"Grandma... I... feel so bad..." Xiaoyun opened her eyes weakly, her big eyes filled with tears, filled with fear of death and longing for warmth, "Will I... die? Like... like Brother Qiangzi..."
"No! No! My dear child!" The old woman burst into tears, hugging her granddaughter tightly. "Miss Wen... Doctor Qin... please... please save my child..."
Wen Shifei squeezed Xiaoyun's cold hand tightly, as if to pass on her meager strength. She looked up at Dr. Qin, her eyes ablaze with desperation. "Doctor! The Lighthouse database! Are there any emergency medical plans from the past for nuclear winter or intense radiation? Anything that might work! Plant atlases? Folk remedies? Physical therapy? Anything!"
Dr. Qin was stunned, then a glint flashed in his eyes. He immediately pulled out his portable computer. "Yes! Database! I'll do a deep search! Keywords: strong radiation, complex infection, low-resource environment, emergency plan!" His fingers flew across the virtual keyboard, his bloodshot eyes fixed on the cascading stream of data.
The only sounds in the carriage were Xiaoyun's suppressed cough, Dr. Qin's rapid tapping, and the heavy breathing of everyone holding their breath. Hope, like a candle in the wind, flickered faintly under the shadow of death.
At the same time, in the middle of the convoy, inside a heavily guarded transport vehicle.
The air was thick with the scent of ozone and metal coolant. The light was dim, with only a few emergency red lights providing dim illumination. A massive metal frame secured a massive culture tank, within which swirled a pale blue, viscous matrix resembling liquid nerve bundles. Yun Zhan's upper body was submerged in the matrix, revealing only his head and shoulders, covered by a metal mask. Countless tubes of varying thickness, like living tentacles, connected to the wound on his exposed broken arm and the complex connections of the culture tank.
Dr. Qin's assistant, a pale young researcher wearing thick glasses, stared nervously at the neural signal data and bio-energy readings cascading down the screen next to him. His finger hovered over a scarlet button on the console, trembling slightly.
"Neural connection strength...85%...and still rising! Bioalloy activation process...92%! Warning! The target's consciousness fluctuations exceed the threshold! The edge suppression system is failing!" The instrument issued a shrill alarm!
Immersed in the matrix, Yun Zhan's body suddenly convulsed violently! The metal mask covering the lower half of his face creaked with a tooth-grinding sound! His intact right hand gripped the cold edge of the culture tank tightly, the metal knuckles scraping against the alloy with a harsh sound! A suppressed, painful roar, like a trapped animal, emanated from his throat! The pale blue matrix within the culture tank boiled and roiled violently!
"No! Doctor! His nerve signals are too violent! The bioalloy is forcing the fusion, but his consciousness is fiercely rejecting it! If this continues, either his nerves will collapse, or... the new arm will completely lose control!" The assistant's voice was tearful and filled with fear. "We must interrupt! Stop the fusion process immediately!"
"No! Can't interrupt!" A cold, hoarse, but extremely firm voice sounded behind the assistant.
Lu Cheneng appeared at the carriage door at some point. His face looked even paler in the dim red light, his eye sockets sunken, yet his eyes, sharp as a cold blade, stared intently at the figure struggling in agony within the incubator. He approached, his steps unsteady, the weight of a wound still unhealed, yet each step was remarkably firm.
"If we interrupt... he really won't be able to come back." Lu Chen's voice was low and hoarse with empathy, "That thing... is also merging in his brain. Interrupting means admitting defeat. It means letting that cold machine... completely eat up the last bit of his 'human' self." He walked to the control console and his eyes swept across the wildly jumping waveform on the screen, representing the violent conflict in Yun Zhan's consciousness.
The assistant looked at Lu Cheneng, then at the figure in the incubator who seemed to be suffering from hellish torture, his lips trembling: "But... Consultant Lu... This is too dangerous! We can't control it..."
"If you can't control it, guide it!" Lu Cheneng suddenly interrupted, his eyes blazing with a near-mad determination. He pushed his assistant's trembling hand away and stood in front of the control console. His fingers tapped rapidly on the virtual keyboard, calling up the neural connection system's underlying command interface and entering an extremely complex sequence of commands with high-risk parameters!
"Advisor Lu! What are you doing?!" the assistant cried in horror. "Forcibly increasing the synchronization rate? This will amplify his pain tenfold! He'll go crazy!"
"Pain?" Lu Chen's mouth curled up into a cold and bitter arc, his fingertips hovering over the final execution button, trembling slightly, "The pain he has experienced...isn't it enough?" He turned his head abruptly and looked at the metal figure in the culture tank, which was violently spasming in the blue matrix and emitting a silent roar. The sound seemed to be squeezed out from the depths of his soul:
"Yun Zhan! I know you can hear me!"
"This little bit of pain... is nothing?!"
"Think about the 'lighthouse'! Think about the strength that pushed me away at the end! That's you! Not that weird thing in your head that only knows how to 'clear'!"
"Grab it! Pull that cold garbage... out of your bones!"
"Be a man! Don't give in!!"
Lu Chen's roar was like thunder, reverberating in the narrow carriage! With a power that penetrated the soul! At the same time, his finger fiercely pressed the execution button!
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