Clay's office area was located on the third underground floor of the military headquarters building; to enter it required the use of a special access passageway. Dale gave Ye Zhizhou an authorization level that was just under Clay's, giving him free access to most areas within the three underground floors.
"Ned is currently going through the reenlistment process upstairs. He'll come down to find you after that." Dale took Ye Zhizhou's communicator and led him to a small lounge. "Someone will deliver the special communicator that the military department uses to you soon. Your code name is Zhou. Remember, you must not type it wrong when you activate it. I'm going upstairs to meet my father, so I will be back in half an hour. There is an optical computer on the table over there that you can use to write out your report. Do that first, His Highness is waiting."
Ye Zhizhou nodded to show that he understood.
"The red push-button at the door will lead you directly to the logistics department. If you need to seek them out, you can go straight to them." Dale thought for a moment before adding, "Except for a few specific rooms, the rest of the area is all monitored. Pay attention to your words and actions. The monitoring room is full of people who love to wreak havoc everywhere and they love getting blackmail on any new people."
Suddenly, a husky male voice came out of the speaker in the corner. "Dale, you bastard! Slandering us in front of the new person again, come over here and fight!"
Dale pushed their glasses up, raised their hand, and flipped the room's circuit breaker switch off. They smiled at Ye Zhizhou. "As you can see, there's no such thing as privacy here. If you and His Highness want to be intimate in this location, please remember to flip off the circuit breaker switch beforehand. Rest assured. Each room is independently powered and shutting off the power here won't affect another room."
After a buzz of an electric current, the circuit breaker switch automatically flipped back on, and the husky man's voice rang out again, "Dale, come here and fight me one-on-one! I'll ruthlessly beat you up!"
Dale didn't hesitate to flip the circuit breaker switch off again and spread out their hand to gesture. "But sometimes, it's not easy to turn the circuit breaker switch off. The guys in the monitoring room control all the electrical equipment in this entire office area, and they're all shameless hooligans. Anyways, I still never understood why His Highness recruited them into the team."
Ye Zhizhou: "..."
"Well, I have to go now." Dale picked up the communicator, looked at the time, and finally handed Ye Zhizhou some documents. "This information is part of the content found in the underground Zerg research institute; feel free to take a look at it." After Dale said that, they turned around and left.
Ye Zhizhou relaxed his tense body and retreated two steps to sit on the sofa. He looked around the small lounge before lowering his head to skim through the documents in his hand. Afterwards, he accepted his fate and moved over to the optical computer to work hard at writing the report to his lover. Before his lover returns, his freedom of movement will probably be restricted... For his task, he'll endure it.
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The little mirror in his pocket suddenly vibrated, and then a light screen popped up. [Detecting scanning waves from an instrument. Does host wish to block the scan?]
He glanced at the small floor lamp from the corner of his eye and responded, "It should be a normal inspection procedure; don't worry about it. By the way, can you analyze what kind of thing the protagonist's mecha manufacturing system is?"
[Scanning protagonist status... No abnormalities.]
In the old version of the plot, Eddie's mecha manufacturing system had a strong presence—it was the thing that Eddie depended on the most beside the alpha leads. In the new version of the plot, the system's presence seemed to have significantly decreased. It became more like a learning system that could only help the protagonist learn mecha manufacturing faster. The other small functions used by Eddie in the old version of the plot, which had nothing to do with mecha manufacturing, didn't reappear.
Ye Zhizhou thought about two possibilities of why the system could've changed. One possibility was that the mecha manufacturing system malfunctioned after Eddie died, so only a part of it transferred to Inez's body. The other possibility was that the Zerg parasite in Eddie's body no longer needed to depend on the system after transferring host bodies and thus only relied on its own ability to achieve its goal. If the situation was the former, it proved that Zerg parasitism had a cost, or, the mecha manufacturing system was probably brought by the Zerg when it became a parasite in Eddie's body—not some mysterious golden finger. Now if it was the latter, it meant that the Zerg was becoming stronger and no longer needed the system's omnipotent assistance.
When this thought came to mind, Ye Zhizhou's hands stopped typing. He picked up the information that Dale had left behind and carefully looked through it again. The more he read, the worse his expression became.
He only had Inez on his mind before so he didn't pay much attention to other information. However, he just suddenly thought of a possibility—the mecha manufacturing system might not be a "system" like Tongtian but could just be a product of human experiments. In the old version of the plot, the system functions that Eddie used, which weren't relevant to mecha manufacturing, included: scanning a person's aptitude and health, detecting the number of people nearby, and sensing thermal weapons in advance... All of these were functions of existing devices on the market. None of the functions went beyond the world's technology, and especially, not against the heavens. When it came to the system's mecha manufacturing aspect, the system became very sophisticated and efficient. It was like an actual mecha manufacturing master was always standing behind the protagonist and giving him advice... Maybe not exactly like that, but it really felt like a mecha manufacturing master was constantly standing behind the protagonist... They just didn't have to be alive.
Within the information that Dale had left behind was a photo. In the corner of that photo were a few scattered optical computers that were connected with some messy wires. At first, he didn't notice this detail, but after seeing the detailed descriptions of several badly damaged experimental bodies in the information, his heart sank.
