An Yu knelt in the freezing snow, the cold barrel of the gun pressing against his forehead.
Bang!
He jolted awake.
Qin Zhilu’s straight figure stood by the window, “You slept quite soundly.”
An Yu looked at his terminal – he had only slept for ten hours. If it were before, ten days wouldn’t have been enough for him.
But he didn’t want to discuss the topic of his sleeping sickness, so he lied: “Sorry, sir. You were right; I did have trouble sleeping last night.”
Qin Zhilu’s expression suddenly became profound, “Insomnia?”
“Yeah… and I had a nightmare.”
“What kind of nightmare?”
“I dreamed of…” An Yu’s gaze brushed over the gun and quickly shifted away, “the catalyst test.”
Qin Zhilu remained silent for so long that An Yu began to regret lying, but then he suddenly heard a very soft sigh.
Before he could react, that figure had already walked up to him and the leather gloves touched his head.
“The catalyst test doesn’t cause real harm. It’ll get better with time.”
An Yu was slightly startled and looked up at Qin Zhilu.
Although he didn’t understand the gesture of head-patting, the Commander’s voice was gentler than usual, just like how Ling Qiu comforted him when there was no bread to eat.
Qin Zhilu quickly withdrew his hand, “Billy went to survey the area. We’ll act separately.”
The power supply in District 53 had been restored at dawn.
The Resource Manager abused it by turning on every single light bulb on the first floor, making An Yu dizzy with the brightness.
When he went downstairs, Qin Zhilu was holding a blood-stained note, “Did the military leave this?”
The resource manager nodded, “I’ve already informed the nearby residents. Those who haven’t been infected yet are all thanks to this.”
An Yu joined them and looked at the note. The handwriting was shaky, as if the person who wrote it was trembling badly.
To our future companions:
- Do not stay in the dark for too long; light is very important.
- Avoid those who are afraid to turn on the lights. Do not trust them; they are no longer your kind.
- If you feel very hungry at night, eat more normal food to suppress the urge to eat strange things.
Respectfully, Soldier 14205, Zhang Xun.
An Yu whispered, “Is it true?”
“It’s definitely military ink,” Qin Zhilu said, pulling up the military ID from the offline database.
Second Lieutenant Zhang Xun, 24 years old. A low-income orphan from District 15, recruited by the Main City’s military after actively participating in cleanup operation and making meritorious contributions. Military service: 2 years and 4 months. Last deployment: Clean-up operation in District 53.
This person’s background was similar to Ling Qiu’s. Ling Qiu was also an orphan from the slums. In the slums where people seemed like a pool of ashen, stagnant wate;, he was a splash of color, his amber eyes shining brightly whenever he spoke of the Main City.
“The first two points suggest that jellyfish fear light. The third…” Qin Zhilu looked up, “Did you feel hungry last night?”
An Yu nodded earnestly, “Very hungry.”
The Resource Manager immediately glared at him.
An Yu calmly explained, “I don’t mean it like that. I’ve just never had enough to eat.”
“You’re still not full with so much food every month?” the Resource Manager mocked. “The greediest ones are you, low-income households.”
Qin Zhilu turned to him, “And you?”
The Resource Manager shook his head, “Of course I wasn’t hungry. Abnormal hunger is probably due to infection. The jellyfish genes become unusually active at night. Those few soldiers I told you who barely made it back from the outside were frantically searching for food at night. Oh, and now that people are afraid to go out, could you help me distribute food? Don’t worry; the jellyfish won’t come out when there’s light.”
Qin Zhilu nodded, “How should we distribute it?”
“I’ve listed the number of the residents that are still alive. Just leave the supplies at their doors,” the Resource Manager said. “Oh, be careful when unpacking. After the rain, there will be water bugs, and they love to burrow into damp boxes. Those pesky things might not be highly infectious, but they love to bite people.”
An Yu thought to himself, maybe you’re a bit late in mentioning that.
The Resource Manager laughed awkwardly, “There might be some boxes in the storage room. But I stuffed the window cracks with newspaper; you shouldn’t have been bitten, right?”
Well, thank you for that. Those old newspapers were chewed up like Swiss cheese.
An Yu forced out a friendly smile that was trained by Ling Qiu, “No, we weren’t bitten. The newspapers completely sealed out the bugs. Thank you.”
The Resource Manager was about to show a pleased expression when An Yu suddenly lowered his head as if at a loss. “But I think I made a mistake. When I was cleaning the boxes, I passed by your door and accidentally dropped them. But fortunately, just like you said, no live bugs came in—only some eggs fell into the floor cracks.”
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.
He looked up at the Resource Manager and said softly, “They were very tiny, about the size of cigarette ashes.”
