The woman looked flustered, her hands trembling slightly under the scrutiny of the crowd. Her speech sounded odd, marked by hesitant pauses as if she were stammering, unable to utter even a short sentence.
Shen Dan used her foot to drag over a chair, gesturing for her to sit. She then pulled a bottle of water from the supplies and handed it to her.
Having been confined for what seemed like a long time, the woman took the bottle and, tilting her head back, gulped down half of it in one go. Her pallid face gained an unhealthy flush from holding her breath.
Taking the opportunity, Shen Dan’s gaze swept over her exposed skin several times. Spotting quite a few scars, she asked, “What does ‘antibody’ mean? Are you a recovered patient?”
The woman avoided his eyes and mumbled something that no one could quite understand.
Seeing that communication here was difficult and that this might take a while, Li Qing tilted his chin to indicate, “We’ll check the next room. We’ll leave someone with you.”
Shen Dan nodded, leaned half against the desk opposite the woman, and took out her optical computer to begin the inquiry.
“Name, age, height, place of origin…”
The woman screwed the cap back on the bottle and stood there blankly. It took her a long moment to utter a few words. “You’re interrogating me?”
“Just a standard verification process.” Shen Dan lifted her gaze slightly, glancing over the top of the optical computer. “We’re on a mission and time is limited, so this is only a basic investigation. Please cooperate.”
The woman remained in a state of heightened alert, as if the slightest disturbance could trigger her fragile nerves.
Shen Dan asked again, “Are you a recovered patient?”
The woman kept her head low and murmured softly, “Yes.”
Shen Dan withdrew her hand from the optical computer, paused for a moment, and then slowly asked again, “Do you carry antibodies that can cure this novel virus?”
The woman shivered pitifully, her breathing growing heavier. With her muscles tensed, her sharp shoulder blades jutted upward slightly as she shrank her neck, exposing her bony collarbones.
Thinking seemed to be a difficult task for her. She struggled to concentrate, and after a long pause, she finally formulated a response. Lifting her head, she met Shen Dan’s steady gaze for an instant before quickly looking away.
Her terror then intensified, her entire body trembling uncontrollably. Shen Dan swore she had done nothing to provoke it.
The office area, after the earlier scuffle, was now in complete disarray.
Overturned tables and chairs, shattered glass fragments scattered about, and a framed painting that had fallen from the wall… All the decorations, bathed in the dim light, appeared aged and broken – much like the woman before her, whose spirit had been profoundly shattered.
“You can be honest with us. We’ll take you out of here,” Shen Dan said, her tone flat and devoid of any emotion as she calmly explained, “This city has been hit with a biochemical weapon. We weren’t prepared when we arrived, and now everyone, including us, is infected. You can tell us the truth.”
Shen Dan wanted to add that she hoped the woman would hurry, because her information concerned the fate of an entire city.
But Shen Dan sensed the woman couldn’t handle that kind of weight right now. Even a single leaf placed on her shoulders might crush her.
More accurately, she was already at a loss, unable to respond.
There was less than an hour left before the mission’s next failure point.
Shen Dan didn’t know the exact conditions that would trigger failure, nor if this iteration would end at the same time as the previous one.
Glancing at the corner of her optical computer screen, she felt a pang of urgency. If they made no progress, their second round would soon be over. She couldn’t help but prompt, “Did you hear me?”
“I really am… a recovered patient,” the woman said, her words laced with hesitation. “But it’s useless.”
Shen Dan frowned. “What do you mean, useless?”
The woman’s gaze dropped. The plastic bottle in her hands groaned as it twisted under the pressure, the noise startling her so much she flung it away. The bottle hit the floor and rolled forward, eventually stopping against a “corpse.”
Staring at the black military uniform on the ground, the woman swallowed hard. After a long moment, her eyes cleared slightly, but instead of answering, she simply shook her head at Shen Dan.
…
“That’s the situation. She won’t tell the truth.” Shen Dan sounded defeated. “I don’t think she’s the one we’re looking for. I’ll take her to the vehicle first and get her settled.”
Li Qing hesitated, wanting to say something but stopping. “Then what do we do?”
He knew that pressing the woman further in her current state wasn’t right. Besides, an NPC’s inherent settings couldn’t be overcome simply by interrogation.
“We’re running out of time.” Li Qing felt the ups and downs of life keenly, a wave of frustration washing over him. “She’s our only lead.”
From Cheng Feng’s end came only calm silence, followed by a well-intentioned correction. “Buddy, if you can’t get through it, it’s not a lead. At best, it’s a distraction.”
Li Qing, already frantic with worry, found her leisurely tone even more aggravating. He asked, “Junior, any new progress down there?”
“None,” Cheng Feng replied. “The layout down here is complex, too much data, and I have a teammate who likes to scavenge through trash.”
Song Zheng retorted, displeased, “What do you mean, scavenge through trash? Big shot, you’ve never played online games so you wouldn’t understand. A lot of game clues are hidden right in the junk. It’s the system’s way of being malicious!”
This statement drew murmurs of agreement from several others, clearly sharing a deep-seated aversion to that very malice.
After a bout of noisy chatter, Cheng Feng’s distinctive voice cut into the team frequency again.
“We’re heading down to the second level.” She jogged down the stairs, not forgetting to add, “I wanted to share something with you guys. Last night before bed, I saw a research report promoted on San Yao, ‘The Top Ten Hazards of Anxiety.’ For instance, it can make already dim-witted people hypnotize themselves into becoming even dimmer.”
