Chapter 24.1: Fear of Death
At this point, even Yu Zhitian believed Zhang Cui’s speculation was correct.
These “people” who had suddenly appeared above the base were all noticeably taller than the Velvet Star natives.
Their language sounded completely different from that of any country on Velvet Star.
Even their firearms were of a structure Yu Zhitian had never seen before.
So either, as Zhang Cui said, everyone in the Yunyang Base had somehow ended up in another world…
Or these “people” had come into their world instead.
It wasn’t just Yu Zhitian—everyone in Yunyang Base could clearly see how different the people of the Blue Sea were.
They had once lived in a medium-sized survivor base, and they knew very well that official forces had already been completely wiped out at the earliest stage. The people in front of them could not possibly be military personnel from Velvet Star.
So what now?
How were they supposed to communicate? How were they supposed to interact? Could they even understand each other just by gestures?
At this moment, all the survivors—including Yu Zhitian—assumed they were completely unaware of each other’s backgrounds and intentions.
Just as Zeng Tian hesitated over how to express their harmless intent and how to initiate communication—
The leading officer slowly spoke in somewhat unskilled, halting Velvet Star language:
“Is Dr. Yu Zhitian here?”
The survivors froze.
If, a moment ago, everyone had been desperately trying to figure out the situation and what to do next—
Then now, the entire Yunyang Base went completely blank, as if someone had wiped their minds clean.
Dr. Yu?
How did these people know about Dr. Yu? And why were they specifically asking if she was here??
Almost instinctively, everyone’s gaze turned toward Yu Zhitian.
But just as quickly, most of them looked away again.
Over the past half-year, Yu Zhitian had become the hope of the entire base. She was no longer just a person—she had become something akin to a symbol of faith for the survivors.
Not knowing whether the other side was friend or foe, they instinctively did not want to expose her.
But for the Blue Sea people, whose vision was extremely sharp, even a glance that lasted less than a second was enough.
The leading officer accurately turned his gaze toward Yu Zhitian, who had been slowly shielded behind the base’s leadership group.
“Dr. Yu Zhitian, hello. Please come with us.”
The officer scanned the remaining survivors.
“They can come as well, if you wish.”
Cheng Qisheng, who had been watching from the sidelines, silently gave it a thumbs up.
Having experience rescuing experts from this world really made a difference.
Without Yu Zhitian even needing to make a request, the Blue Sea side already knew what to say to move her.
Yu Zhitian handed the child in her arms back to its mother, gently pushed aside Zheng Tian, who was standing in front of her, and looked directly at the officer above her.
“Alright.”
She did not ask who they were, nor where they were taking them, nor what they needed from her.
At the very least, it couldn’t be worse than the situation they were already in, right?
—
Twenty minutes later, Yu Zhitian boarded a tracked troop transport vehicle.
The people from Yunyang Base also got on various vehicles scattered around.
Only after coming out did they realize there were far more people outside than they had imagined—so many that it almost felt like there were more humans than cattle and sheep.
Lots of people, and lots of vehicles.
The vehicle Yu Zhitian was in was accompanied front and back by many similar military vehicles capable of traversing all kinds of terrain, forming an escort.
And once she got on board, a man in white—a “doctor”—came with several nurses and performed a basic full-body examination on her.
Some of the equipment was slightly different from Velvet Star’s, but the principles were the same, and the usage was more or less familiar.
After the examination was done, less than three minutes later, someone brought her a bowl of warm lightly salted water, followed by thin rice porridge.
The young woman delivering the porridge explained:
“You’re suffering from malnutrition caused by long-term starvation. Your stomach has already atrophied, so you can only eat very easily digestible food for now.”
Yu Zhitian noticed that her tone wasn’t stiff at all, and even carried a slight accent from Qianli City on Velvet Star. She took a sip of the porridge and then asked casually:
“You’re from Qianli City, aren’t you?”
“Ah, you can tell, Doctor? Yes, my hometown is Qianli City. Later my whole family moved to Miang’an City. My name is Wang Moning.”
Wang Moning grinned.
She really couldn’t help being happy.
Because the exploration team she was with was relatively well-off, they had rented a vehicle to come here. Along the way, aside from a slightly sore butt from the bumps, the hunting itself had been exciting and interesting.
And with so many people around, there was a strong sense of safety—almost like she could relax completely and just enjoy herself.
Right after she had just experienced what hunting felt like, she heard that the military was looking for local residents who could act as translators.
The key point was that the translator only needed to ride back to the main base—and would be paid 700 points as compensation.
This was basically a windfall from the heavens!
