A group of people collapsed to the ground. Xiao Mei helped Zhang Xin up, carefully stepping over the corpses on the ground, glancing at the people walking in front of them as they went.
This person acted very quickly, clearing a path in such a short time, without drawing blood from the knife, and his movements looked exceptionally skilled.
There were people from the Special Investigation Team above. Jiang Yujin glanced at them and realized they were from the General Bureau. He then pointed in a direction, signaling Xiao Mei to take her friend to find the people above.
He must have his reasons for doing this. Xiao Mei nodded and helped Zhang Xin up step by step.
The special search team was surprised to see that some of the people who had been arrested had shown up on their own initiative. They paused when they saw the injured people behind them and immediately took them to a place to settle them down.
This place is far from the exit. They used a bit of brute force when they came in, and that side has already collapsed. They are still building a road out, which will probably take some time.
They had dedicated staff who carried first-aid kits for treating wounds. They found a nearby laboratory transport bed, placed the person on it, and transferred them to a place that they had already cleaned.
Chen Jing is not here.
Jiang Yujin watched the two high school students disappear and then walked towards another experimental area amidst the chaos.
Just like here, the other experimental area was also chaotic and hadn't been completely cleaned up. This area was mainly staffed by people from the H City branch. When Jiang Yujin passed by, someone pulled him aside and said, "There are too many people here, can you help me out?"
Jiang Yujin was then pulled to the bottom. Someone noticed that he was empty-handed and assumed that his weapon had malfunctioned, so they picked up the gun that one of the organization's members had dropped and threw it to him.
The branch's overall strength was not as good as the headquarters, but it was not weak either. Although its numbers were still fewer than those of the organization, they were actually sufficient. Realizing the gap in strength, the organization's members, in an extreme situation, directly opened the cages of the experimental subjects at the bottom level, and the things imprisoned inside escaped.
The test subjects varied in strength. Due to the nature of the experiments, some of the modified individuals were still barely surviving in a corner, struggling even to breathe. Others, however, were mentally or, more accurately, had almost lost their reason, their bodies brimming with the primal brutality of a different species, and would attack people the moment they were released.
As employees working here, our only advantage is knowing the characteristics of these semi-finished products, which we can use to evade attacks when necessary—but it's not always effective.
This is a tactic that would hurt the enemy a thousand while harming eight hundred of their own; they would only do it under such circumstances.
Jiang Yujin held a gun in his hand. All he needed to do was work with the others to eliminate all the members of the organization and any aggressive experimental subjects on the first floor.
Having been inexplicably assigned to the job, and carrying the earnest expectations of his temporary teammates, he chose to slack off rather than leave or help out.
The gun wasn't as good as the one made by Shi Bu, but it was still passable. One shot could take down one and a half aliens. When Jiang Yujin was reloading, he also smashed the butt of the gun down the person behind him who was about to launch a sneak attack.
The more he slacked off, the further he drifted to the side. When he took down the last half-mutant with a single shot, Jiang Yujin casually tossed the gun aside and slipped away silently.
Having gone this far, if his teammates still don't perform well, it's not his fault.
There were no high school students in the fourth experimental area either, or if there were, they had already left.
The experimental area is empty. The main tasks now are to rescue the teachers and students who were taken away and to clean up this branch. The special search team did not stay long after they found that there was no need to clean up here. Now he is the only one here with other people who occasionally pass by from the bottom floor.
The top-floor office had been half demolished, the walls were crumbling, and a nearly unrecognizable corpse lay on the ground next to a long whip broken into several pieces with barbs.
With his eyebrows slightly raised beneath his goggles, Jiang Yujin turned and walked towards the laboratory.
White coats were lying everywhere in the lab. He walked through the gaps where no one was around and glanced at the computer screen that was still lit up.
All the data on the computer had already been copied, but the other party was kind enough not to delete all the data after copying it.
At the far end of the laboratory is a completely enclosed space with a metal door and a small pane of glass that allows a barely visible view inside. The glass is quite thick, and next to it is a completely black screen, which appears to be an iris recognition system.
