"Movement at the east entrance!"
The shout from the second team's vehicle guard pulled every eye in the store toward the street at once.
In the rain-dark distance, several erratic flashlight beams were indeed wobbling into view from the eastern intersection.
Not headlights.
Handheld lights.
They shook violently—beams jerking high, then low, as if whoever held them was running while trying not to fall apart.
This was different from Zhou Cheng's people. Different from Scar Liu's crew.
The ones coming now looked worse.
Not like they were heading for the store.
More like they'd been driven here by something behind them.
Qin Zheng's first reaction was not to look at the people.
He raised a hand and signaled for his men outside to lower their guns.
"Count."
"Three— no, four!" the man outside hissed into his earpiece, voice tight. "An old man in front, a girl, and two more behind carrying a case! Something's chasing them!"
Something's chasing them.
The moment those four words landed, every nerve outside the barrier pulled tight.
Sure enough, in the next second, two black shapes burst out behind the swinging flashlight beams.
Fast.
Too fast.
Not ordinary infected.
They moved on all fours, their backs arched into unnatural curves each time they sprang forward, wet snarls tearing from their throats.
"Leapers!" Xie Lin's voice cut out suddenly from the rest pod, lower and harder than before. "Don't let them stop near the entrance for too long!"
Pei Wan's eyes went cold.
"How did those things get drawn here too?"
Lin Wu didn't answer.
She just watched the figures from the east getting closer and closer.
At the front was an old man.
At least sixty.
Rain had plastered his hair against his forehead. A white lab coat showed beneath the dark storm jacket he'd thrown over it in a hurry. He looked like his lungs were about to give out, but he still clutched an ID badge in one hand while dragging a teenage girl behind him with the other.
The girl's face was white as paper. Half her sleeve was soaked in blood. But she was still forcing her legs to move.
Behind them came two middle-aged men carrying a long metal case between them. One corner had already been smashed inward, as if it had struck the ground several times on the way here.
And behind them—
the two leapers had closed to less than ten meters.
"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!"
The old man was shouting while he ran, his voice splitting apart. "The case can't take another impact! One more shock and it'll destabilize completely!"
That sentence cut through the entire store like a blade.
Qin Zheng's face changed instantly.
Pei Wan looked up sharply too.
Only Lin Wu—
Lin Wu's eyes grew brighter.
Because what she heard wasn't don't shoot.
What she heard was:
another case.
The next second, the two leapers hit the edge of the barrier.
Hum—
Pale gold light flared.
The first one slammed into it and was shredded into black ash on the spot.
The second leaped higher, and the moment half its body crossed the boundary, an invisible force crushed it in midair. Black ash mixed with rain and scattered across the ground.
The four fleeing figures staggered into the ten-meter zone at last.
The old man's legs buckled. He nearly went to his knees right there.
But instead of collapsing, he stared straight through the door of the convenience store and into the light—
and the first thing he saw was Lin Wu behind the counter.
Or maybe not Lin Wu.
Maybe the black cabinet behind her.
His whole body seemed to freeze in place.
His eyes shook with something dangerously close to losing control.
"You—"
Even his lips trembled.
"You've already taken it in?"
The store fell silent for a beat.
Qin Zheng snapped his head toward the old man immediately, his voice turning hard as iron.
"Professor Zhou Qiming?"
Pei Wan's brows knotted sharply.
"How are you here?"
But the old man ignored both of them completely.
He stood in the rain, drenched from head to toe, and stared as if pinned in place by magnetism at the black Special Goods Cabinet behind Lin Wu.
Within the gray mist, a faint silver shape flickered once—
then vanished again.
That single glimpse drained what little color remained in the old man's face.
"…It's over," he muttered. "It really got taken in."
"Professor. Inside, now," Pei Wan said immediately.
But the old man still didn't move.
Then it was as if he remembered why he had come. He spun and pointed at the long metal case behind him, the words tearing out of his throat.
"Save that first!"
"This isn't a Level-One sample. It's Secondary Companion Chamber Two!"
"What's inside is even more dangerous than the one you already took!"
The instant that landed, even the air in the store seemed to tighten.
Su Yu held Sui Sui so tightly that even her breathing became shallow.
He Qing went even paler.
Outside, the second team operatives reflexively tightened their grip on their weapons again.
The cold in Qin Zheng's eyes compressed into something nearly solid.
And Lin Wu's first reaction was—
to check the system.
The warning exploded across her vision in red.
[High-resonance special item detected nearby.][Risk Level: Higher than current cabinet-contained item.][Warning: Do not allow two resonant items to approach each other without isolation.]
Excellent.
Not ordinary premium goods.
The kind of premium goods that made the system go red.
"Stop," Lin Wu said.
Her voice wasn't loud.
But everyone stopped moving.
"Don't bring the thing to the door."
"People can come in. The item stays outside the entrance first."
The two men carrying the chamber froze, clearly anxious.
