Era-Of-Disaster - Chapter 215
Chapter 215: True Freedom
‘Pa!’
Bai Yi’s white piece landed, and due to the special energy in his body being too agitated, the stone chessboard beneath it instantly broke into pieces.
Everyone else looked at Bai Yi in shock, not knowing what the hell he was doing. He couldn’t take the loss and just decided to ruin the chessboard? That was going a bit too far; a person wouldn’t be of such low standard no matter what, right? However, at this time, Bai Yi calmed his breathing down and looked at Old Qin.
“Expert?” Bai Yi was really quite curious.
“What?”
“I saw an illusion; it was not done by you?”
“Illusion?” Old Qin seemed to be very stunned as well. He shook his head and explained seriously, “I did want to tell you something through a game of Go, but I didn’t create any illusion.”
“Tell me what?”
“I know you are Bai Yi, it’s just that I have never truly met you before. Since we had the fate to meet this time, I wanted to tell you about the circumstances surrounding the evolved humans and this autonomous region. In reality, this place is just a bigger cage, so I wanted to use the game of Go to simulate the circumstances of this vague prison,” Old Qin said.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because only you can break the situation we are in now.”
“You are really overestimating me.” Bai Yi smiled faintly, shaking his head as he stood up and left the place. “I will think about this seriously.” He continued walking as his expression became serious. Was it really just a coincidence? He happened to be thinking about this issue himself, then he suddenly met this Old Qin who wanted to tell him something regarding the same issue, and happened to see an illusion after that? However, it probably was; anyway, Bai Yi didn’t really believe that this old man really had the ability to induce and bring out the emotions of others.
Bai Yi left just like that, leaving the rest of them staring at each other in dismay. Bai Yi had said that he had seen an illusion; wasn’t that too ridiculous?
…
Bai Yi started to ponder over this issue on his way. In the period of time before, he had always felt that life in Tasmania was a bit strange, it was just that he couldn’t put a finger on exactly what about it was off. However, after the strange game of Go today, he finally understood what it was—a cage, huh!
The evolved humans seemed to be living well here, but in reality, they were still segregated from the outside world. This kind of segregation wasn’t obvious; after all, Tasmania was just like a small country now. Many people in the world only lived in a single city for all their lives and never left the area, so they didn’t feel this kind of segregation deeply. However, this invisible cage did indeed exist. They were just like pets being reared in an enclosure by the United Nations, and they were all none the wiser to it.
When Bai Yi came back, Momo and Alodia had already returned from school. Bai Yi waved to Alodia and asked her to gather the rest to hold a small banquet. Not many people were invited, just those few in Bai Yi’s team. Other than Bai Yi, the rest of them all had their own jobs nearby. Tasmania was very safe, and they couldn’t possibly stay together as a team all the time now.
Very quickly, Betsy was the first to arrive. How could they lack the head chef to prepare for the banquet?
Not long after, the banquet was prepared and the ten plus people in the team sat together in the courtyard. Only one and a half months had passed in reality, but everybody felt like a long time had passed, and they were all chatting very happily.
“There was a small test in school today,” Alodia said to Bai Yi.
“Oh?”
“Momo, really?” Bai Yi heard Alodia’s words and immediately looked at Momo. Momo, who was initially launching her attack on the red-braised pork, immediately stiffened and revealed a shy smile. Bai Yi knew with just a look that this little idiot had definitely screwed up on the test.
“How many marks did you get?”
“57 marks, daddy!” Momo immediately jumped toward Bai Yi, preparing to whine and act cute to him. The rest of them to the side immediately started to laugh; they all knew about Momo’s dislike for studying, but to think that she only got 57 marks on the test… Chinchilla even seemed to be overjoyed, as if it was celebrating some joyous occasion.
“Only 57 marks? You are really pitifully dumb; Sharpei and Pupu are definitely smarter than you now,” Bai Yi said.
Sharpei and Pupu heard Bai Yi’s words and immediately shivered, quietly hiding themselves to the side afterward. Sure enough, Momo immediately glared at Sharpei and Pupu after hearing her daddy’s words, and the two of them immediately felt the threat in her eyes. The two of you are good, huh? You actually dare to be smarter than me.
Bai Yi didn’t really blame Momo but just laughed; she was really quite dumb. Actually, Bai Yi wasn’t too strict about her grades; this wasn’t a kind of exam-oriented education like that of China’s education system. Momo had already done very well in other areas, it was just that when it came to studying, she simply couldn’t do it.
“Daddy!” Momo was slightly unhappy now.
Woolf raised a big thumb to Momo. “It’s fine, I’m also an idiot!” Momo immediately rolled her eyes at him; who wanted to be an idiot like Uncle Woolf?
