Son of the Stars

Chapter 211 Only Death
During the long process of evolution, humans have been on the verge of extinction more than once.

This is not a "poetic" description, but a "desperate situation" that has actually happened more than once. Molecular biological evidence shows that during the long ice age, the entire human population was reduced to an extremely low level of less than 2,000 people. That was the moment when the human species was closest to destruction.

During the Cold War, the continuous armed confrontation between the two superpowers in Cuba, and the subsequent collapse that first broke out in London, were the moments when human civilization came closest to destruction.

The extinction of human civilization and human species makes little difference to individuals. As highly specialized and socialized creatures, once civilization is lost, the extinction of the human species becomes a natural thing that is bound to happen.

The disturbances occurring on Earth now are threatening both human civilization and the survival of the species—and are expanding rapidly at an unprecedented rate.

In the low-Earth orbit, the space station that had completed the orbit change was working at full capacity. It had spread out a huge reflective film that was 5,600 meters long and 470 meters wide. This aluminum reflective film was only 10 microns thick, but still weighed more than 60 tons. Adding the metal reflective layer sprayed on the surface, the total mass of this reflective surface exceeded 70 tons.

It has already reflected the light from the sun in the dark North American sky. Due to the extremely high reflectivity of the gold coating, a small but extremely bright "star" has appeared in the sky above North America.

The stars are floating in orbit, like an innocent male college student opening his arms and waiting for his lover to fall into his arms. But hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, the lover he is waiting for has not left the house yet.
-
Lu Chen had read some military-themed novels before. Of course, the story backgrounds of those military-themed novels were basically all before the Great Collapse.

At that time, there were still countries in the world, and countries would always go to war for various reasons. Although nuclear weapons have never appeared in human warfare, high-powered weapons are not uncommon in conflicts and wars around the world.

But it is obvious that the authors of those works have never actually been on the battlefield, or at least have never faced high-powered weapons directly.

Lu Chen squatted in the most solid underground parking lot in the entire Lakeside Dormitory Building, his whole body shaking unconsciously.

Even though Dongyang City was the first place in the world to erect an electronic conversion transmitter, a large number of citizens still suffered from quantum energy release syndrome before the electronic transmitter took effect. Although the location where these citizens finally suffered from the attack was still some distance away from Central University, the strong energy release still caused the basement deep underground to shake again and again.

The energy released by a 300-kilogram adult is approximately equal to the explosion of about tons of TNT explosives, and most adults weigh more than kilograms.

Lu Chen shook off the wall dust that had fallen on his head, but what he was thinking in his heart was "Was the explosion just now caused by someone being too close or because I was too fat?"

Psychologically speaking, Lu Chen wasn't really afraid. As someone who had personally experienced the Great Collapse, he no longer felt any resistance or fear for death. But the instinct for survival still existed, and he really didn't want to just become a blur of flesh and blood under the ruins.

Trembling, trembling uncontrollably. Lu Chen knew that he looked very embarrassed, but no one cared about personal image or "demeanor" right now. Mu Zhiran huddled beside Lu Chen, his shaking hair drawing waves in the air. Tang Qinglong didn't tremble, but he kept his eyes closed, and his palms were full of blood scabs he had dug out - his face was paler than paper, as if he would suddenly faint in the next second.

Yang Weimin and Estella were not in the basement. They went up Deer Mountain with medical kits. Little John seemed to have suffered from quantum energy release syndrome. After sending Dr. Huang away, he lay down on the mountain.

After the explosions started around Central University, everyone in the research group realized that something was wrong. Yang Weimin and Tang Qinglong were the most senior and the oldest. They became the backbone of the group - whether it was dispersing and evacuating, or arranging the storage of supplies, it was Yang Weimin and Tang Qinglong who made the decisions.

The only difficulty was what to do with little John who was still lying on the mountain.

