Chapter 437: The Promised Land |
At noon on April 1st, the Argan Grasslands.
Sunlight poured down from a sky clear as old blue cloth, falling on the yellow-green earth.
Below the slope, by the stream, a few yaks lazily munched grass, their tails flicking idly.
Not far away, in a wind-sheltered spot, several black tents had been set up, and people were scattered around, some standing, some sitting. They were of different ages, some robust, some young, but all wore thin wool garments, their skin displaying the healthy redness that comes from frequent sun exposure.
One tall, burly, dark-skinned man was clapping and laughing as he said, “Today our big family has gained a new member. Let’s welcome them.”
Under the curious gazes of everyone, a woman in a robe patterned with stars walked over slowly and said to the group, “Hello, I am Moon Key.”
“Moon Key? What a strange name…”
“Someone actually came to our tribe—how unusual!”
Led by the tribe leader, that tall dark-skinned man, everyone applauded.
Moon Key nodded in agreement.
A not-very-old girl with braided pigtails asked curiously, “Where did you come from? How did you find us?”
The other tribe members wore puzzled expressions too, because their tribe’s formation was rather peculiar.
In the early days of the Doomsday Rules era, some people who firmly believed modern technology could not save humanity connected online. Among them, the most radical group thought that to survive this disaster, people had to abandon industrial society and return to primitive pastoral life.
So some of them gathered offline and chose to come together to the Argan Grasslands, a high-altitude, rarely visited place, to live an original, natural life.
As extremists, they gave up all industrial products and even stopped using the internet, cutting all contact with the outside world. Even if other groups entered Argan, it was such a vast grassland that the chance of encountering them was very small.
So seeing this somewhat mysterious woman finding and wanting to join them naturally caused confusion.
Moon Key said, “My ability is ‘prophecy.’ I foreseen that this place would be my ‘true position,’ or rather the ‘promised land,’ so I came here. Since you live here, joining you feels like what I should do.”
Prophecy ability!
At her words, the tribe members all showed surprised expressions.
Leader Jie smiled at everyone and said, “Folks, this is a good thing. Since we chose to return to pastoral tribal life, having someone with a ‘prophecy’ ability arrive—doesn’t that mean our choice is right? Moon will be our priestess!”
“Priestess?! Yes, exactly!”
“Wow, really…”
“We truly lack a priestess in the tribe! Warm welcome to Miss Moon!”
Once Jie assigned Moon Key the role of “priestess,” he immediately received strong approval from everyone.
Moon Key accepted calmly.
The girl who had asked earlier became even more excited: “Priestess Moon, I’m Hua… please stay in my tent! There’s plenty of room.”
Moon Key smiled, “Thank you, Hua.”
At that moment, a middle-aged woman took out a wool sweater from a tent and handed it to Moon Key. “Priestess Moon, please change into this. We knitted this pure wool sweater ourselves, no trace of plastic, the safest.”
“Yes! This new rule is simple for us; we don’t need to do anything to pass,” another young man said proudly, puffing out his chest.
“Our tents may look black and old, but they’re woven from pure yak hair. Our clothes are pure wool, we eat fresh meat and jerky, drink cow and goat milk and clean stream water—no plastic pollution at all! Unlike the city, full of pollutants everywhere!”
Moon Key nodded slightly and said nothing more, following the girl called Hua into the tent. The furnishings inside were simple: a sheepskin spread on the ground, with some wooden jars, oxhide ropes and other sundries on top.
After she settled in, leader Jie came in to see her. “Priestess Moon, everyone is curious about your ability. If possible, please demonstrate it tonight. Also, folks want to know something about the outside world, so you can tell us then.”
Jie smiled as he spoke, “We left the city and came to the grasslands over a year ago, and during that time we completely cut off contact with the outside. Though everyone says they aren’t curious, in their hearts they do want to know what the city is like now.”
“All right.” Moon Key nodded.
After Jie left, Moon Key took out her crystal ball. She hadn’t brought any other divination tools; a single crystal ball was enough.
She stared at the flickering light within the crystal ball, her eyes deep, “Will this really be my promised land? Fate guided me here, but what exactly does that mean…”
…
Information about the Hidden Rule, once obtained by various organizations, was quickly made public.
Its horrifying contents unsurprisingly immediately ignited a global debate.
“This so-called ‘plastic activation’ reaction asks humans to pay the price of fertility, and the returned result is only a fifty-percent chance of success?”
“Ridiculous. Who would even do such a thing!”
“Putting that aside, this ‘immune purification microplastics’ ability—could it be considered a kind of superpower? You Ascendants don’t care, but for ordinary people it’s somewhat tempting.”
“???”
