Chapter 42 - "Then you Disappoint me Even More Than An Zhe."
"I can't believe that the magnificent Arbiter can only remain confined in my laboratory." Dr. Ji put the stack of materials in his arms onto the table. He asked sarcastically,
"Do you need me to bring you food?"
The one sitting on the armchair originally belonging toDr. Ji was not the doctor himself, but the Arbiter, clad in a black uniform. With a nonchalant bearing, his arms were folded and his long legs were crossed. A silver badge was missing from his chest, but the silver trimmings on the uniform itself filled in the blank space, rendering his attire and appearance as impeccable as always.
Frosty eyes scanned the silvery-white laboratory. "Do you think I'm staying here willingly?"
"I recommend that you be a little nicer to me. I'm not asking for much, just that we recover one percent of the friendship we had when we were younger," the doctor said. "You need to clearly recognize and understand the situation here. The Trial Court cannot even protect itself. If even I— your sole friend in this base—hadn't taken you in, youwould've promptly been torn to shreds by the people outside. I heard that the United Front Center held three meetings in a row on the subject of whether the Arbiter's qualification to surpass all other authority and kill people, as laid out in the Arbiter's Code, should be abolished or not."
With those words, he winked slyly. "You chose to come back from the wilderness. Do you regret it now?"
He had intended to stir up Lu Feng's emotions, but failed to do so. When compared to before Lu Feng heard those words, his expression had not changed in the least.
Ever since contactless gene pollution and the composition exchanges between inanimate matter werediscovered, the base had fallen into an atmosphere of desperate unease. Perhaps the magnetic poles would be defeated by distortion in the very next moment and theywould become monsters, become objects, or become one with this base of iron and steel. These eight thousand people were the elites and the leaders of the military and the Lighthouse, the most exceptional of the existing humans. Precisely because of their exceptional intelligence, they were better able to sense the horror of the inexorablyapproaching doomsday. The dying base maintained a tense peace that was like a lake surface covered with a thin layer of ice; it appeared solid, but in fact, a single tossed stone was all it would take for everything to come crumbling down.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fгeewebnovёl.co𝙢.
The cause was a shooting that occurred ten days earlier.
"If it had been anyone else, it would have blown over. You..." The doctor looked at the Arbiter, who was completely indifferent to anything he said, and gritted his teeth.
The person killed was a respected scientist of the Lighthouse. In the areas of trajectory calculation and ammunition improvement, he had made remarkable contributions—and thus was a luminary within the realm of military projects. Naturally, all the researchers within that realm supported his juniors, and the people of the military also revered him.
Ten days ago, Lu Feng and Seraing ran into this scholar in a corridor of the United Front Center, and they had even greeted each other by way of nodding.
However, right as they passed each other, Lu Feng pulled out the gun clipped to Seraing's waist. His marksmanship was as precise as always, and his pull of the trigger was both swift and decisive. The bullet squarely struck the back of the ammunition expert's head, and blood sprayed like a firework as his corpse pitched forward and toppled to the ground.
This incident alarmed almost the whole base.
Students and friends of the deceased existed throughout the base. Claiming that the deceased had a sharp mind, polite bearing, gentle disposition, and no signs of infection whatsoever, they demanded that the Trial Court give an explanation.
But a living person had died, and because the wave ofsubstance fusions two months ago had ruined the core components of the gene testing instruments, their operations were completely halted, so no proof to support the Arbiter's judgment could be found. In this regard, theArbiter's only statement was that he acted in full accordance with the rules and regulations of the Trials.
Many old matters were dug up, and the calls demanding that the Trial Court make its rules public reached theirpeak during this time. However, limited to the power granted to the Trial Court by the Arbiter's Code, they had no way of sending Lu Feng to the military court, so the controversy over the Code also reached its climax at thattime as well. A young man named Colin, who claimed to be the pioneer of the original Outer City's anti-Trial movement, escaped the calamity that left only eight thousand people alive in the Main City because he himself was a teacher working in the Garden of Eden. Now, this hot-blooded young man was once again shouting the slogans that had once resounded throughout the Outer City. At the same time, he attacked the merciless trampling of human nature by the military's other institutions with all his might, and he swiftly garnered a large number of faithful supporters.
