Chapter 578

Lu Dou held up the white umbrella, standing outside that pool of blood.

The hem of his white clothes was spotless.

Thirteen corpses lay across the center of the square.

A man held his wife and child, his arms still in an embracing pose; the child's small hand dangled outside, its fingertips only half an inch from the father's combat uniform.

Jiang Yuan did not move.

The black card was pinched between two fingers.

The edge of the card was stained with Lu Dou's blood.

It was also the blood of those thirteen people.

L's voice sounded over the channel.

"The cluster life link remains stable."

"Current infected count: three thousand one hundred and two."

"After Lu Dou takes damage, the injury will be randomly distributed across the cluster."

"It is advised to stop direct attacks on the target's main body."

Liang Wen crawled out from the monster's corpse chunks, his black windcoat's back soaked in blood and ash.

He raised his hand and wiped his face.

"This rule is truly shameless."

"Even in a team fight, they drag the whole city's people in as teammates."

"It's basically cheating."

Nobody responded to his joke.

At the entrance of the safe house.

Qin Zhixia gripped the Tail-Head Snake, its blade hanging down to the ground.

Her white hair fell over her shoulders, white vapor escaping from the cracks in her mechanical arm. Wu Ming was still running, but the warning on her wrist guard had turned red.

Consumption exceeded the safety limit.

She didn't turn it off.

The faceless monster that had been split in half ahead climbed back to its feet.

Its body hadn't healed, and the smiling face on its chest opened first.

"Happiness."

Qin Zhixia raised her blade.

Just as the blade lifted halfway, she forced herself to stop.

Behind the faceless monster stood a line of people.

They were civilians who had retreated from the edge of the gray mist.

There were men in suits, medical staff cradling injured companions, an elderly woman with disheveled hair, and two young security guards holding batons.

They all wore smiles on their faces.

Their smiles were very proper.

When the faceless monster stepped forward, they followed with a step.

If Qin Zhixia's blade fell, the first to die might not be the monster.

It would be these people.

Because they had become a cluster, and humans are more fragile than the monster, sharing the damage makes them die more easily.

"Qin Team."

In the communicator, the policewoman's voice was hoarse.

"More infected are approaching the safe house from the left."

"What should we do?"

Qin Zhixia did not answer.

She raised her mechanical arm and aimed it at the crowd.

The palm cannon had already unfolded.

A red warning box popped up.

"Execute purge?"

Her thumb pressed the button, pausing for a long time.

If she pressed it, the people ahead would die.

If she didn't, the over two hundred uninfected inside the safe house might not survive either.

She had made many choices before.

The unfinished buildings of Lingshui Shi.

North America's Weird Domain.

Gospel Church outpost.

Each time, what lay before her was life and death.

But at least those people were still enemies.

Now it's different.

Now those standing before her are the people she once promised to protect.

"Qin Team!"

The female police officer shouted more urgently.

An infected had already reached the outer wall of the safe house.

He raised his hand and lightly knocked on the door.

"Open the door."

"Those inside don't need to be afraid."

"If we all stay together, we won't suffer."

From inside the door came a child's crying.

Qin Zhixia closed her eyes.

The mechanical prosthetic arm hung down.

"Seal the door."

"No one is allowed to open it."

The female police officer froze.

"What about the people outside?"

"Isolate them first."

"But they will die."

Qin Zhixia looked at the man who was knocking on the door.

"If the door opens, those inside will also die."

After saying that, she turned and rushed toward the Faceless Weird Tale.

No gunfire was fired.

The blade sliced horizontally.

She cut off the monster's legs, then used her mechanical prosthetic arm to press down on its upper torso and drag it away from the crowd.

The monster crawled on the ground.

The smiling face on its chest continued to chant.

"You're also very tired."

"Let it go."

Qin Zhixia stepped on its head with one foot.

"Cut the nonsense."

"On the other side."

Jiang Yuan's hand holding the card remained suspended in midair.

Thirteen people died because of him.

Lu Dou's answer to him was cruel.

If they continued attacking, Lu Dou would spread the damage to more infected.

If they stopped, the square would become his culture dish.

This is not a battle.

This is forcing them to choose, personally sending whoever they pick into the fire.

Lu Dou looked at Jiang Yuan.

"You are in great pain."

