Chapter 611: Morning After the Long Night

Chapter 611: The Morning After the Long Night

The faint light of dawn crossed the window sill, illuminating the sleeping profile of the little lamb.

As if sensing the touch of the light, she stirred her long lashes, pushed open the small hands resting on the cryo-chamber, and yawned unconsciously.

“You’re awake?”

A gentle voice came from beside her.

“Mm.” She responded instinctively, rubbing her sleepy eyes, her gaze dazedly fixed on the window.

The sky was a brilliant red; the slowly rising sun floated above the sea of clouds, casting soft light through the thin atmosphere.

Was it already dawn?

While she was still in a daze, the gentle voice came again.

“Morning comes earlier up here than on the ground. It’s even more spectacular standing on the deck… all around is still dark, but the sun has already risen in the distance.”

The little lamb turned to look, and saw the big sister who always checked her health sitting beside her, smiling.

Memories of last night slowly surfaced.

Suddenly, there had been a loud noise outside, and then this sister had taken her to the medical room, locked the door, closed the curtains and turned off the lights, telling her not to make a sound no matter what happened outside.

She had obediently done as told, staying beside Yin Yin, listening to the thunder outside, and then, waiting and waiting, she had unknowingly fallen asleep.

Actually, nothing much had happened outside, right?

She looked at the now-bright window, blinking softly. The breathtaking sunrise, no matter how many times she saw it, was always so stirring that she couldn’t look away.

It was a sight she had never seen at Pinecone Farm.

Sometimes she couldn’t help but think that if she had stayed there her whole life, she would probably never have seen such a view.

Just then, the little lamb noticed that besides herself and Sister Chen Yutong, there was also an unfamiliar sister with two ponytails sitting in front of the adjacent cryo-chamber.

A clear tear stain marked her delicate cheek, especially conspicuous in the sunlight crossing the window sill, as if she had been crying for a long time.

The little lamb fell silent.

In that cryo-chamber, there must be someone very important to her…

As if noticing her gaze, that sister looked up.

The moment their eyes met, the shy little lamb quickly looked away, staring straight out the window, pretending not to have seen her.

But that sister didn’t stare at her for long; soon she turned to Chen Yutong sitting beside her and spoke in a hoarse voice.

“I don’t understand… why did you pretend to be dead?”

Chen Yutong sighed.

She had originally planned to avoid Jiang Xuezhou until she left the airship, but last night she had suddenly burst into the medical room with a group of people.

Facing this unexpected reunion, Chen Yutong didn’t know what to say for a moment. So, looking at her shocked and bewildered friend, she pointed at the sleeping little lamb, pressed her index finger to her lips, and then made a pleading gesture.

Admittedly, it was a flimsy excuse—the corridor was right outside, and they could have talked there.

But Jiang Xuezhou probably didn’t know how to face this friend who had “returned from the dead” yet kept her in the dark, so she nodded.

After placing Ye Shi into the cryo-chamber, the corporate personnel quietly left the medical room. The two silent women sat there until dawn.

“…If I hadn’t, I couldn’t have left that swamp.” Knowing she would eventually have to face her questioning, Chen Yutong sighed and no longer avoided her inquiring gaze, looking up at the ceiling.

Jiang Xuezhou looked at her with a complex expression.

“…Why did you have to leave there?”

“Why…” Chen Yutong thought for a moment and gave her a helpless smile. “Actually, there’s no special reason.”

Just like the Academy, united as one, pinning all hopes on escaping the barren land beneath their feet to a distant “paradise” to solve all their troubles.

Naturally, there would be some obscure surveyor who placed hope in escaping the Swamp of Wandering to break free from the shackles of fate.

She only learned later that she wasn’t the first to flee the Academy; over the past century and a half, people had been leaving one after another.

Including the White Dove, who went to the southernmost Jobal Mountains and wrote “The Oasis Beneath the Jobal Mountains.”

They all used their remarkable knowledge to make small contributions to this barren wasteland. She didn’t think it was anything to be ashamed of.

But.

Jiang Xuezhou couldn’t accept it.

Her most trusted friend had become a traitor, and what was even harder to accept was that she said there was no reason.

“No reason at all…”

Unable to bear tormenting her grieving friend, Chen Yutong thought for a moment and answered with relatively gentle words.

“Mm, if I have to find a reason, it’s that I saw no hope.”

“…Hope?”

