is about as high as Thunder General."
Lv Bai timely echoed as the foil.
Ah Gu was silent for a few seconds, seemingly pondering what Thunder General was, before continuing.
"But even the difficulty of developing vaccines is far from simple. Throughout history, the use of medical vaccines requires stages like development, shaping, animal testing, and multiple clinical trials, often taking years or even decades."
Saying this, Ah Gu paused: "Don't you find it odd that this military base's research center could bring a vaccine to the brink of clinical trials in just a week?"
Without waiting for Lv Bai to answer, or maybe not expecting an answer from Lv Bai at all, he turned to select a vial from the refrigerated cabinet.
As if a string was plucked in Lv Bai's mind, he thought of a possibility: "Not a vaccine against virus infection, but a way to avoid being bitten by zombies?"
"I really regret collaborating with you more and more..."
Ah Gu's movements paused, and his voice echoed: "You're right; the size of the virus means it can't develop cognitive abilities. It only instinctively controls the host to infect more people, a trait that leads it to intentionally avoid dying hosts."
"So the so-called vaccine is actually poison?"
Zhou Zongming listened in shock; despite his considerable status in this refuge, he didn't know that the strictly confidential vaccine was like this.
Ah Gu stood up again, holding a syringe filled with a vial of drug.
"But this virus is quite strict, and the balance is tough to control. If the dose is too low, it doesn't achieve the disguise effect; if it's too high, people collapse and roll their eyes white before zombies bite them. Professor Jiang has painstakingly confirmed this range through exhaustive methods, with only clinical trials remaining."
After Ah Gu finished speaking, he decisively inserted the syringe into his carotid artery.
[Ding!]
[Current Death Arena node appears.]
[Death Fighters obtaining the node will receive double points rewards]
[Real-time node positioning completed. (Click to view)]
A series of mechanized prompts echoed in Lv Bai's mind as he watched Ah Gu inside the isolation chamber, who, after finishing the injection, took a USB drive from his pocket.
Ah Gu smiled: "So what do you think the 'node' actually is?"
"Experiment log." Lv Bai licked his lips and turned to a team member: "How long would it take to open this door?"
The team member was initially startled, glanced covertly at his squad leader, and explained: "This isolation chamber is built to standards akin to bank vaults, making it tough to break open quickly."
"Wait, what are you talking about, what node? Do you have something to hide from me?!"
Zhou Zongming felt as if he'd become an outsider since Lv Bai entered the laboratory. Every word spoken by Lv Bai and Ah Gu made sense individually, but once combined, he felt baffled.
"Alright, Company Commander Zhou, I think you don't have time to worry about these issues now."
Ah Gu finally addressed Zhou Zongming directly, looking towards the laboratory window: "Once the 'node' appears, no one could hide; who knows what crazy scene they'll cause."
As if to validate his words, hysterical screams suddenly came from outside the window.