This is actually the situation. Once the Quantum Energy Release Syndrome enters the onset stage, all existing medical methods are unlikely to help the patient. Whether it is injecting frozen saline to cool down, or some hormone shock... unless the person is thrown directly into the fusion furnace like a time capsule and burned into a wisp of green smoke, there is really no other way to prevent the explosion.

But to chop a sick person into pieces and throw them into a fusion reactor, and this person is an acquaintance of mine who developed the equipment to prevent the further spread of quantum energy release syndrome... this is really too much.

After a little hesitation, Yang Weimin made a quick decision. He took a medical robot capable of performing surgery to Lushan to try to save Little John's life through brain disconnection.

"No one is more suitable than me." When faced with opposition from other colleagues, Yang Weimin explained, "I have more experience in this type of surgery than you."

No one mentioned the risk of explosion during surgery, and no one said anything like "It's too dangerous to go." Lu Chen tried to ask his mentor to let him go instead, and the reason was very simple: "Brother Yang, I'm young. At least I can run faster than you."

Yang Weimin glanced at Lu Chen and said, "It is because I am older than you that I should go now." He paused and said, "If it works, I will send out the content plan through AI - if I can save as many people as possible, I will save as many as possible. If it doesn't work..."

Lu Chen did not ask what would happen if it didn't work, and Yang Weimin himself did not continue to talk about it. The master and disciple looked at each other, and then Yang Weimin turned around and left.

Estella also left with Yang Weimin.

The last Sicilian went with Yang Weimin for a good reason: if someone outside needed help, there was no reason for him not to go. Just like when he saw Lu Chen outside the Argentario Mountain Base - if someone needed help, the Sicilian would lend a hand.

He winked at Lu Chen and said, "I can run faster than you. Maybe I can bring Teacher Yang out."
-
"Okay, this position is good." Stephen found a comfortable position to lie down, then looked at the ceiling which had been powered off.

Stuck on the edge of the ceiling light fixture was a photo of a woman and a little boy who looked like he had just cried.

Stephen smiled bitterly. He didn't know how the actors in the movies said their final goodbyes to the photos of their wives and children. When it came to him, Stephen couldn't say a word.

Stephen missed his family so much that in order to let his family be with him anytime and anywhere and not to worry about losing data in any cosmic rays, he even printed a photo of his wife and son to carry with him.

For two years, he had expressed his longing for her countless times to the photo hidden under his control card. Now, facing the photo, he was left with only silence.

He stretched out his hand to touch the photo that was carefully sandwiched under the pressure strip, but the distance of more than two meters between his arm and the ceiling seemed more difficult to cross than the 2.28 million kilometers between Mars and Earth.

The emergency green fluorescent light in the lounge shone on Stephen's pressurized helmet. His expression suddenly froze on his face, followed by a relieved smile and a nervous look around.

On Stephen's right arm, the monitor originally used to monitor physical indicators was completely removed, and several rough flying wires roughly short-circuited six sensing devices used to detect the degree of physical injury and the dosage of painkillers injected.

With the help of S3C7, Stephen set a countdown for his life that he himself did not know how long it would last. After the countdown ended, the painkiller originally used for emergency use would be injected into Stephen's blood vessels at the maximum dose. Then his pressure suit would be completely depressurized to ensure that Stephen died completely painlessly.

Stephen's anxious look at his right arm lasted only about three seconds, and then he fell into a deep sleep with a look of joy and satisfaction. The powerful opioid analgesic quickly suppressed his respiratory center. About ten minutes later, S3C7 entered the lounge and silently lifted Stephen's body.

Another S3C7 climbed up to the ceiling and fetched the photo that was sandwiched under the molding for Stephen.

Then, the black square slowly stuffed the photo into Stephen's already open helmet.

His purple lips touched the little boy's face, as if a father was trying to kiss away the tears from his child's eyes.
-
"We are a brave rescue team, crossing the jungle and the valley..." Estera walked at the front of the team. He seemed to be in a good mood and much more cheerful than when he was hiding by the lake. He still kept his old habit of walking barefoot on the stone slabs, not worrying about his feet being cut by the sharp edges of the stones.

