All the external mechanisms had been activated, and the basement must be filled with toxic fog by now. Fortunately, Liu Qiao still had a vaccine card, which bought her these precious 10 minutes.
Seeing the three turn to leave, Xiao Lou hurriedly asked, "Are you going to go together or split up?"
Yu Hanjiang said, "We'll split into two groups. Xiao Ye will specifically choose places with surveillance cameras to attract the attention of those people in the control room. Lao Mo and I will find the central control room as soon as possible and open the metal wall at the door."
Xiao Lou asked worriedly, "Is Xiao Ye familiar with the maze's route? What if she gets lost and can't find her way back?"
Ye Qi wasn't confident he could navigate the maze alone. He couldn't contact Shao Qingge anytime using the Telepathic Connection, and his phone had been confiscated. Although his abilities had improved after becoming the Insect King, he might still be in danger if the enemy used fire.
Xiao Lou wouldn't allow such a "what if" to happen. He turned to Yu Hanjiang and asked, " You have Xiao Ye's eavesdropping device, right?"
"Hmm." Yu Hanjiang took out the dagger and handed it to Xiao Lou.
Max level eavesdropping device The card can simultaneously deploy three eavesdropping devices. Xiao Lou attached one to Yu Hanjiang and gave the corresponding earpiece to Ye Qi. He placed another card on Ye Qi and gave the earpiece to Yu Hanjiang. This way, both of them could hear each other instantly through the eavesdropping device, effectively establishing the fastest possible voice communication channel.
The remaining Xiao Lou was handed to Yu Hanjiang, to be used to eavesdrop on the enemy's movements if necessary.
Ye Qi exclaimed, "Great! This is how you use a □□!" His eavesdropping device was usually used to eavesdrop on others, but now that each teammate wears one, it becomes a walkie-talkie that doesn't require dialing.
Xiao Lou whispered, "Go ahead, be careful, I'll wait for your news."
Yu Hanjiang nodded and quickly left Peach Blossom Spring with his two teammates.
The three of them followed the route they had taken to the fork in the road. The surveillance cameras in the area on the left had all been destroyed by Yu Hanjiang. He looked up at the dim lights on the roof and said in a low voice, "Xiao Ye, turn right at the intersection to distract those two assassins. Lao Mo and I will wear invisibility cloaks and find the location of the control room as soon as possible."
"Understood!" Upon hearing this, Ye Qi immediately dashed out like the wind.
Having inherited the Insect King's abilities, Ye Qi was extremely agile. His height, combined with that of a seven-year-old child, made him incredibly nimble. In the blink of an eye, he climbed up the wall to the fork in the road and followed Yu Hanjiang's instructions to take the right path.
There were surveillance cameras in every corridor. Ye Qi looked at the camera flashing red light in the corner, jumped several times to the camera, and simply stretched out his claws, crushing the camera to pieces in an instant!
In the central monitoring room, the two men looked at each other in bewilderment as the little boy reappeared on the screen.
The blond man's voice trembled: "Isn't this child afraid of poison? He's actually crawling around in the poisonous fog!"
The short-haired woman's expression changed slightly, and she said coldly, " Brother Rong is right, these people do indeed have special abilities." She picked up the walkie-talkie and decisively ordered, "The little boy went to Area C. The people there, take care of him immediately!"
As soon as the woman finished speaking, a door suddenly opened at the corner of the corridor ahead of Ye Qi, and a tall man walked out of the room. Ye Qi had just turned the corner when he suddenly saw a dark gun barrel pointed at him. Before he could react, the man decisively pulled the trigger. A loud "bang" rang out, and a bloody hole instantly appeared in Ye Qi's chest!
Ye Qi's heart skipped a beat—if it were any other time, this shot would have killed him!
However, the wound on his chest healed very quickly, at a speed imperceptible to the naked eye, leaving only glaring bloodstains on his clothes.
The man who came to hunt him down frowned sharply when he saw that the child had survived being shot. He simultaneously raised his submachine gun with both hands and began to fire fiercely at Ye Qi.
In an instant, the entire corridor was filled with the piercing sound of gunfire, and the floor was riddled with bullet holes!
It was like a hail of bullets.
Ye Qi snapped out of his daze and hurriedly climbed onto the roof to avoid the bullets.
However, this was the first time he had faced such a dangerous situation. No matter how fast he was, he couldn't skillfully dodge so many bullets. In the blink of an eye, he was hit by several more bullets, and blood was gushing from his body. But the Zerg's amazing healing ability did not affect his movements at all, and he did not feel any pain.
