The Haiwei Group

Watching the spiders falling from the sky, Tom quickly grabbed Li Zexin and ran towards the car. "Get in the car quickly!"

At this point, a spider half the size of a person had already occupied the car and was swiftly spraying spider silk onto the green crystal on the car. Tom immediately cut off its head with his knife, and Liu Lian quickly pushed its body off the car.

The spider on the ground immediately crawled towards them aggressively. The three of them jumped onto the electric car, with Liu Lian controlling the lever to drive while Tom hastily controlled the direction.

The car rushed out at an extremely fast speed, scraping against the door as it went.

After leaving the rental building and returning to the main road, the three of them were drenched in sweat.

Tom didn't expect so many spiders to suddenly appear right after the fire had just been extinguished. Logically, spiders should be afraid of fire, but they appeared from the ceiling so quickly, and their targets were very clear: the gems and crystals.

They didn't pay attention to how many spiders there were at the time, but they wouldn't have been able to contend with them. Without the electric car, they wouldn't have been able to escape. They would have been caught by the spiders' webs and slowly digested. Now, the gems in the rental building were going to be taken over by these spiders.

Liu Lian was a bit unwilling. "How about... we start another fire?"

Tom shook his head. "There's nothing left to burn in the house. As soon as the spiders burrow into the ashes, the fire is useless. Let's just go back for now."

At noon, under the scorching sun, the three of them felt uncomfortable. As they passed by the corpse, Tom noticed that there were even fewer flies on it. So, he asked Liu Lian to slow down and take a turn into the alley where they had rescued Zhao Yingying before.

Tom wondered where these flies had gone to sleep. He thought about trying their luck in the alley and sure enough, not far in, they saw two flies lying motionless on the ground. 

Liu Lian pointed to the wall of the house, which was crawling with flies, all equally motionless.

Tom made a silent gesture, picked up the green crystal, and walked carefully to the fly. This fly, lying on the ground, was probably too late to climb the wall and fell into a deep sleep. Its size was even larger than those on the wall, already reaching half the height of a person.

Enduring the disgusting smell of the flies, Tom reached out to touch it.

Soon, he let go and covered his stomach, vomiting, which made Liu Lian and Li Zexin in the car very nervous.

After he finished vomiting, Tom waved his hand to indicate that he was fine, and then wiped his mouth clean.

He swore never to use the green crystal to communicate with those disgusting creatures again.

If it was just seeing and smelling the rotten corpse, Tom thought his psychological tolerance was okay, and he wouldn't have such a strong reaction.

But looking through the memories of the flies, Tom felt as if he were the fly itself, "happily" enjoying the delicious rotting flesh. This was too much for him to handle.

The only reason he wanted to check the memories of the flies was to find out what they had discovered in the past few days. But the result was all rotten meat. However, he seemed to recall a fleeting image, some of which were inside the house.

A bulldog was gnawing on a human body that had exploded its head, which made the fly very envious.

Thinking of this, Tom's complexion worsened.

There were so many houses around, and many of them had dogs.

If one or two of them had eaten their shrunken owners and mutated, the threat would be even greater than that of cats. He felt that it was really not safe here.

Thinking of mutation, Tom was a bit puzzled. If eating shrunken human flesh would cause mutation, what about those who hadn't shrunk?

Looking at the sleeping flies, he raised his knife and split open their heads.

There were no hard objects in the flies' heads, but Tom didn't give up. He split open their bodies and searched around, and sure enough, he found a gemstone.

Liu Lian found a piece of cloth and carefully wrapped the gemstone with the sticky fluid from the flies' bodies. Tom split open another fly lying on the ground, and there was also a gemstone.

"Let's go, let's go back!"

This round trip exploration took a little over an hour, not counting their time wasting. If it were yesterday, just walking to the supermarket would have taken two and a half hours. It can be said that having an electric car made things much more convenient.

They lifted the electric car back into the supermarket through the hoist and went to the bathroom to find a washbasin and put some water in it to wash their bodies thoroughly.

They also washed the two gemstones they found inside the flies' bodies.

"Blue? It's actually blue?" Liu Lian exclaimed, holding up one of them. The sunlight shining through the window cast a charming blue light on the sapphire.

Red, green, yellow, and now blue gemstones, Tom felt that this matter was becoming more and more mysterious.

"Ange, do you think there are still white, orange, black, gray, and other colored gemstones?" Liu Lian laughed, "Let's have all the colors, one color for each superpower, haha."

Li Zexin listened and quickly grabbed the gemstone, closed his eyes, and tried to see if he could activate his superpower. However, there was still no response. Then he spoke, "Tom, how should we divide these gemstones?"

Liu Lian glanced at Li Zexin and smiled, "How do you want to divide them?"

Li Zexin glanced around and realized that they were in the washbasin, and no one could hear them. "I suggest that these gemstones be divided evenly among the three of us... uh... like this, Tom, you get fifty percent, and Liu Lian and I split the remaining fifty percent."

"Hahaha! Mr. Li, do you think we're doing business or stealing things? Shouldn't everyone have a share?" 

