Those who travel back in time

Chapter 40 New Serum Clues

Li Qilin had already found a solution from virologists regarding how to destroy the serum.

First, mix sodium hypochlorite and a strong alkali in a certain ratio and inject the mixture into the serum. After standing for 15 minutes, put the test tube along with the serum into the incinerator.

With a slight "sizzling" sound, the outer wall of the test tube softened rapidly under the ultra-high temperature, losing its original shape, like a piece of transparent candy melting, collapsing into a ball of bright red viscous liquid.

The chemically treated, azure-blue serum in the test tube boiled and vaporized in a very short time, while the undecomposed portion was violently carbonized at high temperature, giving birth to a dark blue flame.

A few seconds later, only some irregularly shaped glass shards remained in the incinerator, like teardrops burned by the fire, lying quietly on the scorching refractory bricks.

The serum that was capable of overturning the world has vanished without a trace, leaving no possibility of recovery.

"Brother Qing! We saved the world!" Li Mengfei grabbed Chen Qing's arm as she watched the serum vanish, her joy overflowing.

"I can finally get a good night's sleep." Li Qilin smiled.

But Chen Qing didn't seem happy at all; instead, her brows were furrowed.

"Chen Qing, is something wrong?" Li Qilin asked, his smile fading.

"Nothing will change in the future." Chen Qing sat slumped in his chair, his eyes glazed over and his body limp.

"Nothing's changed?" Li Mengfei asked. "Brother Qing, you haven't even gone to the future to take a look, how do you know nothing's changed?"

"If we really saved the world, then there wouldn't be zombies, and my life for the next twenty years would be completely different. My mind would be updated with new life memories." Chen Qing grabbed his hair with both hands, his face contorted with rage as he growled, "But no! It's still the same old memories!"

"Maybe it's not that memories don't update, but that updating takes time?" Li Qilin sat in the chair next to Chen Qing. "Maybe you'll sleep on it and find that you have the latest memories in your mind the next day."

"Uncle Li, the last time I begged you to save my brother, his memory was immediately updated."

"But this doesn't mean that 'immediately' is the speed of memory update. The time for memory update may be a variable, and the time for each update may be different. You only performed one memory update, which is too small a sample size to draw a conclusion."

"Uncle Li is right." Chen Qing stood up. "I want to go back to 2044. I want to see for myself whether the future has really been changed."

Chen Qing was so eager to know the result that she couldn't wait to bury the box. She found a pair of tweezers in the lab and stuck them into her arm.

As soon as Chen Qing stepped out of the time machine, he saw Fang Xiande standing there, looking like he was waiting for him.

"Chen Qing, have you found the serum?"

"It was found, and it was destroyed."

"Are you sure you destroyed the serum?"

"I watched with my own eyes as the serum was thrown into the incinerator and burned completely."

"But it seems like nothing has changed." Fang Xiande said as he sat down at the computer and started searching. The world was still experiencing a zombie outbreak in 2026, and many outbreak points still had the Tai Chi symbol. There was no difference at all.

"Why did it fail? Was Li Qilin's method of destroying the serum wrong?" Chen Qing also stood behind Dr. Fang, looking at the documents.

"How was the serum destroyed?"

"First, pour in sodium sulfate and a strong alkali, then put it into the incinerator."

"What is the temperature of the incinerator?"

"1500".

"The method of first chemically deactivating the active ingredient and then physically pulverizing it is fine."

"Perhaps the chemical reagents are wrong, or the proportions are incorrect?"

"Chemical reagents are not important; they are only used to ensure the safety of the personnel involved in the disposal process and to prevent the generation of harmful gases during incineration. Incineration is the means of destroying serum. At a high temperature of 1500 degrees Celsius, no serum can function properly."

"But the end of the world is still here."

"There are two possibilities," Fang Xiande said, holding up a finger. "First, the serum is not the source of the zombies."

Then the fingers turned into two: "Two, there isn't just one vial of serum, there are multiple vials."

"We now know that Tuibeilou is using zombies to cleanse the world, and we also know that Tuibeilou stole the serum, which is undoubtedly the origin of the zombies," Chen Qing stated his judgment. "Yuan Tiangang must have more than one vial of serum."

"So our next task is very clear: find other serums and destroy them all."

"Or, find the person who made the serum. Or, find Yuan Tiangang."

"These are probably quite difficult. But you're right, we should take a multi-pronged approach, identifying each problem as it arises and then resolving it."

This time, Fang Xiande invested more manpower in finding clues. He not only had Chen Qing, A Jie, and others search on the computer, but also sent more exploration teams to search outside the base.

Persistence pays off. A month later, the expedition team went to Tianhai Hospital and found a paper copy of the Tianhai Hospital's report on discrepancies in the receipt of life-saving supplies.

The report shows that on June 30, 2025, a heart was transported to Tianhai Hospital. The waybill only listed the heart as an item. However, when the organ bank administrator checked the items in the organ transport box against the waybill according to the procedure, he found that there was not only a heart in the organ transport box, but also an undeclared test tube containing a bright blue liquid.

The report included photos of the on-site evidence, and the test tube looked exactly like the serum I had seen before!

"They actually put the serum in the hospital?" Chen Qing picked up the photo.

"Hospitals are indeed good places to store serum, as they have the facilities for freezing and won't arouse suspicion."

"Do you know where the serum is kept after it's transported to the hospital?"

"Since the serum was transported to the hospital along with the heart, the most likely scenario is that it was put into the organ bank." Fang Xiande flicked the report: "But it doesn't say where it's put here."

"There's no reporter here either?" Chen Qing took the report from Fang Xiande's hand; the reporter's section was empty.

"Not only is there no reporter, but this kind of report definitely requires the signature and confirmation of the competent authority, but there isn't one either."

"The section on handling discrepancies is blank..." Chen Qing frowned. "With so much information missing, this report isn't compliant, is it? How can it be filed?"

"It's definitely not compliant." Fang Xiande slammed his hands on the computer, found the record of the heart in Tianhai Hospital's organ transplant management system, and the status showed "Received, verified as correct".

"Is it the same heart?" Chen Qing looked at the computer screen and then at the report in her hand.

"The tracking number and arrival time at the warehouse are the same, it's the same heart. But there's no record of any discrepancies." Fang Xiande pushed up his glasses and made his own speculation: "Someone in the organ bank must be unhappy about this behavior of hiding other items in the hospital, but they don't dare to expose it, so they wrote an anomaly report and secretly threw it into the archives, hoping that someone would find it someday."

"His wish came true; we discovered it 20 years later."