Chapter 367: Inhuman (175) (1st + 2nd) [VIP]
Six screens broadcast the same content -
On the edge of the city of violence, there are endless factories.
"This place... isn't it a copy of the Novice Village?" Someone whispered.
"No," Yun Guang frowned slightly, "There shouldn't be such a place in the Novice Village."
This is a unique building in the pseudo-human space.
The six team members who entered the pseudo-human space also looked confused. Xiao Tang took a few steps forward tentatively: "How about going to take a look?"
There is a discrepancy between this place and Qiao Bie's memory. Either there is something wrong with Qiao Bie, or there is something wrong with these factories. In any case, it has definitely disrupted everyone's plans.
"Qiaobie?" Another team member walked up and asked, "Do you know what this place is about?"
"...I don't know," Qiao Bie said with a puzzled expression, "When I left...it wasn't like this."
Since the situation had changed, the six team members who entered naturally asked Qiao Bie for more details.
In addition to the fact that all the fake people came from trees, in response to everyone's questions, Qiao Bie also answered a few other questions.
According to him, all life in this space is "fruit" grown from plants. Not only the pseudo-humans, but also the animals living here, are all "grown" from trees.
Mammals in the normal world do not exist here, or they may have existed before but have been evolved away.
The reason for this is that there is a very special toxin in this space.
This toxin will kill all living things in this space, and the damage caused to the living things is irreversible. The onset is very fast, and it only takes a few hours for a healthy living organism to turn into a corpse.
In other words, logically speaking, there should be no life in this space.
But according to Xiao Tang, it is written in martial arts novels that the antidote often grows next to the deadly antidote, so in the pseudo-human space, the antidote that can resist the invasion of this toxin, or a special element, exists in the soil.
The tree that nurtures life is rooted in the soil, and the life it nurtures naturally carries this element that can resist the invasion of low-level toxins.
This element is also highly toxic when it exists alone, but after encountering a special toxin in space, the two elements are able to resist each other, allowing the creatures carrying the two toxins to be safe.
The situation in each space is different, and no one knows how the pseudo-people in this space evolved. In short, it was already like this when Qiao Bie was born.
"How long you can live in this world is determined at birth," Joe said with a familiar expression, "Everyone is told how long they can live when they are born."
"How did you confirm this?" Xiao Tang asked curiously.
Qiao Bie didn't seem to want to answer such detailed questions, but his previous story not only aroused the interest of the six team members, but also Lao Guan and Hang Yiqing.
If there is no pseudo-human person who is willing to tell them this kind of information about the pseudo-human space, it will probably still be a mystery until this space turns into a firework.
Qiao Bie was about to refuse, but he said briefly, "It depends on the ratio of the two toxins in the body."
"Oh, I see. This thing is not a permanent solution." The members of the Foundation all have sufficient ability to extract key information and summarize it. "Although this element can resist the invasion of toxins, the amount in each person's body is different. When it is used up, the person will die. People with more enriched content can live longer, and people with less enriched content will die early. Is that what you mean?"
Joe nodded.
The life of pseudo-people is like opening a blind box. One of these two elements floats in the air, and the other is present when you are born.
The different proportions of elements naturally lead to different lengths of life for pseudo-people, and everyone knows their own death date as soon as they are born.
"It's horrible," Xiao Tang complained, "If you told me I would die tomorrow, I would take revenge on society."
A world where one can know the date of one's death in advance is too terrifying.
But then again, if everyone in society knew when they would die, maybe things would be different.
"The way the investment bank recruits team members is to cast a wide net and look for people who don't want to die after they die," Yun Guang took a sip of tea. "According to this statement, it may not be the investment bank that found the pseudo-human space, but the pseudo-people in the pseudo-human space who found the investment bank."
After the death of some pseudo-people who know they will not live long and whose life bars are much longer than those of other pseudo-people, some of them will always trigger the investment bank's team member absorption mechanism and become one of the team members here.
Imitation is one of the innate skills of these pseudo-people. As there are more and more similar team members, the investment bank also discovered the subtlety and followed these team members to find this special space.
