“If you hadn’t said that you wanted to be the last to go, I wouldn’t have suspected you,” Shi Huizhang said, flicking his lighter. A tiny flame leapt up, illuminating a trace of a cold smile at the corners of his mouth—just as if he really did have such a high IQ. 

Chen Lin had his back to him and didn’t answer. He stood very upright, face turned to the window. Some Utopia white coats and uniformed armed personnel were standing in a row, silently looking at the blue seals with their varied expressions. 

Shi Huizhang turned to look at his diehard follower Luo Xiaofeng. Luo Xiaofeng took out a small silver article the size of a thumb and handed it over to a white coat next to him. “The base’s product. You can tell for yourselves whether I could fake it.” 

The white coat reached out to take it and exchanged a look with his companions. He unscrewed it and removed a chip from inside. Then he rolled up his sleeve and pressed on his wrist. The flesh on his forearm lifted. This arm really did seem to be made of flesh. The white coat stuck the chip inside. There was silence from within for a moment, and then a man’s voice came from it: “There are many helicopters, mostly empty. Pay attention to numbers 3, 18, and 26, ignore the rest…” 

Everyone present could hear that this was Chen Lin. 

Jiang Lan looked at Chen Lin’s back, opened her mouth, but didn’t know what to say. She felt that her venerable buttocks had lost direction; she didn’t know whose bench to sit on. 

After a moment, the white coat ended the playback of the recording and looked at Chen Lin with a grave expression. “Mr. Chen, I hope that you have an explanation for this.” 

Chen Lin still stood unmoving, looking out the window. A smile suddenly appeared on his face, whatever he was thinking. 

Like a slavering dog, Shi Huizhang butted in: “Can there be an explanation? I think the question is obvious enough, no? I recorded this when Chen Lin left the room on the excuse of going to the bathroom. I’ve thought there was something wrong with him for a long time…” 

But Chen Lin suddenly turned to the silent Luo Xiaofeng. “When did you plant the listening device on me? That couldn’t have been easy.” 

Luo Xiaofeng looked out from behind his oily curtain of hair—this person liked to keep his head down and his chin drawn in, raising his eyes to look at people. But while this gesture was innocent and beautiful when done by Audrey Hepburn, done by him, it looked like something out of a ghost story. “In the water you drank.” 

Chen Lin stared. Luo Xiaofeng explained: “It’s very simple. The base is having an emergency, all our drinking water has become bottled, so I put a capsule listening device in each bottle. Unless you didn’t drink at all, you couldn’t avoid it.” 

Chen Lin nodded, seeing the light. “What good luck you have.” 

He didn’t say that his own luck was bad. Chen Lin knew that no one else was aware of how acute his perception was when his energy crystal was full to the brim, and Shi Huizhang and the others also didn’t know about the little spy Su Qing; they couldn’t have suspected that he would defect…so he instantly guessed Shi Huizhang’s goal in planting the listing device—to learn his movements and find an opportunity to deal with him before they encountered other blue seals. 

To resist foreign aggression, you first need to resolve internal problems. 

But their luck really was too good. They had accidentally heard this. 

Jiang Lan looked at his expression in increasing disbelief, then bluntly asked, “Chen Lin, have you not had a ‘cleaning’ in too long? Has your brain been cooked?” 

Chen Lin glanced at her. He wanted to laugh a little. Lunatics believe that only those as insane as them are normal, while the others are all idiots, and idiots believe that only those as stupid as them can be called normal, while the others are all lunatics. When all was said and done, Chen Lin couldn’t tell whether he was insane or she was stupid. 

He looked in turn at each of the people surrounding him—Jiang Lan was closest to him, standing a little off to the side. Shi Huizhang and Luo Xiaofeng stood one behind the other directly in front of him. Gui Song still looked as diffident as ever, standing a little further from him. The Utopia white coats and armed personnel were standing even further away, close to the door, sticking to the wall. 

