RotA – Chapter 47

Sample A0027 had lost control.

The being that could never be infected by anything, nor could it infect anything, had suddenly shown signs of mutation.

Before the sample lost control, the researchers had merely switched to a brand-new method, attempting for the seventeenth time to fuse it with the genes of the giant beast that could devour the black vines’ energy.

During the experiment, the sample was in great pain.

But this was a pain it experienced with every experiment.

This was a resilient sample; no matter how many failed experiments it endured, it had never changed in the slightest.

The Base’s scholars unanimously agreed that this was a good thing, yet also a bad thing.

Sample A0027 possessed an unbreakable, absolute stability. Such stability was a long-held, unwavering desire of humanity, but it was precisely because it was too stable that humans could not observe any meaningful data from it through experiments. As a result, they were unable to uncover the truth behind this stability’s existence.

Under these circumstances, the fact that it could change—even if it was a malignant change, even if the sample truly died because of it—was enough to excite the researchers who had studied it for a full fifty years with a sliver of hope, yet had never obtained a single result.

After all, a sliver of light in the boundless darkness that you can see but never touch isn’t called hope, it’s called despair.

They would rather the sample had never existed. If it had never existed, they wouldn’t have had to spend their entire lives working on it, day after day, making efforts they knew were futile but were compelled to make.

“Fifty-odd years. The first batch of researchers have all grown old or died, yet she still looks the same as she did back then, not a single change.” Yi Shuyun laughed self-deprecatingly. “Your Underground City’s Dr. Ge Heguang initially thought we had achieved some incredible breakthrough and were hiding it from him… But the truth is, everyone in the Base who knows of her existence has been driven half-mad by her.”

“This sample has a human appearance, and a long time ago, she was indeed a human, an ordinary girl. But now she’s a sample. Everyone has to forget her former identity and treat her as a sample.” Yi Shuyun’s eyes were red, a complex glint of tears in them. “With every experiment, we tortured her, hurt her. She never cried out in pain. At least, not since I took over this research, she has never once cried out. It’s better that she doesn’t cry out. If we pretend she doesn’t feel pain, our consciences don’t hurt as much.”

These words from Yi Shuyun did not surprise Chai Yuening much.

In fact, during every sleepless night in the past, she had already imagined the suffering Chu Ci might have endured a thousand times over.

But she hadn’t expected that even though she had guessed everything, hearing these things spoken aloud by someone else would still make her heart ache as if pierced by needles.

Yi Shuyun looked at Chai Yuening and asked with a smile, “Do you know how excited we were when the lab’s large screen showed her anomaly index starting to deviate from the human range?”

“Her body was mutating. The sample was no longer the indestructible thing it once was. The human will within her was gradually fading, and we could finally extract information and data from her changed body for analysis. This research, conducted in secret for over fifty years, could finally welcome a different tomorrow.” Her tone grew more and more agitated. “Even if the experiment failed, even if humanity gained nothing from her in over fifty years, even if losing her meant losing our last hope, we had still done our best…”

At this, Yi Shuyun bit her lower lip hard, then lowered her gaze with a bitter smile. “Regardless of the outcome, at least we… we no longer have to swallow the secret that nearly drove us mad, clinging to a hope so slim there’s no reason to believe in it, living until the day we witness humanity’s extinction with our own eyes.”

The seemingly ever-composed doctor sat at the desk with a vacant gaze, as if she had long since lost hope for humanity’s future.

And yet, she was someone who could not afford to lose hope.

“Now this change has occurred, but our excitement didn’t last long. Because after A0027’s indices became abnormal, all the black vines in the Base began behaving abnormally in a way we couldn’t understand.” Yi Shuyun continued, “We’ve never seen anything like it. It was as if they were summoned by something, and they all ‘came alive’.”

Chai Yuening’s voice trembled as she suppressed the tide of grief surging in her heart. In a low voice, she said, “The old woman in E3 District who mutated into a black vine… before she lost her human will, she said something was summoning her.”

“She was one of the researchers who participated in the fusion surgery between A0027 and the black vine back then.” Yi Shuyun’s tone returned to its usual calm. “Over twenty years ago, the older generation of researchers, frustrated by their inability to find any breakthrough with A0027, decided to make a trip to the ruins of the secret laboratory far away. They wanted to find some surviving Old World experimental data that hadn’t been brought back to the Base, and while they were at it, collect some new samples from deep within the Fog Zone that the Base didn’t have.”