For investment banks, extending people's lives is an old business. Extending the lives of these pseudo-people who know their own death date from birth, allowing them to secretly replace the identities of the weak who simply cannot survive in space exploration, and continue to live after leaving the pseudo-human space, seems to be a business that is sure to make money.
During this process, the pseudo-people only need to learn the living habits of the weak people they are about to replace, and they can replace the other person without leaving any trace and gain a new life.
Qiao Bie did not say what the pseudo-people's lifestyle was like, or that when he was born, the pseudo-human space had already joined the investment bank, and the normal life rhythm of the pseudo-people had been disrupted. However, in some information he had inadvertently revealed before, he said that those who stayed behind most likely had no idea of replacing the newcomers.
That is to say, fake people are not like what everyone thinks, that everyone wants to replace other people's lives.
"There are always some who don't really want to kill people, or don't want to leave their homeland, so they stay. He must have been one of the ones who were in a hurry to leave, so he didn't have time to care about what those who didn't want to leave thought. Maybe in their hearts, those who didn't leave were all idiots." Xiao Tang stopped a teammate who was about to ask about the details while walking, "Now you ask him about the situation in the pseudo-human space. I guess he doesn't know how those who stayed behind live."
"And Qiao Bie is quite a jerk," Xiao Tang covered his mouth with his hand and secretly took a photo of Lao Guan and Hang Yiqing behind him, "Look, these two looked like they didn't care just now, but now Hang Yiqing's face has turned green."
Saying "cuckolded" is actually an exaggeration, but Hang Yiqing's face looked really bad.
"How can I not be green..." Xu Zichen complained silently, "What Qiao Bie did to the Novice Village is not the same as what he did to the Purple Street Gang."
Things have come to this point. There is no need for Joe to tell lies, or to tell lies that are not in his favor.
These pieces of information were speculated by everyone through his few words. There may be two factions in the pseudo-human space. One advocates accepting the length of life that is determined at birth, and the other, after contacting the investment bank, readily agreed to the option of replacing the lives of others and continuing to live.
Qiao Bie is a pretty bad guy. According to what everyone has speculated based on his few words, those who are eager to leave here must have gone to the Novice Village, and those who stay here are those who don't want to replace others.
He brought more than 5,000 people here, just to let everyone be the bad guy for him. While exterminating the pseudo-human space species, he also killed those who didn't want to die, so as to prevent someone from changing their mind and wanting to replace him later.
What is the difference between these fake people who had no intention of replacing him but were regarded as imaginary enemies by him, and the gangsters in Purple Street who had no intention of revealing his identity but were regarded by him as black history to be erased?
If Joe hadn't made it so clear at the beginning, they might have thought of some other ways. In any case, they would not have just given him 5,000 people to let him in.
Everyone looked at each other. Under the indignant expressions of Guan Hongyan and Xu Zichen, Yun Guang shrugged as expected: "Qiao Bie is just that kind of person."
The reason they were able to convince Joe not to take them in was because they were sure that he would “eliminate the trouble forever.”
The Purple Street Gang, the Pseudo-Human Space, everything that stands in his way will be ruthlessly destroyed by him.
Putting aside other things, Qiao Bie was indeed born to be the head of the Qiao family. It was no surprise that he would do well in this position after replacing the child.
But it seems meaningless to say this now. Something seems to have happened in the pseudo-human space that Qiao Bie doesn't know about.
Everyone on the screen finally arrived in front of the strange factory building. There was no trace of the forest that Qiao Bie described. Along the way, apart from the cold and eerie deserted ghost town, there was no plant at all.
There are also no pseudo-people left behind as he described who "are unlikely to replace the newcomers."
Everyone looked at each other, and Xiao Tang shook the camera in his hand and pointed it at the factory building: "This place has replaced the original forest, right? Qiao Bie, your world has exploded in technology while you were away?"
There is a huge difference between naturally growing fruits on trees and producing them on factory assembly lines.
The appearance of this factory makes it hard not to think in this direction.
Everyone in the living room put down what they were holding and stared at the live broadcast screen intently.
