The Core of the Domain.
The door closed behind the two of them.
A faint green light lit up in the pitch-black space.
With the exoskeleton on, Shen Jie’s vision was now very good in the darkness. He could see that in the room they were in, there were rows of cultivation tanks filled with green solution.
Some tanks were small, containing only a mass of wriggling dividing cells. Some tanks were large enough to see human forms.
And when he looked higher, into the distance, he saw completed clones being stored in glass jars, placed in a device resembling a vending machine.
—However, this vending machine was extremely massive, almost completely occupying one side of the colossal room, which is hundreds of meters high.
Rows and rows of glass jars stacked in the air, hundreds and thousands of clones separated by the glass of the machine, floating in a tilted posture, facing the two people entering.
Anyone could appear infinitely small in such a scene.
This so-called “Human Replication Research Center” was actually a factory for manufacturing clones.
And those bodies piled up in mass graves outside, with identical faces, were likely some of the experimental subjects whose clones had failed and were disposed of.
Shen Jie’s gaze swept over, and he saw some familiar faces inside the vending machine—
Including Zhang Shihe and Nurse Xiao Jiang whom he had just seen at the treatment center, along with others nurses and children, all were there.
Compared to the lively playfulness over there, these “people” floating in the jars all have their eyes tightly closed, resembling corpses.
Each jar is labeled with a black number. Nurse Xiao Jiang’s number is 54302, while Xiao Ya’s number is 123073.
Just like the cola cans lined up behind each other in a vending machine, these numbered individuals, with identical faces and sequential numbers, were also followed by others with the same numbering.
It was impossible to tell them apart.
Shen Jie spoke up, “Lin Ge, do you know about the ‘Bait Plan’?”
Zong Lin responded, “The ‘Bait Plan’?”
Having spent most of his time in outdoor combat and little time in the city for rest, Zong Lin had only participated in one urban plan, the “Guardian Plan.”
Shen Jie recounted the information he had heard from Lin Ze.
His recounting was calm and objective, devoid of any emotion.
The more Zong Lin listened, the more he furrowed his brows.
“Xiao Jie,” he said, “once we’re out of here, I’ll investigate this matter thoroughly.”
Shen Jie asked, “So sacrificing a few for the sake of the majority is the right thing to do?”
In the past, he rarely pondered or evaluated the moral standards set by humans themselves. After all, his own learning and experience were insufficient, and he lacked the position and qualifications to judge.
But now, he wanted to contemplate good and evil, right and wrong. Zong Lin was a good reference point, and he wanted to know his opinion.
Zong Lin fell silent for a moment before saying, “I don’t deny that sometimes the city does need people to sacrifice willingly.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
The post-apocalyptic world was cruel, and surviving was not a simple matter.
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Yearlvf atf kjiir, qfbqif kfgf olutalcu bnfg j qlfmf bo wbivs ygfjv, yibbv oibklcu ilxf j glnfg, ktlif lcrlvf atf mlas, qfbqif wjlcajlc j tlut ifnfi bo mlnlilhjalbc, ilnlcu, ifjgclcu, jcv kbgxlcu cbgwjiis.
To achieve this peace, some were willing to sacrifice themselves to resist the aliens, while others were willing to risk their lives to protect the city walls.
Even Zong Lin himself was a sacrifice.
Shen Jie said, “Is that so?”
“But,” Zong Lin’s tone changed, “if it’s involuntary sacrifice, it’s not sacrifice. It’s murder.”
Shen Jie asked, “Even if the outcome is correct?”
“Even if the outcome is correct,” Zong Lin said, “if people kill their own kind without hesitation to prolong their existence, they blur the final boundary and become no different from the aliens .”
Shen Jie blinked, “Is that so… Boundary.” He repeated the two words Zong Lin said in a low voice, as if he understood something.
Zong Lin noticed that Shen Jie’s appearance had become younger, and he seemed a bit more innocent. At this moment, with his blinking eyes, he resembled a curious child.
Unable to resist, Zong Lin raised his hand and gently touched the young man’s white hair.
It was very soft.
Shen Jie naturally leaned into his palm.
Then, he raised another question.
“What about these cloned humans? Can they be considered human?”
“I cannot define that,” Zong Lin said after a moment of silence. “However, one thing is certain: even if their genes, appearance, and memories are identical, cloned humans lack a soul.”
As a strong superpower user of the “Soul” category, he knew better than anyone else in this world that the soul was the most special aspect of life, incapable of replication and certainly not created by machinery.
Unless one “Soul” ability user reached Rank One, there should be no living being in this world capable of creating a soul.
Just as he finished speaking, there was a sound in the darkness.
From the sound of it, something seemed to have been dropped by someone.
Shen Jie turned his head to look towards the source of the noise and saw a figure peeking from the corner.
Zong Lin also noticed the figure’s presence and said coldly, “Stop!”
The person turned and ran.
“Chase after them!” Shen Jie decided quickly.
Zong Lin spread his bone wings, lifted Shen Jie by the waist, and dashed towards the direction of the shadow.
