Chapter 380: It’s Coming

Zhang Lisheng’s last sentence sounded like a curse; Xu Naijia could not help but frown after hearing this. “Dr. Zhang, other than being a Father, do you have a part-time job in being an astrologer or a prophet as well? Futile cursing is the most incompetent performance of a man; I hope you have some self respect for yourself.”

Zhang Lisheng smiled and suddenly asked, “Dr. Xu, I believe you must not have majored in biology at a university, right?”

“My Ph.D. is in Environmental Science at the University of Cambridge in England, and I’ve made cross-disciplinary research on biology before. Is there any problem?” Xu Naijia asked.

“Oh, Cambridge! That’s a good university, but I guess you haven’t gotten a good grasp on biology yet. I’m very confident when it comes to biology!” Zhang Lisheng grinned and sat on the floor before wetting his finger with saliva and drawing a circle on the floor. Pointing to the circle, he suddenly said out of the blue, “A beast at the top of the food chain often has its own designated hunting area. Let’s take the ferocious lion that we Earthlings are more familiar with as an example. In the African jungle, an adult male lion and its mate will mark a pond that will not dry up in the dry season as its territory. Then, with this pond as the center, it will use about two square kilometers of vast land as its own hunting ground. If you carefully study the hunting ground, you will find a very interesting phenomenon. The weaker the animals are, the more the lion will allow them to get near to its pond…”

While he was speaking, he moved his finger to the center of the circle. “An antelope or a zebra will be safe to drink at the pond when the lion is full.”

Then, he gestured at the middle of the circle and said, “The coyotes, on the other hand, are not so lucky. Usually, they can sneak around in the lion pack’s hunting grounds and the lion pack will at most roar and give a short case as a warning, but once they approach the pond, they will immediately be chased for real and may even be killed…”

In the end, Zhang Lisheng moved his finger to the edge of the circle. “And if it’s another lion, even if it enters only the edge of the hunting ground, let alone getting near the pond, it will immediately feel the hostility of the original lion pack. If it doesn’t retreat, it means that an inevitable battle between life and death will take place right away…”

Upon hearing the young man’s description, at first Xu Naijia felt confused but gradually, uneasiness arose from her heart, prompting her to ask, “Dr. Zhang, you’ve said so many strange things, so what point do you want to make exactly?”

“It’s simple, Dr. Xu. We’re now in the hunting ground of an Oasis World’s lion. In its eyes, the original campsite is a weak ‘antelope’ that is not worth mentioning. Later, after the so-called leaders of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and their students came to the camp, it became a ‘coyote’, prompting the lion to roar as a warning. Yesterday, when I lifted my disguise and planned to make a sortie by force, the campsite became another ‘lion’, so it rushed over in anger. For this reason, I surrendered and let the camp return to become a ‘coyote’ so that I remove its vigilance. After that, when they locked me in this cage and calculated the rough position of the lion’s pond based on the information I have at hand, I have finally obtained a conclusion two or three minutes before you came in. Can you guess what conclusion I’ve made?”

“What?” Xu Naijia’s face had already become extremely gloomy, but her voice was still composed and calm just like earlier as she asked.

“We have relocated just beside the lion’s pond.”

“Stop acting like that just from making such a horrible inference, Dr. Zhang. You obviously know that we have your alumni-slash-senior presiding over the special program of biological environment deduction in our base. His research conditions are far superior to those of you who are acting all secretive. On top of that, we can also speculate the foreign world’s beast’s strength based on its cries. We have long obtained our conclusions that the place we are staying in is safe. The beast that roared last night was not that terrifying.”

“You may feel that it’s not so terrifying here, but I feel that we’re being surrounded by danger at this moment. I wonder who is the correct one between you and me…” Zhang Lisheng smiled. “Oh, Dr. Xu, yesterday I’ve told a girl who hasn’t read many books, that ‘even though I have no idea what kind of equation he’s using, a biosphere calculation formula that doesn’t contain over 100,000 recorded data of the original species does not differ from fortune-telling’. I’ll add another sentence onto it, the same goes for speculating the strength of the beast based on just the roaring itself. What do you think?”

“But compared to Wang Zhaosheng, your information is much more scarce, isn’t it?” Xu Naijia asked in a more panicked expression.

“But I’m not researching any biosphere calculation formula or whatnot, instead, I’m merely using my simplest deduction. This is essentially like how we know an earthquake will take place when we see a toad fleeing on the street or mice running out of the house during the daytime. I don’t need too many materials, only observation on the phenomenon and logical inference. For instance, there were many casualties and death when the Oasis World’s camp was first being set up, but the strange phenomenon of the smooth exploration of the A0001 camp base to the north made people wonder. Sometimes, it doesn’t require very complicated research to draw such conclusions for the result is simple and straightforward. A high school student interested in biology can even come up with this conclusion as long as he opens up his mind. Discard the mindset of what ‘world’ this is and don’t narrow your view. Some simple perspectives apply to any situation and place. The most obvious example is the law of the jungle—”

“Dr. Zhang, since you’ve talked with such ease and fluency in determination, then why hasn’t the ‘lion’ you thought to be true appear yet? It’s already over eight o’clock now, but there’s not even a roar like last night.”

