Chapter 103 The Truth Is So Cruel
"Culture carries the genes and bloodline of a nation; it is a kind of inheritance, a spiritual inheritance, and also a life inheritance," Xie Tu said.
The gatekeeper's nature is obvious.
It is part of the culture.
It didn't want to be forgotten by the world, so it chose to fill in the missing part itself.
It chose to nurture those who understood it and rejected intruders from the wasteland world, thus splitting into two worlds and throwing everything it disliked and hated into the inner world.
From the day they came in, they got one thing backwards.
When the two worlds alternate, Team Zero subconsciously believes that the eerie underworld is the real contaminated zone.
In fact, the world with the survivors of the shelter is the world where the gatekeeper resides.
The one-hour world transition is merely a convenient way for the gatekeeper to throw annoying creatures over.
Xie Tu: "The will-o'-the-wisp is indeed a mark. The flame on the mask usually represents the inner righteousness, and the color represents the way the gatekeeper distinguishes different people."
It has no eyes; it uses this method to distinguish different groups of people.
The longer an intruder stays in the contaminated zone, the more it affects them; the color of their flames gradually fades, they suffer severe corrosion, and eventually they become monsters.
Song Liang still didn't understand, "What does this have to do with Major General Qin?"
"It's related, but not by much." Xie Tu tugged at his backpack strap and turned his head to gesture for Yun Zhao to follow him into the house.
Yun Zhao roughly understood what he wanted to do.
He wanted to do one last thing for the people inside the contaminated area before it collapsed.
Help them find relief.
The man may appear calm and aloof, but he is very principled in his actions.
Rabbit and the others followed behind the two and entered Major General Qin's room together.
The rabbit paused for a moment as it closed the door.
She heard footsteps approaching.
Currently, besides them, there is only one other sentient being in the Otherworld.
It's Qi Ling.
He stood there bewildered for a long time before deciding to follow them to see what they were up to.
The rabbit hesitated for only a moment before closing the door before the footsteps reached the corridor.
Xie Tu walked to the desk and flipped through the notes. "The robots that are working don't exist, nor does the expanded plantation. From beginning to end, everything, including the safe shelter we have now, is just a figment of the imagination of the people here."
The gatekeeper fulfilled this obsession.
Their souls were forever imprisoned in Shelter 28.
Ten minutes passed quickly.
Suddenly, a commotion arose outside the door: footsteps and the sound of soldiers talking.
The room was extremely quiet.
Everyone was deep in thought, so quiet that they could hear each other breathing.
A moment later, the door to the room was opened, and the tall officer was stunned to see the people who had appeared in his room.
What are you doing here?
Major General Qin was clearly a little confused. He took two steps back and stepped into the corridor, seemingly asking the soldiers on duty outside.
Outside the door.
Qi Ling, who had just followed, stood there, staring in horror at the soldiers who had suddenly appeared around him.
"He was the last one to fall, wasn't he?"
Looking at Qi Ling's pleading eyes, Yun Zhao looked up and asked the man beside him, "Because he witnessed the entire process of the contaminated zone's creation, and he was the only one left in the entire shelter, so his color is different from the others."
He hid in his secret base, the air-raid shelter in the tunnel.
They survived until the end thanks to the supplies inside.
But the gatekeeper was all-powerful in the domain, and his death was inevitable from the moment Sanctuary 28 fell.
Xie Tu patted her, but before he could answer, Major General Qin walked in again.
The burly officer's face was full of confusion, as if he didn't understand how they had gotten past the soldiers on duty to his room.
Xie Tu put down the file he was reading, and when he looked over with his dark eyes, there was not a ripple in them.
"Please be seated, Major General."
He took the initiative so naturally that it made Major General Qin feel a little uncomfortable. "What does the superior want with me?"
Xie Tu got straight to the point: "Come and tell the Major General about the situation outside."
The members of Team Zero were somewhat surprised, exchanging glances, not understanding what their captain was planning to do.
Can I talk about what's going on outside?
Major General Qin's expression hardened, and he slowly sat down on a wooden stool to the side.
He had tried to subtly inquire about the situation for the past two days, but the officer refused to say anything. Today, however, he took the initiative to come and inform him of the situation outside.
Are they... leaving?
"The Dark Apocalypse lasted for two hundred years. It is now 2446 outside, the twentieth year since the end of the Darkness."
Xie Tu's voice sounded calm as he truthfully told him everything he wanted to know.
Major General Qin suddenly looked up, his eyes fixed on him.
It seemed he wanted to confirm whether he was joking.
The door wasn't closed, and Qi Ling, who was standing at the door, also heard his words and froze.
"You heard me right. 198 years have passed outside, and the planet has long since entered the wasteland era."
Xie Tu ignored their reactions and continued, "Humanity has not become extinct, but the situation is far from optimistic. Contaminated areas are constantly encroaching on human homes, resources are scarce, and monsters are everywhere..."
The existence of contaminated areas provides a safe haven for the mutants.
As long as the contaminated areas remain, the monsters will always exist.
Xie Tu propped himself up on the table with one hand, looked up at him expressionlessly, and said, "Back then, the central government issued an order to urgently establish hundreds and thousands of shelters in various places. After two hundred years, only four shelters survived to the wasteland era."
“This does not include Shelter No. 28.”
The truth is so cruel.
In the early stages of the Dark Apocalypse, contaminated areas had already formed; he couldn't possibly be unaware of this.
Major General Qin stood up abruptly, his face filled with disbelief, his voice trembling slightly with excitement: "What nonsense are you talking about?"
He is human, and he is the commander here!
Xie Tu ignored him. "You said that in the third month after the survivors hid in the shelter, a group of people set their sights on military supplies and weapons, attempting to take over Shelter No. 28."
"Perhaps the outcome was not as you described, with those people being dragged to the square and shot, which intimidated all the refugees."
"They succeeded, didn't they?"
Everything now is just General Qin's fantasy.
He fantasized about suppressing the rioters, about them still stubbornly resisting the monsters on the ground, about establishing plantations, building strong fortresses, and living a self-sufficient life.
Then we wait for rescue from above, for the monsters to disappear, and for the sun to rise...
Therefore, everything inside the shelter was beautiful.
The civilians were obedient, and the soldiers lived peacefully with them, occasionally chatting and talking. They had enough food to sustain them for another two years.
Qi Ling, standing outside the door, was deathly pale. His body swayed involuntarily, and he opened his mouth but could not utter a sound.
The pale blue flame on his forehead had now turned completely gray-black.
He remembered.
A civil war broke out within the shelter, where a group calling themselves followers of the Sun were massacring soldiers.
At the last moment, a soldier resolutely opened the shelter's doors, letting in all the monsters with sharp mouthparts...
The scene was chaotic; countless bloody scenes flooded his mind, and screams echoed everywhere.
A thick gray fog instantly enveloped the entire shelter.
A strange magnetic field was formed.
Qi Ling was terrified. He ran away and hid in his secret base, trying to escape, but his robot was out of power, and going out would only mean certain death...
He wanted to go home.
As Xie Tu cruelly reveals the truth, the world begins to tremble slightly, like a pebble thrown into a calm lake, creating ripples.
The entire Zero team suddenly stood up.
Yun Zhao looked down and saw black, sticky fluid gradually seeping out from General Qin's trouser leg...
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