Chapter 586: Yule's Life

Chapter 586: The Life of Yule

The "Champion" brand biomass anti-radiation project was soon launched, taking no more than a week from approval to initiation.

Long before the project was officially greenlit, Yule had already followed a senior colleague named Zhao Feiyu to the research institute in Jinhe City to report for duty.

As Chu Guang had anticipated, the institute they arrived at was precisely the "Champion" Biopharmaceutical Research Institute located in Jinhe City.

It was the very coordinates the Academy had given him.

At this time, Yule was still a somewhat dull young man, not particularly skilled at socializing, his mind entirely absorbed in his research.

Although the average work hours per person in the Human Union era were only one hour, this did not mean all positions were the same; there were significant differences across industries.

Take research positions, for instance.

Spending twenty-four hours a day in the lab was a common occurrence.

Yet Yule did not find it tedious, nor did he feel any anxiety about "others being on break while I’m working," for in this era, work was no longer a necessity for survival but a means of self-fulfillment.

Repetitive and monotonous tasks had long been delegated to machines; even a lifetime without work could sustain a comfortable and affluent standard of living—something unimaginable in the classical era, or only dared to be dreamed of in films.

Only rare occurrences were called miracles.

And thus, this infinitely beautiful age was named the Era of Prosperity, to distinguish it from the old times of the past.

For Yule, graduating and immediately joining a world-renowned enterprise to engage in groundbreaking research was itself an interesting and meaningful endeavor.

So he practically lived in the lab, dedicating every waking hour to the research he pursued.

And with such passion for his work, he was merely one member of a vast research team.

Moreover, he was the most unassuming and inconspicuous one.

Of course, though Yule himself reveled in it, Chu Guang, standing by as an observer, found it all quite yawn-inducing.

Since arriving in Jinhe City, the fellow had never once left the institute, so Chu Guang had no chance to step outside the lab and explore the surroundings; he could only watch helplessly from the sidelines.

The scenes he could see were all constructed from fragments of Yule’s memories.

Things that had been seen and forgotten might be reconstructed, but things never seen could only be fabricated out of thin air.

Eventually, Chu Guang grew so bored that he snatched the remote control from Xiao Qi and sped up the playback to a hundred times, a thousand times, even ten thousand times the normal speed...

Then, in the blink of an eye, four years passed, and the year was 2125.

Chu Guang suddenly recalled that this year seemed to mark the beginning of the Three-Year War, so he immediately canceled the fast-forward.

And quite coincidentally, at the very moment he returned the time flow to normal speed, the institute underwent a new change.

Several soldiers clad in military exoskeletons stood at the lab entrance, while a stern-faced officer conversed with the facility’s director.

The streets in the distance were visibly desolate; most of the advertisements on the holographic screens had vanished, and the few that remained looped news of battle updates and war mobilization.

Unable to hear their conversation, Chu Guang returned to Yule’s side, who was now talking with his senior, Zhao Feiyu.

After four years of growth, the young man had evolved from a naive rookie into a reliable researcher.

For a moment, Chu Guang saw a shadow of Yin Fang in him.

The two were quite alike.

Both belonged to that pure breed of researcher.

At least, for now, he still was.

"Our lab has been commandeered, now under the jurisdiction of the Central Wartime Research Institute."

"...Commandered?" Yule glanced at Zhao Feiyu, puzzled. "We’re not researching weapons here."

"Exactly, so our work isn’t about weapons either... It’s about assisting the Army in assessing biological hazard risks and helping relief departments develop low-cost pharmaceuticals."

Seeing Yule’s concern, Zhao Feiyu patted him on the shoulder.

"Don’t worry, this is actually... a good thing, in a way. At this critical juncture, our needs are prioritized first. The Academy helped us secure a substantial budget."

In the Era of Prosperity, the Academy was a loose academic organization, composed mainly of renowned figures from the academic world, akin to a merchants’ guild or a workers’ union.

Though it felt good to have someone backing them, Zhao Feiyu’s face showed no trace of joy as he spoke.

War had erupted suddenly.

Without any warning.

It was said the trigger was an observation from a space station at the Lagrange point, detecting hostile activity from the direction of Proxima Centauri. Yet what that hostile activity actually was, and what motives drove the colonists to start the war, no one knew.

