Attention, everyone~
I quietly added 2,000 words to the latter half of the previous chapter (Chapter 84)! I made the update around 4:30 p.m. on July 14, so if you read Chapter 84 after that, you don’t need to go back and reread it~
If you haven’t read it yet, remember to go back and catch up on the second half!
Once that’s done, we’ll officially begin this chapter’s story. Let’s go!
*
“Was I not supposed to ask, or do you simply not want to tell me?” A rare sharpness edged Lin Zhou’s voice.
Lu Zhaoming did not get angry. He merely reminded him calmly, “Lin Zhou.”
“Fine. I won’t ask about the data.” Lin Zhou raised a hand and wiped his face. “But Number Zero is still just a child.”
“She undergoes so many experiments every day. Mental induction today, drug stimulation tomorrow, energy samples drawn the day after that.”
“How old is she?”
“She doesn’t even know what you actually want her to do.”
Inside the storage room, Jiang Nuan’s head gave a dull buzz.
Through the crack that had been forced open in the seal on her memories last time, more fragments surfaced now.
Harsh white laboratory lights pressed down from above.
Someone pushed a slender needle into her vein.
Transparent liquid flowed slowly into her body, and a chill rapidly spread along her arm.
She heard someone recording the data.
“Mental fluctuations are normal.”
“No signs of purification energy being released.”
“Increase the dosage.”
Jiang Nuan’s vision shifted back to the dim storage room.
But the chill did not disappear with it. Her nape was slick with cold sweat.
Those images were too vivid to dismiss as wild imaginings.
She even remembered the order in which the ceiling lights went out after each experiment.
Until the last light had gone dark, she still could not leave that building.
Jiang Nuan clapped a hand over her mouth, barely managing to keep her ragged breathing from escaping.
She crouched down, one hand braced against her knee, forcing down the churning in her stomach.
So she had seen a laboratory building like that before.
She had lived there.
No—not yet. She still couldn’t be certain.
Having memories of something did not mean she had personally experienced it. High-level psychic ability users could influence people’s perceptions and construct lives that felt incomparably real.
Even in this restricted zone, she had been able to see Lu Zhaoming from the past, as well as Lu Shiyan as a child.
Perhaps her mental state was also being affected by this world. Suddenly seeing images that did not belong to her might not be strange at all.
Yet the harder she tried to convince herself, the more violently her hands trembled.
She could not deceive herself. Her soul had sensed those images with terrifying clarity.
After taking a long while to steady herself, she finally raised her head again.
There was another person in the corridor now.
The man sat across from Lu Zhaoming, his back turned toward the storage room. All Jiang Nuan could see was a white lab coat and a slightly thin set of shoulders.
Her emotions had overwhelmed her so completely that she had not noticed when he arrived.
The man seemed to have been listening for some time. “Lin Zhou, you’re starting again. We’re doing this to save humanity.”
The voice sounded somewhat familiar, but she could not immediately remember where she had heard it.
Lin Zhou leaned against the back of his chair and asked coldly, “So as long as something is done in the name of saving humanity, anything is acceptable?”
“I never said that,” the man in the white coat replied with a chuckle.
“Then did you give her a choice?” Lin Zhou asked.
“Number Zero is different. Two years ago, she suddenly became very sensible,” the man in the white coat said. “She should… be able to understand why we have no choice.”
“Just because she became sensible, you decided to treat her like an adult?” Lin Zhou’s voice turned even colder. “At the very least, tell her the truth.”
“Tell her that the outside world could be destroyed at any moment? Tell her that billions of people are waiting for her to awaken? Then ask whether she is willing to cooperate?”
The man in the white coat countered, “Lin Zhou, do you really think asking her under those circumstances counts as giving her a choice?”
Lin Zhou fell silent.
Jiang Nuan felt as if she could hardly breathe.
That really was not a choice. There was no way she could choose.
“Captain, although this experiment failed, it wasn’t entirely without progress.”
The man in the white coat turned toward Lu Zhaoming.
“Number Zero’s psychic ability has completely stabilized.”
“There’s nothing wrong with her physical data, and purification energy does indeed exist within her body. It simply refuses to awaken.”
“Give me a little more time.”
“Awakening her purification ability is only a matter of time.”
When those words were spoken, the man in the white coat continued saying something, and Lin Zhou seemed to argue in response, but everything around her suddenly went silent.
Jiang Nuan had originally planned to enter the laboratory building and see that child with her own eyes.
Now, there was no need.
Because by this point, she could almost be certain.
The child called Number Zero was her.
Or rather, she was the younger version of herself in this body.
Jiang Nuan slowly pressed a hand against her chest.
Her heart was beating so fast that each thud hurt.
Was she a test subject? Then what had her life been like before she crossed into this world?
The seat by the window in the university library, the braised chicken and rice on the second floor of the cafeteria by the north gate, the summer wind on the athletic field carrying the scent of grass, the girls walking arm in arm as they chatted.
Those memories were so clear that she did not need to recall them.
That was the life she had truly lived for twenty years.
But if she was a test subject… could someone have implanted an entire life into her?
If Bai Siyuan could erase memories, then naturally, someone else could fill them in as well.
The words “she suddenly became sensible two years ago” flashed through her mind. A possibility she had once suspected surfaced again.
Could it be that she had crossed over into Number Zero’s body when she was a child?
Jiang Nuan forcefully cut off the thought. Without any other evidence to support it, excessive panic and speculation would only make her lose her ability to judge the situation.
…No matter what, after leaving the restricted zone, she had to see that old-world journal.
Jiang Nuan forced her attention back to the conversation outside the door.
Outside the door—
“It’s too early to discuss the outcome,” the man in the white coat said, his tone growing heavier. “No one wants her to die.”
“But that’s the most likely possibility,” Lin Zhou said.