“People are animals that need hope to live. If they can’t see hope, they feel pain. You might not understand that feeling—no matter how hard you try, your whole life you’re just an insignificant E-level, a dispensable surveyor. Like the most inconspicuous piece on a chessboard, moving forward according to set rules, to a place you don’t even know.”

Jiang Xuezhou pressed her lips together.

“I became a D-level through hard work too…”

“I’m not denying your hard work, you know. In fact, I admire your persistence, because it’s a quality I don’t have. But I don’t envy it… I just want to live my own life, that’s all.”

Seeing Jiang Xuezhou about to argue, Chen Yutong smiled softly and looked at the increasingly dazzling sun outside the window.

“You know? Before I left that swamp, I didn’t even know that besides the rule-abiding AIs, there existed another completely different kind of existence. They are more like living people than programmed routines; they have their own thoughts… Two centuries ago, this was actually common, but now we regard it as taboo.”

Jiang Xuezhou bit her lip and offered a different view.

“On this point, I agree with Dr. Conclusion: unconstrained AIs could easily lead to serious disasters… Tools should only be tools; they shouldn’t have a self.”

Chen Yutong looked at her and countered.

“Then what about humans?”

Jiang Xuezhou was stunned, not understanding why she suddenly said that.

“…Humans?”

“Mm,” Chen Yutong nodded and said in a light tone, “Whether a person born as a tool should have a self—I’ve thought about it for a long time without an answer, so I decided to go elsewhere and see…”

“If I stayed in the swamp, the highest I could probably reach in my lifetime would be D-level, right? Haha, don’t think I’m bragging—researchers are another matter, but as a surveyor, I’m confident… because besides researchers needing promotion, surveyors just need to keep living to find a way to advance.”

“But unfortunately, I didn’t want to become a D-level at all. Not even D—I didn’t want to be labeled at all. Haven’t you realized? In this game of Snake, no matter how long you grow your tail, no matter how many servants you command, no matter how many resources you have, as long as you’re still on this pyramid, you’ll never control your own destiny.”

“I have no interest in manipulating others’ lives, nor do I want to be manipulated, nor do I want to die for some inexplicable reason in some inexplicable place. I just want to be an ordinary person, study what interests me, and if I must die, I want it to be somewhat meaningful—that’s all.”

“But luckily, I’ve found my paradise. It’s not tens of light-years away; it’s right under my feet. Here, if my research happens to interest others, I get enough attention. If not, it doesn’t matter—I can amuse myself. As long as I don’t bother anyone, no one bothers me.”

“As for daily life, it’s indeed not as good as the Academy, but I’m quite satisfied with my current life. There are many things here that the swamp doesn’t have, and so many interesting people. These aren’t miracles created by abundant resources, but by human imagination and creativity… If you really can’t understand, just think the Alliance pays more.”

Having said a lot without meaning to, seeing Jiang Xuezhou staring at her dumbfounded, Chen Yutong suddenly laughed and joked.

“Ah, though I say that, don’t follow my example. I don’t want to lead a good child astray.”

She knew her friend well.

Unlike her own lazy “bad woman” nature, Jiang Xuezhou was more like an obedient good girl—not only gifted but also serious and hardworking, with a firm passion and determination to improve her rank.

The path to promotion within the academy was open to her; her future was bright, and it was not impossible that she might one day become a B-rank or even an A-rank, and at the core of the academy—the Research Directorate. After all, her current mentor was from the Research Directorate, and future advancement would be a natural progression.

Jiang Xuezhou stared intently at Chen Yutong, fell silent for a long moment, then lowered her head and said, “I’ll keep your secret… We never met on the airship.”

Chen Yutong smiled faintly and said sincerely, “Thanks.”

Her family was still in the settlement under the jurisdiction of the Science Committee; they might have already received the compensation from them. If the academy found out she was still alive, the situation would likely be awkward. She probably wouldn’t be able to return in this lifetime, but she still hoped her family in the Wandering Swamp could live well, unaffected by her.

Jiang Xuezhou silently turned her head, looking at the hibernation pod before her, her eyes filled with sorrow and complexity. At that moment, she suddenly felt her hand being grasped.

She looked up, a hint of surprise in her eyes. It was the child who had woken from deep sleep, holding her hand, looking at her earnestly, and speaking in a soft, sticky voice: “It will get better… The doctor said, as long as a life signal is detected when the hatch closes, that light is green.”

