Zhao Lü stood atop the shelter with a group of people, watching three vehicles approaching in the distance, kicking up dust.
They were all vehicles from the Security Bureau. Apart from the first one, the other two were warehouse trucks.
It wasn’t unusual for the Security Bureau’s convoy to leave the city. Although the outskirts of the outer city had natural barriers, the company had set up various defensive works to ensure the residents’ safety. These were regularly maintained by the Security Bureau.
In short, people in Yun City could die of hunger, sickness, or violence, but they couldn’t die from external invasions.
Very principled.
However, today’s convoy was unusual because it was heading directly towards their shelter.
Although it wasn’t explicitly stated, as a relatively unregulated corpse collectors team, the price they paid for their freedom was that they were Yun City’s first alarm, the first to detect danger, and the first to die.
Except for the protective net during jungle incursions, the corpse collectors weren’t under Yun City’s protection. Their base, far from the outer city and built on a rocky slope, was like a series of conspicuous or hidden tombs—places the living should avoid.
“Is Brother Shi coming back?” Hu Xiaoling was very excited. “Those vehicles! Are they bringing Brother Shi back?”
“Better not,” Zhao Lü frowned. “A convoy like this isn’t a good sign.”
“Then it must be for Captain Xiao,” Hu Xiaoling immediately changed his train of thought, looking at Xiao Lei, who was standing next to him with binoculars. “They’re here for you, right?”
“I’ve only been here three days!” Xiao Lei said.
“Only three days?” Zhao Lü said. “This is the first time I’ve had such a profound sense of time.”
Behind them, some people who had just heard the news ran over to watch the commotion, shouting as they ran, “Is it the Security Bureau? It can’t be for Brother Shi. They wouldn’t bring Brother Shi back. Is Xiang Pi leaving?”
The convoy’s destination was indeed the shelter. The first vehicle stopped at the bottom of the slope, unable to climb it, while the two transport trucks began ascending the rocky slope.
“What’s going on?” Zhao Lü jumped off the shelter and started the corpse truck nearby.
The people behind him jumped into the truck bed, and the truck headed down the slope. As they passed the ascending transport trucks, they ignored them, heading straight for the stationary vehicle below with no one getting out.
Only Xiao Lei, who hadn’t gotten on the truck and was running behind, pounded on the transport truck’s door: “Stop! What’s going on? What’s inside?”
“Are you brainless!” Hu Xiaoling couldn’t help but turn back. “How can we stop here? Stop and wait to slide back to the bottom of the slope?”
Zhao Lü’s truck rushed to the bottom of the slope. The passenger window of the stationary vehicle rolled down. Although no one leaned out, he saw it was Li Feng.
“What does the Security Bureau want?” Zhao Lü jumped out of the truck and slapped the car door.
“Don’t imitate Qiu Shi’s disrespect for city authorities,” Li Feng said.
“Where is he?” Zhao Lü asked. “What are you doing here?”
“He’s in the first transport truck,” Li Feng said.
“What?” Zhao Lü was shocked and quickly looked back at the two transport trucks almost at the shelter. “What’s in the truck?”
“Have him contact me when he wakes up,” Li Feng said before turning to the driver, “Head back to headquarters.”
“F*ck your ancestors!” Zhao Lü jumped up, half his body inside the car, grabbing Li Feng’s collar. “What do you mean? What happened to Qiu Shi? You bastards!”
“Let go,” Li Feng looked at him. “Show some respect.”
“I f*cking…” Zhao Lü didn’t finish his sentence as Hu Xiaoling and a few others pulled him out of the car.
Li Feng’s car turned half a circle and headed towards the tunnel.
“What happened?” Hu Xiaoling asked.
“Back to the shelter,” Zhao Lü jumped back into the corpse truck. “Brother Shi is in the transport truck.”
Qiu Shi lay in the largest and deepest shelter, which had been vacant but was now quickly set up as Qiu Shi’s ward in less than half an hour.
Yes, Qiu Shi lay on a hospital bed, still unconscious and seriously injured, according to medical records.
And the two transport trucks were loaded with medical equipment and supplies, even a damn refrigerator.
Except for the two people on guard in the front shelter, everyone stood around Qiu Shi’s ward, watching several uniformed but unmarked people moving things in and out.
Among the items unloaded, besides medical supplies, were some provisions for them. Usually, getting supplies wasn’t this easy or proactive.
There were also four large, heavy boxes placed in another shelter. The uniformed men said they were locked and needed Qiu Shi himself to open them.
