Chapter 82 A Mysterious Past! (Part 1) See you there...
Seeing that Pei Qing did not react, Gu Fei looked away in disappointment, made a "please" gesture, and then sat down on the other side.
For some reason, Pei Qian felt that he was like a dog that had been abandoned by its owner for a long time, the kind of extremely lost dog that could not be properly petted or rewarded even though its owner was right in front of it.
Thinking of this, Pei Qing quickly shook her head, trying to banish this inexplicable thought. Really, just because Gu Fei called her "master" a few times a long time ago, she couldn't possibly treat him like some obedient dog.
This guy isn't a dog; he's a wolf that preys on its prey, waiting for its owner to fall so it can devour them all. Pei Qian was certain that Gu Fei was the one who had concealed the most from beginning to end; she couldn't even glean a single useful piece of information from him.
She didn't trust Gu Fei, but in the current situation, trust was irrelevant. The most important thing was to live, or rather, maintain, her human form; that was her only goal.
Pei Qing used her fingertip to push the tea that Gu Fei had poured aside. She had no appetite for it; all she wanted to know was what was wrong with her body. "You said before that you had a way to fix my condition, is that true? Why did I become like this? What happened?"
"It's been so long, and you're still as impatient as ever. If you could—" Gu Fei's smile suddenly twisted, his expression becoming visibly interesting, and a wisp of pheromones uncontrollably wafted out.
Pei Qing withdrew the twig from under the coffee table, her expression turning strange. She opened her mouth, a hint of disgust in her eyes, "You're still carrying that thing? Aren't you uncomfortable...?"
Heaven bears witness, she had only extended her tendrils to subtly threaten Gu Fei, but she hadn't expected to 'accidentally'—yes, accidentally—touch some strange metal object... and then, when she retracted the tendrils, she 'accidentally' tugged at it. This time it was truly an accident.
The main reason was that she hadn't expected Gu Fei's reaction to be so strong! Uh, no, Pei Qing reorganized her thoughts, what she meant was that she hadn't expected Gu Fei to still have that thing with him, and she was quite surprised for a moment.
"Ha," Gu Fei groaned softly, clearly in pain. He bent over and forced himself to speak, "You really are, ouch, as impatient as ever..."
Pei Qing's eyes darted left and right, avoiding a direct look at Gu Fei opposite her. Only after ensuring all the tentacles were safely retracted did she speak, her tone fierce but her voice weak: "I... of course I'm anxious about my body looking like this! Wouldn't you be anxious if you were in my shoes?! Stop beating around the bush and tell the truth!"
"Okay, please wait a moment," Gu Fei said. After a while, the pain subsided, and he got up and took a very secure safe from the shelf.
"Everything you want to know starts with that core resource research experiment project, but I don't think it's most appropriate for me to tell the story. Although my family was involved in a lot, we weren't exactly firsthand witnesses..."
"What do you mean by that? What do you mean you're not the most suitable? Does anyone else here know about this experiment?" Pei Qing frowned. She was listening intently and was getting impatient with Gu Fei's evasive and rambling attitude.
Gu Fei did not answer her question directly. Instead, he turned his gaze to the left and smiled, "Ms. Feng Qi, what do you think?"
"You don't need to pretend like this. I won't hide my identity from my partner; I just haven't had a chance to tell him yet."
"Of course, I certainly believe that Ms. Feng Qi has no intention of hiding anything."
An invisible smoke of battle gradually filled the air, and the two men in the standoff seemed poised to erupt at any moment.
"Stop, stop, stop! What are you two talking about? Weren't you just talking about experiments? How did you suddenly veer into this identity stuff?" Pei Qing stepped between the two, afraid they might start fighting; the atmosphere was getting tense.
In short, no serious bloodshed is allowed here until her matter is resolved!
Gu Fei adjusted his posture, crossed his legs, and leisurely sipped his tea, as if everything that had just happened had nothing to do with him. He smiled enigmatically, "You probably don't know, but the identities of your two friends are quite extraordinary, especially Feng—"
“I don’t think there are some things I need to know from you. I’ll tell my friends what I’m talking about, and I don’t need anyone else to say it.” Feng Qi’s expression remained unchanged, but the anger that had been building up in his eyes was about to burst out.
Gu Fei raised an eyebrow and nodded noncommittally.
"Pei Qing, I'm so sorry. I... I should have told you some things about myself earlier, but things happened so suddenly that I didn't have time..." Feng Qi looked uneasy. She wasn't sure if Pei Qing would accept her apology. After all, to some extent, she was also one of the deceivers, and even her arrival this time was hard to say without the element of exploitation.
“Wait a minute,” Pei Qing stretched out her tentacle and questioned, “Life without hands is really not easy. Judging from your current expressions, you’re sure I’ll be angry when I find out about this, right? But in fact, right now I don’t care about anything except my physical condition.”
