Chapter 117: Turkeys |
"Three factions?" Chen Sixuan was curious. "I thought it was just the original Federation and the current Apocalypse Union."
"There’s more to it. The original Federation, which is now the Dawn Project, represents the Survival Faction—their goal is to preserve the last remnants of human civilization at any cost. Meanwhile, the Apocalypse Union represents the Resistance Faction, advocating for the use of humanity's full strength to research and harness dark energy, using it to evolve and eventually eradicate the Abyss."
"But there’s also a third faction. They believe the evolution brought by dark energy is a blessing, a form of divine selection. They claim survivors and ability users are the chosen ones—the seeds of a new civilization on Blue Planet. This belief led to the creation of a fanatical organization called ‘Holy Revelation.’ They actively recruit ability users, research forbidden eerie artifacts, and even absorbed some former members of the Angel Project..."
Researching eerie artifacts?
Lin Xian immediately thought of the Dark Radio. So, there really were people out there trying to study and use these strange forces...
But with the factions split into three, each one had completely different ideas on how to handle it. The implications were fascinating.
KIKI frowned. "Survival Faction? If the Dawn Project represents the Survival Faction, then why the hell didn’t they let civilians into these underground cities? Most people don’t even know this project exists! They’re just struggling to stay alive. What kind of ‘survival’ is that?"
Ding Junyi remained unfazed. "From a sociological perspective, fairness doesn’t exist. Everything is about resource allocation and utilization. This isn’t a question of whether the train should run over one person or ten—it’s a question of a train that can only carry 100 people while 10,000 need a ride. The goal of the Dawn Project was to build a permanent underground city to preserve civilization. But the Apocalypse Polar Night came too suddenly. These underground cities were constructed in an extremely short time. There was no way to accommodate the entire population, so the leadership had no choice but to conduct a selective evacuation in secrecy to avoid chaos."
Lin Xian narrowed his eyes. "There’s something I’ve been wondering about. If the Dawn Project’s goal was to build a permanent underground city, a sanctuary from the Polar Night, and these citizens were handpicked, then why the hell does the energy core have a self-destruct protocol? Don’t tell me it’s just to stop underground monsters!"
KIKI suddenly realized something. She snapped her head toward Zhao Yan and Xu Wen, her gaze sharp. "You people have this kind of protocol—were you planning to lure us underground and blow us up?!"
"T-This... We don’t know anything about that!" Zhao Yan stammered in terror, turning to Ding Junyi for answers. "If Director Ding hadn’t mentioned it, we wouldn’t have even known such a protocol existed!"
Xu Wen frantically nodded. "We’re just scientists! How would we know about something like that?"
Everyone’s eyes turned to Ding Junyi.
She took a deep breath and spoke calmly. "It’s not that complicated. After the Great Migration, my P3-level clearance became the highest active authority in the system. This self-destruct protocol was originally part of the war contingency protocols set in the underground city’s management system. When I accessed the third backup core, I discovered this protocol. It’s called Project Purification."
"Project Purification?"
KIKI folded her arms, frowning. "Purification of what, exactly?"
"I mentioned earlier that the underground city categorized civilians into First-Class, Second-Class, and Third-Class tiers.
- Levels 70-80 housed Third-Class civilians—the largest and most densely populated section.
- Levels 40-60 housed Second-Class civilians.
- Levels 20-40 were reserved for First-Class civilians.
The underground city had three backup cores, but only two had self-destruct protocols—one at Level 70 and one at Level 40. The purpose of this plan was to control risks like famine and disease outbreaks."
Chen Sixuan looked utterly confused. "Famine? What does that have to do with self-destructing the core?"
"How does it not?"
Lin Xian’s expression darkened. "She means that when the underground city needed cheap labor, they’d exploit Second- and Third-Class civilians.
And when food shortages hit, they’d just seal off the lower levels and trigger the self-destruct, burying tens of thousands of people alive.
Am I right?"
Silence.
The air turned ice-cold.
Chen Sixuan and the others sharply inhaled. Even Luo Shasha's expression became grim.
"That’s... vile!"
KIKI clenched her fists, her silver teeth grinding. "Those bastards! They should’ve been the first ones fed to the zombies!"
But Ding Junyi remained expressionless.
"If you look at it from a moral standpoint, I completely agree with your anger. If I were in your position, I’d feel the same way."
She met their furious gazes without flinching.
"But as I said before—civilization is not built on fairness. From a sociological perspective, throughout history, the people who control societal resources are those who are either stronger, smarter, or luckier. Of course, some are just privileged idiots who were born into the right circumstances. But statistically speaking, those who rise to the top are the result of societal selection.
So, when a train only has 100 seats and 30 people need to be sacrificed, the ones chosen to die will always follow this structure."
She tilted her head slightly.
"Think about it this way—if you were a farmer facing a food shortage due to a plague, and you had to cull half your turkeys, would you kill the strongest, healthiest, and smartest ones?
Or would you get rid of the sickly, weak, and ordinary ones?
Or would you let the turkeys vote and choose who gets slaughtered?"
"...Turkeys?"
Luo Shasha, despite her mature demeanor, was still young. Hearing Ding Junyi’s words, her eyes reddened with anger. "But... killing so many people… isn’t that just too cruel?"
"Sigh…"
Ding Junyi exhaled, breaking the silence.
"Yes. From my personal perspective, this self-destruct protocol is indeed too cruel.
When it comes to killing our own kind, humanity always seems to display endless creativity.
It’s no different from how science is weaponized by politics."
She sounded almost self-mocking.
Inside the train car, silence fell again.
Expressions ranged from anger to fear to confusion.
"...You sound like you make a lot of sense," Lin Xian finally said, his voice low. "But you forgot something important."
Ding Junyi looked at him. "What?"
Lin Xian stood up, pointing to the darkness outside.
"Turkeys and farmers aren’t the same species.
So those Dawn Project bastards aren’t farmers either.
Because to the Polar Night and the Abyss creatures, all humans are turkeys."
His voice was cold.
"But the difference is—these turkeys..."
"Have guns."
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