Grand Voyage : Surviving on a Ghost Ship-Chapter 269 - Past history

Although Yang Yi was outside, he had a fairly clear picture of what was happening inside.

Suna took photos of everything she saw and sent them over: the scene in the innermost room, information on the corpse there, the photograph on the desk, and even the chat records stored on the computer.

This laboratory had its own independent power supply, and the internal wiring was relatively well preserved. It had not been damaged by natives or rats.

Suna successfully powered on the tablet computer on the desk, which had been in sleep mode. The screen had discolored with age, but it was still readable.

She wiped the dust from the screen and checked its contents.

The interface was paused on a chat window, likely an internal messaging system used aboard the Sanctuary. The chat partner was a user with the ID Di Jie.

【Di Jie: They’ve completely lost their minds. They’ve seized the power distribution room, destroyed a large number of cable conduits, and are trying to cut off power to the entire ship! 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

The first officer Holence, dozens of guards, and I are resisting them. There must still be others who haven’t been parasitised.

You must not leave the laboratory. No matter what happens, that place is absolutely safe!】

…………

【Di Jie: Damn it, they actually got their hands on weapons!】

…………

【Di Jie: Wei Qian, are you okay? Why aren’t you replying? You’re not answering private messages either. What are you so busy with?】

…………

【Di Jie: Damn it!

That bastard Holence has been parasitised too. His back was covered in disgusting rats!

Before he died, he even stabbed me. Fuck, how many latent parasites are there still out there?!】

…………

【Di Jie: I’m trapped in the captain’s cabin.

If you see this message, have the robot take you to the port in Zone C. There’s a backup escape ship there with enough supplies inside.

Remember, don’t trust anyone. Any of them could be rats!】

…………

【Wei Qian: But why do you trust me so much?】

This final message had never been sent. It remained in the input field.

Judging from her posture at the time of death, after typing this line she died very quickly, without even having time to send it.

Beside her was an empty reagent vial. There was a fair amount of dust inside, along with faint traces of residue.

Suna did not touch it directly. Instead, she opened a desk drawer, took out a pair of white rubber gloves, and put them on.

There were many gloves, each individually packaged and filled with inert gas. As a result, they had not seriously degraded over time and were still usable.

After putting on the gloves, she picked up the vial and obtained its information.

【Name: Rat Killer (Empty Bottle)】

【Type: Consumable / Potion / Unique】

【Quality: Rare】

【Description: An original potion created by the witch Wei Qian, a finished product improved from the Love Potion (unfinished). It is itself a non toxic pheromone. No ingestion is required. Simply smelling it will cause rats to abandon all life activity and die. It also has some effect on modified forms of rats. Ineffective against other organisms.】

“Love Potion?”

Compared to Rat Killer, Suna was more interested in this Love Potion.

She sent the information on Rat Killer to Yang Yi and immediately received a reply.

“Good stuff! Can you try to replicate it? Once you do, I’ll go poison this whole nest of rats.”

“Should be doable.”

Suna replied casually, while continuing to browse through the other records on the tablet.

Because it was a touchscreen and had no password lock, she could more or less view whatever she wanted.

She didn’t send this information to Yang Yi. Instead, she quietly photographed and archived it for herself.

The tablet’s screen flickered on and off, as if it might shut down at any moment. The internal chip was clearly badly aged.

She saw many images of human experiments, and they were live experiments. They ranged from testing relic equipment, to potions, to curses, and even… parasitic experiments.

One of the experimental subjects was the house rat.

This was the organism Wei Qian had focused on most in her final research, and she had discovered that it was far from simple.

It could parasitise almost any animal, showing an astonishing level of adaptability.

From creatures as large as whales to as small as cats, it could parasitise them. Humans were no exception, and even some anomalous beings were susceptible.

Among the anomalous creatures experimented on here were vampires, cyclopes, ghouls, deep ones, sirens, and fishfolk. Without exception, all of them could be parasitised.

The greatest difficulty lay in the fact that these anomalous beings could not resist. Given the house rat’s weak combat ability, it would otherwise be impossible for it to establish parasitism. It could not even defeat a fishfolk.

But once parasitism occurred and the parasite was not removed in time, the host would be affected by the house rat’s toxins and would gradually begin to ignore the fact that they were parasitised.

At the same time, their thinking would be altered by the toxin. They would develop an intense urge to protect the rats, even to the point of feeding them with their own flesh and blood.

Wei Qian described this state as an abnormally fanatical form of love.

A high Spirit attribute provided some resistance to this toxin.

In the end, the parasitised individual would obey the rats in everything, and might even fuse with them, producing physical mutations.

Wei Qian became deeply interested in this toxin and carried out extensive research, ultimately confirming it to be a special type of signaling pheromone: a pheromone of love.

Those affected would develop an intense affection for a specific target. So far, no immune individuals had been found. It was effective on almost any organism.

“The problem is that this pheromone is extremely unstable. It can only exist inside a living organism. Only house rats secrete it in small amounts, and even after extraction it cannot be preserved…”

“But these are all solvable problems.

If we can master this pheromone, we could practically control any organism, just by increasing the dosage. In that case… taking over that player island wouldn’t be difficult at all.

We could also end our wandering, have an island of our own, live in a better environment, and even reproduce…”

…

Suna skimmed through the material quickly. Aside from key points, most of the data was simply photographed and recorded, to be studied later when she had time.

This witch’s research direction was not quite the same as Suna’s. She leaned more towards conventional science, while Suna herself favoured the occult.

If Suna were conducting this research, she would focus on the source of this “love” and why fusion occurred.

The toxin felt more like a trigger for affection.

Still, the Love Potion was intriguing. If completed and given to Yang Yi, Suna could obtain a Yang Yi who would obey her in everything.

But she preferred the Yang Yi as he was now.

Love like a puppet’s devotion would only feel cheap.

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