A white coat was lying next to me; it was clear that the person had been left there after their iris scan was used to unlock the door.
Jiang Yujin doesn't need to go inside; he can just take a look through the small window.
Inside the gate, there was only a platform in the center of the entire space. The glass covering the platform had been broken, and there must have been something on it before, but it had been taken away.
He didn't care much about these things; he only glanced at them before moving away.
He went downstairs at the right time, blending into the crowd, and overheard someone saying that all the students except the teachers had been found and taken away for evacuation. Some people were already in the lab when they were rescued, but fortunately, they had only just started checking their physical indicators, and had been given anesthesia to make them unconscious, so nothing irreversible had happened to them.
The teachers were being held in the last experimental area, where the branch secretary, Hu Li, was located. He went there alone, and no one was allowed to approach the area until he issued a notice.
The exit was still under active rescue efforts. When Jiang Yujin arrived at the scene, he saw the last boulder being moved by people working together, and the light from the exit shone in instantly.
He glanced into the crowd and spotted a high school student in another corner. The student had injuries on his face and hands and seemed to be looking down at his clothes.
Jiang Yujin withdrew his gaze.
Students who were already unconscious or injured were prioritized for transport. The transfer beds in the lab came in handy, which was much better than manual handling.
A kind-hearted citizen named Jiang stepped forward to lend a hand and got out of the exit before the others.
Once outside the exit, he gestured to the person next to him, indicating that he needed to urinate, and then slipped away first after someone else took his place.
The ascent was long, but the descent was quite quick. Jiang Yujin, who had taken the main road before the ascent, hurried down the mountain through the woods on one side and returned to the car.
He put his crumpled shirt back on and sat obediently in the car, waiting.
After the first person got off, he glanced at the person's somewhat torn and extremely dirty uniform and thoughtfully offered him a brand new spare uniform: "Wear this, it will be more comfortable."
The other party accepted the clothes and expressed their gratitude.
People got off one after another, and the spare clothes in the car were completely changed. A pile of dirty clothes was piled up at the back of the car, making it impossible to tell who was who.
Xu Gao carried a student down from behind. When he saw the white figure standing lazily by the car, he realized that the person hadn't really run away. He breathed a sigh of relief and felt a strange sense of relief welling up inside him.
Jiang Yujin, who was chatting with someone by the car, seemed to sense something and looked up. His gaze swept past Xu Gao, who was about to wave to him, and then fell on the high school students who were walking down the mountain with him.
Among a sea of black uniforms, the white shirt stood out. Chen Jing also noticed the person standing by the car.
When he looked over, the other person had one hand in their pocket and waved at him.
Startled by this person's arrival, Chen Jing paused for a moment, then stepped down the stairs and walked to the car. He asked, "What are you doing here?"
Jiang Yujin: "It's a long story. After this and that, it came."
Chen Jing didn't understand what he meant by "this and that," and Jiang Yujin didn't seem to intend to explain further. He simply pointed in a direction and said, "Your friend is in that car. He looks quite badly injured."
Without offering any concern or comfort, he simply let the high school student leave.
Zhang Xin's injuries were serious, and she was placed in a car and needed to be taken to the hospital as soon as possible. Just as Chen Jing got into the car, it drove away.
After the students were all sent away, the remaining members of the special search team who stayed in the mountains also appeared with the teachers.
Compared to the students, the teacher was in better condition. He didn't have many physical injuries, but he was temporarily traumatized and seemed somewhat dazed.
The last one to appear was Hu Li.
He looked much the same as before he joined the branch; his eyes were still upturned, and he always had a smile on his face when he spoke. The only difference was that his floral shirt was now stained red. He had no injuries; the red bloodstains were clearly someone else's.
After he got down, he scanned the crowd and spotted someone squatting not far away.
After finishing a bunch of things, he stepped forward.
A person appeared in front of him. Jiang Yujin, who was engrossed in playing a match-3 game, looked up and asked, "What?"
Hu Li asked, "Have you been staying here the whole time?"
"Otherwise," Jiang Yujin raised his eyes, "I deserve some credit for the fact that none of your cars were stolen."
