Chapter 76: “If that day truly comes, the infected will include me.”
Xiang Nanli was so exhausted he didn’t even know how he returned to his dormitory or how he managed to fall into bed.
The dormitories of the Eternal City were located within the former City Lord’s estate, the luxurious castle situated halfway up the mountain. Several of the City Lord’s massive bedrooms had been partitioned. Some were four-person rooms, others six-person rooms. Xiang Nanli was staying in the VIP suite meant for receiving foreign dignitaries—a double occupancy suite. He and Xiao Qing each had a bed.
If this were the Underground City, this kind of suite would be classified by real estate developers as a standard “family unit”; a 20-square-meter pigeonhole could sell for two million credits, and the lease term was only 150 years. Once the 150-year term expired, it was forcibly returned to the Human Alliance Real Estate Bureau and sold again.
If housing wasn’t highly tied to Human Alliance citizenship and corresponding social welfare, underground city properties would probably be very difficult to sell.
Wrapped in a soft goose-down blanket, Xiang Nanli rolled over. He grabbed his electronic lens from beside his pillow and put it on.
Several messages popped up in the background.
The pinned contact was Dongfang Qingdi, although Xiang Nanli had absolutely no memory of when he had pinned him.
[Xiao Qing: I went to repair the radio base station. The work point vouchers are on the table.]
The work point vouchers were extorted from Andrew; he had no use for them anyway.
Andrew’s degree of mechanization was too high; his form of eating was simply replenishing special physiological fluids. He basically never spent his daily wages. Who would have thought that the money he painstakingly saved up would all go straight into Xiang Nanli’s pocket?
[Andrew: The recruitment notices have been posted. Are we really only recruiting 50 people? Isn’t that too few?]
[Xiang Nanli: The social welfare the base can currently provide is limited. 50 people is about right.]
High EQ: Social welfare is limited.
Low EQ: We have no money; we can’t afford to feed any more.
There was radio communication within the Eternal City. The technology wasn’t difficult; it merely required a base station and signal receivers.
In the past, this radio base station was primarily used to receive directives from the Divine Court. Later, when Andrew took office, he directly blocked the Divine Court’s signal frequencies.
And they had to thank the fact that the Divine Court was recently being frantically sanctioned by the Human Alliance cities, led by Gusu City.
Even on the surface, if the Divine Court’s Apocalypse Knights made the slightest move, they would face severe warnings from the Human Alliance. And as for the scouts secretly sent by the Divine Court? They died as fast as they came, all swallowed by Ezekiel. This was what gave the Eternal City the opportunity to bide its time and develop quietly.
With a signal but no signal-receiving equipment (like cell phones) and a literacy rate of less than ten percent, communication within the city currently relied basically on shouting.
Struggling, Xiang Nanli crawled out of his soft bed and pushed open the window. A summer breeze at 2 degrees above zero hit him, making him let out a massive sneeze.
Xiang Nanli tuned the frequency to the Gusu City news station.
“Today, Third Avenue in the Main City District is temporarily locked down. Citizens are advised to stagger their travel times. Supplies from various underground cities, including Luoyang and Chang’an, arrived in Gusu early this morning. Major corporations such as Immortality Tech and Ancient God Biology have dispatched senior scholars to provide technical assistance. Citizens are requested to proceed to nearby hospitals in an orderly fashion for infection testing and vaccination.”
Xiang Nanli: “Hm? It’s been a month, and they still haven’t controlled it? Makes sense, given the high population density of underground cities, controlling the spread is practically impossible.”
“Acting Mayor of Gusu City, Luo Xiu, visited the quarantine hospital in the epidemic zone, warmly comforting patients and providing end-of-life care for severe cases. Luo Xiu stated that the Divine Court’s crimes against humanity will inevitably face a reckoning.”
Xiang Nanli: “What does ‘end-of-life care’ mean? If they can’t be cured, are they just put down? Xiao Zhi—”
[I am here.]
“Search for the official death toll released by Gusu City online.”
[Understood. The epidemic report was updated at the end of last month. A total of 36 million people have been infected in Gusu City. There are approximately 60,000 patients showing tendencies toward fungal transformation, with a mutation rate of 0.16%. The death toll has not been released.]
“60,000 people mutating?”
Compared to Gusu City’s population of 80 million, the number 60,000 seemed exceptionally minuscule.
But considering the infectiousness of the Black Silk Spore Fungus and the aggressiveness developed after being parasitized, this was actually an incredibly dangerous statistic.
This wasn’t 60,000 mycelium humans; this was a biochemical army of 60,000. A suicide squad that attacked indiscriminately. And new human mutations could occur at any moment.
