Humanity's Final Countdown

Chapter 16 The Awakened Dead City

"Thud!" Yao Dan and the others heavily crashed onto the steep slope.

Yu Qing also stumbled a few times before regaining his footing upon landing.

At this moment, Yao Dan had entered a state of deep sleep, unaware of anything.

Yu Qing looked around, finding no unusual movements.

However, he noticed that the grassy area where Yao Dan had intended to land was actually a trench that had turned into a swamp.

It seemed to be a demarcation zone of the forest. For now, it should be safe.

He told everyone to lie low on the steep slope and rest, waiting for Yao Dan to wake up before moving together.

Daji and Yan'er positioned Yu Qing and Yao Dan in the middle, to guard against sudden situations.

Yu Qing stared blankly at the forest opposite. What was it like back then?

Were there owls with five heads, or rabbits with seven legs? He couldn't imagine.

He had never been so afraid of the night, but this evening, he heard the wind and thought it was a monster coming...

In fact, he wasn't just imagining things.

There were indeed rustling strange noises in the woods, and ghost-like firefly lights flickered everywhere.

The most terrifying thing was that he found Daji and the others' shoes were covered in glowing ants from the forest!

It was a species that looked like a hybrid of ants and fireflies. Everything in that place was messed up.

For this, they struggled all night, digging several pits and rubbing their feet repeatedly inside them.

What kept Yu Qing completely awake was the gurgling sound in the isolated trench...

Yu Qing stayed there until dawn. After a night of recovery, Yao Dan finally woke up.

Her sleep this time lasted far longer than the two hours she had mentioned. Her body's functions were severely overdrawn.

Seeing Yao Dan awake, Yu Qing was naturally overjoyed and asked, "Can you walk by yourself now?"

"Of course, my dear husband. It's just that I can't fly for now; my altitude recognition ability is temporarily out of order. Fortunately, I almost landed in those solvents in the trench last night."

"What? That trench isn't mud? It's solvent? So, if we fell in, we'd turn into a puddle of water, right?"

"Not us, you would turn into water. That's specifically designed to dissolve animal fur and flesh."

"Who's so vicious, do they have a grudge against humans?"

"Are you silly, my dear husband? So many people opposed them replicating the animals from 'Shan Hai Jing' back then, so how did it get built later?"

"I understand. They built this isolation zone just to prove to the world that: the replicated animals couldn't escape from the open park and spread, which convinced those who opposed it."

"My dear husband isn't silly after all."

"Excuse me, I am the reincarnation of a wise strategist."

Yu Qing suddenly thought of another question, what if they replicated birds or similar creatures...

For example, if a phoenix-like animal escaped from the air, would they just ignore it?

This was clearly impossible. So he looked around, trying to find other protective facilities.

"Perhaps there's another line of defense somewhere at the top of the slope, like a net," he thought.

So, he stood up and walked towards the top of the slope, but just as his head emerged, he let out an "Ah" and squatted down, clutching his head.

Daji and Yan'er immediately ran over to check, but found nothing.

When Yao Dan arrived, she saw a patch of Yu Qing's scalp had been burned off. Now his head ached so badly that cold sweat dripped from his forehead.

Daji quickly cradled his head in her arms, asking: "Darling, why did your head suddenly start hurting?"

"As soon as I popped my head up, something stung me."

Yao Dan heard this and cried out, "Oh no, I forgot there was still protection up here, he was hit by a particle gun!"

Daji and Yan'er instinctively squatted down, worried about being hit by the particle gun too.

Yao Dan shouted, "Hey, aren't you two being too foolish? This particle gun is meant to prevent flying animals from escaping, it only damages animal cells. Why are you hiding?"

Daji realized this immediately and quickly said, "Yan'er, go carry Furong, Yao Dan and I will sandwich my dear husband, let's quickly leave this dangerous place!"

Thus, Yu Qing was sandwiched between Yao Dan and Daji, traversing about five hundred meters of open ground, finally arriving at a deserted road.

The road was covered in thick dust, and scattered garbage was everywhere.