Wang Moning immediately raised her hand to apply. After competing with two other Velvet Star people, she successfully got the job thanks to her speaking skills, which she had honed through daily chatting and bragging with her teammates.
She had already captured a sheep, earned points, and the military was also very easy to work with—they even helped her exploration team bring the hunted prey back by tying it to the roof of the vehicle.
Song Xi and her teammates practically saw her off with cheers.
As the weakest combat member in the team, finally being able to contribute made Wang Moning so happy she felt like she was flying.
She had been paid, so she did her job.
She used the summary skills she had developed during exams to explain the current situation to Yu Zhitian.
In simple terms, it was this: the Dark Star Blue Sea civilization, the great Creator God, other Safe Cities, the eventual destruction of the world, and Safe Cities continuing to move on.
But why the deity was looking for Yu Zhitian—Wang Moning didn’t know, so she didn’t say.
Yu Zhitian also didn’t ask. After absorbing such a huge amount of information, she focused on only one thing:
“Will Velvet Star definitely be destroyed?”
Hearing this, Wang Moning also showed a confused expression.
“I don’t know, but Blue Sea has a lot of outsiders who came from another Safe City—people from other worlds. They know a lot of things.”
“Someone told me that Safe Cities are built upon worlds that are already destroyed. So they can only anchor the coordinates of worlds that are about to be destroyed or are already in the process of destruction, and keep bringing residents along as they flee continuously.”
“It’s like an escape pod—you can only follow the escape route, and you don’t know where the final destination will be.”
Yu Zhitian exhaled softly.
“I see.”
Cheng Qisheng, sipping through a straw, observed her through Wang Moning’s perspective.
“This Dr. Yu’s reaction earlier—it looked like she suspected the zombie virus was released by Blue Sea.”
Although she had received Wang Moning’s explanation, she was still clearly suspicious. It was just that, having noticed Wang Moning’s admiration for Blue Sea and her obvious sense of belonging, Dr. Yu had carefully concealed her thoughts.
The younger Wang Moning didn’t notice, but Cheng Qisheng’s observational skills had been honed over hundreds of billions of years in Dark Star. No matter how well Yu Zhitian hid it, she could still catch the slightest trace.
As for Aether, it couldn’t see anything at all.
Its detection range was limited to a certain area around the Safe City, but the jellyfish-like AI had already gotten used to the fact that its city lord always seemed able to see far beyond that.
In theory, someone with powerful enough mental strength could extend their perception range infinitely. If strong enough, observing an entire planet—or even other planets—was not impossible.
Aether convinced itself and, using its reasoning and imagination, joined in the conversation with the city lord:
“Situations where local civilizations believe that Safe Cities are the source of disaster are quite common. The more technologically underdeveloped the civilization, the more likely they are to form such assumptions.”
“But after the Safe City leaves, they usually realize they were wrong. So, City Lord, you don’t need to care about the opinions of local civilizations.”
Cheng Qisheng tapped her fingers and pulled the jellyfish that was currently sitting on her notebook into her hand.
“I’m not worried about what the Velvet Star people think.”
“I’m worried about why a virology expert on a world mission meant to be rescued would believe that the zombie virus was deployed by aliens.”
“Did she discover something while researching the virus?”
Ordinary people guessing that a virus was released by aliens might just be a casual remark.
But a virologist was different.
The more professional someone is, the less likely they are to make random guesses. Yu Zhitian’s words revealed that she had already done some research into the zombie virus—and that she suspected it was an ‘external’ substance.
No wonder the world mission was to rescue Dr. Yu Zhitian.
She might actually be able to develop a vaccine for the zombie virus.
For the next two days, Cheng Qisheng kept a close watch on the convoy escorting Yu Zhitian and also sent a message to Alice, asking her to send more people as backup.
Although rationally she knew that the Blue Sea military had already cleared out the zombie hordes along the way, and that the western region was sparsely populated with few zombies, making trouble unlikely—
The psychological shadow left by the previous seven civilizations was simply too deep.
One sip of water, and a civilization collapses.
One trip to the bathroom, and a civilization collapses.
Wake up after a sleep, and a civilization collapses.
Until she personally saw the convoy safely enter the Blue Sea Safe City, Cheng Qisheng would not be able to truly relax.
The first ninety-nine steps were already done—there was no way she was going to fail at the very last step.
Fortunately, the journey was smooth and uneventful. Nothing like the kind of melodramatic incidents that might have happened occurred. When the reinforcement troops arrived in missile-launch vehicles, Cheng Qisheng knew everything was stable.
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