The Meteor Hammer was ineffective, and the Mechanical arm fell back into silence. Hearing the call, the anxious Little Red Riding Hood stepped out, crossing the threshold of the villa, "Mr. Ant, where are you?"
The conversation between the two could be heard through the fog. Jin Huixing clenched her teeth and rushed out of the house toward the dense fog.
At the end of the fog was a black metallic door, two meters high, with a rotating wheel and hinges, similar to the watertight doors of a submarine.
"The first to be eliminated, Irfan, and even Harley, didn’t die. They were taken away."
Li Cheng tapped the metallic door with his knuckles; it produced a dull and hollow sound. He clenched his fist to reduce the range of the Fog Concealment Skill, turned around and walked to the edge of the fog, looking back at the villa and said to the mechanical arm still there, "And if it weren’t for Annie, Leonardo and their reckless actions, even by the end of the reality show, no one would really have to die. Am I right?"
"..." The broadcast narration fell into silence, uttering not a word.
"Playing the aloof card huh?" Li Cheng curled his lip and took out a detonator, "This device can set off the IEDs planted inside the villa, blowing up the remaining structure. Even with the technological level of the current wasteland civilization, reconstructing a 21st-century aesthetic villa would take considerable effort."
The broadcast shivered slightly, and a calm narrating voice came from it, "...what do you want."
"An eighty square meter cozy home, a gentle and good wife, children who can go to college smoothly, and a good job after graduation..."
Upon hearing the broadcast’s question, Li Cheng started singing subconsciously, then caught himself realizing the inappropriateness of the situation, and with an embarrassed cough amid the confused expressions of Little Red Riding Hood and Jin Huixing, he said seriously, "I have only two demands. One, tell me what’s beyond this sealed door.
Two, let me see what your so-called new humanity looks like."
Time slowly trickled away, the atmosphere was oppressive as if in an ice cellar, and finally, the Mechanical arm moved, holding out a television screen from the villa, from which the broadcast voice said, "Outside the door lies only misfortune and tragedy, once you open that door, it means you can never go back.
On the contrary, if you continue to stay in the villa, you can still live a happy and peaceful life as Ordinary people."
Li Cheng grinned, "Hah? Raising us in captivity, is this the ’mysterious gift’ the show team speaks of?"
Jin Huixing’s heart stirred, the mission’s goal this time was merely to abide by the game rules, to survive until the end, and according to the broadcast, they could successfully complete the mission.
She covertly tugged Li Cheng’s sleeve in a corner where the camera couldn’t capture, but he took two steps back, returned to the watertight door, leaned on it and said lightly, "I don’t think that beyond the door there will be an ocean floor with enormous underwater pressure, nor do I believe outside is a desolate wasteland with radiation levels off the charts and mutated creatures roaming.
Just like I don’t believe, you are human."
Li Cheng’s tone was calm, not accusing the show team of inhumane actions, it sounded more like stating a fact.
"..." The broadcasting voice became silent once again.
"Don’t want to talk, is that it?"
Li Cheng smiled, turned his head to Little Red Riding Hood, "Do you remember the background of this reality show?"
Little Red Riding Hood tilted her head, trying to recall, "[In 2077, the increasing depletion of oil resources triggered a great war, thousands of nuclear bombs crisscrossing through the atmosphere, planting artificial suns, radiation clouds covering the sky, humanity heading towards its doom]
[A genius scientist emerged, solving all problems except for the mutated humans, pulling the decaying civilization of Earth back on track, revered by all tribes and city-states of the wasteland as the Messiah and the savior. Order was reestablished, cities rejuvenated, space bases even built starships, embarking on the plan to explore outer space colonization]
[The only conundrum, was, how to continue human civilization...]
[That is, the wasteland romance reality show live broadcast reality show]"
"Very complete, but incorrect," Li Cheng smiled and corrected, "The last line, it’s the broadcast system."
"?!" Little Red Riding Hood thought about it, astonished, "The broadcast background music took over the briefing?"
"That’s right, such a setup is meant to make us misunderstand."
In the Script Tasks, only the briefings are absolutely true. Li Cheng said, "Recognizing this, we can come up with a rather delicate answer."
Little Red Riding Hood was still pondering, but Jin Huixing realized, her eyes widening.
"According to conventional understanding, in order to continue human civilization, thus a wasteland romance reality show is organized, to establish love role models for the young men and women of the wasteland, to boost marriage rates, fertility rates.
But the evidence has shown, new and old humans are entirely different species, gathering the Old Humanity to film romance shows for New Humanity to watch, is as absurd as trying to maintain marriage rates by increasing the threshold for divorce.
Unless... the meaning of this statement is really just its literal meaning. It requires us, the participants in the reality show, to continue [human civilization]"
He emphasized the last four words deliberately, and even as slow as Little Red Riding Hood realized something, "We are human civilization?!"
"Precisely, we are the pre-human civilization." Li Cheng whistled, grinning as he watched the distant television screen.
The screen lit up, no longer showing advertisements, but a... cat-girl’s face.
It possessed a humanoid skull shape, with larger and rounder eye sockets compared to humans, vertical green pupils, a pair of normal human ears, and another pair of beast ears poking out from the hair.
The surface of the cheeks was covered with a layer of light gray fluff, the mouth split into three lobes, with whiskers on both sides. The latest_epɪ_sodes are on_the NoveI(F)ire.net