RHWHEG – Chapter 77 Infiltration

Gray ice shards erupted and poured down with overwhelming force. This mass of air was heavier and larger than ever before, so instead of drifting everywhere, it fell straight down—like the Milky Way cascading from the heavens. The deafening roar was ear-splitting; it felt as if what was falling wasn’t a waterfall, but tons of explosives. Whether it was Yu Qunqing suspended in midair or his companions standing amid the ruins, all of them looked extraordinarily tiny against this scene.

She Lulang pulled several small hand warmers from his clothes, the scales on his body flaring up abruptly. He frowned, and only after a few seconds did he suppress the serpent traits. Then his body broke apart into black birds. He was going to catch Yu Qunqing!

Even with the buffering of a crude parachute, when Yu Qunqing descended to 800 meters he was still moving at terrifying speed. Anyone trying to catch him directly would be delusional. A flock of black birds circled around him in the air, spinning themselves into a reverse airflow. The birds covered Yu Qunqing completely, gripping the safety rope and dragging him upward bit by bit.

They crashed into the massive net woven by Lin Luyi, but the momentum still didn’t stop. The two of them tumbled downward together, knocking several metal frames askew, before finally slamming limply onto the ground.

“We survived!”

Yu Qunqing released his grip, and She Lulang in his arms toppled to the side. The two lay on the ground, staring at the cramped gray sky, as the pain of the high-altitude fall rapidly spread from their limbs and torsos into their nerves.

“We have to keep running.” Yu Qunqing’s hand groped around blindly until it finally caught She Lulang’s hand, squeezing it hard as if to confirm something. Their extremely low body temperatures merged, and they could actually feel a trace of warmth. She Lulang squeezed back. Their fingertips intertwined, mixed with dust, ice shards, and blood; for a fleeting moment, it felt like their fingers fully interlocked. They quickly got to their feet, confirmed their limbs were responsive, and prepared to continue fleeing for their lives.

Lin Luyi ran over from nearby. Yu Qunqing had already familiarized himself with the terrain around here and shouted, “Run toward the river!”

Behind them, the gray waterfall smashed into the ground with a thunderous crash.

Crocodile River ran through Jiangbei City, but thanks to the catastrophe it had been cut off and dried up, the riverbed packed with exposed rebar, no longer bearing its former beauty.

Three tiny human figures jumped into the riverbed, scurrying toward the opposite bank like black ants. Behind them, the ice flood roared like a beast; wherever it passed, everything turned into desolate gray. The ice flood poured into the riverbed, bringing long-lost vitality back to Crocodile River. The gray ice torrent was about to submerge the entire downstream!

At that moment, there was a facility in the river that no one noticed—a dog-mouth weir. A seasonal mission Yu Qunqing had completed purely out of obsessive compulsion now left behind a sliver of hope. The winding, patched-together embankment blocked most of the solid ice, while icy water surged downward through the gaps, still with immense momentum.

But as long as the temperature wasn’t that low, it was enough. Yu Qunqing and the other two held their breath, dodged the sharp debris on the riverbed, and let the icy current carry them away…

Ten minutes later, the gray ice flood that had swept through the entire city finally fell silent, lying quietly atop the city.

Fourth Ring Road.

Dong Changxin and Sun Min hid inside the sheep pavilion at the zoo. The pavilion had heating, and the thick-furred sheep were piled on top of them, preserving their last body heat. Sun Min struggled to sit up from the dense wool and locked eyes with Dong Changxin. He let out a long sigh of relief—thank goodness they were still alive. He reached out casually and froze: the sheep were all frozen to death. Only the two humans remained alive.

“I remember Brother Yu said they were collected by the Klein bottle…” Sun Min stroked the sheep that still retained some warmth. “It’s really hard for them to have lived that long.”

“Let’s go back to the neighborhood and take a look.” Dong Changxin thought of the others, unsure how many people could survive a disaster of this magnitude.

Downstream, Crocodile River split into several branches, flowing into the mountain ranges.

Because the dog-mouth weir had blocked the river somewhat, the downstream didn’t receive an excessive ice flood. Tens of thousands of people in the shelters clutched their heads and wept openly.

