Before Shen Qi could work it out, someone else couldn’t hold back and blurted the question out loud.
It was that same young man from before, and the moment he opened his mouth, it was in that same familiar accusatory tone: “Didn’t you say mutant beasts don’t bond with humans? Then what about this bird, and that dog? What’s going on with them?”
Ugh, Nuonuo caught the stray bullet again.
It was Li Zhengze who resolved the question, wiping down his gun as he said flatly, “Most mutant beasts don’t bond with humans, but there are exceptions. As far as I know, other rescue teams have search dogs that mutated into mutant beasts and still stayed close to their handlers, making huge contributions to the rescue effort. All of you standing here alive today may well owe your lives to creatures like these, whether you realize it or not.”
The implication was clear: whatever business the mutant beasts had was none of his concern, he should mind himself, and if he had any sense, he’d count his blessings instead of biting the hand that fed him.
The man was left speechless, his face flushing red then pale, more envy than embarrassment showing in his eyes.
He’d arrived at the square a week earlier, trapped in the rubble for an entire week, nearly at his limit by the time he was pulled out.
He’d watched with his own eyes as Nuonuo dug him out of the rubble, feeling both envious and jealous of it.
This dog was fierce yet loyal, utterly devoted to its owner, Shen Qi. As long as she didn’t let it approach the crowd, it never overstepped a single boundary, so even though people had noticed something off about its size before they understood animal mutation, no one had any grounds to say anything.
And then there was the wild game Nuonuo regularly brought back for Shen Qi, which meant the rescue team got extra food every few days, driving quite a few survivors, who’d been eating nothing but compressed biscuits for almost half a month, absolutely wild with envy.
If it had just been the one case, that would’ve been that, but who could’ve guessed another mutant beast bird and Qingqing would show up too.
The night before, during the fallen-beast bird flock attack, he’d been right behind Qingqing, and had personally witnessed that mutant beast bird standing its ground against the entire flock for her sake, not losing an inch, and his eyes had gone red with envy on the spot.
Since then, the bird had stuck close to Qingqing, and though it acted indifferent toward her most of the time, whenever something happened, it would fiercely defend her.
Just yesterday, while the rescue team was out working, a few people had tried to steal food from Qingqing and her widowed mother, and the mutant beast bird had pinned one man’s hand to the ground with a single feather. The whole matter had been brought to the rescue team, who’d then given the offenders a good scolding, a case of losing both the wife and the soldiers, as the saying went [1]losing both the wife and the soldiers (péi le fūrén yòu zhé bīng, 賠了夫人又折兵) Idiom, from a Three Kingdoms tale where a scheme to seize territory by marrying off a bride backfired, … Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3166615_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3166615_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });.
With such a powerful ally available, how could the man not be envious? He was jealous to the point of madness, why hadn’t the mutant beast taken a liking to him instead?
Over the following days, he tried every trick he could think of to get close to Shen Qi and Qingqing, flattering them shamelessly, always steering the conversation toward one topic, how exactly did they get the mutant beasts to be so obedient?
Qingqing, young and simple-minded, grew impatient after being pestered a few times and said seriously, “Mister, I’ve told you so many times already, Huahua doesn’t listen to me, It only listens to Itself! I just fed It a few times before, we’re friends! Stop asking me!”
Shen Qi had even less patience to deal with him, and simply told the truth: “No one listens to anyone. I’ve just raised It for years, we’ve always gotten along like this, that’s all I know either.”
Whenever the man went around asking these things, there were always others listening in nearby, apparently with the same thoughts on their minds.
Qingqing and Shen Qi’s answers seemed unrelated on the surface, but they had one thing in common, both had fed and cared for their animals before the mutation happened.
Some people, thinking themselves clever, picked up on this and started wandering around every day, approaching any animal they came across, trying to win over mutant beasts with “genuine affection” to score themselves a free bodyguard.
As a result, within just a few days, quite a few people were killed by fallen beasts outside the square, and some even angered mutant beasts badly enough to be chased all the way back to the square, requiring Nuonuo, Huahua, and the rescue team to work together, fighting and negotiating at once, just to talk the mutant beast down.
And yet, even with all that, people kept popping up every day, seemingly unwilling to give up until they’d tamed a mutant beast for their own use.
Watching this chaos unfold, Shen Qi could only laugh coldly. These people had completely ignored the official warnings. As the saying goes, good words can’t dissuade someone determined to die [2]good words can’t dissuade someone determined to die (hǎo yán nán quàn xiǎng sǐ guǐ, 好言難勸想死鬼) Idiom/Proverb, no amount of well-meaning advice can stop someone who is bent on … Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3166615_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3166615_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, Shen Qi neither stirred the pot nor got involved, and simply watched with a cold eye.
Shen Qi was actually a rather contradictory person at heart, she held a somewhat extreme, black-and-white way of thinking. Watching fellow humans die from natural disaster upset her, made her lose her appetite, but seeing someone die from their own selfish greed left her completely unmoved, she’d simply consider it “a bad person” getting what they deserved.
And yet, being exposed to this ugliness of human nature wasn’t easy for Shen Qi either, even though other people’s selfish desires had nothing to do with her, even though this level of selfishness barely counted as real wickedness, she still felt an irritation, a weariness, and that weariness would, in a short time, spread from a few individuals to encompass all of humanity, herself included.