The gunfire from the eavesdropping device was deafening. Yu Hanjiang hurriedly said, "Xiao Ye, keep turning left ahead, I'll cover you!"
Ye Qi scrambled up the wall like lightning to the intersection ahead. After turning left, he found himself in an area where Yu Hanjiang had destroyed the surveillance cameras and lights. He entered a pitch-black corridor. The Zerg's vision was enhanced in the dark, but humans' vision was affected. Ye Qi breathed a slight sigh of relief and said, " Captain Yu, I'm alright. My wounds have healed."
"Be careful. Go right ahead, destroy the surveillance cameras and the lights too, that way they won't be able to locate you."
"clear!"
The killer noticed the little boy was running away and hurriedly gave chase.
After turning the corner, he discovered there were no lights. The man frowned, took a few steps forward warily, and in the darkness, a flash of white light suddenly appeared before his eyes. Before he could speak, the sharp blade instantly severed his throat!
The man stared in disbelief, his eyes wide, and collapsed straight down in the corridor.
Old Mo, sitting in Yu Hanjiang's pocket, watched Captain Yu cleanly slit his throat and couldn't help but feel terrified.
Yu Hanjiang calmly sheathed his knife, and as he walked quickly forward, he asked Lao Mo, "Route?"
Old Mo took a deep breath and said seriously, "This maze is twice as big as the one we encountered in Antai Garden. If we keep going down the wrong paths, we might not be able to find the control room within 10 minutes."
Yu Hanjiang nodded: "What's your idea?"
Old Mo thought carefully for a moment and said, "Judging from the route we just took, this maze is still made up of countless '回'-shaped corridors. The place where we were held was in the eastern area, with all the cells having iron doors. We didn't find any special rooms. The control room should be in the central or western area. Let's try splitting up and taking shortcuts, avoiding detours and going straight to search!"
Yu Hanjiang trusted Lao Mo's judgment and said to Ye Qi, "Xiao Ye, you are now in the northernmost corridor. Walk straight ahead, don't take any detours, observe the rooms in the corridor for anything unusual, and be careful."
Ye Qi's clear voice came through the eavesdropping device: "Okay!"
The three split into two groups. Ye Qi quickly crawled along the longest passage to the north, while Yu Hanjiang and Lao Mo followed the passage to the south, heading west. When they encountered forks in the road, they did not turn and took the straight path, as it was the fastest way.
In the blink of an eye, the three of them arrived at the westernmost point, where there was a wall in front of them and no way forward.
Following Lao Mo's instructions, Yu Hanjiang walked north for a distance, then turned east at the fork in the road.
The action plan suggested by Lao Mo is essentially to go to the end of one road first, and then switch to another road and go to the end in the opposite direction. This way, people won't get confused, and the investigation will be the fastest.
Ye Qi appeared in an area with many surveillance cameras, and assassins kept emerging. Fortunately, having learned his lesson, he destroyed all the lights along the way, making it difficult for the assassins to target him in the darkness. He nimbly climbed up and down the wall, crushing all the cameras and light bulbs on the roof.
One by one, the monitor screens in the control room went black. The assassins had been dispatched, but Ye Qi was nowhere to be found. Watching the child rapidly destroy a large area of surveillance footage, the blond man exclaimed in horror, "Isn't this kid afraid of poison, and isn't he afraid of guns? He was shot so many times, covered in blood, and he's still alive! Just who is he...?"
The short-haired woman said coldly, "It seems we'll have to resort to the final plan."
The man asked curiously, "Sister Qing, what's the final plan?"
The control panel had several buttons of different colors. The first, blue, lowered a metal wall to seal the door; the second, green, activated the poison gas system throughout the basement, filling the corridor with highly toxic fumes. She didn't know what the third, red, button did.
The woman took a deep breath and said, " Brother Rong told me that if the poison fog can't deal with these people, we should press the red button to activate the final plan. I don't know what this plan is, but Brother Rong said it will definitely kill them."
The blond man said, "Then why aren't you pressing it? Hurry up and press it!"
The woman didn't speak; her slender fingers gently rested on the red button, her brows furrowed in thought.
...
At the same time.
Under Lao Mo's guidance, Yu Hanjiang had already searched half of the maze as quickly as possible. However, most of the maze was empty rooms. They had been away from Peach Blossom Spring for more than 5 minutes, and the vaccine was only effective for 10 minutes. If they could not find the control room soon, they would never be able to get out once the vaccine expired.
Yu Hanjiang looked at the seemingly endless corridor in front of him, a sharp glint in his eyes, and said in a deep voice, "Faster."
