Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
After Du Gang dragged Ma Li back to the room, the air became somewhat gloomy.
The main thing was that Ma Li was a little apprehensive. He didn’t know how to face Du Gang’s temperament, which had changed so much.
“Ma Li, what’s wrong?”
“I just think that you are t-too…” He didn’t dare say it, as he was worried that he would be thrown out by Du Gang. If it was before, he wouldn’t have such a worry. But now, he really couldn’t read Du Gang.
Du Gang was speechless. After dealing with the rest, he still had to straighten Ma Li out. But what choice did he have? They grew up together, after all.
Seeing that he didn’t speak, Du Gang asked: “What is my favorite novel?”
Ma Li responded without thinking twice: “Infinite Terror!”
“What is the point I hate the most?”
“Zheng Zha being the Holy Saint…”
“That’s right, I often fantasize about myself entering the realm of Gods and whatever would happen afterward. But now, before I even have the chance to enter it, doomsday has arrived…”
“That isn’t the same!”
Ma Li shook his head and interrupted with a bitter look: “That is fiction you’re talking about, and this is reality. Those people are living beings. You can’t just deprive them like this…”
After saying a long string of sentences, Ma Li finally got to the point: “You are too cold-blooded!”
Du Gang felt emotionally exhausted. At a certain moment, he even had the thought of throwing Ma Li out of the window.
However, he held back and waited for him to finish his words before speaking: “Do you know the three obediences and four virtues?”
“Yes!” Although Ma Li didn’t know why he asked, he answered nonetheless: “It was an ancient code to restrain women…”
“Was it written into the law, or was it a matter of moral character?”
“It was a code of conduct and moral code used to restrain women in ancient feudal society and not a law…”
“Then let me ask you again. Have I killed anyone?”
“No!”
“Have I broken the law?”
“Also no!”
Du Gang spread his hands apart. “Then tell me, what’s wrong with me?”
“You…” Ma Li was speechless. He felt that something wasn’t quite right.
“I admire a moral and noble man… But I’m not such a person!”
“But those girls…”
“Heh, heh. As I said, this is our first time living as humans, so why should I be responsible for their decisions? I gave them a chance, and they didn’t trust me, so there was nothing more for me to say. It was their choice…”
“But…”
“Yesterday I poured boiling water from the kettle and my cow wanted to drink directly from the spout. I hid the kettle left and right from it but it stubbornly insisted. I chased it away and it still came back to try its luck. Finally, I decided to teach it a lesson. Since I can’t stop it, I let its mouth get scalded by the boiling water, and it went into hiding right away!”
Du Gang continued to explain: “Let me put it this way. My transformation time is limited. If I stayed back then, I might not have been able to save the five girls and would have also sacrificed myself… You want me to give up my life to save the lives of people unrelated to me?”
“You… This…”
Ma Li’s expression once again tangled up.
“The end has happened, and there is no going back. You have to adapt quickly… My ability is only enough to save us. Save the world? I neither have the ability nor the heart to! I only hope that I can take you with me back to Luo An City and reunite with our parents!”
After some persuasion, Ma Li finally put away the compassion and baseline of morality in his heart.
He understood that everyone was different.
Some people were adaptable while some weren’t.
He felt that Du Gang was a person with strong adaptability. He was able to quickly recognize reality and make rational judgments.
***
Arctic Circle, Chinese military command center.
“Reporting. The fourth type of alien insects has appeared…”
“Reporting. The fifth type of alien insects has appeared…”
“Nan Yuan Military Zone abandoned 10 spatial channels…”
“Bei Yuan Military Zone abandoned 11 spatial channels…”
“Ji Nan Military Zone lost. Commander killed in action…”
“Tai Dao Military Zone has fallen…”
Countless pieces of bad news were frantically delivered toward the command center.
The people here, however, could only watch and not do anything.
Yao Zhenguo held his hands against his temples. This series of terrible news gave him a headache.
At that moment, Li Mingzhi came over again, looking like he brought another news.
“Sigh!”
Yao Zhenguo sighed and said bluntly: “Go ahead, what’s the bad news again? I can take it!”
“Outside the Arctic Circle, there are areas with short days. After a short period of daylight, it is once again entering darkness.”
He looked at Yao Zhenguo’s haggard face, shook his head, and said bitterly: “The spatial channels that vanished during the day reappeared after the sun was gone!”
The reason that kept Yao Zhenguo from collapsing was what Li Mingzhi reported earlier—the spatial channels disappeared after the sun rose.
Unexpectedly, it had all come to nothing. It wasn’t the end yet!
Hearing this news, Yao Zhenguo couldn’t hold on anymore. Anger overwhelmed him as he spat out blood. His whole body went limp before he passed out.
“Medic, come quickly!”
Li Mingzhi shouted as he caught Yao Zhenguo in his arms.
Soon after, the entirety of the command center was in chaos.
***
Arctic Circle, Chinese Ministry of Scientific Research.
Compared to the panic in the outside world, there was order here. Everyone was calmly doing their scientific work.
Inside the biological experiment center, Lu Zhou took a pile of data and scanned incredulously.
“Impossible… How can this be!”
At that moment, his assistant came forward and asked: “Director, do we need to report this news?”
“Phew!”
Lu Zhou exhaled deeply for a few breaths, before firmly saying: “Report it. Although this is the hard truth, they have the right to know!”
The assistant took that report at once, left the experiment center, and headed toward the command center.
On the conclusion of the report that he was holding, a line was clearly written: “These insects grow in a consistently moist and crowded environment… It is likely that they came from the same underground nest…”
This meant that those insects, which were several meters tall and tens of meters long, were just crawlers, belonging to the lowest end of the biological chain.
But even so, these insects had surprisingly spread across the globe.
Although the samples Lu Zhou had were only from the Eastern Hemisphere, he was almost certain that the nest of insects in the alternate world had already filled the entire planet.
The dark matter had opened a connection between Earth and another universe or world.
He had also roughly guessed why no extraterrestrial creatures came to Earth in their spacecraft.
That was because when their spacecraft reached the edge of the galaxy, some kind of mechanism was activated, opening a Pandora’s box, triggering a deadly invasion.
He couldn’t imagine how big a planet the world that invaded Earth was because just insects from a nest at the bottom of the biological chain alone were able to deal such a fatal blow to the planet already!
The end of the world had just begun!