Pei Ran ignored the others, walked straight over, grabbed Hazi by his turned-up sweater collar, and with a swift tug and flip, slammed him against the wall.
Then she seized his hair and smashed his head violently into the mine tunnel wall.
Blood gushed from Hazi’s forehead.
Yet he stubbornly endured it, not making a sound.
Pei Ran didn’t let go. Gripping the hair at the back of his head, she smashed him against the wall again, even harder this time.
The impact was louder than before—thud—as Hazi’s head hit the wall.
The blow left him dizzy, half-dead, his face covered in blood.
He no longer cared whether Pei Ran was wearing a Black Well uniform. He struggled desperately, fighting back.
Seeing Hazi resist, the few men with him exchanged glances and cautiously stepped forward. One of them, the fastest, rushed up, trying to pull Pei Ran’s arm away from Hazi.
Without loosening her grip, Pei Ran kicked him in the ribs.
His ribs cracked. With a muffled groan, he flew backward, crashing into his companions.
Bang—
Three more down in an instant.
The others in the mine tunnel had always feared Hazi’s gang, keeping their bunks far away and leaving a large empty space—perfect for them to sprawl across the ground now.
With people dropping dead one after another, Hazi finally realized the person behind him intended to kill them all. But the hand pinning him down was impossibly strong; there was no breaking free.
Uninterrupted now, Pei Ran continued smashing his head into the wall, over and over.
She seemed to be patiently performing some simple, repetitive task—only the force behind each impact grew stronger than the last.
The sound of skull caving in, bones cracking.
Hazi finally couldn’t take it anymore and let out a pained groan.
Having achieved her goal, Pei Ran released him and stepped back.
Hazi struggled to turn around, his hand flailing in the air as if trying to grab her in his final moments, to drag her down with him.
But the blood streaming down his forehead blurred his vision, leaving only a red haze. He grasped at nothing.
Bang.
The “strong” in the mine tunnel’s law of the jungle—just like that—was no more.
Pei Ran swept her gaze around.
Counting Hazi, there had been six people gathered here earlier. Now only five had been killed—one man in a short down jacket was missing.
Just as she was thinking this, she saw the man in the down jacket rounding the corner of the mine shaft, heading toward her.
His head was down, lost in thought about who knows what. When he got closer and suddenly saw the splatter of blood on the ground, he froze for a moment, then finally stopped and looked up.
Pei Ran didn’t wait for him to react. She lunged forward.
His whole crew had just exploded, but Down Jacket didn’t run. Instead, he instantly dropped into a boxing stance on the spot, fists raised—one forward, one back.
Pei Ran’s sharp eyes immediately caught a faint green glow shining through the knuckles of his clenched right fist.
Turns out this one had something on him.
Down Jacket threw a punch.
The fist hadn’t even arrived yet, but the gust of wind came first. It was as if a powerful wave of invisible air surrounded his punch, roaring as it flew toward Pei Ran’s head with tremendous force.
Pei Ran had been watching all sorts of art tutorials lately, and she couldn’t help but think—if she were to draw this punch, she’d definitely use exaggerated perspective. A massive fist in the foreground, the body shrunken in the back—that’s how you’d create a sense of dynamic motion and impact. It would look amazing.
While her mind wandered, her mechanical hand was already moving.
The force of that punch was immense—the wind whooshed with momentum—but it came straight on, lacking finesse or technique.
Pei Ran slipped past it like a ghost, grabbing his elbow joint mid-motion, and with a sharp twist against the direction of the strike, she instantly retreated.
A scream rang out.
Another one who couldn’t hold back the pain.
They’d used this method to kill others—Pei Ran had thought they must be tough, with incredible endurance. Turns out… not really.
Down Jacket exploded.
Along with a blast of shredded flesh and bone came a flurry of white down feathers flying through the air.
Among the drifting feathers, a tiny point of green light was hidden. Pei Ran calmly reached out and caught it.
The green light sank into her body.
Green Light No. 1, surprisingly, was still awake—roaming inside her. The moment it bumped into this fresh “takeout,” it was like joy from heaven descended. Probably afraid Pei Ran would hold it back again, it didn’t even hesitate half a second—it just gulped the package down in one bite.
Pei Ran: ???
Pei Ran: You didn’t even let me try out the exaggerated-perspective power punch—and you just ate it??
So this bit of green light was, once again, a collapse-state it could consume.
This was the first time Green Light No. 1 had devoured a corrupted light point, and its reaction was completely different from usual. It swayed unsteadily, as if drunk, and immediately went to sleep.
