"Shhh—" Sun Hang immediately pressed his hand to Wang Xiyi's lips, "What dream? I don't know anything about it!"

Yang Lian, whose brain was nearly short-circuiting, clearly didn't perceive the hidden information in their conversation. After taking a few deep breaths, he decisively turned around and said, "I'll go prepare for today's work first, don't forget we need to go to the experiment site today! My sister hates people who drag their feet!"

"Got it, got it!" Sun Hang replied repeatedly.

If it weren't for needing to go to the experiment site today, I'd probably still be 'morning training' with Mr. Wang right now…

Sun Hang walked down the stairs, Zhong Ling and Ye Xuan had already placed the prepared breakfast on the table, and Yang Qi happened to come out of the study yawning at this time.

Her long hair was casually tied up at the back of her head, a few strands of messy hair stuck to her temples, and her unadorned face was covered with a thin layer of grease, with puffy and dark eye circles—just at a glance it was obvious that she must have stayed up working until dawn again last night.

"You didn't... stay up all night again, did you?" Sun Hang glanced at her and asked.

"No, I dozed off for a bit past six." Yang Qi said while yawning, sleepily walked to the water dispenser, poured a cup of hot water, and then added two servings of concentrated coffee liquid into the cup.

"Past six?" Sun Hang looked up at the clock on the wall, it was only seven thirty now, which means Yang Qi only slept for a little over an hour...

"It's lucky you could wake up..." He couldn't help but sigh.

"I set an alarm, booked a place at the experiment site for today, can't be late." Yang Qi took a sip of strong coffee, then poured a small pill from the medicine box meant to refresh oneself, and swallowed it with her head tilted back.

"No, what I mean is, it's a miracle you haven't crashed for good." Sun Hang shook his head repeatedly, "Strong coffee with stimulants, even King Yama would praise your good constitution."

"It's not a big deal, I'm used to it." Yang Qi sluggishly waved her hand, pulled out a disinfectant wipe from the side used to clean the table, and vigorously wiped her face, "But it seems like there was some noise upstairs last night, like something falling on the floor..."

"Oh, that was me turning over in my sleep and accidentally rolling to the edge of the bed and falling down." Sun Hang immediately explained.

Although he used his "wish fulfillment" ability to create a soundproof barrier enveloping the entire room, even so, he couldn't completely block those subtle noises transmitted within the building's structure.

"You can still fall off the bed?" Yang Qi glanced at him suspiciously.

"I can't exactly say it was Mr. Wang who accidentally kicked me off..." Sun Hang muttered internally, grabbed two slices of toasted bread from the plate and stuffed them into his mouth, "Let's eat, eat, and quickly get going—I'll drive later, with your current state, I really worry you'll drive the car into a tree."

"Mm." Yang Qi gulped down the coffee in her cup, picked up the condensed milk in an aluminum tube akin to toothpaste, and spread a thick layer on a slice of toast.

"Squeeze so much condensed milk, won't you choke?" Sun Hang watched as Yang Qi swallowed the toast almost buried under half the tube of condensed milk, unable to resist commenting.

"The brain needs enough sugar to maintain high-speed operation..." Yang Qi hadn't finished speaking when all their mobile phones in the dining room rang simultaneously.

Sun Hang turned to Wang Xiyi and exchanged a glance, the former pulled out his phone, while a holographic projector on the latter's wrist shot out a beam, projecting a palm-sized holographic screen onto the dining table.

The message came from the construction site of the talent training base, where workers unexpectedly found many sprawling tunnels at a depth of fifty meters in the rock layer while excavating the northern section of the underground part of the base, and detected some residual mysterious creature meme fragments within the tunnels.

Considering that Chimera 17 had utilized underground tunnels to escape Celestial City some time ago, the construction unit immediately notified various departments including the Disaster Response Committee and Celestial City Mysterious Creature Research Institute of this information.

"Are these the passages left by Chimera 17 during its escape?" Yang Lian had already returned to normal by now, frowning as he browsed through the on-site photos in the information attachment.

"I don't think so." Ye Xuan shook her head, "The tunnels created by Chimera 17 for escape were dug temporarily, but these tunnels deep in the rock layer seem to have been around for many years… unless..."

"Unless Chimera 17 has been living underground in Celestial City, and built a sprawling tunnel network in the underground world, which could also explain why it could escape from Celestial City so quickly and attack the Qiang People's Settlement west of Lizhou." Yang Lian immediately analyzed.

"Chimera 17 seemed to have emerged only after the appearance of Eternal Night, right?" Yang Qi pondered, "If it had been living underground in Celestial City all along, there shouldn't have been no prior sightings... If it had to feed, disappearance cases should occur, but in recent years, no disappearance cases in the Shuzhou Region seem to have matched."

"Could it have been dormant the whole time?" Yang Lian continued, "Like a cicada pupa, needing to hibernate underground for a long time until it matured enough to break out of the earth?"

"Hard to say... Since the construction site detected meme fragments of mysterious creatures, this must be related to them." Yang Qi immediately made a decision, "The plan to go to the suburban experiment site is temporarily suspended, we're heading to the construction site!"

"Indeed, seeing is believing." Sun Hang agreed, "No matter what anomaly there is, let's see the scene first before drawing any conclusions."

They quickly finished their breakfast, jumped into Yang Qi's military SUV, Sun Hang got into the driver's seat, and Wang Xiyi crouched on the roof of the vehicle where her wings slowly spread out.

"Let's go!" Sun Hang hit the gas pedal, and the car immediately shot into the parking lot, while Wang Xiyi on the roof also flapped her wings, soaring into the sky.

...

...

Half an hour later, at the talent training base construction site.

Everyone gathered around the big pit dug out by heavy machinery, with the manager in a white safety helmet eloquently describing the situation when the underground tunnel was excavated. A little farther away, a dozen construction workers in blue and yellow helmets gathered together, heatedly arguing about some specific details.

"When it was just dug out, we thought it was some facility left from the old days like an air raid shelter." The man in the white helmet was spitting as he spoke, "I sent two workers to walk along the tunnels, but the deeper they went, the more they felt the atmosphere wasn't right, and there were quite a few forked paths... To prevent any accidents, I quickly called them back. Later, people from the Investigation Bureau came, tested with instruments, and good heavens, there were remnants of the Deceit Virus in the tunnel! Luckily nothing big got messed up..."

"Mr. Wang, are the residual meme fragments in the tunnel from Chimera 17?" Sun Hang shouted loudly towards the pit.

Wang Xiyi, standing at the bottom of the pit, shook her head.

"Tsk… I'd rather it be from that creature." Sun Hang leapt down to stand beside Wang Xiyi. Yang Qi and the others descended slowly to the pit bottom using the site's lift.

The tunnel was irregularly ellipsoidal, with a diameter of about ten meters, not only could people pass through it, even Sun Hang's SUV could drive through unhindered... To the base construction team, such tunnels definitely aren't a minor task; without a tunnel boring machine, the construction difficulty is entirely no less than five stars.

"These tunnels are a bit like the burrows of Taklamakan sandworms... but those things shouldn't appear in Shuzhou." Yang Qi murmured.

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