don't talk to aliens

Li Xie's phone call not only almost disturbed his heart, but also made Lu Yiming on the other end of the phone fall into deep thought.

To a certain extent, although the two of them are brothers, they have not been together since they were young, and they don't know each other as well as they did when they grew up.

But even so, after he returned to China, Lu Yiming still felt worried after seeing Li Xie's current situation.

Lu Yiming always felt that his elder brother hadn't been doing well these years.

Although he pretended to be smooth and indifferent all day long, sometimes when he suddenly quieted down, he seemed to be hiding something on his mind.

And these years, he has lived a miserable life alone at the bottom, and he has been working very hard, so Lu Yiming also wants to find out the current relationship status of his only relative in the world.

"...Why has my elder brother been acting weird lately...What did he want to hide from me just now?"

Thinking of this, Lu Yiming, who was sitting cross-legged in the study and playing games, but always felt that something that he didn't know should have happened during this time, also touched his chin curiously.

For the time being, he doesn't know the answer to this question.

But he believed that with his ingenuity, he should know soon, and he was not in a hurry.

So soon, Lu Yiming, who once again focused his attention on the video games accumulated as models in front of him, temporarily put this matter in his mind.

And I don't know what happened between Lu Yiming and Li Xie upstairs tonight, and I was only busy with their dinner tonight in the kitchen from beginning to end.

When Chen Zhen started packing up the steak bought from the supermarket by himself in the kitchen, he was a little distracted for a while.

["atatal, bovine specimen 1√"]

The red label paper pasted on the incubator still lingers in his mind.

In his hand, the white kitchen paper dilutes the bright red blood on the surface of the steak after being slapped by the knife, leaving a piece of red blood with a fishy smell.

The faint, bloody smell lingering around his nose seemed to remind him of something, and against the texture of the large piece of beef full of white fat, Chen Zhen felt an uncomfortable nausea in his stomach.

"...Cows have 4 toes on their feet, but the side toes are more degenerated than those of deer. They are suitable for running. Both the incisors and canines have degenerated, but the lower incisors are still preserved. Generally, bison with 56 chromosomes, yellow cattle with 60 and A large cow with 58 chromosomes, crossed with fertile offspring..."

"...cows have four stomachs which, according to modern anatomy, are actually divided into two distinct parts - the first three stomachs are not actually capable of secreting gastric juice...so not in the true sense the stomach, but the esophagus..."

"The most important thing is that cattle, as a common ethnic group of the Bovine subfamily, have nearly 80% similarities with ordinary humans in terms of genetic composition... This has also become an unsolved case in the history of biological research..."

This is a piece of professional lecture content that Chen Zhen vaguely heard from the professor when he was in college.

That class was about why human beings are the only earth creatures without subspecies on earth.

This was once a worldwide species unsolved case.

Since the age of Australopithecus, the ancestors of modern humans have been suspected for a time as to why they had a completely independent evolutionary line from other common earth creatures at this stage.

A human subspecies that has never been officially verified to have ever existed on Earth.

Because even if there is, there are no scientific records and surviving specimens to prove where this huge group went in the process, and why it disappeared from then on.

Therefore, in the past evolutionary stages of modern humans, whether there have been similar subspecies with similar genetic makeup has been a hot topic in scientific research in the past two years.

But just as he put away these cranky thoughts and was about to start cooking, the phone in the living room rang.

Chen Zhen, who was putting butter cubes in the pan and waiting to seal the edge of the steak in his hand, couldn't go out to pick it up for a while, but when he put down the things in his hand, he walked out of the kitchen quickly, and the phone had already been hung up. .

And then he glanced at the caller ID on the landline, and pressed the landline message left by the other party.

It was only then that Chen Zhen discovered that the call was from a college student who stayed at the research institute to hurry up and finish his homework tonight, and the content of the message was roughly like this.

"Dr. Chen, I have already packed up the experimental samples for tomorrow's group and put them in the incubator. I just passed the fourth floor and closed the door by the way. I also put the key at the door. If you are in a hurry tomorrow morning, please hear my message , you can get the key directly without wasting your time."

Accompanied by a 'di' sound when the recording was interrupted, the message ended here.

— September 2018, 10.

A row of dates flashing in fluorescent colors on the landline vaguely reminded Chen Zhen of something.

And if you think about it this way, the fourth floor of the institute tonight happens to be completely empty at the moment, and the only things that can be left there are those strange thermostatic boxes.

["We have the rarest living biological specimens in our hands today... This achievement has not yet been announced to the scientific community. With your ingenuity, you should understand that if you want to participate... you must be strict. confidential work... Otherwise, we can't fully trust your sincerity..."]

Before that, that Miss Cao Xuemei's cold words rang in her mind again.

