Chapter 31: No Hope
After hearing Professor Lu Zhaoming’s explanation, Jiang Yang felt a chill from deep within his heart.
He seemed to truly see dozens or even hundreds of high-energy particles rampaging and wantonly destroying inside his body, killing off the cells that originally maintained his body’s normal functions one by one, destroying the tissue structures one by one, ultimately causing him to lose his life in just a few minutes.
This was a more fatal, more fundamental, and more cruel way of death than death by ten thousand arrows piercing the heart.
Every cell and every organ constituting his body would be thoroughly destroyed from the most basic level, impossible even to repair.
“But why? Why would various elements that were perfectly fine inside the human body suddenly acquire so much energy, thereby forming radiation?”
Jiang Yang asked Professor Lu Zhaoming the question that at least half the people in the meeting room at that moment wanted to ask.
At this moment, the people participating in the meeting were either those with a scientific background like Professor Lu Zhaoming, or people in strategy, intelligence, and administrative management like Gu Changshan and Sun Changhe.
They obviously, like him, did not possess much knowledge in physics.
“Under normal circumstances, the human body would of course not undergo such a change, which means that during the apocalypse process, the human body must have been influenced by additional factors.
And this additional factor, the first possibility is that it comes from within the body.
Perhaps before the apocalypse arrived, our bodies had already been modified by some unknown entity, and the so-called arrival of the apocalypse was merely this modification being excited, just like a timed bomb had already been planted in our bodies and detonated at the appointed time.
The difference is only that the bomb’s energy would blast us into pieces, whereas this modification’s energy would act at the subatomic level, thereby causing multiple types of radiation.”
Professor Lu Zhaoming’s tone suddenly became a bit trembling: “I suggest that we immediately launch large-scale body examinations, drawing a certain proportion of the population from people of various different occupations, ages, genders, and environments, and conduct the most detailed body examinations.
I think if this is really the cause, then this modification may have already occurred in our bodies at this moment.
If we can eliminate it in advance, we can defeat the apocalypse…”
At Professor Lu Zhaoming’s words, the many participants with scientific backgrounds became restless, full of urgency.
Even Gu Changshan, Sun Changhe, and others were the same.
Time was urgent, with only ten days left until the apocalypse!
Now that there was a discovery, they certainly could not delay any longer and had to execute it immediately.
But…
Jiang Yang slowly shook his head, saying in a somewhat heavy tone: “No need to bother.
Counting the world where I lived normally, this is already my fourth cycle. And in the second and third cycles, this large-scale body examination was always ongoing.
From when I brought the apocalypse intelligence until the apocalypse finally arrived, it never stopped.
But we found no abnormalities. So, Professor Lu, the first possibility you mentioned… is eliminated.”
It was like a basin of cold water being poured over their heads; the online meeting room, whose atmosphere had just heated up, instantly fell silent.
Professor Lu Zhaoming trembled slightly as he raised his head, his aged and turbid gaze fixed tightly on Jiang Yang, as if trying to see a negative answer in Jiang Yang’s eyes.
Jiang Yang did not dodge, staring straight back at him.
After a moment, Professor Lu Zhaoming let out a soft sigh, and his entire spirit and energy dissipated by more than half in that instant.
“If that’s the case…”
He did not continue to state the second possibility, but said to Sun Changhe: “Then we can make a judgment now: in this life, we have no possibility of defeating the apocalypse.
Our death is already destined.”
The non-scientific background participants all shuddered, their faces showing incredulous expressions.
Suddenly convening an emergency meeting to inform us that the apocalypse would come in ten days was difficult to accept, but in the face of evidence, relying on the participants’ psychological quality and rationality, they could barely accept it.
After all, there was still time, and they still had hope.
Mobilizing national power and going all out, it was not impossible to defeat the apocalypse within ten days.
But to already make a judgment now, determining that this life was bound to fail, determining certain death ten days later?
Even for the psychologically strongest people, it was impossible to accept such a cruel and shocking matter in a short time.
Even Jiang Yang had not expected that the intelligence he brought back at the cost of an entire nation and civilization’s destruction in the previous life would result in this in this life.
How was it certain death? How was it certain failure?
Sun Changhe still maintained his calmness, but his gaze was as heavy as a mountain: “Why?”
“If it’s not from inside the body, then it can only be from outside.
But don’t forget, the experimental data brought back by Comrade Jiang Yang shows that no matter where the experimental personnel were located—underground or underwater—all died without exception due to this.
Energy cannot be generated out of thin air; there must be a transmission process. So obviously, the particles capable of penetrating rock layers and water bodies to transmit this energy to the human body must possess extremely high penetration and cover the entire Earth.
Facing this kind of indiscriminate global particle radiation that even kilometer-thick rock layers cannot block… we have no way at all. At this moment, we don’t even know what these particles are.”
Jiang Yang fell silent.
His studies in the previous phase allowed him to understand Professor Lu Zhaoming’s words.
Indeed, eliminating the internal factors also eliminated humanity’s hope of defeating the apocalypse and surviving in this life.
This was not like the previous life. In the previous life, people at least had the hope of finding the conjectured “radiation formula” through large-scale conscription of particle accelerators and thereby finding methods to confront the apocalypse.
This life had no hope at all, not the slightest hope of defeating the apocalypse.
No one in the online meeting room lost composure. All participants maintained their silence.
Jiang Yang knew that those who could be urgently summoned to participate in this meeting must be people who had experienced countless storms, with psychological quality strong to an inconceivable degree.
Even a death sentence ten days away could not break their mental defenses.
But Jiang Yang still sensed that at this moment, everyone’s spirits had sunk low.
If this life was destined to fail, then what could they still do?
Sun Changhe looked at Professor Lu Zhaoming’s figure, his voice showing no emotional fluctuation: “Is this result your own view, or the rigorous assessment result of the scientific community?”
Professor Lu Zhaoming said in a low voice: “There’s no difference. For anyone who has received systematic physics training, this problem is as simple as one plus one equals two.”
