“Don’t go in.” Xia Lei stopped in his tracks before a few soldiers. “Wait for me here.”
Long Bing hesitated. “Why aren’t you letting me go in with you?”
“The people who’ve come into contact with that alloy are either dead or mad. It’s not safe for you to go in. It’s better for you to stay outside,” said Xia Lei.
Long Bing was touched. “But aren’t you going in too? How can I let you go in alone? What if something happens? What then? I’d better go in with you. I can be your support.”
“It’s better if I go in alone. Aren’t I sacrificing myself in times of crisis anyway by playing the role of cannon fodder? Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. It’s decided then. Don’t follow me.”
“No, I have to go in with you.” Long Bing was stubborn.
‘Didn’t you say that I have special authority in this matter? You have to follow my commands too. I’m telling you to stay behind, so stay behind.”
“You…” Long Bing was annoyed but she did not disobey Xia Lei’s command.
Xia Lei said no more and entered the research area as he said to the soldiers, “Don’t let anyone in.”
“Yes, Sir!” replied the soldiers in the passageway; their voices were loud and crisp.
Xia Lei glanced back at Long Bing before he disappeared from her sight.
Long Bing opened her mouth to say something but did not voice it in the end. These soldiers before her did not have the authority to stop her and she could enter if she wished but she did not. It was not because she was afraid of death but because she respected Xia Lei’s decision and was touched by his concern.
The research area was quiet and nothing made sound. Xia Lei’s footsteps became the only sounds in the area, echoing off the walls and making it sound like several people were walking. Light came from above, shining down on Xia Lei’s body and blurring his shadow.
‘I’ve eaten the AE capsules and that resulted in an immunity to anaesthesia. I hope I’ll be all right after interacting with the ancient alloy,’ thought Xia Lei as he came to a halt at the doorway of the laboratory led by Wang Lei.
No one could remain entirely calm when faced with the very real possibility of going mad or dying, not even Xia Lei. He could not avoid the instinctive fear humans had of the unknown.
Xia Lei still pushed the glass door open after a short period of hesitation, and walked in. He had entered the area in an anti-bacterial suit the last time but not this time. Wang Lei and the researchers had worn these suits every day but they still went mad or died anyway. This proved that wearing a suit was not going to be of any use, so he didn’t wear it.
He spotted those two pieces of ancient alloy when he walked in. They sat quietly on the research table. The bronze book too - it sat silently on Ning Jing’s work table.
The pieces of ancient alloy and bronze book were not living things but the feeling that they were sentient grew in Xia Lei as he watched them in silence. He did not know why he had this feeling but it was a very real and clear feeling.
Xia Lei walked to Ning Jing’s work table and reached out to flip through the pages of the book. The strange letters she had shown him were engraved on the bronze book - some looked like tadpoles and some looked like human faces, while some others looked like a mass of chaotic lines.
Was this some ancient lettering?
Xia Lei had his suspicions before but the feeling was stronger now. This was not ancient lettering. But if they weren’t letters, then why were they carved on a bronze book? And was it something from the Ming dynasty? How was it linked to AE?
Questions popped up one after another in Xia Lei’s head, dancing around and washing over him like a tidal wave; he grew restless.
Xia Lei had no new clue after looking at the letters. He walked over to the pieces of ancient alloy and brought them over to the bronze book, putting them all together.
The two pieces of ancient alloy looked like parts of some machine and were shaped differently. They were made of the same material - very light, but very strong. They were stronger than most modern alloys of the world. It was the perfect material to make jets or space shuttles with so it was no wonder the nation saw it as something important.
A thought came into Xia Lei head after observing them for a while, ‘My ability came from AE. These two pieces of alloy are also inextricably linked to AE, and this bronze book too… Would there be some sort of reaction if I used my X-ray vision?’
This was a very bold thought.
Xia Lei called forth the power of his eye after the thought popped into his head and he turned his gaze to one of the pieces of ancient alloy.
He felt like his vision was being sucked into a vortex instantly, and was falling, falling into a dark abyss. He could not see anything. His body seemed to have been thrust into an icehouse too and he was immediately cold from head to toe, frozen and unable to move.
