novel(Title is Spoiler)
| ← Ch.089 | Ch.091 → |
"Marshal, Mr. Ruan, are you all right?"
Li Kai's voice made Ruan Tang come back to his senses. He realized that he was crying. He had never been a sentimental person, and he didn't know why he was crying. It could only be attributed to a surge in emotions.
He quickly wiped his tears with his sleeve and left He Yun Chen's arms. He looked at Li Kai with a little embarrassed smile."Hello, Adjutant Li."
Li Kai knew that Ruan Tang and the Marshal had a good relationship, so he didn't think anything of it when he saw the two of them hugging. He just happily greeted Ruan Tang, "I'll go and arrange a room for you so you can have a good rest."
"Don't worry about that. There's a flying Zerg corpse on the transport ship. The researchers and I can examine it right away." Ruan Tang has mentally recovered from the impact just now. And now that he has calmed down, he felt that he had been too cowardly. He couldn't help but to control his expression to reestablish his image as a capable person.
Moreover, given the current situation, there was nothing more important than studying these new Zerg species. It wasn't easy to get ahold of a Zerg corpse. They have to take advantage of this chance to study it while it was still fresh.
"This..." Li Kai hesitated and looked towards He Yun Chen.
By this time, He Yun Chen had also reverted back to his usual coldness and said lightly, "Do as he says."
"Yes, I'll arrange for someone to prepare the laboratory for you and the researchers, and they'll move in all the equipment brought in. Please come with me."
Ruan Tang nodded. He once again smiled at He Yun Chen and then, with the other researchers, followed Li Kai into the base.
He Yun Chen watched Ruan Tang's back disappear. He ordered, "Bring the new mech and let's test its power."
"Yes, Marshal!" The soldier immediately went to have someone bring the new mech down from the transport ship.
Zerg carapace was added to the black steel armor of the new mechs, making the quality of the black steel even harder. From the ordinary silvery white color, it had turned to silver gray with a metallic sheen. Not only could it effectively withstand the sharp forelegs and double pincers of the Zergs, it could also protect the mech from the effects of the corrosive liquid. The presence of the new mechs increased the Imperial Army's chances for victory in this war against the Zergs.
"Yes, Marshal."
The soldiers were very efficient and the laboratories in the temporary base were quickly set up. The equipment for the researchers of the Academy of Sciences was neatly arranged, and everyone began their research without delay. Ruan Tang knew that his understanding couldn't compare with these researchers, so he didn't try to criticize or instruct them. He only asked for some Zerg cell samples and limbs that he could study.
Ruan Tang's coming to the frontline wasn't done out of foolhardiness. He knew that the situation was critical and that they needed to race against time in order to remain impregnable. These new Zergs were a thorny problem. Without the new mechs, it would be too difficult for the frontline troops to kill them and then send the corpses back to the capital star. Shuffling things back and forth would take a lot of time.
Although he was only a cook without any deep or profound knowledge, he did have his previous life experiences. Despite the fact that these interstellar Zergs had massive differences from the insects previously found on Earth, they also had some things in common. Since these bugs had proven to be edible like their Earth counterparts, then maybe they could also be killed the same way as their Earth counterparts?
Places like the kitchen were very attractive to insects like cockroaches. In summer, there would be mosquitoes and flies, so insecticides were essential. Because he was worried that the insecticide sprays would affect the ingredients in the kitchen, he always made sure to carefully check their product composition. His memory was pretty good, so he clearly remembered several of their most important components. Among them were organic compounds such as chlorine, phosphorus and carbamate. These ingredients may directly harm the nervous system or even the entire body of the bugs, killing those annoying bugs completely.
The only problem was that all these ideas were based on experiences from his previous life. He couldn't directly tell He Wei Ye or He Yun Yi about his baseless and irrational conjectures. After all, he was just a cook. He shouldn't have this much of an understanding of chemistry. Otherwise, their suspicion of him would grow too great.
He knew that He Wei Ye was going to send the researchers from the Academy to the frontline to study the Zergs directly on site. That was why he could volunteer himself to go as well. He wanted to confirm his ideas through experiments.
Since he was going to conduct experiments, he carried with him a lot of chemical reagents. Ruan Tang chose the ones he needed and began to use the limbs and cells of the Zergs to test them out.