The air fell silent.
After a moment, Lu Zhaoming spoke. “Enough.”
His voice was not loud.
Yet both Lin Zhou and the man stopped at the same time.
Lu Zhaoming looked up at the laboratory building. The exhaustion on his face remained impossible to conceal. “At present, there isn’t enough data to prove that Number Zero has to pay with her life to complete the purification.”
Lin Zhou pressed him, “What if it’s ultimately proven that she does?”
Lu Zhaoming did not evade the question. “I’ll make the decision.”
“Decide for her?”
“Yes.”
Lin Zhou looked at him in disbelief. “Captain, she trusts you.”
“I know.”
“She sees you as the only person who will protect her.”
“I know that too.”
Lu Zhaoming’s voice remained level as he spoke those two sentences, but the hand resting on his knee slowly tightened.
Lin Zhou clearly noticed.
His anger faltered for a moment. Then his voice dropped lower.
“So you know perfectly well that this is wrong.”
Lu Zhaoming raised a hand and pressed it against his brow. “Right and wrong won’t solve the anomalous energy.”
“The Investigation Department needs to stabilize public opinion. The Federation’s various regions need time to evacuate their civilians. The Lighthouse must find a way to resolve the anomalous energy.”
“Everyone outside is waiting for us to give them an answer.”
“I have no right to let everyone die together simply because I can’t bear to lose one person.”
Lin Zhou’s lips moved slightly. “But she has no obligation to die.”
“I never said she did.” Lu Zhaoming looked at him, his expression clear and composed. “Lin Zhou, I have never believed that sacrifice is anyone’s obligation.”
“But when sacrifice is unavoidable, someone has to make it.”
“The decision is cruel, and there will certainly be people who hate me for it.”
“But I’m the captain of Lighthouse.”
…This was the real Lu Zhaoming.
He was gentle and strong. He protected ordinary people and stood in front of everyone when danger was at its worst.
But when a choice had to be made, he was equally capable of calmly abandoning the few.
Lu Shiyan’s absolute rationality had not appeared out of nowhere.
The father and son were so much alike.
She thought of the way Lu Shiyan arranged everything with a cold expression every time.
So this was where he had learned it.
And yet he was not completely the same as Lu Zhaoming.
At least he had said something as foolish as being nothing more than an ordinary man.
Lin Zhou suddenly let out a cold laugh. “Sacrifice one person to save the world.”
“Sounds so righteous.”
He looked at Lu Zhaoming. “What if that person were Shiyan?”
“What if the one lying in the laboratory today were your son? Could you still remain this calm?”
The man in the white coat frowned. “Lin Zhou, don’t use a child to make a point like that.”
“Why not?”
Lin Zhou turned to look at him. “You’re always saying that you’d agree to it if you were in their place.”
“Because the person lying there isn’t you.”
“Anyone can talk about principles when they’re sacrificing someone else.”
Lu Zhaoming was silent for a moment, then slowly rose to his feet.
“If it were Shiyan, I would make the same decision.”
Lin Zhou tilted his head back to look at him.
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.”
Lu Zhaoming answered without the slightest hesitation.
His hand hanging at his side was clenched tightly.
“The Investigation Department wants Lighthouse to present a united front in order to stabilize public opinion.”
Lu Zhaoming looked toward the winter sunlight, rare and precious.
“They want us to tell the public that sealing the energy source can permanently resolve the anomalous energy.”
“But we all know that this method of sealing can only temporarily stop the energy from spreading.”
“Seal one today, and another will appear tomorrow.”
“If we keep pretending that everything is fine, in the end, everyone will die in a dream, completely unprepared.”
Jiang Nuan’s heart jolted.
The Lighthouse team had known for a long time that this method of sealing could not completely eliminate the anomalous energy?
Lin Zhou also rose to his feet. “So what?”
“So we’re out of time.” Lu Zhaoming withdrew his gaze. “Lin Zhou, we don’t need to keep revisiting this moral dilemma.”
“Morality can restrain people from harming the innocent when there is still room to choose.”
“But when we’ve already run out of alternatives, we have to choose the one that comes at the lower cost.”
Lu Zhaoming paused.
“Even if I have to bear countless curses for it, I still have no choice but to do it.”
“Don’t talk about sacrificing one person to save the world.”
“Even if we had to sacrifice forty-nine percent of the population, myself included, to save the remaining fifty-one percent, it would still be worth it.”
Lin Zhou said nothing for a long time.
His emotions were tangled—anger, and helplessness.
At last, he turned his head away and muttered a curse. “The Investigation Department keeps covering up the truth, the Federation pretends not to hear or see anything. They’re all the same.”
Lu Zhaoming did not argue.
Lin Zhou exhaled. “If it were me, I’d rather let the world be destroyed.”
“That’s enough.” The man in the white coat stood up as well and stretched lazily. “You’re not a child anymore. Stop talking about whether the world is going to end. When it really does, you’ll probably be the first one to run.”
Lin Zhou rolled his wrist.
The man raised both hands in surrender. “Let’s talk this out. You’re combat personnel—you’re not allowed to hit the lab staff.”
“Captain, Lin Zhou, hurry up and go to rehearsal.”
“I need to get back to my experiments.”
The man rolled his neck, turning his head from side to side.
At last, Jiang Nuan saw his face clearly.
Her mind went blank for a moment.
That face was much younger than she remembered. The weariness of later years had not yet settled into his features, and the white coat made him look refined and clean-cut.
She had seen that face not long ago.
At the Bai residence, this very man had tried to provoke Bai Siyuan, hoping to loosen the seal on her memories and awaken his own.
Although he was more than a decade younger, she could still recognize him at a glance.
It was Song Huaicheng.
Song Huaicheng from more than a decade ago.