Unlike Yin Yin…

Yin Yin’s light was off.

But Little Lamb wouldn’t lose heart; she would keep waiting for her to wake up and then tell her everything that had happened in the meantime.

Feeling the warmth from that palm, Jiang Xuezhou felt her mood lift a little, and a faint smile broke through her sorrowful face. “…Thank you.”

Yes.

That person was still alive, not truly dead—just gravely wounded, temporarily unable to wake…

Even if he could never stand again, it didn’t matter.

Jiang Xuezhou made up her mind: she would make him wake up, even if it meant giving him an entirely new body, even if it meant turning him into a “Little Wang.”

This time—

It was her turn to save him!

As Jiang Xuezhou clenched her fists, Kuang Feng and Fang Chang, standing at the hospital entrance, exchanged glances, their faces twisted with strange expressions. They had waited a long time for the NPC in the room to come out, hoping to pull the plug on Ye Shi’s ICU, but they never got the chance.

But then again…

Was it still necessary to pull it?

The two communicated with their eyes.

Kuang Feng: ‘Looks like it’s not a bug.’

Fang Chang: ‘Yeah, it’s a bit different from Luo Yu’s case. This guy just isn’t completely dead, not dead and then alive again.’

Kuang Feng: ‘So, do we still need to finish him off?’

Fang Chang chuckled.

‘Tsk, though this kid’s smug attitude is annoying, considering our father-son bond… I’ll spare his dog life.’

Kuang Feng: “…”

……

The morning sun rose above the horizon, and the Steel Heart, floating above the clouds, stood unmoving and majestic.

At exactly eight o’clock, its cannons roared.

The various regiments deployed in Jinhe City, after a night’s rest, launched a fierce assault on the Champion Biological Research Institute under the cover of artillery fire.

Explosions of firelight raged continuously over the concrete ruins; the surface fortifications the Qi tribe had built from garbage were as flimsy as paper.

Heads of green, oily hue hid in the shadows of the ruins, their faces uniformly etched with terror. Their weak expressions were exactly like those of the prey they had toyed with.

Only now, it was their turn to be the prey.

But the Alliance was civilized and merciful.

The great Administrator had no intention of toying with these beasts on the execution ground; the iron hammer of judgment would grant them an equal death!

“Advance!!!”

Half his body protruding from the turret of a Chimera armored vehicle, Mo Shu roared into his earpiece, issuing the attack order to the other crews and accompanying infantry.

“All squads, push toward the institute!”

“Show these cowardly ambushers what a real iron fist looks like!”

The players following closely behind the vehicles responded with excited howls.

“Oooh!”

“Kill!”

“Crush them!!!”

The 37mm cannons thundered continuously, the boom of each shot like a war drum, every tracer flash bringing a storm of blood and gore.

Under the fierce assault, the Qi tribe’s street fortifications crumbled like paper, soon riddled with holes.

Listening to the deafening roar of cannons, gunfire, and battle cries in the distance, Ge Mo, draped in a sacrificial robe, stared blankly at the sky, muttering to himself.

“Why… why is it still there!?”

Last night, the tribe’s chieftain, Ga En, had led ten thousand bat-winged men in a surprise attack on the Steel Heart. By now, that fortress should have been taken…

Yet the dense cannon fire was no different from yesterday morning, landing precisely on their heads.

That could only mean one thing…

Despair gradually filled Ge Mo’s eyes.

“No… This can’t be true. Something must have gone wrong.”

Trembling, he clutched his wrinkled face with both hands, his cracked lips rapidly chanting the “spell” Luo Qian had taught him.

Soon, a pale golden light, visible only to him, projected beside him.

But standing in that beam of light was not Luo Qian, but an old man in an exoskeleton.

His name was Alzu.

He was the apostle sent by the Church to replace Luo Qian, and also the man who had granted Ga En the bio-armor and command of the ten thousand bat-winged men.

Ge Mo had seen him before. As soon as he saw him, he asked urgently, “What happened? Why… why is it different from what was promised?! Why is the Steel Heart still firing at us!”

Alzu stared at him in silence, waiting for the aged mutant to finish his words, then shifted his gaze aside.

"We did our best, but unfortunately your child is a waste, squandering our countless efforts and years of planning... To be honest, this trump card was originally meant for the sons of the War Construction Committee, but that fool played it so badly, I have nothing left to say."