Perhaps these matters would only be disclosed after the war ended. In any case, this sudden conflict exceeded everyone’s imagination in scale.

Especially for the vast majority of people in this era, war was a completely foreign concept, rarely seen even in news broadcasts, let alone in films.

Of course, despite this, the Human Union still held a significant advantage.

Leveraging its immense industrial capacity, talent reserves, and mobilization capabilities, it raised a massive army from scratch within just a month.

Yet the situation remained far from optimistic.

The traitors four light-years away struck with a killer blow from the outset, unleashing an indescribable fungus upon their home planet.

It was a creature no one had ever seen before.

No similar specimen existed in Earth’s biosphere.

Clearly, it was an alien species unique to Alpha Centauri, which the colonial authorities had not reported to the Human Union but kept as a hidden card.

This might have been the folly of a small group, or a collective decision, but pondering such things at this juncture was meaningless.

The slime mold’s spores and fruiting bodies spread through the intricate rail transit networks, rendering Qingquan City, eight hundred kilometers away, uninhabitable in an instant.

And the same fate befell not only Qingquan City but nearly all major cities, while smaller, less prominent places like Jinhe City were spared.

When all means to halt its expansion failed, the authorities had no choice but to resort to the final option—

Before it could spread to other urban clusters, they would purify it with universal neutron radiation.

From both an economic and other perspectives, this was the least impactful method, and by using pure fusion hydrogen bombs with no residual radiation, even the buildings could be preserved.

"...In short, our job is to assess the effects of neutron radiation on the slime mold’s mother nest and evaluate the damage. They plan to design a weapon that can release a directed, stable neutron plume, so even an explosion won’t be necessary. The Academy has contacted a physics institute to collaborate with us on this evaluation."

"Does this kind of thing even require experimentation?" Yule gave him a strange look.

Though not an expert in nuclear weapons, he knew well that no organism could survive neutron radiation.

It would puncture nucleic acids, proteins, and enzymes with countless holes, halting all life processes based on these macromolecules.

No organic being could possibly survive neutron radiation—

No, that wasn’t necessarily true.

Such organisms did exist.

Yule suddenly recalled the petri dishes in the lab, where those eerie blue mushrooms possessed that very magical property.

Since inner monologues were also part of memory, Chu Guang, standing nearby, could not only hear what he said but also see the thoughts he left unspoken.

"Some fear that nuclear strikes might cause the mutant slime mold to mutate, making things worse," Zhao Feiyu said, his expression complex as he looked at the soldiers. "Honestly, I think so too... The enemy must know we’d use such measures. Would they be unprepared?"

Watching their exchange, a flicker of doubt arose in Chu Guang’s eyes.

If he remembered correctly, nuclear bombs were deployed early in the war. The notebook marked with a bloody handprint had recorded the situation at that time.

Why was it different in Yule’s memory?

With this lingering doubt, Chu Guang hit fast-forward and continued watching.

Just one month later, while sitting in the cafeteria having a meal, Yule saw the mushroom cloud blooming over Qingquan City on the news.

Though the news anchor claimed the city's residents had been fully evacuated or had entered shelters, those pale words carried little conviction no matter how one listened to them.

That was a metropolis with a population of over a hundred million.

How on earth could they possibly evacuate everyone from there?

And where could they even evacuate to, to fit so many people?

At least in Jinhe City, he hadn't seen a single soul from Qingquan City.

Yule sat frozen in his chair, his hand trembling as his spoon fell onto the dining tray with a sharp clank.

Awakened by the sound, he didn't bother to pick it up; instead, he abruptly pushed back his chair, stood up, and walked briskly toward his senior's office, pushing the door open and stepping inside without even knocking.

"What’s going on? A nuclear bomb? Aren't I still working on the technical verification? And why a nuke..."

Staring at the news on the holographic screen, Zhao Feiyu’s expression was written with pure solemnity.

"I don't know..."

A look of vexation surfaced on Yule's face.

"Then what is the point of our experiment? Wasting a month’s time for absolutely nothing—they never intended to consult our evaluation recommendations at all! If that's the case, why didn't they tell me from the very beginning!"

