Ye Yunxi sized up Commander Han, a middle-aged man. He had a noticeably large head and wasn't wearing glasses. He looked very kind and approachable.
After greeting Ye Yunxi and the others, Commander Han smiled and said to them.
"You all probably know why you've come to our Fifth Base! We've had a lot of mutated rats at our base lately, but they only come every few days, and we don't know why."
At first, we didn't know what was going on. After they arrived, they bit anyone they saw and took away the base's food supplies.
Later we learned that these mutated rats were playing with us. Every time they came, half of the mutated rats would chase and bite the people at the base, while the other half would sneakily carry away the food when no one was looking.
This resulted in most of our base's personnel being injured, and some dying. Half of our food supplies were also lost. We don't know how long the remaining food will last; everyone at the base is waiting for food.
Li Yan was completely confused and interrupted Commander Han to ask a question.
"Chief Han, how often do these mutated rats come to the base?"
After thinking for a moment, Commander Han continued.
"They come about every four or five days. The mutated rats came just the other day to check on things, and they'll probably come back to bite again in another two or three days. The reason we've brought you all to our Fifth Base is to eliminate the mutated rats."
"Alas! Now that you all know about what happened to our Fifth Base, I'd like to hear your brilliant ideas on how to save it!"
After hearing what Commander Han said, Ye Yunxi and the others remained silent.
Seeing that Ye Yunxi remained silent, Li Yan didn't say anything either. After all, it was Ye Yunxi who knew how to make potions and cultivate fertile land, not him.
Commander Han looked at them with a worried expression, and seeing that they still didn't speak, he continued to talk to them.
"Gentlemen, let's think of a way to save our Fifth Base. Or whatever you want, just say the word, as long as our base can provide it."
Seeing that Commander Han was extremely anxious, Ye Yunxi said to him.
"Chief Han, I can save the people at the base, and my reward is gold."
"This... little girl, are you sure you can do this? How are you going to save the base?"
Seeing Han Ji's expression, Li Yan feared he wouldn't believe her, so he introduced Ye Yunxi to him.
"Captain Han, these are all elites of our base, and they have all made contributions to our First Base. Especially these two, Ye Yunxi and Gu Qingqing, are Professor Ye's apprentices, who have inherited their master's medical skills."
Especially Ye Yunxi; our First Base was able to eliminate the mutated rats thanks to her participation in developing the potion to kill them. Rest assured, since Yunxi said she could save the base, she can save the base.”
Once Commander Han heard Li Yan say this, how could he dare not believe it? Regardless of whether it was true or not, he had to give it a try—what if the base could be saved?
"As long as you can save the base from this crisis, I'll give you anything you want, not just gold, but weapons too."
"I don't want your weapons, I just want gold. I can save the base, but you have to provide me with some medicine first."
She didn't want weapons; Fu Heng had plenty. She wanted gold because they had collected so much that the space hadn't been upgraded. Previously, it was used as a reserve of energy for Xuan Yu, but now that Xuan Yu had transformed into human form, upgrading the space was naturally the priority.
Gu Qingqing and the others didn't know why Ye Yunxi loved gold so much, but they would try their best to get as much as she wanted.
After Han Jiji and the others reached an agreement, Ye Yunxi told Han Jiji about the medicinal materials needed to make the potion.
"I'm happy," said Commander Han to them.
"Alright, alright, I'll have someone prepare it shortly. Once it's ready, it will be delivered to your accommodation. Also, I'll have Assistant Liu show you all around our Fifth Base."
Commander Han instructed Assistant Liu to take Li Yan and the others on a tour of the base.
After saying goodbye to Chief Han, Ye Yunxi and the others followed Assistant Liu out of the base building.
Assistant Liu led them around, introducing their base as they walked.
There's nothing special about it. This fifth base is similar to their first base, except it's a bit smaller.
The people of the Fifth Base stared curiously at Ye Yunxi and her group when they saw strangers arrive at their base.
Gu Qingqing felt a chill run down her spine from the stare, rubbed her arms, and asked Assistant Liu.
"Assistant Liu, why are the people from your base keeping staring at us?"
Assistant Liu glanced at the group of people and said with a smile.
“We haven’t had any new recruits at our base for a long time. These people are all local residents. Our base chief is also from here. He’s a sentimental person, so he built this base here to settle the people in the area.”
Chen Zhe asked curiously, "Then why not accept people from outside?"
Assistant Liu continued, “Our base initially accepted people from other places. At first, many people came to our base to seek refuge, but later the base was full, so we stopped accepting them. However, there’s something strange about our base.”
Ye Yunxi looked puzzled and asked him, "What's so strange about it?"
Assistant Liu glanced around and whispered to them.
"What's strange about this is that outsiders who came to our base before would disappear or die for no reason. At first, our base investigated, but we couldn't find anything. But what's very strange is that none of the residents in our vicinity have died or gone missing."
This led to many people spreading rumors that our base was haunted, or that the locals were preventing outsiders from entering our base, which caused all this trouble. Eventually, outsiders stopped coming to our base, so our base doesn't have a large population.
Now that we've seen you arrive, everyone's curious, that's why we're staring at you.
Li Yan voiced the question that had been on his mind: "If that's the case, why doesn't your base commander send someone to continue the investigation? Or report it to the other bases?"
Assistant Liu paused for a moment before continuing.
"The base chief has sent people to investigate this matter many times, but they just can't find out anything. The base chief thought that as long as they don't accept people from other places, nothing will happen. So he didn't report it to other bases."
But rest assured, apart from those who were bitten to death or injured by plainclothes rats, no one else in the base has mysteriously disappeared or died.
Fu Heng and Ye Yunxi exchanged a glance, then turned to ask Assistant Liu.
"Assistant Liu, could you tell us how long the outsiders that the Fifth Base took in stayed at the base before they mysteriously disappeared or died?"
Assistant Liu thought for a moment and said, "About a month after arriving at the base, people started dying or going missing one after another."
The doctors at our base examined the deceased. Aside from the fact that they were bleeding from all seven orifices when the bodies were first seen, there were no other distinguishing features or causes of death, and no signs of injury.
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