WS - Chapter 108

Chapter 108

If one were to say that during the morning video call, Yao Yuxi had simply looked unwell from sleeping on a desk all night.

Then now...

"What's wrong? What's happened to you? Where are you uncomfortable? Did you call Dr. Cui to come see you?" Ye Liu typed so fast that her fingers almost left afterimages, but her gaze remained fixed on Yao Yuxi on the other end of the video, wishing she could yank her out and take a good look at her.

In the video, Yao Yuxi's face was pale, and her equally colorless lips trembled faintly.

"Ye Liu..." Yao Yuxi's eyes wavered between sharpness and losing focus, her low voice dropping each word like a shattered pearl.

After sending that message, Ye Liu, who still couldn't help typing while waiting for Yao Yuxi to speak, watched the woman's lips move slightly on the screen, and her fingers that had been tapping rapidly in midair abruptly froze.

Ye Liu, Ye Liu.

How many years had it been since Yao Yuxi called her that...

From childhood to youth, that name had been part of the most beautiful and warm years they had not looked back on for a long time.

But looking at Yao Yuxi, who now seemed dazed, a term of address that should have moved Ye Liu instead sounded more off to her.

Even though she was indoors, Ye Liu distinctly felt a cold wind slip past her collar and chill her back.

"Yao Yuxi, what the hell is going on with you! If you don't explain right now, I'm coming back!" Ye Liu's anxiety turned into one heavy keystroke after another.

Fortunately, the StarNet keyboard was also a midair virtual one; otherwise she would probably have broken several keyboards just to type that line.

"Come back." Yao Yuxi's voice was light with exhaustion, yet there was no stubborn defiance, only that after a moment's distraction, she murmured again, "Come back. I was wrong... over there, there's no point anymore."

Ye Liu's typing fingertips couldn't press down any further.

Why? Yao Yuxi had clearly valued this investigation so much, even sending her over...

But soon, Ye Liu stopped wondering.

"Wilderness Planet... was hit by a Yaoxing Storm..." Yao Yuxi's voice was very soft, but after those words, when she spoke again it was with bone-deep hatred, "The Mu Group, the Mu family, how dare they! How dare they! If... if... I'll bury their entire family with them!"

Yaoxing Storm...

When Ye Liu heard those three words, she felt dazed for a moment. But she knew very well that no matter how bad Yao Yuxi's state was currently, she wouldn't joke about something like this. On the contrary, if Wilderness Planet had experienced a Yaoxing Storm, then it would explain Yao Yuxi's current condition.

Then... the laughter that had come from the not fully closed door of the basement media room earlier...

"Wait for me, I'm coming back right away." Ye Liu didn't type; she quickly spoke in a low voice, then added, "Don't hang up."

If the situation was just as they had previously speculated, then there really was no point in Ye Liu continuing to stay.

However, Ye Liu was someone who always left herself a way out. After coming out of the bathroom, she planned to first go to the housekeeper Auntie Sun and ask for leave on the pretext of an urgent family matter before leaving.

Auntie Sun was naturally unwilling; there was so much to do in the villa, but today one servant had diarrhea so bad she couldn't get up, and now another was asking for leave.

But although Ye Liu had only been working here a few days, she was sweet-tongued and good at winning favor, and the anxiety on her face now wasn't faked.

Seeing the teeth marks on Ye Liu's lips that seemed bitten from too much tension and anxiety, and her hands that were nearly twisting the hem of her clothes into knots with knuckle-whitening force, Auntie Sun finally let her go.

Compared to just leaving directly, the few minutes spent talking to Auntie Sun only cost Ye Liu two or three minutes.

From Ye Liu's perspective at that moment, such a waste was reasonable and proper. That way, if later she needed to enter this villa again for something, it would be far more convenient than having to find a new way in.

Of course, that was only how it seemed at that moment.

Ye Liu had already turned on her own sound when she spoke in the bathroom, so Yao Yuxi should have heard all the activity on her end.

And similarly, Yao Yuxi's voice, as if talking to herself, also fell upon Ye Liu's ears.

Some sounds were soft and fragmented.

"It's all my fault..."

"Why... why did this happen..."

"I've let Aunt Yao down..."

And some sounds were low and fierce.

"Mu Group!"

