RotA – Chapter 67

Chu Ci leaned closer, her eyes fixed on the notebook in Ye Qing’s hand.

Chai Yuening took it for her. The notebook was thin, its cover cracked along the curled edges. They opened it to the very first page.

“I came here, and never thought of leaving.

—2169.09.27”

Ye Qing said, “I’ve looked through the records. Senior Zhang Hanqing wasn’t one of the original Black Vine researchers. At thirty-two, having achieved a certain level of success in her field, she received a private invitation from the Secret Research Institute. She knew that entering the institute meant she would lose her freedom until a breakthrough was made, but in order to find a way to resist the infection, she resolutely gave up everything and threw herself into this clandestine research.”

A sense of reverence rose in Chai Yuening’s heart as she carefully turned the page.

The handwriting in the notebook was elegant, the wording concise. A line or two, accompanied by a long-past date, was all that marked a day’s work.

The research team’s work did not go smoothly. They researched and experimented endlessly, from animals to human subjects, time and again seeming to approach success, only to fail with no turn of fortune.

At first, the time between entries was long, and the content was devoid of personal emotion. All one could see was the perseverance of a great scientist.

But later, slowly, words bordering on emotional collapse began to appear in the notebook.

“The initial research was to save people; the later research was to save the world. But neither people nor the world have been saved by this research. We are only killing people, and we have never stopped.

—2173.02.16”

“What has become of the outside world, no one knows. No sounds from the outside can get in, and no sounds from the inside can get out. We are trapped here, prisoners of failure.

—2174.12.21”

“New Year. Someone died, took their own life. No one’s mind here is completely normal. Will I, too, have a day when I go mad?

—2175.01.01”

“I shouldn’t have cried in front of others, but if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have discovered that he is very gentle, and very rational.

—2175.02.14”

From this point on, the word “he” appeared frequently. There was no name, and each mention was only a few words, but one could sense that this “he” had brought Zhang Hanqing a sliver of hope to carry on.

The time drew near to the year the Great Cataclysm erupted.

“The new agreement signatory is a sixteen-year-old girl. Her eyes are reddish-brown. Very rare, very beautiful, and a great pity.

—2177.05.18”

“Bubble solution, that kind of children’s toy from the last century… only he would make something like that to cheer up a little girl.

—2177.05.20”

“It was a terrible surgery. The procedure did not go smoothly.

—2177.05.24”

“The child’s post-operative changes are highly unusual. I’ve never seen such a difficult situation. She asked me, will she become a monster? I think so, but I lied to her.

—2177.06.09”

“I have never seen, nor anticipated, such a result. All indicators show that the child has fused perfectly with the Black Vine. No infection, no mutation. It’s like a miracle. We all saw hope. We await her awakening.

—2177.08.15”

Most of the content in the notebook became more positive, but as everyone knew, the future did not bring hope.

Chai Yuening flipped further into the notebook, her breath catching in her throat.

“I heard a terrifying sound. Someone said a nuclear war that could destroy humanity has begun.

—2177.08.19”

In Zhang Hanqing’s notebook, they even saw a mushroom cloud rising from a distant city. The people in the Secret Research Institute fell into an endless panic.

What had happened to the outside world? Did their hometowns still exist?

They didn’t know. They only knew that the research had not been halted, and the experiments had to continue.

Having been locked away for so many years, they had long since fallen out of step with the world. No one was coming to get them, so they had nowhere to go.

After successfully fusing with the Black Vine, the girl had not woken up, remaining in a vegetative state. The so-called hope still seemed to be in the unreachable distance.

In October of 2177, the Secret Research Institute completely lost contact with the outside world. Research supplies were cut off. Someone said, “It’s over. Everything is over.”

A riot suddenly broke out inside the institute. Some people didn’t want to go on like this. They shouted that they wanted to leave, to go home.

The world was on the verge of destruction; they didn’t want to die in this godforsaken prison.

In those few days, some were injured, some escaped, and some cowered in the institute, hoping to survive on the stored food and wait for outside rescue.

The last mention of “he” in the notebook was a single sentence: He left. If the world is truly destroyed, he will die out there, and I will die in here. We will never meet again.

The faint affection between the lines had withered away before it could even sprout.

Chai Yuening faintly sensed that the “he” in Zhang Hanqing’s notebook might be Shi Wenlin. They had both survived the cataclysm, but it was true they never saw each other again before they died.

After that, the remaining researchers waited in the institute for a long time. The days passed one by one. It seemed the world had truly been destroyed. They were completely unable to contact the outside, as if living on an isolated island.

The ecosystem outside began to grow strange. Bizarrely shaped creatures started to appear. It seemed as if humanity had truly vanished.

On a snowy night half a year later, on the verge of collapse, they finally received a rescue from the outside world.

All the research results, including the comatose girl, were transferred to the Floating City, far from the ground.

From despair to hope, the notebook still contained only a few short sentences.

Several more months passed. The girl who had been comatose for so long suddenly woke up. Zhang Hanqing thought hope had returned, but before she had time to rejoice, she was frightened by the girl’s abnormality.