“Didn’t you tell me Qiu Shi was taken for investigation because of the Dayan Tavern incident?” Xiao Lei called Zhao Lü aside. “Why is he back like this now?”
“How should I know!” Zhao Lü snapped.
“Did they torture him?” Xiao Lei was furious and started to leave. “I’m going to contact Director Li…”
“Stay put,” Zhao Lü pulled him back. “He said to contact him when Qiu Shi wakes up. He didn’t give you any task.”
Xiao Lei said nothing more, walking over to sit on a rock.
He watched Hu Xiaoling and the others open a disguised door on the ground, which looked like a rock but was actually a power outlet directly connected from the inner city.
“I didn’t know you had such a cool thing here,” Xiao Lei said.
“It’s always been here, never used in all these years,” Zhao Lü sensed a bit of disappointment in his tone. After all, he was the special task force captain, so he didn’t argue further. “We always thought it would only be used if the city was going to be destroyed. Never expected to use it now.”
Xiao Lei felt a bit frustrated that, despite being a staff member dispatched by the Security Bureau, he remained completely uninformed: “Maybe they’re planning to destroy the city.”
Zhao Lü laughed: “Fortunately, I don’t have to report to the higher-ups daily. Otherwise, I’d definitely report this statement of yours.”
Xiao Lei sighed.
Qiu Shi woke up in the middle of the night. When he opened his eyes, four or five faces were blocking his view.
“What the hell.” He quickly closed his eyes again.
Then he heard Zhao Lü’s voice: “If you can talk, you should be fine. Everyone else, leave.”
After a series of footsteps, Qiu Shi reopened his eyes, and only Zhao Lü remained sitting by his bed.
He looked around the room: “Not bad, they brought over all this equipment. Didn’t they assign anyone to monitor the devices or change my medication?”
“They said the devices can be operated directly from the inner city, and there are no wounds, so no need for medication,” Zhao Lü quickly got to the main point, “How did you get injured?”
“There were biotic entities at Dayan,” Qiu Shi said.
“F*ck!” Zhao Lü swore under his breath. “I suspected it had something to do with those things! With so many missing people in the outer city, it couldn’t all be the work of infected people. They couldn’t possibly have that much power!”
“Yeah.” Qiu Shi acknowledged. The rumors about biotic entities near Yun City had been around for a while, so Zhao Lü’s interpretation was reasonable and didn’t require him to disclose any secrets.
“What else did you do?” Zhao Lü gestured around the room. “Li Feng arranged all this and even provided supplies. Even if a biotic entity killed you, it wouldn’t be worth this much in his eyes, would it?”
Qiu Shi laughed.
“There are also a few heavy, locked boxes over there,” Zhao Lü said. “I think they’re weapons. Do corpse collectors get to use weapons now?”
“If it weren’t for me, those biotic entities would have escaped. Li Feng owes me.” Qiu Shi casually boasted, indicating for Zhao Lü to adjust the bed so he could sit up.
“Better not,” Zhao Lü said, but still adjusted the bed. “I saw the record; you broke a string of bones. You should stay lying down.”
Thinking about his string of broken bones made Qiu Shi wince.
“No problem. It’s much better now. The inner city’s medical standards are on another level. It feels quite nice,” he said, touching his chest. When he had escaped from the hospital, he felt like he was in excruciating pain, but after fainting in the tunnel in the woods and waking up again, he could hardly feel any pain.
“Really?” Zhao Lü sighed. “That’s an experience bought with your life.”
Qiu Shi didn’t respond.
That tunnel in the woods.
After he passed out, he kept dreaming—chaotic dreams involving bioticentities, Xing Bi, and the scene outside that tunnel in the woods.
A forest dyed black.
It looked like it had been through a wildfire.
But all the trees were intact—trunks, branches, leaves, all complete.
When the wind blew, they swayed gently along with the surrounding green forest, making the same pleasant rustling sound.
Closing his eyes, he felt the comforting caress of the breeze.
Opening his eyes.
It was an eerie sight Qiu Shi had never seen before.
“It’s an infection,” Li Feng told him.
Qiu Shi knew very little about these things. For someone his age, the events of those years were too long ago, merely half-truths and legends.
He only knew that the infection came from an unknown substance. Some said it came from a cataclysmic meteor shower; others said it was from the dark spaces deep below drilling sites.
Wherever it came from, the infection was irreversible for humans, causing them to lose their minds and die in madness.
Qiu Shi found the idea of losing one’s soul too abstract. Those infected seemed more like they were being controlled by something—sometimes wandering, sometimes attacking, sometimes gathering, seemingly with a purpose, but that purpose was unclear.
