Chapter 50: I’ll grant you your wish (End of Volume 1)
The communication was cut off.
But those words were like ice embedded in her skull, still exuding a cold air.
The phone slid to the ground. Jiang Dexin slowly looked around. Her gaze first fell on the tragic corpse, then she retracted it and successively glanced at the unbelievable written records.
If these things were to be exposed to the light of day, Cheng Ran’s experiments back then would definitely be dug up again.
Not to mention the more stored data, the displayed specimens, the cultivated cells… any corner of it, if released, would be enough to subvert people’s cognitive concepts for so many years, shake the entire scientific community, and turn international conventions into trampled waste paper.
She really wanted to remind Cheng Ming to be careful, to be careful of the foundation that invested in scientific research projects, to be careful of the upper echelons of the research institute, to be careful of Chu Lanying… Laboratory 40, 40 was not just a number, but also represented a year, 2140.
The time when the first level four biosafety laboratory was built.
But looking down at her phone, she suspected that the things she sent out would be monitored or even tampered with.
After a moment, Jiang Dexin stood up and moved with difficulty, supporting herself against the wall.
She was almost on all fours, both fumbling for the road under her feet and moving forward with a goal.
The fragmented light of the lighting tubes behind her gradually faded away, and the places she passed by were left with winding dark marks.
The target was the main control room.
She was not familiar with this place, but she was familiar with Cheng Ran.
She had never directly participated in those projects, but it was as if she had.
She knew what Chu Lanying had not finished saying. It was probably a contemptuous mockery. Mocking her, to put it nicely, was to protect herself, and to put it bluntly, was to be afraid of death.
She was in such a hurry to cultivate Cheng Ming. On the one hand, it was a guilty compensation, and on the other hand, she was also holding some subtle and secret thoughts—as long as she threw everything to Cheng Ming, let Cheng Ming take over the responsibility, let Cheng Ming go and find Cheng Ran, and let Cheng Ming bear the pain, she could justifiably withdraw.
Teacher Jiang…
A call seemed to still linger in her ears. She vaguely saw the vibrant face of a young person, merging with the high-spirited youth of the past.
You mother and daughter are so alike… she had also been in a daze for a moment when she first saw Cheng Ming, and had sighed softly in her heart.
Not to be stained by dust, but to be stained by dust.
Her name seemed to have foretold everything a long time ago.
There was a weak spot on the floor of the control room. She pushed the door open, and, supporting herself with the indistinct metal structure, she fell to the ground and felt for the fire hammer that was close at hand.
After carefully identifying it, she found the right position, raised the hammer, and struck.
Without too much force, the floor that was close to the wall cracked with a spiderweb of lines.
She pushed aside the fragments, and under a shallow layer of cavity, a button was hidden.
The light was very poor, but Jiang Dexin knew that it was bright red.
It was the color of a warning.
She leaned tiredly against the wall. She had exhausted all her strength to climb here, just to press this.
A termination device that could destroy all biological information.
Cheng Ran had set up a timed email and had told her on that night six years ago.
At that time, the other had probably already had a premonition of her own end.
If nothing happened, she would have withdrawn the email herself.
But in the end, this secret was delivered to her mailbox on time.
Jiang Dexin reached for the protrusion and pressed it.
Click.
After the light sound was silence.
An infinite silence.
Because there were ten minutes to evacuate, she looked up at the cold, gray and white ceiling and quietly waited for the countdown to reach the end.
Ten minutes was nothing in daily life. It was not enough to observe a microscopic structure clearly, nor was it enough to finish a quality lunch… but now, it seemed to be so slow that it would never end.
The light came in from the edge of the window, forming a bright passage. She used all her strength to raise her hand and looked at the silver bracelet on her wrist. The intertwined silver threads reflected the light.
The double helix DNA, the origin of life’s stable existence and inheritance, the end of a species.
Nuclear radiation could shatter this structure, easily take away life, break the boundaries of species, and erase the true existence of living beings. And so people had built defense centers, hoping that one day they could correct their mistakes and get back on the right track.
This might be an extremely long journey, or it might just be an unattainable dream, or perhaps nature would find its own way out… who knew.
These grand things were already too ethereal, too far away from her.
And so, she naturally thought of Cheng Ran again.