Xiang Nanli couldn’t help but frown: “Is this fungal infection really that hard to cure? The Divine Court is handing out indulgences everywhere; they should have a ready-made antidote…”
The news broadcast continued: “The Gusu City Investment Bank has issued a new round of municipal investment bonds, with a five-year interest rate reaching a staggering 6.5%. Residents from all across the Human Alliance are eligible to purchase.”
According to the rules of the Human Alliance, municipal investment bonds could only be purchased by residents of that specific city. Gusu City’s previous bond interest rate was 4.2%. Now it had surged to 6.5%, and they had even lifted the geographical restriction on purchases.
Xiang Nanli thought for a moment: “It seems Gusu City is broke because of this mycelium infection, and the Human Alliance headquarters hasn’t provided much support. Releasing an interest rate like this, they probably haven’t even considered how they’re going to pay it back in five years.”
Due to the unique geographical environments of underground cities, the various cities of the Human Alliance were actually isolated from one another.
Geographical isolation bred ideological isolation. The Human Alliance was not a powerful, centralized government, but rather a coalition formed under specific historical conditions.
Four or five hundred years ago, everyone might have still held the sentiment of being “one big, loving family.” But as the older generation passed away, the new residents who grew up in the underground cities, shaped by the ideological evolution pushed by the politicians of their respective cities, developed a sense of belonging to their own city that far outweighed their belonging to the “Human Alliance.”
Every few decades, some city would feel they were being “sucked dry” and shout slogans during elections about leaving the Human Alliance to build an independent city. But in the end, it always faded away due to debt issues…
Yes, all the underground cities were built by the Human Alliance. So, if a city wanted to become independent, it could.
Just pay off the decades of accumulated rent, buy the land, and redeem the city yourself.
Because the cost was so astronomical, no city had ever achieved it. It was said that after occupying Yinshan City, the Divine Court paid an astronomical sum in rent… which was why the Human Alliance headquarters turned a blind eye. Whenever the debate arose about whether to reclaim Yinshan City, the opposing votes always outnumbered the supporting ones.
To be honest, having grown up in a peaceful era, Xiang Nanli didn’t quite understand it.
But considering the developmental history of the Human Alliance, under such resource-scarce conditions, selfish cities indeed lived better.
Xiang Nanli opened his contact list and scrolled to Luo Xiu. The system showed he was offline.
He pondered for a moment and sent an audio message: “Luo Xiu, this is Xiang Nanli. I’m still on the surface. I saw the news that you were elected Acting Mayor of Gusu City. Congratulations. How are things down there?”
Xiang Nanli deliberately lowered his voice to sound suave and magnetic, like an internet heartthrob.
He had previously looked up the children’s cartoons Luo Xiu watched when he was young; although the “Xiang Nanli” in the cartoon looked absolutely nothing like him, the voice was unexpectedly similar.
He didn’t know if it was a coincidence or if the cartoon’s production team had requested the voice data from Immortality Tech.
Luo Xiu took the bait, as expected.
[Xiu: Thank you. I was forced to bite the bullet and take this position.]
Luo Xiu hesitated to say more. He actually wanted to add that the assassinated mayor of Gusu City was also a member of the Luo family (the wife of someone surnamed Luo). They sent him to be the mayor partly because they suspected the deputy mayor of colluding with the Divine Court, and partly because they didn’t want to give up the position in Gusu City, and among the younger generation, he was the most suitable… And according to Luo Xiu’s recent investigations, there really was someone inside Gusu City colluding with the f***ing Divine Court!
But telling Xiang Nanli about this would be overstepping, discussing matters too deep for their level of acquaintance.
A thousand words were condensed by Luo Xiu into a short sentence: “Not great, don’t come back yet.”
He cut the connection. Wearing a protective suit, Luo Xiu stood on the second floor of the quarantine zone’s entrance. The windows in the second-floor corridor were all one-way glass, overlooking the electronic doors isolating the area from the outside world.
There were layers upon layers of lockdown here, denying entry to any unauthorized biological entity. Overhead, countless drones patrolled 24/7.
Behind Luo Xiu was a two-story quarantine hospital, hastily constructed.
Infected mycelium humans, hooked up to IV drips, lay wailing inside cramped life-support medical pods. The quarantine hospital looked like a beehive, and the medical pods were the neatly arranged honeycomb cells.
With Gusu City’s recent resource shortage, the medical pods didn’t even have the necessary supplementary medical equipment. Because, according to experiments, traditional medical treatments were completely useless against the mycelium disease.
These were nothing more than sealed coffins, allowing the infected to die harmlessly inside.
Occasionally, laboratory staff with proper documentation and electronic passes would extract a few iron boxes and send the decayed samples inside to the labs.
