“What did you say…”
The air fell silent for several seconds. Yi Shuyun sat sideways before the screen, her gaze fixed blankly on Chu Ci.
Chu Ci’s words had left her bewildered; she found it all hard to believe.
“Impossible…” Yi Shuyun responded, her voice lacking conviction as her gaze drifted unconsciously to the electronic screen beside her.
“Was Mr. Shi lying to me? Why would he do that?” Chu Ci pressed again. “I was right there in front of him. He knew who I was, yet he didn’t use any harmful methods to study me. Why would he lie to me? What good would it do him?”
Some people live long lives yet experience little tenderness.
She might not say it, but in her heart, she was perfectly clear on who was good to her, who treated her like a “person.”
Chu Ci believed Shi Wenlin’s words. Compared to the Floating City Base, which had never treated her as a person, she was indeed more inclined to trust that elderly man who, with his frail body, was trying to save everyone, single-mindedly seeking to atone for the mistakes he had made.
But she also believed Yi Shuyun, the only person in this research institute who cared about her thoughts, the only one willing to let her leave.
So she asked again, her eyes filled with an almost pleading hope, “Doctor, do you know something? Can you tell me?”
Yi Shuyun fell silent.
To her left lay the inhibitor from the Fog Zone Base. This, along with the complex research data on the screen, would help the Base solve the problem of inevitable mutation upon human infection at the fastest possible speed.
She should have been happy, but suddenly, she couldn’t bring herself to smile.
She said “impossible” out loud, but her heart told her that Chu Ci wouldn’t lie to her.
This child couldn’t hide her emotions. When she lied, her gaze would surely dart away from everyone, not look at her so directly.
She was the current guardian of Sample A0027. She had the highest authority over everything related to Sample A0027. Classified files were also graded; the number of people in the entire Base who could access this sample’s top-level file could be counted on one hand. If there was truly something that needed to be hidden from everyone, she shouldn’t have been kept in the dark.
Unless… history had truly been wantonly fabricated by their predecessors.
The file records for an important sample couldn’t possibly have an error of an entire year.
If what Chu Ci said was true, if what that senior from the scientific community in the Fog Zone Base said was true, then there was indeed only one possibility: the Base had gone to great lengths to conceal some unspeakable matter back then, concerning Chu Ci, concerning the Old World’s Secret Research Institute.
They hadn’t even left behind a single piece of information, had no intention of telling their successors, wanting only to bury that secret completely.
What on earth could have made the people of that time make such a decision?
What did they want to gain, and what were they afraid of?
And this child, what had she suffered because of it back then?
Yi Shuyun discovered that she knew nothing about it at all.
She gazed at Chu Ci’s earnest expression, unable to utter a single word for a long time.
Chu Ci’s gaze dimmed inch by inch. She had found her answer in Yi Shuyun’s silence.
“You don’t know,” she said softly, her tone certain and disappointed.
Yi Shuyun’s lips parted slightly, but in the end, she didn’t know how to respond to this disappointment born of dashed hopes.
Chai Yuening asked, “Is there anyone else in the research institute who might know?”
Yi Shuyun shook her head. Perhaps due to her emotional instability, her gaze was somewhat unfocused. “If it’s something I can’t find out, then no one else in the institute would know either.”
Her fingers on the keyboard unconsciously flexed as her brow knitted, as if she were seriously pondering something.
She said, “To go so far as to alter even the most confidential files, the thing the Base wanted to hide is definitely not simple. They probably wished the truth would dissipate like smoke over time, and would never let anyone who hadn’t experienced that event back then know about it.”
“If you really were an experimental project of the Secret Research Institute, then the number of people qualified to participate in the experimental surgery back then, who might know the truth, would have been very few. Their status wouldn’t have been low, and their age wouldn’t have been too young…” Yi Shuyun’s brow furrowed. “Over fifty years have passed. If the youngest among them were still alive, they would be in their eighties by now.”
After the destruction of the Old World, humanity’s living conditions were far worse than before, and the pressures of survival were much greater. The average lifespan had long since shortened to around fifty years. Even septuagenarians were few and far between, let alone those researchers from the Secret Research Institute who had been burdened with guilt and tormented by their past?
In the Base today, could there still be anyone who knew the truth of what happened back then?