"Mu Xuhong!"

"Mu Xuhao!"

"Just you wait!"

Ye Liu drove extremely fast, repeating over and over that she would arrive soon.

People outside thought that the new head of the Yao Group was young and beautiful, with a management education from a top university, sharp investment instincts, and a literary refinement many businessmen lacked, firm of mind and formidable in skill, having firmly settled into the head's position in just two years, with the board of directors and senior members all kept compliant.

But Ye Liu knew that Yao Yuxi wasn't just that.

Yao Yuxi's current mental state was very worrying, yet apart from rushing to her side as quickly as possible, Ye Liu couldn't find any reasonably effective words of comfort.

Indeed, how could she comfort her?

If it really was a Yaoxing Storm, then Wilderness Planet would be cut off for a considerably long time.

Even if the residual effects of this Yaoxing Storm were the shortest few months.

After the protective shield that The Wilderness Journey had spent huge sums building for the show failed, how could those people survive several months on a wilderness planet crawling with wild beasts?

And the earthquakes caused by the Yaoxing Storm...

Ye Liu could understand Yao Yuxi's current helplessness; apart from directing all their fury at the Mu Group, which they had previously suspected might have some small issues, there truly wasn't much more they could do in the face of a Yaoxing Storm.

A few days ago, the plants they had placed in the Mu Group sent word that the two brothers had begun thoroughly investigating the people around Mu Xingzhou. They had originally thought that with Old Master Mu in poor health, an inheritance struggle had begun within the Mu family, and the two brothers were starting to make moves. But after Ye Liu went into Mu Xuhong's villa for a few days, she found no such moves, instead first discovering the things in the basement media room.

Whether it was that coffee table full of program participant information, or the brothers' laughter in the basement media room just over ten minutes earlier—right around when Yao Yuxi spoke of the Yaoxing Storm—Ye Liu couldn't help but connect the natural disaster on Wilderness Planet to the two of them.

Yao Yuxi had always been sharp-witted, so she would naturally realize that their previous direction was wrong.

Who could have imagined that the two brothers weren't just digging up small things around Mu Xingzhou to damage his reputation, but had grown audacious enough to directly trap him on Wilderness Planet.

That was the direction Yao Yuxi and Ye Liu were speculating, but they still had no evidence in hand.

But there was one thing Ye Liu didn't quite understand.

Although the fact that Mu Xingzhou is Old Master Mu's illegitimate son was still kept well hidden, and they had only pieced it together with great effort and resources. But now that Old Master Mu isn't dead, and something like this happened to Mu Xingzhou on their own planet, in a program they themselves invested in, right at the time when Old Master Mu was hospitalized due to poor health—wouldn't even Old Master Mu suspect that his own two sons had done this? Or could it be that as long as Mu Xingzhou died, Old Master Mu, having lost one son, would protect the remaining ones?

If Ye Liu might be blunt, that would be nothing but a pipe dream.

Although Ye Liu had never been too fond of Yao Yuxi devoting so much attention this past year to that "sister" she had found, given how upset and self-reproachful Yao Yuxi was right now, Ye Liu would also do her best to make the Mu Group suffer a good dose of their own medicine.

On Mingtan Planet, Ye Liu was not the only one driving like her heart was on fire.

Without needing the Mingtan Aerospace Bureau's notification, the widely watched The Wilderness Journey livestream immediately let people from all walks of life know about the bureau's massive dereliction of duty.

Although the Yaoxing Storm on Pinggu Prime happened nearly seventy years ago, it was a tragedy everyone knew. Moreover, in the last ten to twenty years, after the hearts of those involved had gradually calmed, it was turned into various documentaries and even movies.

One had even been released just two years ago. Though its content was heavily adapted and imagined, it was a massive hit. To highlight human nature, many of its subplots were quite brutal.

Today the Mingtan System Aerospace Bureau missed reporting the Yaoxing Storm near Wilderness Planet; tomorrow, could they miss reporting one on another planet? And the day after, would it be the planet they themselves lived on?

If the Mingtan System's aerospace bureau was so incompetent, then what about aerospace bureaus in other systems? What about the one in their own system?

Were the tragedies in those movies and documentaries about to happen around them?