“She started talking nonsense.

—2178.04.19”

“How could someone think they are a plant? It’s not that she wasn’t infected—she has gone mad.

—2178.04.20”

“She wants to escape, wants to go back. She even started attacking us. Fortunately, the thorns on her vines are not infectious at all.

—2178.04.27”

The scattered complaints continued for more than half a month, and then the longest entry in the notebook appeared.

“The damage to the superior frontal lobe and hippocampus is irreversible. They are going to turn a person into a specimen.

Even a mad person shouldn’t be pushed onto such an operating table.

But I can’t change anything. I have never been a kind person. I will go to hell when I die.

—2178.05.22”

Reading this, Chai Yuening couldn’t help but suck in a sharp breath.

“It must have been a hippocampus removal, and a lobotomy, which was banned back in the Middle Ages of the Old World. The former affects memory, while the latter was once used for psychiatric disorders. No matter how manic a patient was, a simple cut to the white matter would quiet them down. But people later discovered that such a surgery only turns a mad person into an imbecile.” At this point, Ye Qing saw Chai Yuening’s expression and quickly added, “But things aren’t that bad. Perhaps because she fused with the Black Vine, her self-healing ability is far stronger than an ordinary human’s. At least, when Dr. Yi took over her care, her body showed no signs of damage on any of the scanners.”

Chu Ci couldn’t help but lower her eyes, but she still said nothing, only reaching out to turn the page.

After this, there were missing pages in the notebook. The missing section seemed to have been torn out neatly, with a ruler pressed against the paper.

After the missing pages, the entries jumped to the year 2179.

Zhang Hanqing’s notes had once again returned to their initial, emotionless, and calm state.

These records came to an abrupt and unceremonious halt after the sentence, “The Base announced the death of Specimen A0027.”

Chai Yuening subconsciously flipped through a dozen more pages. There were words hidden among the blank pages that followed.

“She really doesn’t age.”

“No matter how many years have passed, I still can’t let it go. I want to go see that place, if I ever have the chance to find it in this lifetime.”

These two sentences had no date. The handwriting was the same as before.

But further on, there were words written in an extremely messy, almost frantic scrawl.

“No one believes me! I really saw it! No one believes me!”

“Its wrath will devour this world!”

“We will go to hell!”

On the last page of the notebook, there was a completely unfamiliar handwriting.

【Obtaining this notebook was an accident within an accident. I chose a topic that no one was optimistic about and accidentally glimpsed a secret that no one would believe even if I told them.

Dr. Zhang Hanqing’s words were very confused, making it difficult to grasp her meaning. But after some organization and with the help of the notebook, I think I understand everything Dr. Zhang Hanqing wanted to tell me.

After Specimen A0027 awoke, her temperament changed drastically. She was mentally deranged, believing she came from ten thousand meters underground. She wanted to escape, to go back. She felt that everything before her was completely unfamiliar. But the Base needed her. She was one in a million, humanity’s hope for resisting the infection. To make her compliant, the Base decided to perform a cruel surgery on her.

The surgery was a great success. The specimen became much more docile.

Two years ago, the doctor went to the surface. In the depths of the Fog Zone, she found the place she had longed to find. There, she saw ‘It’—the Ecological Mother Flower, blooming in the ten-thousand-meter abyss.

She said It was alive, that she could hear Its anger. It was retaliating against humanity.

I believed her. I actually believed her.

Reason tells me that I cannot publish a single news story in the Base about her statements, or even her life. If I did, I might be arrested and lose my freedom forever.

But I cannot suppress the impulse in my heart. I want to help her, and even more, I want to speak the truths that have been hidden.

Perhaps I really should try. I will do my best, so at least I won’t have any regrets.】

This reporter did indeed make an attempt, and for it, he died in prison. Whether he had regrets, no one knows. In any case, the buried secrets still failed to see the light of day.

But at least, he had preserved this notebook.

“This sounds like an unbelievable fantasy…” Ye Qing said, then gave a bitter smile. “But we all saw what Senior Zhang Hanqing looked like after her mutation, didn’t we? Even if she was scared out of her mind and said some exaggerated things, some part of it must be true.”

All research had indicated that the Black Vine could not actively infect humans, yet she had well and truly been infected by it.

“Dr. Yi was also baffled, until she saw this notebook,” Ye Qing said. “An ordinary Black Vine can’t, but what if it’s not ordinary?”

“An ordinary Black Vine cannot fuse with a human, but what if it’s not ordinary?” she said, looking at Chu Ci again. “Could it be possible that you are not a human who fused with the Black Vine, but a Black Vine that fused with a human?”

“You are not one in a million, not humanity’s hope. In this battle of genetic fusion, humanity has never succeeded, not even once.” She sighed softly, repeating the words Yi Shuyun had said to her before she left the research institute today. “Humanity has never once managed to preserve a human consciousness in any fusion surgery.”

If this was the truth, it was far too ironic.

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Author’s Notes:

She cannot find her way back to a human past.

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