Chapter 133 Chapter 133

After the test results came out, Ruan Shiqing went to Garland's laboratory again and did a full set of strength tests.

The test results showed that, apart from the fact that his various body functions were superior to before, his strength had not increased much - according to Garland's guess, after he woke up from his coma, both his appearance and internal functions had changed significantly compared to before, so his strength should have increased as well.

After all, if Ruan Shiqing and Ruan Jiao were related, they both had an inseparable relationship with the Zerg Tribe, and the Zerg Tribe was known for its powerful strength.

But Ruan Shiqing's strength test results are still the same as those of ancient humans. It's just that he used to be ranked in the middle and back, but now that his body functions have improved, he can move to the front, but there is no essential change.

Ruan Shiqing was not surprised by this. He was more surprised that Ruan Jiao was related to him by blood.

Seeing that he was in doubt, Rong Heng suddenly remembered the important matter he hadn't mentioned, and quickly told him all his speculations about Ruan Jiao's identity.

After listening to this, Ruan Shiqing fell into deep thought.

After waking up, he was busy comforting Rong Heng and the cubs. He hadn't had time to sort out many things, and naturally he hadn't mentioned the dream he had when he was unconscious. In the dream, he witnessed with his own eyes that the queen insect laid two eggs. According to the insect tribe, those were the king's eggs.

According to Rong Heng, the queen of the Zerg has been dead for many years, and the current queen and most of the Zerg are artificial products. The genes of these artificial Zerg come from Ruan Jiao. Ruan Jiao has been trapped by the Zerg for many years... He immediately thought of the king egg that was taken away by the Zerg without being hidden.

The queen who died was the last queen of the Zerg race. She completed her final evolution, took on a human form, accepted human thinking, and tried to end the war that lasted for thousands of years, but she was eventually killed in a murder. When she was about to die, she left behind two eggs.

If he and Ruan Jiao are related by blood, and the insect tentacles that grew on his forehead in the dream provide evidence, he, or the body he passed through, is likely to be the first royal egg hidden by the Queen of Insects.

However, in the records about insects, there is no mention of the queen giving birth to males.

The insect tribe has a typical matriarchal social structure, with the queen insect who holds the right to reproduce being the most respected. Therefore, the eggs laid by each queen insect must be female.

The information he now has is too missing. It seems that everything matches, but it is also contradictory and cannot be justified.

But everything he saw in that dream was so real and reasonable. Whether it was the silence of the Blue Planet, the expansion of the Zerg to evolutionary division, or the death of Queen Farah... they seemed nonsense, but many details just explained many current unexplainable situations.

Thinking of Queen Farah, Ruan Shiqing subconsciously glanced at Rong Heng.

When he mentioned his deceased mother, his expression was always nostalgic and sad, but never angry or hateful. Obviously, he didn't know the truth about the Queen's death on the front line. The cause of the Queen's death announced by the Empire was that she led the troops in a once-in-a-century insect swarm on the front line and died of exhaustion.

Ruan Shiqing couldn't confirm what was true and what was false, so he could only find a way to verify the authenticity of the dream before telling him the truth.

He skipped the part that he couldn't say, and only vaguely said: "When I was unconscious, I didn't seem to lose consciousness." He described the situation of being immersed in a body of water without boundaries: "At that time, I grew tentacles on my forehead like Ruan Jiao's."

Tentacles are a characteristic unique to insects.

Garland was thoughtful after listening to what you said. After a while, he said, "From what you described, it sounds like the state of looking inward at the spiritual body. The study of spiritual power is a very unpopular subject in the Empire, but I have read a lot of related books and research papers recently. A scholar once proposed a hypothesis that the essence of human beings is a spiritual body. The scholar likened the spiritual power in the human brain to a sea, also called the 'spiritual sea'. The spiritual body is self-consciousness and the embodiment of the self. When a person looks inward at his own 'spiritual sea', it is like 'the person' is immersed in the sea. The sea is endless, but 'the person' is small. When 'the person' can come and go freely in this sea, he has mastered the spiritual power."

