Chapter 115
Qin Su: "... because they are kind."
Return it.
If they weren't kind-hearted and found it difficult to accept and overcome psychological barriers to attacking their own kind, they wouldn't need to resort to this method to try and reduce their instinctive fear of the human body.
Unlike him, who was born a bad seed.
If anyone threatens his life, he's full of malicious thoughts and the idea of striking first and suffering the consequences later. Whether to accept it or not... he'll think about it later. Anyway, at that point, no amount of thinking will change the fact.
That said, he was truly impressed by the students' diligence, eagerness to learn, and ability to adapt to new things.
If they continue with their unbelievable thought processes, one day they will grow to the point where he is wary of them and it's best to avoid them altogether.
"?"
'Good?'
Aiseboer was speechless for a moment, not understanding what the fact that 499 People had packed themselves up and taken to the Funeral Home had to do with the word 'good'.
Caught off guard by Qin Su's sudden dry humor, Aiseboer almost lost his polite smile, revealing an awkward yet polite smirk. "Haha..."
She couldn't even be bothered to give him a perfunctory reply, and instead gave him such a nonsensical, lame joke; he was truly speechless.
Qin Su didn't understand why the Principal suddenly laughed. He only felt a little creeped out by the principal's forced smile and the way the principal was pulling at the corners of his mouth. He didn't know what to say.
Seeing that Qin Su was only staring at him with a deep gaze and showed no intention of speaking again, Aiseboer chuckled twice and then said, "I see... I understand."
He didn't understand a thing, but there was nothing he could do. Judging from Qin Su's expression, he had no intention of telling him the truth, so he could only give up.
Regardless of Qin Su's true feelings towards him at this moment, as long as Qin Su didn't intend to leave the Fourth Military Academy or break off relations with him, Aiseboer maintained a facade of harmony and said, "Then I won't take up any more of your time. Goodbye."
Seeing that this was what he wanted to hear, Qin Su didn't refuse and simply replied, "Goodbye."
(Class 6) When the students saw the Principal's actions, their hearts were in their throats. As Qin Su's tall figure left, they looked expectantly at He Muzhi.
(Class 6 secretly worked together to become stronger and amazed Qin Su, they often didn't need to say much to each other; a single glance was enough for them to understand each other's meaning.
He Muzhi walked towards Aiseboer amidst everyone's hopeful gazes.
Before He Muzhi could finish his familiar pleasantries, Aiseboer interrupted He Muzhi, "He Muzhi, given my relationship with your parents, I'm practically your uncle, even though we're not related by blood. Just ask me whatever you want."
There's no need to beat around the bush.
After another eighteen bends in the mountains, He Muzhi's purpose was already revealed in his eyes, impossible to hide.
I didn't come for Qin Su; next time he secretly eats a bug and pricks his mouth, he'll end up in the hospital seeing a villain.
He Muzhi an awkward smile, "Of course you are."
Even though Aiseboer had said that, and Qin Su had already walked away, He Muzhi still subconsciously lowered his voice. "Would it be convenient for you to tell me if what you and Qin Su were talking about just now was... about my request to volunteer at the Funeral Home?"
Qin Su believed in "secrecy in all matters," and he never proactively publicized his thoughts or plans unless absolutely necessary.
Because Qin Su chose Class 6) Class 6 is slightly more competitive than other classes, wouldn't other classes be quicker to accept the news if they knew that Class 6) had already found a way to 'become stronger'?
The entire Class 6 was eager to know what Qin Su would do after he found out what they had done.
"That's right."
Given Qin Su's blatant 'revenge,' and the fact that his side obediently and quickly approved the 'pay-to-avoid' deal to appease Qin Su, he, despite his lack of real strength, but being adept at choosing sides, didn't mind secretly showing a bias towards Qin Su and those Qin Su valued. He truthfully told He Muzhi, "I asked him why you guys are volunteering at the Funeral Home."
He Muzhi's hands, hanging at his sides, clenched unconsciously, his eyes fixed nervously on Aiseboer.
Before He Muzhi could speak, Aiseboer eagerly added, "He said it's because you are kind."
"?"
Upon hearing this, a clear look of astonishment flashed across He Muzhi's eyes.
He had considered many possible answers, but he never thought of something as unexpected and abstract as 'because they are kind'... which left him completely bewildered on the spot.
What does 'Qin Su' mean?
Overcoming psychological barriers and being able to accept the idea of harming one's own kind... does this mean good to Qin Su? Under normal circumstances, shouldn't it be evil?
'Is Qin Su's thinking different from ordinary people? Or is it that... Qin Su doesn't care about good or evil, that he possesses an extremely strong sense of self-importance, and that good and evil are defined freely by him?'
Could he possibly assume that Qin Su genuinely wanted them to be like him, free to decide their own right from wrong, unbound by ethical or moral constraints?