His speed was already at its limit; the shrunken Old Mo, inside his pocket, felt like he was on an airplane, his head spinning. Distinguishing directions under such circumstances was a challenge for Old Mo as well.
Just then, Yu Hanjiang heard Ye Qi's voice: " Captain Yu, I found an archive room, it's full of filing cabinets!"
Yu Hanjiang said, "Go in and take a look. If there's any useful information, take it with you."
Ye Qi responded, nimbly climbed up the wall into the room, and quickly landed on the ground.
This room was larger than a typical secret room, with filing cabinets lining three walls, densely packed with file folders. Ye Qi instinctively felt that these files were related to the organization's organ transplant project. He randomly picked one up and quickly glanced at it, only to see the words prominently displayed on the first page—
Informed consent form for heart transplantation.
Sure enough! This was the organization's headquarters. Ye Qi immediately reported to Yu Hanjiang, "It's probably patient data. There's too much of it. I can only move it using a teleportation card. Have Professor Xiao send me back!"
Ye Qi's teleportation card is usually used to teleport away with teammates, but in fact, this card does not restrict species, only weight - the maximum weight that can be carried during teleportation is 100 kilograms.
Although there were many documents, they were all paper-based and wouldn't weigh more than 100 kilograms in total. However, it would be difficult for Ye Qi to move around in the narrow corridor while carrying so many filing cabinets. He came up with a solution: he would use his teleportation card to carry the filing cabinets, and Xiao Lou would teleport him back to Peach Blossom Spring. This way, he could bring the documents into Peach Blossom Spring and hand them over to Shao Qingge, who also had a teleportation card.
The message reached Xiao Lou's mind via the Telepathic Connection, and he immediately summoned Ye Qi back.
The teammates discovered that Ye Qi had appeared under the peach tree with three enormous filing cabinets, enough to crush him. Time was of the essence, and Ye Qi didn't have time to explain in detail. He simply said to Shao Qingge, "The found data is yours, CEO Shao!"
After saying that, he disappeared from everyone's sight and entered the maze again.
But Shao Qingge clenched his fist in that instant—he discovered that Ye Qi was covered in blood!
No one knew how many bullets had hit Ye Qi; his clothes were stained crimson with blood, and his face was covered in drops of blood. Yet, he seemed unaffected, clearly not feeling any pain. But Shao Qingge felt a profound and intense heartache.
He already had a heart condition, and the pain in his heart was amplified a hundredfold and transmitted to his brain, making it difficult for him to breathe for a moment.
Xiao Lou was about to look through the file folder when he noticed that Shao Qingge's face was extremely pale. He asked in surprise, " CEO Shao, what's wrong?"
Shao Qingge clenched his fist and looked at Xiao Lou, saying, " The effect of the Bug King Card only lasts for 24 hours. Although the wounds caused by those bullets can heal, the bullet heads are still inside Ye Qi's body."
Xiao Lou was stunned, then suddenly jolted awake—he hadn't considered this, but Shao Qingge, having used the Bug King card, should know its function best. Xiao Lou said in a trembling voice, "You mean, the Bug King's healing ability won't remove the bullets from its body? Then what about Xiao Ye…?"
Shao Qingge's face was extremely grim. He said in a deep voice, "At first, I thought that after transforming into the Insect King, he would be immune to swords and bullets, and only afraid of fire attacks. Now it seems that bullets can hit the Insectoid's body without causing it pain, and the wounds can heal immediately. However, Ye Qi is not a real Insectoid after all. The transformation only lasts for 24 hours, and the bullets that have already entered his body cannot be removed. Only the external wounds are healed."
Shao Qingge paused, then said, word by word, "In 24 hours, Ye Qi will return to being an ordinary person. The bullets left in his body will kill him!"
In other words, they not only had to leave the basement buried with gunpowder within 10 minutes, but also had to pass through the checkpoint within 24 hours. Otherwise, with so many bullets lodged in Xiao Ye's body, the consequences would be unimaginable if she were to return to being an ordinary person!
Thinking of the little guy covered in blood, Xiao Lou was filled with remorse: "We were careless; we shouldn't have let Xiao Ye take that risk..."
The veins on the back of Shao Qingge's hand bulged, his eyes were dark and unfathomable, and his voice was low and hoarse: "Unfortunately, this is the only way for now. Those assassins have a lot of submachine guns, and the Invisibility Cloak can't stop bullets. If Captain Yu and Lao Mo are shot, they will die on the spot! Ye Qi can also distract them and buy Captain Yu time. Hopefully, Captain Yu can find the control room as soon as possible."
Otherwise, all teammates will perish together.
******