Chen Lin thought that he and the other blue seals were like the gladiators and wild animals in the Coliseum in ancient Rome, using all their tricks to fight each other to the death, while the people watching the games were outside. 

Chen Lin suddenly asked, “How is it at the grey house? Have they all been taken care of?” 

A white coat said, “The RZ Unit’s firepower is too strong. That area is already under their control. Though it can essentially be considered completely cleared.” 

Shi Huizhang laughed coldly. “You can relax. When you really get to the other side, there will be someone to accompany you.” 

When you really get to the other side… Chen Lin laughed in self-mockery. When he really got to the other side, going up to heaven or down to hell, how could he go the same way as Su Qing? Hell had long ago prepared a room for him; it was waiting there for him to go squat in. 

Failure for lack of a final effort…

He went right around Jiang Lan. When he passed by Luo Xiaofeng, he raised his head with an inscrutable smile and quietly said, “You saw your opening and took it. Nicely done, I acknowledge defeat.” 

Luo Xiaofeng felt that these words weren’t meant as praise. He looked up and made eye contact with Chen Lin. In that instant, Luo Xiaofeng suddenly had a strange feeling, as though while he had succeeded in plotting against Chen Lin, he still hadn’t won… No one had won. 

Then, without so much as looking at Shi Huizhang, Chen Lin calmly walked up to the white coats and met their scrutinizing gazes, lightly nodding his head. “Let’s go.” 

He went to his death as unflinchingly as a hero, dying for resistance and freedom. Sadly, no one would commemorate him in the future, or if they did occasionally recall his life, they would simply sum it up in a single phrase—reap what you sow. 

In the end, the RZ Unit was unable to seize the blue seals and core researchers who changed their itinerary at the last minute. Taking the eight or nine surviving grey seals, including Su Qing, they returned to the RZ Unit’s medical treatment center. 

Xue Xiaolu was so busy her feet didn’t touch the ground. She did so much running her legs became skinnier. To lighten the burden on his subordinate, Captain Hu voluntarily shared in a portion of the nursing—he assigned himself to tend to Su Qing. 

Su Qing was comatose for over two months, stuck full of all kinds of tubes and lines—he was the first human being on earth to possess a pair of energy crystals, becoming an unrivaled freak. No one knew what changes he would undergo. 

Lu Qingbai and Xu Ruchong stood one on either side of Cheng Weizhi, looking through the glass at Su Qing lying in the hospital bed—Hu Bugui was just bent over, using a towel to clean Su Qing. 

Though Lu Qingbai had said that his pair of grey seals had formed a circuit in his body, giving Su Qing a healing ability that could rival that of a blue seal, meaning that he wasn’t likely to get bedsores like an ordinary person, their Captain Hu was adamant, absolutely insisting on taking care of Su Qing as though he were an ordinary patient. Day after day, in rain or shine, if he had nothing else to be doing, he would come to the treatment area to put in some work, either turn Su Qing over, or read to him, or sit there staring at him, not moving for ages, like Amah Rock. 

Cheng Weizhi had presented his theory concerning the “perfect double core” to Lu Qingbai and Xu Ruchong. Lu Qingbai wasn’t a technician, after all; when he had heard, he felt that he only had a slight understanding. He couldn’t resist asking, “Teacher Cheng, you inferred that, according to the Law of Emotional Attraction, the moment the second energy crystal takes shape, the emotions within the body will instinctively attract surrounding emotions of similar origin. The two energy crystals of different type will be unable to distinguish which emotion to use, and the individual will collapse into chaos, so a double core can’t exist, right? Also, under ordinary circumstances, the activator stores up simulated emotions. The temporary link you set up had no such function, but the people present still weren’t affected, right?” 

Cheng Weizhi thought about it. “His circumstances aren’t ordinary. All of his bodily functions had stopped. You could even say he was already dead. But there was still a bit of activity in the energy crystal from the remaining body heat…” 

Lu Qingbai couldn’t resist interrupting him: “What does ‘dead’ mean here? Braindead? If not, then how can you judge that all his bodily functions had stopped? And if so…you mean that the energy crystal system can activate already dead brain cells?” 