“We’re alive—we’re still alive!”

“So cold…”

Yu Qunqing opened his eyes at the foot of the mountain. Several thin streams of ice water soaked the ground beneath him. Above him, bare branches hung with barbed icicles, the sky an unbroken gray.

“Ah! So many corpses!!” Lin Luyi’s scream caught his attention.

Yu Qunqing shuddered and sat up, first confirming his body was fine, then looking for She Lulang. The deputy captain was also nearby—he really had been chilled to the bone, wrapping his head even with soaked clothes, but otherwise he seemed fine.

Only then did Yu Qunqing look toward Lin Luyi’s position. There truly were many frozen corpses around.

“Survivors from Weilu City said that when they couldn’t find the shelter at the foot of the mountain, they were attacked by Eight-Legged Frostfall,” She Lulang said calmly, having adapted to the cold. “We’re near Jiangbei City’s official shelter now.”

“What?!” Lin Luyi was briefly shocked, then turned furious. “Were they far from these people? Why didn’t anyone come to save them? This shelter shouldn’t even exist!”

Yu Qunqing shook his head. “Official shelters are the tinder for humanity’s continuation.”

Lin Luyi refused to accept that, but didn’t want to waste energy arguing. He changed the subject. “Are we going back along Crocodile River?”

“Since we’re already here, it’d be a waste not to grab something…” Yu Qunqing looked toward the mountainside nearby—the official shelter was hidden there. Returning here again, his feelings weren’t as complicated as he’d imagined; instead, he felt unusually calm.

He glanced at She Lulang, meaningfully. “Let’s find an acquaintance to borrow some fire first.”

…

Inside the shelter, the AI’s low-temperature alert spread across the entire area. Residents huddled in the living quarters, lighting small kerosene lamps to draw warmth.

“I think I heard something?” someone said to their companion. The other person brushed it off. “Probably just the wind.”

Yu Qunqing and the others bypassed the shelter’s traps and walked through its interior as if no one were there.

Electricity was precious in the apocalypse, so the shelter relied on manpower for monitoring, patrols, and identity checks. Just as every resident had a pass, their information was actually etched in special code onto catastrophe bone fragments. Each pass recorded personal data, residential clearance, and trade points. Forgery required high-precision fire-element abilities, and all fire-element users had been absorbed by the research center.

The shelter didn’t design defenses specifically against “people.” As long as one was familiar with the terrain, infiltration was easy. All surrounding buildings were coated in camouflage paint. Seeing this kind of high tech for the first time, Lin Luyi clicked his tongue in amazement.

Then they heard the rumble of machinery.

Lin Luyi turned his head. Tons of disaster stones flowed through pipes into a glowing giant tank. Lightning flashed inside it, and shattered disaster stones spilled out the other side.

“They’re detoxifying the disaster stones, then burying them in the soil as fertilizer,” Yu Qunqing explained. “The shelter has many fields—enough to provide limited food for tens of thousands.”

Lin Luyi said awkwardly, “Their tech is pretty impressive… So people here can actually eat their fill.” He began to feel the neighborhood and the shelter were somewhat alike, yet his dissatisfaction deepened. “But how can they be so rotten? I was kidnapped by the foundation to be used as experimental material—I was supposed to be sent here, right? Don’t they have some ‘human mutual aid principle’? Where’s their AI? Isn’t the AI supposed to shut down if someone violates the principle?”

“AI needs electricity and manual activation. It can’t spend extra power monitoring everyone’s actions,” Yu Qunqing said. “It only monitors the managers.”

He realized the neighborhood really was similar to the shelter. The neighborhood had a game system, with Yu Qunqing as the player. The shelter had an auxiliary AI, but real decisions were made by the managers. Yu Qunqing had his team, and through twists of fate, various factions fell under his banner; the managers had the research center and the abilities hall beneath them. Yu Qunqing needed to supply energy to the system while obeying game rules; the managers needed to supply electricity while absolutely adhering to the principle of mutual aid for all humanity.

