"Are you telling the truth?!" The hound had a look of disbelief on his face. It took him more than ten breaths to digest the news...

He took a step back and looked Ke Lan up and down: "Are you sure they didn't lie to you? Then why have we been with you for so long without any impact...?"

"Perhaps there was a secondary mutation after the fusion of my clone cells and the cells of the Seed of Erosion." Ke Lan raised his hand and looked at his palm - there was a light white mark there, which he had previously interacted with the group of heretical sects.

When the members of the group were fighting, his

The palm of my hand was accidentally scratched by the rough metal zipper on the opponent's collar. But now, the scar is completely invisible. It only takes a few days for the pigment to settle in the new light-colored cortex, and this white mark will disappear.

It will become exactly like the surrounding skin.

"To be honest... I'm not sure whether I'm still a human being in a biological sense."

"Why don't you count it?" The hound glared at him and shouted, "Do you have a few more arms or an extra eye than us? Why are you not a human being? Don't forget how you enlightened Ivan before.

Yes, why are you starting to have random thoughts when it's your turn?"

"I'm not thinking wildly, but this matter really happened because of me. If I don't deal with it, if the 'thing' inside mutates three or even four times, I'm afraid the entire Ark will suffer." Ke Lan said.

"Are you sure you can't be infected by that thing?" the hound asked.

Ke Lan nodded.

"But how can you guarantee that...the group of people outside are not taking advantage of you?" Hound suddenly changed the subject, "Don't look at them and they haven't mentioned a word about the abnormality in you. That's because you are the only one who can solve this problem now.

They need your help, that's why they are pretending like this... After you get rid of the 'thing' inside, I'm afraid these people won't be so easy to talk to."

"I don't think so..." Ke Lan shook his head. The abnormality in his body had already appeared during Yagunaktor, but the Undead Crew did not go into details. Instead, they issued a ban on him.

An order to conduct an investigation—and this "memetic contamination incident" was caused precisely because people at the institute violated the prohibition and secretly conducted experiments related to themselves.

Ke Lan felt that the Immortal Crew Association might have foreseen such a result, so they issued such a ban... Unfortunately, they still underestimated the persistence of the madmen at the institute.

"Curiosity killed the cat"... It never refers to the cat's own curiosity, but to the fact that humans kill cats out of their own curiosity and want to know "do cats really have nine lives"?

Throw it away...and now, Ke Lan feels like that unlucky cat.

If it weren't for the suppression of the Immortal Crew Association, the madmen at the institute would have used all available armed forces to go to Fleet Zero to arrest people.

"You don't think so?" Hound repeated in a rhetorical tone, "I know the faces of those people at the top of Ark better than you do. As long as there are enough benefits, any promise is no different to them, and reneging on their word is nothing.

It's just a common occurrence. What's more, they haven't made any promises to you, they just expressed an attitude in an ambiguous way. Even if this attitude changes 180 degrees by then, there will be nothing you can do.

Reason!"

Seeing that Ke Lan didn't seem to listen to his words, the hound suddenly became angry: "Ke Lan! You should have seen the blockade outside now! You are not stupid, you should be very clear about what's inside.

, you can’t stop it with guns and mechas, so who do you think these things are prepared for?”

"..."

"The cunning rabbit dies, the lackeys are cooked, the birds are gone, and the good bow is hidden! This is a proverb of your Chinese people, haven't you heard it? What's more, for them, whether it is value or threat, you must be in it

Do you know what's on top of that 'thing'?! Now if you want to go in, they will get out of your way, but when you want to come out, do you think it will be so easy?"

"I...I really fucking hate the fact that iron cannot become steel!" The hound said and smashed it on the door of the toilet cubicle nearby. Suddenly, a hole the size of a bowl appeared on the aging and brittle polymer door panel.

.

"That's not how the idiom "Hating iron cannot turn into steel" is used..." Ke Lan started to speak, but was interrupted by the hound.

There was a "click" and there was another hole in the door of the toilet cubicle.

A crack more than half a meter long connected the two holes, and the entire door panel was already crumbling.

"I can use it however I want and you have no control over it! The problem now is that those people who call themselves the Crisis Management Department have already arranged their pockets. Don't you know who this pocket is intended to catch?

Are you going to get in there obediently?" the hound jumped to his feet.

"Actually, if they wanted to arrest me, they would have arrested me long ago." Ke Lan sighed, "They know more than we imagined."

"Them? Who are they?" The expression on Hound's face froze - he had already heard the implication in Ke Lan's words: The "them" did not refer to the people from the "Crisis Management Department" outside, nor the researchers.

The Academy and the Security Bureau, not even any class or organization he knew.

"An organization called the 'Undead Crew'." Ke Lan sighed, and finally said the name. "They are the people in power hiding in the dark. The so-called highest decision-making organization, the 'United Parliamentary Group', is actually nothing more than

It's just a puppet they pushed out into the open."

