"Can I really follow along to the meeting?"
Ah Qing, lying on the balcony, looked at the little fox with a surprised expression on her face and asked.
The last time she followed the little fox to the Security Bureau for a meeting, the strict defense and restricted area policies almost left her in shock.
With such a strict and cautious defense, including spirit beasts and hundreds of patrolling machines, Ah Qing was convinced there was a nuclear development project hidden in the Security Bureau.
This time, even though the little fox no longer needed to run to Tie Chuan for a meeting, could the Security Bureau's confidentiality policy really allow family members to attend?
"Don't worry, Old Li is very easygoing. He might even serve you tea later!"
Ansheng waved casually at Ah Qing, signaling Xiaohua, before reassuring her.
Li Wenkang had just returned to Chang'an City and immediately rushed to the Agricultural Research Institute to invite experts to decode the Second Epoch's biological language in the video.
Ansheng had great confidence in Ah Qing's language talent.
After all... Wang Ya had previously worked tirelessly, day and night, to help the Security Bureau improve the text library system, leading a team to construct a brand new translation system.
Old Li had surely used this system to attempt to decode the video.
But judging from Old Li's expression of helplessness, he didn't get any useful information, so he hurried back from the rocket launch base to ask for help from Ansheng and Wang Ya.
In a way, Ah Qing was like a backup plan.
Wouldn't Old Li be pleased?
He would be eager to elevate Ah Qing and make her his protégé.
"Everyone, come with me to the office for some tea..."
Ansheng called out to the group as they prepared to head to the hideout behind the canteen.
"Xiaohua, how's it going with Wang Ya?"
Lying on Ah Qing's shoulder, Ansheng looked at the Fennec Fox wrapped in a down jacket on the RC car and asked.
"What do you think? If it works, great; if not, just bear with it and get through this..."
Xiaohua complained but smiled slightly, evidently indicating that after Master Fuli talked with Wang Ya, its daily life had improved significantly.
Wang Ya would no longer, on a whim, stuff the Fennec Fox into her cleavage or use it as a bath sponge under the guise of being besties.
"However, I have a bit more privacy now. Unless it's time to sleep, then yes, I still have to sleep with Wang Ya occasionally."
Xiaohua's grin widened, almost returning to its former "Jie Jie" laugh from its days as the Great Fox King.
"The first step towards a great resistance victory. I, the King, have already taken a step forward. Next, is to keep testing boundaries, breaking through the limits one by one, and eventually, ascend to the throne!"
Ansheng: "......"
So is there any chance, given Wang Ya's personality, that if you lie on the ground, roll over to show your belly, and act cute, she'd become your foxy servant, no?
"Ah Qing, did you see that? In the future, you must not bring a fox home from outside."
"This thing, it really will shout 'Great Chu's Prosperity.'" Ansheng looked at Ah Qing, his face exasperated, and complained.
"Umm..."
Ah Qing wore a strange expression as she glanced at Xiaolan, then at Xiaohua driving the remote-controlled car: "I'll keep that in mind..."
"Awooo—"
As they approached the hideout, they heard the faint howling of bears coming from inside the door.
The sound of drawn-out "Brother" and more "Brother" could be heard even through the door.
When Ansheng opened the door and entered the room, he immediately saw Old Li, in a leather jacket, tugging on the ears of a polar bear, causing it to repeatedly call out "brother."
"Old Li, what are you doing?" Ansheng, puzzled, looked at Old Li.
Old Li was pulling the polar bear's ears while a fat cat and Jellyfish Lady peeked nervously over the back of the sofa, looking afraid.
Wang Ya sat gracefully, like a well-mannered lady from a distinguished family, elegantly cleaning the tea set and gently wiping each cup's rim with a cloth.
"Here already?"
Li Wenkang glanced at the young girl following Master Fuli, slightly surprised, but he didn't say much and just greeted them:
"This polar bear from Harbin Zoo is nominally under the Security Bureau. If it weren't for Little Fan protecting it, the white bear would have been beaten up by spirit beasts..."
Li Wenkang said this lightly, as if the bear's prior unawareness by the faculty and students of the College of Agriculture didn't matter.
After getting a mechanical arm transplant, the white bear's power surged, suppressing the spirit beasts in the lab, crossing its legs while sending the Siberian tiger out for takeout, and lining up the Pallas's cats in a basket to scratch its itch.
This polar bear was practically a tyrant, ignoring everyone except Professor Fan.
It almost maxed out the researchers' credit cards too.
The Security Bureau was aware, but they were extremely busy at the end of the year, so dealing with the polar bear was a low-priority task.
As a result, Li Wenkang happened to run into it, grabbed the polar bear by the ears, and asked if it wanted to defy gravity.
Old Li might be in a business role, but his strength ranked among the best with double red clubs in Xia Country.
He nearly kneaded the white bear into a big bun.
"A handwritten 800-word guarantee, and tomorrow morning, a voicemail reading it out with emotion twice."
Li Wenkang let the white bear go for now and turned to Master Fuli, saying, "Let's watch the video first! See if you can make any sense of it..."
Li Wenkang didn't seem to mind much and invited Ah Qing and the others over.
The video content had been edited, containing no context whatsoever.
Unless someone attended the entire event, the video would just be a meaningless clip to them.
Li Wenkang took a notebook locked in a compartment out of his briefcase and played a video.
In the video was a shiny metallic box, with a black gelatinous blob inside covered in small nodules.
"Buzz—"
The black gelatin blob, after a brief silence, suddenly underwent violent shape changes, emitting a sharp sound wave—less like speech and more like unintelligible cheering noises.
The black gelatin gradually morphed, distorting and elongating, and eventually turned into gray-white dust scattered on the ground.
"Is it... dead?"
Witnessing the black gelatin's transformation into dirty-gray dust as if it had lost all life, Ansheng was momentarily stunned and asked Old Li.
"Yes, testing and identification by the Parasitic Beast confirm that it is indeed dead..."
Li Wenkang set the video to loop and looked helplessly at Master Fuli and Wang Ya:
"It happened very suddenly, almost like it deliberately committed suicide, and we don't have a second sample. Now, this video is the only existing copy."
The black gelatin was made from a mix of Dragon People tissue, black fungus, and three units of chemicals.
But before any experiments or inquiries could begin, it abruptly chose to end itself, acting as crazy as before any lively survival instinct could assert itself.
Rocket launches are expensive, and with material collection, about 170 million went into this.
The result? A video clip with no apparent meaning.
"Did any of you hear what it's shouting?" Li Wenkang sighed again, asking.
Its mental state was extremely unstable, akin to a split personality... no, even less stable than the Cosmic Triangular Hammer.
"No, that shrill scream doesn't belong in the language category... it's akin to 'Ura'."
"It's an exclamation uttered instinctively at an emotional peak." Wang Ya thoughtfully said.
Li Wenkang's research had gone off track as the shouting wasn't language but rather emotional peaks manifesting as screams or pep chants.
"Uh..."
Noticing the serious faces of the people present as if discussing something profoundly important, Ah Qing timidly raised her hand towards the little fox and asked:
"Uh... may I say something?"
"That little black blob in the video, I heard it seemed to yell: 'Oh! Li Liang, I'm screwed!'."