In a very short time, countless strange speculations ran through He Muzhi's mind.
Regardless of any speculation, there is no doubt that even if they acted behind Qin Su's back, judging from the Principal's words, Qin Su was fully aware of every move of their (Class 6.
Is it possible that Qin Su also knew he would secretly inquire with the Principal?
He Muzhi: "..."
'I understand now. Qin Su wasn't speaking directly to the Principal, but rather using the Principal to convey a message to them.'
"Now it's your turn to tell your uncle why Qin Su said that."
Aiseboer did not miss the confusion in He Muzhi's eyes, but he felt that He Muzhi was the person in the entire Fourth Military Academy who was closest to Qin Su. He must know more about Qin Su's psychology and affairs than he did.
He Muzhi gathered his thoughts and told Aiseboer the truth, "Perhaps... it's because Qin Su hopes we can freely define good and evil, and strive to break free from the shackles of worldly conventions as soon as possible."
They become like Qin Su, who, as long as they think others 'deserve to die,' will not be any different from other species, even if they are of the same kind.
Aiseboer: "?"
Can you speak like a human being?
He recognizes each word individually, but he can't understand them at all when they're put together. How does "doing volunteer work at Funeral Home" become a matter of "freedom of good and evil"?
He's getting into this philosophical stuff; he needs a translator.
"... In short, whatever Qin Su does or says, he must have his reasons." After saying this, He Muzhi quickly made an excuse to leave before Aiseboer could ask any more questions.
Back among his classmates, He Muzhi noticed that students from other classes were staring at him intently. He resisted the urge to speak, gestured for everyone to look at the Optical Brain, and posted his guesses and the information he had received from the Principal in the 499 People chat.
After reading the content in the group, the students in Class 6) whispered among themselves.
"The pressure is immense; I'm afraid I won't live up to the Class Monitor's expectations."
"Isn't anyone worried that if we continue like this... we might become mentally ill? I can understand the freedom to kill insects because they harm humans and encroach on the space we depend on for survival, but humans... ugh, just imagining it gives me goosebumps. It feels so perverted, and I, a mere chicken, can't do it!"
"What kind of perversion is this? Can't you speak properly? This is clearly enhancing our sense of freedom, both psychologically and physically, allowing us to grow unchecked outside the rules!"
"It's too free; thinking about it makes me feel a little lost about the unknown."
"According to the definition of freedom of good and evil, why can't the Zerg consider us evil?"
"That's right... This is about judging good and evil by one's stance! The Zerg were ruthlessly wiped out because their stance was contrary to that of humans. The Class Monitor is probably telling us that humans and Zerg are no different from those with opposing stances; the outcome of their struggle depends entirely on their own abilities."
"There's no need to worry so much. We're not even sure if we can achieve the freedom Qin Su hopes for. Besides, the Class Monitor is the rope that keeps us in check. If we go too far with our freedom, the Class Monitor definitely won't stand idly by."
"Support!"
The other classes were confused.
"What are they chattering about? So mysteriously."
"Qin Su must have given them some orders we don't know about."
"That's it."
[Just wondering, is Qin Su training a bunch of lunatics? If this continues, they'll probably treat humans and Zerg as the same species, meaning they'll decisively Purge out anyone they deem an outsider who isn't on their side (horrified face)]
[A machine kept by Qin Su, obeying only Qin Su's commands?]
[A rein? That's a descriptive term (doge). Qin Su hadn't even said anything yet, and they were already putting one around their own necks.]
[A Boss 1 sitting comfortably on a black leather armchair, one hand resting on the armrest, the back of his hand lightly supporting his cheek, the other hand holding a leash for numerous vicious dogs.]
[Hehe, what I'm imagining is that the Boss Su has countless black lines hanging from his long, slender fingers, each line holding a different puppet at the other end, looking down with indifferent disdain (hiss)]
[You're so imaginative! (drooling) (starry-eyed) (hands over a pen) (hungry) (food)]
Qin Su: "..."
He's not him, he has no other connections, yet he's rushing to pin the blame.
Through the comments, Qin Su deduced what happened after he left and He Muzhi's conjectures about him. His lips twitched slightly as he experienced what it meant to 'be born a rumor' while packing his things in the dormitory.
After finishing his work, Qin Su glanced at the StarNet's tracking of insect activity. He then took one after another from his "Must-Eat Insect Cuisine List for Each Planet" compiled based on the overall tastes of each planet. Titles like "Not eating this insect means you've wasted your trip to Planet X," "This insect can only be found on Planet X," "Planet X, do you think I can't afford it? Is this insect priced so cheaply because you look down on me?", "The most delicious insect ever, give me a billion more!", "This insect is so delicious it's beyond words," "The legendary insect that people queue for 10 hours just to take a bite!", "Not expensive! A delicious insect on the tip of your tongue!", "The most high-end insects often require only the simplest cooking methods," "I would call it the Spiral Ascension Insect!"... etc., were sent out one by one, with clickbait titles that seemed suspiciously fraudulent but were easy to click on out of curiosity, like "Let me see what's going on."