Compared to the grief and indignation of The Wilderness Journey's livestream viewers, those who hadn't followed the program but had merely heard that Wilderness Planet experienced an unreported Yaoxing Storm felt pure fury.

On Mingtan Prime, government, law enforcement agencies, media reporters—car after car sped toward the Aerospace Bureau, then became jammed in the nearby streets.

After leaping out of their cars and running, they were again, as expected, blocked at the Aerospace Bureau's entrance.

The Mingtan Prime Aerospace Bureau, unable to conceal the monitoring department's red alert, was forced to summon the first and second-in-command of every department for a collective brainstorming session.

Unfortunately, the alert couldn't be hidden, and the livestream even less so.

The people who came to the meeting packed the entire conference room; let alone collective brainstorming, before they could exchange more than a few words, the nearest and fastest-arriving law enforcement agency swept in and rounded them all up.

Of course, the Aerospace Bureau's daily operations still had to continue, but all external communications were cut off, and the entire bureau was taken over by fully armed Mingtan System forces, who then began searches and separate interrogations without interfering with essential work.

Just as Mingtan Prime was thrown into chaos and other systems were also in panic, Wilderness Planet slowly quieted down; the first wave of earthquakes came to an end.

And the countless beams of light that had burst from that bright spot in the sky also dissipated the moment before the earthquakes ended.

Because in the earlier intensely bright daylight, both of them had strained to keep their eyes open, their eyes could now see again, but they were still extremely sore.

Among them, Song Shiyue, who for some reason kept wanting to check on Yu Nianbing beneath her, had even sorer eyes.

The tremor against her back gradually faded; Yu Nianbing, whose body and mind had been tensed the entire time, could finally relax a little, and she couldn't help raising a hand to rub her sore, aching eyes.

But just as she rubbed, a drop of water plopped down onto her.

Yu Nianbing looked up.

"My eyes are just too sore, sorry... How are you? Get up and check, is there anywhere that got hit or pressed?" Song Shiyue said as she propped herself up, rolled to one side, forcefully pulled out the hand that had been shoved into the dirt, then used her other somewhat cleaner hand to wipe her eyes, and then fixed her gaze on Yu Nianbing.

"I'm fine..." Yu Nianbing breathed out softly, wiped the hot streak from her cheek with the back of her hand, sat up, and reached out to feel Song Shiyue's arm. "The tree earlier hit your arm, let me see."

What was it?

Even knowing it was just tears from sore eyes, it still felt so hot, so hot that it stirred an uncomfortable ache in her heart.

But the current situation didn't allow Yu Nianbing to dwell on her tiny emotions; she carefully grasped Song Shiyue's sleeve and pushed it up.

Under the torn sleeve, there was indeed some redness, looking as if it would swell and later turn into a bruise.

"It doesn't hurt, and the bone is fine. Get up and move around." Song Shiyue said, pulling back her hand from Yu Nianbing's grasp, taking a deep breath, and standing up first.

Fortunately, the two of them had moved quickly enough before the earthquake started and had just reached the edge of this small clearing.

Though there were ground fissures and falling trees causing some trouble, they had managed to avoid it all thanks to Song Shiyue's agility.

After an entire earthquake, the two of them only had their clothes a bit disheveled; Yu Nianbing had basically no injuries, and Song Shiyue only had two red spots on her arm. They were truly very lucky.

"What about your back? Is it okay?" Yu Nianbing reached out again to take off Song Shiyue's backpack.

Speaking of which, this time Yu Nianbing had come to understand just what a miser Song Shiyue could be.

Earlier, when they ran from the cave to this small clearing, Yu Nianbing had thrown off her backpack after just a few steps and urged Song Shiyue to also toss her stuff so they could move faster, but Song Shiyue hadn't responded.

Time had been so tight, and Yu Nianbing could barely catch her breath, so she naturally couldn't say more.

But looking now, Song Shiyue had carried that huge pack on her back while running and rolling, and when she had been propped over her earlier, she'd been pressed down for so long...

She really treasured food.

When she had held Yu Nianbing and rolled earlier, Song Shiyue's back had actually been painfully jabbed by the jerky, stainless-steel lunchbox, and other random things inside.

But if she honestly admitted it now, she'd definitely get a scolding, and Song Shiyue wasn't stupid.

