Chapter 50: Damn it, beasts!

In the apocalypse, Liu Mu had seen too many dying gazes—spiteful, fearful, desperate... yet the girl's bewilderment still made her heart tremble.

Before the disaster, the girl might have been a university student still in school, perhaps an office worker who had just stepped into society, or maybe the apple of her family's eye, cherished in the palms of their hands...

Regardless of which one she was, she never expected this disaster to take away so many familiar things, or even her own life.

Even dying in such an inexplicable way, there was no resentment, no despair, only confusion.

Confusion about the world, confusion about others, or perhaps confusion about the very act of killing her.

Someone like her, tortured to madness by the environment and hunger, was destined not to survive anyway.

In the apocalypse, people dying like this—killed after a breakdown or committing suicide—was all too common.

Liu Mu only took one glance before heading underground without looking back. Her footsteps were light, making almost no sound upon landing, and even her raincoat only emitted a faint rustle.

The underground space was not brightly lit at night; only a few main areas had lights on. There was no scene of people in white coats bustling about, and except for a few people startled by the sound of gunfire, the rest were almost identical to the floor above: they were all lying side by side.

But it was also different, because they had their own sleeping bags, and there was even thick cardboard padded beneath them. Although still crude, at least it looked like a place for a human to sleep, and one wouldn't easily get sick.

Liu Mu did not dare to barge in directly; instead, she hid in a dark corner, quietly watching the spacious hall and the large concrete pillars arranged in concentric circles.

It had to be said that the construction requirements for the Stadium were higher than those of ordinary commercial buildings; even though many high-rises around it had become dangerous structures, here there were only some fine cracks on the walls or pillars.

Liu Mu was certain that given Song Yulin's habits, she would definitely not live in the same place as these soldiers. She leaned against the wall, focusing her energy to look into the depths of the hall. There, two rows of small, partitioned rooms were separated out; some were transparent, where one could see experimental equipment and bound mutants. On the other side was an opaque row, with names hanging on the doors.

For the sake of mobility, Liu Mu took off her raincoat and recovered it into her space. The raincoat she had picked out to carry with her had some flaws—for instance, this one had a small tear at the cuff—but none of it affected its use.

After waiting for an hour or so, these people were fast asleep. Liu Mu sneaked in, making her way all the way to that row of rooms, and not a single person discovered her.

There was no patrol; there was a soldier on night duty every fifty meters, but by this hour, they were all standing crookedly, yawning without any inhibition. The one in front of the row of rooms before her was even worse; Liu Mu heard his faint snoring from ten meters away. Good grief, he had just fallen asleep leaning against a pillar like that.

So much so that Liu Mu didn't even need to knock him out; she directly found the compartment that occupied a large area and was twice as big as the other small rooms, with the name of Song Yulin hanging on it without a shred of safety awareness.

She opened the unlocked door with almost no effort, slipped inside, and gently closed it again.

It was actually a suite. After entering, there was a hall with a long table; the desk lamp on the table was on, and beneath it was a stack of open documents. Liu Mu glanced at it from a few meters away, and what was written on it made her stop in her tracks.

She walked over and flipped through two pages. Liu Mu used force in her fingers to crush a piece of the document's edge, then casually put it into her Recovery Space for temporary safekeeping.

They were all experimental records. Besides medication and data, there were photos: living people, corpses, Mutated Animals, mutants... Why were there perfectly fine living people?

That was because these bastards were injecting blood from Mutated Animals into the bodies of living people, and they were even taking photos to record it every damn day. How was this behavior any different from the methods of those devils a hundred years ago?

Damn it, beasts!

The little devils' island would be destroyed by volcanoes and earthquakes in half a year, but this woman, Song Yulin, had to pay a price right now!

Liu Mu walked into the bedroom. She didn't do anything extra; she raised her hand and delivered a hand-blade strike to the sleeping woman.

As for the person in charge of these experiments... Xing Tianyang. She would throw the documents in his face when she went back tomorrow. If it really was that kid who arranged it, she dared to twist his head off right in front of Yang Shuo—twist it off raw.

Of course, she mainly... didn't know which of the researchers were here, and it wouldn't be easy to take them away if she captured too many.

Song Yulin certainly knew how to enjoy herself. Besides the compartment being larger than others, there was an independent ventilation duct in the bedroom. She must have been too confident in the security here, as there was no further protection inside the duct other than a few wire meshes.

This made her original plan of leaving through another fire escape unnecessary; she carried the person and went straight out through the ventilation duct.

The Stadium's ventilation duct was not small; the part connected to the room was enough for one person to crawl through, and further up it could even accommodate three big men side by side.

A quarter of an hour later, Liu Mu put on a Filter Mask and threw the still-unconscious Song Yulin into a pile of corpses, watching coldly as the other party woke up in terror.

