Chapter 185 Professor Kelvin
Although Fernando Rethnor‘s surprise attack was thwarted, Zhou Qingfeng’s side had experienced quite a serious loss. Both sides ended up paying for their carelessness.
“How many casualties do we have?” Zhou Qingfeng carried the heavy TAC-50 back to his house as he asked Lena Fox, who was responsible for checking their losses. He could not help sighing when he saw the completely destroyed neighborhood in front of him. All the walls had been broken down, and the streets were heavy with depression.
Lena Fox stood sentimentally in the rubble, gazing at the corpses as well as the screaming wounded. She shrugged in sadness, then said, "We’ve probably lost seven to eight men. Mox forcibly used heavy machine guns when he tried to help us, so his injuries have become heavier than before. He has fallen into a coma."
When Zhou Qingfeng went mad and left the house to kill Fernando, Butcher was very prescient in calling the others to enter the underground basement and avoiding the follow-up fire strike by Fernando. Zhou Qingfeng even took out a Javelin missile from the underground basement after the massacre and gave his opponent a final blow.
However, losing a few men was not their biggest loss. Dr. Belford from the medical team suddenly shouted through the wireless radio: “Mr. Hugo, please come to Professor Kelvin’s room immediately! He won’t pull through, I’m afraid.”
“What?” Professor Kelvin was essential for the research and development of the NTZ-49, and he held the key to Zhou Qingfeng’s life. When Zhou Qingfeng heard that Professor Kelvin was on the verge of dying, he became extremely worried. He immediately rushed toward the professor’s room.
The professor’s room was filled with a variety of biological and pharmaceutical equipment, but these devices were mostly damaged in the recent attacks. Two of his assistants died on the spot, and the professor himself also suffered serious injuries. He was lying prone in a pool of blood.
When Zhou Qingfeng met the old professor, the latter was already in a coma. Dr. Belford expressed his apology as he said, “I’ve tried my best, but he’s seriously wounded. I’m afraid that I can no longer save him.”
Zhou Qingfeng’s heart froze for a split second. He then stepped forward and grabbed the old professor's hand, saying in a concerned and apologetic manner, "Professor, perhaps it’s my fault for dragging you into this disaster."
However, the old professor shook his head and said, “We currently experiencing the cataclysm, and hence, wars and disasters are inevitable. Still, I’m very glad to have been able to witness the direction of human evolution during the past month."
The old professor then grabbed a small bottle of medicine and said, “This is what you want—the NTZ-49. I’ve made them into tablets for you, and if you take one pill per week, it’ll probably last you two years. Victor Hugo, I hope you can keep my following words in your mind.
“You’re special, do you know that? I’ve studied your genes thoroughly and found out that you are very special. Alonzo may be right, perhaps an NTZ-50 with no side effects is actually possible. I’ve kept my lifetime knowledge on my computer, and I do hope that you can carry on with my research, for yourself, and for a better world.”
The old professor grasped Zhou Qingfeng’s shoulder. However, Zhou Qingfeng said dazedly, “But I don’t have any knowledge of biology at all. Of all the genes you’ve researched, I only know the term ‘DNA’.”
“Learn, you must learn, and trust me, you possess the ability…. Don’t give up.” Those were the last words of the old professor before passing away.
Professor Kelvin left a small bottle, which was filled with over a hundred of NTZ-49 tablets inside, behind. Although the effect would only last for one week, it was more portable than the original liquid state of the NTZ-49. The main problem was that these tablets could only allow Zhou Qingfeng to continue taking it for two years.
What about two years later?
Zhou Qingfeng needed to either find someone to replace Professor Kelvin’s work… or he could try developing the medicine himself. Otherwise, if he just gave up on the new medicine, he would end up dying.
Professor Kelvin guarded his laptop in front of his chest until the final second of his life. Zhou Qingfeng removed the laptop’s micro memory drive and plugged it into the armband computer on his wrist. The computer automatically recognized him, but it required a password for further access.