Of the severe patients who entered the quarantine hospital, whether through surgical removal of lesions, medication, or chemotherapy… not a single one had recovered.
Luo Xiu had tried feeding a potent Gene Serum to early-stage infected individuals who still retained consciousness.
This Gene Serum was extremely expensive and could even force ordinary people to evolve into Bio-Soldiers.
However, the patient merely turned into a much stronger mycelium human, growing to 7 meters tall after mutating, and nearly killed Luo Xiu’s colleague in the Investigation Bureau.
No one had recovered. Yet, to pacify the remaining tens of millions of people, the television constantly broadcast news of patients being discharged.
Trapped in an information bubble created by the Human Alliance AI ‘Gatekeeper’, the vast majority of the public remained completely ignorant of this terrifying disease, optimistically believing the situation was still under control.
“…Is it really still under control?” Luo Xiu looked down at a new convoy of transport trucks entering the epidemic zone.
Another batch of infected had arrived.
As they stepped off the buses, the electronic bracelets on their wrists glowed red—this was a Bluetooth device connected to their Citizen ID cards. If an individual tested as “high-risk,” the built-in AI would trigger the bracelet to glow red and automatically broadcast the infected person’s coordinates.
Very advanced, wasn’t it? Modern technology could even monitor people’s thoughts. No one could escape the supervision of Artificial Intelligence.
These infected individuals still didn’t know they had contracted a terminal illness, essentially making them dead men walking.
Highly realistic robot nurses smiled and led them toward the medical examination center, where they could enjoy a free meal before being placed into the treatment pods.
Mainstream media had consistently promoted the idea that the quarantine zone was just like a sanatorium; living inside was very safe, and they just had to wait to be cured.
Therefore, when requested to go to the quarantine zone, most infected individuals showed no resistance.
An infected man at the back of the line reached up and picked at a pink fungus growing on his face. Recently, his body had stopped hurting, but it was incredibly itchy.
The soft mycelium felt like chalk dust, easily rubbed off his skin.
Xin Zhui hurried over from the corner of the corridor. He wore half-finger gloves, his hands curled into fists; viscous blood and human tissue stained his prominent knuckles.
“Luo Xiu.” Xin Zhui’s expression was grim. “The interrogation yielded no results. The deputy mayor claims the Black Cross Inquisition only gave him that one bottle of antidote. We did exactly as he said, but we couldn’t contact the ‘informant’.”
Luo Xiu had found evidence of the deputy mayor colluding with the Divine Court, dating back ten years.
The Divine Court operatives said they would release a contagious fungus in Gusu City that would cause some casualties, but they would provide the deputy mayor with a solvent to halt the spread of the fungus—a solvent capable of killing the Black Silk Spore Fungus. The deputy mayor could pull some strings to make his biomedical-major descendant the hero who saved Gusu City, thereby securing the mayoral election.
The reason the Black Cross Inquisition did this was in the hopes that, once elected mayor, he would restore transportation, commerce, and population flow between Gusu City and Yinshan City. All Human Alliance underground cities had currently blockaded Yinshan City.
However, the antidote they confiscated from the deputy mayor was utterly ineffective against this fungus.
“Three million people in Gusu City have already been parasitized by the spores. This newly delivered batch of patients tested positive for fungal infection very early on but only recently showed signs of mutation and were thus classified as ‘high-risk’.” Xin Zhui spoke rapidly. “They are much stronger than the initial batch of mutants. In other words, as time passes, the toxicity of the Black Silk Spore Fungus will grow increasingly potent. We killed all the Mothers capable of spreading spores, but after the Mothers die, just like a swarm of bees, new ‘Mothers’ will be born from the infected individuals created by the original Mothers.”
Luo Xiu fell silent for a moment before speaking slowly: “If we cannot develop an antidote, then we can only kill all the infected. We cannot let the Black Silk Spore Fungus spread outside.”
Feeling somewhat irritated, Xin Zhui ran a hand through his hair: “What about the medicine from Immortality Tech? Will it work?”
To be honest, even he wasn’t sure—why had the Divine Court’s solvent failed?
“It’s still on the way. My uncle said the raw material cost for that specific drug is very high, so it likely won’t be enough to meet Gusu City’s needs. Also, Liszt is on that special transport.”
At the mention of Liszt, Xin Zhui’s expression improved slightly.
If there was truly anyone left in the Human Alliance capable of developing an antidote, it could only be Liszt.
He took a deep breath: “Luo Xiu, I am a Synth, so I am not infected. But your test results were positive, you know that, right?”
“I know.” Luo Xiu nodded calmly, looking into Xin Zhui’s eyes, which glowed with red pupil rings. “If that day truly comes, the infected will include me.”
