The 12 insertable hard drives in the abdomen were meant for Qingchen by Iodine, so no one except Qingchen could remove them.
It wasn't until Qing Chen arrived that his body relaxed.
This goes against common medical knowledge. Qingchen had heard that some people must see their relatives before they can close their eyes after they die, but he always thought it was just a coincidence or a rumor.
Only today did he believe that such a thing really existed.
Qingchen was losing control. He took several deep breaths before finally deciding to gently open the iodine-filled abdomen and remove the sealed bag.
Lu Yuan shouted to the Kunlun members on the island, "Come and lend a hand, collect and cremate the remains of our brothers."
Qingchen squatted there, refusing to get up, his head bowed.
Lu Yuan looked at him and said, "I don't blame you, and Iodine certainly doesn't blame you either. He did what you asked him to do, now it's your turn."
At this moment, some Time Travelers in the academy walked up to Qing Chen and said, "Thank you, Dean. If you hadn't come to our aid, we might have died too."
"Thank you, Dean."
"Thank you, Dean!"
The Time Walkers came to Qing Chen in droves to express their gratitude. In that chaotic environment, Qing Chen led the Time Walkers back to the Lower Three Districts.
Sometimes, before the travelers could even express their gratitude, he had already returned to the heart of the city.
Qing Chen looked at these people calmly and said, "Go back and rest."
Zheng Yuandong asked, "Qingchen, what has happened in City 10 over the past seven days?"
“Xiao San, there are still many people here who don’t know what happened in City 10. Why don’t you tell them?” Qing Chen said calmly, while he sat down to the side, holding the sealed bag in his hand and looking at the ground.
The mistress was summarizing the events of the past seven days in the square, making a battle report to review the situation and see what shortcomings everyone still had.
Zheng Yuandong listened quietly for a long time, and then shared the outside intelligence he had learned with Qing Chen: "The various army groups have been fighting in the north for six days. This war is larger than expected, and everyone is fighting to the death. There will be no rescue for City 10, so you have to find a way to save yourselves."
“I understand,” Qingchen nodded.
"The number of Timewalkers who survived far exceeded my expectations. I originally thought that it would be good if a thousand people could survive in such a disaster," Zheng Yuandong said softly from the side. "Thank you, Qingchen, thank you and the Parents' Association for the help you provided."
Qingchen said in a low voice, "Actually, if I had gone to find Iodine and the others earlier, they might still have had a chance to live."
Zheng Yuandong shook his head: "If you didn't go to save the Time Traveler from the Academy, Iodine Potion had an obligation to save him, or rather, he had to save him. That's Kunlun's responsibility. Iodine Potion has its mission, and you have yours."
Qing Chen remained silent.
“Don’t think too much about it. Kunlun’s responsibility is to protect these Time Travelers,” Zheng Yuandong said. “If he knew that you had protected so many Time Travelers, he would be happy in the afterlife. No one in Kunlun will blame you. We have already prepared ourselves for this. You have to trust our resolve.”
In the square, students from the College of Agriculture, including Nangong Yuanyu, walked among the crowd, distributing the chicken blood sprouts they had collected.
Many of the travelers enjoyed the peace of surviving the ordeal, their bodies so weak they could barely stand. But everyone knew that they would face another catastrophe in seven days.
Qing Chen suddenly said, "We must change this world."
"Hmm?" Zheng Yuandong looked at Qing Chen.
Qing Chen continued, "For its own benefit, the Divine Era launched this war at all costs, completely disregarding the lives of tens of millions of people in a single city. Although other conglomerates were tied down on the battlefield and unable to carry out rescue operations, they could have easily breached the city walls by launching a few small, long-range missiles, allowing the refugees from the Lower Three Districts to evacuate. However, they did not do so because they feared that the rat swarm would escape into the wilderness through those gaps. The problem of the Inner World is no longer the problem of any particular conglomerate; rather, that world is sick and needs healing."
“You are already changing the world,” Zheng Yuandong said.
“That’s not enough,” Qing Chen said, as if he had figured something out. He stood up and said, “Please prepare equipment that can be used with the hard drive in the Inner World. Also, I need a huge office with 640 LCD screens connected together, so I can watch the video footage brought back by the iodine at 4x speed. I’m going to rest now. Please wake me up when you’re ready… Also, I will provide Kunlun with as much of the Purple Orchid Star produced on Whale Island as possible, because you deserve it.”
After saying that, Qingchen stood up and looked at Xiaosan: "Go and rest. When you wake up, compile a list of the dead and build a monument for them on the island."
The mistress said, "I can do the statistics now."
Qing Chen shook his head: "No need to tough it out. You've all worked hard these past seven days. Tomorrow, notify the parents that all the Time Travelers in City 10 should prepare to land on the island. Use Chicken Blood Sprout to treat everyone's injuries. There will be a tough battle to fight when we get back. Remember, everyone must get enough sleep during these seven days. There won't be time to sleep during the next time you travel through time."
After saying that, Qingchen turned and walked towards the Agricultural College.
Zheng Yuandong pondered, and he suddenly felt that Qingchen had completed another transformation.
If a person is only dominated by emotions such as anger and sadness, then they cannot become a truly strong person.
Just now, Zheng Yuandong was very worried that Qingchen would go crazy and continue to torture himself, but Qingchen did not; he chose to rest.
Therefore, Zheng Yuandong knew that Qing Chen had grasped a principle: a fist pulled back is not for admitting defeat, but for striking out better.
...
...
Countdown 157:00:00.
Qingchen slept for a full 10 hours until he felt that his energy had been fully restored.
Zard and Huanyu sat up from the recliner, and found that they were still fast asleep, leaning against him on either side.
Zard tilted his head, drool dripping into his collar, while Huan Yu lay on Qing Chen's lap, also drooling.