Pei Ran could sense that it had swallowed hastily and was now overly full.
Eating a single corrupted light point seemed equivalent to gulping down multiple frenzied light points at once. Apparently, corrupted green light was higher-quality food.
Pei Ran still had two corrupted green light points taken from Lu Ming and Ueno Toru. The next time it got hungry, she could try feeding them to it.
Countless feathers drifted down, sticking to the bloody flesh flowers on the ground.
Pei Ran had just killed several people in one go—yet, technically, she hadn’t killed a single one. They had all died on their own.
Only then did W speak up in her ear: “The mining zone keeps drawing in more people. There will always be more like them—you can’t kill them all.”
“Yeah,” Pei Ran said. “But one less is still one less.”
W thought to himself: She’s like the boy in the story throwing starfish back into the ocean. She’s just tossing human trash into the eighteenth layer of hell. One less piece of garbage at a time.
Pei Ran walked over to the corner where Hazi and his gang had stored their belongings.
It was like a supply depot—piles of bread, stacks of warm clothing, blankets, and other essentials.
Pei Ran picked up the stockpiled bread and casually distributed it to the people nearby.
With Hazi’s gang dead, the refugees no longer hesitated. They quickly accepted the bread, nodding gratefully at Pei Ran.
Then came the clothes and supplies. Pei Ran sorted through them one by one, letting the refugees identify and claim their own belongings.
The mountain of clothing gradually shrank. As Pei Ran lifted a crumpled blanket, she suddenly spotted a corner of brown-yellow checkered fabric beneath it.
The color and pattern were familiar.
The mechanical spider saw it too. “That’s the coat Kuchi was wearing when she entered the mining zone.”
“And the backpack,” Pei Ran said.
The backpack lay beneath the coat.
Not finding Kuchi in the mining zone, yet seeing her coat and backpack here—combined with the fact that she had been severely injured when she arrived—it was almost certain that she hadn’t survived.
The others kept their distance. Pei Ran pretended to still be sorting through the pile, using her body and the blanket as cover as she quickly searched the coat and backpack.
The coat pockets were empty. The backpack, too, held almost nothing—just a few scattered daily necessities and a water bottle.
Pei Ran set down her own backpack and quietly stuffed Kuchi’s coat and bag inside.
There was no time for a thorough search now. She could examine them more carefully later.
If there was nothing in the coat or backpack, then whatever was related to File No. 10 might still be on the body.
But this area was under Ai Xia’s jurisdiction. Pei Ran silently said to W: “I need to ask Ai Xia if she’s seen this Kuchi—and if she had any contact with others.”
Just as she was speaking, Ai Xia returned, carrying an empty bread crate.
When she saw the splattered bloodstains on the ground, she wasn’t particularly surprised—more deaths were expected. But when she noticed Pei Ran rummaging through Hazi’s gang’s stash, their hoarded supplies already half-distributed, she was startled.
Ai Xia hurried over and signed with her fingers: [You killed all of them?]
Pei Ran looked innocent: [No, they exploded on their own.]
Ai Xia tapped her fingers emphatically: [Nonsense. It had to be you. They weren’t firecrackers—they couldn’t just blow up on their own. Those bastards should’ve died long ago.]
She joined in distributing the supplies. Seizing the opportunity, Pei Ran opened her wrist display, shrinking the virtual screen to half a palm’s size, and showed Ai Xia the photo of Kuchi.
[Have you seen this person before?]
Ai Xia immediately nodded. [Yes. She was a good person. But her injuries were too severe. She held on until yesterday… but in the end, she didn’t make it.]
So Ai Xia had seen Kuchi—and Kuchi really was dead. Just one day too late.
Suddenly, Ai Xia unbuttoned her uniform jacket and pulled something from an inner pocket, discreetly showing it to Pei Ran.
[Look. Before she died, she grabbed my arm and insisted I take this.]
It was a half-finger-width metallic wristband, gleaming silver.
Pei Ran asked immediately: [Can you give it to me?]
[Of course.]
Ai Xia handed the wristband over without hesitation.
She gathered an armful of clothes to distribute but didn’t leave just yet. Instead, she leaned closer to Pei Ran, balancing the clothes in one arm as she signed with her freed hand:
[You were looking for this wristband when you asked about her, weren’t you?]
Clever Ai Xia.
Pei Ran felt a little awkward: [Yes.]
Ai Xia tapped her fingers: [I knew it. This must be something really important. When she gave it to me, she was already on the verge of death—desperate. The moment I put it on, she stopped breathing.]