In response, after a long silence, the United Front Center chose to do all in its power to suppress him. However, the humans at the base were mainly members of the Lighthouse and the Garden of Eden. Their strength was limited, and they could not be merciless. Now, if a single person died, humankind would lose one out of eight thousand. A riot occurring in a chaotic society of eight thousand people seemed to be an unsolvable quandary. In the midst of this tempest, a piece of little-known historical data was unearthed from the Lighthouse and spread throughout the base like wildfire.
It was a top-secret file belonging to the "Fusion Faction" from many years ago. People were very secretive about the faction's existence, but they truly did have undisputed scientific research capabilities. Over ten years of experiments and observations, they came up with an estimated probability—of the living people who had been genetically infected, they had a one-in-ten-thousand chance of retaining a certain degree of their human consciousness while obtaining monster characteristics, and one in sixtyfive hundred may recover a certain degree of their human consciousness within three years of completely becoming a monster.
To make matters worse, the data was accompanied by a dispassionate remark. One in ten thousand and one in sixtyfive hundred were only theoretical estimates. In reality, the true probabilities may be slightly higher.
The day this data was leaked, the entire base went into a furor.
In response, Colin wrote a lengthy essay, the topic of which was "A Hundred Years of the Trial Court— Unverifiable Sins."
At the same time, a crazed soldier hid outside the Trial Court and fired at the Arbiter. It was said that his beloved commanding officer and comrades all died to the Arbiter'sgun, but unfortunately, in every aspect, the Arbiter was an officer a hundred times better than him and the bullet failed to strike true. But this action inspired others. Instantly, the Trial Court became a target in various meanings of the term.
Until Jibran submitted an application to the Lighthouse.
Dr. Ji brought up that the spore sample from the Abyss showed an unprecedented inertia against infection and being infected, against distortion and being distorted. If they could understand the mechanism via research and apply it to the human body, humans may also be able to acquire this valuable characteristic. However, this strange and lively spore displayed an extraordinary closeness with the Trial Court's Colonel Lu. When it came into contact with the Colonel, its growth speed and cell activity would both increase.
Therefore, Colonel Lu had to cooperate with this research project, and the base also had to guarantee the Colonel's personal safety, for this may be where the last hope of humankind lay.
Only then did a certain Colonel named Lu appear in Dr. Ji's laboratory.
"The estimated three months are almost up. Althoughthere's a lack of definite proof, the destiny of humankind is counting down." Dr. Ji sat down next to Lu Feng. "The Main City never cared about the Arbiter system before, but now, just like the former Outer City, they are about to face trial. You must understand, once the magnetic poles are vanquished by the distortion, everyone will be at risk of being infected, and everyone will be faced with a trial. All of them might die at the end of your gun. Although the Trial Court has done nothing yet, it has already become the enemy in their minds. Full-scale distortion will come eventually. They hope to achieve the one-in-ten-thousand or one-in-sixty-five-hundred, and taking you down will allow them to live a little longer. It has nothing to do with your own actions, fear of death is a biological instinct."
With those words, he frowned slightly and murmured, "Over all these years, no matter how much the Trial Court had been pressured, not even a single word of the Trial rules has been divulged. I believe that you people must have reasons that compel you to be like this. But actually,I've always wanted to ask you a different question. Regarding the Fusion Faction's data, did you previously... know about it or not?"
Lu Feng looked past him and at the spore floating in the green culture solution.
Because he was in the room, the spore's hyphae were loosely unfurled. It had grown bigger, its core now the size of a person's palm.
"Any results?" he asked flatly.
"Unfortunately, no. It's a fraud, just like that wretched little An Zhe. Its only function now is to serve as your shield, and how long it can shield you for is a mystery." Dr. Ji looked into Lu Feng's eyes.