This theory is just a hypothesis, which has never been verified by anyone and was even once denounced as heresy. The scholar who once proposed the "spiritual sea" theory not only did not receive recognition, but also suffered a lot of ridicule and attacks, and finally died in poverty.

In the past six months, Garland has read a lot of works related to the study of spiritual power in order to explore Ruan Jiao's abnormality and the reason why Ruan Shiqing was in a coma. In addition, with Ruan Jiao as a ready-made living example in front of him, he has gained a lot of insights.

He felt that the "spiritual sea" theory might not be nonsense, and now Ruan Shiqing's words further confirmed his thoughts.

After a moment's silence, he suggested, "Do you want to go and see those Zerg captives? If my guess is correct, those Zerg captives should have some reaction to you."

He had been stuck in a rut before, but now Ruan Shiqing's words pointed him in a new direction - the power of the Zerg is indeed strong, but their ultimate direction of evolution may not be physical strength, but spiritual strength.

For example, those anthropomorphic insects, such as Ruan Jiao.

The closer they are to a complete human form, the stronger their spiritual power will be; but correspondingly, their physical strength will be weakened. But this does not mean that they have become weaker. For example, the status of anthropomorphic Zerg is quite high among the Zerg, and after training, Ruan Jiao can even make those hostile Zerg captives surrender.

Thinking of the Fallen Star vines that had grown wildly in the repair shop a few days ago, Garland thought that Ruan Shiqing could verify it with the imprisoned Zerg.

But before Ruan Shiqing answered, Rong Heng became nervous: "No!"

His face was gloomy, his body was tense, and he subconsciously held down Ruan Shiqing's arm.

Ruan Shiqing had fallen into a coma before because of the dead newborn queen. Now he had just woken up, and what if he was attacked by the Zerg again... He became irritable and restless just thinking about this possibility.

Ruan Shiqing could feel how strong the force was that was pressing on his arm, and he also understood Rong Heng's concerns.

But he did have many guesses that needed to be verified, and after a little thought, he had made a decision.

He pressed the other person's tense arm with his backhand, and Ruan Shiqing's slender fingers flexibly moved down along the slightly tense muscle lines, finally overlapping on the back of the hand where blue veins bulged. His fingers inserted into the gaps between the fingers, and the ten fingers interlocked.

He used some force to hold the other person's hand tightly, letting him feel his determination: "If you go with me, I will be careful and there will be no accidents again."

Rong Heng looked at him for a moment, and finally had to compromise.

But he was unwilling to do so. When he went to the prison where the Zerg were imprisoned, he glared at Garland fiercely.

Garland pretended not to notice.

The prison for the Zerg was built underground in the arsenal. In addition to the three anthropomorphic Zerg captured at the beginning, many more prisoners were added later as the rescue operations increased. From the high-level anthropomorphic Zerg to the low-level ordinary Zerg, all were imprisoned in the prison, and only the minimum survival needs were guaranteed every day. For the use of the Garland Institute.

The lower the level of the Zerg, the more they are imprisoned on the periphery.

When Ruan Shiqing and his party entered, they heard hissing and banging sounds. These low-level insects had low IQs, and without the command of the higher-level insects, they were stupid and could only use brute force.

When they passed by, the insects had just drunk some nutrients and regained some strength, so they began to bang on the prison bars again.

The whole underground prison was filled with the sound of banging and there was a lot of noise.

Ruan Shiqing frowned subconsciously.

Then the lower-level insects stopped their attacks and retreated to the corners of the prison in fear, with their sharp limbs retracted in their carapaces, their abdomens pressed against the ground, and they didn't even dare to raise the tentacles on their heads.

Garland raised his eyebrows and looked at Ruan Shiqing: "This wouldn't have happened when Ruan Jiao came before. What did you do?"

Ruan Jiao is still young after all. Although he can make these low-level insects submit through learning and training, it is not as easy as it is now. The postures of those insects' submission are far from being as docile as they are now.

