"Found it already? Looks like we're lucky!" Qing Feng said with a smile. After all, this was his first mission since joining the organization, and completing it so smoothly could leave a good impression on Zhang Chen.
"That's right, the memory of the native I possessed is exactly this scene, more or less!" Mo Ran said, looking around the environment and comparing it.
"Wait, don't go in yet, I sense a trap!" Shirley crouched down, diligently gathering the information she perceived.
"These natives are very cunning. If someone goes missing, it will definitely alert them. This laboratory must be abandoned!" Qing Feng leaned against a thick tree, arms crossed, and said.
"Even if it's abandoned, there will be some important information inside. What we need to do is bring it back to the master intact! As for whether this information is valuable, the master will naturally decide!" Shirley said.
After a moment, she stood up and said, "I already know the approximate location of the trap and how it's triggered. Follow me in a moment, and you can move freely after I disarm it!" Mo Ran and Qing Feng nodded and followed Shirley into the museum.
The museum's main entrance was sealed by frost. Upon entering, the entire hall, aside from a layer of dust, was well-preserved. Indeed, most survivors fleeing would not choose to enter a museum; there was no food, no beds, and the space was too large, making it difficult to defend if monsters attacked. With no survivors, there were naturally no monsters, but the lighting was very dim. Coupled with the strange exhibits, the entire museum was shrouded in a mysterious and oppressive atmosphere.
"The native's laboratory is underground. The trap's location is likely at the entrance!" Shirley said as she slowly walked towards a deep corridor. The further they went, the darker it became, as if they were walking into a bottomless abyss. Fortunately, Shirley's assassination skills granted her the ability to see in the dark. Mo Ran, being the Spider Queen, had eyesight that could adapt to any environment. Qing Feng, on the other hand, slowly closed his eyes. He lacked night vision but could discern locations by sound, judging the surrounding environment by footsteps and the echoes created by their collision with objects. Blind combat was also a skill Qing Feng often trained, so darkness did not significantly affect him.
"This is it!" Shirley stopped. In front of her was a metal door, slightly ajar. Connected to the top of these two doors was a thin, hard-to-detect metal wire, the other end of which was connected to a glass jar filled with viscous liquid. As soon as the door was opened, the metal wire would be pulled, causing the glass jar to shatter instantly, spraying a biological attractant onto the intruder. This would then be followed by a swarm of monsters, which would eliminate the intruders along with any data left behind in the laboratory.
"What a rudimentary trap!" Shirley scoffed.
"Although it's rudimentary, it's deadly enough for most untrained survivors!" Qing Feng added.
"This smells so good!" Mo Ran sniffed deeply, seemingly catching a faint scent of the biological attractant from the bottle.
"It's not good to open this here. I'll give it to you when we get back to a safe place!" Shirley said, carefully disarming the trap and storing the biological attractant in her ring.
"Alright then... let's complete the mission first!" Mo Ran nodded, somewhat reluctantly.
"You two go search, I'll guard the entrance!" Qing Feng volunteered. While he was capable of moving and fighting in the dark, searching for documents was impossible without sight. Shirley and Mo Ran understood Qing Feng's situation and didn't say much, walking straight ahead.
Behind the door was a room filled with various sculptures and artworks. At the very back, there was a hidden door. Pushing open the hidden door revealed an elevator leading underground. Since there was no power, the elevator was inoperable.
Creak~ Mo Ran reached out and gently pulled, deforming the elevator's metal door and creating a large opening. "Let's go in from here!" Mo Ran said, rushing in first. However, there was no loud thud of landing. It turned out that as Mo Ran descended, she sprayed silk to suspend herself and slowly landed on the bottom floor. Looking up, she could still see the elevator suspended at the highest point.
Creak! With another sound of tearing metal, Mo Ran entered the laboratory. Shirley bounced off the walls several times and then landed lightly at the bottom, quickly following. The entire laboratory was in disarray, indicating that the natives had evacuated immediately after learning of their staff's disappearance. Because they evacuated in such haste, much was left behind. There were scorch marks in the room and a shallow layer of water on the ground. It was likely that the researchers had set fire to some important documents, but halfway through the burning, the smoke activated the sprinkler system, resulting in the current scene.
Shirley bent down and picked up some half-burnt documents from a desk. She found they were all personal information about the researchers. After flipping through a few pages, a line of text caught her attention. It read "Xu Linna." Driven by curiosity, Shirley couldn't help but look further. This document was severely damaged by fire, with most of its content destroyed. However, on Xu Linna's resume, it was written: "Heir to the Gene School." Shirley couldn't understand what this meant. She then looked at the photo, of which only the chin remained. Although the face was unclear, Shirley clearly felt that this chin didn't seem to match Xu Linna's! Could it be a case of mistaken identity? Or... was she seeing things wrong? Shirley drew a large question mark in her mind and then stored the document in her ring.
"Oh, Sister Shirley, come look quickly!" Suddenly, Mo Ran's exclamation echoed from the end of the corridor. Shirley rushed out and, with a flicker, arrived at the end of the corridor. She saw a large warehouse with its door open, filled with glass jars taller than a person. Most of the jars were broken, and dried water stains remained on the ground. In some of the intact jars, human bodies of different ages were suspended. Mo Ran was standing in front of a broken jar, the person inside posed as if trying to crawl out, but their skin color indicated they had been dead for a long time.
"What is it, Mo Ran?" Shirley asked with concern.
"This person is the one I possessed in the parallel world earlier!" Mo Ran said, pointing at the corpse in front of her with a serious expression.