Chapter 125: “To avoid accidents, citizens are advised to reduce travel today!”
As they talked, An Wujiu looked around for Noah. At first, he didn’t find her, but eventually, he saw her small figure in a corner of the warehouse.
Strangely, Noah had one hand on the wall and the other covering her mouth, seemingly coughing.
An Wujiu walked towards her. Being trained, his footsteps were much lighter than the average person’s, so when he placed his hand on Noah’s shoulder, she was so startled that she trembled all over.
“What’s wrong?” An Wujiu vaguely saw the red in her palm and was very concerned. “Noah, are you sick?”
Noah clenched her hand and shook her head at An Wujiu. “I’m fine.”
She grabbed An Wujiu’s hand with her other hand. “Wujiu-ge, let’s go back. I don’t want to stay here anymore.”
Noah’s hand was unusually cold. An Wujiu knew something was wrong with her, but since Noah didn’t seem willing to talk about it now, An Wujiu decided to drop it for the time being, planning to take her back to have Zhong Yirou examine her.
“If you feel uncomfortable anywhere, you must tell your brother,” An Wujiu said gently, lowering his head to speak to her.
Noah nodded obediently. “Yes, I know.”
Zhou Yijue didn’t plan to go with them, nor did he say goodbye; he just left alone. An Wujiu’s group took Wu You’s aircraft back to the city. With a bit of a crowd, it was somewhat cramped, so Wu You suggested An Wujiu hold Noah on his lap.
“No need,” Shen Ti directly refused. “I’ll hold.”
Nan Shan gently suggested to Noah, “Go to Shen Ti ge…”
Unexpectedly, Shen Ti said, “I meant I’d hold An Wujiu.”
Everyone was speechless.
Wu You: “…Do you realize how tall and long-legged you two are and how much space you take up?”
In the end, it was An Wujiu who settled the matter. No one held anyone, and they squeezed together and sat down.
Shen Ti still didn’t let up, “Xiao You, with all the money you’ve made following your Wujiu-ge, can’t you buy a new one?”
“Shut up,” Wu You coldly stared straight ahead. “And don’t call me Xiao You.”
Shen Ti deliberately called out twice more, his tone winding intricately, clearly trying to rile Wu You.
An Wujiu was amused by them. He turned his head to look out the window. The scenery changed from vast wilderness to the high-rise buildings of the city, with tiring virtual projections and overly chaotic lights.
But he vaguely felt something was off. It seemed like there were fewer people on the streets than usual, making it appear somewhat deserted. However, An Wujiu could faintly hear some strange sounds in the distance, sounding like slogans chanted by a gathering crowd.
Nan Shan opened the window next to him, seemingly hearing those sounds too.
Once the window was down, the chanting became clearer, but the language they were speaking was not one they could understand.
“What’s happening up ahead?” Noah pointed to the law enforcement aircraft with flashing lights in the air ahead. “It seems like we can’t go through.”
Wu You turned on the aerial broadcast, and indeed, it was all about the air traffic police directing them to stop flying on the current air route due to an unregistered large-scale gathering.
An Wujiu looked down. There were so many people below that they almost completely blocked the entire road, severely affecting traffic.
“No choice, I’ll have to land nearby. We’ll walk from here.”
Wu You maneuvered the aircraft, finding a place with fewer people to land. The group got out and walked from the parking spot to the road they had been on, Fifteenth Avenue.
The people on the road were of various skin colors, men and women, young and old. Some held homemade signs with incomprehensible writing. They weren’t just gathering; some were even clashing with the police who had come to disperse and control them, both sides fighting fiercely while others shouted loudly, like a collective protest.
Nan Shan was puzzled. The last time he returned, everything was fine. Why had such a large conflict suddenly erupted? With the crowd pushing and shoving, he feared they would be separated, so he turned back to check and saw An Wujiu’s incredulous eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
Shen Ti also noticed something was amiss.
