CH 60.1

Xia Chi, “Were those your children?”

The hood on the ghost mother’s neck twisted in Xia Chi’s direction, her voice a little hysterical, “No, those aren’t my children.”

With that, she pulled out the pocket watch from her pocket, opened it and brought it to Xia Chi.

A dry finger was carefully extended out from her cloak, and the sharp fingernail pointed at the two children, “These are my children and those two do not look like them.”

She took a deep breath, “If you hadn’t been holding onto me just now, I wouldn’t have been able to resist going up to stop them. I must have been thinking about my children too much so I hallucinated when I saw children of the same age.”

The ghost mother’s words caught Bai Lixin and Dijia’s attention.

Their eyes followed the two children as they disappeared around the corner, and Bai Lixin said, “Let’s go.”

From the outside, it was a dark corridor, but now it was filled with warmth.

The corridors of the hospital were not crowded, and they’d occasionally pass one or two medical staff and patients in hospital gowns.

The light overhead was warm and the floor underfoot was clean. Even the nurses who appeared in the corridors greeted them with polite smiles.

There were no painful ordeals as one might expect in a hospital, and everyone had an open smile on their faces.

On the bench in front of them sat an elderly man in a hospital gown. One of the nurses was crouching down and gently reassuring him. “Don’t worry, Mr Thomas. We’ll find a match for you soon, and even if we can’t find one now, we can keep your body temporarily frozen and unseal you when we find a suitable organ.”

“Hasn’t our Saviour crossed life and death to become the man that even death cannot take away? You have to trust his skills. You are a treasure to the world so we will not let you go just like that.”

The nurse was reassuring the old man when the light overhead was suddenly blocked by a huge shadow. She raised her head in confusion and saw that five men had come up to the side of the metal bench at some point.

Each of the four men looked better than the other, and among them was a very strangely dressed cloaked man.

Nurse, “Is there anything I can do for you?”

Bai Lixin, “We have come here because we admire Savior Huai.”

The old man who had been hanging his head lifted it, “You have come to the Saviour to save your lives too? How come I have never even seen you before? What field of talent are you in?”

Bai Lixin quickly caught the message in the other party’s words.

Talents? Did it mean that only talents could be saved?

Bai Lixin happened to have the dagger in his hand, and he directly held it out to make a set of difficult martial arts moves, “I am a martial arts talent.”

Emil reacted quickly. His fingers flew in the air a few times, and several poker cards nimbly spun in the palm of his hand, “I am a master of magic.”

The old man said, “Not bad, not bad, I’m a physicist. I would have died back then if not for the savior’s rescue. I have come back after so many years to pray and thank the Savior for his rescue. The Saviour loves talent, and it is we, as the world’s top talent, who should survive in the face of the plague and the great reshuffle of disasters.”

“But let me give you a word of advice, the Lord Savior is not too fond of simple and brutal, physically agile talents like yours; he prefers the academic and technical types.”

Bai Lixin walked over to the old man and sat down, “So what should I do? I’m at my wit’s end and thought I’d take my chances here. Does the Saviour have any other preferences?”

Seeing Bai Lixin’s flustered expression, the old man rubbed his brow, “The Saviour prophesied the plague. A hundred years ago, he said that the natural mechanism of elimination would soon begin and that humans would die in large numbers. In order to be able to preserve the future of humanity, he saved talents from all walks of life, and although many humans still died, humanity was able to evolve as a result.”

“The survival of the fittest eliminated the inferior humans and left only the best human genes behind.”

“In the century that followed, the high quality humans married and had children, giving birth to a new group of even better humans.”

“Dr. Huai is an existence beyond the gods. A hundred years have passed, and according to the normal human lifespan, a normal human would have already entered old age, but it isn’t the case for Dr. Huai.”

“I am one of the new humans, I inherited my parents’ good genes and became a physicist. And after I became a physicist, I chose to combine with another mathematician in order to evolve the human genes once more, giving birth to even better quality human genes. In this way, we were able to gradually eliminate all the hidden inferior genes, leaving only the best quality ones.”

“Fifty years ago, I came here because I had leukemia and saw Dr. Huai once. Two days ago, when my body began to necrotize extensively, I came to the hospital and saw Dr. Huai once again.”

“To my surprise, he was the same as I had seen him 50 years ago, young, handsome and well-spoken.”

