Tan Xin deeply gazed at her once, not saying anything more, but instead directly walking towards the fourth floor. At the same time, the red-haired woman walked towards outside the passage, walking towards the upper floors. The figures of the two staggered past each other.
Tan Xin arrived at the intersection of the fourth floor. He took a glance at the right side that was already completely empty, that was the location of Laboratory Zero...
Then, he turned around walking towards the left side.
After passing through a gloomy road leading underground, Tan Xin ultimately stood in front of a heavy metal door. He inputted a string of secret orders, pushing the door walking into it.
Behind the door was a closed underground space. Gray load-bearing columns without the slightest decoration stood within it. Inside this dull roughcast room, a figure was currently holding a ping pong paddle, constantly patting towards the wall surface.
"Leader." Tan Xin calmly spoke.
"You've come?"
The Leader took a glance at him. Exactly this brief distraction, the ping pong paddle missed the falling ping pong ball, the latter dinging and clanking falling on the ground.
"The matters outside, I already know." The Leader on one side picked up the ball, while slowly speaking, "The Cold Disaster caused heavy losses inside the Aurora City. Some souls have already drifted out from their bodies, gradually dissipating... The souls available for Lord of the Aurora to absorb are currently becoming fewer and fewer. The 'Reappearance' plan must be initiated as soon as possible, otherwise the success rate will only be lower."
"Oh?"
Tan Xin took a deep breath. "I don't agree with the 'Reappearance' plan."
The Leader's movements slightly paused. He looked at Tan Xin slightly astonishingly, his voice still peaceful. "Why?"
"Lost is lost." Tan Xin spoke in a deep voice. "These three hundred odd years, the Aurora Base almost hasn't obtained any results. The proposal of the 'Reappearance' plan, also doesn't have any possibility of success... We failed to find a way out for humanity, and also failed to maintain the Aurora Domain. We are failures."
"So what?"
"Failure, then one should stop losses in time. I think the 'Reappearance' plan completely doesn't have the necessity of implementation. It is merely a fig leaf for the Aurora Base to cover up its own failure, nothing more."
The Leader watched him for a long time, sighing a long breath. "So, you still haven't given up the 'Hand of Salvation' plan."
"At least, it can let the three million odd people of the Aurora City 'live'. The Aurora Domain won't thoroughly disappear... The matters we cannot accomplish, perhaps other Realms can accomplish. If they found a method to retrieve everything, at least the Aurora City still has the possibility of reappearing... But if executing the 'Reappearance' plan fails now, we then have nothing."
The Leader didn't answer. He silently walked to the wall side of the room, looking at that snowscape outside the window drawn on with colored chalk, slowly speaking:
"Tan Xin, do you still remember... how I taught you back in the day?"
"Human destiny, is forever placed above all individuals."
"Among that batch of children back in the day, your personality was the most decisive, the most coldly resolute... Everyone thought you were the best seed, but I was very clear in my heart, your inner heart was softer than anyone." The Leader turned his head looking at him. "I originally thought you growing up becoming this Deputy Director-General, could have some progress. Looking at it now... you are still the same as when you were small.
You act on emotions too much."
"I have never acted on emotions, I know what I am doing... it is you who cannot accept the failure of the Aurora Base, it is your method that has become extreme."
"What Lord of the Aurora means, you should be clearer than me. Only if he lives can the Aurora Domain have the possibility of reappearing. Only then can we continue to research him, finding the hope of humanity turning the tables from his body... What he represents, is exactly the future of humanity!
Standing on the stance of humanity, as long as it can let him live on, no matter how many people are sacrificed it is all worth it. Even if the probability of success is even more slim...
But you... you actually want to sacrifice Lord of the Aurora?"
"We spent three hundred years and haven't obtained any results from him. Even if given another three hundred years, three thousand years! Waiting until technology returns to the Stone Age, could it be we can then have a harvest? No, we will harvest absolutely nothing!" Tan Xin took a deep breath, speaking word by word,
"Lord of the Aurora is not the future of humanity, all humans are."
The Leader gazed at Tan Xin, Tan Xin also fearlessly gazed at him. The air suddenly fell into a patch of deathly silence.
"It seems, our concepts have appeared in conflict." The Leader slowly spoke. "However you should know, I am exactly the one representing the Aurora Base, the person steering the helm of human destiny... You Tan Xin as the order maintainer dispatched to the surface by the base, according to the Aurora Base's initial Article 001, completely do not have the qualification to participate in the ultimate decision-making involving human destiny."
"I know."
"Then... I, in the identity of the sole Leader of the Aurora Base, veto the 'Hand of Salvation' plan."
Tan Xin quietly looked at him, seemingly not surprised by this result... After a touch of complexity flashed in the depths of his eyes, one hand slowly lifted up from the windbreaker.
A pitch-black gun muzzle, aimed at the Leader's brow center.
"Then... I, betray the Aurora Base."
Bang——!
Facing the Leader who once single-handedly cultivated him to grow up, Tan Xin pulled the trigger without the slightest hesitation. A beam of firelight splashed. The bullet instantly then pierced through the Leader's brow center!
The Leader blankly looked at him, seemingly not anticipating that Tan Xin would betray the Aurora Base. After staggering bumping into the wall behind, slowly collapsing... Ultimately falling before that window drawn in chalk.
Scarlet fresh blood flowed on the grayish-white ground, spreading to beneath Tan Xin's feet. Almost at the same time, a soft sound transmitted from inside the lightbulb!
Snap——
The circuit of the Aurora Base was paralyzed anew. The room fell into a patch of dark deathly silence.
Tan Xin looked at the Leader's figure fallen in the darkness, somewhat unbearably closing his eyes. A second later then slowly opening them, newly recovering calmness and reason, turning around walking towards the upper floors.
Right half a minute after he left, in the corner of this closed room, a perfectly seamless portal, was slowly pushed open...
Inside the Aurora Base, no one knew, inside the Leader's room, unexpectedly still hid a secret room, and an Aged Figure who didn't know how many years he had lived inside it.
That figure was disheveled, hair incomparably messy. He expressionlessly took a glance at the direction Tan Xin left, even didn't lower his head to look at the corpse of that "Leader", then turning around returning into the narrow secret room...
Inside the secret room, there were only three items:
A toilet, a bed, and an oldest voice-transmitting copper tube.
That figure walked to the front of the voice-transmitting copper tube, uncovering the rusted lid. A voice calm to the point of not having a trace of fluctuation rang out:
"Law Enforcer Deputy Director-General Tan Xin, violated Article 001, betrayed the Aurora Base, listed as the Realm's number one wanted target... all members regardless of methods, without limiting costs attack and kill. Recapture the 'Reappearance' plan Explosives Detonator within three hours.
Anyone who privately releases him, will share the same crime with him."