The judges were placed under house arrest in the lighthouse, but the violent riots did not end with a compromise between the two sides. Instead, they intensified.
People stopped working to protest against the base, and their collective demonstration took place at the door of the artificial magnetic pole device.
Based on the specious rumors, the decision makers of the base were furious. But at this time of chaos, they no longer had absolute control. They finally made an extreme concession - temporarily lifting the right to kill of the Tribunal. The members of the Tribunal still carried out routine inspections, but the suspected infected people found during the inspections were not killed immediately, but were taken to the military training camp at the other end of the base for dispersed imprisonment and observation. Secondly, the judges were not armed and were still staying in the lighthouse laboratory to cooperate with the research. They were not allowed to leave. It was hard to say whether this was the base's protection or defense of the judges.
The atmosphere in the base finally eased. After all, their main target was Colonel Lu. As the judge of this base, Colonel Lu was so arbitrary and murderous that everyone was amazed. If the court executed 5,000 people a year, 4,500 people fell under his gun. The remaining 500 people were executed by other judges because the judge was not in the court at that time due to force majeure.
After a brief lull, people began to criticize the lighthouse for not making any progress worth mentioning in recent days. Dr. Gibland, who was in charge of the project, was an old friend of Lu Xun. "The last hope of mankind" was obviously a lie to deceive people and a one-sided cover-up. They demanded that the lighthouse must produce satisfactory results, otherwise it would be handed over to Lu Xun.
"They rely on the fact that the human race cannot lose even a single life, and they can do anything." The doctor poured himself a glass of water: "Their words are full of loopholes, but this is the only way they can vent their fear."
As he spoke, he brought the glass to his lips, but his hands were shaking, and water splashed out of the glass and landed on the table. The doctor reluctantly took a sip, but a look of pain immediately appeared on his face. He bent over and kept swallowing.
"I am also living in extreme... extreme fear. I want to vomit." He trembled and said, "The cold wave has invaded, and the weather is coming. It's time for the monsters to be the craziest and most in need of nutrition."
"We all know that humans are just a piece of fat meat dripping with oil in the eyes of monsters. Even in the heyday of the base, there were monsters constantly trying to attack. Guess..." The doctor smiled and whispered, "When will they find that the human base has become so fragile? When will they gather together to capture the human base? ... Just like they captured the underground city base in groups before."
Lu Xun said, "Calm down first."
"Do you think everyone is as emotionless as you? Human nature is the ability to empathize. Panic spreads exponentially in a crowd. The fact that you can remain calm at this time proves how inhuman you are... to a terrible degree." The doctor took a few deep breaths. Harsh words can sometimes relax people's emotions. He finally looked a little better: "Please infect me with your nature. What were you thinking when you couldn't stick to your work?"
Lu Xun looked at him casually: "Human interests are above everything else."
The doctor smiled helplessly.
After laughing, he took a deep breath and seemed to have finally calmed down. He came to the small culture dish containing spores.
"They actually think that a small white fungus can save all of humanity. This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. In fact, the ingredients of that fungus are no different from the ingredients we use to make mushroom soup." The doctor repeated the words of the outsider in a clear voice. He was like a serious teacher criticizing a student who failed his grades: "Did you hear that? If you continue like this, they will sooner or later boil you into a bowl of mushroom soup. You must take the initiative to show your uniqueness."
The snow-white mycelium shook in the nutrient solution, and the spores slowly floated towards Lu Xun, clinging tightly to the inner wall of the glass, as if this would allow them to get closer to Lu Xun.
Lu Xun whispered, "Don't scare it."
"It understands, I bet it understands. We have fed it countless monster extracts these days, and it ate them all. Anzhe is a polymorphic little monster, and his spores must be too." The doctor said, "If it didn't have its own consciousness and intelligence, it would definitely not break out of prison every night to sleep with you."
"So what's your progress?" Lu Xun frowned slightly.
"It has eaten so many monster genes, but it is still that spore, it is absolutely stable. Those gene extracts are definitely not lost, I guess it can subjectively control the transformation of form, just like Anzhe can become a human." The doctor said: "If humans also have this property, we won't be afraid of deformation."
"You want to use it to infect humans." Lu Xun said: "Aren't you afraid that all the infected people will be occupied by the consciousness of the mushrooms?"
"It's not time to consider this issue yet," the doctor said, resting his forehead against the glass. "... The key is that this damn little thing won't infect anyone else. It still makes me hopeless."
As he said this, the spores had already floated to the surface of the nutrient solution, slowly climbed upward, and then flowed out from the gap between the lid and the main body of the culture dish, falling down and being caught by Lu Xun - it lay lazily on Lu Xun's hand, like a carefree... little guy.
All these behaviors showed that it was indeed a creature with independent consciousness.
"It can move and think, but it doesn't even have a nervous system." The doctor said, "Do you know what this means? I am a biologist. The distortion phenomenon caused the physicist's cognitive system to collapse, and the existence of this spore destroyed my cognitive system."
The judge had no interest and no need to pay attention to how a biologist's cognition was destroyed. Holding this soft ball of hyphae in his hand, Lu Xun said, "How did Anzhe disappoint you?"
"He is not infectious at all," the doctor said with a sigh, "You two have slept together, but you are still a human being. You don't show any signs of being infected. Your will has not been influenced by him to become kind even a little bit. He and his spores can't infect people."
Lu Xun looked at him calmly, as if thinking about something. When Dr. Ji thought he was going to say something valuable, the colonel said, "I don't think he has slept with me."
The doctor looked at him straight, "Then you are more disappointing to me than An Zhe."