Chapter 41: Saving Unpermitted Chapter 41

Chapter 41: Again, He Rose From The Dead

Xia Liang snorted inwardly.

She knew that Ai Xiaoxiao couldn’t understand her, and she didn’t have the slightest liking for Ai Xiaoxiao either — People valued harmony when doing business, yet this woman only always had her eyes on the money, and her temper was nothing commendable either. Xia Liang was used to acting domineering over others, to the point that even Zhu Yanchen didn’t bother to chide her. Yet, this Ai Xiaoxiao always had to collide head-on with her.

Not to mention, Xia Liang’s mood today was super bad.

Since Zhu Yanchen faked his death, in addition to giving out daily commands, she also had to supervise The Fourth Team. After finishing her work on the outside, her personal time was already rather limited, but with this, there was even less time left.

She was as worn out as a dead dog at work, and her personal life wasn’t great either.

All her plans for dating had gone sour, and just yesterday, her girlfriend couldn’t bear with it anymore and decided to break up. Miss Xia, always a stubborn lady as she was, knew that she herself was in the wrong, but it wasn’t her character to surrender in a bid to save their relationship. Her short romance had thus come to a tragic full stop.

But even when she just went through a breakup, she had no time to slow down. She had to attend to work at the clinic this late into the night, yet Ai Xiaoxiao still had to show so much disdain towards her.

Xia Liang was so angry but she had nowhere to vent. In any case, she first had to carry out a safety inspection. She directly pulled out all the inspection equipment and decided to dig three feet deep into the ground, determined to pull out whatever evil roots that were hidden there.

But before she even managed to dig up much, an abnormal signal caught her attention.

This is good. Xia Liang grabbed the equipment and planned to open the door on the spot to check, but to her utter surprise, the security measures at Ai’s Clinic were comparable to that of the Headquarters. Barely a few minutes after she started, Ai Xiaoxiao herself arrived at the scene. 

After the argument, seeing Ai Xiaoxiao clench her teeth and open the door, Xia Liang finally could feel a little relieved.

However, this sense of victory didn’t last for even two seconds, for the sight behind the door shattered it into pieces.

In an instant, Xia Liang thought she was looking at the synthesised human storage room in the stronghold.

The room behind the door was quite big, occupying a space much larger than Ai’s Clinic above ground. Rather than being arranged in rows, the hibernation pods here were placed in a ring pattern, their amount roughly one to two hundred. With one pod as their center, all the pods fanned out in circles. A lot of infusing tubes hung above each pod, quietly passing liquid medicine into it.

The top of the room was studded with crude machine gears. Numerous threads twisted into ropes, entering the pod together with the infusing tubes. Many tiny indicator lights flickered in the dim light, like the eyes of a spider.

Xia Liang walked a few steps inside.

This room was full of old-fashioned hibernation pods that had been thrown away since long ago. Their lid was translucent, allowing her to see the shape of the creatures inside. Xia Liang was fearless by nature, but at this moment, she couldn’t help shivering.

The things inside could hardly be called ‘humans’ anymore.

The ‘creatures’ on the outer circle could still vaguely be seen as human figures, but those in the inner circle had become something else completely — These creatures looked like a pile of squid mixed together, their opaque-grey skin glowing like water. But no squid tentacles were seen in this mass, only some scattered external organs, some exposed internal organs and flesh. From the gaps in the flesh, strands of hair were poking out.

Furthermore, their exterior showed scales and fingernails that looked nothing like humans’. They absolutely didn’t follow any normal anatomy principles.

They had only one thing in common — Each of them had an exposed heart that was beating slowly, while their deformed eyeballs were covered with a thin film, showing that they were sleeping.

“Aren’t they pretty?” Seeing Xia Liang staying silent for a long time, Ai Xiaoxiao sneered coldly.

Xia Liang ignored her. She walked around the room and stood in front of the hibernation pod in the middle, trying to properly inspect it.

The signal indeed came from here, or to be precise, from the crude machine gears on the ceiling. The signal it sent was very similar to that of a stronghold. The difference could only be distinguished when she came closer.

Since there was indeed a difference, this could no longer be regarded as an abnormal signal. Xia Liang put away the inspection equipment and scanned the hibernation pod in the middle. The contents inside were closer to some sort of grey fluid than balls of flesh.

