Chapter 602: Humanity's Own Way Out

The screen at Zongbu Zhihui Zhongxin was still refreshing data.

Su Ming had already returned here, standing at his workstation, staring at that soaring evolution rate curve; his fingers tapped a few times on the keyboard, calling up all of Chu Che's language records from before his death.

"Heal the world's lesions."

"The necessary sacrifice when surgically removing a tumor."

"Entering the surgical phase."

He pulled out these few lines and placed them alongside the data model before him.

The channel fell silent for a full ten seconds.

"Wei Gong." Su Ming spoke, his tone flat, "Chu Che isn't crazy; he was lucid from start to finish."

Wei Gong didn't speak, just stared at the screen.

"He turned himself into a rule, not to destroy humanity, but to......" Su Ming paused, "stress test."

As those four words were spoken, the channel fell into dead silence again.

He Chuan pushed up his glasses, stared at the data for a while, then suddenly sucked in a cold breath: "Holy shit, you're saying——"

"Exactly." Su Ming cut him off, "He wants to adjust the global Weird ecology to a tipping point that just barely pushes humanity to its limits without outright annihilating it, then watch humanity desperately struggle in that environment—either evolve or die."

Jiang Yuan stood in the ruins, hearing this, his grip on the Black Card tightened.

"So killing him is actually helping him carry out his plan?" Liang Wen climbed up from the rubble, his voice sounding a bit dazed, "What the hell is this?"

"Not helping him." Wei Gong's voice came, deep but steady, "He planned from the start to die at our hands."

Qin Zhixia lifted her head, her white hair disheveled, bloodshot veins still visible in her eyes.

"What does that mean?"

Wei Gong pushed his wheelchair aside and stood up.

His back was ramrod straight, his voice steady without a tremor.

"Think about it—if Chu Che existed as a tangible, visible god, what would humanity do?"

Jiang Yuan froze for a moment.

"Either...... kneel?"

"Exactly—either kneel or despair." Wei Gong said slowly, "But either way, humanity wouldn't fight desperately, because with a visible god present, people would become dependent, wait for him to solve problems, and feel that as long as there's a god to fall back on, their own efforts don't matter."

No one spoke in the channel.

"But what if that god became an intangible natural disaster?" Wei Gong's tone grew colder, "If the Weird didn't come from a negotiable, pleadable entity, but turned into a natural disaster like earthquakes or tsunamis?"

Su Ming continued: "Humanity can only rely on itself."

"Exactly." Wei Gong nodded, "By turning himself into a rule, Chu Che aims to deprive humanity of an object to rely on. No god to pray to, no savior to wait for—only ourselves and the Weird, between life and death, either evolve or go extinct."

Jiang Yuan stood there, replaying Chu Che's final gaze in his mind.

Gentle, calm, carrying a kind of...... relief.

Damn it.

He really was performing surgery.

"So he's...... saving us?" Qin Zhixia's voice was soft, carrying an indescribable complexity.

"Not saving." Wei Gong shook his head, "It's forced evolution. He treats humanity as a patient and the Weird as medicine—whether you like it or not, he'll administer it first and ask questions later."

Liang Wen scratched his head: "So does this medicine...... actually work?"

"It works." He Chuan stared at the data on the screen, his voice slightly shaking, "Look at this curve: the global awakening rate of Weird Controllers had been increasing by 0.3 percent per year over the past three years, but now...... it jumped straight to 2.1 percent and is still rising."

"Humanity's genetic adaptability is also improving, the resistance index to the Weird rule...... Damn, what the hell is this data—three months ago it was negative, now it's turned positive."

Su Ming stared at those numbers, silent for a few seconds.

"Chu Che bet right."

"His bet was that humanity, in extreme conditions, would erupt with an evolutionary speed beyond the norm."

Jiang Yuan lowered his head to glance at the Black Card in his hand.

It still bore Chu Che's blood.

He recalled many things.

He thought of the Zhou Ping incident, of ordinary people crushed by capitalist privilege, of police who held Suppress Spook Bullets but dared not fire on Weird Controllers.

He recalled Chu Che's words.

"This world is sick."

Jiang Yuan suddenly let out a laugh.

It was light, brief, but sounded a bit cold.

"So are we now living in the prescription Chu Che wrote?"

No one answered.

"He used the Weird to crush the old era's class hierarchy, completely bankrupting the privileges of Weird Controllers, and placed all of humanity on the same starting line." Jiang Yuan lifted his head, gazing at the abnormally blue sky, "Now, whether you're president or beggar, facing the Weird, you must fight desperately to survive."

"Exactly." Su Ming said, "This is a forced equality."

"Equality my ass." Liang Wen spat, "This is throwing all of humanity into a meat grinder and then saying, 'You figure it out yourselves.'"

"But it really works." He Chuan stared at the data, his voice flat, "Data doesn't lie. The rate of human evolution is indeed surging."

Qin Zhixia sat on the ruins, her white hair falling down to obscure her expression.

She recalled the words Chu Che spoke when calibrating her prosthetic limb.

"Once everything is over, I will give you a sincere answer."

She had thought back then......

Qin Zhixia closed her eyes.

Jiang Yuan suddenly moved.

He walked to the broken metal table, raised the Black Card in his hand, and hammered it into the tabletop with force.

Bang.

The sound wasn't loud, but everyone heard it.

"Listen up," Jiang Yuan lifted his head; his eyes held no confusion, only an indefinable ferocity, "Chu Che's wishes are his own business, but we are humans, not test subjects."

"He's trying to force our evolution with Weird? Fine, we'll evolve and show him."

"But not to prove that he's right."

Jiang Yuan's voice was calm, yet each word landed heavily.

"It's to prove that humanity doesn't need a lofty god to guide it."

"We ourselves can survive to the end."

No one spoke in the channel.

Qin Zhixia lifted his head and looked at Jiang Yuan.

Liang Wen stood up and brushed the dust off his trousers.

Su Ming stared at the screen, his fingers tapped the tabletop twice.

Wei Gong stood in the command center, watching Jiang Yuan on the surveillance feed, and his mouth twitched.

"Well said."

He turned around and looked at everyone present.

"Relay my orders."

"Federal Weird Investigation Bureau, effective immediately, enter New Era combat readiness status."

"Objective: Since the god has become nature itself, we shall transcend this nature."

"With our own backbone, we will reach the pinnacle of the New World."