Now, not only are they unfamiliar with this place, including Qiao Bie. After leaving the pseudo-human space for so many years, he also has no idea where this place is. He can only walk forward and observe with everyone.
What Xiao Tang said about this place "replacing the original forest" is not entirely speculation, because after entering this place, what immediately catches your eye is the things like culture tanks hanging on both sides of the house. Inside the culture tanks is some milky white liquid, and you can vaguely see a black thing floating in the middle of the liquid.
All of these culture tanks were hung from the ceiling, and you couldn't see the end of them at a glance. All you could see were countless thin tubes going up from the ground and directly into the culture tanks.
【Come closer and take a look.】Bai Jinshu’s comments flashed by.
Without him saying anything, Xiao Tang had already come closer.
"What is this?" Xiao Tang pinched the tube, "This thing is soft."
"This is hard," Xiao Tang knocked on the culture tank a few times, "and it's quite brittle. Is it made of glass?"
[Shine the flashlight.] Yun Guang also sent a message.
"Let me see..." Xiao Tang took out a flashlight and shone it over. The black outline in the white liquid became a little clearer, but still not very clear.
Just then, a "clang" sound came from behind.
"Fuck!" Xiao Tang was startled, the screen shook for a moment, and then he turned around abruptly, "What are you doing... Qiao Bie?"
In the picture, Qiao Bie directly smashed a culture tank with the hilt of the Qin army's sword.
The milky white liquid instantly flowed all over the floor. His expression remained unchanged as he used the tip of his sword to pick up the thing that was flowing down with the milky white liquid: "It's an embryo."
"No... Damn, we are your kind after all, right? So barbaric?" Xiao Tang muttered, frowning a little dissatisfied before continuing, "After you left, did the pseudo-people finally abandon the inefficient natural reproduction and choose to use technology to give birth to newborns?"
Although Qiao Bie's actions were barbaric, they saved them from speculation and investigation.
The endless factory is filled with embryos, which means it is a forest in another sense.
"That's quick." Qiao Bie ignored their words and used the sword in his hand to cut off the hose connected to the ground. He ordered the Qin army behind him, "Dig this."
People on the screen were digging underneath the pipe in full swing, and people outside the channel were discussing it in low voices.
"That's great. The pseudo-human space technology has exploded," Guan Hongyan curled her lips, "I think Qiao Bie doesn't seem very happy. Could it be that he is unhappy because he thinks these fetuses can live longer than he did in the first place?"
"Probably not." Bai Jinshu shook his head, and his voice sounded one after another.
"Hongyan, something seems wrong with this place."
"What do you say?" Yun Guang looked at Bai Jinshu.
"Hmm..." Bai Jinshu pondered for a few seconds, "If this factory is now the result of a technological explosion after Qiao Bie left, and if they found a technological means to interfere with the elemental enrichment level during the gestational stage of the fetus, then the desolate atmosphere in this space cannot be explained."
"Bingqi means that if the pseudo-humans find the technology to inject more antidotes into newborns in advance, it means they will live longer," Yun Guang explained. "Then after they can live longer, more people will not pursue the lives of others, but live their entire lives in their own space. If this is the case, this space should have a very rich atmosphere of life, and fewer and fewer pseudo-humans will choose to replace newcomers in the investment industry."
When he said this, several people around him reacted at once.
"And investment banks absolutely don't want to see this happen!" someone continued.
The investment bank took great pains to connect the pseudo-human space and the novice village, but it was not for the pseudo-people to live a good life in it.
They want to improve the quality of their team members. In other words, the physical fitness of the pseudo-people is much higher than that of normal humans in the normal space after being tempered by these two strange toxins. They want to absorb these team members, but they are troubled by the fact that their own team member threshold requires the death of team members, and not every pseudo-person can meet the absorption standards after death.
That's why we designed such a novice village according to their characteristics, which makes it easier for the pseudo-people to move around while also making it easier for them to recruit more high-quality team members.
If all the fake people can live long and be content to live their own lives in their own space, then what are all their efforts worth?
"So... the investment bank will definitely not let their technology explode," Xu Zichen seemed to understand and continued, "Then the existence of this factory can only be due to... the investment bank itself?"