After leaving campus, the opportunities to meet became fewer and fewer. It was a lecture organized by the old Professor Jin, and they had rarely gathered in the same city. After Cheng Ran finished her speech, she had given her this bracelet. She was already a renowned university professor, and she had smiled mysteriously and winked at her.
Jiang Dexin had lifted the lid of the box and had seen this special style that was very much in line with their work direction.
She had subconsciously asked the other the meaning, with a certain expectation, and her mind had already quickly gone through the knowledge in the biology book.
The miracle of weaving heredity, the bridge that carries life, how romantic.
Perhaps because she was with Cheng Ran, she couldn’t help but be infected with a literary and artistic atmosphere.
“Huh?” However, Cheng Ran was stunned for a moment, and then she burst out laughing and raised her hand in surrender. “My bad, my bad. Actually, I didn’t think that much. I just thought this style was beautiful and suited you.”
…Yes, it was really beautiful.
Scholars pursued regularity and order all their lives. Minerals crossed time, came from the distant geological era to the present, were excavated, forged, and shaped. If they were not discarded, they could stably accompany their owner for a lifetime.
She smiled and watched for a long time. The silver shone with a beautiful metallic luster, and her peripheral vision was gradually filled with a dazzling white.
Boom—
The sonic boom was so intense that it was silent.
In the silent, loud noise, the fire wave swept through the entire laboratory, shattering the glass, overturning the facilities, and implicating a vast area of other regions.
Whether it was paper or electronic, whether it was organic or inorganic, all the data was completely shattered. The debris was like snowflakes, and the smoke and dust rolled into the sky.
She kept her eyes open, knowing that her body was being torn apart, and her flesh and blood were turning into charred ashes, but there was no pain.
In the end, only the purest colors were imprinted on her eyeballs, like an oil painting, splashed, dripping, and dazzling, and finally returning to one color.
A vast expanse of white was truly clean.
…
When Cheng Ming was not actively giving way, the maximum time Xiao Ming could take the lead was no more than ten minutes. When the main consciousness resisted fiercely, it would be further shortened.
There was no room for a tug-of-war. As soon as she left the building, she had regained control.
But even if she had snatched back her body, Cheng Ming could not go back.
No one was paying attention to her. There were blood-red lights everywhere, and the distance was noisy and chaotic. The alarm sound in the vicinity was overlapping and occupying her hearing. A large number of heavily armed personnel poured into the research institute, and every entrance and exit was strictly controlled.
On the one hand, she was so confused that she couldn’t even tell north from south. On the other hand, she was soberly thinking that she should be called a fugitive after killing someone.
Then let’s run. She didn’t know how far she had walked in the alternating hot and cold wind, and she belatedly felt that something was wrong.
The sky seemed to have brightened, and it had directly passed the day and arrived at dusk.
She looked up in a daze for a while, only to find that it was just the clouds being illuminated by the light from the ground.
What had happened?
Cheng Ming didn’t know.
In the prolonged alarm sound, she was like a drop of water that had merged into the vast ocean. She didn’t know where she was going, and she didn’t know where she would end up. She just moved forward in a daze, being chased and pushed by the lights and the crowd.
Run.
Where to?
I don’t know, it’s not important.
She dared not look back, and could not stop.
Across a long period of time, the two footprints overlapped.
Stepping on the misty, dark long road, it was as if she were re-enacting that night at the age of sixteen, turning her back on human society and going away.
It was just that this time, it was her own initiative.
The high gate was like a natural chasm separating the two sides.
The ocean and the land were originally one, until humans built a protective wall and drew a quarantine line, forming an ecological isolation zone, and willfully tore apart nature to raise themselves.
“Who’s there!”
The sharp shout, mixed with the noisy wind, was actually not obvious, but the current Cheng Ming was like a grenade on the verge of exploding. Any vibration could blow her to pieces, and all that was missing was a fuse.
Someone had found her and had turned their gun on her.
The situation was too chaotic. The person opposite her seemed to have just returned to the wall after a fierce battle. His helmet was damaged, and he was very nervous. The iron-pipe monster in his hand was staring at her, and it could go off at any time.
Bang—
The moment the gunshot exploded, her body reacted faster than her mind. She rushed forward and, while twisting the other’s arm, swish!
