EDEH Chapter 37

Huo Yanji had no intention of hiding anything, speaking about the secrets of the past in a flat tone.

 

“So when the ancestors returned to the surface, the first thing they did was go down Rift No. 2 again, wanting to know what was really at the bottom—the person leading the team was Huo Feng.”

 

“A team of 138 people, and only Huo Feng returned, becoming the first deviant in history.”

 

Sang Jue was stunned: “Like Colin, he was accidentally infected?”

 

A trace of mockery colored Huo Yanji’s cold features: “There couldn’t have been a researcher living in the deep underground helping him complete evolution.”

 

Not only that, but as the sole survivor, Huo Feng refused to speak about everything he encountered underground.

 

What he saw, what he heard, where the other 137 people went—he wouldn’t reveal any of it, only saying the same words as Luce’s recording back then—

 

“Not all truth should be pursued.”

 

Later, Huo Feng’s abnormality and silence were diagnosed as ‘survivor syndrome.’ Of course, this was just an excuse the higher-ups casually assigned to reassure him and everyone else.

 

Everyone understood that there really was something down there, something humans shouldn’t know about, shouldn’t investigate.

 

At the time, the Supreme Court was in an awkward position. Although they had developed methods for contaminated gene fusion, implementation wasn’t going smoothly.

 

Humans had their pride and were unwilling to become subordinate to monsters.

 

The accidentally infected Huo Feng was an opportunity. He was powerful and rational, still possessing a human’s handsome appearance, only revealing his terrifying and shocking side during battle. With a casual gesture, his tentacles could drill out of the ground a hundred meters away, killing anyone or anything he wanted to kill. It was said he could produce so many tentacles that he could easily demolish a city.

 

So the higher-ups shaped him into a bright and magnificent image, giving him the title of hero. They manipulated the survivors’ thoughts, making them willing to walk the path of no return, becoming weapons burning with passion.

 

They gave this a nice-sounding name—’evolution.’

 

Although some people wondered whether what crawled out from 8,000 meters underground was really Huo Feng, or a monster skilled at disguise who was playing with everyone.

 

Maybe the monster had just stripped off Huo Feng’s human skin and was mixing among humans, playing a game.

 

But these dissenting voices were ultimately suppressed by the higher-ups desperate for survival. The mainstream at the time elevated Huo Feng to a god-like existence, humanity’s only hope for reaching dawn.

 

Sang Jue was a bit confused: “But ordinary people really have trouble dealing with monsters, so ‘evolution’ is actually a good thing. This way humans have hope. Why do you say it’s a path of no return?”

 

Huo Yanji looked at Sang Jue’s tail, which represented his deviant characteristics. The black scales were fine and exquisite, and because of his confusion, the tail naturally curved into a question mark.

 

Cute, yet also pitiful.

 

Everyone was a puppet with manipulated thoughts, led by the nose.

 

“Sang Jue.” Dark waves that Sang Jue couldn’t understand churned in Huo Yanji’s eyes as he said hoarsely, “I can’t tell you.”

 

Huo Yanji had already said too much.

 

But since they had found this notebook, some things would be revealed sooner or later.

 

Sang Jue expressed understanding, repeating what Huo Yanji had said earlier: “I understand. Everyone has secrets, and even friends won’t be completely honest with each other.”

 

He held the notebook and continued reading Ivan’s diary: “They came back, but also didn’t come back. No matter what I ask, they don’t answer me—no expressions, no words, just like monsters possessed by demons.

 

There’s a puddle of liquid on the ground. I can’t tell if I pissed myself or came from fear.”

 

“…” Huo Yanji pinched the bridge of his nose. “Stop reading, I’ll look at it myself.”

 

Sang Jue said, “But I want to read it too.”

 

Huo Yanji said, “We can read it together.”

 

Sang Jue asked: “Reading aloud is more immersive—am I not reading well?”

 

“…Good.”

 

Sang Jue asked: “Then can I continue?”

 

“…Yes.” Huo Yanji checked the time. “Finish after they come back.”

 

The soldier standing guard a few meters away had already been moved to the door by Huo Yanji. Sang Jue’s expression was pure—he truly didn’t know that reading these suggestive sentences in a calm, innocent tone would stir up thoughts in others, especially men.

 

Although even if Sang Jue did nothing, he could easily provoke others’ thoughts.

 

His face wasn’t childish, somewhere between youth and young adulthood. When he smiled lightly, his eyes curved into crescents, his thick lashes were like natural eyeliner, and his lips had a crimson color, very lustrous.

 

Just the base nature of men.

