After Clearing the Infinite Flow, I Tamed the Mad Dog Boss - Chapter 26

Chapter 26

When Qin Xian opened his eyes, everything in front of him was still a blur. The sharp, stabbing pain was enough to make a person think they had gone blind. This was the price of using his Insight ability for too long. Even by the next day, he still had not fully recovered.

But it was only eye strain from overuse. He would be fine after some rest.

His sensitive eyes could not handle light that was too bright, so he simply found a pair of sunglasses and put them on. After breakfast, he poured Tangyuan a bag of milk, cracked in an egg, and added some dog food.

Tangyuan seemed completely unaware of Qin Xian’s threat from yesterday and buried his head in his food. Qin Xian’s lips curved slightly. He grabbed the dog’s tail and stroked it all the way down to the base.

Then, ignoring the dog as its ears shot upright and its head snapped up, he went straight out to make his appointment.

The meeting place was a private room in a Hunan restaurant. When Qin Xian pushed the door open and entered, he saw two unfamiliar people sitting inside. Huang Dehui was not there.

There was one man and one woman. The woman looked close to forty. She wore a tracksuit, and her short hair fell neatly beside her ears. Her features had a sharp, heroic air. The man was much older, with graying hair, and looked to be approaching retirement age.

The older man was the first to stand and extend a hand to Qin Xian. “Hello, Mr. Qin. My name is Kang Ming. I am the commander-in-chief of the National Anomalous Incident Handling Center, as well as a general.”

His expression was gentle, and his tone was kind yet authoritative. The bearing of a soldier pressed toward Qin Xian at once. He looked both like an elder in the family and like someone shrewd and seasoned.

He had not expected the state to take him this seriously.

Qin Xian became more formal as well and reached out to shake his hand. “Hello, Commander Kang.”

Kang Ming smiled warmly and turned to introduce the woman beside him. “This is Yuan Fengying, the leader of our center’s First Squad. She is a very capable ability user.”

Qin Xian asked, “Ability user? Not a player? Does that mean killing anomalies on this side also has a chance of granting special abilities and items?”

Kang Ming nodded. “Yes, though the probability is very low. It should be lower than what you experience in the infinite-flow worlds. Even so, some ordinary people have obtained special powers. Yuan Fengying is one of them.”

If ordinary people with a sense of justice could also grasp abilities and obtain items, then the situation would improve considerably.

Qin Xian asked, “But doesn’t that also mean those ‘players’ can make use of this and farm anomalies to strengthen themselves?”

Kang Ming shook his head. “We still don’t have conclusive evidence on that point, but we have conducted some experiments.”

Qin Xian raised an eyebrow. “Have you captured ‘players’ for experiments, or have you led teams to farm anomalies?”

Kang Ming smiled. “More than that. If you’re interested, join us, and I can take you on a tour of the laboratory.”

Heh. Qin Xian was a little interested, but not enough to join just for the right to take a tour.

“You’re not doing human experiments, are you?”

“Of course not. We would never experiment on humans. Other countries have, and they even nearly caused a major incident. But for humanity’s future, we will do everything we can to understand anomalies and increase our strength.”

That was only natural. Perhaps before long, the state would understand anomalies better than he did as a player who had cleared scenarios. No, perhaps they already did…

How exactly were anomalies born? What was pollution? Aside from rules, what common weaknesses did they share? Did the Main God have a way to kill them completely? And how were those items and abilities created?

Qin Xian’s hand on the dining table gradually clenched. His expression was not very clear beneath the shadow.

No, those questions were probably extremely difficult to answer. If they had truly researched them, a large-scale counterattack would have begun long ago.

“If Mr. Qin does not wish to join our center, then we will consider cooperating with you instead. At present, there is a relatively urgent matter we would like to ask Mr. Qin to help with. The compensation afterward will be fifty thousand yuan. In addition, we will also give you some of our current research findings.”

“Oh?” Qin Xian grew somewhat interested. “What is it?”

The smile on Kang Ming’s face vanished, and he said in a low voice, “City No.1 High School. The senior-year students who are about to take the college entrance exam, along with their teachers, all disappeared overnight.”

“Disappeared?!”

“Yes. They have been missing for three days now. We organized people to go there on the first day, but they couldn’t get in. It has not yet triggered public panic, but if we delay another two days, some parents may notice that something is wrong.”

Kang Ming’s expression hardened. “And City No.1 High School is the largest high school in the city. The ones who disappeared are over a thousand children who are about to take the college entrance exam. They are the hopes of more than a thousand families.”

“I accept. I’ll go.”

Qin Xian continued solemnly, “I’m afraid someone did this deliberately. If they succeed in causing the deaths of those seniors, it could trigger nationwide unrest.”

Kang Ming gripped Qin Xian’s hand firmly. “Thank you. If you can save all the children, we will add another twenty thousand to the compensation.”

Qin Xian nodded.

Even without compensation, once he learned about this, he would absolutely have gone. Of course, having compensation made it even better.

After leaving the restaurant, Qin Xian strolled slowly toward home. He took a small glass bottle out of his pocket. Kang Ming had given it to him before they parted.

He said it was a newly developed little gift, a thank-you for accepting the commission.

The glass bottle was half-filled with a thick black liquid that slowly tilted with his movements. If someone leaned in and looked carefully, it might make their skin crawl, because the black liquid was actually made up of tiny black insects, densely packed and writhing inside the glass bottle.

