The Beautiful, Strong, and Tragic Female Lead is Mine [Transmigration Into a Novel] - Chapter 81

After dawn, the group headed straight for the apartment.

After everyone else had entered the room, Xie Zhitian locked the door from the inside and began inspecting the room with the others. When they first arrived, they had already habitually searched the room thoroughly, inside and out, and found nothing suspicious. So this time, the focus was on the room’s recent renovation. After learning about Li Changhui’s character, no one believed his renovation of the apartment was done out of goodwill.

The walls had been freshly painted, a pristine white with almost no dust or marks. Xie Zhitian took a dagger and carefully scraped off a piece of paint from a corner, revealing the gray-black cement underneath. She leaned in for a closer look but found nothing, so she picked up the dagger and continued to expand the area.

Xia Fufeng reminded her from the side, “Don’t make it too obvious. What if Wang Haibo decides to check the room on a whim one day and finds out?”

Xie Zhitian didn’t even lift her head. “It’s fine. My portable space has wall paint and tools. If all else fails, I have wallpaper to cover it up.”

Luo Yang crouched down and lightly pressed the floor with her fingers. The floor was covered with light-colored tiles, their surface brand new and smooth to the touch. She said, “Let’s lift the floorboards too. I remember Tiantian’s space has super glue. We can stick them back on, and it shouldn’t be too noticeable.”

Tang Zhuoran said, “Alright.”

The two of them, acting without hesitation, quickly lifted a large section of the floor tiles. Xia Fufeng bent down, carefully inspecting the exposed floor. A moment later, a confused expression appeared on her face. “Do you feel like something’s wrong?”

Xie Zhitian and Luo Yang exchanged glances and shook their heads at the same time.

At that moment, Tang Zhuoran spoke up from the side. “Although there’s nothing wrong on the surface, I feel a little uncomfortable.”

Xia Fufeng immediately asked, “Uncomfortable how?”

Tang Zhuoran was silent for two seconds, then said, “It’s like, the physical discomfort right before a mutation.” In the few days since coming here, she had occasionally felt unwell, but it was too slight to trace, and she wasn’t even sure if it was just psychological. To avoid worrying her companions, she hadn’t mentioned it to anyone. But after the paint and floor tiles in the room were scraped off, this discomfort was amplified several times, to a discernible level. That feeling of approaching a mutation was hard to describe, but once you experienced it, it was hard to forget. And her constitution was more sensitive than others, so she had experienced it more than once.

As soon as she finished speaking, the atmosphere in the room immediately tensed up. The matter of mutation was a thorn in the side for all reformed humans, a subtle ache that was too painful to touch.

Xia Fufeng seemed especially nervous, leaning over and asking in a flurry, “Is it serious? Should we go to the hospital…” After remembering what this district had done to mutated reformed humans, she cut her sentence short. “No, under no circumstances can we go to the sanatorium.”

Tang Zhuoran took a pillbox from her pocket, shook out two pills, and swallowed them. “It’s nothing, it’s still within the range of medication control.”

Xie Zhitian looked at her, and a terrifying thought gradually surfaced in her mind. “If District 33 gathered reformed humans under the pretense of fighting aliens, was it to induce a mass mutation, then…” She didn’t continue, but everyone understood what she meant.

In recent years, as the number of aliens has gradually decreased, skepticism toward reformed humans has grown, especially with certain individuals deliberately fanning the flames, making the situation even more difficult.

Xie Zhitian could barely imagine what a huge uproar it would cause nationwide if the reformed humans in these apartment buildings were to undergo a large-scale mutation. At that point, probably not a single reformed human would be spared.

The majority of reformed humans were female, and also the most important military force of the Queen’s Faction. If something were to happen to them, the Queen’s Faction would suffer a severe blow, a devastating disaster.

Moreover, the reformed humans recruited by District 33 came from all over. Firstly, this increased the base number of reformed humans, which was equivalent to increasing the number of people who would mutate. Secondly, if the induced mutation were successful, the result would be more widespread and convincing, suggesting that not just the reformed humans in District 33 were a problem, but that reformed humans from all over the country could be problematic, which would increase public panic.

Luo Yang frowned and carefully inspected the floor and walls again. “Is there some kind of agent mixed into the renovation materials? But I can’t feel anything at all. At least it’s not poisonous.”

Xia Fufeng said, “An agent that induces mutation in reformed humans doesn’t necessarily have to be toxic. Zhuoran is more sensitive to this, which is why she’s feeling unwell.”

Tang Zhuoran pondered, “But as far as I know, no one in our country has developed a drug that can cause reformed humans to mutate. And if such a drug really existed, they could just send people to secretly deploy it in various districts. Why would they need to gather us all here and risk drawing the attention of the Central Authority?”

Xie Zhitian said, “Before, when they were modifying the aliens, they used a combination of different methods. Could it be that inducing mutation in reformed humans also requires a similar cumulative effect?”

