Chapter 233: We Are All Their Children

Chapter 233 – We Are All Their Children

Chen Jian was looking at a transmission log.

Or, more precisely, a chat record.

The file catalogued every tangled, petty detail of the underground nuclear complex’s operation, and was saturated with the drab, flavorless notices of system self‑checks, anomaly alarms, and maintenance reminders.

This log should have held little value.

Yet because “people” were present, because communication existed, even in a glimpse through a keyhole, Fuxi swiftly extracted a thread of useful information.

A living “history” unfolded before Chen Jian in a relatively complete form, and as he settled his mind to read the record that Fuxi had compiled, he felt himself drawn into an era that was both his future and his past.

December 31, 2026 – on the last day of that year, the survivors finally opened the underground nuclear works near the Imperial City.

From the snippets of the chat, Fuxi concluded that beforehand they had painstakingly gathered every survivor they could locate, forming a settlement of nearly thirty souls.

After that, they spent a year to activate the most crucial Project 001, with the support of the Fuxi system.

Their first act was not to resume production, but to seek the truth behind the Great Cataclysm.

They scoured every nearby research institute, archive, and library; the untrained crowd pooled all their wits and made full use of Fuxi’s aid, yet in the end they arrived at an answer no more precise than the one Chen Jian had first obtained.

The cause of the cataclysm had outstripped humanity’s current technology and understanding; before larger‑scale experiments could be conducted, even the most powerful artificial intelligence could not infer a plausible answer from the existing data.

Upon receiving this reply, the survivors gathered in the Imperial City temporarily abandoned the quest for an “answer.”

They turned to the search for more survivors and gradually expanded the settlement’s size.

That period was peaceful and smooth for them.

They faced no great threats; the only problem was that, with all networks severed, contacting survivors by radio was not easy.

The reason was simple.

Not everyone knew how to use a radio.

Moreover, for most people, even the modest act of running a generator to power their living quarters was a struggle.

Yet, despite that, they persisted—exploring again and again, calling out again and again—until they had scoured the environs of the Imperial City and gathered over two hundred survivors.

United, they collected food, organized equipment, set up education, and steered the whole base toward a flourishing direction.

Then, one day, someone proposed opening the underground nuclear works.

From that day onward, this precious record was finally preserved.

From December 31, 2046, through February 2047, the entries were as plain as water.

A survivor named Wang He, stationed there, reported daily to the Imperial City base on the status of the nuclear arsenal and on his own work schedule.

Chen Jian saw that he occasionally complained to others in the base.

He found the work unbearably dull and thought there was no need to maintain such a massive nuclear stockpile.

After all, humanity on Earth was nearly extinct; the enemy who might wield those weapons no longer existed.

He wanted to seal the arsenal forever, but the decision‑making body in the Imperial City base was simple.

The situation was uncertain; the weapons might never be needed, yet they had to remain “ready.”

So he suppressed his restlessness and stayed.

Fortunately, his post was not fixed.

On February 6, he spent a special New Year’s Day with everyone at the base.

In March, he was assigned to the base’s reconnaissance squad for a two‑month field expedition.

When he returned to the nuclear works, his mood seemed relaxed, and his demeanor in conversation improved markedly.

“We can’t find any living people near the Imperial City; radio responses are dwindling.”

“What a pity. The day before yesterday, when we reached Baoding, a survivor there happened to—”

“Ah, in short, he didn’t make it.”

“The fever from infection was too high; by the time we got there it was already too late.”

“But the others were rescued.”

“Now we have 340 people. Tell me, if we keep pushing, can we gather the whole nation’s survivors in the Imperial City?”

He chatted with the communications officer at the Imperial City base about the camp’s condition, and from their words Chen Jian saw a settlement that kept swelling.

The first steel mill came online, the first field was sown, the artificial lake was turned into a fish pond; someone suggested a mulberry‑fish integrated economy, only to discover that mulberry leaves could not be grown in the north.

These not‑so‑professional survivors often resembled a “mob,” yet they were brimming with vigor and resolve.

More and more survivors were found, and within months the Imperial City base swelled beyond five hundred souls.

At that point, a virtuous cycle had begun.

Food was no longer an issue; safety was assured.

The usual post‑apocalyptic tropes of “infighting” and “power struggles” never materialized.

A leadership structure was erected, and the first Five‑Year Plan passed.