After posting, Qin Su skillfully had the system register countless fake accounts to act as online trolls, providing initial buzz.
To further leverage the bloggers' massive fan base and amplify the buzz, Qin Su also had system-registered accounts impersonate fans of food bloggers on different platforms of StarNet, tagging various food bloggers and novelty bloggers under the "Must-Eat List".
Recently, due to Qin Su, almost every Zerg review has gone viral, and bloggers have followed @'Smell It' and reposted it to express their willingness to review it in order to gain followers and popularity.
Having completed today's task of 'helping Unsold Insects,' Qin Su closed the interface with satisfaction and opened a new page to edit the 'Holiday Requisition of Zerg Glands' plan.
Interstellar People live for hundreds of years, Zerg could be eaten to extinction at any time. He had to take advantage of the Zerg's still 'prosperous' state to preserve as many usable and unusable Glands as possible.
Although...
Qin Su glanced at the upper right corner. Due to recent events, the indigenous people's favorability towards him had increased significantly, causing his Life Points to surge to over twenty-one years and a half months.
He now has roughly twenty years left to live.
But it's okay. It's always good to be prepared for the worst. No matter where their family is, the Glands can help in certain special circumstances. If he ever runs into trouble, his family can use these Glands too.
--
While the senior students were running the Purge Zerg mission, the Class of 26 of students, who had already completed their semester's Purge missions, finished their first semester and entered their vacation.
Aiseboer had made prior arrangements, and during the entire holiday, apart from one full-time employee overseeing necessary procedures, all the other employees at the Funeral Home he operated were temporary workers from Class 6).
Aiseboer's welfare-oriented Funeral Home is located in Poverty District. It is non-profit and free of charge, open to the homeless who have died and the poor who do not have enough money for cremation.
It operates on funds provided by the government.
On the first day, Zhang Qing, the head of the Funeral Home, led 499 People on a tour of the facility, following Aiseboer's orders, to learn about Funeral Home equipment and procedures.
Looking at the young people, who were only in their teens or twenties compared to his own seventy years of age, Zhang Qing, in order to prepare them psychologically and prevent them from being frightened, first gave them a series of introductions and then arranged them all to positions where they could not directly contact the corpses. The plan was to wait four or five days until they understood the situation and were able to accept staying to do volunteer work, and then treat them as normal staff members.
"Teacher Zhang, can we directly perform tasks that involve direct contact with the body, such as picking up, moving, and preparing the body's appearance?"
After Zhang Qing finished explaining the arrangements for the 499 people, He Muzhi was stepped forward to represent everyone and express their thoughts to Zhang Qing.
Zhang Qing: "?"
In all her years in this line of work, this was the first time she had ever seen a young person make such a request; they were truly fearless and naive.
Are you sure?
"Sure!"
"Um!"
499 People nodded in agreement.
Zhang Qing: "... Okay then."
As expected of the Military Academy students in Qin Su's class, their ability to learn is indeed strong. However... Zhang Qing also couldn't understand why Qin Su had these kids from Class 6) do this?
In any case, Zhang Qing was naturally pleased that someone volunteered to pick up corpses, as different corpses were in different states of decomposition when they were picked up. This was a physically demanding job that required strong mental fortitude.
Throughout the entire Funeral Home, the staff most enjoy being assigned the cremation work, because all they need to do is watch from above as the porters place the prepared bodies onto the conveyor belt. Once it's full, they just need to mentally initiate the conveying, cremation, and encasing process, without ever touching the bodies themselves.
After the reassignment was completed, Zhang Qing, worried that the children might be shy, added, "If anyone feels uncomfortable, they can always ask me to change their position."
(Class 6 all responded, their voices filled with eager anticipation.
To prevent accidents from happening to the students, Zhang Qing personally led a 200-person scavenging team out to carry out the work in a vehicle that combines flight and Transport.
It was the students' first time. Zhang Qing piloted the airship himself, leading the students in a flight of more than ten minutes before they entered the interior of a huge mushroom-shaped aerial building using their access cards.
After entering, the airship carried (Class 6) people from top to bottom through the crowded, rusty buildings that smelled of different things, and finally landed in the narrow space at the bottom.
"Search this area, put all the bodies found into black Body Bags, and move them into the frozen cargo hold."
The ground floor is the energy source of the entire building, inhabited by poor people with little money. They don't have Star Coins to activate the 'Constant Temperature Mode', so it's constantly in a high-temperature state. Anyone with a little money would have already tried their best to move up.
If the body of a homeless person who died while begging is found on the upper floors, to avoid the stench affecting those on the upper floors, it is usually thrown down or transported, and then the upper floors are notified to come and remove it.