Those eyes—those green eyes. The Northern Base was a place where Asians dominated and other people lived mixed in. Black eyes were undoubtedly ordinary, but as for other colors—even blue and brown were not uncommon, but this frosty green was really too peculiar. Sometimes he would get the impression that this was some sort of emotionless inorganic matter, just like this man's usual gaze.
It was as though no matter how many people he killed, no matter how others treated him, he would remain unmoved. There was no need to understand, much less forgive. All along, he had maintained this aloofness.
A weak frustration suffused the doctor's mind.
"I shouldn't be concerned about you, much less try to comfort you. You don't care at all." He took a deep breath and spread his hands in a shrug. "Every time I try toconvince myself that you're a good person, you tell me with your actions that in terms of being emotionless, you really are... really are a fucking prodigy."
He examined Lu Feng's face—the man's facial features were so elegant and strong that it was like he was a sculpted mannequin, but unfortunately the material was ice that would not melt for ten thousand years. The situation outside was so tense that the doctor feared someone would smash the laboratory door and hurl rocks at the Arbiter in the very next moment, but from the expression of the man himself, no signs of internal pain or torment could be seen. On the contrary, the man's slightly drooping eyelashes possessed a sedate calmness, like a ghostly black butterfly stopping to rest on the dignified window lattice of a temple.
The abolition of the Arbiter's Code had not yet been decided, so in the electronic system, the limit of Lu Feng's authority was as lofty as before. Currently, the computer screen next to him was still playing the real-timesurveillance footage of the base's crowded areas, confirming that no one was infected.
In resignation, the doctor did not hold back with his sardonic words. "I'm really curious as to what expression you will have on the day you get sent to the gallows by everyone at the base."
With that, he stared straight into Lu Feng's eyes, trying to catch the shift in his mood, but unfortunately Lu Feng's attention was not drawn to this fierce gaze at all. What he'd been looking at the entire time was the spore, or the entire culturing instrument, or perhaps something in the empty space within it.
"Thank you," that cold voice said. "I deserve it."
The doctor relaxed and then once again clenched the fist he was resting on the table. At last, he dejectedly leaned against the back of the chair and said, "I should just push you out there. You've gone mad ages ago."
"I'm very lucid." Lu Feng finally turned his gaze back to him. "Does the laboratory have anything I can help with?"
"Watch over your little fungus and make it grow faster," the doctor said. "If you can, keep an eye on the research institute's communication channel for me."
———
The Arbiter was confined in the Lighthouse, but this ferventriot did not conclude with compromise between both parties. Instead, it worsened.
People stopped working to hold demonstrations against the base. The site for their collective demonstration was at the entrance to the artificial magnetic pole apparatus.
According to deceptive rumors, the base's policy-makers were incandescent with rage. But during this time when everything was in chaos, they no longer had absolutecontrol. In the end, they made a great concession—the Trial Court's right to kill was temporarily removed. Although themembers of the Trial Court still conducted inspections, the suspected infected individuals discovered during their inspections were not immediately killed, but taken to a military training camp at the other end of the base andimprisoned apart from each other for observation. Secondly, denied possession of firearms, the Arbiter himself remained in the Lighthouse's laboratory to cooperate with their research, unable to go out—it was difficult to saywhether this was the base's protection for the Arbiter, or perhaps a precaution against him.
The atmosphere in the base finally relaxed. After all,their primary target was Lu Feng himself. As this generation's Arbiter, Colonel Lu's arbitrariness and bloodthirstiness astounded everyone. Supposing the Trial Court executed five thousand people in a year, forty-five hundred of those people would have fallen to his gun—theremaining five hundred's executions at the hands of the other Judges were because the Arbiter was not present at the Trial Court due to forces beyond human control.
After a brief calm, people began berating the Lighthouse for not producing any notable progress for many days, and Jibran, who was in charge of this project, was Lu Feng's old friend. "The last hope of humankind" was clearly a misleading lie, a one-sided shield. They demanded that the Lighthouse either produce sufficient results to convince the public or hand over Lu Feng.
