Chai Yuening had always known that most people in this world were selfish.
She wouldn’t be surprised by any decision anyone made.
The only thing that did surprise her was that one particular matter.
A sample, never treated with kindness by humanity, after learning how to choose, had cast aside her one and only chance at a little selfishness for the sake of a hope that seemed minuscule in the eyes of humans.
The serial numbers were arranged sequentially. Sample A0027 of the Floating City must have been one of the earliest samples from the very beginning of the human experiments.
Fusion experiments of unknown frequency, routine monthly blood draws, the glass tank in the laboratory, specialized combat training… this was the entirety of her existence for the fifty-odd years after she successfully survived the experimental table.
It was as if from the moment Chu Ci successfully fused with the black vine, she had never lived like a person again.
No one would ever treat her as a person.
How old was she in the year she became a test subject?
At an age where one might volunteer for science, constantly plagued by illness, had she even come to understand this world?
Probably not.
She shouldn’t have.
Her understanding of the world, aside from mutated beasts and combat, was like that of a child in their teens.
She didn’t understand the human heart, much less the concepts of joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness.
She was still getting to know this world.
She hadn’t had time to get to know this world.
Humans, Chai Yuening thought, would probably not want a sample to possess the thoughts of an ordinary person. That would make them harder to control.
Perhaps only when humanity truly discovered the secret of fusion evolution from her, when most people became like her, would she have a chance to find her freedom again.
In fact, for a moment, she truly felt an impulse deep in her heart.
It was a voice, shouting at her incessantly, clamoring wildly.
—Can’t you just take her away?
—Are you just going to stand by and watch her go back to a place like that?
But she couldn’t do it.
Her identity, her status, her abilities—none were nearly enough to keep a being destined to be valued by all of humanity by her side.
Unless she abandoned everything, threw all caution to the wind, and accompanied her away from the human base, to wander with her on the surface.
The thought in that instant was too insane, so insane she barely recognized herself.
She shouldn’t be like this. She shouldn’t want to abandon everything and flee with humanity’s hope, all because of the pity and guilt in her heart.
She had no right to do so. She and Chu Ci were friends, comrades-in-arms, two people who could entrust their lives to each other.
But they were not people who could make choices for the other.
“Do you want me to…” Chai Yuening unconsciously lowered her voice, “see you off?”
“Can you?” Chu Ci asked softly.
“Of course,” Chai Yuening nodded.
Chu Ci looked up at Chai Yuening, a hint of joy appearing in her eyes.
“Then it’s a deal. You’ll take me back.”
“Mm.”
Chai Yuening responded softly. She was about to say more, but a head poking out from the stairwell above startled her into silence.
Lu Qi shouted down, “Captain, so you two are here whispering secrets!”
Chai Yuening took a long, deep breath and said helplessly, “And you know they’re secrets?”
“I didn’t hear a thing!” Lu Qi said. “Are you done with your secrets? Someone from the research institute came just now, looking for Sister Chu Ci.”
Hearing this, Chai Yuening subconsciously looked at Chu Ci.
Chu Ci smiled. “I’ll go by myself.”
Chai Yuening: “I’ll go with you.”
Chu Ci’s tone was firm. “It’s better if I go alone.”
Chai Yuening couldn’t help but be taken aback.
Chu Ci: “Don’t we still have to wait for the military’s notification on the application to rescue the Fifth District?”
Chai Yuening: “…”
After a brief silence, Chai Yuening nodded.
She could tell that Chu Ci didn’t want her to follow. Perhaps there were still some secrets between them that were inconvenient to speak of.
Chu Ci left, taken away by people from the Base Research Institute in a transport vehicle.
When You Lan heard the news, she rushed to the hospital with a pot of hot congee, muttering the names of every deity she could think of before sighing with emotion, “Thank goodness, you’re all still alive.”
After finishing a bowl of hot congee, Chai Yuening sat by the door of Lao Xiang’s hospital room, staring blankly at the pocket watch in her hand.
A little past one in the afternoon, the communicator in her hand rang.
“Main City Military calling the Thirteenth Mercenary Team. We have established contact with Outer District Five.”
“I’m here!” Chai Yuening instantly stood up straight.
“According to the current rescue progress, the military expects to successfully rescue the Fourth District by six in the evening. At that time, the rescue team can lower the isolation wall and proceed to the Fifth District. There are still thirty-one survivors in the Fifth District awaiting rescue, currently holding out on the top floor of the academy building. The rescue difficulty is relatively high. Are you willing to accompany the military?”
“We are willing!”
Reinforcements from the Floating City had arrived, and the surface signal tower had been recovered.
With communications restored, the Underground City Base was finally no longer in a state of being completely in the dark.
With the cooperation of the Floating City, the Base’s military divided its forces into three prongs, swiftly launching a precise rescue plan for the survivors in the outer districts, all to save the maximum number of survivors in the shortest possible time.
The military squad that came to pick them up was unwilling to take the mobility-impaired Ren Dong, so the worried, disabled girl could only stay behind in the hospital under You Lan’s care, looking after Lao Xiang in his room.
Upon arriving in the Fourth District, Chai Yuening and Lu Qi quickly joined the rescue team.
A thousand survivors were holding out on the top floor of the medical center. The moment the rescuers arrived, they all picked up anything that could be used as a weapon and prepared for battle.
The entire rescue took nearly two and a half hours. Over a thousand survivors scrambled onto one military armored vehicle after another amidst a hail of gunfire, undergoing infection monitoring as they were transferred to the Second District.