“Who’s kidding? Ordinary people would take that risk? Don’t forget even if you succeed you’ll be permanently infertile!”
“So what if you can’t have children? Plenty of people in peace times have infertility, and none of them can’t live on.”
“Everyone calm down… If the authorities coordinate food, shelter, and air filtration properly, we should be able to survive.”
“That’s wishful thinking. Do you think coordination is that easy? Just food and water: many food supplies in warehouses are packaged in plastic film, known as ‘soft canned food.’ Drinking water is mostly stored in large plastic barrels. Are those foods and water still usable now? How much microplastic is in them, who knows?”
“Even if microplastics’ toxicity is greatly enhanced, it won’t kill people instantly. Today is only day one after the rule release; it won’t be that fast.”
“Not necessarily. Don’t forget the human body already contains many microplastics; once their toxicity increases, who knows what will happen!”
“Exactly! The authorities need to give everyone medical checkups.”
“I’m going to wait and see for a few days. If the authorities coordinate well and the casualty rate is low, great. If this rule is highly lethal and the authorities can’t do anything, then I might just gamble on that fifty-percent plastic activation probability!”
Online debates about choices and guarantees raged on. Although governments declared they would quickly present countermeasures, the spreading panic was inevitable.
Soon voices of accusation rose abruptly.
“This is the Fire Thief punishing humanity for polluting the environment! From high mountains to the seas, plastic bags are everywhere; they break down into microplastics, animals eat them and pass them up the food chain to humans’ tables. It’s self-inflicted because we don’t protect the environment!”
But as soon as that voice appeared, others rose up to attack it and quickly suppressed it.
“That’s putting the cart before the horse. If plastics had been that toxic from the start, would humanity have developed them? It’s the Fire Thief’s crime for drastically increasing the toxicity.”
“The Fire Thief can even be absolved? Go read your The Word of God!”
“A cultist dares to show up, looks like the Human Consortium still hasn’t been smashed hard enough.”
“Anyone who thinks the Doomsday Rules are right is an enemy of humanity!!!”
The internet was chaotic, and reality was no less so.
In a women’s shelter in Beixing, sharp screams suddenly erupted.
“Ah!!!”
“Someone come quick!”
The screams drew several dorm residents to check, and shelter staff immediately brought the medical team assigned to each shelter to the dorm where the screams had come from.
The administrator pushed open the door and saw two women standing at the doorway in panic, a woman lying on the bed with blood at the corner of her mouth in a coma, and another woman performing chest compressions on the former.
“What happened? What’s wrong with her!” The shelter medical staff hurried over to examine her, while the administrator loudly questioned the other three roommates.
The roommate who was doing chest compressions spoke hurriedly, “I went to get water a moment ago and found her comatose, blood at her mouth, yellow spots appearing on her skin… I… she seems close to death!”
The medical staff quickly ran tests on the comatose woman and found abnormal breathing, discoloration of the skin, bleeding swelling, and immediately made a diagnosis.
“These are symptoms of organ failure! And it’s multi-organ failure!”
The three roommates and the administrator were shocked.
Organ failure in the body—this was undoubtedly caused by the microplastics’ toxicity mentioned in the new rule.
“No, impossible… how could it be so fast? It’s only the first day since the new rule was released!” one roommate wailed, clutching her hair in disbelief.
The medical staff frowned, “She might have already had a high accumulation of microplastics in her body, and then absorbed more from outside, causing a critical threshold to be crossed and an outbreak. Did you clear all plastic items from your dorm?”
Shortly after the rule was announced in the morning, authorities had instructed all shelters to move all plastic objects outside. For this, various tables, chairs, sofas, fiber bedding and clothes were all removed, leaving each dormroom almost like a shell.
Another roommate was on the verge of collapse, “We cleared everything! We threw everything away, how could this happen!”
The shelter administrator scanned the dorm and indeed found no obvious plastic objects. She thought for a moment and walked into the bathroom. Seeing an item on the sink, she immediately flew into a rage.
She pulled a cloth-wrapped object from her pocket and barked, “Look at this!”
The three dormmates stared dumbfounded. Wrapped in the cloth was a small glass bottle containing some liquid.
“This—this was face wash poured out from a plastic bottle… We threw out the plastic bottles; glass should be fine, right?”
The administrator’s face turned grim, “Face wash is listed on the authorities’ plastic list. Didn’t you see it? Do you think only the bottle counts as plastic? Many deep-cleaning face wash liquids themselves contain large amounts of microplastic particles! After the rule release she must have used it to wash her face, right?”
The three roommates were too terrified to speak, having never imagined face wash could also contain microplastics.
“Administrator.” At that moment the medical staff looked over in grief, “She’s gone.”