"But... but I also risked being eaten by monsters when I went out. Of course, I should have a share. I've said it before, times have changed. For everyone in this city, gems are the real currency, the real wealth! You can't expect me to take the smallest share, can you?"

Tom couldn't be bothered to deal with him. He walked out of the washbasin, followed by Liu Lian, and Li Zexin hurriedly stood up. "Hey, this is dictatorship, you can't do this!"

Taking advantage of the gap while they were washing, Li Qiang counted the gems they brought back. There were 4 large gems: 2 red, 2 green, 2 yellow; 6 small gems: 3 red, 1 green, 6 yellow, plus the large green crystal left by the queen ant and the large blue sapphire dug out of the fly's body.

In total, they now had 6 large gems: 3 red, 3 green, 3 yellow; 6 small gems: 6 red, 4 green, 2 yellow. This harvest excited everyone else. The more they had, the more chances each person would have to get a share.

Zheng Shiyi immediately spoke up, "There are 14 of us here, so let's start with one gem each, and the women can take the small ones."

Tom shook his head, "Gems are not money or food. There's no equal distribution unless someone can use them."

Zheng Shiyi didn't agree, "Come on, you're the only one who can use red gems right now, so they're all yours? That's not fair. We all participated in modifying the electric car and the hoist..."

Li Qiang interrupted him, "No, you didn't participate!"

"But... but I had my arm broken! It was Tom who did it, I deserve compensation..."

"Get lost!" Li Qiang snapped, "You're trying to play tricks on us. If we hadn't kept you here, you'd be food for rats outside. And you still want compensation? Believe me, I could throw you out right now!"

With the villain being scolded by Li Qiang like that, seeing the other security guards staring at the gems, Zheng Shiyi knew he was isolated and immediately turned his head in resentment.

Thinking of the memory of the flies, the scene where the dog ate its owner's body, Tom felt a sense of crisis.

Flies couldn't eat humans, but eating the bodies of humans who hadn't shrunk still caused mutation. It was easy to imagine households with dogs.

There was no barking from dogs last night. If they were asleep like the cats upstairs, once the mutation was complete and they woke up, it would be difficult to say whether the windows and walls of the houses could stop them.

"One more person means more power!" Tom said, "Put the gems in a sealed space, and five people go in each time. They can choose a gem for practice and switch every two hours."

Although they understood the importance of balance, Tom felt it was important to increase the number of people who could awaken new powers. After all, facing powerful animals, even with the reinforcement of red gems, it would be difficult for Tom to defeat them. Uncooperative awakened individuals would also face a dead end.

Liu Lian responded quickly and added, "Everyone must go in without clothes, practice inside, then check again outside to prevent anyone from hiding gems!"

This was indeed the most appropriate solution. After thinking about it, everyone agreed. After all, the control of the gems was still in Tom's hands. This was the best way to train for fair distribution.

The order of entry and selection of people were decided by drawing lots, which was not a problem. Tom left the arrangement to Liu Lian and Li Qiang and turned to climb the stairs to see how Xiao Bao was doing.

When he went up, Xiao Bao was lying on the floor in a daze. Seeing Tom coming over, he was very happy. This time he actively proposed to go downstairs to play, which in Tom's view meant the child was finally tired of staying upstairs, which was a good thing.

Glancing at the sleeping orange cat, Tom picked him up and went downstairs. Seeing so many people, Xiao Bao was not shy at all, but rather excited. At Tom's signal, Zhao Yingying took him to play in the pile of toys.

Seeing everyone busy, Tom quietly signaled Cheng Fuhua to come aside.

Finding a corner with no one around, Tom asked straightforwardly, "Manager Cheng, do you think there's anywhere safer a bit further away?"

"Safer?" Cheng Fuhua didn't quite understand, "You mean the rats outside and the cats upstairs?"

"And the dogs around."

Cheng Fuhua understood immediately, "Yes, as powerful as the cats are, if it's mutated dogs, it would be even harder to deal with. This area is mostly locals, and they all love dogs. If those dogs don't recognize people and eat them, it would indeed be troublesome."

"Manager Cheng often receives people, so you should have some understanding of the city of Senchuan, right?"

"To say safe, I can't say, but recently I've heard the bosses who often come to play mention the Haiwei Group. Do you know this company?"

Tom shook his head.

"I heard that the Haiwei Group started researching small-scale electronic technology last year, and the branch in our Senchuan City is also increasing its research efforts. A boss brought a little thing over to show off last time, a miniature phone, which was quite amazing!"

"A miniature phone? How big?"

"Well..." Cheng Fuhua gestured for a while, "It seems to be about the size of our palm! It seems there are also miniature toy cars, even helicopters, and drones! I've seen pictures, and the size seems just right for us now! Wait... Could it be?"

Tom thought that this group might have known in advance that the people in the city would shrink, so they specifically focused on miniaturizing electronic products.

"Could it be them?" Cheng Fuhua widened his eyes and said angrily, "Is this all their doing, that we've become like this?"

"Where is their company?"

"Emperor Tower, um... in the city center! Why, are you planning to take refuge there?"

Tom shook his head, it was a bit far away, "Don't they have specialty stores selling these products?"