They would never give these infected people a chance to exhibit more behaviors. Killing them promptly was the standard and safest practice.
Infected trees were something Qiu Shi had never seen before.
They couldn’t move and had no offensive capabilities. Compared to the wandering infected, they should be less threatening. Why were they considered a crisis?
“This is a nest,” Li Feng said concisely.
Qiu Shi felt a wave of suffocation.
“There are four of these infected black forests,” Li Feng said. “The one you saw isn’t the largest, but it’s the closest to Yun City.”
Qiu Shi took the binoculars Li Feng handed him and looked down.
To prevent the black forest from expanding towards Yun City, a long protective wall had been built below.
“Currently, we have no way to destroy the infected forest,” Li Feng said. “We can only do our best to prevent infected people or animals from entering Yun City.”
From this height, no sounds from below could be heard—only the sight of machines and tiny workers moving back and forth. Amidst the pleasant wind, the scene below was small and helplessly busy.
“Are the workers recently brought into the outer city here?” Qiu Shi asked. “Will they get infected?”
“Yes,” Li Feng said. “At this working distance, it’s virtually impossible to avoid infection.”
Qiu Shi understood why they recruited single workers, offered high rewards, and why he’d never seen anyone return from working there.
“Why show me this?” Qiu Shi asked. “What’s it got to do with the recent biotic entity intrusions?”
“Biotic entities won’t get infected,” the man who had been silent finally spoke. “Some biotic entities coexist with them.”
“What does this have to do with me?” Qiu Shi frowned and turned to leave. “Send me back to the shelter.”
“It doesn’t concern you yet,” Li Feng said. “But once you recover, it will.”
Qiu Shi looked back at him: “What if I don’t want it to concern me?”
“Sure, a car will take you directly to the dungeon in a while,” Li Feng said. “You won’t leave there for the rest of your days.”
“F*ck your ancestors, Li Feng, just kill me now,” Qiu Shi said. “If you let me walk out of here alive, I’ll go find Li Datou and expose everything.”
“You won’t say anything,” Li Feng said. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be you.”
Qiu Shi felt a blockage in his heart, his head a bit dizzy; this must have been what made him faint from anger.
In all the years he had known Li Feng, their interactions had been limited to private trades of supplies, maps, or valuable items found on dead refugees. He didn’t understand why Li Feng was so certain.
What infuriated him the most was that he indeed wouldn’t say anything.
He didn’t have any special attachment to this city. He wasn’t born here and hadn’t even spent much time in the outer city. His world consisted of the mountains in the wasteland outside the city, the forbidden deep forests, and the perpetually uneven ground beneath his feet…
But he knew many living people and had seen many dead ones. He understood that beneath the beautiful façade of this place lay countless darkness and injustice, yet it was also the only refuge for many people and the sole hope for those still fleeing.
If this crisis were exposed, it wouldn’t take long—chaos alone, without the infection and biotic entities, would destroy this sanctuary.
“Feeling better? Li Feng said to contact him when you wake up. Also, Hu Xiaoling and the others have inventoried the supplies,” Zhao Lü said as he returned to the “ward” after a trip out. “This time it’s really generous. You won’t need to beg for food for a long time.”
“Still have to beg for what’s due. Not a bite should be spared from the Security Bureau,” Qiu Shi said. “These don’t count towards the daily rations.”
“Those locked boxes,” Zhao Lü looked at him, “want to open them?”
“Open them later,” Qiu Shi said.
“I’ll have someone drag them over later,” Zhao Lü said.
“I’ll go over myself,” Qiu Shi thought for a moment. “Have you been to Dayan since the incident?”
Zhao Lü didn’t speak, went out to check, closed the door, and whispered by the bedside: “Hu Xiaoling and I collected the bodies…”
“Do you know the old man’s whereabouts?” Qiu Shi asked immediately.
“No,” Zhao Lü said. “Was he there when you arrived?”
“He was, caught by the biotic entities,” Qiu Shi frowned. “But he was still alive at the time.”
“Isn’t that strange?” Zhao Lü said. “Isn’t it a bit strange that the old man, a cripple, survived? I examined the wounds of the others we collected. It was a single strike, to the chest or head, bones shattered without hesitation. Why didn’t they just kill the old man?”
Analyzing it this way, it did seem odd. Qiu Shi looked at Zhao Lü, hoping he would have another insightful moment.
“Respect for the elderly?” Zhao Lü suggested.