In cases of excessively high temperatures, countless maggots can usually be found on a corpse within a day of death.
The Funeral Home is located in a suburban area far from the planet's center, a world apart from the central area. The difference between the funeral home and the central area is like heaven and earth. The funeral home has a heavy workload and few staff, and usually only moves bodies once a week. You can imagine how badly the bodies decompose.
After listening to Zhang Qing's words, the students of Class 6) put on protective suits and took Body Bags to begin the search.
The smell is very strong; you basically don't need to search much, just follow the scent to find it.
Just a few minutes after arriving from the airship, He Muzhi stood behind Zhang Qing and saw a emaciated body lying in the damp area on the surface of the black water, covered by colorful hues. The stench attracted swarms of mosquitoes, and white, wriggling maggots crawled out and burrowed back into the broken skin.
Whether it's mosquitoes or maggots, the Class 6 of people, who had experience fighting against the Zerg and had been deeply exposed to the Corpse Stench of the Prisoner for several days in a row at the Maikafukelai Prison, accepted it well.
Having already felt nauseous and vomited several times, they didn't feel uncomfortable. What they felt was the strangeness of knowing that the person lying on the ground was not Prisoner, but an ordinary person whose past they didn't know.
This was a scene that a small number of students in the class had never seen before, while most of the students who came to the class felt uncomfortable but had seen it before.
After a few seconds of silence, seeing that Zhang Qing didn't speak, they frowned and spontaneously stepped forward to begin their work.
Watching the students from Class 6 open the Body Bags, they didn't mind touching the rotting, maggot-infested corpses with their own hands, carefully moving the bodies into the Body Bags, then zipping them up and carrying them onto the airship.
Zhang Qing: "..."
She really wanted to know what kind of training Qin Su had given them. The level of sophistication he had made them was horrifying to her.
Having witnessed firsthand the orderly and fearless work of Class 6), Zhang Qing silently relayed everything to Aiseboer.
In the silent moving room, someone started talking in hushed tones. (Class 6) began to speak.
"I suddenly remembered something."
"What?"
"After the Third Practical Exercise, it seemed that no one paid attention to the Prisoners who died in Maikafukelai Prison, and no one investigated their deaths."
Their initial concern about being held accountable for what they had done to the Prisoners seemed rather ridiculous.
"... Oh right, something feels off. What kind of situation do Prisoners serving sentences of over three hundred years face? This time, our video has shown it to the public, and it's clearly completely different from what the Federation government has been promoting. Everyone seems to have suffered a 'collective amnesia' about this; nobody is mentioning it, and nobody wants to change the rule."
"Do you want to speak up for the Prisoners?"
"... In no mood."
"That settles it."
"..."
Listening to his classmates' discussions, He Muzhi was horrified to discover that he, like them, hoped that the Prisoners would die in a way that was even more gruesome than the crimes they had committed.
Having learned of the movements of Class 6 from Aiseboer and hearing Aiseboer's account, almost everyone who was watching their movements had the same thought:
They had to admit that Qin Su had used their money to buy off the hearts and minds of those who belonged to Qin Su. To them, the Fourth Military Academy Class of 26 was essentially finished.
(Class 6 is so loyal to Qin Su that they even went to the Funeral Home for Qin Su and did inexplicable jobs like moving corpses. Their moral standards have been ridiculously low because of Qin Su. Wouldn't they do anything even more outrageous if Qin Su asked them to?
After they graduate, who will dare to hire them?
Even if their families manage to get people in despite opposition, they will be constantly watched by others because they are very likely not of one mind with the major factions that have already reached a certain size.
From this moment forward, the mark of "Qin Su" will be invisibly imprinted on the people of Class 6).
--
Meanwhile, apart from having someone at home and Transport the obtained insect Glands back, Qin Su rarely returned to the Real World.
Thanks to the "Must-Eat List for Each Planet," countless people on each planet hunt different insects every day because they crave them and because of their different tastes.
This move, regardless of the planet, has met with strong opposition in the name of the Federation.
No matter how much they opposed it, it was useless. The power of the 'masses' was unshakeable. In addition, those who had the ability, weapons, and private armies to hunt were basically the ones who set the rules of the game, so the prohibition of privately hunting Zerg was repeatedly prohibited but still persisted.
Qin Su was among them, and no one noticed his secret: he was hunting down specific insects with 'Gland' Zerg Glands.
Soon, Aiseboer's attention was diverted by the senior students of the Fourth Military Academy.
When his Class Advisor, who was also on Purge mission to the Maikafukeclai Planet, reported to him that the students were dedicated to paying homage to Qin Su and emulating Qin Su by killing the Prisoners who came up and tried to seize the Spaceship, Aiseboer felt as if the sky had fallen. "Who gave them permission to do this?"