Once he confirmed that the dead rat had fully entered the space inside the bag, Su Jin did not even have time to catch his breath before a surge of wild ecstasy overwhelmed him!
A fresh prompt had already popped up before his eyes.
[Salvage successful. Exchanged for an item of equivalent value.]
Crude and heavy-handed as this Company's methods might be, its efficiency was undeniably top-notch!
Feeling secretly thrilled, Su Jin hastily reached back into the bag.
After groping around for a moment, he pulled out a small black cardboard box.
Looking at the compact box in his hands, Su Jin felt an unexplainable tension.
Aside from the starter gear the Company had provided at the very beginning, this was his first formal interaction with it.
One of those initial items was a mask that seemed capable of communicating with the Company and facilitating seamless translation.
Another was a backpack with its own extradimensional space.
There was also a handgun that he hadn't yet been able to test, which never required reloading.
Whatever newly emerged from this exchange certainly couldn't be ordinary!
Taking a deep breath, Su Jin, filled with anticipation and a profound sense of ceremony, opened the black box in his hands.
The lid opened, and a glint of silver caught his eye.
A metal object came into view—smoothly contoured, perfectly rounded, and unmistakably erotic in design, bearing a shape that was both strangely familiar and bizarre.
The upward curve of Su Jin's lips slowly flattened into a frown.
With trembling hands, he reached in, lifted the object from the box, and examined it.
After just two glances, he completely snapped in a fit of rage, slamming the box onto the ground!
"What the absolute fuck?!"
"Isn't this a fucking butt plug?!!"
Clutching the metal plug, Su Jin shook with cold fury.
There was playing pranks on people, and then there was outright humiliation!!
He had already been frantic and panicked enough.
Now, at the end of the world, the Company had sent him a butt plug? What the hell—did they expect him to plug his holes so he wouldn't leak bodily fluids when he died?
After venting a string of curses, Su Jin's emotions gradually subsided.
Gripping the adult novelty item, a wave of desolation washed over him.
Saddled with such an unreliable Company that didn't care in the slightest whether he lived or died!
I never should have agreed to drink with that client back then. If not for accompanying that client...
Just as he was drowning in self-pity, Su Jin snapped out of it, his gaze fixing on the floor.
Beside the black box he had just hurled down, a card had popped out. Was it an instruction manual?
Could this be a misunderstanding... The Company was an extraordinary existence, after all; there had to be some sort of mix-up!
At the thought, Su Jin hastily picked it up to read.
[Emergency Suppository. Contains internal emergency liquid medicine. Automatically releases medication upon detecting a drop in rectal temperature. Reusable until the liquid medicine is depleted. A sensation of burning heat is normal; please do not panic.]
[Special Notice: If you must enter dangerous situations, please insert in advance into the correct location to avoid missing the optimal window. Do not forcefully breach the outer casing. The liquid medicine spoils easily and is strictly restricted to suppository use. Ingestion carries an extremely high risk of poisoning.]
"It's still a fucking butt plug, goddammit!!!"
Livid, Su Jin slammed the instructions viciously onto the floor.
Insert in advance before entering danger... Who the hell could wander around the world clenching one of these between their cheeks?
Even if he died, there was no way in hell he would use something like this to scrape by!
After taking ten minutes to calm down, Su Jin found a piece of nylon cord, tied up the emergency suppository, and fastened it around his waist.
This was definitely not for his own use. Considering that Qingdai might run into danger, he was merely keeping it handy for her, just in case.
The experiments still had to be done. Once his composure returned, Su Jin took out two more rats for infection testing.
The rat originally placed in the running wheel had already undergone changes and was currently launching suicidal charges at Su Jin over and over again.
Helplessly confined within the wheel's compartment, however, it could only keep running in place.
Squatting to observe for a long time, Su Jin picked up a notepad and began recording his findings.
The gray substance in the rain was undeniably the source of the mutation, but the speed of infection was strongly correlated with the amount of gray substance absorbed.