Speaking of this, it was indeed awkward.

Though he knew the Alliance was no pushover, losing to these ragtag upstarts still made his face burn with shame.

He could only blame that Luo Qian.

If that fellow hadn't suddenly dropped his burden and vanished, they wouldn't be in such a mess now.

Or if he had taken command from the start, they wouldn't have lost so bewilderingly.

What a pity they couldn't recover the remains of that biomass armor...

Otherwise, they could have fully understood what happened back then.

Gomo had no idea what he was thinking; he only saw his detached demeanor, as if he was about to shift the blame.

Staring blankly at Alzu, he asked in a trembling voice.

"Then... what do we do now?!"

"Now?" Alzu chuckled. "Do as you please."

"As you please..."

Watching Alzu about to leave, Gomo vaguely guessed his intent and called out to him in panic.

"Wait... what about the Nago Core? Aren't you going to take it?!"

Hearing the mention of the Nago Core in the lab, Alzu's brow twitched involuntarily, and his face darkened as he said.

"We'd like to keep it, but the problem is, at this point, can you keep it—"

Before he could finish, Gomo cut him off in a rush.

"We haven't lost yet! We still have people, we can still fight! As long as we keep fighting... that mere Alliance won't stand a chance against us!"

Even if we shed every last drop of blood!

As long as one person survives, the hope of reviving Singularity City's glory will never die!

Gomo had that confidence.

Even if only he remained, he was confident he could breed another tribe!

Alzu looked at this old man with a twisted face, and a flicker of pity suddenly appeared in his calm eyes.

What a pitiful creature...

In truth, he was one of the few clear-headed mutants in this absurd, foolish tribe, but what use was one man's clarity?

At this moment, he was like a gambler who had lost all his chips yet refused to face reality; he should have realized long ago that this was a high-stakes gamble.

Thinking that this old fellow was after all an elder of Singularity City and might still be useful, Alzu said casually.

"If you want to live, head south. The bishop there will arrange new work for you."

Gomo refused without a second thought.

"No! I won't leave! I just need you to give us a hand—"

"Then struggle as much as you can."

Looking at this muddle-headed fool, Alzu tossed out this impatient remark, then, under his despairing gaze, vanished silently from the empty street...

...

At the southernmost edge of Jinhe City.

Three furtive figures gathered together, like rats whispering in a sewer.

The clamor of cannon fire could no longer be heard here.

Word had it that the Alliance had breached the main gate of the Champion Biology Research Institute and was engaged in fierce firefights with the mutants stationed inside.

But none of that mattered anymore.

The outcome of the war had already been decided last night.

"Kill... hehe, kill..."

Tang He, his facial muscles twitching, kept muttering incessantly, a creepy smile plastered on his face.

He was always like this; Red Tapir paid him no mind, his eyes fixed solely on the apostle named Alzu before him.

"What about Luo Qian? We haven't found that guy yet... are we just pulling out like this?"

Alzu, standing before this executioner, spoke calmly.

"We've used up our last trump card and lost this battle. The fall of the Jinhe City diocese is only a matter of time... What difference does it make whether we find Luo Qian or not?"

Red Tapir's face remained impassive as he said, word by word.

"I will not let a single traitor go."

"Then go find him. That's your job anyway. I only care about the final plan." Alzu turned expressionlessly and walked toward a patch of pitch-black shadow not far away.

He knew the Alliance wouldn't let it rest; once they secured a foothold in Jinchuan Province, they would surely push south.

And given their usual nature, they would drag as many people onto their war wagon as possible, possibly even involving the corporations and academies.

This was a war of faith.

And a war of survival.

Until one side was utterly destroyed, this war would not cease.

He would fight against everything of the old world until the very end. If these stubborn, backward vermin still refused to embrace glorious evolution—

Then let them die!

Red Tapir stared hard at the direction Alzu had gone, then gritted his teeth and turned, leading his mentally unstable partner in another direction.

He cared nothing for the plans of those divine servants, nor for evolution or not—that was never something to be accomplished overnight.

As the sword of the Tribunal, cutting down disloyal traitors for the Church was his lifelong conviction, and he would see it through to the last moment of his life.

As if sensing the murderous aura emanating from him, Tang He's eyes flickered with fanatical light, muttering under his breath.

"Kill..."

He cared about nothing.

He only wanted to slaughter everyone in the entire city!