 

They all liked pure, blank-slate prey that could be easily controlled and manipulated at will, then discarded like worn shoes after being defiled.

 

Sang Jue didn’t know why Huo Yanji said this: “Why? Can’t they know the contents of the notebook?”

 

“No.” Huo Yanji said flatly, “This would make others want to bully you.”

 

Sang Jue found the blind spot: “Do you want to bully me too?”

 

Huo Yanji reminded him: “Are you still reading?”

 

“Reading…”

 

Sang Jue continued to the next page: “Calling them monsters isn’t quite right either. They just lost their ‘humanity,’ lost their desires.

 

Unlike the monsters on the surface, they seem to have no desire to contaminate living beings. They ignored me, sitting at their respective desks as before.

 

I mustered courage to get some rats and brought them to them, but they remained unmoved—not eating, not drinking, not sleeping, not resting, just watching me… watching me.

 

I stayed awake all night, listening to the thunderous roar from the surface penetrating the rift—the apocalypse had truly arrived.

 

Maybe the next moment a meteor would crash into the rift, and I’d die in flames—just one second, no pain, no torment.

 

But even if no meteor crashed down, I’d soon die from radiation, since the base was at the edge of the rift.

 

I dozed off for a while, and when I woke up, the ‘colleagues’ who had returned were gone. Their clothes were scattered on the ground, as if they’d suddenly weathered away.

 

I searched every corner of the base but found nothing. Where did they go? How could they vanish into thin air?”

 

…

 

“They came back again, hahahahaha no no, IT came back… and brought back more people. Immortality, truly immortality! Undying ‘flesh,’ indestructible ‘souls’!

 

Hahahaha… maybe, maybe this is the best ending. If humanity is doomed to perish, this is the best way to continue!

 

But why, why won’t you take me?

 

Why must I remain alone, conscious and alone in madness? Damn Luce, even after becoming a monster, you won’t let me join your team?

 

Although they’ve become the same form, I can still recognize which colleague each represents by their height, their shape.

 

Luce, I’d recognize you even if you turned to ash.”

 

…

 

“I decided to do something meaningful before dying. I found a protective suit and followed them to the surface.

 

The surface was filled with smoke and the smell of contamination, pitch black, corpses everywhere, cries of anguish filling the air.

 

A hand suddenly grabbed my ankle.

 

It was a survivor. Half his body had melted into liquid, fused with the dead wood beside him, yet he still pleaded desperately: ‘Save me, save me… you’re from the military sent to rescue us, right? I can survive, don’t give up on me, please…’

 

I knew he was doomed. His flesh and bones were melting from radiation, becoming one with the earth was just a matter of time.

 

I couldn’t lose track of them, but this survivor gripped with surprising strength. I couldn’t break free, so I could only cruelly tell him the truth: ‘You’ve been abandoned. No one’s coming to save you. Those who can really survive have already hidden in the underground city. You’re all discarded, meaningless existences for continuing human civilization.’

 

Sure enough, after hearing this, he released his grip in a daze, unable to believe that the Supreme Court, which had always emphasized ‘under collapse there are no national divisions, no racial divisions, no gender divisions—all beings are an indivisible collective that must walk toward dawn together,’ would make the decision to abandon hundreds of millions of compatriots.

 

His spiritual pillar collapsed.

 

How could I be any different? I said ‘you,’ but I was also among the abandoned. Reason and resentment intertwined—rationally knowing the Court’s decision was right, that in the apocalypse there must be choices, yet hatefully thinking, weren’t you the ones who once proclaimed ‘every life is equal and incomparable’?

 

We grew up on chicken soup and died in the collapse of idealistic utopia.

 

Those who lived in prehistoric civilization might never know that the ideal nation they pursued was themselves, their era was the most perfect utopia.

 

And we can never return to that former brightness.

 

The world has completely collapsed, overflowing with cries. Radiation prevents the victims from shedding tears, but their spiritual worlds are raining madly.

 

They remained conscious and mutated into terrifying forms—

 

Some grew bone spikes from their backs, their entire bodies covered in foul-smelling pustules.

 

Some were skeletal, with elongated eye sockets and sharpened faces, like the ugly aliens from movies.

 

Others had softened bones with stretched limbs, like the monsters from an apocalypse game I used to play. I had once shot at these monsters with endless bullets in the game, rat-a-tat-tat… never imagining that one day I’d see them in reality.

 

But I only had a pistol, unable to end their suffering with endless bullets like in the game.

 

I’m a miser. I only want to save myself.

