Apocalyptic Island - Chapter 71

Chapter 71

Before Wen Yishu could even reply, she saw the people on the first helicopter being crudely kicked out.

Ling Shuang’s voice message came through, sounding desperate: “Crap, they’re doing it for real!”

At first, the people could hold onto the ropes, but eventually, they lost their grip, and it became a straight vertical drop. It was impossible to tell if the people who hit the ground were dead or not. Huo Xiaoguan and Ling Shuang were scared out of their wits inside the helicopter.

Wen Yishu ignored their frantic wailing and quickly typed out a message.

Wen Yishu: Swing yourselves out. Swing toward the outside of the perimeter wall. We’ll catch you at the bottom.

After sending it, she sent a vibration alert, unsure if they had seen it. The first helicopter had finished dumping its “passengers.” After circling once above, it quickly flew off, and the second helicopter moved in to begin kicking people out.

Wen Yishu and Bai Mi rushed forward, positioning themselves outside the electric fence. The attention of the sentries was entirely focused on the arriving helicopters. Only the ground area was illuminated; outside the wall and up in the sky, it was pitch black.

Wen Yishu saw a trembling figure slowly descending a rope from above. Then, the rope began to swing violently. She knew they had seen her message. She had the String-of-Pearls transform into a massive, elastic vine trampoline. Holding either side, she and Bai Mi swayed back and forth, predicting the landing position.

Ling Shuang felt she had never been this insane in her life. When she had escaped the apartments before, she at least had a ladder made by the String-of-Pearls. But now, there was nothing. She had to grip the rope and go down without a single safety measure. Aside from the pool of light where the people from the first plane had fallen, she couldn’t see any other light below. Her heart was consumed by fear; she could only choose to believe Wen Yishu’s words.

The wind from the helicopter blades made it difficult to control her direction once she started swinging. Although she had been training hard since the start of the apocalypse, she felt powerless in this moment. Her hands burned from gripping the rope; she could only slide down slowly while trying to find a balance point. As her swinging arc grew wider, the people above began to lose patience.

As Ling Shuang neared the top of the electric fence, she finally saw a flickering point of light from Wen Yishu’s light-brain below. Her hands could no longer hold on. The moment she swung past the fence, she let go without looking back.

The rapid descent made her instinctively flail her arms, trying to grab onto anything, until she was caught by something resembling a trampoline. Before Ling Shuang could even process the sensation, Wen Yishu dragged her down and told her to move aside so she wouldn’t interfere with catching Huo Xiaoguan.

The tears that had just started to well up in Ling Shuang’s eyes were instantly sucked back in, and a smile involuntarily tugged at her lips. She hurried to a distance and crouched against the base of the wall. This feeling of being back with her partners was incredibly reassuring.

Once Ling Shuang let go, the rope stopped swinging. The guards below, somewhat confused at not receiving the person from above, assumed she had fallen elsewhere. For now, they stayed in the circle of light and didn’t go looking, waiting for the next person to descend.

Huo Xiaoguan’s heart was pounding. Seeing the person inside preparing to kick her, she quickly grabbed the rope and jumped out. She failed to control her speed and slid halfway down instantly. Her palms felt like they were on fire; a quick glance showed they were bleeding.

“Son-of-a-bitch bastards, don’t let me get my hands on you!” Huo Xiaoguan snarled, her anger reaching its peak.

She began to swing violently, only to be tossed around by the helicopter’s downdraft. She didn’t have Ling Shuang’s composure; the air echoed with Huo Xiaoguan’s ghostly wailing, which attracted quite a few nearby Xenogenics. The person above, unable to stand the sight, simply cut the rope.

Huo Xiaoguan: “?”

Her profanities erupted like a geyser. Fortunately, Wen Yishu caught her, preventing her from breaking her neck. However, her landing posture was far from graceful. Huo Xiaoguan awkwardly pulled her head out of the stretched-out mesh of the String-of-Pearls.

A guard inside the wall walked over: “Did they fall here?”

“Probably. No sound. Falling from this height onto concrete outside, they’re likely dead.”

The group crouched at the corner of the wall, not daring to breathe. There was the sound of rustling movement inside the wall. After a brief search turned up no sign of Huo Xiaoguan, they gave up.

A pager beeped: “Report: two were thrown outside.”

“Doesn’t matter. No need to clean up. Let them feed the Xenogenics.”

The people inside received the reply, and their footsteps gradually faded away.

At this point, the four were reunited. Ling Shuang whispered excitedly, “Wen! Leader!” The two acknowledged her, both patting her on the shoulder. “Let’s get out of here fast. Huang Fei is outside waiting for us.”

The helicopter flying overhead drowned out Wen Yishu’s words. She made a gesture for them to follow. The four nimbly ran out of the patrol range. Wen Yishu knocked away a few low-level Xenogenics blocking the path with two punches, not lingering to fight, and hurried back to the vehicle. The other three piled in. Huang Fei didn’t waste a second, rapidly starting the motorhome and driving in the opposite direction.

They had finally picked up the two. Everyone was overjoyed to see each other and drove all the way back to the apartment. There was a parking garage on the first floor of the apartment building, just large enough to pull the vehicle inside. After Wen Yishu checked the motorhome once, she led the group upstairs.