Luo Yang asked, “Are you saying it not only requires the long-term, subtle influence of the agent, but also the condition of continuous combat with aliens?”

Xie Zhitian nodded. “Aliens are different from any other creature in the world. They are beyond human comprehension. No one knows how they are produced or how they appear. Their bodies contain a certain substance that didn’t originally exist in this world. Perhaps one of these substances can combine with the agent to collectively achieve the mutation effect.”

“And this substance is highly likely to be prone to oxidation and denaturation, or to interact with other substances in the environment and become ineffective. Therefore, only by being personally present on the battlefield, breathing air containing the aliens’ body fluids, and being stained with their flesh and blood, can the mutation effect be achieved.”

Luo Yang murmured, “If that’s the case, it makes sense logically. The frequent attacks by aliens would naturally lead to the recruitment of reformed humans from other districts, and the induced mass mutation of reformed humans from different districts would further prove its widespread nature.”

Her body felt a chill. The thought that the place she lived and the things she did every day were all to induce her mutation sent a heavy shiver down her spine, as if she were at the bottom of a bottomless abyss, unable to see a single ray of light.

At that moment, a warm hand stroked her back, and the familiar warmth pulled her back to reality.

Xie Zhitian’s voice rang out beside her. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out together.”

Luo Yang looked at her and nodded gently.

Xia Fufeng glanced at Tang Zhuoran and said, “Let’s take care of the two rooms we’re living in first.” Tang Zhuoran had a special constitution, and she was very afraid that she would be affected by the agent and something else would happen to her.

Xie Zhitian said, “I have white wallpaper and glue. We can put several layers of wallpaper on the walls and spread transparent glue in the floor gaps. This will serve as a barrier to some extent and won’t draw attention.”

Everyone thought this was a feasible method and agreed. Acting without hesitation, they quickly finished treating the two rooms where the four of them were staying.

Xie Zhitian said, “That night, Li Changhui said the plan would be completed next month. Now there are seven days until the end of the month, which means we must find a way to stop this plan within these seven days.”

They didn’t have much time left. Yet the entire plan was just starting to emerge, and many details were unknown. Talking about stopping it was truly difficult.

Xia Fufeng hesitantly suggested, “Should we get help from others? Didn’t they say there were others investigating with us? It’s probably time to gather now, right?”

Xie Zhitian pondered for a moment and said, “Let’s not for now. Carelessly involving people who don’t know the truth is too risky. Besides, the higher-ups told us to do our part first. I think someone will contact us when the time is right.”

Although Li Changhui’s plan was just their speculation, if it were to spread, it would inevitably cause panic and would be hard to keep secret. What if there were spies placed by Li Changhui in the apartment? Startling the snake by beating the grass could lead to a mutual destruction. At this stage, it’s not good to alert others. Once they’ve investigated and clarified the matter, they can choose reliable people and seek their help if needed.

Tang Zhuoran said, “Actually, the biggest problem right now is figuring out where those aliens are coming from and why they appear and disappear at almost the same time every day.”

If their speculation was correct, there were two ways to thwart Li Changhui’s plan. First, everyone moves out of the apartment; second, they prevent the aliens from appearing. But it’s clearly unrealistic to explain the situation directly to others or find an excuse to make everyone move out of the apartments. They didn’t know what hidden moves Li Changhui had or if he had other heavy weapons. Once a large-scale armed conflict breaks out, the reformed humans here would undoubtedly suffer heavy casualties. After all, this was Li Changhui’s territory. It was not impossible for him to make them all disappear, erase the evidence, and cover up the truth.

Of course, if they get to the last moment, for example, closer to the end of the month, and still haven’t come up with a better solution, they could try to “burn their bridges” and fight a last-ditch battle. But they still had time now, so there was no need to choose such a tragic way to resist right from the start.

As for the second method, it was much more feasible than the first. The appearance of aliens in this world was normally completely random, yet the ones around District 33 seemed to have a biological clock, lying dormant during the day and coming out at night. There must be something fishy going on. If they could figure out how District 33 was attracting the aliens and how they were dispersing them, then they could find a way to stop that process and prevent the aliens from being drawn in.

Therefore, the top priority right now was to find out why the aliens here behaved this way.

Silence returned to the room. Everyone was seriously recalling the events of the past few days, hoping to find a clue.

At that moment, there was a knock on the door, and Yu Ningning’s voice was heard. “You guys aren’t asleep yet, are you?”

Xie Zhitian stepped forward and opened the door. “Not yet.” Her gaze paused. “And these two are?”

Behind Yu Ningning stood two unfamiliar women. One was tall and had a delicate face, looking to be around 30 years old. The other was a bit shorter, in her early 20s, with a cute bun hairstyle.

Yu Ningning stepped aside and nudged the two people behind her forward. “They’re new reformed humans who arrived a couple of days ago. They said they have something they want to ask the warriors from District 26, so I brought them over.”

Support