“The signal is no longer dangerous.” Xia Liang pinched her throat that now belonged to an old man, and said with a hint of defeat: “As I said before, I won’t ask any questions.”

Slightly taken aback, Ai Xiaoxiao briefly glanced at her and showed a slightly relaxed expression: “Then quickly get out.” 

Saying so, she took the initiative to squeeze into the door, adjusted the purifier’s settings for a bit, then carefully locked the door. Xia Liang looked at her profile — when Ai Xiaoxiao gazed at this room full of monsters, her expression was a bit complicated. In short, it became softer.

Forget it, someone who can put up such a thing at her own clinic mustn’t be a normal person. I myself am extremely normal, so I must stay away from this weirdo.

Another night passed by uneventfully. Xia Liang returned to the Xia family’s residence in the early morning and began to put on makeup.

The Xia family was aware of Xia Liang’s sexual orientation. To be frank, they never cared much — because there had never been much love involved in marriages that were arranged between families, and there also had been many cases of either partner having an affair outside after getting married. As long as Xia Liang chose the right fiancé in earnest, even if she snuck out every day to find her lover, they would keep one eye close.

For example, right now, even though she came home at five in the morning, the nanny didn’t show the slightest expression of surprise.

Xia Liang always disliked her family’s attitude, but she couldn’t change the elders’ way of thinking. Waiting till she got older, Xia Liang quietly started her side career and followed Zhu Yanchen into the battlefield.

It wasn’t out of sympathy for the synthesised humans, or out of any softest, purest compassion. She just felt useless.

The Xia family had always been committed to being someone who went whichever way the wind blew, vacillating between the Zhu and the Tang family. Boys were trained to become dependents for either of the two families, while girls were married off. Over years and years of acting as an obedient dog for the two families, of course, the Xia family got to eat some meat.

Xia Liang was one of their most successful ‘bargaining chips’. She looked very much like her singer grandmother. Since she was old enough to understand these matters, they had trained her in the direction of becoming her grandmother’s shadow — with people dearly missing the country’s beloved singer from decades ago, their obsession was smoothly transferred to Xia Liang. The Xia family thus made an impressive amount of fame and fortune.

Xia Liang herself didn’t detest living this life of extravagance, but since she chewed on this meat very slowly, what she could taste was only the slightest bit of familial love.

Not to mention, she didn’t like singing at all.

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Rather than kneeling down to her elders, she wanted to take up more responsibilities, which would allow her to hold her chin up and speak to them using her own capability. But if this idea was exposed, the family likely would treat it as a little girl’s childish sulking, and naturally, the outcome would be that they could simply give her a superficial officer position to satisfy her ‘work addiction’.

As a result, from this opportunist family, Lao Dong, or old man Dong, made his appearance.

During the negotiation for partnership, Zhu Yanchen’s attitude was direct and indifferent. He wouldn’t care if she was being idealistic, rather, he simply said — she would have to start from the bottom; stay if she succeeded, and leave if she failed.

Over the years, she became the No.1 counselor under Marshal Zhu’s wings. Xia Liang twisted her lipstick and revealed its tip, her gaze resting on the bright red color.

…Opening a gateway by myself feels refreshing.

She flipped her hand, crushed the lipstick’s tip and scratched it hard against the table. The deep, ear-splitting sound of scratching echoed, slowly scattering away the grievance and anger she had to suffer the night before.

By the time she lifted her head again, there was a sweet, carefree smile on her face.

“I heard that Miss Xia is coming to the Headquarters today.” Luo Duan said.

When he arrived at Yi Ning’s office, he immediately controlled the water pillar to sweep the key under the desk. Without any suspicion, Yi Ning only thought that he accidentally dropped it.

“Huh? Oh, I know.” Yi Ning’s face was still tired from the lack of sleep. “The Xia family asked her to pay some condolences.”

“Their target is likely you.” Luo Duan smiled gently: “It seems that the Xia family really values you.”

“Come on, I really don’t harbour such thoughts. My works are piling up, yet they’re still doing all this nonsense… This year’s economy will continue to plummet, and the border settlements might go amok again.” Yi Ning chuckled.