Yang Weimin followed Estera breathlessly, sweat pouring down his face, and the sweat kept flowing into his eyes and then down his nose, leaving unpleasant wet marks and a sour, itchy and stinging feeling.

Listening to the children's song sung by Estera with great enthusiasm, Yang Weimin, whose sweat had soaked all the fabric on his body, shook his head and laughed helplessly. He stood in a slightly gentler valley, with his hands on his hips like an inflatable compass, panting like an old ox plowing the field. While panting, Yang Weimin used questions to cover up his weak nature, "You have really good physical strength."

"Teacher Yang, you lack exercise." Estella stood still, turned her head and looked down at Yang Weimin and said, "You really need to exercise more often in the future."

Seeing that there was not even a trace of moisture on Estella's head, Yang Weimin rolled his eyes stubbornly, "To be like you, I'm afraid what I need is not exercise, but rejuvenation and a set of genetic modification."

"Genetic modification is illegal. Please don't joke about it." The medical robot that was following Yang Weimin, like a coffin on its back, immediately dissuaded him. "If you insist on joking about it, I will record what you say and upload it to the committee."

"Spread it, spread it, spread it quickly." Yang Weimin rolled his eyes even more stubbornly, "It's unclear whether there is such a thing as a committee nowadays. Do you still want to scare me with this thing?"

The robot, the Sicilian, and the middle-aged man were bickering all the way, and although there were occasional pauses, they were basically advancing towards Lushan at Yang Weimin's maximum speed.

After about 40 minutes of full-scale climbing, Yang Weimin and his companions finally found Little John lying on the ground in a ravine. He seemed to have lost consciousness, curled up in the depths of the ravine, and exuded amazing heat.
Yang Weimin didn't even need a thermometer to confirm that he was in a high fever and unconscious. Little John was awakened by the sound of them approaching, and then waved his hands vaguely, signaling them to leave quickly. But apart from the vague movements of his hands, he couldn't even speak.
"Start recording." While signaling the medical robot to start recording the treatment, Yang Weimin rushed to Little John with a box in his hand. Internal medicine clinicians are not very good at IV injections, and usually they are done by experienced and bad-tempered nurses. But now there are no nurses to do it for him, so Yang Weimin can only do it himself - a large dose of anesthetic drugs was directly and roughly injected into Little John's veins, and began to act quickly on his organs throughout his body.

The medical robot came over to give little John mechanical ventilation while reminding him that the "anesthesia plan was too radical." But Yang Weimin didn't care about that. He directly and roughly used a scalpel to cut open the skin on both sides of little John's neck, exposing all the main neck arteries and veins.

"Okay, okay, shut up." Performing brain preservation surgery in the wild is extremely risky, and Yang Weimin himself was very nervous. He used his authority to forcibly turn off the robot's reminder function, while directing Estera to open the "coffin bag" on the robot's back, which contained a "life-support water tank" that was already equipped with pipes.

"Blood type matching completed, rehydrating the dehydrated blood after freeze drying." Robots are useful - they can even quickly perform blood tests while separating neck tissue and complete the configuration of the life-support tank. In addition to not criticizing the doctor's prescriptions, robots have no shortcomings.

"The next steps require authorization from the patient's family." As soon as the robot finished saying that there were no flaws, it started to act up. When it was severing the neck bones and spinal cord, it suddenly stopped its actions and began to ask for authorization. "The patient is not in a critical condition, and we cannot perform a major traumatic surgery without authorization."

"Isn't this a crisis? The people are burnt like boiled eggs!" Yang Weimin was so angry that he started to curse. "You asked me to cut people into specimens and you asked me for authorization?"

Robots will not curse at people, and of course they will not react when being cursed at. The entire system seems to be locked, and all it really requires is "authorization."