"This is normal."

"You are willing to bear responsibility, willing to protect others, and that is why you suffer."

"But have you ever considered that suffering itself has no value?"

Jiang Yuan lifted his gaze.

Lu Dou continued speaking.

"Those thirteen people no longer need to feel fear."

"When they left, they didn't cry, struggle, or hold resentment against you."

"Humans seek lifelong peace, and they have already attained it."

"Why do you still feel sorrow for them?"

Jiang Yuan remained silent for a long time.

He recalled his first day joining the Investigation Bureau.

Back then he had just received his combat uniform, standing in the training field, afraid even to greet his seniors for fear of misspeaking.

He wanted to be a hero.

He wanted to pull people out of danger.

Later, he had seen too much.

Teammates who died in the Weird Domain.

Families swallowed by contamination.

Ordinary people forced to take up arms.

He was no longer as naive as before.

But some things cannot be abandoned just because they are difficult.

"Because they didn't choose."

Jiang Yuan spoke.

"They did not choose your happiness."

Lu Dou shook his head.

"Choice itself is the source of suffering."

"You always talk about dignity, about freedom."

"But can someone waiting to die on a hospital bed, someone crushed by life, someone driven to desperation by bullying really have a choice?"

"They don't."

"I'm just ending their meaningless struggle."

Jiang Yuan stared at him.

"Have you asked them?"

"I have."

Lu Dou raised the umbrella handle.

Gray Mist spread outward.

"I've asked many people."

"Someone said, he wants his child to stop crying."

"Someone said, she wants to forget the day she was hurt."

"Someone said, he just wants to sleep, never to wake again."

"What they want is not freedom."

"What they want is release."

Jiang Yuan didn't speak.

The people Lu Dou spoke of are in the square.

A middle-aged woman in a janitor uniform stood at the front of the queue.

Her hands were full of cracks, yet she wore a smile.

She stepped forward two steps.

"Captain Jiang."

She spoke.

Her words were soft.

"My son died last year in the Weird Domain."

"The Investigation Bureau gave compensation."

"The money was a lot."

"But my son didn't come back."

She raised her hand to wipe her eye corner.

The back of her hand was covered in dried blood.

"I keep wondering if it hurt when he died."

"Now I don't want to think about it."

"I feel relieved."

A young man stood beside her.

The man wore a delivery uniform, with scraped blood on his knees.

"I owe 170,000."

"My mother is hospitalized, and they keep demanding payment every day."

"I used to not dare to die."

"If I die, no one will take care of her."

"But now it's pretty good."

He said with a smile.

"Everyone is the same."

"Nobody needs to compare suffering."

Tang Guo'an stood behind the quarantine zone.

He still held a speech script in his hand.

The script wrote about a new law, about how ordinary people could regain dignity, about how order would protect every law-abiding citizen.

The pages were soaked with sweat.

He looked at the janitor, then toward the delivery worker.

They were people he had mentioned in his speech.

Ordinary people.

Those who should be protected.

Tang Guo'an's lips moved.

"It's not like that."

The janitor looked at him.

"Representative Tang."

"Then tell me, what's wrong?"

Tang Guo'an couldn't say it.

He had implemented bills and participated in hearings.

He had seen the data.

Unemployment rate, death rate, casualties in the Weird Domain, proportion of mental breakdowns.

The numbers in the report are neat.

Every page is clean.

But the people standing here are not numbers.

They have children, parents, debts, medical histories, and unspoken grievances.

And Lu Dou, with just a few words, took them all away.

Tang Guo'an's hand dropped.

Jiang Yuan turned and glanced at him.

"Tang representative."

Tang Guo'an lifted his head.

"You just said the new order should let ordinary people live with dignity."

"Does it still count now?"

Tang Guo'an's Adam's apple moved.

"Yes."

"Then don't lower your head."

Jiang Yuan's words were not heavy.

Tang Guo'an, however, straightened up a bit.

He looked at the crowd of people laughing.

"Lu Dou."

"You said they had no choice."

"That statement, I admit part of it."

Lu Dou listened silently.

"Human society has many problems."

"Privilege, oppression, injustice, buck-passing."

"Some make mistakes, others pretend not to see."

Tang Guo'an raised the speech in his hand.

"We haven't done well."