Hu Li smiled and said, "Thank you so much."
Jiang Yujin waved his hand: "You're welcome."
Unlike when he came, the return trip was slightly different. His gossip buddies enthusiastically invited him to ride in one of their cars, and they used the time on the way back to chat and tell all sorts of gossip.
The car was full of colleagues, and everyone knew each other. Jiang Yujin blended in without any sense of incongruity, listening intently to the gossip, practically munching on sunflower seeds.
It turns out that the Eight Trigrams (Bagua) is a effective way to treat motion sickness.
The passengers had just witnessed a bloody scene and were initially feeling nauseous. However, after chatting about gossip, their minds cleared, their breathing became smoother, and even the pain from their wounds lessened. One of the passengers, who had previously suffered from motion sickness, was now hugging a pillow that appeared out of nowhere, his eyes shining brightly.
When the vehicle returned to City A, the passengers, upon disembarking, had already begun to fraternize and expressed their reluctance to part with the departing citizens.
The other party hailed a taxi, and they stood by the roadside watching them get into the car until it drove away before turning their attention away.
Someone touched their chin and said, "His voice sounds familiar."
I feel like I've heard it somewhere before, and the memory is right there in my head, but I can't quite place it right now.
Xu Gao patted him on the shoulder: "He had been to the bureau a few times before, so he must have heard about it then."
The man stroking his chin nodded: "Probably."
A group of people stood by the roadside for a while until a gust of wind blew, and then they slowly walked back.
When they returned to the main gate, they ran into Xu Tonggui, who was returning from a mission. They didn't dare go any further, waiting until he entered the station before continuing on their way.
"I remember now!"
The person who thought the voice sounded familiar stopped in their tracks, finally remembering, and said, "The voice I heard at the hotel before sounds very similar to this."
Because some time had passed, the once clear voice had become blurred in his mind, and he had forgotten what the other person's voice sounded like. When he heard the voice of the person who had just left today, he felt a sense of familiarity.
Xu Gao then realized that the person next to him was the lucky one who had been selected by lottery to go to the hotel to carry out the mission and witnessed the exciting scene.
Remembering the task Hu Li had given him, which he had almost completely forgotten, his eyes widened instantly, and he asked, "Seriously?"
The other person hesitated and nodded: "But some time has passed, so I'm not sure, but it does look quite similar."
If it weren't for the fact that their temperaments were completely different, he almost had dangerous thoughts.
Xu Gao nodded, his mind preoccupied, and left first.
In the evening, Jiang Yujin had already returned home, taken a shower, and was lying on the sofa watching a soap opera when her phone vibrated.
Without taking his eyes off the TV or looking at his phone contacts, he answered the call directly.
It was Xu Gao calling. Judging from his tone, he didn't seem to be calling to share gossip.
Still unable to tear his attention away from the television, Jiang Yujin asked, "What's wrong?"
"It's like this," the other person said, thinking for a moment before adding, "I'm looking for someone right now, let's call him Xiao Ling."
"The only person on our bus today who has ever seen Xiao Ling is the one who has heard her voice."
Jiang Yujin: "How about we change the zero to a tenth?"
Xu Gao readily agreed and said, "He said your voice sounds a lot like Xiao Yi's."
Jiang Yu tapped the edge of the sofa with his finger, and responded with a flat, monotone voice, "And then?"
Xu Gao said, "Xiao Yi and Captain Xu have a good relationship. I just thought about it and realized that you also know Captain Xu."
This person had previously given the other party a large goose.
And I didn't give it to him!
Jiang Yujin remained silent, waiting for the other party to continue.
Xu Gao said, "I know it might not be the right thing to say, but I still want to say it..."
"Do you know if there's anyone around Captain Xu whose voice sounds a lot like yours? Or could you record a voice for me so I can find the person by listening to the voice?"
Xu Gao pleaded in a girlish manner, "Please, please, this is really important to me."
Jiang Yujin: "..."
Jiang Yujin said, "You are a true genius."
Thinking that his ability to find people had earned the praise of the professional firm owner, Xu Gao humbly said, "I'm not that great."