Ktf Efrbegmf Zjcjufg’r fzqgfrrlbc vjgxfcfv jygeqais. Lf rajgfv ja Cc Te obg j ibcu alwf yfobgf olcjiis obgmlcu j rwlif atja vlvc’a gfjmt tlr fsfr. “Pa’r jigluta, P xcbk sbe wfjca kfii. Ofa’r rfa bea joafg ygfjxojra.”
Cr tf rqbxf, tf abbx akb ibcu qlfmfr bo mbjgrf ktfja ibjnfr ogbw atf meqybjgv.
An Yu hesitated for a moment before reaching out to take one.
“What’s wrong?” the Resource Manager asked.
“Nothing.” An Yu immediately took a big bite.
The sweet taste soaked through his saliva as he chewed the tough wheat grains, eating fiercely yet quietly.
“Little beast,” Qin Zhilu suddenly said.
An Yu stopped chewing at once.
“Nevertheless, you’re a vindictive beast.” Qin Zhilu observed, looking at him for a moment before pushing his own loaf of bread over, “No one is fighting you for it.”
An Yu nodded with his cheeks puffed up.
As soon as Qin Zhilu turned away, he started chewing quickly again.
Despite it being daytime, the streets were still empty. A miasma hung over District 53, and all the light came from electric lamps—bright yet dim, giving the area an absurd, apocalyptic feel.
An Yu squatted down to observe the puddle on the ground – the jellyfish really disappeared.
Qin Zhilu drove the Resource Manager’s small truck while An Yu sat in the co-pilot and counted the windows with lights on.
There are 200 households in each residential building in the outer city, and an average of 140 households are lit, which means that 30% of the population either has mutated or died, and the slums in the inner city will only be in a worse condition.
An Yu asked softly, “Will the High Peak abandon District 53?”
The human lives in Bait City are worthless. Lin Qiu had once said that if distortion became uncontrollable, the High Peak would opt for thermal weapons to annihilate it. One button, one city. Under the black mushroom cloud, millions of Bait City residents would use their lives to contain the spread of the distortion.
This wasn’t exaggeratedgossip. Two years ago, An Yu was jolted awake from a deep sleep. At first, he thought it was because the dilapidated building he lived in was finally collapsing, but later he learned that the distant District 95 had been entirely wiped out, leaving only a massive crater on the surface.
That time, when he woke up, it was snowing all over the world. That heavy snow seemed to give him a cold, leaving him unconscious for several days.
Qin Zhilu shook his head. “Eliminating an entire city is the last resort. Although humanity has long been beaten by distortion, we still maintain our dignity.”
An Yu didn’t quite understand. “Dignity?”
Qin Zhilu drove the car with his eyes fixed ahead, “As long as there is still strength for resistance, we will never retreat our dignity’s bottom line.”
An Yu couldn’t quite grasp this persistence. Bait City, as its name suggests, used its outcast citizens as bait, exposing the underprivileged to the aberrants while the elite in the Main City remained absolutely safe under a dome.
He said, “But our existence is meant to die for the people in the Main City. Since our birth, everyone has been waiting for that day.”
Qin Zhilu suddenly looked at him. “Your opinion is quite strange for someone from Bait City.”
“Isn’t this the rule of human gene hierarchy?” An Yu’s tone was calm, “My neighbor said that this world is built upon these rules.”
“Genetic hierarchy is a means to resist natural disasters, not a tool for mutual oppression, but it is becoming more and more distorted in its implementation.” Qin Zhilu drove past one dim streetlight after another, saying lightly, “Two years ago, it was my suggestion to use thermal weapons on District 95.”
An Yu was stunned.
“The situation in District 95 was very complex. The first wave of infection was from airborne pollen. Those infected didn’t immediately mutate but coexisted with insect aberrants. The two consecutive waves of infection far exceeded human limits. They lost their will but retained their intelligence, all turning into super-aberrants. Before the Main City could react, those creatures were already spreading insect eggs, frenetically scattering them across every corner of District 95.”
Qin Zhilu narrated calmly, like an observer who was not involved in the matter, “When the Protectors arrived, all 2,845,009 people in District 95 had mutated. If we didn’t abandon it immediately, Districts 94 and 96 would fall one after another. Within no more than 24 hours, the entire human genome would be compromised.”
Compressed biscuits were packed in paper bags, one bag per household.
An Yu dragged a small flatbed cart, and the clattering sound of the wheels woke up the whole building.
He placed a bag of biscuits on the ground at unit 904’s door, “Hello, the supplies are at your door. Please try to pick them up during off-peak hours.”
There was a rustling sound from behind the door, and an elderly woman tremblingly asked, “Are you from the resource office? My grandson went to the resource station last night to find food and hasn’t returned. Have you seen him?”
