CHAPTER 35

Li Haohao couldn't recognize her. This meant that this area was a representation of the past or some distorted impression. It wasn't the present, nor the future. He Ran appeared very distressed. She put on her uniform again and reached out to feel the supply officer's neck. The faint heartbeat made He Ran feel anxious.

Nowadays, was there any good way to leave the polluted area? Under Li Haohao's terror, unless a mushroom cloud was dropped from the outside, what could she do internally? She was a pollutant herself, and her death would be justified. However, if a normal person died here, it would cross her bottom line. She would never consider it normal.

But she couldn't blame the bewildered and hungry Li Haohao in the cage behind her, she didn't even recognize her.

After putting on the uniform, she was 0922 again. The chains on her hands and feet were tightly entwined but not enough to strangle her in place.

She surveyed the empty cages around her. Despite there being so many cages, there were only two prisoners, her and Li Haohao. The cages were airtight, like a multitude of stalactites hanging in a stone cave, with no sound echoing between them, as if the walls had swallowed it.

Underneath her feet was boundless darkness. Where did the darkness lead? He Ran had no idea. The darkness seemed to reach out like a hand to grab her, causing her to stumble backward and gently support the supply officer's knee.

If she were a few years younger, still serving in the military, and without someone on the verge of death behind her, she would truly consider jumping down to see. But now, her physical and mental strength couldn't keep up, and she only felt exhausted.

Unable to do anything, she searched through her pockets in despair and looked at Li Haohao, who remained silent, pursing her lips. From the initial fear and evasion to the current curiosity and doubt, He Ran didn't know what she should do while looking at this expression.

She didn't know how long she had been in the darkness. Finally, He Ran changed her position and reintroduced herself to the clueless Li Haohao, saying, "My name is He Ran. I am a researcher at the Daomiao A4C2 Outpost, just like you, a woman..."

Li Haohao remained silent, but He Ran didn't mind. She gestured with both hands in front of her, "I saw posters outside. You were sitting in a chair, barefoot, with a glass on the floor."

"And another one, you were wearing cat ears," He Ran gestured above her head, "You don't know me, but I've seen you before, in the past. One day, cat ears also grew on your head, just like on the poster. Your ears are very sensitive, you can hear many things that I can't hear, that I've deliberately ignored."

Li Haohao heard it and slowly shook her head.

"What does shaking your head mean? I know, you don't remember these things, or maybe you're not... I don't know. Have you met the young lady? The Governor's daughter, who looks exactly like you, but she's not you. She doesn't have this bead string on her hands and feet, and her hair is very smooth."

He Ran regained consciousness. The young lady who resembled Li Haohao hadn't found her yet. What if she was the real Li Haohao? But how could that be possible... However, she remembered that Li Haohao had mentioned something about eating salmon, which made her uncertain.

Who was the real Li Haohao? Where was the projection of Li Haohao?

Doing laundry, wearing golden bead string, with natural curls, going on camping picnics, enjoying gourmet ingredients...

She had to find that esteemed young lady and see for herself.

She began examining the chains on her hands. Just as she lowered her head, Li Haohao's cage suddenly started shaking.

Amidst the rattling of the iron chains, Li Haohao's cage was moved away. He Ran leaned against the railing and could only see Li Haohao looking around in confusion, nervously curling up as she was transported to some dark place.

"Li Haohao!" she shouted. Li Haohao, through the repetition of those words, understood that it referred to herself. She turned her head to look at He Ran, but in an instant, she was completely pushed away.

He Ran forcefully tugged at the iron chains in her hands, clattering and clattering. The other end of the chains was welded to the cage. Her movements were too loud, causing the supply officer to awaken, hoarsely saying, "Put me down."

She calmed down, pressed her wristwatch, pollution level 60, mental value 45.

"It's okay. I told you I would get you out of here."

"I'll... die."

The supply officer smiled.

He Ran didn't regret carrying the supply officer on her back at all. If she didn't have the intention to bring the supply officer out, she wouldn't have taken any action and would have just stayed in place, waiting to be consumed, embracing the fate she had promised.

But as long as the supply officer was alive, she had to find Li Haohao. She couldn't give up on any glimmer of hope.

She had originally planned to find a place to put down the supply officer, but it seemed unnecessary now.

The entire cage was airtight, without doors or peepholes. She looked around and finally squatted down. "For my sake, please don't die easily, okay?"

The supply officer weakly smiled. "I'm in so much pain."

She massaged the supply officer's knee, as if trying to alleviate phantom limb pain. The supply officer said, "It hurts... My leg feels like it's been... eaten."

Not cut off or sawed off, but very specifically, eaten.

"Is the pain constant?"

The supply officer fell silent, and He Ran turned her back, the supply courier slowly exhaling, "We... there's no way to deal with the pollution..."

"I know. Other than bombing, there's no other way to handle widespread pollution."

"Put me down." Xiang Chenxi's voice was resolute. He Ran patted her knee, "You're an officer."

"A useless officer."

"If possible, you can still drive, you can leave here, you can at least complete the mission."