Jiang Yujin recorded an audio message for him as requested, expressing his heartfelt wish that he would find the person soon.
Xu Gao thanked him for his well wishes and hung up the phone.
When the phone call ended, the soap opera went into intermission and commercials began.
A knock came at the door.
The high school student had called to say he would be at the hospital with a friend and wouldn't be coming back today. Jiang Yujin got up to open the door and found that there were unexpected guests outside.
The barber shop owner outside remained expressionless. He showed no intention of going inside, simply standing there and taking out his phone.
Jiang Yujin took the phone he was handed over and glanced at it.
It's a photo, very blurry, but you can see a large expanse of rolling hills.
Or perhaps it's more accurate to call them sand dunes. Some areas have already grown vegetation, while others still show large areas of scorched earth.
Jiang Yujin's eyes slowly lowered.
"This photo was sent to me by someone else," the barber shop owner said. "It was taken in the heart of the Latso Desert."
Although it was mostly covered by sand, you could still tell that the area was familiar.
This is where they are in the game, and the sun rises here.
Jiang Yujin looked up and asked, "When was this photo taken?"
"I saw it today," the barber shop owner said. "There's something wrong with the plants here. Someone has already notified the Special Investigation Bureau, and Xu Tonggui will be there."
"He's forgotten everything from the past, but that doesn't mean he won't remember it." He asked, "What exactly happened between you two back then?"
Jiang Yujin glanced down at his hands, then put them back into his pajama pockets and said, "It's nothing."
The barber glanced at him, took his phone back, lit a cigarette, and left.
After closing the door, Jiang Yujin sat back down on the sofa, remained quiet for a while, and then hugged the goose in his arms.
The drama continues after the commercial break; the next episode of the soap opera begins.
This episode tells the story of the male protagonist who suffers from amnesia. After seeing a familiar scene, his memory returns, and he begins to deal with the people who lied to him before.
Jiang Yujin found it increasingly strange as he watched, and finally decided to change the channel to the children's channel to watch the story of a few sheep.
Feeling drowsy from watching the sheep, he finally decided to stand up, put on a coat, grab his house key, and head out to find a couple of bottles of wine.
Instead of going to his usual store, he took a long detour and went to the convenience store where he had previously bought his wig. Although he didn't end up using the wig, the things there were genuinely cheap.
When he arrived, the shop was still open, and the owner was still sitting behind the counter keeping accounts. He looked up when he saw him.
Jiang Yujin straightened his clothes and said he wanted two cans of wine.
The liquor was on the shelf behind the owner, so the other person got up and slowly took two cans.
His left hand seemed to have a problem; he couldn't lift it, and his sleeve kept hanging down. He could only use his right hand to pick up one can at a time.
Jiang Yu gave him the money and said thank you.
That evening, Xu Gao, who occasionally felt a pang of conscience and resolved to work hard, was still repeatedly listening to the audio sent by his gossip buddy.
"I'm getting married to him at the beginning of next month, right here on the green grass."
The other person must have just finished watching the soap opera and casually recited a line. He listened to it over and over again, feeling as if he hadn't actually watched the soap opera, but he was completely immersed in it.
Someone passing by asked him what he was doing. He looked up and said, "Next month, on the green grass."
Hu Li's eyes twitched, and he said, "I'm asking what you're doing."
Xu Gao took off one earphone and said, "I'm listening to audio."
"The person who went to the hotel on a mission last time told me today that Boss Jiang's voice sounds a lot like the person you're looking for, so I called Boss Jiang and asked him to record an audio clip for me."
He spoke as if nothing had happened, his words carrying the nonchalant air of a seasoned expert at finding people.
What did he say?
Xu Gao rubbed the back of his head and said shyly, "He said I'm a genius."
Hu Li smiled and said, "Really?"
He patted the seated man on the shoulder and said, "You're a genius."
After being praised as a genius by two people in a row, Xu Gao revealed a proud but restrained smile.
He said, "If I listen to it a few more times, I'll definitely recognize this person immediately if I meet him in the future."
Hu Li smiled but didn't answer him.