The senior students: “??” What are you implying?
Cheng Feng pushed open the door to the safety passage. This time, ignoring Song Zheng’s calls from behind, she moved with swift, steady strides, bypassing several unoccupied rooms near the exit and heading straight for the access control leading to the core area.
The layout of the second underground level was simpler, with no more branching paths. Cheng Feng directly blew the lock on the access control door, passed through the empty reception area, and then stopped.
Before her was a straight corridor. On either side were wards separated by narrow walls.
If asked, Cheng Feng would have been more inclined to call them prison cells rather than single-patient rooms.
The rooms were cramped and narrow, with a washbasin and toilet in the corner. A nauseating stench of rot hung in the air. All the doors had one-way locks; the people confined here had no safety, no freedom, and no privacy.
Now, every lock had been opened. As Cheng Feng walked down the corridor, some rooms were empty, while in others, patients lay on the floor, unable to move. Several others were sprawled haphazardly in the hallway itself, all appearing to be in critical condition.
Song Zheng trod carefully, silenced by the shocking scene before him. He leaned down to check the breath of the person lying in the middle of the path, then pressed a finger to the man’s neck, where the skin had already begun to ulcerate, before confirming, “He’s alive.”
Cheng Feng stood in the center of the corridor, her face pale and ashen in the dim light. Her half-closed eyes held a piercing, icy glint.
“Count the survivors.”
“Save them all? These are all our rescue targets?” Song Zheng asked, fidgeting uneasily. “But our time…”
He trailed off, then shook his head with a sigh. “Ah, forget it. The cars by the roadside… can we steal, uh, borrow them?”
…
Shen Dan led the woman to the vehicle, opened the rear door, and gestured for her to take the seat furthest inside. She then asked the senior student accompanying her to go back and assist with the evidence search. Alone now, she drove off and parked in a quiet, concealed spot on a nearby street, avoiding the entrance in case enemies returned and caught them off guard.
She activated her optical computer, opened the data analysis panel, and connected it to everyone’s detection glasses.
This interface was what she was used to.
The interior of the car was very quiet. After leaving the research institute, the woman had remained completely silent. She sat in the back seat, maintaining the same posture, her breathing so light it was almost imperceptible.
Shen Dan tapped on the keyboard, listening to the chaotic mix of conversations through her earpiece, often forgetting there was another person behind her. Following Cheng Feng’s instructions, she paused the rescue search and began organizing the evacuation of the survivors.
The noon bell rang, and the heavy gray clouds that had been pressing down over the city finally dispersed.
Shen Dan turned off the time alert and glanced at the woman in the rearview mirror.
The woman was leaning close to the window, bathed in the sunlight streaming through the glass. Her expression was calm, as if she were both enjoying the moment and yearning for something more.
Shen Dan couldn’t help but look up at the sky as well. The vast dome had returned to its usual azure blue; everything seemed so ordinary.
Humans cannot influence the distant heavens. Humans can only obscure their own vision.
Shen Dan lowered her head, refocusing her attention on the optical computer screen. Suddenly, the woman spoke, “We were just ordinary people. We just went to the hospital once.”
Shen Dan said, “I know.”
The woman forgot to blink, her wide eyes gradually reddening until tears finally spilled over, beyond her control. They traced the wrinkles on her face and fell onto the scarred back of her hands.
She murmured very softly, “We couldn’t do anything. We couldn’t save many people.”
Shen Dan stopped what she was doing and turned to look at her.
In the quiet space, the tears were silent.
Shen Dan sensed her profound grief, a sorrow she herself could not comprehend. Thinking for a moment, she didn’t know how to offer comfort, so she could only borrow a line from the university president’s opening ceremony address and said simply, “We are all trying hard to find the right path.”
The woman didn’t even know where her own path lay. At the very least, their paths were different.
Seeing that the woman had calmed down considerably, her expression softening, Shen Dan felt the moment was right. For the fourth time, she asked, “Are you a recovered patient?”
The woman moved very slowly, rolling up her sleeve. It was covered in scars from healed ulcers, along with other marks difficult to identify.
Shen Dan felt a sting in her eyes, but she forced herself not to look away.
“There was a patient in the lab. He had a high resistance to the virus. They extracted antibodies from him and injected them into the infected.”
“Most patients couldn’t withstand the side effects and died. Those who survived were repeatedly infected and cured to enhance the virus’s drug resistance and promote its evolution.”
“Animals,” Shen Dan cursed politely, then asked urgently, “Who is he? Where is he?”
The woman’s fingers clenched around her own wrist, her fingertips turning pale, as if she intended to snap her right hand off. Shen Dan leaned forward and stopped her self-harming action.
Their skin touched – one warm, one ice-cold.
The woman lifted her head, meeting Shen Dan’s gaze directly for the first time. A layer of cloudiness veiled her pupils, a barrier between her and the world.
“He is my son.” The words cost her immense effort, her voice trembling completely. “He is my son…”
Shen Dan released her grip.
“Before the evacuation, they wanted to take him along, but one researcher let him go.” The woman raised her hand to cover her face. “That one sliver of luck he had, he could have been an ordinary person…”
Leaving the lab, starting over, instead of being pushed onto the operating table once more, studied without dignity under a different guise.
In the profound silence, Cheng Feng’s voice came through the communicator. “He can still be an ordinary person in the future.”
“No,” Song Zheng said firmly. “The Alliance will remember everyone’s sacrifice. He will be a hero.”
