Chapter 111
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Chapter 111: The Followers
Lin Qingliu admitted that there was a reason his documents had turned into waste.
He truly hadn’t considered so many aspects while crafting the story.
However, when these issues manifested in his own life, he had no choice but to take them seriously.
Ultimately, those former bugs came back to haunt him in a peculiar way.
After all, even from a great distance, light can bend due to the presence of air, causing errors and leading to issues with landing points.
So, in places like outside the door or beyond the wall, where he was already very familiar, as long as he could determine a rough landing point, it should be fine, right?
After all, he still had the abilities of the Blood and Flesh pathway to protect his life, so it shouldn’t be a big problem.
Theory exists, and practice begins!
Five seconds later, Mr. Lin Kamen Qingliu uttered the timeless wisdom: "If you don’t seek trouble, trouble won’t find you."
—
The next morning, in the wounded soldiers camp by the wall of the inner city, El and Zhuang Mian finally emerged from their high fever and coma.
The only oddity was that El woke up on the floor beneath the bed, in a corner that nobody had noticed.
The two were in excellent condition—so much so that they shouldn’t have been in the wounded soldiers camp at all.
They had been mentally prepared for the changes that had occurred within them.
As secret allies, they exchanged glances, both seeing smiles in each other’s eyes.
It had been a long night; the injured soldiers clearly remembered being treated with fresh bandages, yet doctors and nurses continued to attend to them.
The repeated pain from disinfection made them grit their teeth, feeling as though their injuries had plunged them into a delirious state, blurring the line between reality and dreams.
The doctors and nurses were equally exhausted; after completing their rounds and changing dressings, they often discovered a few inexplicable "fish that had slipped through the net."
All night long, the alcohol disinfectant was nearly depleted.
When the sky finally began to lighten, the weary doctors and nurses returned to their lounge, only to find the room in complete disarray, as if a thief had ransacked it.
Documents that should have been on the desk frequently appeared beneath it for no apparent reason.
Yet when they finished tidying everything up, they found that nothing was missing.
It was as if someone had deliberately broken in, turned everything upside down, and then left without a trace.
Outside the wounded soldiers camp, Zhuang Mian’s cleanup squad teammates were waiting, while El was greeted by his loyal sidekick, Daoge.
The two mingled with the cleanup squad as informants, and then they each headed off to their own homes.
After all, Zhuang Mian hadn’t forgotten her overstepping report from the day before and would undoubtedly need to write a lengthy reflection upon her return.
As for the Infected, mycelium, and madmen, she would leave those headaches to the folks at the research institutes.
—
"After this incident, we can now affirm that the theory of the biological field is valid."
In the morning, Zhou Zhuo’s voice echoed through the research institute’s broadcast system.
With time tight and tasks pressing, Zhou Zhuo, ever the pragmatist, decided against gathering everyone in the large conference room for a meeting.
He simply turned on the broadcast and shared the situation from yesterday with everyone without affecting the researchers’ progress.
"This reminds me of the theory’s creator—Professor Charlie. Although he passed away over twenty years ago, the foresight of his theory has been validated today…"
Most researchers had heard of the theory of the biological field.
However, the majority regarded it merely as a hypothesis.
Now that the theory had been confirmed, the struggling people in the outer city were no longer just expendable resources that the inner city could discard at any time; they had instead become a protective umbrella for all humanity.
Everyone understood one thing:
The reason humanity had not turned into madmen and monsters under the pressure of the extraordinary beasts’ biological field was that the total human population remained within a relatively stable range.
Moreover, the relatively small Hope City also strengthened the biological field on the human side from another aspect.
The broadcast soon relayed the main computer of the research institutes’ deductions based on the existing theory:
As long as the human population loss exceeded thirty percent, the external biological field would begin to erode the minds of the remaining humans.
If the population loss surpassed fifty percent, the remaining humans would enter a semi-mad state.
If it exceeded seventy percent, with no intake of mycelium, the surviving humans would be able to directly hear the teachings of the supreme will of the mycelium in their minds, becoming indistinguishable from the Infected.
And the outer city of Hope City had as many as 4.8 million people, accounting for eighty percent of the total population.
Once the outer city was overrun by extraordinary beasts, the remaining humans would have no way to hide, even if they retreated underground.
That would mark the day of humanity’s demise.
At this moment, most people felt a wave of despair and negativity, with one exception.
Ji Yongxing hadn’t slept all night; he observed the blood samples, attempting to find the mark of a divine presence within them.
According to ancient rumors, the word "god" represented absolute perfection, so if he could find parts that could be simplified, wouldn’t that mean god was also just…
With such thoughts, the young and impetuous Ji Yongxing embarked on an all-night study.
Until late at night, his eyes, having been open for so long and observing things he shouldn’t have seen, were bloodshot.
His vision even experienced a temporary decline; everything he looked at seemed tinged with a hint of red.
In that surreal environment, Ji Yongxing felt he had gained new insights.
Then he collapsed onto his laboratory bench, and was awakened by the electronic voice of the makeshift machine he had assembled at six-thirty in the morning.
After waking, Ji Yongxing took some time to adjust to his new abilities, avoiding unnecessary information overload in his brain.
This made him a few minutes late for his work today.
At this point, as he progressed through today’s tasks, he gradually learned more about his current abilities.
Having resolved to visit a psychologist privately at the first opportunity, Ji Yongxing couldn’t wait to apply his new abilities to his computer that overheated with prolonged use.
—
In a dark, old room, each member of the Hope Council sat before a thick stack of documents.
Less than twelve hours had passed since the crisis was averted, and this was all the information the three major organizations could submit.
The room was steeped in eerie silence, with the faceless crowd continuously flipping through the documents in their hands.
They occasionally pondered, occasionally discussed, trying to form the most direct and comprehensive understanding of yesterday’s urgent incident.
Time seemed to drag on, until suddenly a voice broke the silence:
"Have you all read enough? Let’s talk about this matter."
