Iron-clad Resolve

A voice in his mind said, "Turn around, hold her, and you'll become a real man."

"No!" Tom told himself, "Protecting the weak, walking steadily, standing upright, and doing things that one can be proud of. Ever since I started taking care of my sister after our foster parents passed away, I've been a man. I don't need to prove myself by conquering a woman."

With determination, Tom directly pulled away from Feng Hanyun holding his hand, then turned back and said, "I have no intimate relationship with Lin Meiqi, nor do I need to have one with you. Now go to sleep, or else you'll go on patrol."

Feng Hanyun widened her eyes in disbelief at what she heard. She must have thought she had succeeded, but she didn't expect Tom to be so ruthless. Tears welled up in her eyes, her lips trembled uncontrollably, seemingly greatly insulted.

Tom thought for a moment and added, "Since I've accepted you into my team, I won't stand by and ignore the danger to my teammates. You don't need to worry about that unless you do something that endangers the safety of the entire team. If I were to pursue Lin Meiqi, or you, or any other woman, I would do so openly, without sneaking around or coercing. Chaotic relationships between men and women are precisely the most deadly threat to a team."

With that said, Tom began to put on his old street zero armor.

Feng Hanyun hesitated for a moment, then stepped forward to help Tom put on the armor.

Whether this was acceptance or reluctance, Tom couldn't tell.

The human heart is complex, and it's impossible to change someone's thoughts with just a few words. After all, everyone has their selfishness, and Tom couldn't expect his team members to share the same values as him. As long as it didn't affect him and didn't jeopardize the safety of the team, he felt there was no need to worry too much.

So Feng Hanyun's thoughts were put aside, and Tom patrolled the house wearing his old street armor. He arrived at the living room door leading to the balcony at 00:12 on the 29th to check the rain, only to find that it had stopped.

"It's time to hit the road!" Tom immediately returned to the camp to wake up the others; they needed to head back to the shelter immediately.

Inside were five men and one woman, along with Lin Meiqi, Wang Zixiong, and Feng Hanyun, totaling nine people. Tom measured the wooden body afterward: it was 38 centimeters long, 10.5 centimeters wide, and 13.3 centimeters tall. Previously, it would have been a large truck measuring 9 meters long, 2.5 meters wide, and 3 meters high.

The iron-clad carriage he built was 25 centimeters long, 8 centimeters wide, and 6.5 centimeters high. It covered the entire back of the wooden body. Converted, it would have been 6 meters long, 1.9 meters wide, and 1.5 meters high.

It was completely fine to fit nine people into such a space, albeit a bit low; they couldn't stand up straight inside. But for safety reasons, sitting was fine. Due to time constraints, Tom didn't arrange seats, so they could only sit on the floor, enduring the smooth and cold wooden carapace. After all, this was an escape, not a picnic.

How could someone as lively as Lin Meiqi be willing to stay obediently inside the dull carriage? Naturally, she wanted to sit outside near the wooden neck, next to Tom. But under Tom's stern refusal, she could only sit back reluctantly.

They encountered mosquitoes along the way, most of which hadn't mutated and were about 1.3 centimeters long, whereas before they were around 0.3 meters long. There were plenty of insects like ants and mosquitoes in the grass outside, but the sealing effect of the buildings was good, so they rarely entered. Plus, with people shrinking, it wasn't easy for mosquitoes to find them.

But it was different outside; after more than two months of neglect, the greenery in the community had grown wildly, with weeds taller than people, and there were many ants, mosquitoes, and the like breeding.

With the heavy rain just over, the ants and others should not have come out to forage so quickly, so Tom hurried to take them back to the shelter. However, it was late at night, so they needed to take precautions.

Just as they reached the second floor, the top of the wooden carriage on the back started to make intermittent buzzing noises, followed by a loud buzzing sound.

Curious, Feng Hanyun wanted to open the door to see, but Lin Meiqi stopped her, saying, "It's all mosquitoes; going out will suck you dry." It scared her, leaving her pale.

With no human activity, mosquitoes usually forage outside, but with the heavy rain just now, they were forced to hide inside the house. Now that it had just stopped raining and they hadn't left yet, they happened to encounter the group.

"Can mosquitoes see us hiding in the car at night?" Wang Zixiong curiously asked.

"Fool!" Lin Meiqi gave him a disdainful look, "Mosquitoes have antennae on their heads, which are also called flagella, with many short hairs on them. These short hairs react to changes in chemical substances in the air, especially sensitive to compounds such as carbon dioxide, lactic acid, and humidity. So, it's these short hairs that are responsible for finding blood-sucking targets, not the compound eyes. Otherwise, why do mosquitoes still suck your blood at night when the lights are off?"

"How do you know that?" Wang Zixiong unwillingly retorted, "From Baidu?"

"Humph, do you think I can't live without Baidu like you? I participated in a project related to mosquitoes at that university in the United States. After shrinking, I intentionally caught one at home. Before, we could only observe through a microscope, but now... hehe, you, dog head, why don't you catch a mosquito and broaden the horizons of these fools?"