The secret question was: Who is the first person to take NTZ-49?
If it were someone else, they might have entered Zhou Qingfeng’s English name. However, only Zhou Qingfeng and Professor Kelvin knew that Professor Alonzo was the first person to take the NTZ-49.
After entering the correct password, Zhou Qingfeng finally gained access to the memory drive. A lot of research data was stored inside the drive, including the various experimental videos left by Professor Kelvin while studying the NTZ-49 in the past month. He might be able to greatly accelerate the research involving the NTZ-49 with these videos.
Don’t tell me that after becoming a killing machine, I’ll still need to train myself to become a bookworm? Zhou Qingfeng was dumbfounded. He left Professor Kelvin’s room in silence. All experimental and pharmaceutical equipment relating to the NTZ-49 research were destroyed during Fernando Rethnor’s attack, and all of the development personnel were now dead. Therefore, Zhou Qingfeng might need to start all over again.
"Victor, are you okay?" Butcher came over to comfort Zhou Qingfeng when he heard that Professor Kelvin had passed away. "Are you going to become stupid once the effect of your NTZ-49 has faded? We can find a group of girls and organize a farewell party for you if you wanted to….”
“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that I’ll have to let you down, because I can live for at least another year.” Zhou Qingfeng stood, emotionless, and put his NTZ-49 tablets away. After some calculations, he realized that his lifetime was now being divided into the spacetime of two worlds, and so he now only had one year remaining for each world.
“Good for you. I’m still worried that I will need to raise the few women you’ll leave behind if you’re going to die soon. I’ll be extremely stressful then, do you understand?” Butcher laughed shamelessly.
Zhou Qingfeng stared at him. “I won’t be dying any time soon, at least not before your death.”
Butcher then laughed and asked, “So… what are you going to do next? Are you going to teach Fernando Rethnor a lesson?”
“Of course,” Zhou Qingfeng replied with hatred.
However, even though Zhou Qingfeng had decided to seek his revenge, Lena Fox stated, “I’m afraid that it’s no longer possible for us to retaliate against Rethnor.”
“Why?”
“We’ve run out of diesel, so we won’t be able to leave this island with those speedboats anymore.”
“Didn’t we previously get ourselves quite a large amount of diesel when we exchanged it with one of our Cougars?”
“In the past week, you guys went to the black market almost every day and even rented some tugboats to transport the other stuff. We’ve already used up most, if not all of it.”
“We’ll get ourselves more diesel then. If my memory serves me right, I believe we still have three Cougars.” In order to eliminate Fernando and get his hands on the Polarlys, Zhou Qingfeng was willing to go all out.
However, Lena Fox continued shaking her head and said, “Both Brotherhood of Steel and Skull and Bones have now classified fuel as their top-level resources. They strictly prohibit the outflow of such resources, and so there’s nothing we can use to exchange for it. Fuel is now scarcer than food. With our current amount of fuel, it’s simply impossible for us to travel back and forth to Queens.”
Even though Zhou Qingfeng possessed incredible abilities, he knew that there was no way he could swim across the bay and seek revenge all by himself. He could not but frown and ask, “So there’s no other way left?”
“There’s still a way, but it depends on whether you’re willing to do it or not.” Lena continued, “The Brotherhood of Steel has just sent some people over to investigate this incident. I asked them about what we should do if we wanted to seek revenge.
“They said that they’ve decided to launch an attack within a couple of days. They’re planning to head directly toward Queens, create a beachhead, then attack Skull and Bones in order to reinforce their men on the fight which is currently taking place in the Bronx. If you wish to, they said that they’ll allow you to join this battle as a soldier, but you’ll have to follow their command. Otherwise, the white people will deal with you according to their own martial law.”
Zhou Qingfeng was instantly shocked when he heard what Lena Fox said. “Only as a soldier, huh?”