 

The bullets in the gun are saved for myself—I’ll surely need them someday.”

 

…

 

“My ‘colleagues’ didn’t act as a group but scattered in different directions. Gritting my teeth, I followed Luce, whom I’d always envied most.

 

I envied his talent, his purity.

 

He was full of passion, getting excited like a child when making new discoveries. I used to think he was hypocritical, saying things like he couldn’t disappoint the billions of compatriots who had expectations of him, that he’d spend his life researching the source of contamination, that he’d save everyone.

 

But seeing what was before me, I realized he wasn’t hypocritical.

 

He was serious. Even after becoming a monster, he still tirelessly saved humanity.

 

Several tentacles burst from ‘Luce’s’ body, like a new breed of contamination monster, piercing through the bodies of those wailing compatriots with their thin, sharp tips.

 

‘He’ assimilated these compatriots who were suffering from radiation.

 

I understood.

 

So ‘Luce’ didn’t reject me—it was that each time he went out, he could only assimilate once, so he had to choose groups, to free as many people as possible, bringing them back to the rift, back to the base that ‘Luce’ considered home.

 

Back at the base, they seemed to relax. No longer maintaining the eerie faceless human forms, they became puddles of mercury-like liquid matter, all wriggling toward each other, completely merging into one, no distinction between you and me, no distinction between head and foot.”

 

…

 

“I began studying them.

 

Each time they went out, they inevitably brought back a new wave of ‘companions,’ but this puddle of liquid matter didn’t grow larger, nor did the quantity increase much—only the mass would multiply several times.

 

But each time they went out and returned, they became weaker, perhaps because assimilating the surface victims required enormous energy.

 

Only after sufficient rest would they transform back into human forms, continuing to assimilate more victims and bring them back.

 

What exactly were they? Advanced humans who had completely escaped death and time, achieving immortality?

 

They were without impurities, without desires, without complex thoughts—their goal pure and singular:

 

To rescue the suffering people on the surface.

 

Perhaps this wasn’t rescue—this was just the effort monsters made to get more companions, like how reproduction is instinct for all humans and animals.

 

But seeing those victims on the surface who were cruelly abandoned and tortured by radiation sickness, I’d rather believe this was rescue.

 

I increasingly couldn’t understand whether these liquid substances around me—who completely ignored me and had transcended biological categories—were just a new type of monster, or a gift from the divine to humanity.

 

Did my colleagues become them, or did they become my colleagues?

 

As their numbers increased, I gradually couldn’t tell which one was Luce anymore—after all, they all had no facial features, no characteristics, not even gender.

 

My body also had problems. I started coughing blood, my skin slowly becoming fluorescent, the bags under my eyes rivaling those of hanged ghosts in movies, my skin slowly sagging—I was going to melt.

 

Maybe I should go to the surface again, mix in with some victim group, and wait for one of them to assimilate me, then carry me home over mountains and rivers.

 

I think they should still be my colleagues. They showed no interest in birds flying in the sky, fish swimming in water, or various animals and plants in the forest—

 

Only obsessed with humans.

 

Only obsessed with the ‘collective.’

 

Luce and the other colleagues, after receiving the divine gift of immortality, still didn’t forget the billions of compatriots outside. Day after day, year after year, they did only one thing—free the victims from suffering.

 

I think a deity might live in the depths of the rift.

 

I must be crazy—I’m a scientific researcher. How can I believe in theology?

 

But after the collapse, everything we studied told us how ridiculous the science we once took pride in was. There are still so many incomprehensible substances on this planet, yet we presumed to reach toward the universe.

 

Humans are so fragile.

 

The energy humans possess is merely a fragment of ice beneath the tip of an iceberg.

 

Perhaps this contamination is the planet’s contempt arising from our arrogance.

 

It wants us to be humble.”

 

…

 

“I still can’t decide whether to become one with them.

 

Perhaps I’m still somewhat afraid. As I fondle my completely shriveled member, I write this final diary entry. When I finish enjoying the last pleasure, I’ll raise the gun and kill myself.

 

I still refuse to become one of them. The previous me was indeed mad, but the me who returns to lucidity before death, with human pride, leaves these wild words—

 

Those not of my race are all monsters.”

 

…

 

Ivan’s handwriting ended abruptly here. Although the sentences were still coherent, they carried an indescribable madness.

 

He ultimately used a bullet to free his flesh and soul.

 

Some figures gradually appeared in the caves outside the base, but they weren’t Shui Ming and the others who had left.

 

They had fallen into the abyss, yet tirelessly climbed back up, returning to their ‘nest.’

 

**

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