Thinking of the row of strange toed animal paw prints that disappeared at the elevator entrance at the end, and the series of doubts in his heart after returning to China, Chen Zhen, who was always a little uneasy in his heart, frowned and fell silent for a while.

After taking off his apron, he first went to bring out the steak that had been cooked in the kitchen.

For a moment, Chen Zhen decided to take advantage of the fact that there was no one in the research institute at the moment, and Chen Zhen, who went back to take a look, took the car keys at the entrance, changed his shoes, and called upstairs again.

"Yiming, I suddenly remembered something. I want to go back to the research institute now. Can you solve dinner at home first?"

"Ah? What's the rush? Why are you going out so late? How about I go with you?"

As soon as he heard that he didn't eat dinner, Lu Yiming hurried out from the upstairs study.

"No, I'll be back soon. Just remember to check the gas before going to bed, and lock the door to be safe. If you feel bored at home alone, you can call your elder brother and chat."

"Oh...well...then you should come back sooner."

"okay."

After saying this sentence, the considerate and gentle Mr. Dr. Chen felt relieved, and agreed with Lu Yiming about the time when he would return, and left the house alone.

20:35

He set off from his home, preparing to go to the Institute of Atomic Energy and Biology in the middle of the night from the downtown driveway.

Before backing out of the garage, Chen Zhen accidentally discovered that the pink teddy bear that Li Xie gave Lu Yiming was still in the garage at home when he returned to China some time ago.

At that moment, they saw that the bear's head, which they had collectively forgotten, drooped pitifully to one side.

Dr. Chen, who was sympathetic even to a teddy bear, picked it up again and stuffed it back under the back seat of his car before he was ready to go.

21:17

Chen Zhen arrived safely outside the Institute of Atomic Energy alone.

He finished taking the student's keys downstairs, and after confirming that the surveillance at the gate guard had been turned off at night, he closed all the entrances and exits and went upstairs from the elevator on the ground floor after confirming that they were correct.

21:29

He entered the fourth floor of the institute.

At this time, the sky outside had completely darkened, and because of the installation of circulating indoor lamps in the air-conditioned institute, the basic lighting could be guaranteed even if no one was here all night.

And just as Chen Zhen walked up alone and tried to find the dozen or so incubators with labels that he had seen during the day, he found that all of these boxes had disappeared.

—Wait, where did it go?

His heart skipped a beat.

All the incubators with labels were arranged in the corridor on the fourth floor before get off work was over.

It doesn't make sense to say that the students who helped move things at night have left, but these things stand up by themselves and disappear again.

But just when Chen Zhen, who had been in the laboratory all the year round, was about to fall into some kind of doubt and self-denial, the sound of footsteps resembling high heels suddenly came from the end of the corridor.

"clatter--"

The voice sounded very familiar.

Think carefully about that Miss Cao Xuemei, who wears high heels and black stockings on her legs all the year round, will be accompanied by such clearly visible footsteps every time she appears in the laboratory in person.

Chen Zhen, who was squatting at the foot of the stairs, wanted to check the row of paw prints before, and immediately stood up from the ground when he heard the sound.

But through the shadow falling on the ground, the person who came at the corner was obviously close at hand, and he was about to face to face with him who was standing there.

And now I don't know where to hide, and I understand that being caught is not just a simple question of loyalty being questioned by the research institute.

As soon as Chen Zhen looked up and saw that there was an unlocked laboratory next to him, he immediately twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open, and another person hid behind his back.

When he entered the laboratory just above the elevator entrance, panting lightly, he just squatted down and gently pushed the cardboard box in the corner to hide his exposed feet.

On the other end, a pair of high-heeled shoes, as if stepping on the tip of a knife, appeared like an elegant woman's feet.

As far as the eye can see, the stockings are fully supported by the sexy/sensual calf outline.

The heels of this pair of high-heeled shoes are very sharp and thin. When people step on them, the hissing sound of the heels across the glass floor will cause the body to twist gracefully, and it also gives people a sense of enchantment like a beautiful snake.

But this should have been an extremely pleasing scene for any man.

But when Chen Zhen's line of sight came into contact with the real prosthetic limb made of pure metal that the woman had rarely removed half of her stockings, she suddenly became chills down the back, and even became a little horrified.

"I hate wearing these socks, but in order to prevent those people from being afraid to see my feet, I can only hide them like this day and night."

This cold, complaining tone was undoubtedly from that Miss Cao Xuemei.

Chen Zhen frowned solemnly and watched all that happened outside without making a sound.

In the next second, some other tall men with various similar protective metal masks on their faces, everyone with Sanskrit tattoos on their arms, and carrying those missing incubators appeared on the fourth floor.

These Sanskrit words are somewhat similar to the atatal writing he saw on the label paper before, and these incubators are the empty boxes that Chen Zhen saw before.