"But the professor said—"
"I said don't move the cargo yet." Lin Wu lifted her eyes, and her tone turned cold in a single step. "This is my store. Not your lab storage room."
Professor Zhou's breathing came fast. He stared at the case, then at the black cabinet inside the store.
At last he clenched his jaw and nodded.
"Set it down."
The two men lowered the long metal chamber carefully inside the barrier—but still several steps away from the entrance.
Only after it touched the ground did everyone get a proper look at it.
It was twice the size of the sealed case Xie Lin had brought earlier.
Dark silver surface.
Shock-locks at every corner.
A vertical observation window through the middle, already cracked.
Behind the fractured transparent strip, a pale blue liquid swayed slowly.
And then—
the instant it settled, the gray mist behind the Special Goods Cabinet inside the store rippled too.
Like an answer.
Lin Wu's gaze sharpened immediately.
The cabinet and the new chamber were resonating.
The system threw up another warning.
[Resonance increasing.][Recommendation: Establish isolation immediately.][Reward device "Temporary Isolation Bench" is now deployable.]
Perfect timing.
Lin Wu didn't hesitate for even half a second.
She deployed it.
The next moment, in the empty space near the wall by the entrance, a silver-white platform rose soundlessly into place. Pale blue ring-lights lined its edges, and four long anchoring pins unfolded from the corners.
It looked exactly like the kind of table designed for one purpose only:
to hold things that should never be touched carelessly.
Professor Zhou's expression changed again the moment he saw it.
Not surprise.
Something deeper.
Something close to disbelief.
"An isolation bench…" he murmured. "You even have one of those here…"
Lin Wu heard him.
But she didn't respond.
What mattered more was this:
The old man clearly knew a great deal.
"Names first," Lin Wu said, looking at him. "Then you tell me whether this thing is worth me saving."
The sentence yanked him back into himself.
He immediately raised the ID badge in his hand.
"Zhou Qiming. Senior consultant, Heng'an Biotech Special Research Division."
He pointed behind him.
"That's my student, Shen Xiaohe. The two behind us are security escorts."
He was speaking fast, but forcing himself to stay organized.
"The companion chamber has to be stabilized. If not, it'll interact with the item already inside your store."
He looked toward the Special Goods Cabinet again, then back to Lin Wu.
"And if that happens, you won't be drawing infected from one street."
"You'll light up two districts."
That made Qin Zheng's face turn completely dark.
He had not expected tonight to jump from recover one case to two high-resonance objects in the same zone.
This was no longer about whether takeover succeeded.
If the scene destabilized again now, everyone here would suffer.
"Professor." Qin Zheng's voice dropped cold and hard. "Why are you transporting Companion Chamber Two out of base?"
Professor Zhou spun toward him, and for the first time there was open anger in his eyes.
"You still have the nerve to ask me that?"
"If your second team hadn't forced the transfer window forward and disrupted the isolation distance between Sample One and Companion Chamber Two, none of this would have happened tonight!"
Several members of the second team changed expression at once.
Standing nearby, Pei Wan's eyes cooled by degrees as well.
Just like that, this stopped being merely the sample is missing.
Now the chain of responsibility had started biting back too.
Lin Wu, however, had only one thought:
This order is going to explode.
Because by now she could smell it.
Responsibility.
Samples.
Companion chambers.
A professor.
And a whole experimental line that had very obviously not yet been dragged fully into the light.
Put together, none of that would ever sell cheap.
"Enough," she said, tapping the counter lightly. "Arguments are billed separately."
"If you want to live in my store, then you follow my rules first."
One sentence.
And the entire scene snapped back into her hand.
Professor Zhou turned sharply back toward her.
"Name your price."
Excellent.
Lin Wu liked customers who learned quickly.
"First: Professor Zhou and Shen Xiaohe come inside."
She pointed at the two security men.
"Those two stay outside."
Both men's faces changed immediately.
"Professor—"
"Do as she says," Zhou snapped through gritted teeth. "Right now, she's the one in charge here."
Lin Wu approved of that answer and continued.
"Second: the companion chamber does not come into my store yet. It goes onto the isolation bench first."
"Third—"
She looked directly at Professor Zhou, her eyes bright now.
"If you want me to save it, then you explain exactly what the relationship is between Sample One and Companion Chamber Two."
Professor Zhou stared at her.
Then, after several seconds, nodded heavily, as if he had finally accepted reality.
"Fine."
"But you'd better prepare yourself."
His throat moved once.
"Because the thing already inside your store…"
"…is not a standalone sample."
He swallowed, voice gone rough.
"It's only…"
"…half of the key."
For a full two seconds, the store went silent.
Behind the gray mist, the Special Goods Cabinet shifted again—this time in a way that felt almost like something inside it had opened its eyes.
And under the bright lights, the spark in Lin Wu's eyes finally flared all the way awake.
Good.
Now this—
this was a real order.