Global Evolution

Chapter 137: He is Dead

Translator: Letty Editor: DarkGem

"Ha!"

The person sat up, heaving a long sigh. His feet lightly touched the ground as he slid down from the surgical bed.

The clothing he wore shattered with his motion. He was naked when he stood up.

The coldness on the floor reminded Qing Shui that he might be still alive. The person who was reflected in the mirror seemed unchanged. He still had brown eyes, and his muscles hadn’t increased at all. His Cocktail Modifiers didn’t transform him into a monster looking being. He was identical to what he used to look like, except for the fact that his hair grown white. He seemed drained.

He didn’t seem different from an ordinary human, but if someone was standing next to him now, they’d notice a foreign sensation about him.

His cells went through numerous divisions and revivals which drained all his energy. Perhaps the foreign sensation was that he gave an impression of someone to be revered. Besides that, his presence would leave any being in awe. He didn’t feel like a human being anymore.

As if he was a hoary god, he was much more potent than humans in essence. But he was also past his prime, and dying as well.

Qing Shui took his time to pace in front of the mirror. He bent to picked a suit and slowly put on the garments, everything from top to bottom, ending with a sophisticated tie. Now he was well-dressed,

Something neat but not too standing out.

Qing Shui felt that he had returned to his beloved school as a teacher. He was calm and knowledgeable. He combed through his gray hair, once and twice, then placed the comb back to its tray. He opened the drawer beside the cabinet, from where he took out a Walkman player.

It was a model from ten years ago and seemed like a device that he had used when he was still a student. A girl was laughing in the photo sticker that was stuck to the top lid of the Walkman, though time had taken the colors from her happiness.

A sentence was also engraved on the Walkman - To my love, Qing Shui, I wish you are always happy. Your sweetest, Dou.

His fingers fondled the engraving, and he smiled. He inserted two batteries in the device and put earplugs in his ears. Chopin’s nocturne flew into him. It was peaceful and tranquil, but filled with sorrow.

He clipped the Walkman to his belt, then continued to fumble in the drawer until he located two photographs. One was of him and an aged man and woman, and it was very worn out. The other was relatively new, with him, Chang, and Jing. All of them were wearing different expression in it.

Chang’s smile was rigid, but anyone could tell that he had tried hard for it.

Qing Shui had a straight face; he seemed pensive.

While Jing had turned her face away from Qing Shui, so she didn’t need to see him at all.

Qing Shui stared at the pictures for more than a minute, then he started chuckling. He stacked them together, made sure the edges were aligned before he tucked them into his pocket. He left the operation room to his lab, where he picked a bottle of wine from the crate under the lab desk that he had prepared for himself.

Violating the rule of drinking wine, he poured a full glass for himself, and he didn’t seem to care. He almost gulped the wine, then poured another glass with the appropriate amount. He swirled the liquid, allowing enough time for oxidation. This time, he tasted with the music in his ears. Later, he walked out of the lab and took the elevator to the rooftop, where he sat down, gazing to the south.

"They all ran away." He seemed to be able to see as far as to the edge of Zhengzhou.

The ground started shaking, and a tremendous amount of beasts fled from the sound, roaring out of fear.

This marvelous spectacle shook the city.

Billions of insects, beasts dashed for their lives to the north. The color of the ground turned black, and the coverage of animals was even bigger than the city. The running of an uncountable amount of legs shook the architecture in the city, and rubble and dust kept falling off from the buildings as if they were shedding. Something, something had flustered the animals.

Those who dashed at the very front were the quickest and strongest. Some were worms that were more than ten meters long; some were bulls; some just looked strange in shape. They rushed into Zhengzhou like bulldozers, making their own paths out when there were none, flattening the city under a cloud of dust that roared towards the sky. The buildings collapsed like domino blocks.

Those who came after the first wave were a little more clumsy compared to their pioneers but with more variety, such as spiders and monkats. They were no longer fierce and cruel. More accurately, they took off their layers of defense and invested more energy in the grand exile.