Besides, this truly wasn't the time to stop over such a little pain.

Song Shiyue endured the discomfort and twisted her back, then shook her head. "It's fine. Now, before aftershocks come, let's go back to the cave and check."

"They... they..." Yu Nianbing also had concerns, but compared to Song Shiyue, who could hear movements over there, Yu Nianbing's concern carried a measure of fear.

"Maybe they've come out too." Song Shiyue couldn't say what she had heard, so she could only guide her like this.

Yu Nianbing was afraid.

Afraid of going over there and seeing...

More afraid of reaching there and finding nothing, not a sound from inside...

But even in fear, she was worried.

Yu Nianbing tightly grasped Song Shiyue's hand and walked quickly toward the cave.

The forest path on the way here could still be called a road, wide enough for the two of them to run. The way back was different; fallen or tilting trees plus crisscrossing ground fissures made some places impossible to step on, forcing them to detour.

The earthquake earlier had come suddenly, and they hadn't had the presence of mind to count the time. Thinking back now, it must have lasted about three or four minutes.

It hadn't been so noticeable near the small clearing, but the deeper they went into the dense woods, the more they saw the severity of this earthquake. For example, the fissure near where they had lain down, which had swallowed an entire tree, could only be considered a medium-sized one by comparison.

On this road that would normally take only a few minutes, even the first steps were hard.

Yu Nianbing's heart couldn't help but sink further.

Even though she had instinctively shouted into the cave earlier, she hadn't forgotten that when Song Shiyue had said to turn back inside the cave, the others had all been discouraging, so how could they have followed? If they hadn't turned back... they would now be deeper inside.

If the outside was like this, then inside the cave...

Yu Nianbing almost couldn't bear to think further; she could only grit her teeth and follow Song Shiyue across each fissure and over each fallen tree.

Just as Yu Nianbing was moving quickly but inwardly growing more despondent and hesitant, a black-and-white figure charged out from diagonally ahead of them.

Running, leaping, running again, a triple jump...

That figure, even faster than Song Shiyue and Yu Nianbing's earlier movements, traversed the road full of fissures and fallen trees as if on flat ground, leaving a blur in its wake.

"Woof woof..." With one final leap, Dog lifted its front legs and threw itself into Song Shiyue's arms.

This time, Song Shiyue didn't dodge aside as she had so many times before; instead, she reached out to catch Dog, gave its head a rub, and untied its muzzle and the chain dragging behind.

When they entered the cave earlier today, everyone discovered that Dog had been led by Wang Daming and was wearing a muzzle. Mu Xingzhou asked Wang Daming a few questions, and Wang Daming only said Dog was too naughty and somewhat restless today, afraid it would run wild in the cave later.

Looking back now... that must have been instinct, like the bats and fish.

"Dog came out, so they must have followed us out." The dark haze in Yu Nianbing's heart instantly dispersed; not minding at all that Dog only had eyes for Song Shiyue, she also reached out and gave its head a good rub, then added, "Let's go, let's hurry over and see."

Song Shiyue, who had been listening carefully to the sounds from the cave, didn't become as optimistic as Yu Nianbing just because Dog appeared.

Those people were very close to the exit, but they still hadn't come out, which meant they must be blocked.

And mixed in were cries of pain; quite a few must be injured.

After seeing Dog, Yu Nianbing's movements across trees and fissures quickened even more.

The rate at which strength was draining had multiplied after the Yaoxing Storm erupted, and Song Shiyue, also somewhat anxious to get there, was naturally glad to see this; she simply exerted even more force with the hand holding Yu Nianbing's, guarding her more closely.

But how had someone with such a warm heart been rumored to have such a cold face and cold demeanor?

Song Shiyue lowered her eyes, gave Yu Nianbing a strong boost as she was about to cross a fallen tree, and couldn't help but sigh softly, hoping that those people would, in the future, prove worthy of such a kind heart.

Now, while she still had the strength, Song Shiyue's original nature also inclined her toward saving people. But in Song Shiyue's heart, such rescue was not a pure act seeking nothing in return.

In the apocalypse, good people and bad people had long been difficult to clearly distinguish.

Everyone was just people who wanted to live; everyone had people they wanted to protect. When the environment deteriorated to a certain point and resources became too scarce to meet even basic survival needs.