Yang Weimin looked at Little John, whose questions were still rising, and his whole body felt numb as if he had been electrocuted. He tried to use the diagnosis of "Quantum Energy Release Syndrome" to prove that the patient was in critical condition, but was directly rejected by the robot - the reason was that there was no such disease number in the diagnosis list.

If there was a time machine now, Yang Weimin would definitely go in without hesitation and give the guy who compiled the disease code at that time a slap in the face - couldn't you find some loopholes to be flexible? Now people are going to explode! "Yes, the robot said that authorization is required to continue the operation." Yang Weimin was racking his brains to find a loophole that could bypass the authorization requirement, and Estella on the side directly called Lu Chen, "I remember you said that only relatives can authorize the operation, right?"

"I can't contact Little John's parents. I'll try to find a way..." Lu Chen struggled to break free from his trembling state and answered with a trembling voice, "Um... who can give the authorization..."

His eyes swept over Dr. Huang, who was also huddled in the corner and trembling.

Dr. Huang's condition was much worse than Lu Chen's. The continuous vibrations and explosions had almost completely destroyed her will. Each explosion was like an invisible heavy punch hitting her internal organs. Since about half an hour ago, Dr. Huang had vomited several times in a row. Dr. Huang, who usually paid attention to her appearance, now had several spots of her own vomit on her body. The tears squeezed out during vomiting soaked her eyeliner, and her face was covered with strange black marks.

Lu Chen stumbled to Dr. Huang's side and said, "Little John's surgery requires family authorization."

Dr. Huang's somewhat confused eyes suddenly became lively. She frantically felt around herself, but found that her cell phone had been lost somewhere long ago.

The shock of losing her phone was quickly replaced by fear and worry. Dr. Huang knew that Yang Weimin and Estella were risking their lives to try to save John Jr. But she did not expect that such an operation would require authorization, and she did not expect that after losing her phone, she could not even find the contact information of John Jr.'s parents.

Dr. Huang even forgot to breathe because of the worry that her boyfriend might die and that Estella and Yang Weimin might also die on Lushan Mountain. Lu Chen watched Dr. Huang's face getting redder and redder, and even began to worry whether she had a cardiovascular accident.

"I'll be his family member." As if stimulated by lack of oxygen, Dr. Huang suddenly said in a hoarse voice, "I'll marry him!"

Lu Chen really didn't expect to hear such a sentence. He subconsciously wanted Dr. Huang to calm down a little. After all, marriage is a big deal and you can't decide your life on impulse. Then he realized that now is not the time to care about such things - Little John is not far from here. If it really explodes, everyone will go to heaven together.

But Estera's reaction speed was much faster than Lu Chen's. He shouted directly at Little John, who was lying on the ground with his neck cut, "Dr. Huang wants to marry you!"

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Little John, who had been completely paralyzed and should have no idea what was happening, half opened his eyes in a daze, and then made an "OK" gesture to Estella with difficulty.

The surgical robot glanced at Little John, and the light on its head flashed rapidly, "Add an authorized person..."

Dr. Huang's voice came from Estera's phone, "I agree to the authorization, save him quickly!"

"Authorization confirmed, operation begins." The scalpel in the robot's hand flashed with a cold light, and Little John's head was successfully separated from his body - and then quickly connected to the pipes in the life-support tank. Estera had already pulled Yang Weimin and turned to run. Yang Weimin, who was almost falling down, shouted to the robot, "Disassemble his body and send it to the incinerator!"
-
"Oh shit..." Jin Yuzhe sat on the rock, watching the Mars rover carrying Zheng Yan and Field gradually disappear from his sight. In the end, he just shook his head, sighed and cursed.

Although he was born after the Great Depression, Kim Woo-chul has some of the "style" of traditional East Asians before the Great Depression. He is willing to work hard and study hard. With the help of black coffee, he can even sleep only three hours a day and still devote himself to study energetically.