"I'm sorry, I really didn't know," Zhao Feiyu sighed. "Perhaps... someone just needed us to do this, just to comfort the bewildered and helpless majority."

"For instance, saying the nuke was meant to eliminate an evil biological weapon, detonated by ourselves under the guidance of experts... wouldn't that kind of narrative sound a bit easier to accept than 'the Aerospace Force's defensive line was breached by the colonial planet's invasion troops'?"

Yule spoke in a daze.

"The Aerospace Force's line was breached?"

"I was just talking nonsense, you'd better not take it seriously."

Seeing Yule's completely stunned expression, Zhao Feiyu smiled faintly to ease the tension, yet no trace of relaxation showed on his face.

Pausing for a moment, he continued.

"Returning to the previous question, I believe framing it differently might be more conducive to unity. At least now is not the time to argue. We are experiencing a catastrophe unseen in over a century; even if we are to hold someone accountable, that must wait until everything is over. For now, unity is more important than the truth."

"I hope my speculation is wrong, because if it's right, it means that while we are speaking here, many people have already died."

As he spoke, he reached out and turned off the news, pausing briefly before continuing.

"But if the worst-case scenario is true, and my guess is correct... perhaps the attack we suffered wasn't just a biological weapon."

"You should know this, right? In the Alpha Centauri system, besides yellow dwarfs like Alpha Centauri A and B, there are also red dwarfs like Proxima Centauri, whose flare activity releases radiation amounts hundreds of times that of our sun... that is a lethal dose for organisms on Earth."

Yule nodded.

Alien biology wasn't his specialty, but he had heard a thing or two about those xenomorphs on the colonies; all in all, it was a rather complex ecosystem.

If war hadn't suddenly broken out, he had actually planned to apply for an academic exchange over there once conditions improved slightly.

Seeing him nod, Zhao Feiyu continued.

"So in early deductions, the astronomical community empirically speculated that it was impossible for habitable planets to exist in the Alpha Centauri system... until our probes actually flew there and witnessed that world shrouded in auroras, and only then did we begin to study that ecological environment we had never seen before."

"You must have noticed by now that while neutron radiation is lethal to us, it isn't considered lethal to the xenomorphs on the colony. They originally evolved into their current form within an ecosystem where stellar flares occur frequently."

"A pure biological weapon isn't enough to produce immediate results. The traitors of the colony might intend to render the mother planet no longer habitable... and if so, it would be difficult to achieve that goal purely by using biological weapons."

"It's a reasonable suspicion that before we even received this project, the nuclear bomb had already been detonated. It's hard to say whether it or that slime mold is the incidental gift."

Yule swallowed hard.

"A dirty bomb..."

"In all probability, yes," Zhao Feiyu nodded, letting out a sigh. "To the xenomorphs in the Alpha Centauri system, it might not be considered dirty since they grew up in a radiation environment to begin with, but it is harsh enough for the species on Earth."

Why did they have to do this?!

Yule didn't ask this question aloud, keeping it in his heart instead.

He knew he wasn't the only one confused; his senior felt the exact same way at this moment, utterly baffled by the falling out of their own flesh and blood.

Why did it have to come to this?

Could they not just sit down and talk?

"Anyway, the project has changed. We must continue with that initial topic, and in addition to anti-radiation agents, we need to add research on radiation-eliminating agents. Medical nanobots can no longer be supplied, nor can bionic organs; we can only pin our hopes on traditional medicine to solve our problems."

Yule looked up.

"Is this an order from the wartime research institute?"

Zhao Feiyu shook his head.

"No, it's a recommendation from the academy, and also the opinion of the institute director... I think they are right. Rather than wasting time cooperating with the authorities to stabilize the public's emotions, it's better to do something truly meaningful. Prevention alone isn't enough; we also have to eliminate the radioactive damage that has already been caused."

In fact, just two days after the news broadcast, they received orders from the Central Wartime Research Institute, terminating their research on the "impact of neutron radiation on the slime mold mother nest."

Just as Yule's senior had guessed, the results of their research itself weren't important; what mattered was that someone had to be seen doing it.

