Chapter 372: Tears of the Sun, Taste of God

Sun Rain!

What a romantic name.

When the Upper City's drainage system began to operate, countless LED suns still shone overhead, as if a grand light show.

Rainwater passed through the bright suns, refracting rainbow-like spectra, falling on the faces and bodies of Lower City people, and into the plastic buckets they held high.

Children frolicked in the rain, calling this liquid that carried the smell of disinfectant "Tears of the Sun".

The price was that they had to take one or two more Neutralizer capsules tonight, but the ignorant joy of childhood cannot be bought with one or two Neutralizers, can it?

Children ran barefoot, splashing water everywhere, their ankles dyed an eerie phosphorescent blue by the rain. Childish voices sang a cheerful nursery rhyme in the rain:

"Rain makes you bald,

But can wash your eyes,

Upper City's poop,

Lower City's life……"

Street performers hugged harps modified from discarded pipes, plucking rust-stained strings, singing odes to the Sun Rain's "miracle".

The lyrics were full of genuine emotion:

"When the Sun and rain dance together,

When light and filth embrace,

We finally bathe in the same world……

Ah, how wonderful!"

The church also became unusually lively; those buildings usually seldom opened now threw wide their doors, welcoming a constant stream of believers.

Pyramid-shaped roofs hung inverted, like thirsty giant maws, greedily sucking at the sky.

Priests wore thin, form-fitting Hazmat Suits, presiding over the once-monthly Mass.

They claimed every drop of Sun Rain contained the Upper City's "Sacred Genes" — just Nineteen Purification Procedures could optimize the Lower City people's Gene Code.

Although most believers experienced the torment of Acute Gastroenteritis first after drinking the Holy Water, that must be because you still aren't devout enough.

On the giant screen beside the church, a promotional short played on loop. A scientist in a white coat stood before the lens, arms spread, spraying saliva as he shouted:

"This is the baptism of the new era! When the Upper City's metabolites become the Lower City's nectar, we have finally achieved the sanctity of the Ecological Closed Loop!

This is heaven's bestowed cycle, a new peak of human civilization!"

Fanatical believers listened with boiling blood, imitating the poses in the short, spreading their arms, tilting their heads back, letting the rain wash away the fatigue and heavy metal makeup on their faces, returning to natural purity.

However, there were also indifferent pedestrians holding tattered umbrellas, silently walking through the rain, or simply letting the rain soak their clothes.

They had long grown accustomed to this "grace" carrying a metallic taste and residual disinfectant, just as they had grown accustomed to the hundreds of millions of Artificial Suns rising and setting overhead, and this unchanging world without seasonal change.

Heavy Rain washed the streets, gathering in low-lying puddles; drunks lay on the ground drinking deeply, saying this was the true "Awakening Liquid".

Every month's Rain Day was a festival of revelry for drunks; after all, expensive "Awakening Liquid" cost a fortune per 10cc bottle — where could they get drunk like this — while the heavy rain contained a faint hallucinogenic taste, yet was free for all to drink without limit.

Tap——

Muddy slippers stepped through a puddle, turning the dreamlike blue into mud color, startling the drunk lying on the ground awake.

"This world is already terminally ill."

Dui 103, the bald man stroked his shiny bald forehead, grinning with a mouthful of black teeth.

Red Dragonfly casually shook her wet dirty braids, her sexy tongue licking rainwater from the corner of her mouth, smacking her lips:

"Captain, if you talk like that, drunks will fight you to the death; to them, if God exists in this world, God should be the taste of this rain."

Finished speaking, Red Dragonfly tilted her head back, opened her mouth to taste the rain; the fluorescent patterns on her tongue coating resonated eerily with the rain:

"1.4% Ailuokang Nuclear Waste, a full 0.1% higher concentration than last rain, metabolized 0.1% more concentration; looks like the Upper City's 'prostate' isn't too clear."

The Master of Ceremonies' slender fingers pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses; the lenses reflected fluorescent microparticles in the rain.

He whistled, the sound like rusty gears grinding: "Red Dragonfly, you're wrong; those steel pipes in the sky aren't the Upper City's prostate——"

He elegantly rotated his wrist, pointing at the drunk lying on the ground, grinning:

"The Lower City is! Because every Ailuokang Capsule flushed down the Upper City's toilets ultimately completes its reincarnation cleansing in the Lower City's blood vessels."

Wild Beast's Adam's apple rolled, his thick neck turning slowly like a Hydraulic Rod, piled horizontal flesh forming a ferocious grin:

"Captain, you stepped on someone else's God."

The drunk behind spat out the sewage in his mouth, hazily straining his throat to retch, feeling his mouth filled with a foot-odor stench.

"You bastards!"

Normally, a drunk might not dare charge at the bizarre group before him — a sloppy bald man, a sexy red-clad woman, a sinister-smiling glasses man, a burly muscle-man.

But,

The "awakening" scent permeating the rainy day was the drunk's home turf; he charged at the group with fearless, angry, strange howls.

The bald Captain raised a hand, waved his palm lightly, and his index finger pierced the drunk's forehead.

He casually withdrew his finger, sucked on it in his mouth:

"Then I'll send him to meet God!"

Finished speaking, the bald man spat again, disgustedly spitting out the deteriorated brain matter from his mouth, then looked up at the residential building not far away, coldly:

"Arrived, prepare to work!"

…………..

Zhao Xing left Second Prison, driving home with a heavy heart.

The wipers swung mechanically, swipe after swipe clearing water drops from the windshield, yet unable to clear the haze in his heart no matter what.

"Feng Mu was actually released by the Patrol Bureau……"

He gritted his teeth and cursed in a low voice, his voice full of suppressed anger and unease,

"The Internal Investigation Department is calling people back from all over the prison to cooperate with questioning; damn it, they're all a pack of mad dogs, they'll all end up buried with Qian Huan sooner or later."

The red light ahead lit up, and vehicles lined up in a long queue at the intersection; traffic on a rainy day was congested as always, the stream of cars like a dying giant snake, twisting its body, moving slowly yet helplessly, appearing both clumsy and desperate.

Zhao Xing irritably honked the horn, and the vehicle beside him was not to be outdone, immediately returning the gesture with an even louder blast.

"Damn it! Damn it! All deserve death!"

Zhao Xing cursed angrily, a fierce light bursting from his eyes, his chest heaving violently with anger.

He truly wished he could jump out of the car right now, drag all those rule-breaking drivers out, throw them into prison, make them learn the traffic rules properly, and while at it, learn the principles of being human.

For a very long time he had felt that the best educational institution in the world is prison, and that every single person in the world should go to prison for advanced study.

Thinking of this, Zhao Xing shook his head, striving to dispel these stray thoughts in his Nao Hai.

He knew it was because the development of the Shi Mo after the prison riot deviated from what he had envisioned, making his emotions overly tense.

Zhao Xing adjusted his breathing, then gripped the steering wheel with one hand, while the other hand took out his phone, opened the news page, and began swiping rapidly.

In the dim cabin, the cold light of the screen reflected on his gloomy face, making his complexion grow even darker.

Zhao Xing's brows furrowed tighter and tighter; the headlines and comments scrolling rapidly on the screen were like countless needles, stabbing ruthlessly into his heart.

The Executive Government delayed taking action; this alone was already beyond Zhao Xing's expectations.

What made him feel even more uneasy was that public opinion online began to show a subtle and strange shift, like an unseen undercurrent, quietly surging toward a direction he could not guess.

"Always feel something's off, as if there's an invisible black hand, secretly stirring this whirlpool..." Zhao Xing murmured in a low voice.

(End of Chapter)