What the former good people, former bad people, former... people would ultimately become—there had never been an accurate predictive standard for that.

Song Shiyue only hoped that this decision of hers could be the right one.

After all... right now, she probably didn't have time to find any more choices.

On Mingtan Prime, in the top-floor office of the Yao Group, Yao Yuxi was staring intently at the two side-by-side enlarged holographic screens before her.

The one on the left was a bright scene, with yellow earth and green woods interlaced yet distinct. On the screen, Song Shiyue and Yu Nianbing, who were now climbing over a fallen thick tree, had almost reached the cave area. And Dog was standing a bit further ahead on the screen, waiting for them.

The one on the right, with flashlight beams shining in all directions and intermittent groans, the people in night-vision mode looked as if they were shooting a live-action ghost film—and playing the ghosts at that.

Yao Yuxi's gaze shifted between the two screens, but at least seventy to eighty percent of the time, she was looking at the right one. Her fingertip tapped again and again on something like a virtual remote beside the screen, yet the right screen never moved even a fraction toward the person she wanted to see, as she wished.

A half-finished product was still just a half-finished product...

Even though StarNet technology had been improved many times over the years, and this batch of half-finished next-generation cameras had updated energy configurations, enhanced signals, and changed signal channels, under the ongoing effects of the Yaoxing Storm, they could only be viewed, not controlled.

Moreover, the dozen or so half-finished ones that had been mixed in among the mass of cameras—barely enough for one per person—had many of them smashed at once under the impact of the earthquake and the intensive falling debris.

This meant that now, if Yao Yuxi wanted to see that person who seemed to be lying prone at the back of the group, she could only do so through the camera feeds that had been pre-set to follow others.

Unlike Song Shiyue, who could hear some underground movement and had a clear idea of the situation.

It was only now, when Song Shiyue and Yu Nianbing were almost at the cave, that the people inside—some huddled, some lying prone—began cautiously sitting up or standing, asking each other questions, and trying to climb over the collapsed rocks ahead to continue moving toward where the cave entrance had been, not far away.

If Yao Yuxi had possessed the kind of strength Song Shiyue once had, the armrests of her chair would surely have been ground to powder long ago, rather than remaining intact while her own fingers gripped so hard they were almost white.

Besides the two enlarged screens in front, Yao Yuxi also had several more shrunken screens with the same night-vision mode floating a bit further back in the air before her.

As the people in the cave overcame their fear of the earthquake and began trying to move, Yao Yuxi quickly brought Zhuang Jiachuan's camera feed to the front, replacing Zhao Da's screen that had been right before her eyes.

In the cave, Zhuang Jiachuan, holding a flashlight in one hand and pressing the back of his head with the other, carefully hunched over, skirted around several large rocks that had fallen from somewhere, stepped across the rubble, and moved to the area further back.

As Zhuang Jiachuan drew nearer, the flashlight's beam finally fell upon the people at the back.

The moment the flashlight illuminated them and they could be clearly seen, both Zhuang Jiachuan on the screen and Yao Yuxi outside it couldn't help but suck in a cold breath.

In the very front was Ning Chuyang, sitting against the rock wall, also clutching her head and breathing in low gasps, seemingly not yet recovered. A trickle of bright red blood seeped through her hands pressed tight against her head and traced a line down her cheek.

Behind Ning Chuyang lay Ni Jinghe, curled on her side on the ground, clutching her head, her condition unknown.

Beside Ni Jinghe's feet was Feng Qianqian, collapsed on the ground, also without a sound, and horrifyingly, a massive boulder was pressing down on her legs—one that Zhuang Jiachuan could tell at a glance he could never move alone.

Zhuang Jiachuan, still in shock from the earthquake, turned his head and called out, his voice trembling.

Just as Zhuang Jiachuan cried for help, Yao Yuxi subconsciously glanced at the right screen.

Song Shiyue and the others had already reached the outside of the cave.

Please...

Yao Yuxi's tears could not be held back, streaming down.

The cave entrance was already blocked by rocks; only Song Shiyue, only Song Shiyue...

Just as Yao Yuxi was straining to grasp that single thread of hope from afar, Ye Liu, because she was passing near the Aerospace Bureau section... was stuck in traffic.

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