Apocalyptic Island - Chapter 61

Chapter 61

“What? What thing?” Du Feijie turned her head toward her, dazed.

“They treat the xenogenics as humans?” Du Feijie arrived at an absurd conclusion. The expression on one half of her face was distorted while the other half remained calm, making her look incredibly eerie.

Wen Yishu nodded. She felt that if there was one person the merman least wanted to imitate, it would be her; maintaining Du Feijie’s appearance would lead to exposure with the slightest slip-up.

She recounted the events at the apartment and the characteristics of the mermen to the two women in detail. The expression on Qu Yue’s face shifted from shock to fury.

“Goddammit, are they insane? Bringing the mermen back like that without any foolproof preparations—now that the mermen are blended into the crowd, who knows who they are!”

Wen Yishu patted her shoulder, telling her to stay calm for now. After all, things hadn’t spiraled completely out of control yet. If things were truly as bad as they feared, the people of Binhai City would have no hope of survival.

The lead merman clearly possessed high intelligence; its goal wasn’t simply to eat people, but to have a continuous supply of food.

Qu Yue looked at the optical computer solemnly: “I need to report this to the higher-ups. Thank you for bringing this useful intel.”

If she hadn’t had the sudden whim to talk to Wen Yishu today, this matter likely would have just passed by unnoticed. Of course, even if Qu Yue hadn’t come looking, Wen Yishu would have told Warp Speed about it; since it concerned so many lives and the urban environment, she still didn’t want humanity to simply perish like that.

A head-on negotiation between the two factions was inevitable now. Once the two sides started talking, Rhine would also realize that Wen Yishu had truly defected to Warp Speed’s side. She hoped that when the time came, the people at Warp Speed wouldn’t just throw her under the bus.

Wen Yishu tapped her optical computer. After exchanging all their thoughts, she spoke up: “By the way, is this a single-communication model? Although Aix is a general-purpose AI, I imagine you must have your own internally developed AI as well.”

The two swapped a glance. Qu Yue looked down and fiddled with something, and subsequently, a pop-up appeared on Wen Yishu’s optical computer asking whether to connect to the network settings.

Wen Yishu selected ‘Yes.’

With a simple setting refresh, many more software applications appeared. The optical computer originally given to her hadn’t had other functions enabled.

Wen Yishu was very satisfied with the respect they showed her. She smiled toward the deactivated camera above, completely severing Aix’s illusions. The cut-in of Warp Speed’s AI was mandatory; before Wen Yishu had fully joined them, they hadn’t wanted to force her into a situation where she might be monitored.

Wen Yishu hummed a little tune as she returned to the apartment, casually dealing with a few scattered rats along the way. Unfortunately, the mutated rats didn’t seem to produce crystals easily; she had crushed several heads in a row without finding any. Feeling disgusted, she finally stopped.

Upon opening the door, she saw Bai Mi getting dressed. Her hand, which was pulling up a zipper, froze when she saw Wen Yishu. She set her bag down; although she was acting much better than the last time Wen Yishu had gone missing, her hands were still shaking violently.

She stepped forward and locked Wen Yishu in a death grip of an embrace. Wen Yishu patted her back, feeling a bit breathless from the squeeze: “What’s going on?”

Belatedly, she realized she hadn’t sent Bai Mi a message. She hurried to pat her shoulder: “I forgot to tell you, Aix called me in for a talk, saying they wanted to cooperate with me.”

She clearly felt Bai Mi’s grip tighten. She smiled: “Don’t worry, I refused.”

Bai Mi finally let her go, somewhat awkwardly shifting her gaze elsewhere. Wen Yishu didn’t mind her loss of composure. She went back to the bedroom and lay down, releasing the String-of-Pearls plant. She wanted to get a good night’s sleep; whatever else there was could wait until tomorrow.

She slept until five in the morning. Upon waking, she listed out everything she needed to accomplish. Food at home was scarce; she needed to quickly bring back the shipping containers near the banyan tree.

The report Qu Yue had submitted yielded results today. The upper management was communicating with Rhine, attempting to get them to reveal detailed information about the mermen to Warp Speed, suggesting the two sides temporarily set aside their differences for mutual benefit.

However, they were arrogantly rebuffed by Rhine. Qu Yue was so angry she sent Wen Yishu several messages in the early morning, denouncing those “idiots at Rhine.”