“But in the end, only one person from that team returned. The military pilot who dragged her back, gravely injured, also died after rescue attempts failed. After that, she went mad. No matter how we questioned her, she never spoke a coherent word.” Yi Shuyun said, “Later, the Base sent people to the Old World’s secret laboratory several times to investigate the truth, but they never found any clues… No one knows what really happened back then.”

“Not a coherent word, but surely she said something nonsensical? You couldn’t get any reason out of her at all?” Chai Yuening asked.

Yi Shuyun was silent for a moment, then lowered her gaze and smiled. “Oh, she did. She said she saw God, saw humanity’s sin, and that destruction is the sinner’s destination.”

Chai Yuening: “…”

Yi Shuyun: “Can we believe that?”

The Base couldn’t believe it. None of the researchers working for humanity’s future could believe it.

They said she was spouting nonsense, so she could only be spouting nonsense.

Later, the Base stopped interrogating the researcher and ceased its pursuit of the truth of what happened that year.

“Do you believe gods truly exist in this world?” Yi Shuyun asked softly.

Chai Yuening didn’t answer. She didn’t know how to respond.

Yi Shuyun: “Have you heard of the Great Filter theory?”

Chai Yuening: “What’s that?”

Yi Shuyun: “Scholars of the Old World believed that for life to go from a barren, lifeless place to developing an interstellar civilization, it must pass through nine stages. Among these nine stages, there is destined to be one that is so exceedingly difficult that the vast majority of civilizations in the universe are utterly destroyed before they can cross it. In the continuous evolution of a civilization, any factor that prevents this leap between stages is called a ‘Great Filter’.”

“Rather than believing in gods, I’m more willing to believe that once a civilization reaches a certain technological level, it will inevitably walk into the Great Filter and be destroyed by it, only to be reborn eons later,” Yi Shuyun said. “So many of us have sworn to die in the research institute if we must, but even if we exhaust all our knowledge, we still can’t see the true cause of the mutations, can’t prevent them from happening, and certainly can’t help humanity retain even a sliver of its own will during the mutation…”

“Sometimes I think that humanity’s scientific framework, in this inexplicable era, is nothing but a complete and utter joke. If we are destined to be unable to cross that final hurdle, destined to be destroyed in the Great Filter, then what exactly are we struggling for on our deathbeds right now?”

Chai Yuening thought that this doctor was probably on the verge of a breakdown, otherwise she wouldn’t be saying these things to an outside mercenary.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have told you all this.”

Yi Shuyun shook her head, sat at her desk muttering to herself for a moment, then looked up at Chai Yuening again.

She said in a low voice, “We don’t want to lose her. She is still humanity’s only hope. Her self-awareness is continuously dissipating. We’ve put her to sleep to slow the rate of its dissipation. You are the person she cares about most. If anyone can keep her here, it can only be you. I will take you to see her. Before that, I need to explain the situation to the Base.”

There was no longer any trace of bewilderment in her words.

It was as if all the despair from a moment ago had not come from her lips at all.

Humanity had not yet reached the end of its rope.

As someone closest to the truth, she had no right to despair.

In order to secure Chai Yuening’s qualification to enter the top-secret laboratory, Yi Shuyun argued loudly with the Base’s director, her face grim.

The Base did not believe an ordinary person could provide any help to this secret research.

They felt that with the Base facing an emergency, the most important thing was to find a way to stabilize the situation and appease the populace as much as possible.

Under these circumstances, allowing an untrustworthy outsider to glimpse the Base’s highest secret was undoubtedly taking a colossal risk.

If the news were to leak, letting people know the Base had hidden this sample for over fifty years and had even caused the current abnormal growth of the black vines, the consequences would be unimaginable.

“Yi Shuyun, have these black vines scared you witless?”

“Just because the sample had close contact with this person for a month, you dare let her into the lab to help stabilize the sample’s emotions?”

“You’ve done so many experiments. Don’t you know that once a mutation begins, it can’t be reversed?”

“What are you doing? You’re a scientist! Are you praying for a miracle now?!”

Facing the barrage of questions from the other end of the communicator, Yi Shuyun simply replied faintly, “Yes. I am praying for a miracle.”

“Dr. Yi, the Base hopes you can calm down. If you can’t remain rational, you can take a temporary break.”

“I am very calm right now,” Yi Shuyun said. “I’ve already told her everything. I’m taking her to see A0027 now. If the Base believes this action is against regulations, I am willing to accept any and all punishment.”

As her voice fell, Yi Shuyun tossed the communicator behind her.