An Yu thought for a moment. “If he went out last night and hasn’t returned, he probably…”
“I saw him,” Qin Zhilu interrupted him. “The people who came last night were helping to sort out the supplies. Don’t leave your home. He will be back after work.”
“Oh, that’s good… I was scared to death… Thank you, thank you!” The floorboards creaked inside the apartment as the old woman murmured, “It’s cold and rainy, make sure he wears more clothes so he doesn’t get infected…”
Qin Zhilu didn’t pause, moving on to the next household. An Yu was puzzled, “Why did you lie to her?”
Qin Zhilu’s expression was stern. “Did you hear any strange noises?”
“What noises?”
Qin Zhilu didn’t answer.
The households that were crossed out on the list were indeed empty, and there was no light under the door cracks.
An Yu skipped the crossed-out units and placed a paper bag at the next door. “Hello, low-income supplies, please…”
The door suddenly opened, and a man stood in the dim light, shrinking back. “Excuse me, is this the last bag?”
An Yu didn’t understand. “What do you mean, the last bag?”
“I only have one light bulb left at home, and I can’t share it with anyone else.” The man pleaded quietly, “Please don’t cut off my food supply.”
An Yu’s movements froze suddenly.
He suddenly remembered the floor of light bulbs at the resource station.
“Sir, I don’t really understand… I know it’s a special time, and supplies need to be redistributed across the city, but if I can’t help others because I don’t have the capacity, cutting off my food isn’t fair.” The man’s voice trembled, “Oh, of course, I’m not questioning you. I’m just asking… is there anything besides light bulbs and money that can be ? Whatever I have, I’ll give to you… to those who need it!”
Qin Zhilu asked: “One light bulb for a day’s worth of food?”
“Yes, aren’t you from the resource office?”
Qin Zhilu continued, “What’s the reason for collecting light bulbs?”
“Many poor people in the inner city don’t have lights and they will be attacked by jellyfish at any time, so the whole city needs to redistribute them.”
Qin Zhilu was silent for a moment, “Understood.” He walked past unit 908 and stopped at unit 909.
An Yu checked the list, “909 is already empty…”
But the door to 909 suddenly opened. Inside stood a woman with tanned skin, her muscular arms exuding a different kind of charm.
But she had a shaved head and held a whip in her hand. The whip was jet black and dense, like it was braided from hair.
An Yu found her familiar and, after a moment of surprise, exclaimed, “Miss Luo Qing?”
It was the woman the Resource Manager couldn’t get. She had a good relationship with Ling Qiu and was one of the few people An Yu had spoken to.
Luo Qing was also momentarily stunned. “An Yu? Why are you… um…”
She awkwardly touched her bald head, handing over the hair whip. “This is the supply I’m donating to the inner city. Please help me pass it to the Resource Manager and ask him to send us some food tomorrow.”
She pursued her lip. “It doesn’t need to be too much, just enough to fill my daughter’s stomach. If this isn’t enough, I…” She hesitated again and finally seemed to make up her mind, “I am willing to go to the inner city to help! Tell the Resource Manager I can go to the resource station to find him anytime!”
She emphasized the words “find him,” and a small girl peeked out from behind Luo Qing, timidly looking at An Yu.
An Yu silently glanced at the list of the many crossed-out room numbers, then turned to look at the tightly closed doors.
Gradually, those doors opened, and through the circular atrium, people from the units above and below stared at him and the supplies in his hand like starved ghosts.
Those who were abandoned were not dead people, nor were they infected people.
They were just people that the Resource Manager wanted to abandon.
Qin Zhilu’s voice turned somber, “How long has District 53 been like this?”
An Yu instinctively asked, “Like what?”
Seeing Qin Zhilu glance at the hair whip, he replied, “Oh, it’s always been like this. Ling Qiu said that doing everything in exchange for supplies is the survival rule of the Bait City. Even if you leave the slums, you can’t escape this rule.”
Qin Zhilu glanced at him, took out two packs of biscuits, put them at Luo Qing’s door, and continued to walk forward.
An Yu followed, walked a few steps and looked back at Luo Qing.
Under such rules, Miss Luo Qing’s choice was very normal, but he indeed felt it was a pity.
Ling Qiu had been greatly encouraged by her successful escape from the Resource Manager, and whenever he talked about it, his eyes were full of expectation.
An Yu never had any expectations, but a few days ago, while on the bus, when he saw that mother and daughter and heard them say they had soy pancakes because they had family in the Main City, he actually thought of Ling Qiu also entering the Main City, and at that moment, he actually had a brief flicker of hope.
Hope for what? He couldn’t say.