There was also a piece of bad news: the area they were locked in was now under blockade, with no one allowed in or out. This was an emergency curfew issued after she returned in the middle of the night. Although there had been faint signs of this before, there hadn’t been an explicit ban on entering or leaving the city. It was unclear if they had discovered her entry through the sewers or if the merman threat had already erupted.

After washing up, Wen Yishu quietly lifted a corner of the curtain and looked toward the direction she had returned from yesterday. The location of that sentry orb had been sprayed with the blue-and-white Federal warning sign. However, it wasn’t cordoned off; presumably, the inspectors found no danger there and cleared the hazard marking.

The sky outside was grey and hazy. Seeing Wen Yishu get up, the String-of-Pearls plant retracted its vines and lay back inside Wen Yishu’s pocket.

The news on the Real-Time Feed was exploding. News of the Hai City District blockade spread rapidly. Most urban residents were confused. Life went on, but the blockade triggered panic. The Federation offered no explanation, and the outside world was rife with speculation about what was happening inside.

The streets were empty. Bai Mi picked up a bag of government-issued anti-rat powder from the door, delivered by a courier robot. It had been over a week, and the visible supplies of vegetables and grain in the city were starting to run short. The Federation had activated grain reserves for emergency use. Most people didn’t have the habit of hoarding food; the convenience of supermarkets had long since stripped them of their sense of crisis.

The loudest outcry from the public was: what about vegetables and staple grains? After the plant mutations, these things that were once within easy reach had become dangerous and deadly. One slip-up, and you could be killed by the produce on your cutting board. For a short time, vitamins and pre-packaged meals could suffice, but as time went on, getting a bite of fresh vegetables or fresh meat would become incredibly difficult.

Federal employees were also striking heavily. Each district was now showing a trend of evolving into private local militias.

Wen Yishu checked the situation in the Hai City District and discovered that her area was a stronghold for an individual group. She looked at the City Long Alley and sighed; the collapse of order was only a matter of time. She hadn’t expected it to be this fast, but after seeing the pathetic state of the Federal police yesterday, she understood why.

After two days of slaughter, the “survival rate” in residents’ homes was roughly 70/30 in favor of the humans. Rats were small animals, after all; at this stage, they weren’t too difficult to deal with. As long as most people took it seriously, dealing with a few rats squeezing into the house was manageable.

At the same time, more people were discovering crystals within the bodies of some particularly strong Rat Kings. The existence of crystals was no longer a secret, but most people didn’t understand their function yet and were in a “wait-and-see” state.

Wen Yishu curled up on the sofa. She sipped some warm water she had just let cool and clicked on a very popular livestream on her optical computer. It was a highly-rated travel vlogger with the ID: “Infinite Chicken Feet Back-Scratcher.”

Wen Yishu saw him often because he was a native of Rong City. When she was in university, he would pop up in her local feed, so she had watched him a few times. She hadn’t expected him to be in Binhai City this time; the plant mutations had started just as he arrived at a luxury hotel downtown. Even so, he didn’t forget to livestream. Though he exposed his location, he gained massive traffic. Many people bored at home watched his stream to experience the horror of the apocalypse together.

The hotel still had water and electricity, but the room rates had reached an unimaginable astronomical price, burning through money every day. Once the money ran out, the guests would be thrown out. However, “Back-Scratcher” had earned enough money that staying inside wasn’t an issue. He had been lying around the hotel for the past few days with nothing to film—until a giant Rat King entered his room.

The popularity of his stream surged again. After “Back-Scratcher” exhausted himself to subdue the Rat King, he looked at the egging-on in the comments and dug a blood-red crystal out of the Rat King’s brain. That was the content of last night’s stream. He had made a bold decision: to eat the crystal today and see what changes it would bring to his body.

By the time Wen Yishu saw the stream, it had already hit number one on the Real-Time Feed. Plenty of people knew about the crystals and possessed them, but no one had made such a bold attempt on this unknown object like he did.

Wen Yishu entered the livestream room. Her eyes were dazzled by the screen-filling comments. She couldn’t see “Back-Scratcher” at all until she turned off the comments and saw a white porcelain plate set before the man. On the plate lay that transparent crystal.

As the number of viewers in the stream surpassed ten million, “Back-Scratcher” picked up the crystal and placed it into his mouth.

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