This should still be Xiaoyu, right?
Qingchen couldn't imagine the scene of Da Yu sleeping on his lap.
"Wake up," Qingchen patted the two of them.
"Wow, boss, you're awake!" Zard said. "Boss Zheng asked me to tell you that everything is ready, and you can go anytime. Also, the cafeteria's special meals are now open to all Time Travelers from City 10 for free. Everyone can eat whatever they want. If you want anything, I can get it for you! Perfect timing, I'll pack two servings of garlic crayfish for Xiaoyu in your name; he likes that!"
Xiaoyu swallowed hard.
Qing Chen was both amused and exasperated; what was all this about?
"Go ahead and ask for whatever you want to eat, and send me a portion to the main teaching building after you're done," Qingchen said, standing up.
He arrived at the lecture hall that Kunlun had prepared for him. The classroom had been renovated, and the blackboard wall and the walls on both sides of the classroom were neatly covered with 27-inch LCD screens, exactly 640 in total.
Lu Yuan waited, then looked at Qing Chen with a puzzled expression: "What do you need so many screens for?"
“You’ll find out soon,” Qingchen said. “Please number all the screens from 1 to 640, and then assign me eight people to control fast forward, pause, and rewind. Thank you.”
With that, Qing Chen walked alone to the last row of the lecture hall and sat down: "Let's begin."
All 640 screens lit up, each displaying surveillance footage, played continuously at four times the normal speed.
Qingchen's pupils narrowed as he continuously recorded the images on each screen in his mind, then analyzed them using his memory palace.
“It started airing 15 days ago.”
"Adjust screen 611 to eight times speed."
"Adjust screen 127 to eight times speed."
“Screen No. 531 was turned upside down for 48 hours.”
“Screen 137 was played backwards for 48 hours.”
Time passed second by second.
Little Eagle said from the side, "There haven't been any mice on these screens, have there? We're looking for mice, right? I looked at the screen Qingchen played upside down, and there were no mice in it either..."
Lu Yuan shook his head: "It's too early to tell anything. Let's wait and see. Perhaps Qing Chen has his own ideas."
At this moment, Qingchen suddenly said, "Screen 137 pause. The man in the brown coat on the screen used to leave home at 7 o'clock every day to take the light rail train on screen 139 to work at the factory on screen 631. However, starting from the 21st day, he has not left home. Please mark this for me. He was probably killed by rats at home, which is why he did not go to work."
The area where the man in the brown coat was located was the first place Qing Chen found where the man's behavior was unusual.
In the early stages, rat infestations will never swagger onto the streets, let alone appear on road surveillance cameras.
Therefore, if Qingchen wants to analyze where the rat swarm first appeared, he must infer the movement of the rat swarm by analyzing the behavior of "people".
He wasn't looking for rats in the surveillance footage... but rather for the people who had suddenly disappeared from the city.
"Rewind 36 hours, 32 minutes, and 12 seconds to point 141. Please mark the person on the screen. He was also 48 hours ago, and he and his wife were going to get off work and leaving the house normally. But suddenly, the couple stopped going out."
“Rewind 47 hours, 10 minutes and 31 seconds from point 136. The woman in the video goes to work at a strip club in the fourth district every night, but she hasn’t left her house for two days.”
"Number 151..."
"Number 153..."
The Kunlun members gradually became dazed; it turned out that even if you couldn't see the rat, you could still find it.
They stared in disbelief at the boy at the very back of the lecture hall, who sat calmly in the back row as if it were all perfectly normal.
“Little Eagle, mark these screens I marked on the map of City 10. I need to know where these people live.”
Gradually, Qingchen was directing eight operators all by himself, but the eight operators were struggling to keep up with the pace, and things became chaotic.
All Kunlun members felt an immense sense of oppression; they found this kind of thinking ability extremely terrifying.
Lu Yuan and Ni Ergou exchanged a silent glance, both seeing the shock in each other's eyes.
This was the first time Qing Chen had displayed his intellectual abilities without reservation in front of outsiders.
When Qingchen directs the rewind of the video, he can do so with precision down to the second.
The operator only needs to input the time that Qingchen needs to rewind, and the screen will accurately freeze on the person Qingchen is looking for.
Lu Yuan and Ni Ergou simply couldn't understand how someone could simultaneously view 640 surveillance videos and accurately find the information within them.
As time progressed in the surveillance video, the number of deaths in the city increased, and Lu Yuan and Ni Ergou could even feel the fear of the increasingly frequent rat swarms.
It was as if Qingchen led everyone through the surveillance footage brought back by the iodine solution, and then personally experienced the process of the rat swarm's reproduction and invasion.
The surveillance footage was viewed from morning until afternoon.
After eating a few bites of food, Qingchen continued eating from the afternoon until midnight.
People felt the loss of human beings and the harm caused by the rat swarm.
Immersive experience!
The Kunlun members responsible for controlling Qingchen were all replaced, but Qingchen remained seated at the back of the lecture hall, working at the highest intensity as if he had no emotions.
Lu Yuan suddenly felt a lump in his throat and said, "If Iodine knew that the video he brought back could be turned into something magical in Qing Chen's hands, he would feel that he died without regrets... They did not die in vain."
Qing Chen wouldn't let them die in vain.
“Stop,” Qingchen said, looking at the screens. “Little Eagle, stand the map of City 10 up for me.”
"Okay, sure!" Little Eagle said excitedly.
He and three other Kunlun members each held a corner of the map and held it up in front of Qing Chen.
Everyone could see the city covered with countless red dots, each representing a dead human being, or more.
On that map, the rat infestation was scattered throughout the city, spreading outwards from the fifth district as its axis.
The fifth district is the most densely populated, so densely populated that it is almost entirely colored red on the map.