"But not doing well doesn't mean we should turn everyone into a thought in your hand."

"You're not saving people."

"You just find people too troublesome."

Lu Dou's expression didn't change.

"Mr. Tang, you're still hoping for repairs."

"But that system is already rotten."

"I don't want to repair it."

Tang Guo'an looked toward the corpse in the center of the square.

"So you want to take everyone apart and then put them back together your way?"

Lu Dou said softly.

"At least they won't feel pain."

The words fell.

On the square, over three thousand people stopped crying and shouting.

Someone had just been holding an injured person, begging for help.

Someone knelt on the ground praying.

Someone hid under a seat, tightly covering their own mouth.

Now, they all stood up.

The movements were uniform.

No one looked back for loved ones.

No one fled anymore.

Face after face turned toward Lu Dou.

The corners of their mouths formed the same arc.

Over three thousand people, their faces all bore that smile.

Behind the special police line, someone's rifle fell to the ground.

The gun made a crisp sound when it hit.

No one went to pick it up.

The special police in the front raised their guns, barrels aimed at the crowd, yet no one dared to pull the trigger.

They had trained how to fight the weird.

They had trained how to deal with the altered.

But they hadn't trained how to shoot at a mother holding a child.

Nor had they trained how to shoot at their own colleagues.

A young special police officer swallowed.

He saw his own sister standing in the crowd.

The older sister was originally a medical volunteer at the Square.

She looked at him from over ten meters away.

"A Jie."

"Come over."

The special police's gun muzzle lowered half an inch.

"Sister."

"Come over."

"We don't have to be afraid anymore."

"Mom and Dad don't have to be afraid either."

"Everyone together."

The special police's hands were trembling.

The Captain beside him pressed down on his gun barrel.

"Don't look at her."

"Captain, she's my sister."

"I know."

"She's still calling me."

"I know!"

The Captain's hand was also trembling.

He couldn't say to shoot.

Nobody could say it.

Behind them, two policemen suddenly covered their faces.

Their mouths were pulled open to the sides.

One of them was very young, having just received the Suppress Spook Bullet distribution certificate yesterday.

He desperately covered his mouth with his hand, but a smile still leaked out between his fingers.

"Captain."

"I can't control it."

The Captain turned his head.

That young policeman was laughing while crying.

"Do I also have to go up front?"

The Captain opened his mouth.

There was no answer.

The Suppress Spook Bullet can suppress Fierce Ghosts.

It can suppress Spook Controllers.

But it cannot suppress a fragment of happiness forced into the mind.

Lu Dou raised his hand.

Over three thousand people grabbed each other's hands.

An old person pulled a child.

A mother pulled a stranger.

The special police's sister also reached out, gripping the janitor beside her.

They stepped forward step by step.

They used their bodies to surround Lu Dou.

There was no shoving.

There was no shouting.

The human wall closed together quickly.

Lu Dou stood at the very center.

The White Umbrella emerged from above the crowd.

Jiang Yuan couldn't see his face.

Nor could he see the ghost stories around him.

All he could see were smiling faces.

"The New World has no division."

The person at the front spoke.

"The New World has no pain."

The people behind followed along, chanting.

"The sorrow of three people is borne by three thousand."

"The joy of three thousand is shared by all."

"The New World has no division."

"The New World has no pain."

The slogan spread over and over.

Jiang Yuan's Shadow Soldiers stood in place, not moving forward.

They can cut through ghost stories.

But he cannot pass through three thousand living people.

Su Ming leans against a half‑broken wall, the cracks on the back of his hand keep increasing.

He looks at the White Umbrella behind the human wall, bites his tongue tip, and forcibly maintains the Time Marrow Worm.

His goal is simple.

Hold on.

Even if just to drag out ten more seconds.

But he also knows that ten seconds cannot settle three thousand people.

Liang Wen is surrounded by weird tales, the pattern on his glove has already faded.

He raises his head to look at that human wall, rare for him not to joke.

"How do we get past this level?"

Jiang Yuan did not answer.

Tang Guo'an stands in place.

That speech draft slips from his hand.

The paper pages drift to the ground, stained with blood.

He looks at the absurd scene before him, his eye sockets redden.

After a long while.

Tang Guo'an closes his eyes.

Two lines of old tears run down his cheeks.