bioinnovel Chapter 289 Cargo Ship!
Chapter 289 Cargo Ship!
Nie Xiaorou sat on the living room carpet watching TV, with a glass of lemon water that Zhang Yang had just made for her next to her.
Zhang Yan was preparing dinner in the kitchen.
He was chopping vegetables, but his mind was racing with the data Qin Xiao had sent him.
Three crew members had abnormally high pupil reflex rates, and the cargo hold had signal shielding—this configuration didn't seem like a random infection in the ruins, but rather an organized infiltration.
A Class C contaminant is not a threat in itself, but if there is something else in the cargo hold, then the situation is completely different.
He pushed the sliced potatoes aside and opened the system panel to bring up a real-time satellite image of Jinghai Port.
The Panamanian cargo ship at berth number 3 is clearly visible.
It is a 12,000-ton vessel, at least 20 years old, with severe hull corrosion.
These old bulk carriers are commonplace on ocean routes, and it is precisely because they are inconspicuous that they are the best place to hide things.
The system's passive scanning overlaid an energy heat map on the satellite image.
The cargo ship's location was emitting a faint, dark red halo, with a very low concentration but evenly distributed—meaning the entire ship was immersed in a low concentration of stag energy, as if it were transporting some source that continuously emitted pollution.
Not a polluter.
It is a source of pollution.
Zhang Yan turned off the control panel and poured the shredded potatoes into the oil pan.
With a sizzling sound.
"Brother-in-law, what are you cooking? It smells so good!"
Nie Xiaorou peeked out from the living room.
"Hot and sour shredded potatoes, stir-fried seasonal vegetables, and tomato and egg drop soup."
"Is there meat?"
"No, you ate pork ribs for lunch."
"Oh." Nie Xiaorou shrank back.
At 7:30 p.m., the door lock clicked.
Nie Qingcheng pushed open the door and came in, carrying a briefcase in one hand and a white cake box in the other.
"Sister!" Nie Xiaorou sprang up from the sofa and rushed over to grab the cake box.
Nie Qingcheng held the cake box high, avoiding her hand, and looked at her coldly.
"Nie Xiaorou".
"Um?"
"Do you think you're all grown up now? Coming to Jinghai without even telling your family?"
Nie Xiaorou shrank her neck, but quickly straightened her chest again: "I told my parents, and they agreed."
"Tell them you're here to see your brother-in-law, and of course they'll agree."
Nie Qingcheng tossed her briefcase onto the entryway cabinet, changed into slippers, and walked in.
"You're using your brother-in-law as a shield."
"No way..."
Nie Qingcheng flicked her forehead.
"Aww!"
"How many days will you be staying here?"
Nie Xiaorou rubbed her forehead, looking at her expectantly: "Summer vacation has just started, I want to spend a week in Jinghai..."
"Three days."
Five days!
"Three days."
"I'll see you off on the train in one more day."
Nie Xiaorou turned to look at Zhang Yan in the kitchen, her eyes filled with "Brother-in-law, save me!"
Zhang Yan was serving soup, not even looking up: "Your sister has the final say."
Nie Xiaorou: "..."
During the meal, Nie Xiaorou ate two bowls of rice with the sweetness of the cake, while Nie Qingcheng sat next to Zhang Yan and nudged the back of his hand with her chopsticks.
"Where did you take her today?"
"company."
"What did you see?"
"The monitoring center, the training ground, and the ground floors."
Nie Qingcheng nodded and didn't ask any more questions.
She knew Zhang Yan's limits.
After the meal, Nie Xiaorou washed the dishes herself.
This surprised Zhang Yan somewhat.
"Brother-in-law, don't look at me like that. I wash the dishes at home too, okay?"
"I didn't say you weren't going to wash."
Nie Xiaorou snorted, shook the water off her hands, and ran upstairs to tidy up the guest room.
Only two people remained in the living room.
Nie Qingcheng leaned back on the sofa, took off her high heels, and put her feet on Zhang Yan's legs.
"Tired?" Zhang Yan held her ankle, pressing his thumb on the sole of her foot.
"good."
Nie Qingcheng closed her eyes and spoke in a lazy voice.
