Chapter 60 Time rewinds to the research base…
Rewind to thirty minutes before the research base self-destructed.
Following the inexplicable guidance within her spiritual sea, Pei Qing arrived at the core laboratory located on the third basement floor of the research institute. Pressing her throbbing forehead, she was extremely agitated and slammed open the laboratory doors one by one.
The number of remaining laboratories dwindled, and the closer one got to the innermost laboratory, the stronger the guidance became. Finally, Pei Qing kicked open the door to the laboratory hidden at the deepest part of the corridor, where a mysterious, fluorescent blue substance was quietly placed in the glass instrument at the very center.
Pei Qing unconsciously approached, and the closer she got to the mysterious substance, the less the pain in her mental sea subsided. She walked closer and closer, her forehead gradually touching the cool glass wall.
She wrapped her arms around the glass instrument, pressing her entire body against it, the black in the center of her pupils gradually spreading to her entire eyeballs. As if summoned by some force, the fluorescent blue substance penetrated the glass and came to her side, swirling and dancing, gradually merging into her body.
Pei Qing's consciousness was hazy. The tentacles had sneaked out at some point. With a loud crash, dozens of tentacles merged into a cone and violently shattered the glass instrument. The fluorescent blue light ball slowly floated in mid-air.
The shards of broken glass grazed Pei Qing's cheek, leaving several tiny bloody marks. She frowned almost imperceptibly, but the next moment, as if she felt no pain at all, she reached out her hands to touch the ball of light.
The orb continuously emitted fluorescent blue particles, which drifted everywhere, illuminating the entire laboratory with a soft halo.
But after a while, more particles chose to penetrate the body in front of them. As more and more fluorescent blue light particles gathered, Pei Qing's clothes gradually corroded and peeled off, along with her skin.
A thick, black substance, as black as ink, surged out through the gaps between the flesh and blood, filling the entire laboratory little by little, and flowing out through the cracks in the door.
The pitch-black fluid tightly enveloped the fluorescent blue light cluster, devouring it completely, and then wrapped around the tendrils layer by layer.
During this process, Pei Qing's eyeballs trembled incessantly, and half of her face had disappeared, leaving only blood-soaked, naked eyeballs and stark white bones. A viscous substance seemed to be alive, flowing and separating within it.
As the fluorescent blue light faded, the laboratory gradually fell into darkness. In the instant that darkness completely disappeared, Pei Qing's remaining half of her face also vanished without a trace.
Time always seems to drag on in the darkness, blurring the sense of time. After about five or ten minutes, the black fluid begins to churn rapidly as if boiling, constantly releasing bubbles of all sizes, which rise and burst.
The fluid continued to extend upwards, gradually forming a humanoid object, as if sculpted by an invisible hand. The humanoid object rapidly developed bones, skin, eyes, nose, mouth... and finally hair.
A woman, let's call her A, appeared straight up on the laboratory floor, curled up like a newborn.
Pei Qian was awakened by the cold ground. She groggily got up from the ground, and when the cold wind blew, she subconsciously covered her eyes. The next second, she opened her eyes.
"Damn it! Where are my clothes?!"
Pei Qing casually threw on a lab coat that belonged to someone else, stretched her body a few times, and her memories gradually returned. So, she had just turned into a strange pool of black fluid? And then reformed into a human form?
She got goosebumps all over, touched herself from the left and right, and pinched her face. There was no difference; it was still the same body temperature and feel, without any change.
Pei Qing straightened up and had just opened the laboratory door when a violent tremor shook the room. Before she could even step out, a huge explosion rang out, and the entire research institute was engulfed in flames.
Her location, presumably less than ten meters from the explosion's epicenter, was subjected to an immense shockwave. In short, she was utterly obliterated.
It was in a physical sense; the person was blown to pieces.
Pei Qing's head was blown off, leaving only a small part. Her eyes were separated from her body and flew freely in mid-air. She saw a familiar black, viscous substance flowing from the broken surface of her body. She wanted to laugh, but found that she had no mouth.
It seems there really is something wrong with my health...
Good heavens! This isn't just a problem, this is a huge problem!!!
The shockwave from the explosion was extremely hot. Soon, Pei Qing's few remaining body parts (especially her eyes) were rapidly vaporized, causing her to lose her sight and fall onto the rubble.
She had expected to be in a lot of pain, but in fact she seemed to have lost the sense of pain as well, but she retained the sense of touch. She used her sense of touch to determine that she was on a ruin, with her body pieces scattered in various places.
It was truly amazing; so this was what it felt like to crawl on the ground. After bumping into something solid countless times and having to change direction while crawling, Pei Qing realized she really needed an eye—just one, if not more.
She had tried to reconstruct a body for herself, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't. Pei Qing vaguely felt that it was because constructing the entire body required too much energy; most of her energy had been used up during the first construction.
Since we can't make the whole human body, surely we can make a part of it?
For example, an eye.
This time it was finally a success. Pei Qing secretly memorized that peculiar sensation and carefully held up her newborn eyeballs, letting them wander around.
Being able to see the world clearly again was incredibly moving, but unfortunately, she didn't have simulated tear glands, so she couldn't cry. Using sand instead might be a good alternative, she thought.