“If I were the old man, I’d come back from the dead just to give you a slap,” Qiu Shi said.
“Right!” Zhao Lü suddenly exclaimed in a low voice. “Another odd thing: you went to the second floor, right? What was it like then?”
Qiu Shi frowned and thought for a long time: “It felt the same as usual, no changes.”
“When we went, there was a packed suitcase. Why would the old man pack a suitcase for no reason?” Zhao Lü said. “I opened it—full of junk.”
“Where did you put it?” Qiu Shi asked.
“Brought it back,” Zhao Lü said. “I stashed it by the morgue where we hide stuff. Didn’t want to keep it here and risk trouble.”
Qiu Shi patted his shoulder: “You do have brains.”
“A bit,” Zhao Lü nodded.
.
Li Feng arrived at the exhibition hall, went through three body searches, and entered the heavy weapons lab, where several people were already present. Besides Director Zhang and Curator Wu with a team member, there were three others.
Mr. Long and representatives from the military, representing the company and the army.
They were waiting for him.
Control over Xing Bi had been achieved. Before the mission was officially carried out, all parties needed to verify the “results.”
“Everyone’s here,” Director Zhang cleared his throat and stepped back beside Li Feng. “We can begin, Curator Wu.”
“Since this plan has been in preparation for a long time, you all are familiar with the details and the records of successes and failures,” Curator Wu moved to the center of the lab. “I won’t repeat them. Today, we’ll mainly demonstrate the personality and thought process to give everyone an intuitive understanding of Xing Bi.”
“What do you mean?” someone from the company asked.
“A verbal interaction,” Curator Wu said. “None of you have had direct contact with a hidden guard. Today, you’ll get to experience it.”
Li Feng felt something was off about this, especially as he looked at Xing Bi standing in the glass enclosure.
Xing Bi’s state was different now.
It wasn’t because he was wearing the City Defense Bureau uniform or because he was standing.
Compared to the “mindless tool” forcibly controlled to bring back Qiu Shi, it seemed as if a shackle had been lifted from Xing Bi. Li Feng couldn’t describe the feeling of this sudden addition under intense pressure.
“We can begin,” Curator Wu activated a switch on the control panel.
Xing Bi slowly raised his lowered eyes, scanning the faces outside one by one.
“He can see us now,” Curator Wu said. “And hear the sounds from our side. Say hello, Xing Bi.”
“Good afternoon,” Xing Bi spoke, the right corner of his mouth slightly lifted.
The voice was still somewhat hoarse, the words still simple and calm, the oppressive aura still strong.
But Li Feng finally identified a clear change.
In Xing Bi’s previously emotionless eyes, there was now a sharp edge. That seemingly casual glance carried a chilling intensity.
Li Feng felt the hair on his arms standing up with goosebumps.
“Introduce yourself,” someone said after a brief silence.
“It’s all in the files,” Xing Bi replied.
“How about you read it out loud?” the person suggested.
Li Feng knew these questions had a purpose, but they sounded somewhat dumb.
“No point,” Xing Bi looked at him. “Your refrigerator can do that.”
The person chuckled.
“Do you think you’re different from a robot?” another person asked.
“Ask something meaningful,” Xing Bi said, but he still answered the question. “If I were no different from a robot, why would I be standing here?”
Several people quietly exchanged words with Curator Wu, who explained the thinking behind Xing Bi’s statements while also interpreting the various changes in monitoring data.
“Are you different from humans?” Li Feng suddenly asked.
Everyone around him was stunned and then turned to look. Director Zhang frowned, his eyes full of a desire to kill him.
Li Feng’s question was against the rules. He was only supposed to attend and listen at today’s “results presentation,” but he still took the risk of being reprimanded to ask it.
If today’s answers didn’t satisfy the company and the military, further “adjustments” would be needed, followed by another “discussion.” There wasn’t time. He had to quickly and accurately ask the questions that Mr. Long and the General wanted answers to.
Xing Bi didn’t answer immediately. He slowly walked to the edge of the enclosure, leaned his elbows on it, and relaxed his stance.
“Humans are disposable,” he said. “I can be reused.”
The room fell silent.
“What do you think your relationship with humans is?” Li Feng asked again.
“I am,” Xing Bi’s speech was slow and clear, “a friend born for humanity, who will never betray them.”
When Li Feng heard this sentence from Xing Bi’s mouth, he felt a sense of traveling through time.
This was the original vow of the biotic entities.
I am a friend born for humanity, who will never betray them.
For every Ko-fi received for a perticular novel, I will release a new chapter!