Some wounded ones slowed down and were left behind, but exile was never merciful to the weak, and they were immediately stomped into a pile of flesh and blood.

Qing Shui stood still on the rooftop, witnessing all that happened. He seemed to care for the those lives, but at the same time, he seemed not to care either. He moved his attention to the very south, as if something over there could genuinely intrigue him.

Even though the herd crashed over most of Zhengzhou, they somehow avoided the institute. As if they sensed its danger by instinct, some of the slow ones would rather get stomped than step in the forbidden zone.

This applied to all who came, they veered right before they would enter the zone.

The herds were just nobodies sandwiched between two gods.

Therefore, nothing was Qing Shui’s business except for the minor disturbance from the ground shaking. He was still tasting his wine in tranquility.

The wave lasted for longer than the flying animals’ migration.

The herds fled for a day and a night, and the wave didn’t seem to decrease its density until the second day’s afternoon. Qing Shui had his half-emptied bottle of wine in hand and was still waiting.

The insects came the last, forming black waves on the ground. They were left last from the disadvantage of having smaller body sizes.

Finally, the ground shook more intensely than ever; something caused a drumming and rumbling to run through the city!

The deafening resonance came from afar, getting amplified in time. Eventually, the sound wave was so intense that it triggered an invisible tsunami.

The clouds of the insects arched over the ground, and skyscrapers were no longer able to stand tall. Their collapses resulted with the death of insects.

"Hey, Willow, here you are." The bottle of wine shattered, and the blood-colored wine splashed all over the floor.

The vibration was radical and violent, but Qing Shui stood still, like he always did, while the world fell apart in front of him.

The Willow had arrived.

In the jungle south of Zhengzhou, wickers dived in and out of the soil upon their fall from the sky. They were so many of them! Each one of them was almost one hundred meters in diameter. These astute wickers wriggled through, regardless of what organisms got in their way. They powdered them and absorbed them, turning them into tiny particles of this dome.

Perhaps the idea of one hundred meters was vague when one did compare them to anything. But one hundred meters could be the altitude of a mountain’s peak.

The only thing known was the diameter of these wickers while their lengths were hidden in the dark. The number of them seemed uncountable as their motion blotted out the sky and covered the earth. They plunged in, creating caverns, and burst out toward the firmament. They moved like pythons or anacondas, but they were much more flexible.

Their greed was endless. They would gnaw and destroy everything in their way, and even split out smaller wickers to penetrate the earth, sucking out nutrients from the soil. They also raised their head to the sky and tore through the clouds to bathe in the radiance of the Sun so that the invasion would always be energetic.

There was nothing, nothing on this planet that had the same figure as the Willow. And there was nothing that could be as destructive as the Willow.

The wickers drowned souls and lives but flourished themselves. Every place they passed was left green. That green was so thick and rich that it almost gave out an illusion that the Willow spared lives under its cruelty. But the vibrant color came from homogeneity, for it strangled the diversity and arrogantly claimed its trophies from others’ homeland.

This could have been a tribute of lives. The whole invasion was as smooth as if God had dropped down his hand from the heaven, with his fingers being the wickers, and he was going to grab the Earth in his palm.

"It’s been a long time, Willow!"

The vibration amplified, and his fingertips finally reached Zhengzhou.

Then, the hand opened up its palm. The blood was green leaves that were proliferating on the land. Nothing was left in its wake, the evidence of humanity’s existence wiped out effortlessly. One of the wickers dived from the sky toward Qing Shui. It blocked out the Sun and aimed at Qing Shui’ eyes while he was looking up.

"Hello, it’s been a while. You arrived just in t—"

Qing Shui seemed to have lost control of his body and his wineglass dropped.

"Marvelous..."

Qing Shui’s word marked the last exclamation of humanity in this city. He was the last voice of humankind here, and his word echoed, representing millions of humans who had existed here.

...

"Qing Shui Li is dead." The clones’ word froze Chang. They all spoke at the same time, breaking the silence, as well as turning to the south.