Something brushed past her on both sides and quickly pierced through the other’s ear canals. The slender tendrils were hidden in the dim night, like a poisonous snake that would hit its target in one blow, and also like the scythe of the god of death, easily harvesting a fresh life.
“A monster,” the laser beam cut a dent in the ground, and the figure of the man who had raised his gun finally softened like a piece of tofu. “Mon, mon, mon…”
At first, there were complete and smooth words, and then, there was only a continuous stuttering like an old tape recorder.
His cranial nerves had been destroyed in an instant.
Swish!
As the torn arteries and veins sprayed out blood, the fungal mass that had expanded from the conidia burst out, along with the plasma and brain matter, like a very brilliant and bloody firework.
The liquid splashed on Cheng Ming’s unprotected skin, colder than the night wind.
She finally saw clearly the flying black mycelia on her side, the free threads, the threads of death.
Oh, she had killed someone.
She had killed someone again.
Cheng Ming tilted her head and looked at the corpse on the ground, which she didn’t know if it was still her “own kind,” and raised her eyebrows with blood on her cheeks.
A monster.
Haha, yes, she was a monster.
She really wanted to laugh out loud, but her facial muscles were stiff. She just coldly curled her lips and turned to walk towards the gate.
The protective wall was under attack, and the network signal was also falling apart. The communication was paralyzed, and the guards were at their wits’ end, which had given her an opportunity.
Beep—
Her vision was blurry, and her hearing was also a mess of chaos. She didn’t know whose appearance this monster of hers had taken, and whose authority she had used.
Cheng Ran? Or Jiang Dexin?
Ha, it’s not important.
The passage was open, and the head-on strong wind blew the corners of her clothes into a frenzy.
She had finally, completely, walked the path that Cheng Ran had walked back then.
On this hazy and chaotic night, the frantic sea breeze, carrying a salty and fishy smell, pushed her hard, as if it wanted her to go back. But she went her own way, against the majestic will of nature, stubbornly and unyieldingly forward.
Passing through the gunshots and cannon fire, through the smoke and the dismembered limbs and flesh, there was no strong interception, and no strange creatures came to trouble her. And even if the frontline soldiers had found her, they were too busy to care.
The marine creatures wanted to go inside the wall, and the land humans wanted to defend the high wall. Only she was an exception, rushing towards the sea in a suicidal manner.
She just kept running like this until she stepped on a huge reef, and the roar of the waves almost tore her eardrums.
The sea surface nearby was white under the moonlight, full of foam, so much that it had accumulated over the entire sea area.
In the distance, a white line came sweeping in with devastating momentum.
As it got closer, she saw the long, bright wall of water, even more magnificent than the towering protective wall behind her.
Cheng Ming suddenly realized that it was a tsunami.
The Defense Center was going all out to deal with the monsters and the sudden riot, and she didn’t know if they had detected the abnormality on the sea surface.
In the end, it had nothing to do with her.
She looked at the vast ocean, without fear, but with a feeling of coming home.
Her heart was rising and falling with the tide. She pressed her chest, and really wanted to pull out the little monster that was pounding below and crush it, but Xiao Ming did not cooperate, and her fingers could not break through the protection of the fish scales.
She had no choice but to settle for the next best thing. She felt for the protrusion under her clothes, grabbed the necklace, and pulled it hard.
The silver chain broke, and the pendant that had been with her for many years was torn off.
Cheng Ming picked up the seashell and looked at it, smiled, and called out softly, “Mom.”
A lingering, dreamlike whisper, it was unclear if there was more hatred, or more love.
The swaying red seashell was shining, and her eyes were also shining under the moonlight.
Then, she raised her arm and threw this treasure that had been with her day and night into the sea. A small splash, and it was quickly covered, not even as obvious as the natural ripples on the sea surface.
She couldn’t cut out her heart, so she threw away her other heart.
Besides the messy sounds from far and near, there was another sound in the part of her brain that was responsible for hearing.
Cheng Ming—
Cheng Ming—
Xiao Ming was desperately calling her. The “sound” was very distant. If the neural electrical signal fluctuations could be equated with sound waves, then it must be heart-wrenching and liver-splitting.
But Cheng Ming only felt that it was very noisy and annoying.
“Shut up,” she replied.
