The Judge was placed under house arrest but this violent battle didn’t end with the compromise between the two sides. Instead, it intensified.
People stopped working to protest and their collective protest took place at the entrance of the artificial magnetic pole device.
According to plausible rumours, the base’s policymakers were furious. However, in this time of confusion, they no longer had absolute control. They eventually made a great concession. They would temporarily disable the killing rights of the Trial Court. The members of the Trial Court would still conduct a routine inspection but those suspected of being infected wouldn’t be immediately killed. Instead, they would be taken to a military training camp at the other end of the base for decentralized observation. Secondly, the Judge wasn’t allowed to carry a gun and had to stay in the Lighthouse’s laboratory to cooperate with research. He wasn’t allowed to go out. It was difficult to say if this was the base’s protection or defense against the Judge.
The atmosphere of the base finally eased. After all, their main target was Lu Feng. Colonel Lu was the Judge of this generation and his degree of arbitrariness and the number of people he killed was amazing to everyone. If the Trial Court executed 5,000 people a year then 4,500 people would’ve fallen under his gun. The remaining 500 people were executed by the other judges because the Judge wasn’t at the Trial Court.
After a brief period of calm, the people started to blame the Lighthouse for not making any progress worthy of mention. Dr Ji, the one in charge of the project, was Lu Feng’s old friend. The ‘last hope of humanity’ was obviously a lie. It was a one-sided cover. They demanded that the Lighthouse should produce enough convincing results or they had to surrender Lu Feng.
“They are relying on the premise that the human community can no longer afford to lose a single life in order to do everything.” The doctor poured himself a glass of water. “Their rhetoric is full of loopholes but this is the only way for them to vent their fear.”
He raised the cup to his lips but his hands were shaking and water splashed out of the cup onto the table. The doctor took a sip but a pained expression appeared on his face and he leaned over and retched.
“I also live in great… great fear. I want to vomit.” He trembled. “The cold snap has arrived. Winter is coming. It is the time when monsters are the most insane and in need of nutrition.”
“We all know that humans are only a piece of oily fat in the eyes of monsters. In the prime of the base, the monsters were constantly trying to attack. You guess…” The doctor smiled and whispered. “When will they find out that the human base is already fragile to this point? When will they gather to capture the human base? Just like they previously swarmed the Underground City Base.”
Lu Feng told him, “You calm down first.”
“Do you think that everyone is as lacking in feelings as you? The essence of humanity is to empathize and panic spreads exponentially in a crowd. At this time, you can keep calm and prove how inhumane you are…” The doctor took a deep breath. His harsh language somewhat relaxed his emotions and he seemed a bit better. “Please infect me with your nature. What were you thinking when you couldn’t keep working?”
Lu Feng glanced at him casually. “Human interests takes precedence above everything else.”
The doctor laughed helplessly. After laughing, he took a deep breath and seemed to calm down at least. He approached the large petri dish with the spore.
“The most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of is that they think a small, white fungus can save all humans. In fact, the composition of the fungus isn’t different from what we use to cook mushroom soup.” Repeating the words of an outsider in a righteous manner, the doctor sounded like a serious teacher criticizing a student who failed. “Have you heard? If you continue like this, they will eventually cook you into a bowl of mushroom soup. You must take the initiative to show that you are different.”
The snow-white mycelium in the nutrient solution shuddered and the spore slowly drifted toward Lu Feng. It clung to the inner wall of the glass like it could get closer to Lu Feng.
Lu Feng’s voice was low. “Don’t scare it.”
“It understands. I bet it understands. These days, we have fed it countless monster extracts and it has eaten it. An Zhe is a small monster with a polymorphic variation and his spore must be the same. If it doesn’t have its own consciousness and intelligence, it wouldn’t escape every night to sleep with you.”
“So what is your progress?” Lu Feng slightly frowned.
“It eats up the monster genes but it is still the spore. It is absolutely stable. These gene extracts haven’t disappeared and my guess is that it can subjectively control the transformation of forms, just like An Zhe could become a human. If humans also have this nature then we wouldn’t need to be afraid of the distortion.”
“You want to infect humans with it.” Lu Feng asked, “Aren’t you afraid that all infected people will be occupied with the consciousness of a mushroom?”
“It isn’t enough to consider this problem yet.” The doctor pressed his forehead against the glass. “The point is that this damned little thing doesn’t infect anyone at all. It disappoints me, just like An Zhe.”
By the time he said this, the spore was actively floating on the surface of the nutrient solution, slowly climbing up and then flowing out of the gap of the lid and falling freely. It was picked up by Lu Feng and lay lazily on Lu Feng’s hand, like a carefree… little kid. These actions showed that it was indeed a creature with its own consciousness.
The doctor said, “It can move, it can think but it doesn’t have a nervous system. Do you know what this means? I am a biologist. The distortion phenomenon has collapsed a physicist’s cognitive system. Meanwhile, this spore is the existent that has destroyed my cognitive system.”
The Judge wasn’t interested and didn’t pay attention to how a biologist’s cognitive system was destroyed. He held this soft spore in his hand and wondered, “How did An Zhe disappoint you?”
“He doesn’t have any infectiousness worth mentioning.” The doctor sighed. “You have slept together yet you are still a person and show no signs of infection. Your will hasn’t been affected by him and you haven’t become kind at all. He and his spore can’t infect people.”
Lu Feng glanced at him lightly, seemingly thinking about something. Just as the doctor thought he was going to say something worthwhile, the colonel told him, “I haven’t slept with him.”
The doctor stared straight at him. “Then you disappoint me more than An Zhe.”
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