Chapter 975: Choice and Sacrifice
What exactly do you want to do?
Ren Man, standing beside Gao Xiaoyan, and Zhao Jie, who had been brought into the Bird Tower early on after Xu Huo retracted the space barrier item but was now pinned on the second floor, also wanted to ask this question.
Compared to Ren Man's sudden shock, Zhao Jie's heart had already sunk halfway since the confrontation between Xu Huo and Luo Changren. Xu Huo and Luo Changren were outsiders, and he was trapped inside the Bird Tower, so what he heard might not be true. But Gao Xiaoyan's current attitude was undeniably suspicious.
"Before leaving the Government Hall, I said I would help Mayor Gao with this favor," Xu Huo said with a slight smile. "I'm just fulfilling my promise now."
"You should know the password to the Bird Tower, right? Isn't keeping the Bird Tower meant to save people?"
"Is the antidote you're holding real?" Gao Xiaoyan wasn't stupid. "The SE virus has no hereditary traits and was born by chance. As far as I know, Luo Changren went straight to the Bird Tower after arriving at W37. This antidote should have been hidden in the Bird Tower long ago, right? Currently, no base city in the base station has developed an antidote for the SE virus. Is his antidote reliable?"
"Besides, he's not trustworthy. The evolution agent he once claimed could improve genes ended up destroying them instead. How do I know this thing won't repeat the SE virus incident?"
This was the normal thought of a normal person. There wasn't even a need to verify the authenticity of the antidote; the mere fact that it came from Luo Changren was enough reason to doubt it.
"That's simple. Find someone to test it," Xu Huo offered a proposal Gao Xiaoyan couldn't refuse. "You can find an infected person."
Gao Xiaoyan indeed couldn't refuse, so she nodded to Lou Jia outside.
Lou Jia opened the closed communicator and told the ponytailed man standing nearby to bring in an infected person.
The streets were full of infected people, so finding one wasn't difficult. Soon, a seven or eight-year-old girl was brought over.
Gao Xiaoyan took the half vial of antidote Xu Huo had drawn out and looked at it with suspicion. "What if it's useless? What if the person dies?"
Xu Huo pointed to Shangguan Xi and the others beside him. "There are plenty of people here. You can pick one to kill. Or kill the culprit himself."
No one could laugh at his joke now, and the little girl Gao Xiaoyan was holding was already half-conscious, unable to hold on much longer.
But Gao Xiaoyan held the needle, hesitating to act.
Xu Huo didn't rush her, quietly waiting for her decision.
"Sister..." the little girl called out to her in a daze.
The blue needle pierced her arm. Within just a few seconds, the girl's condition visibly improved, and the bluish-purple color on her lips faded significantly.
"The antidote works!" Ren Man exclaimed in surprise.
Whether the antidote was real or not, Luo Changren and Shangguan Xi knew best. The SE virus had directly killed players back then. They never expected Xu Huo to have an antidote that could directly cure it, and it worked so quickly, proving that this antidote was of no low level.
He really had it, and he was really willing to use it.
Gao Xiaoyan handed the little girl to Ren Man, turned to face Xu Huo, and suddenly raised her right hand. The bracelet on her wrist shook, and two white barriers extending to the ceiling appeared beside her. The barriers moved forward, trapping only Xu Huo inside, cutting off the outside view and sound.
Their eyes met, and Xu Huo spoke first. "The number on the big screen is now 219. Once the infected start showing severe symptoms, that number will skyrocket."
Gao Xiaoyan's expression was cold and hard. "W37 can no longer support that many people. Too many people, too few resources. If we want some to live, we have to sacrifice others. Otherwise, the hard-won situation the base city has created will be destroyed in an instant. Not only will more people die, but the hopes of even more will be shattered."
"From the Government Hall's standpoint, what you're saying isn't wrong." Xu Huo nodded slightly. "But there's one question: who decides which part lives and which part is sacrificed?"
"You believe the ordinary residents of the base city and the people in the quarantine zone have no value, so they can be sacrificed."
"But they certainly don't think so."
"No one wants to die, especially those struggling in the base station," Gao Xiaoyan said. "To avoid the worst outcome, the Government Hall has to play the villain. We can't decide the life and death of others, but we have the right to choose."
"When this choice is in my hands, I have the right to decide which part to give up."
"Don't tell me that ordinary people and players have the same life. If you really had to sacrifice a player to save an ordinary person, who would think it's worth it?"
Xu Huo thought of Gao Chunfeng, who knelt and begged several murderers to spare his family, only to have his feet cut off and die miserably. The moment he knelt, he must have known those players wouldn't let them go, but he didn't flee until the end.
Whether it was worth it wasn't for outsiders to decide.
Similarly, whether W37's choice and sacrifice were worth it or right wasn't for him to decide either.
"Cutting off the tail to save the body, the key is survival," he said. "It's just about keeping yourself alive. There's no need to come up with a whole set of reasons. It's not shameful."
"But you might consider using the antidote."
"Can you be one hundred percent sure that the original sample of the SE virus is controllable?"
"If it escalates to the situation of the first virus outbreak, how do you plan to handle it?"
"Also, you're probably not the only ones with the original sample of the SE virus. Once news of the W37 infection spreads, won't other base cities follow suit?"
"In the environment of the base station, W37 isn't the only one burdened. Even if you can control the situation inside the base city, can you prevent the virus from spreading from other base cities? Won't there be players from Base City 02 entering the city?"
"If the virus isn't contained in a short time, and other base cities also break out, will W37 be besieged like Base City 01 afterward?"
Gao Xiaoyan showed little emotional fluctuation at these questions, clearly having considered these scenarios before making her decision. She said, "Everything has risks. If an irreversible situation really occurs, then we can only blame fate for not being on W37's side."
Her attitude showed that she and the high-level officials of the Government Hall had already made a desperate resolve.
Xu Huo fell silent. Without Gao Xiaoyan's cooperation, it would be very difficult to efficiently distribute the antidote throughout the city. There were too many people, and the antidote he currently had was far from enough for one-on-one treatment. Moreover, W37's water supply system had sixteen branches. Even through the reservoir, he couldn't guarantee that everyone in the city would drink water containing the antidote, especially since the reservoir was under player surveillance. And he and Shangguan Xi might not be able to shake off Gao Xiaoyan's pursuit.
Doing one thing was hard, but ruining it was too easy.
"How many people know about this?" he asked.
(Chapter End)