The optical computer, the experimental bodies with badly damaged brains... To prove his conjecture, Ye Zhizhou carefully looked through the old plot and found all the parts that involved Eddie and mecha manufacturing. After roughly organizing them, he used Tongtian's cover to enter the network and compared all of Eddie's theories and finished product design drawings with the works of all the mecha manufacturing masters that had appeared in history.
20 minutes later, the frantically scrolling light screen stopped, and one person's name was magnified in the center of the screen.
Jennifer Bafton, Carol's grandfather's sibling... Ye Zhizhou couldn't help raising his hand and covering his face to prevent the people in the monitoring room from seeing his ugly expression. So it was like this... The irregularity that the protagonist found in the component at the mecha manufacturing factory was Jennifer's last creation before they went missing...
The optical computer, the experimental bodies with badly damaged brains, the missing mecha manufacturing master, and the protagonist's powerful mecha manufacturing system... As expected, it was a human experiment; the most despicable kind of experiment—replicating a human brain to serve as an optical computer system.
A powerful optical computer with the combined functions of various popular devices on the market and the "intelligence" obtained by replicating a mecha manufacturing master's brain... This was the truth of the protagonist's golden finger. A bloody truth.
Images of illegal human experiments that he had seen in his own world uncontrollably surged out from the depths of his memories, prompting his spiritual power to also uncontrollably pour out. Ye Zhizhou quickly took a deep breath to suppress his emotions and his eyes became cold. These damned Zergs! These damned human experiments! As expected, Zergs with intelligence were more disgusting than those without intelligence!
There was a sudden knock on the lounge door. Ye Zhizhou rubbed his face and forced himself to go back to normal. After clearing his throat, he said, "Please come in."
Ned pushed the door open while holding a tray and gently smiled at Ye Zhizhou. He set the tray down and said, "His Highness should be back in the morning... The autopsy downstairs has been completed. Does the imperial concubine wish to go down to have a look?"
Ye Zhizhou glanced at the delicious snacks on the tray and couldn't help rubbing his face again. "Let's go take a look. I also just happened to have some questions that need to be answered."
Eddie's corpse was utterly destroyed. It was so damaged that there were barely any spots with skin left. Ye Zhizhou couldn't bear it and covered his mouth when he saw the body.
"At the scene of the accident, there was a very long drag mark. I went to look at it and simulated the accident with synthetic flesh. The conclusion was that, following the drag mark track, it would be impossible for the body to have such evenly distributed wounds on both sides of the body." The cold-faced, cold-voiced young forensic doctor reached out and poked at Eddie's leg, dully smiling. "And, the way the body was split... Currently, the maximum speed limit of a ground vehicle is the same as a tortoise's speed. The body can't be damaged like this unless it was tied to several cars and pulled in different directions."
Ye Zhizhou's brain couldn't help visualizing the scene and he hurriedly asked Tongtian for a pill to eat.
The forensic doctor looked at Ye Zhizhou with disdain and then opened Eddie's scalp and stomach. "And, in both of these places, a piece of the internal organs had mysteriously disappeared. The brain was also damaged and I found that his muscles were a bit strange as there were signs of rapid contraction in a short time."
Ye Zhizhou finally heard the important point. He hurriedly endured the discomfort and asked, "The brain and internal organs were damaged? What was the size of the damaged area?"
"The missing pieces in the internal organs were very scattered. Together, they add up to something about two fists large. The brain didn't have that much damage, maybe about the size of an eyeball." The forensic doctor looked over at the eyeball specimen soaking on a shelf to the side and nodded. "Yes, about the size of an eyeball."
Ye Zhizhou quickly ate another pill. After recovering a bit, he looked at the forensic doctor and asked, "Did you find anything in the body that didn't originally come from the human body?"
"Something that didn't originally come from the human body itself? Do you mean stuff like the little bits of gravel, car screws, and countless pieces of glass?" The forensic doctor took out a detailed autopsy report and gave it to Ye Zhizhou. They pointed to the tray on the other side of the table. "All the things taken from the body are over there. If you want to take them away as souvenirs, please submit an application to me. Seeing as you and the body were classmates, I'll approve it."
"......" Ye Zhizhou was deeply touched by this declaration but refused the offer. He walked to the tray with a wooden face and turned on the system's scanning function.
Ned leaned over with suspicions and asked Ye Zhizhou in a low voice, "Imperial Consort, did you discover something?"
[Zerg gene remnants discovered. Target: The metal fragment in the upper right side of the third row.]
"Yes, there is something." Ye Zhizhou turned off the system's scanning function, picked up the small metal fragment with tweezers, and set it aside. He patted Ned on the shoulder and said, "I feel like this small metal fragment doesn't look quite right. You should go and carefully check it, okay?"
Ned: "..."
The author has something to say:
Thank you for the two mines! Thank you Crying in Autumn, Fei, Demeter, Xixiu and Black Shirt for the mine! Love you guys so much! =3=
PS: There was a traffic jam on the way back, so this chapter was a little short QvQ
Divi: That plot twist. It was actually a man-made system... But author, it's not fair that you didn't mention that all the functions he used were also available within devices on the market before this. >:(
Mina: Smart Zergs are scary LOL