The High-Intensity Flashlight illuminated the circle around her. Once she realized she had been kidnapped and was lying in the middle of an endless pile of corpses, her face instantly turned pale with fright. Just as she struggled to get out of the corpse pile, she was kicked back in by Liu Mu, her body making direct 'intimate' contact with the rotting corpses.

Ugh—

Even as cold as Song Yulin was, she started retching directly at this moment. She wanted to cover her mouth with her hands, only to find them covered in pus, minced meat, and wriggling insects.

She shook her hands frantically, vomiting while trying to escape, but ended up being kicked back in again. This time, she fell even deeper.

"Who are you? What do you want to do?"

After a few repetitions, Song Yulin broke down and finally screamed, "I am the highest leader here! Who on earth are you?"

"So you know you're a leader. These people are all here thanks to you, Leader. Won't you join them, Leader?"

Liu Mu stared coldly at the leader struggling in the mountain of corpses. It took less than an hour for this clean, elegant, and beautiful woman to turn into someone whose pajamas were soaked in blood, filth, and vomit, becoming no different from a Survivor.

Finally, Song Yulin understood she couldn't escape; she adapted, and she went numb. She sat in the mountain of corpses, letting the maggots crawl into her long hair, just staring blankly at the figure behind the bright light.

"If I am guilty, the Military Court and the law will judge me. By what right do you do this? This is a crime! What? Do you think you're some kind of justice-bringer who can punish me?"

"The law?" Liu Mu laughed, slowly moving the Flashlight away and taking off her mask. "Leader, have you misunderstood something? I'm no justice-bringer. I don't want to judge you, nor do I want to punish you. I just..."

Liu Mu exhaled, as if the air here wasn't that foul to her, her tone eerie, "... just want to turn you into one of them."

It was actually Liu Mu. Song Yulin's pupils shook violently. She wanted to say something, but watched in horror as Liu Mu casually picked up a corpse, slammed it hard onto the ground, jammed the Flashlight into the hole in the corpse's chest, and then conjured a cold, gleaming Curved Blade out of thin air.

"No, you can't kill me! Listen to me, Liu Mu, Boss Liu! Do you know how many people were on Earth before the disaster? Over 8.2 billion! Do you know what that number means? Liu Mu!"

Liu Mu gripped the blade without moving. "What does it mean?"

"It means there were too many people! Too many! Humans were like locusts, constantly breeding and constantly taking; the Earth could no longer bear so many people. Throughout history, did we humans become the rulers of Earth by relying on numbers? No! It was by relying on the most excellent people, by relying on high intelligence, by relying on cutting-edge technology... These people," Song Yulin suddenly grabbed an arm and shook it at Liu Mu,

"These people, who aren't even as good as rats or locusts, only waste land and resources by living! They are nothing but a burden! Only when they die can humanity shake off the burden, achieve high-speed development, take a leap, and realize the bright future proposed by countless wise people!"

"It wasn't me who killed them; it was they who held back human development, held back the rejuvenation of the motherland! If not for them, our great country could have long since mastered absolute global discourse power and led all of humanity into the era of a great Republic. Scientific research would also have achieved qualitative breakthroughs. You know about aerospace, right? We were about to fly off Earth, never having to worry about disasters again, never having to fear alien civilizations..."

"Enough!" Liu Mu believed that Song Yulin was telling the truth, and that this was what she truly thought. "What you say is grand, ideal, and high-end, and so you killed these thousands of ordinary people. May I ask, Leader Song, what kind of extraordinary, transcendent significance do you have yourself? That you can decide whether others have the right to live?"

"Me? I... My father is the Commander of the General Command! If you kill me, you are going against the government and the military! My organization won't let you off either! We are striving for a noble ideal; are you going to hinder the progress of humanity? You cannot kill me! Don't be as stupid as the workers who smashed the spinning jennies!"

"Talking for so long, and it's just 'my dad is so-and-so'?" Liu Mu didn't wait any longer and stepped heavily onto the rotting corpses, her boot soles squeezing out turbid, sticky fluid, smelling foul and fishy. "Then let me try. Don't worry, I will send your head back to that cozy, comfortable bedroom of yours to see if your organization forgives you for slaughtering the innocent."

"I have to say, when I walked into your bedroom from the first floor, I really felt like I had entered heaven... But, Song Yulin, by what right do you send others to hell!"

"No! No! I can't die! My organization..." The death-throes scream didn't last long. Liu Mu struck with her blade, and a head that was still somewhat delicate rolled into the countless severed limbs and remains, which she grabbed by the hair and scooped up.

As for Song Yulin's body, she didn't even look at it. It wouldn't be long before this place became a paradise for Mutated Animals, and then it would raise a large batch of plump and sturdy 'Human Predators'.