He took out chemicals such as chlorine, phosphorus, and carbamates, and experimented one by one. What was unexpected was that his experiments quickly produced results. After exposure to chlorine, there began to quickly appear visible white traces on the incomparably hard surface of the Zergs body. Under the ultra-high-resolution microscope, the chlorine could be clearly seen penetrating into the insect's body, causing its cells to rupture.
This meant that it was highly possible that these Zergs could be killed with chlorine!
Chlorine has sterilizing, disinfecting and bleaching effects. And it seemed to be very effective in killing insects.
Ruan Tang immediately told the researchers his discovery. Right before their unbelieving eyes, he once again showed to them his findings.
"This is really an amazing discovery! Mr. Ruan, you are a genius! How did you discover it?" Several of the researchers asked incredulously.
"I'm a cook, I'm just probably used to adding various condiments to season the ingredients. So I thought about trying to see if there was a chemical substance that could be the nemesis of these Zergs. I never thought I would get this lucky." Ruan Tang could only explain it like this.
In view of Ruan Tang's propensity to grab anything and everything to try and see if they're edible, they actually felt that this kind of explanation was quite believable.
Several of the researchers immediately began to try and weaponized the chlorine. They turned it into a bomb for testing.
After He Yun Chen got the news, he drove the new mech over himself to capture a live flying insect and transport it to the laboratory. The flying insect was enclosed in sealed off cage of protective light. Although it consumes a lot of energy, only the protective cover could contain its fierce attack. If this experiment proved to be successful, they would no longer need to be afraid of the Zergs, and this enormous energy consumption would be a mere trifling matter.
The flying insects screamed threateningly at people outside, and from time to time a large amount of yellow-green corrosive liquid was sprayed from its mouth. The cage blocked these attacks.
"Start!"
At the researcher's signal, the yellow-green chlorine gas was passed through a tube and slowly discharged into the cage. With the increase of gas, the scream of that bug began to grow louder. On the Zerg's indestructible carapace, pale white powdery but stone-like rough spots gradually appeared, and they were expanding. The insect began to frantically ram against the protective cover, but to no avail. In the end, its cells were completely destroyed. It stopped struggling and it became nothing but a corpse.
Although the bug appeared dead, everyone didn't dare lower their vigilance. After extracting out the chlorine from the cage, they waited for a while before shutting down the protective cover. Two soldiers, clutching their weapons, carefully approached the bug and examined it before finally confirming that it was indeed dead.
"Success! We succeeded!" After seeing the chlorine experiment, all the soldiers couldn't help looking at Ruan Tang with a fervent light in their eyes. This Mr. Ruan was simply a Zerg-subduer! Last time, he discovered that the bugs were edible and solved their food shortage problem. Now, he found this method that could easily kill the insects.
Ruan Tang guiltily scratched his nose. He just had a little more past life experience than these future people. After all, they had never been exposed to insects, and they didn't know there was such a thing as pesticides...
The people worked tirelessly all night long, and finally made ten chlorine bombs.
He Yun Chen couldn't wait to test the power of this chlorine bomb. He personally led the mech team to attract the attention of the Zergs, and then launched a chlorine bomb at the swarm.
The bomb filled with chlorine exploded in mid-air, and the yellow-green gas gradually filled the sky. The mech team returned under the base's protective barrier at the fastest speed, and then they observed the swarm's response.
As expected, chlorine was highly lethal to these bugs. They could hear the shrill cries of the Zergs. The bugs quickly stopped moving. With limbs twitching, they quickly fell to the ground like rain. A thick layer piled up on the ground. There were a large number of ground crawling insects around the periphery of the base. In the past, so long as there was a mech that was shot down during their fight with the Zergs, they would immediately swarm up and eat away at both the mech and the person inside it. But now they saw their cohorts dying fast and their enemies had withdrawn into the protective barrier beyond their reach. Everywhere around them was this smell that made them very uncomfortable. They obviously started to get restless, and began to scatter around like headless flies. As a result, they instead absorbed more chlorine and began to die in large numbers.
The remaining Zergs sensed that this was a place of death, and did not dare to rush forward. They slowly backed away, and hung back from a distance.
Finally, for the first time, the sky above Celtic Star revealed its original appearance.
"Useful! It's really useful!"
"Dead! These bugs are dead!"
In the temporary base, the soldiers cheered as they finally saw hope of ending the war
| ← Ch. 089 | Ch. 091 → |