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‘What… What’s happening?’ Xia Lei’s heart filled with terror.
His vision returned to normal after two minutes and he was able to move his body again. He reached to touch his forehead and discovered that it was covered in pearls of icy sweat. He then touched the two pieces of ancient alloy but there was no reaction.
‘I wonder what reaction I’ll have if I use my X-ray vision on the bronze book.’ Xia Lei’s gaze went to the bronze book.
If someone made this bronze book then there must be some way to decipher it no matter what the contents were. Its existence would be meaningless if that weren’t true!
What he had experienced earlier was terrible to bear and terrifying but this could be the only way to decipher the bronze book. Xia Lei looked at the bronze book and his left eye twitched. His X-ray vision landed on a letter in the book.
His brain seemed to quake the instant his left eye’s X-ray ability was applied to the letters, as if someone had slammed a wooden mallet into his head. There was no pain, though - just a shock. Just when he thought that was it, a strange sound played in his head.
This sound had just one syllable, as if it represented a word. This was similar to Chinese, where one syllable represented one word.
But though he could hear the sound, it was still an alien language and he did not know what the sounds meant.
But this discovery was enough to make Xia Lei’s excitement bubble over. He used his X-ray vision on other letters and followed the letters one by one with his gaze. He heard more syllables - if the letters were the same they had the same syllable sound and if they looked different, they had a different sound.
Thought he did not understand the sounds which rang through his head, this discovery confirmed that the bronze book did have some content in it. The letters carved on the bronze book was maybe some sort of written language, or perhaps a sort of ‘CD’. Most importantly, it was linked to AE!
Wang Lei and the experts have researched for so long, and used whatever methods and apparatus they had but it had all been for naught. However, he had simply come and used his X-ray vision and discovered the secret hidden in this bronze book. Wasn’t this proof of how his ability had come from AE?
‘There’s more than meets the eye indeed. How miraculous…’ sighed Xia Lei to himself. ‘It’ll be great if I could understand these syllables I hear. If I could then maybe I’d have already uncovered the mysteries of the ancient alloy and the bronze book.’
Perhaps that was true. But who else on this Earth could understand this mysterious language?
Just as Xia Lei was finished with his ‘survey’ of the bronze book, a woman’s voice came to his ear. “I remember your face.”
This voice was young, clear, but gave one the impression of coldness. It was the same voice he had heard in Afghanistan!
The hair on the back of Xia Lei’s neck stood on end. He looked all around himself but saw nothing.
“I remember your face.” The woman’s voice came again, repeating the same sentence.
This was different from the time in Afghanistan. He had only heard it faintly back then and it had not been repeated, but the voice repeated the same thing this time. This repetition also meant that this was a problem - this was not a hallucination!
“I remember your face.” The woman’s voice said again for the third time in Xia Lei’s ear, and it seemed to him like it was an unseen woman standing right next to his ear who was saying it.
Xia Lei was about to say ‘Who are you?’ but shut his mouth tightly before the words escaped his lips.
This research laboratory had cameras installed so others would think that he had gone mad if he spoke to an unseen person. The higher-ups might think he’d gone mad too.
“I’ve waited for you for so long, so long, so very long…” The woman’s voice said again in Xia Lei’s ear, closer this time, and clearer. Right to his left.
Xia Lei abruptly turned to look to his left.
There was an empty space on his left, and behind it was a wall with nothing on it.
As soon as he saw things clearly on his left with his normal vision, his left eye twitched and his X-ray vision was activated. The eye was at full power, at a degree strong enough to look through bricks and human bodies. But what the eye was looking at was not the wall, nor the floor beneath his feet, but the empty air in front of him.
Xia Lei froze in the next second, as if a cold draft of -200 degrees celsius had swept over him and turned him into a statue of ice.
Right in front of him in that empty space was a naked woman. She was looking at him quietly. Her snow-white skin was pale as jade, almost transparent. Her features were exquisite, beautiful, and her deep eyes burned with an inhuman aura. She was tall and full-figured, so sexy that one could barely hold back an impulse to react to it.
But these were not what made Xia Lei freeze like an ice statue. He was so shocked because she was Princess Yongmei, Zhu Xuanyue!