Chapter 70 The Antidote to Human Nature (8)

As soon as dawn broke, Zhang Xun woke up from the single bed in his small apartment that had not been touched for nearly a year. The fire in the fireplace was out and the air still had a faint smell of pine rosin. He felt a pain in his head and a dry throat. He drank the water on the bedside table in one gulp, turned on the lamp and entered the bathroom like a zombie to take a shower. The face that appeared in the mirror was thin and haggard, he had heavy bags under his eyes, his eyes were bloodshot and his chin was covered with blue stubble.

He sighed, picked up the razor, shaved his chin and patted his cheeks hard so that he wouldn't look too frightening.

In the past two days, he had moved out of the Lab under the pretext of concentrating on reviewing the papers of the researchers participating in the mechanic assessment. He still went to the Lab to see Adam during the day, but would return to his apartment after ten o'clock. It's just that he wasn't reviewing the papers and instead spent the nights studying the investigation report on recovered Honey Plague patients submitted to him by Zhang Shuo through James.

For more than a month, Zhang Shuo had asked his trusted soldiers to take the questionnaire that Zhang Xun had attached to the report, and inquire door-to-door. However, due to the urgency of time and limited manpower, the survey results were very scattered and there was no one responsible for organising it all. The information obtained was huge and complex and Zhang Xun had to read it page by page by himself. For the past few days, Zhang Xun was only able to sleep for three hours a night and during the day he had to try his best not to be suspicious. By now, he was exhausted.

But today was extremely important, he had to keep his head clear. He boiled a large pot of coffee for himself, poured it down his throat like drinking water, stuffed some dry bread into his stomach, then put on a heavy coat, hat, scarf and gloves and opened the door.

The twilight hadn't completely faded in the dark blue sky and the light from the rising sun from the east was lightly scattered on the sloping eaves. Zhang Xun breathed in the cold air, squinting at the sun and suddenly remembered the scene of Adam waving his wings, facing the rising sun and rushing to the sky on the Harvest Festival.

At that time, he was really happy, happy like never before.

All good things come to an end, he thought inexplicably.

His heart felt like it was was twisted violently by an invisible hand.

Zhang Xun took a deep breath, suppressed the surging emotions in his chest and continued to trudge along the bad road that was half melting and half icy. In order to avoid all of Pan's extended sweeping robots, he had to take some long detours.

At such an early hour, even those who were the first to go to work had not yet left their houses. The narrow and winding streets were empty and all the grey and old buildings seemed to have not woken up. Zhang Xun made his way through the cobwebs of alleyways and finally stopped in front of a precarious, cheap apartment building on the outskirts of the Third District. The wooden structure was wonky and covered with traces of erosion by wind, frost and the years. Some windows were even shattered and hadn't been properly repaired, only covered with heat-insulating fabrics, rustling and flapping in the cold wind.

The corridor was so narrow that one had to turn sideways to pass and it was full of old furniture and debris. There was a particular rancid smell in the air, like rotten vegetable leaves, which Zhang Xun had never smelled before.

This place was located at the junction of the Third District and the Second District and was a place where the poor lived. As a member of the privileged class, Zhang Xun has hardly set foot here. He thought his own apartment was small enough, but when he saw the front door the size of a wardrobe door and the distance between the doors, he could guess that the space inside would not exceed three square metres, but often three to six people would be squeezed into that space.

Zhang Xun heard that due to the limited land resources in Lost Paradise, many old apartments had to be divided into several smaller rooms and then rented out to different families. Buildings that had been converted in this way were full of safety hazards and no one would be able to escape if it caught fire.

But there was no choice, people needed somewhere to live.

He knocked on the door of a house hung with mistletoe and a moment later the bloodless face of a man about his age appeared in the crack of the door.

"Hello. I was in contact with you before..."

"Are you Zhang Xun?" The man looked at him with a kind of amazement, with a sincere smile on his face and opened the door as he spoke, " Come in!"

Zhang Xun then squeezed into the small room full of daily necessities. It could be seen that the owner of the house had made the most of his talent for finding storage in a limited space, and that there was a lot of stuff but it was very orderly and cleanly maintained. Even so, the smell was still strong.

Zhang Xun took off his hat and gloves and the man named Lucas took them eagerly, hung them on the hanger behind the door and enthusiastically led Zhang Xun to a faded, printed sofa, "You're our great benefactor! I don't have any good tea here, don't hold it against me!" The man hurriedly went to the small stove next to him, lifted the steaming kettle and said while pouring, "I always wanted to thank you in person, and Adam, but you have saved so many people, you must not miss us two little people."

"We only did what we should." Zhang Xun said uneasily, "Please don't trouble yourself, I just came here to find out some things. Your partner... Kevin, isn't it? How is he doing recently?"