For now, all he could determine was that the infection rate of this component was extraordinarily high.
With his current crude, amateur setup, calculating an exact infection probability was utterly impossible, and he lacked enough test rats anyway.
The infected rat's motor skills had noticeably deteriorated; its limbs moved somewhat mechanically, and it couldn't run very fast. However, it felt no fatigue and showed no response to pain...
After jotting down these brief notes, Su Jin took out a battery and inserted it into the toy mini 4WD.
The motor started, driving the wheel compartment into motion.
The mutated rat clearly couldn't keep up with the speed. For a while, it tumbled uncontrollably inside the cage, yet it still showed a fierce determination to regain its footing and attack.
Twenty-odd minutes later, the battery died. He swapped in a fresh set and let it keep running.
It wasn't until five consecutive sets of batteries had been drained that Su Jin stopped and switched to manual operation.
Turning the wheel by hand, Su Jin couldn't conceal the disappointment on his face.
The conclusion was disheartening... The mutated rat had suffered almost no loss of physical stamina; if anything, it had grown slightly stronger, seemingly continuing to adapt to its mutated body.
Another hour passed.
After subjecting it to suffocation, burning, drowning, puncturing, and various other trials, Su Jin's heart sank all the way to the bottom.
It couldn't be suffocated or drowned, and even after being burned to the point of total carbonization, it could still produce faint movements.
The infected creature's resilience was terrifyingly robust. Only piercing the torso resulted in rapid death; even decapitation failed to kill it immediately.
Since he was unfamiliar with rat anatomy, he couldn't pinpoint the exact spot that puncture targeted, only suspecting it was the heart.
At present, the only two tests left undone were its survival lifespan and its ability to infect its own kind.
By this point, however, Su Jin was completely exhausted in both body and mind.
He lifted the rat cage, set it inside the glass aquarium he had purchased earlier, covered it with a wooden board, and headed straight back to the bedroom.
In the pitch-black room, another radio—preset to the AM band—crackled to life.
Su Jin forced his heavy eyelids open and hurried over to tune it.
FM was mostly used for local broadcasts, offering limited range and high entertainment value. AM, on the other hand, was favored for national and emergency broadcasts due to its long-range transmission and resistance to interference, making it the preferred communication band during cataclysms.
Though this wasn't Earth, the technological trajectory was similar, and electromagnetic waves operated identically in both worlds. He had done his research well in advance.
Now that the radio was sounding, the authorities must have detected the abnormality and issued a nationwide alert.
With a few adjustments, the broadcast gradually came through clearly.
*Hiss—crackle—*
"...The following is the latest bulletin from the National Disaster Emergency Command Center. All citizens are urged to pay the utmost attention—"
"As of one o'clock this afternoon, most regions nationwide have been impacted by an unidentified form of precipitation. The rainfall covers an extensive area... This precipitation exhibits characteristics of a potential biological hazard and may cause irreversible harm via the skin, respiratory tract, and digestive system."
"Sudden, localized outbreaks of mass loss of control across multiple areas have now been confirmed to be linked to this rainfall, resulting in abnormal individual behavior..."
"All citizens are hereby ordered to immediately carry out the following directives: First, avoid direct contact with rainwater in any form. Second, use only bottled water or rigorously sealed water sources for drinking and cleaning. Third, immediately seal all doors, windows, ventilation openings, and drainage systems to completely block the intrusion of external moisture."
"These directives take effect immediately upon broadcast. Anyone refusing to comply will be deemed a threat to public safety... Follow-up updates will be broadcast simultaneously across radio and online channels."
Listening to the end of the broadcast, Su Jin felt his spirits lift, and he let out a long breath of relief.
Thank goodness... The state's machinery of force was about to rumble into motion!
It was clear the higher-ups had fully recognized the terrifying severity of the gray rain. They hadn't even bothered with the usual rumor-dispelling procedures, showing just how critical the situation truly was.
Chapter 24