Wang He seemed to have many objections to that plan.

While chatting with the base’s communications officer, he floated his thoughts with boundless imagination.

“In fact, we don’t need to prioritize agriculture; the population size is already almost steady.”

“Finding more survivors is hard, and the settlements that have already formed have no intention of joining us for now.”

“Villages fight on their own now, so we should pursue some specialized development.”

“Yuecheng and the Pearl River Delta are pushing industry; we should focus on medicine, where we still have an edge.”

He had many ideas, but from Chen Jian’s perspective most were overly optimistic and idealistic.

Consequently, his suggestions were naturally rejected.

Yet he did not seem disgruntled about it.

When the first plan was set in motion, he obediently joined the “Great Agricultural Development” effort.

Each day, after his shift in the works, he would discuss the day’s farm work and his newly discovered tricks with the communications officer.

He grew increasingly proficient.

Breeding, grafting, fertilizing, pest control.

Clearly, he was not the only one making progress.

When the first plan concluded, aided by heavy machinery, the Imperial City base—now home to 1,200 people—had achieved self‑sufficiency in grain.

That New Year, the people tasted flour ground from wheat they had cultivated themselves for the first time.

Wang He ate thirty‑eight dumplings; before he retired to the works, he asked the communications officer to look for any unexpired digestive aid tablets.

But the officer came up empty.

So in the end, he lay down to sleep while his stomach protested.

That discomfort did not dampen his spirits.

After the customary report on the maintenance of the nuclear project, he turned to the distant correspondent and said:

“Life is finally looking up; we’re even getting to eat dumplings.”

“We have 1,200 people now; if all goes well, the next generation could swell to around five thousand.”

“Twenty years? Maybe at most thirty?”

“If productivity keeps pace, perhaps within a hundred years we could reach a population of ten million.”

“Restoring civilization isn’t that hard, is it?”

He kept his optimism, and it seemed the world was indeed unfolding according to his expectations.

When the first plan concluded smoothly, the second plan followed immediately.

Industrial capacity began to expand; leveraging the technology and equipment left by Project 001, the Imperial Capital base swiftly achieved self‑sufficiency in basic tools.

They began to produce their own steam engines, generators, and rudimentary internal‑combustion engines, and even built the first tracked steam locomotive since the great cataclysm.

Though its power paled in comparison to the professional machines of the pre‑disaster era, everyone cheered at the achievement.

Wang He still held fast to his post.

He rotated with other team members often, yet as his expertise grew, his duty cycles grew longer as well.

In 2053 he married.

In the five years that followed he fathered four children.

But from that year onward his mood suddenly grew heavy.

Anomalies began to surface within the base.

As if an accelerator had been pressed, those who were once in the prime of youth found themselves rapidly withering.

Wang He was no exception.

He sent a troubled message to the correspondent: “.I feel I’m about to collapse.”

“I’m not ill, but my body can’t hold on much longer.”

“I’m only forty; this shouldn’t be happening.”

“The leader is only thirty‑nine, yet when he died yesterday his face looked like that of a sixty‑ or seventy‑year‑old.”

“Do you think this could be some disease?”

“If it’s not a disease, could it be a lingering effect of radiation?”

He raised the question, but no answer came.

Over the next three years the Imperial Capital’s population plummeted.

Not only them—every other base they could contact faced the same crisis.

Thus the burden fell squarely on the Imperial Capital.

Project 001 stored a trove of cutting‑edge medical equipment, and during development they had also amassed a great many devices from the city itself.

The first phase of experiments began; during this period the work hub of the capital turned entirely to “investigating the cause of aging.”

Dissection, experimentation, research, verification.

This cycle repeated again and again, yet in the end they still found no answer.

The population kept dwindling.

In February 2058, Wang He died at his post.

His final message to the correspondent consisted of a single sentence.

“There are only a few days left before the New Year; this year you must eat a few extra dumplings for me.”

After his death, a new crew member took his place.

This newcomer did not seem to enjoy chatting with the correspondent as Wang He had, yet even his brief missives revealed a wealth of information.

The rate of population decline accelerated, and the average age of death fell steadily.

From an initial average of about forty‑five, it had dropped to thirty‑seven by 2075.

The base’s numbers had not yet stalled, for that death age still lay above the reproductive window.

Yet education was becoming increasingly untenable.

More and more youths, more and more children, made the transmission of knowledge and experience ever harder.