"The United Parliamentary Group...are just puppets?" Hound's movements froze. He always felt as if there was a thick lump of phlegm stuck in his throat. He couldn't spit it out or swallow it. It was so uncomfortable that it made people want to go crazy.

"This... undead crew... who are they?" Hound took a deep breath, "Why do they hide in the dark?"

"They..." Ke Lan recalled "Pope" Chiron's body like a mountain of meat, and couldn't help but paused, "Maybe they are not human."

"Not a human?" Hound was stunned for a moment, obviously not expecting Ke Lan to give such an answer.

"It's not a human... what could it be? Computer AI? It can't be Alpha, right?" A somewhat absurd smile appeared on the corner of the hound's mouth, "This joke is not funny at all. Don't tell us that the ruler of mankind is actually

They are a group of Alpha people, haha, then I will just feel that I haven't woken up yet, and now I am dreaming, a dream that is extremely ridiculous."

"One thing that is certain is that they were once human beings. As for what they are now... I can't tell clearly. They are probably 'things' similar to me," Ke Lan said.

The hound stopped laughing, looked at him steadily, and asked: "A...'thing' like you? I probably understand..."

"This is just my guess. In fact, I have never seen the true face of the Undead Crew. Among the people I have contacted who know their existence, they have never seen their true form with their own eyes. Including Schroeder and Lin Qiming

...and that Maginot who was transferred to Mukach."

"Magino also knows what this undead crew will do?" Hound asked.

"He knew about the existence of the Crew Club, but he didn't know much about it."

The hound suddenly let out a long sigh, shook his head to himself and said: "Damn... So that's what happened... No wonder Maginot took the initiative to contact you at that time. It turns out that this damn fat pig knew it from the beginning.

… Damn it, if I hadn’t left the army, I should have access to this information by now…”

"Old dog?" Ke Lan called out worriedly.

"I'm fine, I just need a little time." Hound waved his hand towards Ke Lan. He didn't care whether the floor in the toilet was dirty or not. He squatted down and gently kneaded the hanging hair on both sides of his forehead with both hands.

Skull point.

"Actually, I've always known that you were hiding something from us, but I knew there must be a reason why you didn't tell us... Now I see, this is it."

"I originally didn't plan to tell you about the existence of the Immortal Crew... They have too much energy. I can't guarantee whether they will take any extreme measures to protect their own confidentiality. In their eyes,

, the life of ordinary people is just a number, a number that can be used as a bargaining chip on the scale." Ke Lan said while standing.

"I know." Hound nodded, "You did the right thing... Now I already know about it, oh, and Asano Akira outside, he can definitely hear it... As for other people, don't tell them

Already."

He stood up from the ground, and for a moment, Ke Lan felt as if he had aged more than ten years.

"I just never thought that the person who determines the fate of mankind... would be such a group of people." Hound said slowly, "So, you should also join them in the future, right?"

"They have already sent me an invitation. As long as I can pass the test, I can become a member of the Undead Crew." Ke Lan said, "The mission in the molten mine area is the assessment content of the first phase of this test."

"Ke Lan, can you promise me something?" Hound suddenly said.

"What's up?"

"Even if you do become one of them in the future, don't forget that you are a human being, not a monster."

The hound paused and continued: "The power of life and death can easily make people addicted... I don't know what you will become by then, and I also know the principle of 'kindness does not control soldiers'... but in

After you become a chess player, don't forget the days when you were a 'chess piece'."

The hound rubbed the muscles on his face vigorously and adjusted his mood: "It may be too early to tell you this now... In fact, I have nothing to express, compared to the group of people in the United Parliamentary Group who are just waiting to die.

I'd rather have someone more capable lead us...but you...you have to be careful, those things, even if they treat you as the same kind, but the same kind and the companion have different meanings..."

His words were a bit incoherent, but Ke Lan still understood most of the meaning.

"I know." Ke Lan nodded.

"We shouldn't be a burden to you, right?" Hound smiled and asked.

"It doesn't count."

"That's fine. You can go in with confidence. If these little bastards from the institute dare to have any bad ideas when you come out, I will be the first to kill them."

"Okay, but it seems that their old nest has been taken away..."

"Fuck, you just have a fucking mouth, right? If you can't speak, don't speak." In just a few seconds, the hound returned to its usual state, as if the conversation just now had never happened.

Same.

"...Then I won't say anything."

"By the way, that person from the crew meeting, even if they have sent you an invitation, they may not be sincere, but you need to distinguish the specific situation yourself. We can't help you in this regard... leave one more

My heart is always right, I never mind trying to judge others with the greatest malice...especially people like them

, people who are in high positions and have an overview of the overall situation. They can see a lot of things that we can't see. As I said before, they are chess players and we are chess pieces - chess players can see the whole game.

The trend of the market, and we can only see a few frames around us, maybe in the next step, we will be given away as abandoned children."

…

…

Between the third line of defense and the institute's headquarters, which is classified as a "contaminated area," there is a "blank area" with a width of 300 meters.
To be continued...