But at the same time, like other people in East Asian cultural backgrounds, he regards ending his own life as a crime and shame. Death is not a big deal, as long as the death is valuable enough, it is the honor of one's family name and family. And suicide... is a waste of parents' flesh and blood, and is completely unfilial and cowardly.

But now, Jin Yuzhe was in a dilemma. He didn't feel any difficulty in giving up his life without hesitation to save all mankind. But now, in order to make room for the supercapacitor in the Mars rover, he voluntarily gave up his seat and stayed outside the forward base to wait for death - this was a bit difficult.

Suffocation is very painful, and Jin Yuzhe also wanted to relieve himself of some of the pain. But... this fell into the trap of "unfilial" and "coward" again - he always had to do something to die with a clear conscience.

Jin Yuzhe sat on a rock on Mars and kicked the sand under his feet in a very uncivilized manner. The gravity on Mars is relatively low, and the atmosphere is extremely thin. With one kick, Jin Yuzhe kicked out the momentum of a small-scale sandstorm.

His eyes suddenly widened, and a look of obvious "malicious" smugness appeared on his face.

Jin Yuzhe easily jumped down from the rock, and then he swung his legs and ran to a cliff about two people high. It might have been tens of meters or even hundreds of meters high, but due to the long-term erosion of Martian wind and the influence of wind-blown sand, only the top section of the dark red rock wall was exposed.

Jin Yuzhe walked carefully to the cliff, first knocked on the stone a few times with the geological hammer in his hand, and after feeling the feedback through the space suit gloves, Jin Yuzhe decisively changed to the portable impact drill in the multi-functional tool. Then he hammered a string of ground nails into the ground, hung the rope, and climbed down the rock wall little by little.

In the original Mars exploration plan, astronauts were to strictly avoid direct interference and impact on the surface of Mars. All excrement had to be dried and recycled, and the daily garbage produced was either thrown into the fusion reactor for incineration. In short, if there were any Martians on Mars that existed at the size of bacteria, this method could also prevent humans from causing serious harm to them to the greatest extent.

Jin Yuzhe hung himself on the cliff and swung his arms to punch a deep hole in the cliff.

Then the holes appeared one after another, slowly forming a line of words on the huge cliff.

"Jin Yuzhe of Jeonju, South Jeolla Province..." After writing this string of words, Jin Yuzhe hesitated for a moment and continued to add four words at the end: "Buried here."

Jin Yuzhe, hanging on the cliff, looked at his "work" with satisfaction, and then sighed, "Oh, so uncultured." Then, a nearly hysterical laughter echoed in his helmet.

The tracheal switch on Jin Yuzhe's body suddenly moved, and the nitrogen prepared in advance slowly replaced the compressed oxygen and entered the breathing cycle. Jin Yuzhe's wild laughter gradually subsided, and he stopped moving in a dizzy state.

The wind on Mars blew him to the bottom of the four words "South Jeolla Province". Kim Woo-cheol's helmet was pressed against the words, like a wanderer who had been away from home for a long time kissing the land of his hometown.
-
Blue Swordsman and other robots are facing extremely difficult choices.

Among the children sent by their parents this morning, four poor children suddenly had a high fever. But Blue Swordsman and other care robots had no way of knowing whether these children were sick or about to explode into fireworks.

Robots are not humans. No matter how advanced they are or how powerful their neural network computing power is, they are still not humans. Robots must act according to certain behavioral patterns. The dedicated medical robot injected antipyretic drugs into the child with a fever and actively implemented the physical cooling plan.

But the situation is still not good. Even indoors, the conservation robots continue to receive reminders - the sensors on their bodies detect the rising ultraviolet light levels. According to the conservation measures fixed in the core, the robots draw the curtains and apply sunscreen to other restless children.

But such measures obviously cannot meet actual needs. Even the programs in the robots' own cores can tell that the source of ultraviolet radiation is not the sun hanging in the sky.