Shen Qi knew she had a problem, she was aware of it herself. She could clearly feel something wasn’t right with her, and once she sank into that swamp of negative emotion, she couldn’t control it either.
And so, during the rescue work that followed, the team noticed Shen Qi growing withdrawn and quiet. The search dogs, more sensitive to human emotions, would seize every opportunity to crowd around her, making her laugh, sparring playfully with Nuonuo, and before long, Shen Qi’s negative feelings would settle.
She ended up petting every single search dog in turn, sighing over how dogs really were little angels, and successfully earning herself a jealous, sulking Nuonuo.
Humph, its poop-scooper flirting with other dogs behind its back, how infuriating!
Shen Qi had to spend a good while comforting it all over again.
As the rescue effort continued, most of the survivors had by now been pulled out, leaving only the work of double-checking for anyone missed and clearing rubble in preparation for rebuilding.
Shen Qi was preparing to leave.
Having spent so much time here, she’d learned everything worth knowing, and had made friends with the rescue team’s five people and five dogs, Shen Qi had gained quite a lot.
The only thing weighing on her mind was Little Tiger. Now that the main road-clearing work was more or less finished, it was time for Shen Qi to go find her little cat.
Ever since confirming the extent of the animal mutations, Shen Qi had had a lingering premonition that her Little Tiger had likely become a mutant beast too, and probably wasn’t far away, just hadn’t shown itself yet, for some reason.
Before she left, Li Zhengze gave Shen Qi a peculiarly designed card. It was entirely black, with only the number “066” printed on it in gold lettering, slightly smaller than an ID card, strung on a cord so it could be worn around the neck. Swiped through a special machine, it would display all of Shen Qi’s officially recorded information from birth up to now, as well as the contribution points she’d accumulated during the earthquake rescue effort.
Li Zhengze told Shen Qi that contribution points would soon have officially recognized purchasing power, and that her card’s number was quite low, meaning her purchasing privileges with those points would also be fairly extensive, something the rest of the rescue team envied greatly.
In short, the personal card was a comprehensive card that replaced ID cards, bank cards, and personal records all in one.
Shen Qi was confused, if the card number was tied to purchasing privileges, why would hers be so low? She was just an ordinary citizen, not any political or military figure, and she hadn’t made any major contributions to the country before the earthquake either.
Li Zhengze didn’t answer her question directly, instead bringing up the subject of mutant military dogs.
Normally, once a military dog finished training under its handler, it would be assigned to whichever department needed it.
The very first mutant military dog discovered had, after mutating, rejected everyone including its own family, completely losing all obedience. Just as the higher-ups were preparing to retire it, it displayed astonishing combat ability along with a near-human level of intelligence.
It went on a hunger strike for three days, then ran continuously for two, making its way all the way from the military district to its handler’s location, and from then on fought alongside its handler, contributing greatly to rescue efforts after the earthquake.
This particular mutant beast’s transformation had happened long before the earthquake, back when no similar animal mutations had been reported anywhere in the country. At the time, the military had assumed the dog had simply gone rabid, its wild, aggressive behavior looking exactly like symptoms of rabies.
It wasn’t until the earthquake hit, and large-scale animal mutations broke out across the country, even across the entire world, that people realized the truth. And unlike fallen beasts, this mutant military dog’s aggression had only ever been directed at anyone besides its handler, no matter how wild it got, it never caused any human casualties, it simply refused to be controlled by anyone else, which actually made it seem far less dangerous in comparison.
After the earthquake, more military dogs gradually underwent benign mutations as well, some outright refused to be restrained and ran off, while others, like that very first mutant military dog, chose to stay by the side of a companion, helping humanity get through the crisis together.
But overall, according to reliable reports, the number of mutant military dogs nationwide willing to stay with humans didn’t exceed twenty. Outside of the military, cases like Huahua and Nuonuo were even rarer, a conservative estimate put the total number of human-friendly mutant beasts at under a hundred.
Experts still hadn’t cracked the mystery behind animal mutation. Casualties from fallen beasts kept rising, yet humans hadn’t shown any obvious mutations of their own the way animals had. Plenty of people had tried to win over mutant beasts, but none had succeeded, every single attempt had ended in death or injury.
Li Zhengze said, “So, someone like you and that little girl, gaining a mutant beast companion without doing anything special at all, that’s basically as rare as a giant panda. Getting help from a mutant beast, assisting in earthquake relief, earning merit, all while being a non-official civilian, you’re the first case that checks every box, which is exactly why they made an exception and gave you such a low number. Consider it a gesture of goodwill, a sign that you’re valued.”
Shen Qi’s feelings were complicated as she listened. She carefully put the personal card away, her mind turning things over.
Animal mutation was irreversible, and no one knew yet just how much impact the earthquake would ultimately have. Shen Qi had grown up an upright citizen of Huaguo, raised under the red flag, she’d been an ordinary person before, content to do her job well and nothing more. But now that she had Nuonuo by her side, she naturally felt inclined to align herself with the nation.
Shen Qi told Li Zhengze, “I understand. If there’s ever anything I can help with in the future, and I’m able to do it, I won’t refuse.”
Li Zhengze smiled. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear! Don’t worry, the higher-ups won’t put anyone in a difficult position, if it ever comes to needing your help, it’ll be entirely on a voluntary basis, and the compensation will be generous.”
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