"The road is like this, so finding public transportation is impossible now. My dear husband urgently needs to be sent to the hospital for treatment, not a moment can be delayed. I can't fly now, and I don't have gliding boots, so I can't walk fast. I think this way, Daji carries my dear husband, Yan'er carries Furong, and you two slide to Wengshan Hospital as fast as possible. I'll come find you there after I've fully recovered."

Daji asked, "Are you sure this road leads to Wengshan, and there's a hospital there?"

Yao Dan said impatiently, "Of course I'm sure, do you see that tower ahead? Every time I came to Wengshan to deliver supplies to Dr. Lu, I had to pass under that tower. Wengshan Hospital is right on this side of the city entrance, you can see it from afar. It's a hospital shared by humanoid women and humans. It was also invested by our Shengtian Company, and it seems to have a history of nearly one hundred and sixty years."

Daji asked, "Yao Dan, don't be brave, are you sure you'll be okay staying here alone?"

"Are you annoying me? My dear husband's injury cannot be delayed!"

Daji and the others then left Yao Dan and headed straight for Wengshan.

Yu Qing, enduring the pain, turned back and shouted, "My dear, you must be well..."

Daji and the others used superhuman strength to glide quickly, but even so, Yu Qing still felt it was too slow.

Therefore, he kept asking along the way, "Darling, how much further?"

"Closer and closer, darling."

After an unknown number of such questions and answers, Daji finally told Yu Qing clearly: "We're about to enter the city."

Yu Qing slightly raised his drooping head and said with a wry smile: "Ah, that's great. But you were wrong, it's not 'about to', it's 'entering the city on my dear's back'."

But before Daji could reply, she suddenly stopped again.

"Why aren't you moving? Have we reached the hospital?"

"No, darling, there's an alloy sign standing in the middle of the road. What's written on it..."

"What does it say? Read it carefully to me."

Yan'er sped past and said, "I'll read it!"

"Read it. So much nonsense."

"It says: To that future dear... one..."

"Keep reading."

"As the last resident of Wengshan, my heart is filled with sorrow as I leave this place where my ancestors lived for generations. Today, it is you, my distinguished relative from afar, who fills me with joy once more! Welcome to Wengshan! Relative! This city, once with a population of 700,000, repeatedly achieved glory over two hundred years. Who knew that in just thirty short years, it would become deserted, with only the lonely moon to admire! But today, relative! Because of your arrival, I see the hope of its rebirth. In this joyful moment, let me tell you an even more surprising piece of news: Although Wengshan is empty, all of its facilities were still operating normally when I left, without exception. Most of its facilities may continue to operate perfectly for one to two hundred more years. I hope you haven't arrived too late. I wish you luck, the newly crowned King of Wengshan. January 1, 2B20, written on a lonely rainy morning. In the past, when I came, the evening rain drizzled. Now that I leave, the daytime rain drizzles."

Yu Qing sighed after hearing the message: "Another deserted place, can the hospital even be open?"

Yan'er, however, said joyfully: "Darling, didn't he say all facilities are still operating normally! Let's hurry."

Miraculously, as they walked around the sign and entered Wengshan, the sign automatically retracted into the ground and disappeared.

"This indicates that everything here was meticulously arranged when that person left..."

After walking for a short while, Daji jumped up like a child, almost shaking Yu Qing off her back. Yu Qing said: "Darling, are you saying my head isn't hurting enough?"

"I'm sorry, darling, I'm sorry. My database and the characteristics of this place match, I finally know my exact location. The hospital is still seven hundred meters from here!"

"Then hurry..."

Just then, a clear song came from ahead.

Yu Qing looked up and saw someone singing on top of the tower ahead. It was mournful and beautiful.

It was a graceful humanoid woman, who had detected humans and awakened.

This dead city struggled to its feet because of one person's arrival.

Most stunningly, the entire tower lit up, shimmering with sunset-like red light.

Countless colorful fireworks instantly burst forth in space.

Even more miraculously, the fireworks formed two lines of words in the sky:

"Through these long days, I have plucked soft strings in solitude Awaiting the first returnee in the long, long centuries."

At this moment, the windows on every floor of the tower opened one after another, and long-sleeved beauties stood at the windows, dancing gracefully.

