“Chai Yuening, you shouldn’t have come back.”
Ye Qing’s voice struck Chai Yuening’s heart like the tolling of a great bell.
She spoke with something akin to a sigh, “There’s no possibility between you and her.”
Chai Yuening didn’t understand, or perhaps, she didn’t want to.
She gazed at Ye Qing, her breathing still uneven, a sliver of hope still burning in her eyes.
“Where did she go?”
Ye Qing said, “The top-secret research lab at the Base Research Institute. Including the military, the number of people in the entire Base with clearance to freely enter and exit that lab is no more than ten.”
Chai Yuening: “Was she… always like this?”
Ye Qing: “Yes.”
A single, unhesitating reply that instantly blurred Chai Yuening’s vision.
Chai Yuening had thought that after suffering wounds that cut to the bone, after bidding farewell to people she cherished above all else, that even if she hadn’t grown indifferent to life and death, she would not be so easily moved to tears again.
But on a day that could be considered bright and beautiful, she had mustered all the courage she possessed in her entire life and trekked thousands of miles to be here.
To knock on a door, and shatter a lie.
The supposedly indestructible defenses around her heart, built over a lifetime, all crumbled in that single moment.
Ye Qing called her into the house and closed the door.
She sat on the sofa. The television was playing an interview with leading scholars from the Base Research Institute.
During the interview, several scholars stated that the experiments currently underway at the Base were very likely to improve the current situation where humans were unable to evolve and were easily infected.
They said that the brand-new experimental sample for this round was the severed limb of the giant beast brought back from the Underground City Base.
A few days ago, also on television, Chai Yuening had heard similar words from Ye Qing’s mouth.
Only on that day, she hadn’t paid them any mind.
“Do you really know her?” Ye Qing asked. “Do you know why all the Base’s reports never mention her by name?”
Chai Yuening stared blankly for a moment, then shook her head.
“Experimental Sample A0027, in all of the Base’s publicly available data, is just a failure who died back in 2180.”
As she spoke, Ye Qing asked again, “Then do you know what it means for a human to successfully fuse with the black vine, possess its characteristics, and be immune to all infection, yet be unable to share any of this with anyone else?”
“It means she can’t bring any benefit to humanity. Her one-in-a-million existence is destined to become an original sin under the watchful eyes of the public.”
“If the research institute remains unable to uncover the secret of her fused evolution, then the people who have caught a glimpse of hope, but can never seem to get the results they’re waiting for, will no longer see her as one of their own. They will shout to have her flesh cut open, to see her bones and blood, and then, clinging to a one-in-ten-thousand hope, they will expect that by doing so, they can glimpse all the secrets she holds.”
“Do you think that’s an exaggeration?” Ye Qing retorted, a trace of a sardonic smile in her eyes. “But that’s exactly what happened fifty-one years ago.”
Chai Yuening’s throat was dry. She couldn’t utter a single word.
Ye Qing stood up and poured Chai Yuening a glass of water.
As she handed her the glass, she asked, “How are you with history?”
Chai Yuening shook her head.
“I’m pretty good at it. I just don’t know if it’s the same as the history in your Underground City Base.”
Ye Qing smiled and continued her story.
“In 2155, geologists from the old world discovered traces of life nearly ten thousand meters deep underground.”
She said it was a plant with very peculiar life signs. It resembled a type of black vine, growing in an environment extremely unsuitable for living organisms, its leaves and flowers glowing with a dark red halo.
Relevant scholars speculated that this red light was a form of energy, and this energy was precisely the reason it could survive deep underground.
People tried to take some samples and transplant them to the surface. While carefully cultivating them to propagate, they also extracted the energy within for research.
At the time, there were two research directions: technology and medicine.
The former believed this energy could become a new, non-polluting source of power. The latter believed that if this energy could be developed safely and reasonably, it could likely conquer most of the terminal illnesses of the day, and perhaps even break through the limits of human physical fitness and lifespan.
In 2160, humanity used the new energy extracted from the black vine to build the first floating city in history, causing a global sensation.
Half a year later, the developers announced that the existing new energy was insufficient to keep a city afloat long-term. To conserve energy, the floating city chose to land.
Humanity began to develop black vine cultivation on a large scale.
In 2161, medical research achieved significant results in some diseased plants and animals.
After numerous applications and approvals, the first batch of terminally ill patients who voluntarily signed experimental consent forms walked into the surgical labs.
Their recovery attracted global media attention, and more and more people voluntarily signed new experimental consent forms.
Not long after returning to society, those seemingly recovered patients all developed non-human mutations to varying degrees.
This mutation was completely unnoticeable at first, merely causing their temperament to become irritable, accompanied by certain violent tendencies, and even leading to violent acts. Over time, the mutant’s body would become increasingly deformed, followed by a gradual loss of memory and reason. When an episode occurred, they would attack anyone nearby indiscriminately.
What was even more terrifying was that it was infectious to a certain degree, and it silently swept across the entire world.
All at once, all experiments and treatment plans related to the black vine were halted, and countless researchers were convicted and imprisoned.
