PCJ – Chapter 640 The Spiritual Spring Was Stolen

As soon as Mei Qing stepped into the lab, she noticed something was wrong. The door to the breeding room was open. When she walked over to check, she found all the incubators completely empty.

“Not good! We’ve been robbed! All of Zhang Jiaohua’s lab mice have been stolen!” Mei Qing immediately ran toward the main lab. Losing the experimental mice wasn’t the worst-case scenario, but if the bioactive reagent stored in the lab was also stolen, the consequences could be catastrophic.

When she rushed into the lab, she found that even the secure door to the room where the special reagent was kept had been pried open. Mei Qing didn’t dare go inside. She quickly pulled out her phone and called the police.

Huang Zhongfang arrived in a hurry. “Mei Qing, what happened?”

“Last night the lab was broken into. All the experimental mice were stolen, and that bottle of bioactive reagent is also missing,” Mei Qing said.

“What happened? We had such tight security—how could something still get stolen?” Huang Zhongfang was furious. Now that Zhang Jiaohua was gone, they had pinned their hopes on that bottle of reagent for launching a major project. And now someone had stolen the most important materials.

“Professor Huang, should we contact Zhang Jiaohua and ask him how to handle this?” Mei Qing asked.

Huang Zhongfang nodded. “Yes, he needs to be informed.”

When Zhang Jiaohua received the call, he wasn’t the least bit concerned about the stolen mice or the bottle of reagent. “It’s gone? So be it,” he said. The spiritual spring in that bottle had been stored for so long that most of its spiritual energy had already dissipated. Before long, it would basically just become regular water.

Mei Qing was stunned by his response. She had expected him to be furious and rush back immediately. Instead, he didn’t seem to care at all.

“What did Zhang Jiaohua say?” Huang Zhongfang asked when he noticed Mei Qing hadn’t responded for a while.

“He said it doesn’t matter. I really don’t understand. Something this serious just happened, and he’s not the least bit concerned!” Mei Qing said in confusion.

“Then let the police investigate. We’ll stay out of it. Maybe to us these things seem very important, but to Zhang Jiaohua, they might be trivial,” Huang Zhongfang said. By now, he had come to realize that Zhang Jiaohua was not an ordinary person.

“Is this guy really planning to become a government official?” Mei Qing muttered.

Huang Zhongfang shook his head. “Even if he wanted to, why become a low-level village official? Wait, where exactly did he go again?”

“A remote rural village in Bijiang City. One of the poorest regions—I’ve heard they barely have enough to eat. A PhD becoming a village official? Isn’t that massive overkill?” Mei Qing said, wishing she could crack open Zhang Jiaohua’s head to see what kind of thoughts he kept inside.

Meanwhile, the stolen lab mice and the bottle of bioactive reagent had already been smuggled aboard a cruise ship bound for Japan. A man in his fifties or sixties held the reagent bottle in his hand, examining it with a serious expression as he questioned the capable-looking man beside him.

The older man was Tokuda Yuhiko, chairman of the Tokuda Corporation. The younger man was his son, Tokuda Nofu.

“You’re certain this is the bioactive reagent used in the in-vitro embryo development experiments?” Tokuda Yuhiko asked.

“Absolutely. Our agent has been embedded in that lab for a long time. Only last night did the opportunity arise. Their security was lax, so we seized the chance to take both the reagent and the experimental specimens. The mice are already on board,” Tokuda Nofu replied.

These experimental specimens were precisely Zhang Jiaohua’s genetically engineered white mice. In the lab, they had been kept in specially designed incubators. While they appeared quiet and docile there, they were drastically different from normal mice—extremely aggressive in nature. Their calm behavior in the lab had fooled everyone.

But once these mice were transferred from the incubators to reinforced steel containers, they began revealing their true nature.

Screech! The white mice’s sharp claws continuously scraped the steel walls. Anyone who could see inside the containers would have been horrified—every swipe left deep gouges in the metal, as if they were clawing through wood, not steel.

Hundreds of white mice scratched and clawed relentlessly. The metal began to show signs of being breached. Eventually, one particularly fierce mouse managed to claw through a thin spot, letting a beam of light shine into the container.

That tiny bit of light sent the mice into a frenzy. They went berserk, attacking the steel panel with terrifying force. In moments, the sheet of metal was torn to shreds like paper. A swarm of white mice—each the size of two adult fists—burst out of the container. Their footsteps pounded so hard that the floor shook.

The steel container had been placed in the ship’s cargo hold, so even after escaping, the mice were still trapped below deck. But the cargo hold was not as secure as the steel box. Soon, the mice found a ventilation pipe that led to the deck and began climbing through it.

A crew member walking through the corridor suddenly paused. He thought he heard a strange thumping sound, like something knocking against the ship’s pipes.

“You hear that? Sounds like something’s hitting the ducts,” he said to his colleague.

“I don’t hear anything. You sure you’re not imagining it?”

Just then, a gust of sea wind blew across the deck, mingled with the calls of seagulls.

The first crew member shrugged, thinking maybe he had misheard.

Suddenly, a flash of white darted across the deck. A pure white creature stopped for a moment before sprinting toward the passenger cabins.

“Aah! A rat!” a female passenger screamed and ran in terror.

That first mouse didn’t stop—it rushed deeper into the cabin area. Moments later, an entire swarm of white mice stormed out behind it.

Security personnel, hearing the scream, rushed out to investigate—only to be confronted by a horde of white mice charging their way. One of the guards frantically shouted into his radio, “Rats! A swarm of giant white rats! Seal all the doors! Get reinforcements, now!”

“Rats? On this ship? Are you insane?” someone replied in disbelief.

“Just get over here! Stop wasting time! This is serious!” the guard bellowed into the transmitter.

Soon after, the ship’s public broadcast system issued an unexpected announcement: “Attention all passengers: Due to an emergency situation, for your personal safety, please return to your rooms and lock your doors and windows. We ask for your cooperation…”

An unsettling warning had just sounded across the entire ship.