“But actually, the intelligence of Sharpei and Pupu is already comparable to a normal human; why aren’t there any changes in us?” Romain asked.
“Ah, this; it’s human-like intelligence!” Bai Yi heard and explained.
“Human-like intelligence?”
“Undoubtedly, the increased intelligence of Sharpei, Pupu, and other evolved lifeforms is due to the influence of activated cells. Activated cells came from the Progenitor, and the Progenitor was a human. This kind of increase in intelligence brings the intelligence of other lifeforms to the level of a normal human; that is human-like intelligence,” Bai Yi explained in detail.
“Hence, even though there are a lot of evolved humans, the direction of our evolution is just in our physical bodies, and there isn’t anybody who became ridiculously intelligent,” Betsy added.
Bai Yi nodded. “That’s right, that’s how it is!”
“Actually, the purpose of gathering everybody again is not just for a simple dinner.” Bai Yi delved into the main topic after he finished speaking. The rest of them immediately focused their attention as well when they heard Bai Yi saying all this.
“How do you guys feel about this period of time living in Tasmania?”
“How do we feel about living in Tasmania?” Everybody felt quite puzzled.
Betsy shook her head. “It’s OK; our jobs here are all quite easy and safe, it’s just that the resources available here are lacking a lot in comparison to the Devil Isles. I don’t have much interest toward normal ingredients now, and always feel very lazy recently. I don’t even feel like cooking nowadays.”
Nancy said, “The research facility I’m at now is the same, there’s nothing new. They keep wasting time on some plants or animals that we had understood long ago. The good thing is that there’s nothing we lack here; everything is prepared nicely for us, but there’s always a lack of motivation to do things.”
“I don’t feel much either; that so-called job is actually completely unnecessary. I get wages if I work, but I can get food to eat even if I don’t work too. It feels like, feels like…” Woolf scratched his head, not knowing how to describe this.
“Pets getting reared in an enclosure!” Bai Yi helped Woolf to complete his sentence.
“Right! Just like being somebody’s pet!” Woolf immediately said loudly. The rest of them immediately got a shock when they heard his words, and they all fell into deep thought. After a long while, all of them looked at Bai Yi seriously again.
“This isn’t the freedom we wanted!” Bai Yi added on, following Woolf’s words.
That’s right, this wasn’t the freedom they wanted. On the surface, this was an autonomous region that was as big as a small country; the place was really huge, but in reality, it was just a bigger prison. There wasn’t much danger here; all of them had come from the Devil Isles so the plants and animals that had just started evolving here were completely trivial to them. They weren’t lacking in resources either; anything that they needed, the United Nations would provide to them, but what was the difference between this and being reared like pets? Communications were sealed, so Tasmania still couldn’t communicate with the outside world. Even though it was an autonomous region, this wasn’t the kind of freedom they wanted.
“Bai Yi, what are you thinking of doing?”
“True freedom—integrating into the human world without any obstructions,” Bai Yi said.
“How do we do that?”
“Regain our human form and appearances!”
“Regaining our human form and appearances… that’s very difficult. Lucretia and the others established a research facility to study this, but nobody knows when the research will bear fruit. Don’t tell me you want us to set up a research facility as well? But that will definitely attract the attention of the United Nations.”
“Doctor Wang!” Bai Yi said a name.
A jolt immediately went through their minds. They had heard this name for the first time from Yeye; he had been the highest researcher in charge of Tongariro National Park Research Facility. At that time, they had also found the Prototy original form drug in that research facility. If they had this person, then it was indeed very likely that he would be able to develop a drug that could help everybody regain their human form.
“How do we do this? We must definitely inform the United Nations if we want to leave; what if they don’t agree to it?”
“They will; there shouldn’t be much influence if just a few people leave. Furthermore, we aren’t going to other countries, but to the Devil Isles. If we find Doctor Wang, it would be beneficial to everybody.”
“Alodia, go and inform Lucretia and the rest about this matter; say that I want to discuss some things with them. Romain, you are proficient with electronics, right? Help Yeye design an independent electrical system that can be moved around, or else she would probably throw a fit again,” Bai Yi instructed.
“What about us?” Woolf and a few others asked.
“You guys don’t have much to do now; just wait,” Bai Yi said.
…
Everybody immediately started moving, and Lucretia and the others immediately got a shock when they heard that Bai Yi’s team wanted to go back to the Devil Isles. Bai Yi, this guy, did he have a stroke or something? It was so difficult to leave the Devil Isles in the first place, now he wanted to go back again? However, after hearing Bai Yi’s explanation, all of them immediately understood—true freedom, huh
