Task 3
Lan's intuition told her that the boy in front of her might be the type that would be difficult to communicate with, and she felt a pang of worry for herself. "Well... first of all, congratulations on becoming a psychic." She carefully considered her words, carefully considering how to ask such an eleven-year-old boy a question that would make it easier for him to understand and respond.
Korra was in the teething period, so his voice was a little lisp. He laughed and barked, "Thank you!" Then he asked in a confused manner, "Who are you?" He reached out to pick his nose, and then wiped the dirt on his pants.
Lan pulled a tissue from his pocket and handed it over. "We're members here, your seniors. Didn't your family come with you?" Korra wasn't sure what the terms "members" and "seniors" meant, but he understood the second half of the sentence translated into his headphones. "My dad's very busy! He's in charge of the entire village!" The young boy smiled proudly as he spoke of his father, a father he had always been proud of.
"What about your mother and other family members? Aren't they free too?" Lan still wanted to save as much effort as possible in communication, so he asked. Unexpectedly, Korra curled her lips and said a little unhappy, "My mother and big brother are dead, and my little brother is at home taking care of my sister."
Lan was speechless for a moment, and when he was about to apologize, Korra's attention was immediately diverted. He looked at Pei Chanbai's wrist curiously and asked loudly: "Wow, what is this? It looks so cool!" Pei Chanbai glanced at the electronic screen on the bracelet, then looked at the short boy, and said: "It's a toy. You will get one soon." So Korra jumped up happily, surrounded Pei Chanbai and teased him, asking him to take her to get the toy.
"Do you have a way to get him to come to my place for a checkup?" Lan placed her hopes on Pei Chanbai. He quickly grabbed Korra, who nearly tripped him, and said nonchalantly, "Take him to get the equipment first." So Lan could only ponder and follow their steps...
It's said that young creatures are the most difficult to discipline, as their nature is extremely free, so any action they take is driven by the desire to directly satisfy their own desires. The female doctor, exhausted, led the two children, one large and one small, toward the laboratory. She glanced at the dark-skinned boy, who chattered along the way after receiving his own equipment, and couldn't help but think of the quiet child she had taught for so many years.
"Wuyan was much more obedient back then..." Lan's steps slowed down at the thought, and she was almost bumped into by Korra, who was skipping behind her. "Here, as per our agreement, you have to listen to me for ten minutes." She pulled two milky white candies from her pocket and handed them to Korra, emphasizing the word "ten minutes" again.
"I know, I know. I always keep my word!" The boy grinned as he grabbed the candy, unwrapped one, and tossed it into his mouth. Then he flattened the wrapper, folded it, and put it in his pocket along with the other candy. "Let's go!" He beckoned Lan into the lab, as if he were the master of the place.
Pei Chanbai watched Korra run inside. Just as he was about to pull out his game console and lean against the wall to begin his daily tasks for the day, Lan grabbed his wrist and dragged him through the door. "Come in too," the silver-white door slid shut, letting out a hint of the female doctor's plaintive yet barely concealed excitement.
Korra endured the various probes scanning his body with a somewhat frustrated look. The candy in his mouth had long since melted, and even the last trace of sweetness on the tip of his tongue had been washed away by countless swallows of saliva. But even so, he didn't think of taking the other candy in his pocket, because he was saving that for his sister.
"It's already been over ten minutes..." the boy muttered in frustration, but he didn't move to disturb the meticulously working person. Pei Chanbai had been ordered to watch, supposedly to discipline a disobedient child. He hadn't been interested in the experiment, either the person or the experiment itself. It was Lan's tired demeanor, the contrastingly meticulous work, and those eyes that seemed poised to burst into flames that intrigued him.
After several tens of minutes, when the eleven-year-old boy, who had just become the mighty superpower he had imagined, was on the verge of his endurance, Lan finally put down the instrument in her hand. After she saw that the data had been stored, her eyes, which seemed to have finally calmed down, contained a surging wave of fear.
"I understand..." Before Pei Chanbai could hear clearly what she was saying, he was grabbed again. Lan without saying anything, repeated the whole process on him that she had just done to Korra.
Korra pouted, confused as to what this woman was doing. But since her brother hadn't said they could leave, she could only lean back, bored, her eyes drifting between the gray ceiling and the complex machinery, occasionally fiddling with her fingers. Finally, after a long, subtle "beep," and after Korra had tried and failed for the umpteenth time to click through the various boxes on the screen, Dr. Lan, an expert in monitoring and identifying the energy bodies of those with special abilities, let her arms droop with weakness. Slowly, she reached into her pocket, grabbed a handful of candy, and sprinkled it on the instrument panel. She stared blankly at the jumping data, then picked up a candy, opened it, and popped it into her mouth.
Kola's eyes darted around, stealing a glance at Lan and Pei Chanbai, who remained motionless. She reached out and grabbed a few candies, carefully placing them in her pocket. "Kola," Lan's sudden voice startled the boy, who thought he'd been exposed for stealing candy and was about to be reprimanded. But after a long wait, all he heard was, "When did you wake up? Where were you when you woke up?"
Lan expected a definitive answer right away, but the first two questions had the child thinking hard. "...When I woke up at home today, my brother had just finished making lunch, but..."
"But what?"
Korra frowned, scratching her head as she recalled something, and said, "I think I woke up once before, and saw a very handsome brother."
Only then did Lan finally remember that Shi Youchen had told her yesterday at noon that the first place he went to was Aiha Village.