Standing on the shore, the hem of her clothes was floating, like a light and slender bird flapping its wings. Facing the endless blue sea and the vast world, it was an insignificant existence.
The primary and secondary relationship between them was so vividly displayed at this moment, so despairingly clear.
Under Cheng Ming’s unyielding suppression, Xiao Ming had no gaps to exploit, could not resist her will, and could not stop her actions.
“Don’t you want to die with me?” she said with a light mockery. “I’ll grant you your wish.”
She turned and stepped back, opened her arms, and with tears and a smile, she fell from the reef without any defense. The sea was below her, and she was an oystercatcher that had thrown itself into the sea, willingly breaking its wings and rushing into the embrace of eternal silence.
The mycelia swayed, and in the short gap of time and space, they futilely tried to grab something. The sea breeze danced, as if it wanted to lift this oystercatcher, but she was ultimately pulled by the earth and crashed heavily onto the sea surface.
The wave was shattered, and it broke into pieces, exploding into high, translucent flowers, which boomed and drowned the only white in the night.
At the same time, whoosh—
The tsunami wave that had accumulated enough power arrived, and a hurricane swept through, like the roar of ten thousand prehistoric giant beasts, lingering between heaven and earth for a long time, and echoing.
Along with it, a person’s heart, blood vessels, and every pulse were vibrating at the same frequency. The earth shook, and the hurricane roared.
The monstrous waves rose from the ground, like towering mountains, and the wrinkled ripples were the surging forest waves.
On this day, countless people in the Defense Center looked up and saw the sea, which was running against the moon and rushing towards the land.
It was like coming to a world-destroying appointment.
Under the protective wall, the confrontation with the mutated creatures had stopped. Facing this insurmountable mountain, perhaps they should have screamed, fled, and cried in a sorry state, but most people just stared in a daze, awed by the great power of nature, and praised this terrifyingly magnificent spectacle with their lives.
Boom!
The ocean and the land collided.
Within a few kilometers, all the buildings and all the man-made structures were submerged and scattered by the waves, exploding into an avalanche of white. The protective suits could protect against nuclear radiation pollution, but they could not resist this pure, immense force. Any life at this moment was purely insignificant.
The torrential wall of water destroyed everything with a subversive energy.
Before creation, all living beings were equal.
Except for the tall buildings that were still standing in the distance, all the traces of human activity nearby were wiped out, and nature returned to its most primitive color.
The tide rises and falls, and all things return to zero.
…
July 8th, 2174.
Thirty-first year of the ocean nuclear pollution outbreak.
Along with a sudden tsunami, the five major coastal defense centers were almost simultaneously attacked by marine creatures. The external defense failed, the internal laboratories lost control, the signals were disturbed, and the data was lost… the losses were immeasurable.
Among them, the Eastern Defense Center, which had the most complete reserve forces and the most cutting-edge scientific research results, was the most severely affected.
However, the headquarters’ location had considered the impact of a tsunami. A buffer zone had been specially left through terrain and historical assessment, and the monitoring mechanism was also very complete. It should not have suffered such a painful lesson. After analyzing the cause, the regulatory authorities successively discovered that the culprit that had caused such serious consequences in cooperation with the natural disaster was still the mutated creatures.
Various details showed that this accident was not that simple.
This was a large-scale, premeditated terrorist attack, with a highly intelligent mastermind behind it.
It was unknown how it was done, but the monster organization, with the “red seashell” as its key symbol, had indeed made a brilliant debut with this wave that had brought a devastating disaster.
It was a complete provocation, or rather, a declaration of war.
After the great disaster, the scene was one of devastation.
Even with today’s advanced technology, humans were still as fragile as children in the face of an angry mother nature.
The protective wall was paralyzed, and the quarantine net was completely breached.
The seawater poured in. In order to prevent the spread of high-risk mutated microorganisms, artificial rain was induced for three months to create an extreme environment to inhibit the reproduction of bacteria, and the atmospheric temperature dropped sharply.
Frost in June.
The number of casualties was being counted, and the missing had not yet been registered.
This battle, which was enough to be recorded in history, and the seemingly stable final situation, ended with the retreat of mankind.
The quarantine line was moved back five kilometers, and people lost more land.
The ocean was swallowing the continent.
【End of Volume 1】
【Two Sides of a Soul】