Lucas handed the teacup to Zhang Xun and sat on the opposite chair, his eyes shining with happiness, "He's fine, even better than before he got sick. You may not know, he actually had a problem with alcohol before he got infected and sometimes...he would drink too much and his temper would become very grumpy, but after being cured, he never touched another drop of alcohol."

Zhang Xun nodded, "Besides that, has he had any other changes?" "

"There are some, but they're all good changes. I can't believe it. He seems to be very... calm now. Sometimes he even helps me with housework. He even quit smoking and doesn't go out at night to hang out with those bastards... It seems that your antidote not only cured the plague, but also cured all other ailments." Lucas said, smiling a little embarrassedly, "The only thing that is a little strange is that sometimes he will say things that I don't understand."

"Things you don't understand?" Zhang Xun continued to ask, "Can you be more specific?"

"Let him tell you himself, he should be up already." Lucas said, then stood up, opened the curtain and entered the back room where only a bed could fit. Not long after, another older, taller, bearded man came out.

If he came across a person with such an appearance on the street, Zhang Xun would probably avoid him on purpose. After all, he looked too much like a gangster...

What slightly contradicted his rough appearance was the generous smile he showed to Zhang Xun. He held Zhang Xun's hand apologetically, "I'm sorry, I've been having trouble sleeping lately. I've kept you waiting for a long time."

"It's okay, I've only just arrived." Zhang Xun looked at Kevin's appearance carefully. There was no trace of being infected with the plague at all. As Lucas said, there was something strange and transcendent in Kevin's expression, not like the expression of a person working in an artificial butcher shop.

As soon as Kevin sat down, he started gushing about how grateful he was to Zhang Xun and Adam for saving his life and changing his life. However, his words made Zhang Xun feel more and more panicked as he listened.

"You said...you feel like you've been reborn. Can you be specific about how that feels?"

Kevin paused for a moment, as if trying to sort out his words, then said, "Since my recovery, I feel like I've been.... opened. Before, I didn't even know that I'd been a closed-minded, impulsive bastard, I'd been living in a box. But now, I feel like I'm out of that box. I sometimes even feel like I can feel something, something bigger than all of us, floating above my head. Sometimes that thing is unsettling, but most of the time it makes me... more peaceful."

"And what about those dreams you've had? You said you have to sleep more than eight hours a day now?"

"Yes. Those dreams feel a little like floating in the clouds. I feel like there are a lot of people around, I can't see them, but I can see the things in their heads, so many things. It's not accurate to say I can see it, it's more like...feeling, but it's all scattered and confusing, I don't quite understand what those dreams mean." Kevin shrugged, "But I like those dreams, after waking up I'm always in good spirits."

Kevin's tone was calm and serene, almost like that of devout religious believers, but according to Zhang Xun's information about Kevin's life, it was impossible for him to have such a temper.

Kevin went to prison twice for intentionally wounding someone and he had a tendency to become violent after drinking alcohol. Now, his personality had undergone a major change. It's just that this kind of change was what people around him wanted, so no one would report it to the investigation.

"I heard from Lucas, you used to be a heavy drinker, but you haven't touched alcohol since you recovered? Did you deliberately quit?" Zhang Xun asked.

Kevin shrugged casually, "Drinking isn't good for my health and my liver is bad, so I don't drink."

"It was that simple? Quitting alcohol is a very difficult thing for many people, you have no withdrawal symptoms?"

"No, I just don't want to drink, so I don't drink."

Zhang Xun nodded and forced a smile, "I'm happy for you both."

After coming out of Lucas's house, Zhang Xun kept his head low and walked alone on the road. He felt that the surging emotions in his chest were unable to be suppressed and his body was shaking slightly, but it wasn't because of the cold.

By now, it was impossible for him to continue lying to himself.

This was by no means a normal "side effect"... According to the several patients he visited, they all had obvious personality changes to a certain extent and mentioned having dreams that seemed to be in the clouds.

All became lethargic and had to sleep more than eight hours a day.

It was certain, something was changing their brain structure, eliminating all the "viruses", not just the Honey Plague virus...

Such changes may be considered good in the short term, a "magic medicine" that could cure the ugliness of human nature.

But what were the things that were eliminated by it? Was it really only those ugly things on the surface? Many human traits were not as simple as good or bad, but had complex evolutionary mechanisms. After all the weaknesses of human nature were eliminated, what would be left?

And such a dangerous "antidote to human nature" had been developed with his own help.

Zhang Xun stopped abruptly and put his hand on the wall to support himself. He felt dizzy and slightly nauseous. A sour feeling rushed to his nose and eyes.

He had been wrong to believe after all.

Note- it's so fucked up.