Although these people looked diverse, all their handmade signs bore sun symbols, a symbol often seen in the altar, similar to the one on his Adam’s apple.
Moreover, these people had a bit of blue decoration on them, and their eyes emitted a strange blue light.
“Something’s wrong,” An Wujiu murmured, frowning. “Has his power seeped from the altar into reality?”
Shen Ti naturally knew who An Wujiu meant by “him.” “Let’s get out of here first.”
He led the group away from the gathering crowd, turning onto a street with relatively fewer people.
Noah suddenly spoke up, “The words they wrote are the same as the ones in that book from last time.”
Wu You asked, “Book?”
“That book that the old man knocked on the door and delivered to Erci-jie’s house,” Noah explained.
All these clues pointed to that evil god, the observer behind the altar, the blue flame waiting for sacrifice. Whenever An Wujiu thought of him, he thought of his father and those who went mad because of this monster.
He knew very clearly that no one could be a savior; it was all beyond one’s capabilities.
But he really didn’t want even one more person in the world to follow in the footsteps of his family.
They might not be able to solve this matter now, but if they wanted to do something, it would probably have to start with Sha Wen.
“Let’s go to Erci-jie’s place first,” Wu You said to everyone. “I just got in touch with her.”
This was good news worth celebrating for them because Yang Erci was still alive. However, after witnessing the earlier scene, their celebratory mood was halved, trapped in deep doubts.
After some twists and turns, they arrived at Yang Erci’s apartment. Those fervent gatherers had already spread to the area below the apartment building. As An Wujiu and the others passed by, the gatherers quickly approached them, holding up signs and speaking in a mix of English and some strange language, as if forcibly demanding they accept something.
At first, no one wanted to get physical until a burly man grabbed An Wujiu’s injured hand. Shen Ti fiercely grabbed the man’s collar and coldly warned them.
To everyone’s surprise, Shen Ti spoke in a language very similar to what they had just heard.
And upon hearing Shen Ti’s words, the man immediately left.
“What did you say?” Wu You was somewhat suspicious of Shen Ti’s performance just now. “You know this language?”
“Just learned it,” Shen Ti said casually, then took An Wujiu’s hand to check it. After confirming it was fine, he held his other hand and went up the elevator with the others.
If it were someone else, such an explanation would definitely not hold water. However, Shen Ti was indeed the type who picked up things quickly, making even the strangest occurrences seem less unusual when they happened to him.
But An Wujiu knew the truth. Shen Ti didn’t seem to want others to discover his non-human nature, so he could only keep it to himself and bring it up when they were alone.
The old display screen in the elevator happened to be playing the news, with an AI announcer reporting the large-scale gathering incident that had just occurred.
“To avoid accidents, citizens are advised to reduce travel today!”
After emphasizing safety precautions several times, the news began mentioning the investigation into the background of this incident. According to their report, local police had immediately collected information on all the participants at the onset of the gathering and attempted to discover the reasons behind the large-scale march and violent attacks through arrests. However, the arrested individuals were difficult to communicate with due to language barriers, and language experts had already been brought in to assist the police.
“One noteworthy point is that many of the people on the police’s list of gatherers are activists from the recent ‘Nano-Robot Contamination Incident.’ According to Gileas Company’s feedback, they have already compensated the victims of the last incident with money and promised lifetime after-sales service. So, could this gathering be a second wave of activism by the previous victims?”
The elevator door opened, and An Wujiu started researching the nano-robot incident mentioned in the news. He discovered that some clinical medical accidents had been occurring sporadically since last month. These people shared the commonality of using Gileas Biotechnology Company’s auxiliary medical products, a new type of nano-robot for wound cleaning assistance.
The apartment door opened, and Zhong Yirou greeted them, “You’re here.”
Shen Ti teased her, “Xiao Rourou, I knew you were still alive.”
