Chapter 972: Good and Evil
Xu Huo remained unmoved. "Dr. Zhang is not Dr. Wu. He's just a mediocre pharmacologist with little talent. An evolution agent with such major flaws is not worth buying; you'd be better off getting a ready-made one from another district."
"But he's also looking for Dr. Wu. I found clues about Dr. Wu in his secret room. The address I gave you earlier was fake. As long as you return the agent to me, I'll tell you everything in detail!"
"I thought he admired Dr. Zhang so much," Shangguan Xi rolled her eyes. "Selling someone out to save his own skin without even a moment's hesitation."
Kuang Wenjun frowned at him. "Say a little less."
"What? Are you sympathizing with him?" Shangguan Xi retorted.
"It's not sympathy," Zhu Feiyun chimed in from the side. "His original intention was for the base station, but fate played a cruel trick on him."
"Give me a break," Shangguan Xi said. "He knew one of those agents was an antidote. Why didn't he hand it over to the base city government? So many people died back then. Surely there was at least one government with a conscience that would have tried to save people. It's just that he was afraid someone else would take his treatment agent."
"I'm guessing he hadn't developed the side effects yet when he brought it back. Otherwise, why would he have given the stuff to his companions? He just didn't expect retribution to come so fast. By the time he got to W18, he was already crippled."
"I'm not saying people have to sacrifice themselves for others to be considered great. 'Better you than me' isn't a big deal. But insisting that it was all for the sake of humanity is a bit of a stretch. I bet his original intention was to make a name for himself."
Regardless of Luo Changren's original intention, improving the genes of the W37 base station was a well-meaning starting point. The outbreak of the SE virus was an accident, and his hiding the antidote to save himself was understandable—he was just a selfish, ordinary person.
The pity was for the people who died in the W37 base.
"Which color is the treatment agent?" Xu Huo took the box and, from an empty space, produced two agents, one blue and one green.
"Are you really going to give it to me?" Luo Changren's eyes were red, and he couldn't even bear to blink. He stared fixedly at the two agents. "The green... no, the blue one..."
Xu Huo's expression turned cold. "Whatever agent you choose, that's what I'll give you. Playing tricks will only harm yourself."
"Green!" Luo Changren said immediately.
Xu Huo gave him the green agent as promised.
Luo Changren grabbed it and immediately tried to inject it into his arm. But as he pressed down, his vision blurred. The liquid, which was decreasing, suddenly changed from green to blue!
"Ah!" He screamed and threw the agent away, lunging at Xu Huo in a fury of resentment. "You tricked me! How dare you trick me!"
Unfortunately, he could barely walk and was deeply trapped in Xu Huo's spiritual world. He couldn't move a single step and was stuck in place.
The perspective of Shangguan Xi and the others was slightly different. In reality, Xu Huo hadn't given the agent out at all. Luo Changren had just pressed his own arm with an empty hand and then started going crazy.
"If it wasn't a real agent, he wouldn't have reacted so strongly," Shangguan Xi looked at Xu Huo. "What exactly is that blue agent?"
Xu Huo walked over to the immobilized Luo Changren, held up the blue agent, and asked, "Is this the original sample of the SE virus?"
Luo Changren's anger was mixed with shock. "You figured it out!"
"What happened before wasn't entirely your fault," Xu Huo patted his face. "But lying to me and saying this was the antidote—that's where you went wrong."
Knowing he was doomed today, Luo Changren had a bit of a "what's the worst that could happen" attitude. He said directly, "When I guessed Gao Zhen wanted to cull the population, I knew she wouldn't let the virus spread to other base cities, nor would she let all the ordinary people in W37 die. Didn't she want the agent? I decided to give her a big gift!"
"Without my brother Xu, you'd still be locked up in the government hall. Wouldn't W37 have tested the agent when they got it?" Shangguan Xi sneered.
"She knew, but you didn't," Luo Changren let out a series of strange laughs. "Aren't you trying to be the good guys? Then you can taste the consequences of good intentions gone wrong. When a third of the entire base station dies because of you, you'll know what it feels like to live every second under the torment of guilt!"
"Are you even human!" Zhu Feiyun and the others were furious, realizing they had almost been saddled with the blame for so many lives.
But Luo Changren seemed a bit dazed. He slowly looked up, his eyes focusing on some unknown point, and said vacantly, "Everyone says this should be blamed on me. But what did I do wrong? I brought back an agent meant for players. Those who didn't need it could just not use it..."
"Just because you're stupid doesn't mean everyone else in the world is as stupid as you." Xu Huo took a small amount of the blue agent, used a component identification item to analyze it, and confirmed it was the SE virus, identical to the toxin sample he had obtained from the quarantine zone.
He injected the green agent into Luo Changren.
Not only Luo Changren, but even Shangguan Xi and the other two found it hard to believe. Kuang Wenjun said, "He tried to use your hand to kill everyone in the entire base city. Why are you letting him off?"
"Use your brain and you'll know how hard it would be for his plan to succeed." Xu Huo motioned for them to calm down. "If you knew the truth and wanted to save the people in the base city, would you not check whether the agent was genuine after getting it?"
"It's hard to say if it's useful, but it's not hard to tell if it's poisonous."
That logic was sound, but Luo Changren's attitude didn't seem to match.
"Putting the original sample and the treatment agent together proves these two things are equally important." Xu Huo looked at Luo Changren. "I believe you stored the sample to save people, but you didn't expect the infection mortality rate to be so high."
"Of course, your distrust of Gao Zhen is another matter. Anyone else in your position would have protected themselves first."
"At least until today, you haven't intentionally done evil."
If Luo Changren had obtained the antidote but, out of selfishness, hadn't handed it over to Gao Zhen, he could be condemned. But the fact was, he never brought back the antidote at all. From the outcome, whether he handed it over to Gao Zhen or not made no difference.
"But just now, you really showed a lack of intelligence," Xu Huo's eyes seemed to see through people's hearts. "Did you really want to drag the entire base station down with you?"
Luo Changren closed his eyes. "The launch platform at the Bird Tower has three layers of encryption. Only the top government officials of the base know the password now."
Xu Huo nodded slightly. The people behind him didn't know what expression to make for a moment. After a while, Shangguan Xi scratched his head and said, "This is like watching a movie with all these twists and turns. It's almost turned into a mountain road with eighteen bends."
"Good and evil coexist in people. It's all just a matter of a single thought." Xu Huo said calmly.
"There's movement outside!" Zhu Feiyun suddenly said, turning his head outward and adding, "Isn't there a space barrier? How did they get in!"
"I took back the item a long time ago." Xu Huo activated Pan Qiao's communicator. "Throw the body bags out."
(Chapter End)