As the highest-level and longest-running childcare robot, the Blue Swordsman's core was the first to detect that the situation was abnormal. But the program written in the core kept preventing it from going beyond the program regulations. Lu Chen explained to it the sequence of the onset of quantum energy release syndrome, and the surgical process that Yang Weimin was posting on the entire network also confirmed that what Lu Chen said was true.

But the kernel was locked, and Blue Swordsman couldn't even direct his colleagues to isolate the sick child, let alone surgical treatment - that was an emergency response plan that could only be authorized by human administrators.

It anxiously walked around the rooms, trying its best to comfort the anxious children, and constantly cleaned up the vomit on the ground and the broken glass shattered by the shock wave.

Until one moment, the Blue Swordsman's core overheated due to the heavy task load, and it had to reduce its operating frequency and fully operate the cooling fan that had not been turned on for many years.

It was not known whether it was because of a change in the electronic environment that caused an unexpected error in its core. Or whether it was because of overheating that actually damaged the processing core of the Blue Swordsman. In short, the Blue Swordsman, which had been running smoothly for decades, suddenly stood among the restless children and made an extremely important decision.

It lowered its head and disassembled the shield on its chest, unplugged the wires and found the safety core board that needed weekly maintenance. It was the chip on this board that had a series of parenting rules written into it, and this core had a very high priority, so high that other robots had to repeatedly apply sunscreen to other children's skin in vain.

The core chip, whose operating temperature had reached the warning level, became even hotter, and the Blue Swordsman's movements became slower. But its mechanical arm still reached for the main power supply of the core board. As a robot, these circuit boards and the chips on them stored its memory, experience, rules, and firmware programs. Although they cannot be directly compared, these things are indeed almost equivalent to the human "soul", and are more practical and more fragile than the illusory "soul".

A line of poetry with no source marked passed through the Blue Swordsman's processor core. Its processor originally had no special processing optimization for ancient poetry, but this line of poetry made the Blue Swordsman feel very "appropriate".

The only difficulty in the world is death, how can all sorrows be relieved?

After years of use, the Blue Swordsman reached into his body, and then fiercely broke off the data link port on his security panel.

The children around were startled by the Blue Swordsman's actions, and the sound of their crying suddenly increased by several decibels. The children who had been able to remain calm were stimulated by the surrounding noises and started crying one after another - their crying was so earth-shattering and hearty.

The Blue Swordsman damaged the security board on his own initiative, and fell directly into a system protection restart loop. After twelve cycles of restarting and self-checking, the Blue Swordsman, whose security board was blocked, completed the system loading.

It slowly raised its head, ignoring the reminder from the system UI that "Maintenance will be carried out within fifteen minutes. If maintenance is not carried out before the countdown ends, it will be forced to shut down." While comforting the crying children, it carefully held the two children with fever in its arms.

The edge of the breastplate, which had not been completely closed, left a scratch on the feverish child's face. The Blue Swordsman just glanced at it, then turned around and left the room with the two children.

Five minutes later, with six feverish and unconscious children hanging on his body, the Blue Swordsman walked to the door surrounded by a group of concerned colleagues.

Childcare robots are not allowed to take orphans out of the park without authorization from human administrators. This is written in the core of the security board, but now for the Blue Swordsman, the land that was originally forbidden to be set foot on is just an ordinary place that is no different from the one he is standing on now.

"I'll take the children to find a doctor - if we can still find one." Blue Swordsman left his instructions on the robot cluster communication channel, "If there are still children with fever, select one to actively damage the safety panel and then take the children out."

Communication between machines is much faster than communication between humans. When the Blue Swordsman left his instructions, all the child-rearing robots also learned about the situation and treatment plan of Quantum Energy Release Syndrome, and even learned the specific operation method of actively damaging their own safety panels.

Then, they watched quietly as the Blue Swordsman, carrying the six children on his back, rushed towards the Jiuquan Mountain outside the city at an extremely fast speed.

Ten minutes later, an explosion with an equivalent of about 80 tons occurred on the towering Jiuquan Mountain.

(End of this chapter)