“Of course,” Zhong Yirou leaned against the door frame. “I haven’t saved enough money yet, so I won’t die so easily. Come in, Erci is waiting for you.”
An Wujiu directly asked Zhong Yirou about the nano-robot incident. She wrapped her shawl tightly around her. “I only found out about this yesterday when I came out of the game.”
“Yirou-jie, you came out yesterday?” Noah took off her shoes and approached her.
“Yes,” Zhong Yirou squatted down and touched Noah’s face. “Isn’t jie amazing?”
Noah nodded, “Erci-jie is amazing.”
Then she ran off.
“What? Am I not amazing too?” Zhong Yirou pouted at Noah’s back and then stood up to talk to An Wujiu. “There’s something fishy about this incident. I suspected it was related to Sha Wen, so I checked, but it turns out this tech company has no direct connection with Sha Wen.”
They walked to the living room, where An Wujiu saw Yang Erci coming out of the study. He nodded to her and then asked Zhong Yirou, “The lack of connection feels even stranger.”
“I thought so too, so I checked from another angle.” Zhong Yirou walked to the kitchen and poured a cup of freshly squeezed nutritious vegetable and fruit juice, handing it to An Wujiu.
An Wujiu was deep in thought and took it without looking, not even glancing at the strange color of the liquid in the cup.
“From the hospitals?”
Zhong Yirou nodded. “Yes, I checked the hospitals where the incidents occurred. Almost every one of them is sponsored by Sha Wen Corporation. These hospitals vary in quality, but it’s suspicious that they all procure the same equipment. Additionally, they frequently use these nano-robots, almost in every clinical operation, so within just a month or two, the number of victims surged. People contaminated by these nano-robots generally fall into comas, vomit large amounts of bloody fluid, suffer internal organ damage, especially to the heart, and they exhibit abnormal mental reactions, becoming irritable and prone to conflicts, similar to the previous batch of prosthetic infection cases.”
Hearing this, An Wujiu found it very strange. Could it be that the previous discussion about proselytizing really came true, and their methods of proselytization had indeed shifted significantly from promotional materials and word of mouth to technology?
Zhong Yirou continued talking and saw Shen Ti walking towards them. He took the cup from An Wujiu’s hand and said, “How did you know I wanted water?”
“That’s not…”
Before An Wujiu could finish, Shen Ti had already downed the unknown liquid in one gulp. His expression changed immediately.
“How is it?” Zhong Yirou asked enthusiastically, “Isn’t it good? It’s a special concoction I made.”
Shen Ti almost choked and quickly ran to the sink to spit it out.
“How could you treat my drink like that!”
An Wujiu laughed.
“Why didn’t you say it was your concoction!” Shen Ti coughed a few times, “I’ve never tasted anything so awful!”
Wu You, on the sofa, gloated, “Serves you right.”
Zhong Yirou took a sip herself. “It’s not bad; the ingredients are expensive…” She turned to find her next target. “Nan Shan, are you thirsty? I’ll pour you a cup.”
Nan Shan, always smiling, immediately changed his expression, “Uh, I…”
Wu You unceremoniously refused in advance, “No way am I drinking that.”
“No,” Shen Ti pointed at Wu You, directing Zhong Yirou, “You must give your dear little brother a full cup.”
Everyone was making a racket, the atmosphere warm and cozy, as if no brutal competition had ever occurred and they weren’t survivors, just long-time friends accompanying each other.
Through the noisy crowd, An Wujiu looked over at Yang Erci leaning by the sofa.
Perhaps it was a certain level of mutual understanding, as Yang Erci turned her face and happened to meet his gaze. She read the emotion in An Wujiu’s eyes and got up to walk towards him.
“What happened this time?” Yang Erci asked casually.
An Wujiu didn’t know how to start or where to begin.
“Uh,” he paused, “let’s find a place to talk.”
Seeing his serious expression, Yang Erci frowned, sensing something was up.