"By relying on how the human population cannot lose even one more life, they can do anything." The doctorpoured himself a glass of water. "Their words are deeply flawed, but this is the only way for them to give vent to their terror now."
As he spoke, he put the cup up to his lips, but his hand was trembling. Water splashed from out of the cup and landed on the table. The doctor forced down a mouthful, but then his face promptly showed a pained expression, and he bent double and retched continuously.
"I also live in great... great terror. I want to vomit," he said in a trembling voice. "A cold wave has already invaded. Winter is coming. The time when monsters are the most frenzied and most in need of nutrition has arrived."
"We all know that in the eyes of monsters, humans arebut a piece of meat dripping with fat. Even when the basewas at its zenith, monsters continually tried to attack," the doctor murmured with a smile. "Can you guess... when they'll discover that the human base has weakened to our current state? When will they assemble and storm the human base? ... Just like how they grouped up and stormed the Underground City Base."
Lu Feng said, "Calm down first."
"Do you think everyone is emotionless like you? The essence of humans lies in their capability for empathy. Panic spreads exponentially in a crowd, like a virus. At this sort of time, the fact that you are able to keep calm instead proves the... the fearsome extent of your inhumanity." The doctor took a few deep breaths. Sometimes, harsh language could allow people to relax. He looked like he had finally recovered a little. "Please pass on this quality of yours to me through infection. When you can no longer continue working, what are you thinking?"
Lu Feng nonchalantly looked at him. "Humanity's interests take precedence over all else."
The doctor let out a resigned laugh.
After he finished laughing, he took a deep breath. Seeming to have finally calmed down, he came over to the large Petri dish that held the spore.
"They actually think that a little white fungus can save all humankind. This is the funniest thing I've ever heard. In fact, the composition of that fungus is no different from what we use to make mushroom soup." With clear articulation, the doctor repeated the words of outsiders. He resembled a strict teacher who was scolding students with failing grades. "Do you hear me? If things continue like this, they will cook you into a bowl of mushroom soup sooner or later. You must take the initiative to show how you are different from all the rest."
The snow-white hyphae trembled in the nutrient solution, and the spore slowly drifted in Lu Feng's direction. It pressed right up against the inner wall of the glass, as if by doing so it could get closer to Lu Feng.
Lu Feng said in a low voice, "Don't scare it."
"It understands, I bet it understands. Over the past several days, we've fed it countless monster extracts, and itate them all. An Zhe is a little monster with a polymorphicclass mutation, so it must be the same for his spore as well," the doctor said. "If it didn't have its own consciousness and intellect, it definitely wouldn't escape its imprisonment and sleep with you every night."
"So what about your progress?" Lu Feng frowned slightly.
"It ate so many monster genes, but it's still the samespore. It's absolutely stable. Those gene extracts definitely didn't disappear. I surmise that it can subjectively control the transformation of its own shape, like how An Zhe could change into a human," the doctor said. "If humans can also have this kind of quality, we wouldn't be afraid of the distortions."
"You people wish to use it to infect humans," Lu Feng said. "Are you not afraid of all the infected individuals being taken over by the mushroom's consciousness?"
"We haven't yet reached the point of thinking about thisproblem yet." The doctor rested his forehead on the glass.
"... The key point is that this damned little thing won't infect others at all. An Zhe and it disappoint me equally."
While he was talking, the spore once again floated to the surface of the nutrient solution of its own volition and climbed up slowly, then flowed out from the crevice between the lid and main part of the Petri dish. It fell down and was caught in Lu Feng's hand, where it lazily lay just like a carefree... little fellow.
Its various actions showed that to a certain degree, it was indeed a creature with subjective awareness.
"It is capable of movement and can think, but it doesn't even have a nervous system," the doctor said. "Do you know what this means? I'm a biologist. The phenomenon of distortion made the physicists' body of knowledge collapse, and the existence of this spore destroyed my body of knowledge."
The Arbiter had no interest or need to pay attention tohow a biologist's knowledge was destroyed. As he held the soft mass of hyphae in his hand, Lu Feng asked, "How did An Zhe disappoint you?"