Sending Song Yulin's head back the way she came and placing it squarely under that desk lamp, Liu Mu didn't linger. After leaving a few streets away, she took out an off-road vehicle from her space and went straight home. She believed she hadn't left any traces behind, but she didn't know that the consequences of this incident were far more serious than she had anticipated.

Yang Shuo would look at the status reports sent from various bases in Jiang Province every three days, while simultaneously reviewing and approving various material requests.

The second day of Liu Mu's operation happened to be the day to review the reports. Because the Haicheng Urban Base had been reporting invasions by Mutated Animals and they were resisting with great difficulty, Yang Shuo paid special attention to this nearest base.

Originally, he intended that if there were still related situations in today's report, he would send a battalion of combat power to support them. Previously, Song Yulin had only said there were animal invasions and that many Survivors had been killed, but she hadn't requested support, which in itself made him somewhat suspicious.

However, after flipping through the reports today, he didn't see the one he was most concerned about. When he asked the Confidential Clerk, he learned that it hadn't been sent at all.

"Contact them immediately, ask what the situation is! Let Song Yulin speak with me!"

"Report!" Just then, the Guard suddenly entered carrying a Constant Temperature Test Box, "This was sent from the Urban Base; they said it requires your personal signature."

"Come in," Yang Shuo gestured for the Guard to place the box on the desk and asked, "Who sent it?"

The Guard set the item down, stood straight, and said in a loud voice, "The person said he is a Researcher from that base, and that Base Chief Song personally ordered him to deliver it. He is resting outside. Do you want to see him?"

"Let him rest for now," Yang Shuo reached out to enter the code for the box. There is a code system between bases, with various codes rotated and set daily, which they use according to the date, but his hand failed to touch the box.

"Let me do it," the Confidential Clerk, feeling uneasy, boldly blocked Yang Shuo's hand and chuckled, "Chief, you must follow the Safety Agreement. Let me do it; I have good luck."

At Yang Shuo's level, there are many Safety Agreements that are as much a restriction as they are a protection, all to prevent these old guys from not taking their own lives seriously. A person dying is a small matter, but the resources and time the country spent cultivating them would be wasted.

It is essential to ensure they continue to shine and generate heat, unless they die directly in office or retire to the second line to recuperate due to senility.

Yang Shuo had to step back a meter, "You kid, could this possibly be a bomb?"

The Confidential Clerk replied with a grin, skillfully entered the code, opened the lid, and took a look. The smile on his face instantly froze, and a look of terror appeared.

This made Yang Shuo anxious, and not waiting for him to report voluntarily, he stepped over, "What is it, that it could even scare... Song Yulin... 's head?"

The dry ice mist dissipated, revealing a bloodless face—no, to be precise, a head.

The office fell into a brief chaos, but it took Yang Shuo only ten seconds to regain his composure, "Go, detain the person who delivered the item! Have Xing Tianyang bring two people over to see if it is real."

In fact, he already knew in his heart that this was a human head, and it was highly likely to be Song Yulin's. But who would be so arrogant as to kill the highest administrative official of a small base and deliver it to him in broad daylight? Without a doubt, this is a provocation!

Furthermore, it was already dawn when Liu Mu returned to the Scrap Station. Niu Boyi ran out a mile to meet her as usual, wearing a giant raincoat made of tarpaulin.

Not only did the raincoat cover his entire body, but the top was also deliberately shaped into ears, standing up pointedly, which was actually quite cute.

Liu Mu drove the vehicle all the way into the Scrap Station. When she got out, she waved at the surveillance camera and pointed at Niu Boyi, meaning she wanted to check on the Military Dog before going down.

Due to the heavy rain for days, the underground garage was inconvenient to open and close, so Niu Boyi's den was set up in the living room on the first floor of the small building. Because it was her own territory and used the style of a self-built rural house, the living room was large and enough for Niu Boyi to stand and turn around, though he could not move around much.

Liu Mu originally wanted to help him take off the raincoat, but she saw the Military Dog bite the rope on his chest and pull it, then arch his back and shake in place. After taking another step, the raincoat actually came off.

Not only did it come off, but it also hung perfectly on the hooks at the four corners of the ceiling, like a huge mosquito net.

This design made Liu Mu want to call it genius; she didn't know if it was Xu Xiaofeng or Zhang Xiaoyong who thought of it.

She used the system to scan Niu Boyi's body, and except for growing another twenty centimeters, there was not a single problem. Liu Mu let him lie down and found that his fur was not even wet, not even the tail, and there were no bullet marks. She had to admit Xu Xiaofeng's meticulousness; sewing such a raincoat with thick tarpaulin was a major project.

"Good, how about I take you to pick up the Gatekeeper tomorrow?" Liu Mu was rubbed affectionately by the Military Dog and reached out to scratch his head, "His leg should be able to walk by then."

At the mention of the base, Niu Boyi's ears twitched. Remembering something, he hurriedly told Liu Mu.