"Well," Bai Jinshu looked at the screen with a serious expression, "something is wrong with this place."
The investment bank hopes that the pseudo-people will live shorter and shorter lives so that more people will be willing to join the investment bank. However, the pseudo-people's position is that their own lives must be extended so that they will not take the risk of joining the investment bank and can live their own lives.
The positions of these two parties are inherently conflicting.
When there was no technological explosion and life was still dependent on nature, this conflict was still covered up by the two choices of pseudo-humans. But when technology can intervene in the length of life, then...
A fake person will definitely not be able to beat an investment bank.
Sure enough, the next second, Qiao Bie on the screen stood up and said, "These embryos are much weaker than the embryos that naturally grew on the tree."
"Much weaker?" Xiao Tang observed the petri dish he had broken. "Is that intentional?"
"Wouldn't the embryos produced in this way be much weaker than those conceived naturally?"
The special thing about pseudo-humans is that their physical fitness is far superior to that of ordinary humans, which makes even the weakest pseudo-human among them much stronger than ordinary humans under normal circumstances.
And this physical fitness comes from two special elements in their bodies.
If these embryos are much weaker, doesn't it mean that there are much less of these elements? Then wouldn't the pseudo-humans cultivated in this way be inferior to those conceived naturally?
"Maybe..." Bai Jinshu tapped his fingers on the table a few times, "It's not that they don't want to, but that they can't."
The ultimate goal of an investment bank is definitely to need more high-quality employees. Whether it is a Gu field or a fake person, it is all for the purpose of obtaining more high-quality employees. If they take the initiative to reduce the strength of the fake people, they are actively reducing the quality of their future team members.
The investment industry is not stupid and will not do something that would harm itself, so the current situation must be the best they can do.
"What does it mean?" Xiao Tang asked curiously as he looked at the passing barrage.
[You didn't see any plants or creatures when you were walking along here just now, right?] Bai Jinshu was thoughtful.
"No," Xiao Tang whispered, "Could it be that in order to save more of that element to create humans, all the plants in this space were cut down?"
"No." Qiao Bie's voice suddenly sounded. Xiao Tang turned around and saw that the hose he had asked the Qin army to dig had been dug very deep.
"This thing is overdrawing the life of this space," someone nearby whispered, "We just smashed a few more, and some people went out to dig and found that there is no natural life in this world."
Even if all the trees that give birth to life were cut down, there would still not be any weeds left.
But this space is just like this. Apart from these factories, there is no life as far as the eye can see.
"This is..." Xiao Tang paused, still not understanding, "You mean this thing has drained the vitality of the entire space?"
"No," the Foundation guy shook his head and pointed at Qiao Bie, "He just said that, but you didn't hear it."
"What...did he say?" Xiao Tang suddenly felt a little creepy.
"Don't say that, Qiao," Lu Changfeng repeated in front of the screen, "This space has long been unsuitable for life."
It is a miracle that the two toxins are maintaining a precarious balance for all life; in fact, this place was not suitable for life from the beginning.
The birth of life in this space was just a subtle coincidence, and this coincidence came to an end after Qiao Bie left.
"There shouldn't be any life here any longer," Qiao Bie said as he looked at the hose that led deep underground and was doing its best to extract antidotes from the soil. An indescribable expression suddenly appeared on his face. "Before I left... the forest was already becoming less and less."
There are fewer and fewer trees that can produce life.
The lives living in this space are heading towards extinction, which is why a large number of companions during that period chose to cooperate with the Foundation, watch the live broadcast and leave here in the identities of others.
Before he came in, he had thought that as time went by, fewer and fewer people would choose to stay here, and there would be fewer and fewer newborns in the race, but even he did not expect that this place would really become like this one day.
The investment bank could not give up the benefits brought to them by the pseudo-humans, nor could it do without these pseudo-human team members. So when the pseudo-human space was about to decline, they chose a path that was easiest to think of, but also the most unacceptable to the pseudo-humans.
"So they began to try to use technology to replace their natural way of reproduction, continue to squeeze the life in this space, and create an endless stream of pseudo-people." Xu Zichen murmured in a low voice.