"He didn't have any infectivity to speak of, either." The doctor pulled himself together and sighed. "The bedsharing relationship between you two—you're still a human, without any indication whatsoever of being infected. Your will also hasn't been influenced by him to become kinder, not even by an iota. Just like his spore, he can't infect people."
Lu Feng gave him a flat look, seeming to be contemplating something. Just as Dr. Ji assumed he was about to say something of value, the Colonel said, "I haven't bedded him."
The doctor stared straight at him. "Then you disappoint me even more than An Zhe."
———
An Zhe woke up from a comfortable dream.
In the dream, he didn't have eyes, a nose, or any of the other organs that all humans sensed with. He seemed to have gone back to a very, very far-off past, a time when he was deeply buried in soft, damp soil. But it was by no means soil. He seemed to be somewhere not far from Lu Feng. His proximity to the Colonel's breaths was even closer than his proximity to death.
After opening his eyes, he dazedly looked at the gray ceiling. This entire time, he had been trying hard to avoid thinking about the people and things in the Northern Base.
He could feel the fading of his memories, having almost forgotten the appearances and mannerisms of Poet, the doctor, and Colin. Everything that had happened in that city was gradually disappearing, but Lu Feng appeared with increasing frequency in his dreams.
Sometimes when he opened his eyes, in his disoriented state, he would feel that the man was right at his side. The deep green vine leaves hanging next to the window had not yet withered when they were covered by a layer of white frost, turning them a crystalline color. It was like Lu Feng's eyes were looking at him.
But the icy chill of the outer world swiftly enveloped him again.
Outside the window, leaden clouds hung low over the mountaintops, and the hard ground at the summit bloomed with frost. Winter had arrived.
The people of the Highland Research Institute took extra care of him as always. Ten days ago, he received a knitted woolen scarf and a pair of rabbit fur gloves. Every day, he left the main building while bundled up in these warm things and went to stay in Pauli's laboratory in the white building.
The Simpson cage consumed vast amounts of electricity, while the capacity of the wind turbines was limited. Every day, it could only be turned on for two hours. The rest of the time, Pauli did other things. Sometimes, he taught An Zhe some physics or biology concepts, such as how everything was made up of molecules and atoms, and atoms could be split into electrons, protons and neutrons.
However, that was far from the end. As for what exactly made up the basis of the world's matter, nobody could see it.
"If a blind man wants to perceive the world, he can only reach out and touch things, but what he feels is obviously not the thing's entirety. Our understanding of the world is as shallow as the blind man's, doomed as we are to only see the facades. We have a lot of assumptions, but we're unable to verify whether they're correct or not," Pauli said.
As he spoke, the howling north wind on the mountaintop pushed open the laboratory window. The brown-skinned Indian man got up to close the window, and Pauli Jones gave An Zhe's scarf an upward tug.
The scarf wrapped around An Zhe's entire neck. Buried in the soft and warm fabric, he asked Pauli, "Are you not cold?"
"At my age, many parts have become dull." Pauli Jones looked at him with those warm gray-blue eyes, and An Zhe could see his own reflection within them, all wrapped up in white. But he didn't look for too long before he bowed his head and started coughing. Although it was so cold outside, it was like a fire was burning painfully in his lungs.
Pauli stroked his back, then held out the warm water that was on the table to him.
"Do we have any antibiotics left?" he asked the Indian man, whose name was Rum.
"We still have some."
After An Zhe finished coughing, he took the medicine while trembling. A charcoal brazier had been lit in the room, but he still felt very cold.
"I can't find the cause of your illness." Pauli wiped away the fine layer of cold sweat from the side of An Zhe's forehead with his fingers. With pain evident in his gray-blue eyes, he murmured, "And there aren't any advanced instruments here... I apologize."
An Zhe shook his head. "It's all right."
Pauli had said that humankind's understanding of theworld would always be shallow, and sometimes An Zhe also thought that his own understanding of humans was only a facade. When he had returned to the Abyss, he never expected to receive such hospitality from humans.