But at this moment, the surface of the frosted glass seemed to be against some anesthetized humanoid creatures, leaving only a vague black shadow.

There are always more than 20 shadow Ling Ling locked in the box.

But most of the unspeakable secret experiments that took place in the research institute tonight have been completely sealed from the outside, and big red crosses have been stamped on the label paper marked on the surface.

There are only two left, one is written [atatal, bovine specimen 1√], and the other is written [vitala, banana specimen 2, ×]

Seeing this, Chen Zhen's palms became colder and colder, because through his perspective, he could vaguely see that the two boxes closest to him were a man and a woman.

The man covered in mucus, who could no longer be seen as a creature of the earth, faced down, had a huge head, and his body seemed to be strengthened and inflated. The gray muscles were incredibly strong, but his hands were tightly bound by a circle of metal shackles.

And the strange girl next to her, who couldn't see anything abnormal for a while, also fell into a coma for a while.

But what made Chen Zhen unable to believe what he saw in front of him was that the next second, he saw something like a cow's toe growing on the palm of the man in the box.

... cow toe?

For a moment, they seemed to have a clue as to who belonged to those toed animal paw prints that had been left on the ground outside the laboratory.

At the same time, Cao Xuemei, the prosthetic woman standing at the elevator entrance, also stooped expressionlessly to take off her stockings, picked them up again, and casually threw them into the trash can in the corridor next to her.

"Take Wang Qiang and that banana in the box, and we'll go to the fifth floor now."

"..."

"Also, be careful, both of them are very fragile now. When the girl from the hair salon that Wang Qiang knew sold him to us, his toes were already cracked, and the skin on the banana would change at any time due to the temperature difference. The corruption of her body, the black spots that can only be seen in fruits, and the accelerated secretion of fructose in her body caused death, which is not very conducive to the experiment, we want to contribute their most perfect subspecies form to the superior."

"..."

These words, upon listening carefully, are really weird and terrifying.

A normal man has a strange cow's toe, and a girl who looks very normal is turned into a banana by this group of people. Anyway, this is not something that should happen in a normal biopharmaceutical research institute.

Just then, the elevator door opened, and a group of people lifted the box and entered it, and then went up to the fifth floor.

This made Chen Zhen a little anxious.

Because upon closer inspection, the bodies of the man and the woman were abused and injured to varying degrees, and if they were allowed to fall into the hands of this group of people, it would undoubtedly cause them to die immediately.

But at this moment, he was trapped in the narrow and unused laboratory in front of him, wondering whether he should continue to follow up to the fifth floor.

Chen Zhen thought that the cold high-heeled footsteps that had left before suddenly appeared in his ears again. He was taken aback when he heard the sound, and his stiff shoulders had not had time to move.

In the next second, the devilish woman's voice sounded above Chen Zhen's head, accompanied by a hell-like knock on the door.

"Dr. Chen, I admit that you are very cautious, but unfortunately, when you just went upstairs, your footsteps gave you away."

"..."

"In this world, there is no one who knows better than me what kind of sound a normal person's feet will make when they step on the ground. At one time, some people called me the devil's feet, so come out soon... "

——"I... have found out where you are."

This is probably the closest thing to a horror movie opening line in the world.

The cold laboratory, the gloomy cold light, the peeping perspective through the glove box, and the sound of high-heeled shoes that accompanied the girl with metal prosthetic limbs Cao Xuemei all at once seemed to urge her to die.

She didn't sound like she cared if Chen Zhen heard anything.

Because, in her eyes, Chen Zhen was just an ant like the creatures in those boxes.

Seeing this, Chen Zhen, who had discovered the biggest secret of the institute tonight, felt his heart rise in his throat.

He noticed that the forehead that was in danger of life and death began to sweat frequently, and there was a burst of struggle and paleness on his face.

——'What the hell...what should I do...what should I do...'

And just as Cao Xuemei stared at the closed laboratory door in front of her coldly, and waited for another ten seconds, she finally lifted her prosthetic limb like a knife a little impatiently and broke through the door.

As the iron door was violently torn open by her like paper, there was no figure of the young man behind the box lying on the ground inside. Instead, the garbage delivery door of the middle building from the fourth floor to the first floor was opened.

Seeing this, Cao Xuemei looked at the place that looked like an escape exit, and a trace of cold blood seemed to flash in Cao Xuemei's eyes.

Then, she looked at the disgusting huge, mucus-covered, cow-toed humanoid monster vaguely reflected on the wall behind her, and said expressionlessly,

"Wang Qiang, here comes the opportunity to prove your 'atatal' strength, go ahead, kill him, after I kill him, I will give you the medicine, and give you all the medicine you want to turn back into a normal person."