These newly born pseudo-people have no choice at all. They are not like Joe Bie’s time, when there were still people who could choose their own future path. These new pseudo-people born in the investment bank’s factory are truly copy factories.
"This land has long since given up on its children," someone said in a low voice, probably looking at Qiao Bie with sympathy, "It is no longer suitable for the birth of any life. The factory hoses lead underground to squeeze out the last bit of value here, and the light pink mist floating in the air is its tears of blood."
This space has long been dead.
The pseudo-human space that had occupied the Novice Village for who knows how many years had died long ago, and the only ones that survived were those whose lives were forcibly prolonged by the investment bank.
Once the live broadcast is interrupted, the livelihood of this group of fake people will be cut off. By the time the live broadcast is repaired, according to the lives of these new fake people, they would have died long ago, so they would stab the investment bank at all costs.
In their not-so-long lives, they have been twisted into being desperate to survive.
"...What should we do?" Xiao Tang was at a loss for ideas. "This...so now all the people who can move have gone to the Novice Village for the final frenzy, and only the embryos are left here, right?"
Faced with a dead space and a race that is forcibly continued by external forces, is there any need to destroy this place?
These embryos are pitiful. After leaving the investment bank, their lives are like mayflies that are born in a twilight year and die in a night. Is there any need to kill them?
On the screen, the six team members looked at each other.
Off-screen, the exploration team members were also in trouble.
No one could have imagined that the pseudo-human space would appear in front of everyone in this way.
“Kill them,” Qiao Bie, who had been silent for a long time, stood up from the ground with a complicated expression, “These embryos will become like that after they are born. They no longer have the right to choose.”
"In our time, they wouldn't want to live like this." He picked up the embryo with one hand and was silent for a moment. "Besides, this space can no longer produce any life. It's already dead."
Everyone looked at each other.
"Then..." Someone paused, "Who will do it?"
To put it bluntly, these things have no deep hatred against them. The reason they come here is to destroy the investment bank.
The pseudo-people have no grudge against them, let alone the pseudo-human embryos.
Just when everyone was silent, a voice suddenly rang out.
"Let me do it." It was Lao Guan.
He glanced at Qiao Bie calmly: "Ah Qing and I have been waiting for this day."
"How do we start?" He looked at the six team members.
“Just cut these threads, right?” someone speculated. “These embryos rely on these threads to survive. If you cut them off, they will die.”
"Do you want to go together?" Lao Guan looked at Hang Yiqing.
The others here have no hatred against the fake people, but they do.
Things have become like this, destroying this place seems to be the most effective, but also the most powerless revenge. There is no grandiose, no justice and pleasure, they are just facing a quiet and sad factory, silently watching the embryo of the culprit.
Hang Yiqing took a deep breath and reached out to the side: "Sword."
Someone handed him a sword.
With a sound of breaking through the air, the sword smashed straight into the factory's main control circuit.
And then, something strange happened.
Something suddenly gushed out from that line and sprayed straight towards that area.
No one had time to react. Hang Yiqing subconsciously stepped back before the smoke reached his face. The next second, a voice suddenly rang out: "Brother!"
A figure suddenly rushed over and knocked him to the ground.
The author has something to say:
Well... to prevent arguments, I'd better say it in advance. Qiao Bie will not whitewash himself. This chapter also makes it very clear that in the pseudo-human space without factories and relying on nature to breed, those who choose to replace others are also the egoists in the pseudo-human group and those whose initial life is too short and who will do anything to survive. So Qiao Bie's choice to replace the child is not a hidden secret and he is not innocent. He simply deprived others of their lives for his own survival, and deprived more than one life.
.
Compared to the new pseudo-humans who had no choice, he chose this path himself. He has been “parting” with his past as a child from Purple Street and his past as a pseudo-human, and his actions are very sinister.
All the choices Qiao Bie has made so far have been to survive, to survive at all costs.
As for why he did this in the end, it was just that in a split second his body subconsciously acted faster than his brain. In other words, he did not make a choice, it was just instinct.
First 20 + Random 20
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