Qin Xian knew what this thing was too. It was a kind of “creature” commonly found in anomalous Domains. They were incredibly weak and survived by absorbing the negative energy inside a Domain.
But when enough of them gathered together, and they happened upon an unconscious human, they could become terrifying.

They were like snails and worms at the bottom of the water, swarming motionless food and slowly gnawing it away.

If a living person fainted near these little black bugs for half a day, they might never wake up again. After a full day, they would be stripped down to a skeleton.

That said, these tiny things were extremely timid. At the slightest disturbance, they would hide. A person could crush them into ash with a light pinch. Inside a Domain, they would also avoid any strange entities stronger than themselves.

Who knew how Kang Ming’s people had managed to bring these little things out and breed them, even placing them in special containers? With that, they could make excellent use of their traits and use them to detect the presence of strange entities.

When there was something strange nearby, these little things would tremble violently and try to hide in the opposite direction. But right now, the little black bugs in the bottle were sluggish, swaying back and forth with Qin Xian’s movements.

The area looked very safe.

Still, this thing could only be used in the real world. In an environment like a Domain, where danger was everywhere, these little things would explode into fireworks inside the bottle.

Qin Xian thought this as he put the quiet little bottle away.

When he reached the bottom of his apartment building, Qin Xian took out the little bottle again, lifted it high, and aimed it at his apartment window. The little black bugs inside still showed no reaction.

He held the bottle as he slowly went upstairs. Standing at the door, he lowered his head to observe it again. The little black bugs remained very quiet.

Qin Xian unlocked the door with his key, pushed it open, and once again saw Tangyuan in the same spot. It was still standing behind the sofa with its head poked out. When it saw that it was Qin Xian, it wagged its tail twice.

This time, however, something was different. It took the initiative to come closer, suddenly lifting its front paws as if it wanted to put them on Qin Xian’s legs.

Qin Xian immediately stepped back, causing the dog to pounce at empty air.

“Mm-woof?”

Tangyuan’s front paws landed on the floor, and it tilted its head to look at Qin Xian.

“You haven’t had a bath yet. Don’t paw at me.”

After saying that, Qin Xian coldly walked around it and sat down on the sofa.

The bottle in his hand still showed no reaction.

Heh. Looked like it was only a beginner-level product.

—————-

The next day, Qin Xian got up early and packed the items suitable to bring to school: a large jug of water, a set of quick-dry clothes to change into, dry rations, first-aid supplies, a folding knife, a small hammer, and a durable flashlight.

After getting everything ready, he added a lot of dog food and water to the dog bowl.

Tangyuan walked over to look at the mountain of food, then raised its head to look at Qin Xian.

Qin Xian said to the dog, “I’m going out again. Be good and stay here by yourself.”

If Tangyuan were a normal dog, he would definitely have found someone to adopt it. After all, given his current situation, he really was not suited to keeping a pet. At the drop of a hat, he could end up staying inside a Domain for days without coming out, and he might even die at any moment. A pet locked up at home would most likely end up dead as well.

“Woof…”

Tangyuan barked once and took two steps forward.

Qin Xian reached out and gave the dog’s head a firm rub, then one final pat before getting up and opening the door.

This time, Tangyuan did not bark. It only walked to the entryway and stared outside, until the closing door cut it off from Qin Xian’s sight.

Qin Xian quickly took a taxi to City No.1 High School. The taxi stopped outside the school gate. Pedestrians still passed by from time to time, though not many, because a cordon had been set up nearby. A trench had been smashed into the concrete road, and broken chunks of stone were piled to the side.

It seemed like there was construction going on here, but it might not necessarily be construction. It was very likely something deliberately done to keep passersby away from the danger.

Qin Xian wore a black mask and a baseball cap as he lifted his head and studied the campus beyond the wall.

The weather was somewhat overcast. There was little sound and few people inside the campus. From the outside, it looked perfectly normal. But anyone with sharp senses who stayed near this place would feel a stifling discomfort.

“Hello, Mr. Qin.”

A woman’s voice interrupted Qin Xian’s thoughts. He turned his head and saw the captain he had met at yesterday’s dinner standing nearby, dressed in gray casual clothes and looking valiant and capable.

What was her name again? Yuan Fengying, he thought.

Qin Xian extended his hand. “Hello, Captain Yuan.”

Yuan Fengying shook his hand, then let go and turned to look gravely at the school gate. “Many of our team members can’t get into the school.”

Qin Xian asked, “A Domain isn’t something you can just enter whenever you like. Only those who trigger certain specific conditions, or the kind of ‘food’ the Domain’s master likes, can get in. Can you contact the people who entered?”

Yuan Fengying shook her head. “No. The communication equipment has failed. Because of that, we don’t know what conditions have to be triggered to enter. Do you have any suggestions?”

Qin Xian thought for a moment, then replied, “By ordinary logic, a school is not supposed to allow outsiders inside in the first place.”

Yuan Fengying’s eyes lit up. “Got it. We need to create an identity for ourselves that can enter the school, right?”

Qin Xian nodded. “Yes. You’d probably be better suited to being a teacher… As for me, I’ll try being a student.”

Yuan Fengying looked at his long legs, his delicate brows and eyes half-hidden beneath the brim of his cap, and his medium-length hair. After a moment of contemplation, she asked, “Are you planning to go in as the school tyrant, or the campus heartthrob?”

———————–