She closed her eyes and let out a long sigh, inwardly lamenting that staying up late had indeed taken its toll on her, causing her to experience a brief period of memory loss. "Do you remember where you went before you got sick?" This time, Korra answered immediately. "I went to Lake Eridu with some friends from the neighboring villages to pay my respects to the chief!" His eyes sparkled, and he felt incredibly grateful for his actions that day, having finally fulfilled his long-cherished wish of becoming a psychic.
Lake Eridu is a sacred place here, where the ritual of summoning the gods' messengers takes place. A while ago, we were forbidden from going to the temple, so a group of children organized themselves to "worship the gods" by the lake. Luckily, I went along, thinking the gods had noticed my sincerity, and the great blessing of awakening had actually befallen me.
Korra was happily thinking about how to show off to her friends when the door to the lab opened. A man and a woman entered, respectfully approaching the three people inside. "Zero, take him to the training room. I'm not familiar with the procedures here, but people with special abilities always need training and guidance before taking up their posts," Lan said to his liaison.
Before Korra could react, he was led out by the hand. Only Lan, Pei Chanbai, and Xiaoyue were left in the laboratory.
Pei Chanbai pulled out his game console and asked calmly, "So what's the conclusion?" Lan finally let out a sigh of relief, finally gathering his thoughts and saying, "I told you before that there was a special data anomaly last night. That was Shi Youchen's sample data."
It turns out that for some reason, the data that was mistakenly recorded by Youchen at noon yesterday hadn't been cleared, and was discovered by Lan late at night while he was sorting it out. "The machine shows that his abnormal indicators and ranges are the same as those of the previous test subjects. At least, it seems to me that they are common samples."
"Kora, if my guess is correct, this is a patient that Shi Youchen has treated. What makes him different from other experimental subjects is that he has completed the transformation from an ordinary person to a person with superpowers, and I just detected the same abnormal indicator in his body energy."
"But you don't have the abnormality they both have." Lan tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "This virus exists in ordinary people, and it is accompanied by varying degrees of accelerated aging and failure of organs. However, it exists in people with special abilities like Shi Youchen and Korra without any adverse reactions, and its activity level is significantly higher. I have a hypothesis."
"It's for 'screening,'" Lan said, turning on the communicator. "Its source may not be the most important thing right now. I'm worried that this suspicion will be confirmed, so I'm going to report it to base headquarters just in case." As she typed the encrypted report, she said to Pei Chanbai, "I'd also like to ask for a favor. Find Shi Youchen."
"I refuse." Pei Chanbai controlled the direction of the little figure on the interface with his left hand, tapping the fancy skill icons with his right hand. Without even looking up, he interrupted Lan. "My mission is only to protect and supervise you until the research is complete. I won't interfere with anything else."
Xiaoyue stood aside with a worried look on her face. She could see the faint trace of anger on Dr. Lan's tired face. Sure enough, the next second she heard, "Pei Chanbai, get this straight. This isn't for me. If my guess is correct, this will be a disaster for the people of District 5!" The person being yelled at remained indifferent, "The people of District 5 will take care of the disaster. I don't take their money, and I won't work for them."
"You!" Lan was so distracted that he almost forgot where he was editing. He gritted his teeth and focused on typing the report. "Wait a moment." Unlike Pei Chanbai, who remained calm and unmoved, Xiaoyue, a native of District 5, felt extremely anxious when she heard Lan's serious words. She clenched and unclenched her slender fingers, took a small step toward Lan, and said in a whisper, "I...I can try to contact Xiaowei."
Pei Chanbai didn't know whether he hadn't heard her, or if he had, he didn't care. He remained staring at the game console in his hand. Lan, however, had definitely heard her. She said decisively, "Thank you, sorry for the trouble." Xiaoyue, flattered, ran to the side and tried to contact her sister.
Lan finally converted the edited report into a new format and sent it out solemnly. She looked to the side with a sense of relief, only to find that Xiaoyue, who should have been working smoothly, had a pale face and her lips were trembling slightly as if she was afraid.
"What's wrong with you?" Lan suddenly had a terrible premonition in his heart.
Xiaoyue was panicking. She had just tried to contact her sister several times without success. The other party seemed to just let the communicator ring, neither answering nor hanging up. Xiaowei had never been like this before.
"I, I don't know. I can't contact her." Her eyes were wandering and her voice was trembling with confusion and worry. The frightened look in Lan's eyes confirmed her bad premonition.
She reached out and stopped Xiaoyue from trying to dial the communicator again. "It's okay, you can go out first." After Xiaoyue walked out the door with unsteady steps, she changed her relaxed attitude and said to Pei Chanbai seriously, "Do you remember the S-level mission in District 9 at the end of last year? Your entire team was ambushed in the border mountains."
Pei Chanbai's fingertips paused slightly, then he pressed the pause button and looked up: "Of course I remember." It was one of the few failed missions in his career, so it was naturally impressive.
"Shi Youchen is the one who rescued you." Lan recalled everything she was told after waking up, and her heart was filled with mixed emotions. She said this now just to take a gamble, to bet on Pei Danbai's character.
Fortunately, she won the bet. Pei Chanbai turned off the screen of the game console, put it away, stretched his body a little, and then said to Lan, "I don't like to owe favors to people. I will bring back the person you mentioned." Hearing this, Lan finally breathed a sigh of relief.
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