"All the Sun Crystals from South Africa have been stored in the warehouse, and the final batch of test reports will be available tomorrow."
"Hard."
"Of course."
She suddenly opened her eyes and looked at him.
"Is there something you haven't told me today?"
Zhang Yan paused for a moment.
This woman's intuition is sometimes more sensitive than the system's detectors.
"A suspicious cargo ship has arrived at Jinghai Port."
He did not hide anything.
"The pupil screening procedure detected three abnormal crew members. There was signal jamming in the cargo hold. The preliminary judgment is that they are not contaminants, but the source of contamination."
Nie Qingcheng sat up straight.
"What level?"
"uncertain."
"The shielding layer is blocking remote scanning; we need to investigate at close range."
When are you planning to go?
Zhang Yan glanced upstairs.
"Wait until she falls asleep."
Nie Qingcheng followed his gaze and remained silent for a few seconds.
"I'll go with you."
"No need. I can handle a Class C pollution source by myself in ten minutes. If it exceeds expectations, Suzaku is still on my person."
"That won't work either."
Nie Qingcheng's tone suddenly hardened.
"The time before last, you went to the Golden Triangle alone and were out of contact for two and a half days."
"Last time I went to a deserted island, I almost got buried in a cave."
"Zhang Yan, I don't care what level it is this time, I'll go wherever you go."
"What should we do about Xiaorou?"
"Let your sister watch over her."
Zhang Yan glanced at her.
Nie Qingcheng looked back at him, her phoenix eyes revealing an unquestionable expression.
"Okay." Zhang Yan nodded. "But you wait for me in the car, don't get off the boat."
"It depends."
This is Nie Qingcheng. She will never make a promise of complete obedience.
……
1:17 AM.
Berth No. 3 of Jinghai Port.
The Panamanian-registered 10,000-ton bulk carrier lay like a sleeping iron beast in the night, with no lights on its deck except for the dim red glow of warning lights on a few mooring bollards.
Zhang Yan observed from the shadows on the outskirts of the port area for five minutes.
Qin Xiao's men had sealed off all entrances and exits within a 300-meter radius of the berth, and six miniature reconnaissance robots formed a three-dimensional surveillance network in the air.
"The thermal imaging shows no one on the deck, but there are seven heat sources inside the ship, three in the bridge and four in the cargo hold," Qin Xiao's voice came through the headset.
"The energy readings in the cargo hold?" Zhang Yan asked.
"It's 12 percent higher than this afternoon. It's still rising."
Zhang Yan turned his head and glanced at the Maybach parked two hundred meters away in the shadows. Nie Qingcheng sat in the driver's seat, the window half open, looking in his direction.
She didn't send a message, but Zhang Yan knew she was watching.
He turned back, took out a miniature energy skeleton from his storage space and put it on his arm, then took out the high-frequency dagger.
They didn't bring their mechs.
It's just a dilapidated cargo ship; you can't use a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
His figure flashed in the night and disappeared into the shadows of the dock.
Thirty seconds later.
Three extremely short, muffled thuds came from the cockpit, each no more than 0.5 seconds apart.
Then came silence.
Zhang Yan descended the rusty gangway, where the cargo hold's iron door was secured by a thick chain.
He gripped the chain, and with a swift stroke of his high-frequency dagger, the cut was so clean and smooth it looked as if it had been laser-cut.
Push open the iron gate.
The smell inside the cargo hold made him frown slightly—not the sour stench of rotting cargo, but a deeper, more subtle smell, a mixture of sulfur and metallic corrosion.
The atmosphere of ruins.
Four heat sources are located deep within the cargo hold.
Zhang Yan went inside in the dark.
The miniature panel embedded in his skeleton lit up, and the energy reading finally penetrated the shielding layer at close range, becoming clearly visible.
The value was higher than he had expected.
It's not a C grade.
Deep inside the cargo hold, among the stacked containers, something was glowing.
Dark red, pulsating, like a heart.
Zhang Yan stopped in his tracks.
He slightly raised his wrist; the summoning command for the Vermilion Bird had already been pre-entered and was ready to be activated at any time.
And all four "heat sources" opened their eyes at that moment.
Scarlet.