In 2163, as the scope of mutation widened, even spreading to common animals in cities, the infection gradually became uncontrollable, and humanity began to use military force to suppress it.
The world gradually entered the mid-stage of the Great Cataclysm. The people of the old world began to contemplate how to survive in the future.
Those imprisoned researchers were secretly transferred to a secret research institute. Humanity restarted the research program on the black vine, attempting to find an antibody for the mutation infection.
In 2172, the southern high-tech underground shelter, which had cost an enormous amount of money and nine years to build—now known as the Underground City Base—was successfully completed and entered a sealed state.
The struggle between humanity and the mutated creatures never ceased.
In 2175, humanity’s top-secret “Starship Migration Plan” was leaked for some reason.
People who realized they might be abandoned launched a riot. As the riot continued, the military was unable to withstand the pressure from both the mutants and the populace, and the infection situation deteriorated rapidly.
In the same year, the classified information that the starship’s construction was complete was leaked again.
The starship migration should have been humanity’s hope, but the tickets to escape were something most people dared not even dream of. Desperate crowds organized online and established the “Redemption” organization, with the “Human Cleansing Plan” as its ultimate goal. They firmly believed in the theory of human guilt and sought to destroy humanity to atone to the Earth.
In 2177, history entered the final stage of the Great Cataclysm. Crazed Redemptionists all over the world broke through military defenses and launched a nuclear war with the ultimate goal of destroying humanity.
The Earth was instantly turned into a living hell. Surface species died out on a massive scale, and billions of humans perished in the disaster.
After the disaster, the black vine grew everywhere, residual species cross-infected, mutated beasts ran rampant, and the surface became completely uninhabitable for humans. The Earth had entered the post-apocalyptic era.
A portion of the surviving humans established four major bases and searched everywhere for survivors from the old world.
As for those humans who were never rescued, they either died of natural causes or at the mouths of mutated creatures, fusing into new species.
But the infection that had destroyed humanity continued, and its threat to humans was greater than ever before, so human experimentation did not stop because of this.
All the remaining data and samples from the secret laboratory of that era were transferred to the Floating City.
As she spoke, Ye Qing gave Chai Yuening a deep look. “In 2178, a sixteen-year-old girl, terminally ill and on the verge of death, voluntarily dedicated her body to science at the end of her life. She became the only experimental subject in the Floating City to retain her human consciousness after fusing with the black vine. The Base once thought it had seen hope, and the experimental results quickly reached everyone’s ears. But after that, the institute’s experiments made not a single shred of progress.”
The special nature of Sample A0027 meant she was no longer seen as a fellow human. People only wanted to dissect her completely to find the secrets hidden deep within her.
For a time, people protested, people appealed, people begged the Base Research Institute to conduct in-depth research on her.
No matter how the Base explained or guaranteed that this research was being conducted without holding anything back, they remained convinced that the lack of progress was due to incomplete research.
In 2179, under pressure from public opinion, the Base publicly announced that Experimental Subject A0027 had died due to mutation.
“For over fifty years, she has been the Base’s greatest secret. Apart from the military high command and the most authoritative scholars at the research institute, no one else knew of her existence.”
At this point, Ye Qing sighed with a bitter smile.
“She’s very obedient. Ten years ago, when I became Dr. Yi’s personal assistant, from the very first time I saw her in the lab, she was always quiet and never made a fuss. She did whatever she was told, exceptionally quiet, exceptionally sensible, exceptionally…” Ye Qing paused for half a second, then shook her head and said, “She would blame herself for being useless. She was willing to undergo all kinds of experiments. She trained hard in combat and assisted the military in completing countless high-risk missions.”
“Later, she disappeared.” Ye Qing frowned. “When Dr. Yi found her, this girl who had always been so well-behaved actually made a request that put Dr. Yi in a very difficult position.”
Chai Yuening: “…”
Ye Qing: “She wanted to say goodbye to you, like a normal person.”
“Why are you telling me all this…” Chai Yuening’s voice trembled slightly.
“Chu Ci said it would be best if you didn’t come back, but if you ever did, the lie would surely be exposed.” Ye Qing stood up and walked toward the bedroom. “She’s sorry for deceiving you, but some things couldn’t be said to your face, so she hoped we would tell you the truth.”
She took a thin sheet of paper from between the pages of a book and turned to hand it to Chai Yuening, who had followed her.
In black ink on white paper were the words of that short poem by Neruda she had seen before.
“I am a desperate person,
the word without an echo.
Having lost everything,
and yet possessing everything.
The last hawser,
my last hope creaks a song for you.
In this barren land of mine,
you are the last rose.”
…
After a moment of silence.
She gently caressed the dried tear stains on the paper with her index finger.
As if stroking that face that had wept alone.
—Do you want me to come back?
She couldn’t hear an answer.
And she didn’t need one.
Author’s Notes:
Now that they’ve both had their epiphany, the super sweet moments can’t be far ahead, can they?
If you’d like to read ahead and support me, you can request extra chapters or get the full novel as an EPUB.
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