Ruan Shiqing shook his head, somewhat puzzled: "I didn't do anything."

As they talked, they continued to move forward.

The Zerg imprisoned on both sides of the corridor retreated to the corners of the prison and showed gestures of submission.

The further in they went, the smarter and higher the status of the imprisoned Zerg. Unlike the lower-level Zerg, they all showed a tense posture, and some even couldn't wait to stick their heads out to look. After scanning back and forth, their pairs of red compound eyes fell on Ruan Shiqing.

There were no more banging sounds in the prison, but instead, there were continuous "hissing" sounds.

That was the unique sound of the insect tribe, like the irregular scratching of nails on rough paper. Ruan Shiqing didn't understand it before, and he needed Ruan Jiao to translate it.

But this time, he heard their conversation clearly.

"I smell a familiar scent."

“It’s the queen of insects.”

"The queen insect died a long time ago. There hasn't been a queen insect for many years."

"Why is he a male..."

"Perfect anthropomorphism, he is more perfect than the post-insect evolution. Did he sneak into the human race?"

Amid the noisy conversations that filled his ears, Ruan Shiqing calmly scanned the cells on both sides, memorizing every mention of the Queen Insect.

At the end of the corridor is an independent prison cell.

"The one imprisoned here is No. 4, the highest-level Zerg we have captured so far. His genes are different from those artificial Zergs. I guess he is a small number of natural Zerg born from the Queen Zerg." Garland numbered these Zergs to facilitate data recording.

Ruan Shiqing looked through the gap in the fence and found that the person imprisoned in the prison was an adult male. He was tall and thin, with sickly pale skin, and was wearing a shirt and trousers. At first glance, he looked no different from a human being.

Rong Heng saw through his confusion and explained, "He seems to have evolved more completely than other anthropomorphic insects. When he transforms into an insect, he looks like half human, half insect."

He caught this insect during a rescue.

The evolved anthropomorphic Zerg are very cunning. They disguise themselves as ordinary humans, hide among the rescued survivors, and issue orders through the Zerg's unique mental fluctuations, commanding other Zerg to fight.

That rescue operation was extremely difficult, and the casualties on both the rescue team and the rescued planet were incalculable.

The enemy was mixed in with the survivors and was familiar with all the conditions inside the planet. With the enemy in the dark and us in the light, this rescue operation took nearly a month to complete.

If Rong Heng had not seen anthropomorphic insects disguised as humans before, he would have been cautious and ordered people to secretly monitor suspicious targets, and almost let this cunning insect escape.

Finally, they caught the Zerg, and when they were escorting him back to B3024, they encountered a floating Zerg tide. The lower-level Zerg were fearless and charged at their warships again and again, probably to rescue the Zerg.

Based on this, Rong Heng judged that the status of this insect tribe was quite high.

However, he was obviously more cunning than other anthropomorphic Zerg, and after several tortures, not much useful information was obtained from him.

Ruan Shiqing stared at the insect through a door.

He always felt that this insect gave him a very familiar feeling, but he looked at him carefully and was sure that he had never seen him before. Even in dreams, no insect was half human and half insect.

After thinking for a while, Ruan Shiqing didn't want to miss any clues, so he asked, "Are there any photos of him transformed into a Zerg?"

Garland said yes, and pulled out the stored images from the computer to show him.

Ruan Shiqing flipped through the photos one by one, and finally his eyes fixed on one of them, his expression became solemn - in the photo, the man looked like an insect from the waist down, with three pairs of limbs extending from his spine, and his naked body was covered with strange patterns, but the most eye-catching thing was the red conch-like pattern on his chest.

He had seen this pattern before—in a dream.

When the Queen Insect emerged from the egg in human form, countless insects paid homage to her. Among them, the largest and closest insect had a red conch pattern on its chest and abdomen when it stood up.

But it was clearly still a bug at the time and had not evolved.

Ruan Shiqing's eyes darkened, he suppressed all his emotions, looked at No. 4, and said lightly: "I have seen you."

