Chapter 977: Rats and Hope

Rats and Hope

"I... this is..."

Fang Liangye retched continuously for a long time before slowly standing up with a deathly pale face, his body trembling uncontrollably.

Fang Liangye was, after all, just an Ordinary Person. Chen Ling's memories were too stimulating for him. A gentle and harmless body paired with extremely bloody memories caused a strong rejection reaction between his soul and body.

Subjectively, he felt these memories were nothing much, but the instincts carved into his body simply couldn't accept them.

Just as Fang Liangye was still digesting his memories, a figure walked over from the end of the dim corridor. Seeing him leaning against the edge of the bed in pain, that person exclaimed in shock and quickly approached.

"Liangye, are you alright?"

Fang Liangye felt a soft palm gently patting his back, and a voice full of worry sounded.

He looked back, only to see a young girl wearing a purple dress standing behind him. Her silver earrings swayed gently with her patting, and a pair of pitch-black eyes shimmered like glazed glass.

"...Miss Wu?"

The young girl froze. Her gaze toward Fang Liangye was somewhat resentful. "Durand was right, your head is indeed broken... Didn't we agree that calling me Duo-duo is fine? Calling me Miss Wu now is so distant."

"Miss Wu, how could you... be here?" Fang Liangye stood blankly in place, seemingly still hasn't recovered his senses. "Weren't you back in the Red Dust Domain when you..."

Wu Duo looked at him with a strange expression. After a long while, she let out a long sigh.

"You're quite seriously ill..."

Wu Duo was a native of the Wuji Domain and had never been to any Red Dust Domain. She and Fang Liangye met not long ago. At that time, following Durand's instructions, she went to contact the citizen organizations within the Wuji Domain. After all, wizards like them were currently hiding in the dark. If they wanted to protect the citizens, they had to unite with these public citizen organizations.

Through her contact with Fang Liangye, they became increasingly familiar. Wu Duo already had a favorable impression of this young man who was gentle inside but dared to challenge the status quo. Previously, when Fang Liangye was arrested, it was also Wu Duo who begged Durand and activated the power of the Rat Party to rescue him.

But looking at it now, Fang Liangye's memories were completely messed up.

"Regardless, I should explain it to you." Wu Duo tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Because of the need for confidentiality, I only told you before that I could use my wizard power to help you rescue citizens and resist the struggle... Actually, there's an organization behind me entirely composed of wizards. We call ourselves the 'Rat Party'."

"Rat Party..." Fang Liangye frowned as he spoke. "This name... is truly special."

"Durand came up with this name too. He said the current Wuji Domain is a dark prison, and only rats can possess freedom." Wu Duo paused for a moment, a flash of determination in her eyes.

"Weak rats cannot make the sun rise again, so they spread hope in the darkness and dampness."

Fang Liangye stood stunned in place, seemingly touched by this sentence. From the depths of his bodily instincts, a sense of resonance slowly rose.

"...You are always doing great things, Miss Wu."

Fang Liangye looked into Wu Duo's eyes, earnest and sincere.

In his memory, Wu Duo's figure overlapped with that blurry young girl wearing a long dress and carrying a Leather Suitcase. An inexplicable emotion climbed into his heart... Fang Liangye couldn't articulate what kind of feeling that was, but among all the people he had met in the past, the young girl before him was special.

Feeling Fang Liangye's gaze, a blush flew across Wu Duo's cheeks. She turned her head slightly away, no longer meeting Fang Liangye's eyes:

"Mm... oh right... Come with me, I'll show you some things."

Wu Duo pulled Fang Liangye and walked briskly toward the passage on the other side.

Fang Liangye followed Wu Duo, shuttling through dim and complex passages. The underground drainage system of the Wuji Domain was simply too complex, like a giant maze, and even had a large number of ascending and descending stairs... After just turning at three or four places, Fang Liangye lost his sense of direction.

Fang Liangye felt his location getting deeper and deeper. After about a few minutes, his vision suddenly opened up.

Giant pillars towered in the gloom. Nearly a hundred Kerosene Lamps hung on the nearby walls, illuminating a large open space. Set against the extremely high ceiling, this sewer area looked like a magnificent palace.

And at this moment, dozens of figures were lying on the ground in the open space. They had thick but dirty bedding underneath them, and their complexions were not very good. Some even crawled at the edge of their bedding, coughing up blood frantically.

Judging from their attire, they were all residents of the Wuji Domain, and most still wore factory uniforms.

In front of them, an old man was sitting cross-legged. His palm moved over the young man who was coughing blood the most severely, seemingly massaging with a special technique. At the same time, streams of milky-white radiance drilled from his palm into the young man's body, and the violent coughing began to slow down...

"This is..." Fang Liangye was somewhat astonished.

"The Silver Government forces the youth to work eighteen hours a day in factory production. The physical condition of a large number of youths is rapidly declining. However, due to the mandatory working hours, most people simply have no time to see a doctor... Even if they do, the medical resources of the Wuji Domain are far from enough. You should be very clear about this." Wu Duo sighed deeply,

"Therefore, we secretly receive some seriously ill residents and use 'witchcraft' to treat them... But for some reason, as time passes, more and more people are getting sick, and we can hardly keep up with the treatments."

"Eighteen hours of production work..."

Fang Liangye wasn't that surprised by this duration. After all, in his chaotic memories, before the Great Cataclysm, the working hours of many corporate slaves in big factories were also this long. Even students in some areas, under immense pressure, would study Risking One's Life like this.

"Let's put the working hours aside for now. What kind of work makes people sick like this?" Fang Liangye pointed at the frantically blood-coughing young man and asked.

"I don't really understand either... Anyway, after the Silver King arrived, he forced all the youths into production labor. As for exactly what is being produced, hardly anyone knows. Even the workers in the workshops themselves are unclear."

Wu Duo shook her head.

"It's not production, it's processing." A voice came from behind.

Durand, wearing a Black Alchemical Robes, swept his gaze over the numerous seriously ill figures on the ground, his hands under the sleeves clenching tightly. "Cobalt-60, Strontium-90, Caesium-137... They are processing large amounts of Radioactive Material. In addition to that, there are also explosives like TNT."

Hearing this sentence, Fang Liangye was stunned.

He seemed to have thought of something, his pupils contracting slightly...

Durand's voice sounded again:

"The Silver King is mass-producing Dirty Bombs."