Yi Shuyun told Chu Ci with great regret, “According to the Base’s written history, after the Floating City was built, they did go to the Secret Research Institute and rescue quite a few scientific personnel, and they also brought back some of the research results from that time, but those seniors have long since…”
As she spoke, Yi Shuyun’s pupils suddenly constricted slightly.
She had remembered something and unconsciously murmured a name, “Senior Zhang Hanqing…”
In that instant, it was as if Chai Yuening and Chu Ci saw a glimmer of hope.
“Doctor!” Chai Yuening took two excited steps forward. “That person might know the truth, right?”
Yi Shuyun lowered her eyes slightly. “She was one of the researchers who participated in that fusion surgery.”
Chai Yuening asked, “Where is she?”
Yi Shuyun hesitated for a moment, then said in a low voice, “She… she was the one who mutated right before your eyes.”
In that moment, though the window was shut tight and the world outside was shrouded in clouds and fog, the air inside seemed to freeze. The entire research lab was silent.
Chai Yuening remembered. Yi Shuyun had told her that the old woman from the Ninth District who had mutated into a black vine in front of her was a researcher who had participated in Chu Ci’s fusion surgery back in the day.
Over twenty years ago, under the military’s protection, she had once again gone to the Old World’s Secret Research Institute with a research team.
After returning from that trip, she became that jittery, mentally confused person who spouted nonsense every day.
Most importantly, that person had actually been infected by a black vine.
Whether in the Underground City, the Floating City, or the undiscovered Fog Zone Base, every study had proven that black vines could not infect humans. For a black vine to affect a human body, it had to be through special means, such as a fusion surgery or an injection of extracted black vine energy.
Moreover, even with a fusion surgery or an injection of the extract, the test subject themselves would not mutate to show any characteristics of a black vine. At most, their body would exhibit abnormalities, much like the contagious madness of the Old World; the physical changes were far less severe than those from a mutated beast infection—Chu Ci was a one-in-a-million exception.
What was even more outrageous was that mutation, which occurred more than twenty years after the old woman’s last contact with the source of infection.
A human being had sustained an undetectable infection on the surface and, after a latent period of over twenty years, completely mutated into a black vine, which humans had judged to be entirely non-infectious.
No one could explain this phenomenon. This puzzle had once driven all the researchers in the institute mad.
“The day that senior mutated was also the day the institute’s experiment failed…” Yi Shuyun said in a low voice. “Her mutation, her madness, might truly be inextricably linked to Chu Ci.”
Chu Ci couldn’t help but take a deep breath. A spark of hope ignited in her eyes, only to slowly die out.
“She’s dead,” Chu Ci said, her eyes downcast.
“Yes, she’s gone,” Yi Shuyun replied, taking a long, deep breath.
The room suddenly fell quiet. No one spoke again.
After an unknown amount of time, Chai Yuening spoke up, “What about the things she said? She must have known something. Those words that made people think she was crazy must have some meaning! What exactly did she say?”
As soon as she finished, she recalled what Yi Shuyun had once said.
—She said she saw God, saw humanity’s sin, and that destruction was the sinner’s only destination.
—Can we believe that?
Chai Yuening couldn’t believe it.
If those words were truly related to Chu Ci, then who was Chu Ci?
The Chu Ci standing beside her right now, the Chu Ci who had once dedicated herself to human science—could she be the “God” who had brought divine punishment upon this world?
That was simply too ridiculous.
Chai Yuening firmly believed that there was some other secret hidden within all this, and she was going to help Chu Ci find the truth of what happened back then.
Yi Shuyun said, “Too much time has passed, I can’t remember many things clearly. At the time, no one paid any mind to her mad ravings. The only things I can recall are the most insane phrases.”
“She had family, and many people who took care of her. They might have heard something!” Chai Yuening said. “If we can find them, we’ll definitely be able to learn something.”
“But with your current status, you can’t move freely around the Base.”
“Doctor…” Chu Ci began, her brow furrowed slightly.
Yi Shuyun was silent for a long time before sighing softly, “I will help you, but this matter cannot be made public.”
She thought that she might be doing something very dangerous.
For the Base, such a decision might be unforgivable.
But her conscience told her she had to do it.
Author’s Notes:
The end of science is theology [Nope].
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