Cheng Weizhi shook his head. “I can’t tell you for certain what the situation was then, but it couldn’t have been worse, and I only proposed the attempt because I was so distressed. This operation is actually pretty dangerous.” 

Lu Qingbai and Xu Ruchong exchanged a look, nodding simultaneously—so it had been a last-ditch effort. 

Xu Ruchong also thought of a question. “Teacher Cheng, how could you be certain that the second activated energy crystal would be a Type 1? What if it had been one of the three other types?” 

Cheng Weizhi smiled bitterly. “Reasonably speaking, he only had a one-in-four chance.” 

Lu Qingbai and Xu Ruchong exchanged another look. Xu Ruchong was silent for a while. “You have to tell me when he wakes up. I’ll have him buy me a lottery ticket.” 

Lu Qingbai rolled his eyes. “Get a load of you.” 

Xu Ruchong smiled apologetically. “Yes, yes. Look, Lu-ge, I still haven’t married myself a wife, I need to save money…” 

Lu Qingbai said, “If you go, bring me back a dozen.” 

Xu Ruchong: “…” 

Just then, Hu Bugui came out of the hospital room carrying a basin. He looked up at Lu Qingbai and quietly said, “There was just something I wanted to ask you—is there something wrong with his nutrient fluid? Why has he been losing so much weight lately? Is there some other problem with his health?” 

“A double core energy crystal is different from a blue seal’s single core energy crystal. It forms a circuit within the body. It doesn’t need to absorb external emotions. Fundamentally, it consumes the chemical energy of the food he absorbs. His new energy system is repairing his seriously injured body. He looks like he’s lying there doing nothing, but actually he’s consuming more than if he had spent the last two months running marathons.” 

When Lu Qingbai finished, he looked up at Hu Bugui, paused, then suddenly said, “Captain Hu, reasonably, I ought to say that this is all your fucking fault. But I can’t say that, because I egged you on in letting him return. If you’re a bastard, then I’m Bastard 2.0.” 

Hu Bugui gave a bitter laugh, waved a hand at him, and didn’t speak again. Finally he turned back to look at Su Qing lying there quietly, then turned and left. His steps were slow and a little dejected. He looked like a wounded lone wolf. 

Cheng Weizhi looked at him and sighed. Then he turned and said to Xu Ruchong, “Oh, about my son… Thank you for taking the trouble.” 

Xu Ruchong quickly said, “No, no, no, teacher, it’s just what I ought to have done, it’s just that I didn’t know, if I had known sooner… Ah, when you come down to it, it’s that you have good neighbors, or else after all these months, I don’t know what would have happened to him.” 

Cheng Weizhi gave a care-laden smile. This idiot son really was a sore point for him. 

Xu Ruchong looked at him carefully. “Teacher Cheng, I’d like to ask you something. Would you…like to be our special consultant?” 

Cheng Weizhi shook his head. “What would I do? I’m an old codger who retired many years ago. I’ll go home to take proper care of my son, live in peace, do nothing. I’m just still uneasy about that child Su Qing. I can only go when I’ve seen him well…” 

Before he could finish, a sharp beep suddenly came from the hospital room. The three people in the corridor stared. Lu Qingbai pushed open the door, glanced at the instrument screen, frowned, then peeled open Su Qing’s eyelid. “Look at his brainwave activity. He might be about to wake up. Teacher Cheng, will there be anything else wrong when he wakes up? Reasonably speaking his memories shouldn’t be affected, but what about the rest? Receptiveness, perception…” 

Before he finished, he seemed to sense something and raised his head to look out. He saw Hu Bugui, alerted by the beep, coming back again. The happiness on Hu Bugui’s face was plain to see. He prepared to go in, but when he had only taken a step, he stopped where he was. The expression on his face dimmed, and he actually seemed faintly flustered. 

Su Qing’s fingers trembled lightly. After a moment, under the attention of four people’s eight eyes, he slowly opened his eyes.