The apartment was a safe resting place. She released the String-of-Pearls to act as her eyes, monitoring the situation outside. The rooms on the second and third floors were just enough to accommodate everyone. There was no hot water supply at night, but after the ordeals of the past few days, no one was in the mood to be picky. After wiping themselves clean and changing clothes, they sat in the living room and began exchanging information with Wen Yishu.

The news from Rhine Headquarters was already airtight. Ling Shuang and Huo Xiaoguan hadn’t known until they arrived that they were being sent down to feed the Xenogenics. The quarantine zone at the factory had likely become their new experimental base. Without knowing Yu Ning’s current situation or the conditions inside, Wen Yishu didn’t dare rush in blindly.

The online discussions and boycotts had reached a fever pitch. Wen Yishu took a look and felt it was a double-edged sword. While everyone was now wary of Rhine, public trust in the Federation had also plummeted. Some extremists had already begun attacking quarantine zones, shouting about releasing the Mermen so everyone could go down together—it made Wen Yishu’s heart race. Fortunately, Rhine had already moved the quarantine zones, and those people were shot by the guards outside.

Of course, most people remained rational. Under pressure, the Federation wanted to move city residents to other regions, but they were met with fierce resistance and rejection from the public in those areas. Everyone was afraid of death, especially when it came to creatures like the Mermen. No one knew if Rhine could actually keep the Mermen contained in one area; the public had completely lost faith in tech companies.

In the distance, the streets were ablaze, and the sounds of wanton, wild laughter echoed through the empty roads, sounding hair-raising. Wen Yishu glanced out, then curled back into the sofa. This place would become unsafe sooner or later. Once she rescued Yu Ning, she would completely sever ties with all tech companies. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Qu Yue, but she felt that all high-level executives who reached the pinnacle of power and wealth were wolves in sheep’s clothing. No matter how clean they looked on the outside, they were rotten inside. Warp Speed was no exception.

However, Wen Yishu hadn’t planned where to go yet. For now, she asked Bai Mi to pick out a few locations—ideally somewhere she could start planting the seeds. The water and food in the apartment weren’t plentiful, and with more people consuming them, she felt they could only hold out for a week at most. She had to move with her partners as soon as possible, stockpile food and water, and find a secure dwelling.

Only now did Wen Yishu truly feel the reality of the apocalypse, worrying about food and water. She sat there quietly thinking, while Ling Shuang and Huo Xiaoguan sat on either side of her.

Huo Xiaoguan asked, “Wen, how have you been feeling lately? Did you see that influencer’s livestream?” She wanted to ask about Wen Yishu’s ability but felt it might be rude. After hesitating for a while, this was how she phrased it.

Wen Yishu looked up at her and said, “Actually, I went to the underground black market today. You guys should know about the Memory Brokers, right?”

The two immediately perked up. That organization’s neural-link fame was such that even they had heard of it in Rong City. They nodded, waiting for Wen Yishu to continue.

She went on: “That’s Rhine’s ‘Black Glove’ in Binhai City. When I went down, I saw Zhan Xiaofan—the streamer—he was captured by them. He’s probably dead by now.” She gave them a detailed account of the underground market, leaving Huo Xiaoguan and Ling Shuang staring in disbelief.

“Dead? No way. Even for a Black Glove, they should nurture him, right? After all, even if there are abilities, people like that are rare!” Ling Shuang felt her mind boggling. She couldn’t understand what her former employer was doing. Why would they kill an Ability User? Even using something as ridiculous as a catalyst shouldn’t lead to a fatal overdose, right?

Bai Mi suddenly chimed in: “Maybe they wanted to transplant his eyes?”

Everyone fell silent, looking at her. After her mind had been opened by Wen Yishu, she was thinking much more boldly and deeply. Based on past experiments, such a guess wasn’t far-fetched.

Looking at that stoic, unmoving face, Huo Xiaoguan swallowed hard. “Leader, are you saying they would gouge out Zhan Xiaofan’s eyes? But even now, we don’t know where abilities come from. Why risk such an experiment? Do Ability Users have crystals in their bodies too?”

The answer to that question was unknown. Who could cut open an Ability User to see if there was a crystal like the ones in Xenogenics?

Bai Mi nodded expressionlessly. “That possibility cannot be ruled out.”

Everyone turned their gaze back to Wen Yishu, who had just picked up a piece of bread to eat. She felt a bit bewildered by their expectant looks. Huo Xiaoguan leaned in and asked excitedly, “Wen, how does your body feel? Anything… different?” She was gesturing wildly, looking like she was seconds away from prying open Wen Yishu’s throat to see for herself.

Wen Yishu popped the bread into her mouth, confused. “What do you mean ‘different’? I’m fine. I don’t feel anything at all.”

Ling Shuang pushed Huo Xiaoguan aside and leaned in to stare at her for a moment. “Exactly. Do you feel any ‘primordial power’ in your body? Any… inner core?”

Wen Yishu nearly spat out her water. She unstrapped the light-brain from her wrist and pressed it against Ling Shuang’s face. “Am I a demon? An inner core? I’m not a Xenogenic; where would I get a crystal?”

At this point, she drifted off into thought. “Maybe… I should have stayed to see if they dissected Zhan Xiaofan. Then we’d know for sure if there is one.”

Wen Yishu remembered how those Xenogenics always eyed her eyes greedily. Maybe the so-called crystal was right behind her eyes?

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