"Perhaps she should pinch out another ear," Pei Qing thought, hiding in the crack of the rock and rolling her eyes as she watched the group of people talking with guns in the distance.
Soon, a fresh ear was produced, seemingly a right ear. Pei Qing placed the ear below her eyes, moving it forward through the gaps until she reached a suitable distance. This time, she could clearly hear their conversation.
They were soldiers from a certain legion who had come to the capital planet with the supplies transport team to do the cleanup work, following orders from their superiors.
The soldier at the head, with medals on his shoulders, was clearly of much higher rank than the others around him, and spoke with extreme arrogance, "You all know the orders from above this time: you must find that illegally looted ISET crystal, conduct a thorough search, or else..."
Pei Qing had no interest in listening to the rest of the conversation. Could it be such a coincidence? Could the fluorescent blue light cluster that she had 'eaten' be that Pure Crystal?
She tried hard to recall details about the laboratory; the nameplate at the entrance seemed to have some kind of markings on it.
The group spoke again, and one of the soldiers asked, "What if that pure crystal has already been used? And won't an explosion cause any problems?"
"If that person had digested such a pure ISET crystal, they wouldn't have died in this explosion. Of course, they should be taken back to the Capital Star Research Institute for extraction. Those lunatics at the institute would probably be very happy to see that."
The questioner shuddered, as if he had thought of something, “Being experimented on by those lunatics is worse than just dying. Ever since… I’ve really gotten weak in the knees just hearing that name.”
"Haha, don't worry, if this mission goes smoothly, the higher-ups might let you off the hook. Stop talking nonsense, go tell your team to hurry up and go find it, and don't slack off." A higher-ranking soldier patted his subordinate on the shoulder and said with a smile.
It seemed she had eaten something terrible. Pei Qing slunk back into the crevice between the rocks, realizing she had to find a way to escape.
She absolutely cannot stay here. Although she is currently a pool of fluid, there's no guarantee that these soldiers conducting a thorough search won't take her to the Capital Star Research Institute under the pretext of suspicious substances. This place is too dangerous; she must get out of here as soon as possible.
The key question was, where could she possibly run off to in her current state? She quietly hid to the side, deep in thought. Just then, she saw a woman in a suit walk over and talk to the officer.
Pei Qing sneaked over to eavesdrop and learned that the woman in the suit was actually the head of the transport fleet. They seemed to have received another mission and were in a hurry to go over to ask the soldiers when the mission would be over.
The final outcome of the exchange was that the transport fleet would leave behind a few starships and a portion of its personnel to assist, while the rest would go on to carry out other missions.
It seems that Feng Qi and the others have successfully escaped. Pei Qing got the gist of it and understood the basic situation.
Although the mothership had been attacked, most of the subsidiary ships were still intact, and most of the valuable experimental subjects needed to be dealt with. The situation was too chaotic, and the mothership was attacked from both sides. Since the mothership wasn't particularly important, the fleet couldn't spare the manpower to pursue it, so they gave up.
After the person in charge finished speaking, she hurriedly walked towards the starship, as she had to go to other planets to carry out missions.
This was a good opportunity to escape, so Pei Qing followed her all the way and secretly slipped into the clothes of the person in charge just as she was about to board the ship.
The moment they made contact, the person in charge's spiritual power suddenly dissipated for a split second. Immediately afterward, Pei Qing's body suddenly became uncontrollable, as her spiritual power seeped into her body.
What's going on?! Pei Qing cried out silently.
The woman's eyes went completely black for a moment, then opened again a second later and looked normal.
Pei Qing opened her eyes, looking at the suit she was wearing and her hands, which were clearly not her own. Her mind was in turmoil. What was this? Was it parasitism?
Inside the person in charge's body, she could freely control any action, but her consciousness could clearly perceive that the person in charge was not dead, but was just suppressed at the bottom of her mental sea by her own consciousness.
She seems to be able to parasitize others, or rather, to have a symbiotic relationship with them, and control their every move.
Seeing that the person in charge had been standing still for a long time, the soldier guarding the starship's door couldn't help but remind him, "Is there something you haven't finished taking care of? The starship will close its hatch in five minutes."
"Oh no, oh." Pei Qian realized that her reaction was a bit too much, so she quickly adjusted her tone, coughed twice, and added, "Cough cough, I mean, it's nothing, it's just that my stomach suddenly hurts a little."
As she spoke, Pei Qing hurriedly boarded the starship, trying her best to keep herself from moving her hands and feet in unison.
"Buzz—" As the starship's hatch closed, Pei Qing's breathing gradually calmed down.
Along the way, people kept greeting her, and in order not to give herself away, she could only nod and smile repeatedly.
She laughed so hard her face was stiff, but she had to admit, it felt great to have a face.
She walked into the control room and stood beside the captain. Pei Qing couldn't understand any of the jumbled letters and coordinates on the screen, so she pretended to be casual and asked, "You didn't come to the wrong place, did you? Do you remember what our mission is?"
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Author's Note: I feel like I've lost some of my sanity while writing this; I'm always worried that I haven't described things clearly enough. [pity][pity][pity]
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