And during that very period, while the fifth plan was underway, a new strategy was put on the agenda.

A brain‑machine‑driven “immersive education” was deployed, intended to boost learning efficiency and ease the burden of knowledge transfer.

The approach clearly yielded results, but its side effects were stark.

Many suffered mental disturbances; because the ailments were relatively mild, the base’s leadership could only deem them a necessary cost.

Unfortunately, even so, the downward trend was not reversed.

In the thirtieth year of the Imperial Capital, the population slipped for the first time.

A base of nearly six thousand lost five hundred souls within a single year.

The situation had become urgent beyond measure.

So in the following five years they introduced new equipment.

Artificial wombs.

The gestation cycle was compressed to four months, and in a near‑hopeless, breakthrough‑free predicament they chose the simplest, most direct means to combat demographic decline.

This time, the young crew member who had succeeded Wang He voiced his thoughts to an equally young correspondent for the first time.

“We have to think of other ways. The second generation on the wasteland won’t live past thirty‑five either.”

“Just reproducing is meaningless; perhaps our genes are at fault.”

In truth, his view echoed that of the overwhelming majority within the base.

Thus, in 2086, the forty‑first year of the Imperial Capital’s existence, they embarked on a daring experiment.

Using well‑preserved gene‑editing apparatus, they “created” the first genetically edited embryo.

Ten months later that embryo, together with several hundred others, matured into a new generation of Imperial Capital citizens.

They named these infants “the Spark.”

Clearly, these children bore their greatest hope for humanity’s continuation.

No one knows whether those infants survived, or lived beyond thirty‑five.

For in 2094 a sudden disaster nearly annihilated the entire base.

Unlike the great cataclysm, the chain‑reaction calamity’s course was largely discernible.

The first omen was a series of weather events that flagrantly defied basic principles.

Sudden, fleeting gales, hail that fell from a clear sky, and tsunamis that surged like explosions along the coast.

Then came extreme cold.

A great multitude met their end inside the base.

Some fell to visible calamities, yet many—just as in the great cataclysm—died inexplicably of multi‑organ failure.

It was as if a sieve had strained the survivors, the once‑4000‑strong enclave dwindling to less than half its people.

In the end, forced by desperation, the “survivors” of the Imperial Capital base relinquished the haven they had painstakingly cultivated.

They left behind three utterances.

“The world is being filtered.”

“We have taken all that we need.”

“For humanity’s future, we must kindle the spark.”

The record ends here.

Chen Jian exhaled a long, weary breath.

Beside him, Lei Jie lifted his gaze to Chen Jian and spoke:

“The final entry says they intended to head to Chang’an, and if conditions allowed, to converge at the Mountain City with other bases.”

“So… did they ever reach the Mountain City?”

“The odds are overwhelmingly against it.”

Chen Jian shook his head and replied:

“If they truly arrived at the Mountain City, there would likely be no further tales of mimetic heretics, blood‑skulls, or holy blooded ones.”

“They are the origin of everything.”

“This, Holy Father, you have not misstated.”

“These people are the true architects of them.”

“Indeed.”

Lei Jie let out a sigh of his own.

After a moment of silence, his brows knit as he said:

“Information on secondary disasters remains scant, yet it appears this secondary calamity mirrors the first great cataclysm.”

“I can’t shake the feeling that this sector of the Imperial Capital was swept by some kind of ‘rule domain.’”

“Clearly, that is what they think as well.”

Chen Jian nodded:

“Otherwise they would not have spoken of ‘filtering’ as a judgment.”

“Indeed.”

Lei Jie instinctively rubbed his slightly swollen temples, and after a pause he suddenly asked:

“So, do you think they succeeded?”

“I mean, has the problem of reduced human lifespan truly been solved?”

Chen Jian pursed his lips, offering no direct answer, but turned the question back:

“In this world, have you ever seen anyone over forty?”

“I’m not certain, but the elders of Huangshi City seem to age in a way that bears no relation to their actual years.”

“That is because Huangshi has always remained isolated; this is not evidence of failure, but rather proof of success.”

Chen Jian drew a deep breath, then continued:

“Do you recall? The saints of the Mechanical Cult truly lived sixty or seventy years.”

“So.”

“They did more than merely create the so‑called genetic progenitors.”

“In theory.”

“All the people in this world are their children.”

(The chapter concludes.)