"Even if this concerns the truth and the past you've been seeking, and the harm and exploitation you've suffered? You don't care at all?" Feng Qi's tone was anxious, seemingly not understanding why Pei Qing would say such a thing, when she was clearly prepared to fight to the death.
"Let me make this clear first, I don't know what you mean by the so-called truth or the past. In other words, is that past really about me? I believe you should know what I'm talking about." Pei Qing was truly exhausted from getting entangled in these meaningless matters for so long.
"You really don't care?" Feng Qi asked again.
"Yes." This time, Pei Qing's answer was firm.
She didn't care whether she was some new species, some past truth, or some harm or exploitation. All she wanted was to heal her body and see more of the beautiful world she hadn't yet experienced.
As for everything else, she didn't care.
“Alright, since that’s the case, I won’t hide it anymore. My name is Feng Qi, the Feng from Feng Lang Ju Xu. My mother is the highest authority in the Federation, Marshal Feng Lin.”
Wait a minute, isn't it a bit strange that he just casually said such a terrifying thing? Pei Qing blinked twice. Marshal Feng Lin? She had only seen him on the morning news at the welfare center. No, she should have heard of him, because she almost never watched the news.
Pei Qing was about to take out her terminal to search when she heard Gu Fei laugh, "No need to look, just look at this."
"Zzz—" A huge light screen appeared. Pei Qing looked at the information on it and two faces placed side by side. Tsk, no wonder they are mother and daughter, they are indeed similar.
"Why are you reacting like this..." Feng Qi carefully chose his words and asked cautiously.
“I guess you meant to say indifferent?” Pei Qing picked up the conversation. “Then what kind of reaction do you think I should have? Shocked, sad, or should I immediately cling to their coattails?” She was clearly making an inappropriate joke because she saw Gu Fei and Feng Qi’s expressions change again and again.
"No, that's not what I meant." Feng Qi shook his head, but there was still a hint of confusion in his eyes.
"Cough," Gu Fei choked on his tea. He put down the cup, a rare look of confusion in his eyes. "So, Shen Rong'an didn't tell you about that experimental project? Then why did you call me? I thought..."
In the end, it turned out that Shen Rong'an had a trick up his sleeve and hadn't revealed everything. This time, he misjudged the situation. Gu Fei was a little embarrassed by the blunder.
"So you didn't know." Feng Qi visibly breathed a sigh of relief, while Gu Fei looked dejected.
"Oh! You guys don't think someone has already told me almost everything about that experiment, do you? No, what are you all cryptic about? You've tried to trick me before even understanding the details!" Pei Qing laughed angrily. What kind of nonsense is this?! Does she usually seem so shrewd?
Gu Fei awkwardly touched his nose. This development was truly unexpected. After confirming several times that Pei Qing really didn't know the specifics of the experimental project, he turned on the screen again.
The light screen presentation lasted a long time, displaying a wide variety of text, images, and videos.
As Pei Qing read, she cleared her mind. The first half of the content was roughly about the mysterious disaster that struck a hundred years ago. The Federation was short of resources, and researchers discovered that the disaster carried a high level of usable energy, which is now widely used ISET energy. This was all publicly available information and had no value.
Importantly, at the time, the federal government only released partial information regarding energy. What the public didn't know was that during the subsequent decades of energy exploration, researchers discovered two human children with clear signs of life on a planet previously explored by machines and found to be devoid of any life.
They appeared abruptly on that desolate planet, like a miracle. However, the subsequent tragedy revealed to posterity that this was not a miracle, but rather the seed left behind by demons.
Ultimately, the researchers concluded it was a machine malfunction and, without any suspicion, brought the two children back to base, deciding to report to higher-ups once the signal stabilized. That night, all the researchers at the base mysteriously disappeared, along with the two human children they had brought back.
There were no signs of combat within the base. The subsequent rescue and exploration team only found some black powder on the smooth ground. Upon examination, they discovered that the powder originated from a mixture of materials from the team's protective suits and a previously unseen biological material.
All of the above are reasonable inferences made by subsequent explorers based on the diaries of former exploration team members found within the base.
The diary reads as follows:
April 6th, sunny. Today is the thirteenth day since the exploration team arrived, and the ninth day since the signal station became unstable and we lost contact with headquarters.
April 11th, cloudy with a sandstorm. Supplies are scarce, the signal station is still not repaired, and resource exploration is progressing poorly.
April 20th, cloudy, light rain. The captain seems to have found something extraordinary…
After that, the diary stopped recording the time. The team member's mental state became somewhat out of control. The diary often contained a lot of black marks and scratches, reversed word order and other errors, and even the team member's native language (she was a siren) was extremely difficult to decipher.
The image was not very clear, with occasional snowflake-like fragments appearing. Pei Qing and the others held their breath and continued watching.
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