But it was a fleeting, unfamiliar, yet beautiful experience.
Qin Zhilu walked ahead, opening the paper bags and placing two packs of biscuits at each door.
Everyone watched them distribute the supplies. The quieter it became, the more it felt like a taut string about to snap.
An Yu had just placed biscuits at one door when a man suddenly rushed out, snatching the paper bag from his arms and slamming the door shut with a “bang!”
An Yu nearly fell. “You can only take one portion!”
The next moment, doors were knocked open one after another, and the residents went mad, scrambling for the scattered biscuits on the ground.
Under the dim light of the corridor, they were disheveled, with paranoid eyes, looking more monstrous than the aberrants.
“Don’t come out all at once!” An Yu raised his voice. “Everyone will get some!”
No one listened. Soon, the compressed biscuits were all snatched up. Those who got nothing started snatching from others, turning into a brawl.
A gunshot suddenly rang out, freezing the entire corridor.
The bullet tore through flesh and exploded, and a teenage boy fell to the ground, his oversized sleeves covering his hands, and he was pathetically thin.
Dark red blood quickly spread from under him.
Qin Zhilu holstered his gun with an expressionless face.
The crowd was dead silent until a sharp voice broke the stillness: “He didn’t take anything, why did you shoot him!?”
These words seemed to wake up something.
“Yeah, why?”
“You have the right to distribute supplies, but not the right to kill!”
“Who are you people? The resource station doesn’t have any guns!”
“It’s the military! The Main City is abandoning District 53!”
Another wave of chaos erupted. People clutched their biscuits and ran home. Amid the confusion, a thud was heard as a brick-like pack of compressed biscuits hit and slid off Qin Zhilu’s neck.
The solid thud made An Yu’s heart jump.
He suddenly realized that Qin Zhilu was different from other Protectors. Despite having an astonishingly high genetic entropy, he was made of human flesh and blood like him.
As expected, after the biscuits fell, Qin Zhilu’s neck quickly became bruised.
Yet he showed no reaction; it seemed like he didn’t have these people in his eyes at all. He walked forward alone.
— There was no need for a test; as soon as the terminal got close to the boy, it started to alarm. The numbers on the screen jumped rapidly, finally stabilizing between 1600 and 1700.
“The entropy level has reached the point of complete mutation. With a genetic entropy of over a thousand, it’s impossible to hide the physical afteraffects.” He muttered to himself, his gaze suddenly falling on the boy’s long sleeves.
“Come here.”
An Yu stepped forward, and Qin Zhilu asked, “How many bugs were there yesterday?”
How many?
An Yu hesitated, “Hundreds.”
“So many were attracted.” Qin Zhilu looked at him thoughtfully, “Any arthropods?”
An Yu shook his head, “Only small water bugs, characterized by fangs and compound eyes.”
“Hmm.”
Qin Zhilu tore open the boy’s sleeve in one swift motion.
The hard, scythe-like green limbs extended up to the mid-arm, twisting and growing together with human flesh and bones.
The whole building fell into dead silence.
“Mantis-type distortion, much more lethal than jellyfish.” Qin Zhilu turned to face the crowd, “I shot him because while you all were scrambling for supplies, only he was running out in the chaos. As he ran, he was looking at each one of you, and he looked excited as if he was… a predator looking for food.”
His dark eyes swept across the stunned crowd.
“Show your IDs for screening.”
“Those who resist will be treated as aberrants.”
Author’s Note:
Snowflake fragments
[Luo Qing(1/2)]
[Little Girl]
When I was young, I liked to lie on the ground of the slum courtyard and sunbathe.
The sunlight gave me black hair and wheat-colored skin.
At that time, I was just a carefree little girl, without a home, without attachments, without my own little girl.
I was untouched by the filth of the world
M1zushi: i’ve seen the confusion in the comments so maybe this’ll help explain the concept better?
distortion kind of works like radiation. an aberrant has a lot of radiation and can contaminate other humans, increasing the human’s entropy and distorting them into aberrants
humans, plants, animals, everything has a normal threshold of genetic entropy, but when your G.E. goes over that limit, you mutate and become an aberrant
entropy can NEVER decrease, as the universe expands, its entropy increases and the world exchanges energy with the universe
Thank you for the chapter 😍 ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
The resource manager is really a beast, I hope he gets what he deserves
I understand the entropy levels now
Thank you for taking your time to explain and thanks for the update 🥰
Thank you for the explanation and graphic. I was kinda hoping the author would do something of the kind as this is an unusual world build. Really enjoying this story!
Typo: wate;, should probably be waste
Thanks for the update ❤️❤️❤️
Thank you so much for the explanation M1zushi-sama <3
Thank you for the explanation