He couldn't help but ask Daji to pause, and he lingered there, watching.

If it weren't for his severe headache, he truly wished to go into the tower and interact.

He imagined that all of this was arranged by the last person who left this place.

How much patience and lonely suffering it must have taken to do all this.

He heard the humanoid woman sing: "Who sent the immortal home, spring breezes linger over Wengshan..."

Yu Qing couldn't help but tear up. They were all lonely souls wandering the world, why bother with prior acquaintance!

He seemed to see the familiar face of that stranger.

No matter how much prosperity, in the end, it is the endless desolation of the person who draws the curtain.

But that person must not have felt their own loneliness.

They still had a faint hope, while he knew that in the paradise behind him, there was no longer any hope of anyone coming.

But thinking so much was useless, the most important thing now was to treat his injury.

He sighed and said, "Let's still... go to the hospital."

"Okay." Daji heard him and sped up, arriving at the hospital entrance in a few minutes.

To their surprise, the hospital was clean inside and out, not at all like an uninhabited place.

Daji carried Yu Qing under a camera and stared at it.

After automatic identity recognition was completed, eight humanoid men suddenly ran out.

They carried a large, flower-decorated bed and knelt in front of them in unison.

Then two more humanoid women ran over, gently lifted Yu Qing from Daji's back, and placed him onto the flower bed.

Then they opened an exaggerated golden square umbrella, standing on either side of Yu Qing.

The eight humanoid men slowly rose, lifted Yu Qing, and walked inside.

Yu Qing was a bit at a loss, looking back for Daji and the others, only to see Daji also being carried by two humanoid men, closely following the flower bed.

Yan'er and the others were guided in another direction and glided away.

Yu Qing sat halfway up on the flower bed, his head feeling a little dizzy again, thinking: "Am I really the King of Wengshan now? This is a game from hundreds of years ago..."

But he still felt a bit uneasy, thinking this couldn't be real. So he kept waving to Daji behind him, signaling her to come over.

Daji was currently talking to a humanoid man beside her. Seeing Yu Qing call her, she immediately got down and walked over.

Soon, Daji was also carried onto the flower bed by a humanoid man.

Daji hugged Yu Qing's head from behind and asked, "Darling, this is going to the VIP ward in the back, it will take five minutes. Originally, it would only take one minute to go to the regular ward, but they insisted on giving you the most solemn welcome ceremony. You probably don't know, but even though this hospital used to receive twenty to thirty thousand people daily during its peak, you are their first patient in the last 44 years. If no one comes for another 6 years, the hospital will automatically and permanently close."

"44 years without a single visitor, why didn't it close earlier? Absurd!"

"Darling, you don't know, due to the sharp decline in population, a large number of service facilities were forced to close. This would lead to irreversible deterioration of infrastructure in the future. Therefore, the government enacted relevant laws, stipulating that even if no one uses them, public facilities can only close after 50 years. Otherwise, the owner will be charged an abandonment tax five times the facility's construction cost."

"Good heavens, so I'm going to make them busy for another 50 years, shouldn't they hate me?"

"What does that have to do with them? They just follow the rules, profit and loss aren't their concern. And if this place really became abandoned, they would be a part of it. They can deduce that your arrival is beneficial to them."

Yu Qing didn't reply, he squinted his eyes and rubbed his head, seemingly in more pain.

He only wanted to be cured now, other superficial things were meaningless.

Seeing him unable to bear it, Daji started shouting and urging them on.

The flower bed was carried directly into the hospital lobby, which instantly became bustling.

All the staff surged towards him like a tide, smiling in greeting.

Yu Qing felt the entire hospital revolving around him, with people coming and going everywhere.

Look at those doctors and nurses, each one ethereal and graceful, clearly the Jade Emperor's harem.

"Is this a hospital? So many beauties... I'll just pretend to be sick when I'm free..." he thought.

He felt his head wasn't hurting as much, it was itching...

Soon, he was pushed into a room by two humanoid women.

The room exuded a faint fragrance, and a fairy-like figure walked out from within.

He seemed to say "Darling...", that person was even more beautiful than Yao Dan.

She gently waved her hand in front of his eyes, and he knew nothing more.