“You are quite concerned about the ‘people’.”

“After all, I’ve seen everything. People in the border areas are living such hard lives, even…” Yi Ning originally wanted to say “harder than synthesised humans”, but realising who he was talking to, he swallowed the second half of the sentence.

“Even…?” Luo Duan’s smile grew even gentler.

“Let’s not talk about this. In short, I have to find a way to quickly pull the economy up.” Yi Ning immediately changed the subject.

“On the topic of last night… Since there’s insufficient labour, how about recalling people from the border settlements?” Luo Duan played with the drops of water on his fingertips. “I know that education will be a problem, and their age or health status might not be ideal, but they can be considered as part of the labour force, can’t they?”

It was indeed the case.

……But compared to those old, weak and sick people, synthesised humans were better to use. It was all because Zhu Yanchen was too conservative. If Zhu Sheng’s ‘reform law’ had been implemented early, they wouldn’t have spent so many years developing synthesised humans and actually achieved mass production.

However, once the synthesised humans were put into use, before the benefits could be reaped, the people at the border settlements would have their jobs robbed by the synthesised humans and their roles would be completely eliminated. Even if the government was to assume that industrial and economic improvement would take place in the border areas a few years later, the unemployment in those mere few years would be enough to kill a large number of people.

This was the first problem that Yi Ning was facing at this stage, but he couldn’t open his mouth to Luo Duan.

“We… are considering other countermeasures.” He heard himself answer vaguely. “Other countermeasures to increase labour.”

Luo Duan decided to stare at him for a moment: “So that’s how. Actually, I’m quite curious about what the countermeasure looks like… In my opinion, the most reasonable approach is to recruit people from border settlements as soon as possible.”

Thereafter, he turned his eyes out of the window, a rarely-seen gesture of his, and his tone became lighter: “But it’s okay. We’re only discussing fun topics. If this topic isn’t appropriate, let’s talk about something else.”

Seeing that the air is getting stiffer, Yi Ning directly turned on the TV and switched to the news channel that players often watched in a bid to adjust the atmosphere.

Unexpectedly, the first news completely drew both their attention —

“Today’s news, the army stronghold Y-9091 detected signs of Marshal Zhu Yanchen. Marshal Zhu was seriously injured, and after a rescue attempt that lasted one whole night, he finally escaped. According to Marshal Zhu Yanchen himself, after being attacked by the mutated monster, he got out of danger and wandered for many days at the border of the erosion zone…”

“What?” Yi Ning almost choked on his saliva.

In an erosion zone far away, someone uttered a similar question.

Shu Jun: “What?!”

Yu Jin earnestly choked on his breakfast: “What is it, brother Grey Claw, what are you so surprised about? It’s just the higher-ups playing their games, what does it have to do with us?”

“……No, I was just shocked, because I saw the news of his death before……” Shu Jun turned the radio’s volume knob — with them having walked in the erosion zone for two days, the signal had already become weak enough to be almost negligible, and the sound of the radio was rather intermittent.

Zhu Yanchen, who was neatly sitting beside them, pushed his mask up only slightly as usual and deftly sucked out the liquid food from the pouch. At a glance, he seemed completely unmoved.

Shu Jun was doubting his whole life. They said two branches of a single story could be told simultaneously; so is Marshal Zhu rising from the dead on the other side too? Even a god isn’t so omnipotent, okay?

“Zhu Sheng has made his move.” After seriously finishing his breakfast, Zhu Yanchen stole a glance at Yu Jin, who was among the listeners, and commented nonchalantly: “That’s probably not his son.”

The liquid food on Shu Jun’s lips slipped: “Is that even doable?”

“He’s probably afraid that it has been too long and Yi Ning may grab this chance to win people’s hearts. Zhu Sheng’s re-election term is coming to an end. This time, he should completely retire and step down from the leadership position, so it’ll be unsightly for him to run for election again by himself. I’m really not surprised at this development.”

Zhu Yanchen gathered the liquid food pouches and tossed them into a trash bag, showing almost no emotion on his face.

“Compared to that, today we’ll come into initial contact with the edge of an Erosion Marsh. That sort of thing is not worth it for us to be distracted… Let’s go.”

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