It was also thanks to their busy efforts, cooperating with the media to stabilize the confidence of residents outside the war zone, that the Human Coalition wasn't crushed by their opponents right from the start.

Although the colony's surprise attack caused massive losses to the mother planet, this war had only just begun, and the Coalition's chances of winning were still very high.

Nevertheless, Yule still felt a twinge of discouragement.

He had worked in vain for a whole month.

Had he known from the start that the research results didn't matter, why put so much effort into it? And whether doing so had any meaning at all, nobody knew.

Days passed one by one, and because major breakthroughs were achieved in the research of anti-radiation and radiation-eliminating agents, more and more supplies were delivered to the institute.

Most recently, the Coalition Army delivered a batch of Helium-3 nuclear fuel, totaling over a thousand cubic meters, casting a shadow of unease over everyone.

This was not an amount of supplies a single research institute could consume.

This perhaps signified that this war would turn into a war of attrition.

Staring at those canisters of nuclear fuel, Chu Guang, standing to the side and peeking at the screen, was incredibly envious. Yet unfortunately, this was merely a memory; even if he wanted it, he would have to wait until he dealt with the mutants over there first.

In short, he noted down the location where the nuclear fuel was stored.

When the time came, the players would go and salvage these treasures for him.

An unknown amount of time passed again.

As the war continued to expand, the living environment on the surface also steadily deteriorated, forcing the research front to move from above ground to underground.

Although Chu Guang didn't see a single real-world, live-ammo battle in the memories of a minor figure like Yule, from the suffocating atmosphere on the street outside the institute and the visible desolation, it wasn't hard to sense the tragic nature of the front-line combat.

Regrettably, after transferring to the underground research facility, Yule never went out again, and information from the outside was suddenly cut off.

At first, there was still news to watch, but later even the news vanished, and only the people who periodically delivered supplies would occasionally bring some word from the outside.

Actually, it wasn't that anyone locked him in here and forbade him from going out; people were constantly coming and going from the elevator, and the researchers here were free to enter and leave at any time.

It was just that seeing those heavy faces, and then thinking of the howling cold wind and radioactive dust outside, a complete picture of doomsday...

No one wanted to go out anymore.

Most people still wished to retain some pleasant impression of that era.

Moreover, rather than confronting a world already destroyed, it was better to expend their energy on the work at hand—at least the working environment beneath their feet was relatively decent, supplies were prioritized, and in their busyness they could even enjoy a cup of coffee brewed by a beautiful android woman.

Yet work always comes to an end.

Through the efforts of countless people, the final products of rad-remover and anti-radiation agents were finally developed, with simplified formulas and production processes—even crude shelter settlements could produce them using limited equipment and resources.

Intriguingly, this project was originally initiated by the Champion Group to make a fortune, but no one expected that before they could rake in big profits, credit points themselves had already lost their meaning.

When most people couldn't guarantee they'd be alive tomorrow, credit became a nonsensical thing.

The formulas for rad-remover and anti-radiation agents were made public for free use by various settlements, and the researchers in the institute finally breathed a sigh of relief.

At that moment, the supply delivery personnel brought good news: the great war that had lasted nearly three years was finally coming to an end.

It was said that under the fierce fighting of the frontline troops, the colonial defenders were retreating step by step, and their final resistance was already a spent arrow.

This news was undoubtedly the best in three years, and the atmosphere in the lab was as lively as a festival.

Although at this moment Chu Guang wanted to tell them that they were rejoicing too early—after the three-year war would come the Wasteland Era, lasting two centuries and still showing no signs of ending.

Civilization would decline at an unprecedented speed into a chaotic age; compared to the darkness of those two centuries, these three short years of suffering were nothing.

At least there were beautiful android young ladies to serve them tea and water, at least the supplies never ran out.

But even if he could communicate with these people who were in high spirits, they probably wouldn't believe what he said.

A celebratory party started in the lab, but the unsociable Yule couldn't restrain himself and went outside the lab.

This brother, no longer young, finally mustered the courage to step onto the surface again.

And when he saw this world that had changed beyond recognition, he was completely dumbfounded, mouth open but unable to utter a word.

At that moment, a sigh came from behind him.

"As you can see, our world is finished."