He Ran grabbed the railing, shifted her body, and finally tilted the cage slightly. With the faint reflection in the darkness, she saw the opening of the cage at the bottom.

"The mission..."

"Although it will be difficult for you to complete missions in the future, you can still report back, level the outpost, level the ruins of Daomiao City, right? You have firsthand experience of traversing such a highly polluted area."

"I've only experienced it, it hasn't changed anything."

Although the supply officer was still speaking pessimistically, she was no longer seeking death. She hung her head and said, "Can you give me the wristwatch? I want to see my mental value."

He Ran returned the wristwatch and pressed it for her. The mental value displayed on the wristwatch was only 6.

The supply officer let out a sigh of relief, "I haven't been..."

"Even if you become polluted, it doesn't matter, look at me."

While encouraging the supply officer, He Ran found the lock of the birdcage. It was so small and hidden, but it was advantageous in its simplicity, lacking high technology. She adjusted the angle.

"I used to be in the vanguard force against the Abnormals, as you know, humans had no initial experience... We thought it was a group of mutated animals under nuclear radiation, so many animal experts were sent, but later we found out... it wasn't. The moon turned red, strange phenomena appeared, things from novels became reality, and... novels still adhere to logic, but reality doesn't at all, people died in large numbers."

"If it was just the mutant beasts, it would have been fine... Later, we had internal problems, the higher-ups were concealing it, they didn't know what to do, and then they realized they couldn't control it... They decided to shell our entire camp... regardless of pollution level, they just bombed it, saying it was like putting a lid on a pot of rotten meat and kicking it away."

"But I didn't die because another research group arrived, they said they were evaluating our pollution levels... and selected some people, exams, questions, interviews... in the end, I passed."

"Ah, I misspoke earlier. I can't quite remember clearly. It wasn't the research group that came for evaluation, but the people above the research group who were commissioned to evaluate... At that time, the outpost was also a new system... Everyone called the outpost a lighthouse, a place far away from the main forces and assistance, in the wilderness, very dangerous... The deputy director of the research group looked at my files, wrote an application, and transferred me to the outpost where she was stationed. She asked me a lot of questions, and initially, she was supposed to be promoted due to her frontline duty at the outpost... Somehow, her quota disappeared, and she ended up living with other naive and foolish people."

He Ran examined the steel plate beneath the birdcage. The lock wasn't sufficient to move such a large plate, so she looked at the welding spots elsewhere. The supply officer weakly asked from behind her, "And then?"

"That's it, there's no 'and then'. The outpost couldn't find any survivors... And then, they all died last year... I just wanted to say that putting in effort without seeing any change, without any results, and without any meaning is normal. It's normal, so there's nothing to worry about."

The supply officer closed her eyes wearily, "Your theory of 'normal' seems to be achievable only by you."

"You keep deceiving yourself."

"Have you deceived yourself too?"

"If you deceive yourself enough times, it becomes real. This is an idealistic world."

Finally, she found a seam. The lock had four parts.

Bang!

The steel plate tilted, and before it slid down, He Ran hurriedly wrapped her arms around the supply officer, who now had only half of her body left. She tried to grab onto something several times but couldn't find a firm grip. Her gun remained in its original place, and she could only manage to grab the knife.

The dark abyss embraced her, and she shifted her body, lying on her back.

Ground—?

Although it was painfully jarring, her skin was scraped as if Li Haohao had pushed her hard several times. She didn't have time to lower her head and see what she had stepped on. Looking up, she could no longer see the birdcage, and there was endless darkness above her.

She lowered her head. The light here was extremely weak. She rolled and sat up, her arm sinking into a pile of rotting mud.

Pulling her arm out, she reluctantly wiped her hands on her pants. After thinking for a moment, she whispered an apology to the supply officer, patted her waist and found a flashlight.

She tried to sip up, but her legs slipped underneath her. She maintained a kneeling position and felt a pool of rotten mud beneath her knees. It was putrid, with maggots squirming within. When she touched it earlier, she felt the movement of the squirming creatures. Definitely maggots.

Calming herself, she heard the buzzing of flies around her. When she fell, the flies scattered, but now they were swarming back.

"Bzz! Bzz!" The flies desperately sought refuge anywhere, in her mouth, in her ears. She groped around and finally managed to turn on the high-tech flashlight.

A beam of light illuminated only about ten meters of a path before hitting the wall. He Ran's fingers trembled, and the flashlight fell from her hand, quickly being engulfed in darkness.

In that fleeting moment of light, it had revealed a horrifying scene, twisted, decaying corpses were piled up, the lowest layer had decayed into mud, knees bent backward, with barely any flesh left on the skulls.

Maggots crawled out of eye sockets and burrowed into nostrils, wriggling densely, climbing onto the surface of fresher corpses.

One after another, the bodies of young girls piled up amidst the flies and maggots.

Their flesh had been apart, and they gazed with despairing eyes into the surrounding darkness. Their broken forms had shattered and cushioned He Ran from being instantly crushed to pieces.

Twisted arms tangled together, bones eerie, internal organs continuously oozing out.

They all had the same face.

They were all Li Haohao.

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