In such a chaotic scene, with so many people running past mutated beasts, it was impossible that not a single one was infected.
No one could say for sure how many of those survivors would ultimately reach the Second District alive, but at least… while they were still human, the Base had not abandoned them.
Everything went as initially predicted. The rescue team strafed the mutated beasts pursuing them from behind while lowering the Fourth District’s isolation wall and heading toward the most perilous Fifth District.
The lead officer’s communicator buzzed nonstop.
“ZA3199, thirteen infected individuals detected.”
“Acknowledged. Please execute.”
“ZA5012, seven infected individuals detected.”
“Mm, please execute.”
“ZA1663, infected individuals detected…”
“Please execute.”
…
Gunshots rang out in places they couldn’t hear.
Some lived, some died.
Perhaps, aside from the still-safe Second District and the Ninth District which was rescued first, every outer district had become a living hell in this disaster.
Chai Yuening couldn’t imagine how many people had died in the Base.
She only heard Lu Qi muttering softly beside her, “I heard the Fourth and Seventh Districts have the most survivors. The survivors from all eight outer districts combined could probably be housed in just two residential complexes.”
Chai Yuening couldn’t help but ask softly, “After the rescue is over, will the outer districts be reclaimed?”
The officer, who was being overwhelmed by communications, fell silent for a moment before replying in a heavy voice, “They will. In another ten or twenty years, the outer districts will be bustling with life again.”
In the long tunnel leading to the Fifth District, the lead officer maintained constant contact with the other rescue teams.
The three rescue teams exchanged their locations and statuses at all times, afraid that one side might run into trouble without the others being able to provide timely support.
Because of this, an incredibly familiar voice would occasionally come through the lead officer’s communicator.
He said, “Seventh District rescue is proceeding smoothly. After executing all infected, there are three thousand seven hundred forty-three survivors.”
He said, “The Main City has still not been able to establish contact with the Sixth District.”
He said, “If there are new samples, capture a few for the Doctor. If it’s too dangerous, forget it. Ensuring your own safety is everyone’s top priority.”
Lu Qi didn’t like hearing that person’s voice. He huddled in the back of the vehicle, silent as if he’d become a different person, his eyes filled with displeasure.
In the tunnel, they occasionally encountered two or three mutated beasts traveling together, their appearances so bizarre they were completely beyond human comprehension.
Chai Yuening could no longer describe what these things looked like.
The Fifth District was the first to fall; the mutated beasts here had had the longest time to feed.
Whether they had evolved by devouring humans or mutated through infection, they had long since lost their original forms over these many days.
Fortunately, they didn’t have to engage these things in direct combat for now. They just needed to get to the location that had sent the distress signal to the military and rescue the thirty-one survivors inside.
Throughout the journey, Chai Yuening’s heart was fraught with anxiety.
She wanted to get to that place immediately to see if her teammate was still alive.
But she was also afraid that among those thirty-one people, Du Xia’s figure would be absent.
This anxiety lasted for a very long time.
Until they arrived at the pitch-black rescue site, until cries for help came from within the building.
Until she fought her way to the rooftop with the rescue personnel, kicked open the door, and saw twenty-some children, a few teachers, a white-haired old woman, and a woman clutching a long pole.
A kitchen knife was tied tightly to the pole, its blade curled and stained with blood.
In a frighteningly dark corner of the room, there was a pile of dry rations scavenged from who knows where.
For all these past days, a female mercenary had remained in this blood-soaked outer district academy, protecting a group of children in their early teens.
In the beam of a flashlight, Du Xia looked at Chai Yuening and gave a smile of profound relief.
A face so familiar it brought tears to the eyes.
On the ride back, the rescue officer sent out a communication.
“Third Rescue Team has successfully rescued the Fifth District. Thirty-one survivors, zero infections. Three team members injured, three infected, now executed. The degree of mutation in the Fifth District’s organisms far exceeds that of the Fourth. Live specimens are difficult to capture. Five deceased samples have been collected. The rescue team has decided to withdraw immediately.”
“First Rescue Team, received.”
“Second Rescue Team, received.”
How fortunate that the outer districts’ self-destruct system hadn’t turned these people, who had waited so bitterly for rescue, into dust.
She had been so close to never seeing her teammate beside her again.
All of this was because of one person.
Chai Yuening was subdued for a long time before she couldn’t help but say softly, “Du Xia, once the Base is secure, I’m going to the Floating City to see someone off.”
Du Xia: “Chu Ci?”
Chai Yuening: “She’s going back.”
Du Xia: “…”
Chai Yuening: “I can’t really bear to see her go.”
Du Xia: “Keep her here. If you ask, she’ll stay.”
“She won’t. She’s already made her choice…”
Chai Yuening bit her lower lip, her eyes somewhat vacant.
Lu Qi leaned over. “Captain, why do you look as sad as if you’ve just been through a breakup?”
Chai Yuening: “Don’t you start with that nonsense!”
Du Xia: “You do look like you’ve been through a breakup.”
Chai Yuening: “…”
Right, this conversation was going nowhere.
Author’s Notes:
Volume Two will have less of the fighting, killing, and sanity-draining stuff. It’s a volume for emotional development, leaning more toward daily life. If you ask, it’s going to be sweet. I, for one, am choosing to believe it.
If you’d like to read ahead and support me, you can request extra chapters or get the full novel as an EPUB.