Listening to this while sitting on the wooden neck, Tom felt frustrated. What's the point of doing this popular science education now? But then he thought, after experiencing the terror of mosquitoes firsthand, they would have a more thorough understanding of the dangers outside.

Anyway, the mosquitoes they provoked were now buzzing annoyingly as they pecked at his helmet. So, Tom quietly activated six times his strength and quickly grabbed a large mosquito.

Mosquitoes are actually quite fragile. In the past, Tom would catch a mosquito in the air with his hand and lightly pinch it, and it would stop moving. Now, the mosquito he caught in his hand had its head flattened by his pinch and died on the spot. Apart from its head, everything else was intact, and even its piercing-sucking mouthparts used for blood-feeding were undamaged.

He stuffed this 1.4-centimeter-long mosquito through the window into the carriage and casually remarked, "It's fortunate these ones aren't mutated. Mutated mosquitoes' mouthparts can pierce through a person's skull in an instant. When I escaped from the rental building back then, there was a guy who didn't listen to advice and ran into a dark, damp alley without lights. He was pierced through the top of his head in an instant, and all his blood and brain matter were sucked dry."

This statement made everyone in the carriage pale with fright.

Thinking of this incident reminded him of that little guy Chen Jianbin and the sharp, hard, hollow spike taken from mutated mosquitoes. When Tom and the others evacuated aboard the Haiwei Group's aircraft, he gave the spike to Liu Lian and the others. He didn't know how they were doing now.

"Wow, it's so long, almost as long as my head," exclaimed Yu Fei.

"Do you see it?" Lin Meiqi pointed to the antennae on the mosquito's head. "These are the short hairs that sense surrounding chemical information and moisture. They can perceive many conditions but select the data suitable for blood-sucking creatures, such as cattle and sheep, with humans being the most abundant. This kind of data is inherent in them, encoded in their DNA chains. The project I participated in aimed to extract data related to humans from mosquito DNA. Once applied, it can significantly improve the efficiency of searching for humans. Instruments like infrared, night vision devices, surveillance cameras, etc., along with comprehensive human recognition data, can accurately capture human images in real time."

Wang Zixiong listened to Tom's mention of Lin Meiqi's influential background and now saw it for himself, feeling quite impressed. He immediately asked, "Then why is it that after we shrank, we rarely get attacked by them? I used to get bitten by mosquitoes at home too, even though there were few mosquitoes indoors, it was annoying to have one buzzing around you."

With everyone nodding in agreement, Lin Meiqi regretted her meddling. What was she doing being a science teacher when the simple explanation was right in front of them, yet none of them thought about it? It was Tom who was intelligent. When they first met, she just mentioned the principles, and he immediately understood. Communicating with people whose thinking is not on the same level is really exhausting, Lin Meiqi thought.

"Because we've shrunk, you guys are really dumb! Most mosquitoes search for targets at a height of more than one meter above the ground. To them, we were super giants before, emitting strong signals all over our bodies, like a lighthouse in the dark, making it so easy for them to suck our blood. Just stick their mouthparts in anywhere, and they could get the sweet and tasty blood, even easier than drilling for oil in the Middle East."

With Lin Meiqi's explanation, Feng Hanyun immediately nodded.

"Now that we're smaller, only five or six centimeters tall, we're not within their usual range of activity. Plus, after shrinking by twenty-four times, the information emitted by our bodies is even weaker, and the data doesn't match up. Only when they fly low and can see us with their compound eyes, and the short hairs on their antennae provide data reference, will they conclude that we are food and launch an attack."

"Oh, I see!"

"Then in the future, when we see mosquitoes, should we try to lie down as much as possible?"

Looking at the admiring gazes of the others, Lin Meiqi couldn't help but feel proud. So she stood up, hands on hips, and smirked at Wang Zixiong, "You temporary worker, do you now admit defeat to me?"

"I admit, I fully admit!" Wang Zixiong raised his thumb, "Back then, when Xu Fu brought back two bottles of immortality elixir from overseas and offered them all to Qin Shi Huang, Qin Shi Huang gave me one bottle to take, but I didn't. I only admit defeat to you!"

"You..." Hearing Wang Zixiong's teasing, Lin Meiqi instantly became furious, "You ungrateful..."

Before she could finish her words, there was a muffled thud, and a spike descended from the iron top of her head, only a finger's breadth away from her head, scaring her into a loud scream.

The spike quickly retracted, and Wang Zixiong swiftly threw himself over, knocking her down. The position where the spike appeared again was exactly where her head was when she was standing just now.

"What's that?"

"Ah!"

Outside the carriage, Tom heard the scream and quickly turned back, only to see a large mosquito, about 2 centimeters long, lying on the roof of the carriage. The spike that had just pierced down was its mouthparts.

"A mutated mosquito? Everyone, lie down!" Tom shouted as he got up and pulled out his spear from behind, stabbing upwards.