Their speed was incredible, but when they arrived at the corner where the shadow had been hiding, they found no one there.
In the pitch-black corner, there were only a few cultivation tanks placed.
On the ground lay a shattered small glass jar, with green liquid spilled out, along with a small cluster of cells. The debris of the glass jar could vaguely identify a long string of numbers starting with 6.
“There should be a mechanism,” Zong Lin said.
Shen Jie hummed in agreement and glanced around. His gaze suddenly settled on a green cultivation tank.
He jumped down from Zong Lin’s arms, walked over, and reached out to touch the cultivation tank. Then, he saw his hand pass directly through the tank.
As expected.
Similar to the method used to hide the entrance to the elevator tree hole earlier, there should be a hidden entrance here too.
He said, “This is a projection. The door should be right behind.”
Zong Lin was surprised by Shen Jie’s sharpness, and the next moment, he saw Shen Jie walk straight through the projection and hurriedly followed.
The surroundings lit up brightly.
They found themselves in a white corridor.
The entrance they came through was at a corner, where they could either continue straight or turn right.
However, when they looked back after entering, the entrance behind them had vanished without a trace. It seamlessly blended into the surrounding pure white walls, and only by reaching out to touch could one discover the existence of a “door” there.
“Which way?” Shen Jie asked.
He knew that Zong Lin could track the soul aura of living beings and discern their movements.
Just as he finished speaking, a figure quietly emerged from the corner at the end of the right-hand corridor.
It appeared to be a “person”, hunched over, but instead of a head, there was a pumpkin.
After exchanging a glance with them, the pumpkin person immediately retreated and the sound of footsteps followed.
Shen Jie wanted to chase after, but Zong Lin held his hand.
“Don’t go,” Zong Lin said, “that’s a projection. The aura is over here.”
Shen Jie blinked and was pulled back into his embrace. Following the sound of flapping wings, they traced the aura all the way.
During the journey, there were constant attempts by projections to interfere, with metal walls rising from the ground at times trying to trap them, and laser grids attempting to block their path.
However, these tactics posed no threat to the two of them.
They arrived at a white wall.
“The aura is right here,” Zong Lin said.
The two passed through the white wall projection, and the surrounding space dimmed.
It was a very spacious room.
They didn’t enter from the bottom of the room, but from the top.
A long and narrow iron bridge extended forward, leading to a circular platform suspended in midair.
On the circular platform, there was a large operating machine surrounded by three people, with their backs facing them, frantically pounding away.
In front of the suspended platform, countless computer screens were densely arranged in a circular pattern, each screen corresponding to a scene, monitoring every corner of the “Domain Core”.
Currently, many of the screens displayed traps they had just passed through, while others kept switching rapidly, seemingly trying to determine their current location.
“Are you looking for us?” Shen Jie spoke, his voice echoing in the silent space.
The pumpkin-headed figure froze in its keystrokes.
Shen Jie’s gaze swiftly scanned the monitoring screens, quickly finding what he was looking for—
In an inconspicuous screen, many children lay quietly, each wearing a “helmet” on their heads, with many electromagnetic patches attached to their heads and bodies.
Inside was Xiao Ya, her face still wrapped in bandages, her long eyelashes covering her eyes.
These were the children who disappeared from the Psychological Treatment Center.
The place where the real survivors were.
“Capture them” Shen Jie said.
“Don’t come any closer!” The pumpkin-headed figure on the other side simultaneously emitted a hoarse voice.
It placed its hand on a red button. “If you come any closer, the children you want to save will all die!”
Its hand trembled as if it could press the button at any moment.
Zong Lin said indifferently, “I don’t like being threatened.”
Without giving the opponent time to negotiate, he focused his power on his red pupils and stared.
—Soul Intimidation.
The pumpkin-headed figure’s entire body stiffened.
Zong Lin flapped his bone wings, and he took Shen Jie to the pumpkin man in an instant. Sharp bone spurs erupted from his hands.
“Wait,” Shen Jie suddenly spoke up.
Zong Lin’s attacking motion halted.
“What’s wrong?”
Shen Jie looked at the clothing on the pumpkin man’s body, then raised his long knife and lightly flicked upwards.
The pumpkin head was flicked off, tumbling to the ground with a clatter. Inside, it was hollow.
It was just a pumpkin head mask.
The kind face of a woman appeared before the two.
It was the face of head nurse Zhang Shihe.
But unlike the Zhang Shihe Shen Jie had previously seen at the Psychological Treatment Center in reality, the Zhang Shihe before him appeared much older, with many wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, and her hair had turned gray. Her once plump figure had become very thin and somewhat hunched.
She was no longer wearing ordinary nurse attire but instead wore the white research uniform of the institute.
Involuntary sacrifice is murder — yupp..
Well good thing Zong Lin enlightened Xiao Shen on what it means to sacrifice voluntarily and use 1 to exchange for thousands, and also explain what it means to be moralless and murder people. I like how the author depict that Xiao Shen still needs to study on humans even if he’d learn all about them, he still need to understand their emotion…