Chapter 704 Hope and Despair
"What do you mean?"
Yue Ji's voice echoed in the blood-red space, but it was like a stone thrown into a deep pool, unable to stir up any waves. His vision began to blur and turned into a blurry block of color.
The shadow's figure swayed like smoke, and his hand gently covered Yue Ji's forehead. This action was strangely gentle.
"You need to rest." The shadow's voice suddenly became distant, "Although it's ridiculous to talk about rest in this place..."
After the last sentence was uttered, Yue Ji’s eyes fell into darkness and he finally fell into a dream.
This whisper became the last echo in Yue Ji's consciousness. Darkness surged in like a tide, not the suffocating darkness of despair, but a deeper and more primitive nothingness.
In the moment before falling into a deep sleep, Yue Ji vaguely heard long-lost voices - Ishilin's laughter, the hum of the Stone Wing engine, and even the distant thunder on a rainy night on Earth. These fragments of memory flashed by like a revolving lantern, and finally melted into the endless darkness.
The black shadow stared at Yue Ji who was in deep sleep, and his misty body trembled slightly.
"You guys, make your own decisions."
In the cage under the huge pit, several other people nodded.
The black shadow continued to sigh.
"All of us here look up at the sun, dreaming of crawling to freedom, so simple... so easy, like a shipwreck survivor thirsting for water.
Many people died trying, and even if they managed to climb out, they would be more desperate and less motivated.”
In the darkness, no one crawled down into the giant pit and tried to look up at the terrifying moon.
"Here, we understand that without hope there is no real despair, so when everything in his world is raging, hope will poison his soul and torture Yue Ji over and over again.
If he doesn't want to live, let him become part of the sea of blood and corpses. If he still wants to live, let him climb into the huge pit himself."
Looking at Yue Ji, the black shadow continued.
"Everyone will think they can survive. Countless people will fight because of you, and countless people will hate you. You will see the people you protect killing each other in order to survive.
When everything is done, you can return with peace of mind, close your eyes in this area, and become one of the essential pain. You will close your bloody eyes comfortably, and the pain in your heart will be swept away and finally turned into nothingness. "
"You mean, he's special?"
“Heh… Among those who came here, how many chose to go back to their own world after crawling out? Most of them were already broken. No matter which choice they made, it was the right one.”
……
The search and rescue in Japan is still going on...
An international conference was in turmoil, many weapons were unlocked and new laws were issued.
The impact of Nexus spread across the globe, causing a drastic change in the world structure. Even the stable country of China was greatly affected.
The atmosphere at the UN Security Council emergency meeting was as still as lead. The representative of the Free State slammed the table and demanded the immediate activation of the Third Amendment to the Space Weapons Limitation Agreement. The screen behind him was playing the scene of Nexus destroying the Day State in a loop.
The Russian representative interrupted with a sneer: "Talking about development now? You have monopolized the technology again and only want to preserve your own country."
The real-time translation system in the conference room was briefly stuck, and the roars and protests of representatives from various countries switched frantically between seven languages.
In the underground command center of a military base in western China, the red warning area on the strategic sand table continues to expand.
The satellite cloud map shown by the Minister of Defense at the top-secret meeting was shocking: the ionospheric anomaly caused by Nexus forced three domestic space launch sites to suspend their missions, and the Beidou navigation system experienced signal disorder that lasted for 3 minutes.
Economic data simultaneously flashed red lights - the cancellation rate of foreign trade orders surged by 32%, and the prices of strategic materials in the international market doubled in an instant.
"The imports from Japan are now cut off, and Taiwan..."
Financial analysts stayed up all night staring at the jumping stock market curve.
Yueying piled up her textbooks into a barrier, but it couldn't block out the harsh complaints from the girls in the back row. Her pink-manicured fingers slammed heavily on the desk, making her ears buzz.
"I'm so pissed! The graduation trip to Japan that was originally planned has been canceled, and the latest peripherals are out of stock! That idiot Ultraman, does he have a brain?"
"That's right! Even Japanese food restaurants are raising their prices now, and the pocket money my dad gives me is not enough!" Another girl threw her phone on the table, the screen still stuck on a complaining post on Xiaohongshu, "If I had known earlier, I shouldn't have admired Qian Shulian, they are all trash who only know how to cause trouble!"
The rustling sound of footsteps interrupted the quarrel. A boy in an old school uniform passed by with a workbook in his arms. His eyes lingered on Yueying's hand that was tightly grasping the corner of her clothes for a moment, then quickly turned to the excited girl.
"Maybe things are not that simple... I had a dream. It seemed that Ultraman had been protecting us before this. Nexus would not choose to disgust humans now, right?"
"Save? Did I save your whole family?" The girl with pink nail polish stood up suddenly, and the chair made a harsh sound on the ground, "My star-chasing schedule, my new JK uniform, and the import and export company my dad invested in are all ruined!
Prices are going through the roof, and this is what you call 'salvation'?"
She grabbed the mineral water bottle on the table and smashed it into the trash can. "Don't try to fool me with your moral principles. If you have the ability, help me make back the money I lost!"
The boy took a half step back: "Rising prices are a market rule..."
"Stop pretending to be wise!"
Another girl sneered, her fingertips rapidly tapping the screen of her phone, "You are such a poor guy that you even pay for dinner on a date, and you still have the nerve to teach others how to make money? I suggest you look in the mirror first and see how ridiculous you are."
Yueying looked out the window at the gloomy sky, and the glass curtain wall of the office building in the distance reflected the leaden clouds. The aftermath of the Nexus incident was tearing off the mask of people's lives in the most brutal way, exposing the fragility and selfishness hidden under the exquisite life.
"What is it... I've been having so much trouble lately."
Yueying stretched lazily, her soft long curly hair draped over her back. She looked at the gloomy sky outside the window and couldn't help murmuring.
"I feel so tired...I've been having acne lately...I'm so depressed."
……
After lying on the steel plate and drinking a sip of water tremblingly, Yue Ji heard someone speaking a language he was not familiar with.
A middle-aged and elderly person who was nearby responded: "He asked you how much food you were willing to pay for us to kill you. I told him you had nothing left, you were just a newcomer."
"You can kill me for fun..."
Yue Ji said it with difficulty, but the middle-aged and elderly people beside him laughed.
"They paid me more food to keep you alive, and made you feel every second of the unbearable pain that no human being could endure."