“Just like 50 years ago, he said that I had made a great contribution to the evolution of mankind, so he would save me.”

“I believe in Dr. Huai’s words,” the old man exclaimed, leaning against the wall, “for how can a mortal question the words of a god?”

The old man looked at Bai Lixin, “You will prove your worth, and if Dr. Huai affirms your worth, you will be reborn.”

Bai Lixin looked at the old man, “And do you know how you were saved 50 years ago?”

The old man, “Of course I know this. Dr. Huai specially built a Red Apple House for the sake of the new humanity, and inside, they housed, among other things, the highest quality organ providers.”

“But they are not just resources.” Xia Chi couldn’t listen any longer and spoke with a frown, “It’s all life. They don’t want to die either.”

The old man was not impressed, “What’s the point? They should feel proud to have contributed to the evolution of human genes. They could potentially save half a dozen quality human genes with the loss of just one life. As an unevolved inferior human, that’s the meaning of their existence.”

Xia Chi’s expression showed shock.

The old man in front of him looked kind and harmless, and the nurse was still smiling beside him.

In the eyes of these people, not everyone was the same.

A cat’s purr suddenly came from the old man’s arms, and his righteous expression immediately changed into a gentle smile. He unzipped his jacket and a fluffy cat’s head immediately emerged from it.

The old man lovingly stroked the cat’s forehead, “Any life that appears in this world must have its value of existence. Take me as an example, my existence has advanced technology, or this cat, whose value of existence is to fill the void within me. As for those organ-providers inside the Red Apple House, their value is to be the fuel for the new human race.”

“If they can’t even do that, they’re not even as useful as a cat, they’ll just be the waste of this world.”

“Humans are not the same. Those people may look like us, but we are not the same.”

Xia Chi almost exploded in anger.

In the eyes of these people, a human life was not even as good as a pet.

No, they didn’t even consider the people of the Red Apple House to be human beings, they called them “organ providers”.

Bai Lixin raised his hand, stopping Xia Chi’s impulse.

“Old man,” Bai Lixin glanced at the cat in the old man’s arms, “life exists as a gift from nature. Oxygen gives you the fundamentals to breathe, while water, food, and sunlight give you the energy to do so, it is not the power of an individual that can accomplish the birth of life.”

“And life exists for more than just evolution. It should be more about being thankful for the gift of life and trying not to regret it at the end of it. You claim to be a physicist, yet you carry with you not cold experimental instruments, but soft and cuddly pets. Do you really want to be a physicist deep down in your heart?”

“You became a physicist to prove your genes, and you had a child with a mathematician to achieve better genes. You are now in bad health, with a disease that I know is serious even if I don’t know anything about medicine, but the only person that accompanies you to the doctor is this kitten. Where are your wife and children? Are they, like you, fighting for genetic evolution in an unknown place?”

“You say that the people of the Red Apple House are just organ providers, but have you ever reflected for yourself that you, who have fought for your genes from the moment you were born, are you not more like a vessel for genes?”

“Everything you’ve done is for the genes, what have you done for yourself?”

Bai Lixin then sneered, “*Looking at flowers in the fog.”

The old man froze for a couple of seconds, his gaze flickering beneath his white hair as the hand stroking the kitten began to tremble.

The words of the young man in front of him were like a heavy hammer striking at his brain.

What had he done for himself?

What had he wanted to be before?

He wanted to be a painter, but for the sake of genetic evolution, he gradually fitted himself into a sleeve.

Like him, his wife married him simply to give birth to quality genes, and when their children were born, their goal was simply to make them even better humans.

They had three children in all, two of whom were extraordinarily bright and the other very dull.

He did not inherit any good qualities from either of them and spent his days happily painting, a complete contradiction to their quality genes.

But wasn’t painting once his hobby?

They abandoned the inferior child and the boy was taken away by the robots. He prayed hoarsely for them to save him as they dragged him away.

But neither he nor his wife moved, and they watched as the child was taken away.

They knew that this genetically inferior child would be sent to the Red Apple House to be remodelled until it could become a somewhat useful organ provider.

Many memories buried in the depths of the old man’s mind suddenly came tumbling back.

He remembered fifty years ago, it was the son he had abandoned who had given him a new and young bone marrow.

In fact, all that was needed was to take some blood stem cells and the child would not have to die at all, but Dr. Huai said that there was a chance of relapse if they only took the blood stem cells, and that only a complete replacement could solve the matter once and for all.