Yu Qunqing subconsciously called the system. It responded with a long beep:

“System power insufficient. Currently entering shutdown rest state. If you wish to top up, please transfer to human customer service.”

Right—fighting the ice flood of Eight-Legged Frostfall had cost the system a lot of power too.

He should find somewhere to rest…

“Are you not cold?” Yu Qunqing looked at She Lulang, who had wrapped his head with frozen clothes.

She Lulang’s pupils had narrowed slightly. His face was flushed, and he decisively shook his head—he looked warmer than any of them.

…

Near the shelter’s research center.

Yu Yanlan, pale-faced, swiped his card at the checkpoint—only to find that today’s guard was Tang Qianjiang, a famous nepo baby in the shelter and a legendary slacker at the research center.

When Yu Yanlan saw Tang Qianjiang not taking the card, he pulled it back and, without a word, climbed over the wall to leave.

“Wait!” Tang Qianjiang called out instead. Yu Yanlan turned back in confusion, noticing cold sweat pouring down Tang Qianjiang’s forehead.

“Cough, cough—have your experiments been going smoothly lately?” Tang Qianjiang asked haltingly.

Yu Yanlan: “Pretty well.”

“Uh… you and Han Shuzhu have always been close. I really envy you guys, haha.” Tang Qianjiang made small talk.

Yu Yanlan’s vision blurred for a moment. He nodded. “Yes, we’re friends.”

Tang Qianjiang lowered his head and gritted his teeth, then asked, “And how’s it going between you and Jiang Qiwen?!”

“We’re not dating…” Yu Yanlan swayed, looking confused. “But soon—soon…”

Tang Qianjiang stared in shock as Yu Yanlan walked away.

What kind of cursed day was this?! He thought bringing up Yu Yanlan’s usual trigger points would surely make him realize he was asking for help—yet everything hit dead on?

“Ah!” A powerful force wrapped around Tang Qianjiang’s waist, forcibly spinning him around.

“You’re not very honest,” Lin Luyi said, retracting his vines with a villainous grin. “So, Yu Qunqing—should we just kill this guy now?”

“Waaah—don’t kill me!!”

Tang Qianjiang immediately burst into tears, showing his bound hands.

In front of him, Yu Qunqing, She Lulang, and Lin Luyi sat neatly in a row, warming themselves by a fire. She Lulang patiently tidied his clothes. Lin Luyi rubbed his face, finally free from the numbness of being frozen.

“I just slack off a little while on guard duty—why do this to me… What did slackers ever do wrong…” Tang Qianjiang wanted to pound the ground and wail, but his posture made it impossible.

Yu Qunqing was very satisfied. See—such lively teammates, cute like little lambs waiting to be slaughtered.

“Hand over some food. I know you have it,” Yu Qunqing said as politely as he could, though to Tang Qianjiang these three looked like outright bandits.

She Lulang skillfully pulled out the snacks Tang Qianjiang had hidden while slacking off, tore them open right in front of him, and handed them out to the three of them.

Tang Qianjiang’s heart shattered—his snacks were gone. Life was no longer worth living!

After teasing the still-lively teammate, Yu Qunqing chewed on jerky and kindly reminded him, “You can’t hide here forever just because your grandfather is Dr. Chen. Your ability is very useful.”

“You know my ability?” Tang Qianjiang grew wary. “Are you here for Dr. Chen?”

Yu Qunqing spread his hands. “Why can’t I have both?”

Tang Qianjiang wanted to cry again.

But he wasn’t completely useless—his brain still worked at a normal level. He straightened up and said, “Let me go. I’m not close to Dr. Chen. When my mom was alive, he only cared about the AI. After she died, he only came to see me once. He didn’t come to the shelter for me this time either. I’m not a good hostage—you’d be better off kidnapping the AI.”

“And there’s a second benefit if you let me go,” Tang Qianjiang added. He still hadn’t seen the true danger of society—real villains wouldn’t let him ramble on like this. He desperately searched his mind for bargaining chips.

“Let me go, and I’ll tell you about Yu Yanlan and Jiang Qiwen. Oh—Yu Yanlan is a relative of the person you’re possessing.”

Yu Qunqing: …