She stood up and gave Chai Yuening a deep look. “Come with me.”

…

Human bases always hide many things from humanity.

In this world where hope was less than a faint glimmer in the abyss, human panic was considered the most negative of emotions by its guardians.

To prevent this emotion from spreading, to keep the human race from being crushed by despair, endless lies, day after day, were forced to become the most beautiful sound.

Not long ago, due to a failed experiment, a top-secret sample had become abnormal. The cultivated black vines in the Base’s inner and outer cities, used for experiments or for extracting floating energy, had all begun to grow uncontrollably.

Although these black vines wouldn’t harm people, if they were allowed to grow wantonly in this abnormal manner, the Floating City would become like the city ruins on the ground, with all the space that should belong to humans completely overrun by vines and dense fog.

Even if they could protect the various buoyancy cores, the Base’s power grid would fall into a semi-paralyzed state under the influence of the black vines’ energy, able to selectively supply only the most critical areas.

Without sufficient power, the next things to collapse would be internal and external communications, as well as ventilation, air pressure, temperature, and all the other regulatory systems that directly affected humanity’s ability to survive in the sky.

Even if the Floating City could descend to an altitude where the lack of these regulatory systems wouldn’t harm the human body, all the agricultural and pastoral eco-parks inside the Base would still halt production due to loss of temperature control from the power shortage.

But even so, the Base could not choose to land.

The Floating City was safe because it rested high above the sea of clouds, far from the dangerous ground.

In reality, the defense systems of this high-tech human base were not as sturdy as those of the Underground City, which had been designed from the start as a “shelter for war.”

If the Floating City were to land on the ground, all the humans in the Base would be torn to shreds by hordes of beasts in utter despair.

This was undoubtedly a major incident worthy of serious attention. The Base Research Institute had sounded the city-wide alarm almost immediately, but the truth behind the alarm was completely intercepted by the main city.

But they failed to clear the wildly growing black vines inside the research institute, nor could they clear the ones in the main city’s E3 District that were said to have mutated from humans, to say nothing of the various outer districts whose military strength was inferior to the main city’s.

“Emergency communication! This is the Eighth District Energy Extraction Point. The black vines are growing too fast, we can’t keep up with clearing them.”

“Emergency communication! The black vines at the Third District Research Sub-institute have already broken through the windows. We can’t hide it anymore!”

“Emergency communication! The City Defense Force is currently at the Outer City Second District Defense Office. The black vines have caused some damage to the extraction equipment at the Third District Energy Extraction Point. They have now grown beyond controllable limits, and clearing them is difficult.”

“Emergency communication! Outer City Eleventh District…”

Counting from the moment the alarm sounded, less than two hours had passed since the lab accident, and the inside of the Base was already in chaos.

If they couldn’t control the growth of the black vines, how long could they keep it a secret?

Seeing that they could no longer hide it, and to prevent the truth of the lab accident from getting out, the Base simply used the incident with the mutated old woman in E3 District to announce that the appearance of that mutant had had a strange effect on all the black vines in the Base.

In the end, they added: “At present, the rampant growth of the black vines is still within a controllable range. The military is doing its best to clear them. We ask everyone to remain calm and not to panic.”

The research institute’s elevators were covered in black vines. Within the blinding fog, military personnel worked with all their might to clear the rampant vines, while researchers scrambled to protect and transfer various important samples to safety.

People of different statuses, carrying a similar anxiety, rushed through corridors filled with black vines.

Chai Yuening followed behind Yi Shuyun, listening to the hopeless communications, brushing past many people hurrying by, and stepping over vines that had just been severed only to grow back again, as she walked toward the top-secret laboratory on the third sub-level.

The moment the laboratory door was pushed open, she saw incredibly complex experimental equipment.

On a data display screen as large as a wall, there was a flood of incomprehensible data.

There was no one else in the lab. The room was dimly lit, with the display screen glowing a green light.

Countless data cables of varying thickness connected to a glass tank filled with a deep blue inhibitor solution.

Inside the tank, a small, thin body was curled up like a baby.

Black vines grew from its human limbs, some wrapping around it messily, others floating on the surface of the water or sinking to the bottom.

The person inside had their eyes closed, as quiet as if they were asleep.

Chai Yuening couldn’t help but hold her breath.

She walked forward and reached out, lightly touching the cold glass.

“You… you wouldn’t talk to me properly, you drove me away, so why did you leave me a poem…”

“Did you know I would come back?”

“Did you… hope that I would come back…”

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