He lay on the operating table and watched as Dr. Huai dissected his son, watched his son’s despair and tragic filled eyes…

The old man suddenly felt a churning in his stomach and he covered his eyes in agony; what the hell had he done?

In his own life, there was no freedom, no love, no affection, only genetic evolution.

The young man was right. He had lived his whole life feeling superior, but in the end, all that was left was endless regret and remorse.

He had become a vessel for genes.

The brainwashing he had been subjected to and the consciousness he was now awakening fought in his head.

Finally, the old man covered his head in pain and stumbled out of the hospital like a madman.

The nurse had the most perfect smile on her face the whole time, as standard as the priest’s at the Red Apple House.

Seeing the old man leave in a hurry, the nurse just continued to look at them with a professional smile, “Dear patients, please register at the front desk. Have you made an appointment?”

Bai Lixin, “No.”

Nurse, “Patients, please follow me.”

Following behind the little nurse, Xia Chi secretly gave Bai Lixin a thumbs up and lowered his voice, “Brother, I’m convinced of your superb mouth canon ability. Has your ability been unlocked only now?”

Bai Lixin did not want to agree, “…nonsense, the villain is the one that speaks a lot.”

S419m in his head silently lit up red: [Lord host, how come I remember that one of your powers as a god included an ability called “mouth cannon”…? Uh, no, I’m sorry, it’s called “Language Dimensionality Reduction and Oppression”.]

Bai Lixin: [ …. ]

I suspect that you’re doing it on purpose, but I have no proof.

What’s wrong with having a mouth canon? A mouth canon works and defeats people without breaking a sweat.

—

A few minutes later, the little nurse brought them to the front desk. The queue was not very long, and the group lined up at the back. Here, they saw the two kids they had just met in the corridor again.

It was the same fierce woman, but she was not in line and the two children were running around the hall.

The woman sat in the waiting area with an impatient look on her face, frowning at the two children.

She didn’t have a registration slip in her hand, and the two children were rosy-cheeked and didn’t seem to have any problems.

Although Xia Chi couldn’t see the ghost mother’s face, he could tell from her clenched hands and tense shoulders that her full attention was on the two children.

She said she didn’t care, but how could she really not care.

But those two couldn’t be the ghost’s mother’s children.

According to the old man, a hundred years had passed since the plague. The ghost mother’s children had been sent to the orphanage before the plague, and it had been over a hundred years since then.

The two children looked only four or five years old and did not seem to know how to behave. The woman who was the mother also did not seem to have any intention of disciplining them.

As the two children were playing chase, the little girl behind stumbled and fell headlong to the ground.

At once, she started crying.

The ghost mother, who was already restless, became even more restless.

Her belated motherly love made her completely forget where she was and the promise before entering the place.

She shuffled her feet and rushed to the little girl before Xia Chi could react.

Afraid that her arms would scare the little girl, the ghost mother picked the little girl off the ground through her black cuffs, and the spliced dry palms were not exposed.

The little girl saw that it was a strange woman and she was so scared that she even forgot to cry.

The ghost mother gently patted the little girl’s back while singing a nursery rhyme to soothe her.

As she soothed, her eyes, hidden under her cloak, saw the woman in the waiting area already standing up.

Just when the woman was only a few steps away, a middle-aged male voice rang out from beside her, “These two children appear to be genetically inferior. Better make the call this afternoon and get these two children to the Red Apple House.”

The ghost mother, who was about to place the little girl on the ground, frowned. Her hand went under the little girl’s armpit, and she stood up with her in her arms, taking two steps backwards.

Bai Lixin and the others had already arrived at the mother ghost’s side, and Xia Chi saw that her restlessness was of greater magnitude.

The little girl shrank into the mother ghost’s arms and she silently looked up into her cloak before she suddenly began to struggle and scream, “Ghost! Ghost! Help!”

The ghost mother’s hand shook and she helplessly released the little girl.

The little girl left the ghost mother’s arms and she immediately rushed back to her mother’s feet with both arms outstretched, asking for a hug.

The woman, however, pushed the little girl away with a bored look on her face, “You’re right, I’m a violinist and you’re a cellist. How did we give birth to these two children who are completely insensitive to music? I’ll call and send them away this afternoon. We’ll have to hurry up and have the next baby, or our two high quality music genes will disappear.”