Chapter 564: The Fate of a Spore
"She's not a real person," Xu Huo said.
As if this was an unexpected answer, Xin Lang fell silent.
"You haven't answered my question from earlier," Xu Huo continued. "If you can't destroy the protective wall, you must have a backup plan."
"It's not needed anymore." Xin Lang didn't answer the question directly. She looked up and suddenly asked, "There are still quite a few people alive in the quarantine zone, right? Once the protective wall breaks, they'll be no different from the people in the city."
"Then everyone will be infected, and everyone will do their best to destroy the quarantine zone to leave themselves a way out," Xu Huo said. "That way, the reality show will cease to exist."
"Is that so?" Xin Lang's voice turned cold. "But I think even if everyone is infected, the people living in the upper levels will only find ways to drive more people into the quarantine zone, and then new screening conditions will emerge."
"There will always be people with a conscience," Xu Huo said. The atmosphere in Clown City was very good. Just looking at the performances in the arena, it was clear those young people weren't just there for the rewards. Those with skill and courage were few, but a larger part was driven by pure passion.
This was different from the Block Fairy Tale City station. The people of Clown City hated the Xenomorphs. Although the cleanup mission was just a scam, their hatred for the Xenomorphs was real, and they were willing to sacrifice for their families and hometown.
"The biggest problem with this city is that there are too few players."
Clown City was very similar to District 014, which had just become a game district. The number of players was small, and the government still relied on soldiers and weapons to maintain order. This created a big problem.
If there was a government with a conscience and stability, ordinary people could live and work in peace.
But if the government was incompetent, or even used countless lives for profit like Clown City, ordinary people would find it difficult to resist even if they knew the truth.
For Clown City now, players had become the weapon that could break the deadlock. Only when more ordinary people and infected people became players could this sick city possibly change.
"There will be more and more in the future." Xin Lang clearly understood this as well and said it with certainty.
At that moment, a tremor came from above. The ground not far from them suddenly cracked open. After the mud and rocks collapsed, a dozen strong beams of light shot in from outside. The noise of people was deafening, and fully armed soldiers kept jumping down from above.
Xu Huo hid behind a rock and said quietly to Xin Lang, "Just a little more."
Even if the internal metal structure was dissolved, the protective wall wouldn't collapse anytime soon. Once it did, the General Administration wouldn't have the energy to hunt them down.
But Xin Lang had no intention of staying. She fired a shot at the people above, attracting the soldiers who had come down to capture them, and then ran toward another passage.
Xu Huo didn't stop her. After the pursuers were led into the underground nest, he withdrew his hand, glanced in the direction Xin Lang had gone, and then turned to walk in a different direction.
Over there, Xin Lang led the numerous soldiers into the underground nest, using her familiarity with the terrain to shake them off. Just as she was looking for a way out, a player silently approached her, used an item to trap her in place, pierced her shoulder with a drag hook used for hunting wild beasts, and roughly dragged her to the surface.
A large number of Clown City troops had already surrounded the protective wall, digging holes everywhere on the ground to find people, completely unconcerned about whether the overflowing fungal dust would infect more people.
The repair mask Xu Huo had applied to her had somehow failed. When Xin Lang looked up, under the light, she had returned to her original appearance. Seeing her face, the Chief Administrator appeared on a military vehicle and said viciously, "Where do you think you can run? Looking for help outside the protective wall? Overestimating yourself!"
With a cold laugh from him, a team of soldiers dragged over a dozen corpses and threw them on the ground.
Xin Hui, 179, the two people from the rescue vehicle, and a dozen other young faces. Their faces were covered in blood, their eyelids half-open, their eyes already devoid of life.
Xin Lang struggled to get up, but the player holding her broke her right knee from a distance. She fell to her knees, but her eyes were fixed straight ahead.
"Even a dog knows to bark at the person who feeds it. I raised you, and this is how you repay me?" The Chief Administrator looked down from above, his eyes cold. "Ungrateful wretch!"
Compared to his agitation, Xin Lang, who had recovered from the shock of the corpses, appeared very calm. She said, "You kept me alive just to say these two sentences?"
Her completely dismissive attitude enraged the Chief Administrator. He roared, "Strip her clothes off!"
The player standing next to Xin Lang used a small knife to cut open her top. But as the fabric tore, the player's expression changed, and he immediately leaped far away.
By now, Xin Lang was no longer the beauty who could make men lose their minds. The exposed skin was covered in things like pus-filled blisters, and some places were densely packed with fine, long fuzz. The whole person looked like a moldy orange. Not a single good spot remained, and even her original body shape was hard to discern.
"Heh!" She coughed lightly, and the air she exhaled was filled with tiny white floating particles.
"You took over my father's control of the entire Clown City, and in the end, your methods for dealing with women are still this low," Xin Lang said with a light laugh. "My body is infected with nearly a hundred types of fungi. When I escaped just now, I already spilled my blood throughout the city. There's no need to cross the protective wall. Clown City will soon become just like the cleanup zone."
"Clown City has enjoyed twenty years of good days bought with the lives of others. The next twenty years will be used for atonement."
The soldiers in the front row all raised their guns, but the Chief Administrator didn't order them to fire. His face was ugly. After a moment, he said, "You haven't left Clown City in nearly twenty years. The infection must have happened earlier. It hasn't manifested in twenty years. Tell me the method to remove the infection, and I'll let you die quickly!"
Xin Lang laughed again, and more floating particles drifted from her mouth. "There's no way. Just wait to die!"
The Chief Administrator snatched a gun from a nearby soldier and shot through her other shoulder. But unexpectedly, what flowed from the wound wasn't blood, but a black-green liquid with a strange odor. When the stuff splashed onto the ground, it quickly grew into a black, fuzzy fungus!
The Chief Administrator was both shocked and furious, but he didn't dare kill her. He said, "Don't you want those who escaped to live?!"
"We've been living just for this moment." Xin Lang's eyes went blank as she fell backward. From various ruptured parts of her body, white floating particles surged out, like scattered dandelion seeds. Carried by the wind, they quickly drifted forward.
The soldiers directly in front of the protective wall, even wearing protective suits, couldn't help but retreat. Because those white floating particles would take root on any surface they touched, even stone was no exception.
(Chapter End)