Li Xichen was taken aback.
What?
What chocolate?
He looked at Chu Liuyue with an innocent face.
Sister Xiaoyue, I want to eat some too.
Chu Liuyue burst out laughing. She pointed at Yan Qingdu and joked,
There.
The chocolate supplier is right there.
Li Xichen glanced at Yan Qingdu and coldly withdrew his gaze.
Never mind then.
With this interruption, Zhou Yu'an's confession could no longer continue.
His eyes were soft, his tone gentle.
Liuyue, I...
Help me up. She turned her head to look at the other two men. By the way, during the days I was unconscious, did you guys search the research lab?
Where exactly did those monsters come from?
And the serum they injected us with, what was it?
Yan Qingdu, who had been standing at the very edge just now, spoke up.
Yes, in the archives room.
Yueyue, can you walk? I'll carry you over to take a look.
Seeing this, Li Xichen acted like a protective wolf cub. He glared at him and said, Sister Xiaoyue, I'll carry you.
Zhou Yu'an watched the tense standoff between the other two men.
His eyes shifted slightly.
He sensed a subtle undercurrent in the air.
In the end, it was Chu Liuyue who spoke up and interrupted them.
No need. I've been sleeping for so many days, it's a good time to get up and take a walk.
The computer in the archives room was already turned on.
Yan Qingdu had cracked the password. There was a document named Casual Diary, and Chu Liuyue double-clicked to open it.
Soon, the origins of this disaster slowly unfolded before them.
...
August 5, 2022.
A meteor shower fell, and a meteorite fragment landed on the mountain near the research institute.
Director Zhou took several researchers and headed there in secret.
No one knew what they found.
But when they returned, Director Zhou's face was flushed red, and he was extremely excited.
I vaguely heard him tell someone close to him,
Their research project might have made a breakthrough!
November 12, 2022.
Work has been very busy lately, so I haven't had much time to write.
Even though I'm just a nepotism hire managing the archives room, I've been bossed around and made dizzy with work recently.
Making a living is tough, sigh!
It would be great if the research lab actually produced some results soon.
I heard there would be a huge bonus.
I still don't know what they found on the mountain that day.
Out of curiosity, I asked a researcher I'm familiar with, but I just got scolded.
Tsk, who are they looking down on?
I'll find out eventually.
December 24, 2022.
Today is a good day.
Many important figures came to the institute. It seems Director Zhou and his team have made new progress in their research.
Looks like the bonus is secured this time.
Oh right, I didn't expect to see big shots I used to only see on TV.
I saw them with my own eyes.
Governor Gu of our Sunan Province and Director Gu of the Police Department also came.
I heard they are brothers and seem to have a very good relationship with the Director.
If this research yields results, they should be able to get promoted too. Sigh, I'm so jealous!
January 15, 2023.
My girlfriend insisted on clinging to me on New Year's Eve, so I took a leave of absence.
They say everyone in the institute received a small red envelope from Director Zhou that day. I'm so jealous.
It seems a few lucky people were also selected to personally go and see the research progress.
So nice.
Why don't I have such good luck?
The few people who came out were all transferred to internal departments, and it's said their salaries doubled. So nice.
I guess I really just don't have that kind of luck.
March 7, 2023.
A new researcher arrived at the institute. He's a very handsome young man named Yan Qingdu.
I heard he was the student union president at a local university, and while still in school, he was invited by the lab to start jointly following up on the project.
Good grades, handsome, and found a great job right after graduating.
It really makes people envious.
Not like me, who is good at nothing and had to rely on my family's connections just to get into the archives room as a warehouse keeper.
Tsk, comparing oneself to others is just infuriating!
April 12, 2023.
I ran into Researcher Yan again today. The young man has a good personality and a good temper.
I also heard that Director Zhou likes him a lot. They say he's going to be transferred to the core laboratory to follow up on the project.
By the way, what exactly did they find on the mountain last year?
Was it a meteorite fragment?
Or something else?
I say I want to know the specifics, but I'm stuck in this tiny archives room every day.
There's simply no opportunity.
August 10, 2023.
I haven't written in my diary for a long time.
After all, what normal person writes a diary? I'm just bored out of my mind, and we can't use phones here.
So I found a place to vent a little.
And record things in passing.
I secretly asked Yan Qingdu about it, but he didn't seem to know clearly either.
Makes sense!
He hadn't even joined the institute when the meteorite fell.
However, he did vaguely reveal a little bit of information to me.
The project is about human cell regeneration and self-healing.
It sounds very advanced, and if it's true, wouldn't many terminal illnesses be able to heal themselves?
Might human lifespan even be extended?
That's really great.
November 26, 2023.
Today, Director Zhou threw a massive tantrum and smashed quite a few things in the lab.
I heard his son fell ill.
Director Zhou's son was born prematurely and has been sickly since childhood. It's precisely because of this that Director Zhou is so obsessed with the current research project.
He wants to make his son a healthy person, perhaps even stronger than a normal person.
So modifying things starting from the cells? That doesn't seem to be a problem.
I don't understand the specifics anyway.
After all, I'm not a researcher, just an archives clerk who got in through the back door.
Fortunately, very few people come to my area.
It's very leisurely.
Gossiping every day is my only source of joy.
February 13, 2024.
Director Zhou has truly gone mad!
Over the past two months of continuous overtime, even though I just stay in the archives room sleeping, even sitting makes me tired.
How can those researchers outside stand it?
He's a total workaholic.
But I heard their research has made new progress.
The province even allocated a large portion of funds to the institute.
It seems to be good news.
May 28, 2024.
Did they succeed?
I don't know, but a lot of people came to the institute today.
I heard they were from research institutes in several other cities. They seemed to have come here to take something away.
Director Zhou looked a bit unhappy.
Could it be that they want to steal our institute's results? Swooping in halfway to take the prize, surely not?
Does our bonus still count then?
Sigh, whatever. When can I get off work?
July 12, 2024.
The lineup this time is completely different!
I heard people from the Capital Research Institute came.
They want to take that thing away.
I'm not sure what 'that thing' is; it should be what Director Zhou and the others found on the mountain that day.
Director Zhou is very unhappy.
When I went to the cafeteria to eat, I heard the aunties gossiping, seemingly joking that,
How could a shrewd person like Director Zhou just watch helplessly as everything he found was taken away?
He must have secretly kept a portion of it.
Could he really have kept a portion?
What on earth is that thing?
August 22, 2024.
The bonus has hit my account!
That's great. I heard the higher-ups allocated another huge sum of experimental funds.
It seems Director Zhou is quite impressive after all; he really managed to develop something.
With the funding, a lot of things can finally be done.
Previously, they only tested on lab mice.
But now, the research institute has started recruiting human test subjects, offering an incredibly high salary.
My girlfriend heard about it too and came to ask me if she could sign up. I quickly cut her off.
"The pay is suspiciously high. If you go, you might live to see the money, but you won't live long enough to spend it."
My girlfriend gave me a good scolding.
But fortunately, she didn't go in the end.