The Zerg looked up at him, his pupils shrank, but he didn't say anything.

But Ruan Shiqing somehow sensed his hostility and a hint of fear.

This feeling was inexplicable, but he indeed felt it. He looked towards Ruan Jiao and saw the cub holding onto the corner of Rong Heng's clothes, staring at him warily with eyes wide open, apparently aware of the other party's ill will.

He narrowed his eyes, and this time he did not ask, but said in a determined tone: "It seems that you have recognized who I am."

As he said this, his expression had just the right amount of sarcasm.

The silent Zerg finally spoke in fluent interstellar language: "She hid you very well. It seems that you have obtained all the inherited memories now." If it weren't for the inherited memories, it would be impossible to recognize him.

Ruan Shiqing extracted a lot of information from his words.

1. It is indeed the insect in the dream;

2. Dreams are not simply dreams, but inherited memories.

Ruan Shiqing quickly reviewed the information he had analyzed and continued to ask questions calmly, "She had anticipated your betrayal and had made preparations."

Number 4 showed an expression of "as expected". He turned his gaze to Ruan Jiao and said with gritted teeth, "She deliberately left us a defective queen egg and hid you well. No wonder we have spent countless efforts over the years but still cannot cultivate a real queen insect."

The reproductive rights of the entire tribe are controlled by the Queen Worm. However, since the Queen Worm completed the transformation into human form and dived into the Galactic Empire several times, she no longer lays eggs with them for the future of the entire tribe as she did before.

They even began to have wild ideas, wanting to make peace with humans and coexist peacefully in exchange for the "Heavenly Stone" that would promote the evolution of their tribe.

But the "Heavenly Stone" is vital to the evolution of the tribe. How can the tribe's lifeblood be handed over to the hands of foreigners?

This idea is too naive!

Rather than being constrained by others, it is better to completely occupy this star field. Then the entire race can make further progress.

Originally, their plan was perfect. They forced the queen insect into a desperate situation. She would definitely give birth to a royal egg when she was on the verge of death. As long as they brought back the royal egg and bred the next queen insect, everything would remain the same.

But I didn’t expect that the royal egg I brought back was a male!

Without the queen insects, the population gradually decreased due to the war, and they had to find a way to artificially breed new queen insects.

The queens bred from the genes extracted from the queen eggs have serious defects. The eggs they lay are weaker and they will die completely after laying eggs three times at most.

The reproduction of insects has fallen into an unprecedented crisis.

It's not that they didn't suspect that there was something wrong with the queen egg, but the queen insect can only lay one queen egg at a time, so even if they suspected it, they couldn't confirm it.

Now the appearance of Ruan Shiqing made him confirm that they had fallen into the trap set by the Queen of Insects.

She deliberately left behind a defective royal egg, but hid the royal egg that inherited everything.

And now, this grown king egg, like its mother, is close to humans.

The Zerg let out an angry hiss and pounced forward, extending its limbs on its back in an attempt to attack Ruan Shiqing.

Rong Heng, who was guarding on the side, had a sharp look in his eyes. He took a step forward, caught the sharp limb with his bare hands, and chopped down with his other hand like a knife, breaking the opponent's limb.

Three pairs of limbs were cut off one after another, and the severely injured Zerg fell to the ground. The human eyes gradually turned into the Zerg's compound eyes, staring at Ruan Shiqing with hatred.

Ruan Shiqing stared at him for a moment, figuring that he wouldn't be able to get anything out of him today, so he turned around and left.

Just tell Garland not to let him die easily.

After getting on the elevator and getting away from the insects, Rong Heng, who had not said a word, finally spoke: "What kind of nonsense were you talking about with that insect just now?"

Jia Lan and Ruan Jiao were also obviously very confused. Three pairs of eyes looked at him in unison, waiting for him to clarify.

Ruan Shiqing sighed slightly and said, "I'll tell you guys in detail when I get back."

With the confirmation of No. 4's words, he was basically certain that the fragmented fragments in those "dreams" were real.

That is the memory passed down by successive generations of queens.