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“It looks like you have learned nothing even though I’ve talked so much, Dr. Xu,” Zhang Lisheng shrugged and replied. “A lion will only roar when it’s angry or giving out a warning. However, when it’s hunting, it will stay silent while lurking in the grass. Then, it will sneak behind its prey and attack swiftly by biting off its neck…”

“Sh*t!” A series of expressions ran across Xu Naijia’s face as she suddenly cursed under her breath. She turned away from the carriage, but just as she took a step, a loud bang, that sounded like something weighing tens of thousands of tons, crashed onto the ground from a high place, its sound resonated abruptly from the outside. Those violent vibrations that spread out to the compartment of the engineering vehicle, could even make them feel suffocated with the blood in their entire body being shaken violently.

Blood flew out of her nose. Xu Naijia panted loudly and tried to calm her stunned mind. In the process of calming herself down, she suddenly heard another earth-shattering roar that reverberated abruptly near her ears, which was followed closely by ‘pik pak’ sounds coming from the electric arcs made from continuous discharge.

“It’s coming…” Upon hearing the roar, the wizard power in Zhang Lisheng’s body automatically surged like a tide. A ferocious smile crept upon his face as he hissed under his breath. Then, he allowed the colorless scales to cover his body as he nihilated using his omniscient power and charged forward.

A dazzling electrical arc erupted from the metal cage, the ‘pak pak…’ sound of the electrical current overwhelmed the commotion from outside the compartment. The young man’s body flickered, nihilated, and solidated from time to time amidst the electric light that had already turned into a bright green color, and in the end, he struggled to pull a long electrical arc and managed to escape from the cage.

When his figured solidified again, mottled and scorched spots had already covered his body. He took a deep breath and stared at Xu Naijia, who was staring at him in bewilderment and said humorously, “This cage is much more useless than I thought, but maybe it’s also because the electrical consumption in the base right now is just too high and is about to trip soon.”

“Y-You can nihilate? T-This is impossible! It doesn’t obey the basic laws of physics…” Xu Naijia did not seem to hear the young man’s voice and merely muttered while watching him.

After escaping from the cage, the first thing Zhang Lisheng did was to look at the commotion outside while murmuring under his breath, “There is a group of monkeys that are about six to seven meters tall. They’re crawling on top of the electrical fence while holding resizable wooden sticks. They were forking the humans in the camp into their mouths outside, so do you think that obeys the law of science? Dr. Xu, I am not a spy. The reason Guo Caiying couldn’t find me in the past few nights was not that I was wandering around in the camp. I actually went out every night. Yesterday, if it wasn’t because the electrical arcs produced by the electrical fence was just too horrifying and that there was a laser defense system on the ground, I’d already have long escaped…”

While the young man was speaking, he suddenly turned around and expanded before holding Guo Caiying, who had been stunned by the side, underneath his armpit like a child. He continued to look outside and waited for the best timing to jump out of the carriage. Without warning, he heard the girl snap back to reality who also shouted loudly, “Lisheng, my cousin! Chuhe too…”

“Senior Sister, you don’t have to worry about them, I saw soldiers rushing over here just now already…”

“Those soldiers must be dead by now, otherwise, they would have reached here already!” Guo Caiying interrupted the young man. “Please, Lisheng! Please! They’re still very young, and Chuhe is your good friend as well!”

“The first batch is indeed dead, but since Dr. Xu has a high status, I believe that they will dispatch a second batch soon…” Zhang Lisheng replied casually. When he sensed that the girl began to sob, he frowned right away, “I have a multiple-choice question for you, Senior Sister. If I protect you alone, I can guarantee that we can return to Earth safe and sound, but if we add another two more people, your chance of survival will drop to only 80%…”

“I choose the second one.” Without waiting for Zhang Lisheng to finish, Guo Caiying answered immediately with determination.

“Alright then. If you insist…” The young man shrugged and held both Xu Naijia and Ai Chuhe beneath his armpits as well with a movement as fluid as a ghost.

“I don’t need you to save me! Let me go!” Xu Naijia struggled, ending up for it to be futile.

“Listen, Dr. Xu. My patience is very limited under such circumstances. From now on, if you continue to scream or struggle, I’ll dislocate your jaw and break all of your four limbs. In that case, even after we’ve escaped safely, you’ll suffer from great pain and will end up crippled for your entire life. Do you really want that?” Zhang Lisheng asked nonchalantly.

If the young man put on a fierce and scary manner, perhaps Xu Naijia might still be reluctant, but when she heard his nonchalantly calm tone and sensed the powerful strength under his cold scales, the color drained from the lanky woman’s face as she zipped her mouth shut.