For example, Pauli was no medical expert, but because of An Zhe's body that was weakening day by day, he began to read the medical literature contained in the database.Rum helped with the search as well.
Sometimes An Zhe felt guilty because of their sincerity since he was not human. It was like he stole these acts of kindness while draped in a human skin. He began fearing the exposure of his original form on the day of his death.
He once told Pauli that there was no need to take such troubles. At the time, Pauli felt the temperature of An Zhe's forehead with the back of his hand and murmured, "You're like my own child."
When Pauli wasn't around, he asked Rum in a roundabout way why Pauli would be so kind to him.
Rum's reply was that Mr. Pauli loved everyone here.
"Before I came to the research institute, half of my body was broken and mildewed, and I was not lucid." Rum rolledup his pants legs, revealing sturdy lower legs that were covered with hideous scars and earthworm-like protrusions. The usually taciturn man spoke a lot.
"Regardless of day or night, Mr. Pauli treated me for half a year. In the past, I did not believe there could be such a person in the world either."
Then he said, "I used to not be a good person. When I was a mercenary, I hurt my teammates. Now I've saved three compatriots from the outside, which counts as my atonement. It's not bad to be a good person, and it's better to be a person than a monster. Many people in the research institute are like me. No one disrespects Mr. Pauli."
An Zhe clearly remembered that at that time he had suddenly thought of Lu Feng for no reason—an inexplicable association. He was thinking about how Lu Feng was doing now. Then he shook his head, driving the shadow of that guy who was Pauli's polar opposite out of his mind.
Rum was an amateur music lover. When he had nothing else to do, he would practice playing the harmonica while looking at an old music score. Sometimes he taught An Zhe as well, and the sound was pleasing to the ear. But Rumsaid that humans used to have instruments that were thousands of times more wonderful than the harmonica, and together, they could perform symphonies of unparalleled grandiosity.
When he said that, Pauli came over to them and said jokingly, "If Rum had been born a hundred years earlier, he would have definitely been an outstanding musician."
The always reticent Rum smiled. Then he would take out a shabby old radio, turn the tape over, and press the play button, and intense or gentle rhythms would come out from the rusty machine. It was the sound of countless types of instruments being played together, each with their own timbres and melodies that combined together to form another magnificent sound. The music flowed and reverberated in this laboratory with the burning charcoal.
At the bottom of the white building, a man whose left arm had transformed into a beast's paw waved in their direction, and Rum hung the radio on the handrail outside and turned up the volume.
Airy and flowing music traveled through the window that was covered with blooms of frost. On the tape, there was an announcement before the music played. This was Beethoven's Spring Sonata. With cheek resting in hand, An Zhe listened. Springtime in the Abyss was also very beautiful, but he probably could not see it anymore.
It was at this time that he received a short message from the Northern Base.
The communication channel, which had long been silent, flashed with red light—in the address list, there was only one anonymous party.
An Zhe pulled up the communication interface. The short message sent by the anonymous party contained only two lines made up of ten or so words.
"Winter has come."
"The monsters' behaviors are different. Stay safe."
An Zhe enlarged the words and turned back to look at Pauli. "Sir."
"A message from the Northern Base's Dr. Ji," Pauli said.
"Over the past several years, only he has been constantly communicating with me in secret."
The words "Dr. Ji" sent An Zhe into a daze. He asked, "... Do you want to reply?"
"Yes," Pauli said warmly. "Please reply for me."
———
The Northern Base.
The communication channel lit up. It was a short reply from the Highland Research Institute.
"Message received."
"Thank you for the reminder. Please be sure to stay safe as well."
The doctor walked past the communication screen.
"Colonel Lu, tsk." The tone of his voice lifted up. "It's hard to imagine that the Arbiter would do such a thing. You're unexpectedly still a good person."
Lu Feng's gaze was flat as he looked at the words on the screen.
"Who is the other party?" he asked.
"Someone you definitely couldn't have thought of," Dr. Ji said. "Pauli Jones."