[While bandaging her, I noticed her body looked more like a girl’s. Her face also seemed… unnatural, like she’d altered it on purpose to make herself uglier.]
Ai Xia “said”: [So I didn’t want anyone else to see this wristband. I took it off and kept it hidden in my inner pocket.]
Her expression turned serious as she looked at Pei Ran.
[In times like these, a secret someone insists on passing on with their dying breath… it’s bound to be trouble. Pei Ran, be careful.]
Pei Ran nodded.
Pei Ran tucked the wristband into her chest pocket, letting the mechanical spider study it slowly, while she picked up another pile of clothes and blankets to continue distributing.
W was also busy: “The wristband has a specialized micro-storage device embedded in it. I’ve isolated it and tried extracting the contents, but it’s encrypted—no access yet. I’ll find a way to crack it.”
At least the item had been found. No need to dig through the crematorium for corpses now.
Pei Ran quickly finished handing out the last of Hazi’s hoarded supplies, then pushed a water cart with Ai Xia along the tunnel, refilling everyone’s bottles.
While they worked, hurried footsteps suddenly came from the direction of the entrance.
Several armed soldiers approached—not the usual gate guards.
Clap—clap—clap—
They slapped their hands sharply, waiting until everyone in the area was looking before enlarging a virtual screen.
Displayed on it was a set of promotional images.
Multiple panels showed different groups of people entering Black Well’s gates: families with children, pregnant women and their husbands, young couples holding hands.
Some family members had bandages or walked with canes; others were already wrinkled and gray-haired—yet all were permitted entry.
Pei Ran immediately asked W internally: “What does this mean?”
W replied: “A resolution passed by the Provisional Decision Committee at noon today. Any family with children or pregnant members—all relatives are granted unconditional entry into Black Well.”
That was good. Families wouldn’t have to be torn apart anymore.
W continued: “Additionally, couples under 35 who sign an agreement to conceive within a year can bypass all other screening criteria. Even severe injuries, disabilities, or criminal records won’t disqualify them.”
Pei Ran fell silent.
The Provisional Committee was planning for Black Well’s next generation.
The illustrations were clear, and people quickly understood. Families with children stood up immediately.
The soldiers scanned their irises, registered them, and instructed them to wait before moving deeper into the tunnels to spread the notice.
The new policy sent ripples through the quiet mining zone.
People huddled together, gesturing frantically, trying to communicate through whatever means they could.
Pei Ran said, “If families with children can all enter, could there be loopholes in defining ‘family members’?”
W answered: “Only legally recognized relationships count. Kinship ties are verified against the civil database—last-minute adoptions won’t work.”
The doctor returned after lunch and called Ai Xia over to assist. Pei Ran followed to help as well, bandaging wounds and changing dressings. They worked for a long time before the armed soldiers finally returned from the depths of the mining tunnel, leading a large group of people behind them.
People supported their elders and carried their children, following the soldiers with hopeful eyes.
Pei Ran noticed that Ayimu, to her surprise, was also standing—supported by someone.
The one holding her up was a pale, gaunt young man who had been resting not far from her bunk. He looked to be in his twenties, about Ayimu’s age, with a limp that made his steps unsteady.
This man and Ayimu had never been close. When Ayimu was being harassed earlier, he hadn’t reacted or come to her aid.
Yet now, these two young strangers—who had acted like they didn’t know each other just ten minutes ago—were leaning on one another as they approached the soldiers to register.
Beside Pei Ran, Ai Xia froze, even forgetting to hand over the gauze.
Pei Ran kept watching.
She asked W silently: “Does the reproduction policy apply to unmarried couples too?”
W answered: “Yes. As long as they sign the agreement.”
In that case, anyone could form a temporary couple. If they agreed to conceive within a year, they could enter Black Well.
It was a desperate measure.
Staying in the mining zone meant scarce medicine and no guarantee of surviving the week. But inside Black Well, they’d have better medical care.
The cost? They had to reproduce.
Childbearing had become a ticket to survival.
To enter Black Well—to live—they had to bear children with complete strangers. It sounded like something out of a horror story.
Black Well might seem safe for now, but no one knew how long that safety would last.
If its protection ever failed, in this silent apocalypse, being pregnant or carrying a newborn would be suicide.
Others, taking inspiration from Ayimu and the young man, suddenly caught on. Injured young men and women began tentatively gesturing to one another, negotiating in hushed signs.
Pei Ran looked away, refusing to watch any longer.
W asked: “If it were you… what would you choose?”