Pandora's Box

The Moon—the Earth Federation's headquarters—was a holy land possessing technology far beyond the rest of the world, a gathering place for the finest elites from every industry. A Federation leader had once joked, "Even if Earth were destroyed, as long as the Moon remained, human civilization would never perish. It might even surpass everything humanity on Earth has today."

Though it had merely been a joke, from the leaders of other nations down to ordinary elites, everyone knew it was not a "joke"—it was the truth!

The Moon contained countless secret armed forces and unfathomably advanced technologies, such as bioengineering, genetic research, weapons production, medical hardware, special-grade industrial materials, and more. It controlled seventy to eighty percent of Earth's high-tech industries. Yet what was truly terrifying were its unknown military technologies, life engineering, space development, biological weapons, and other classified research.

Thus, the Moon stood at the pinnacle of the Earth Federation's hierarchy and was the holy land countless people on Earth yearned for. Even an ordinary worker on the Moon was exceptionally skilled in their field; placed on Earth, they would be an expert-level talent. Those living on Earth were like ants gazing at the sky, able only to look up at the Moon.

A saying that never grew outdated circulated on the Moon: "No one who comes from the Moon is worthless, because they represent the wisdom, strength, pride, and honor of the entire human world..."

On Earth, many people could spend their entire lives without ever setting foot on the Moon. Even a nation's wealthy tycoon could exhaust their fortune and still fail to obtain an inch of land there, unless they possessed extraordinary talent—the sort of genius ordinary people spoke of. Yet the Moon never lacked geniuses. What it lacked were beings ordinary people could not comprehend, such as madmen, monsters, freaks, and other technical personnel whose academic abilities no one could master and whose thinking transcended ordinary human levels.

There was another kind of person on the Moon: members of national powers. They controlled Earth's operations and gradually formed factions of their own. These factions never revealed themselves to the public and remained hidden behind the scenes. Where there was light, there was darkness; where there was justice, there was evil. The Moon was not so sacred after all.

Therefore, the Moon was both a holy land and a forbidden ground.

Today, the Moon launched a drug called "Pandora" at Earth, abbreviated as the PB Drug. Its full name was Pandora's Box, and it was the most crucial step in carrying out the New Human Plan.

When the PB Drug covered the entire Earth, the hope people had anticipated did not appear. Instead, an unimaginable disaster descended!

Later generations called the PB Drug—the PB Virus.

There had been many adverse factors behind the PB Drug's failure. For example, substances present in the air were incompatible, and human constitutions varied, causing unknown changes in the virus. Most critically, the Moon had launched all the PB Drug at Earth in blanket coverage, triggering a sudden large-scale eruption of human brainwaves and an irreversible mental mutation.

Every human body possessed a magnetic field. But when people thought, that magnetic field changed, generating a kind of bioelectric current. The current passed through the magnetic field, and what formed from it was known as "brainwaves."

The PB Drug spread at extreme speed, at every moment, from one person's magnetic field into many others' magnetic fields. Like the splash and split effects of a skill in a game, the more people became infected, the faster the PB Virus spread. After passing through countless human brainwaves, PB was no longer its original gene—it became a mutated virus, like diseases mixing together and becoming ever more complicated and difficult to resolve.

As it spread to more people, plants, even bacteria in drains, insects, cockroaches, and rats, all of them transmitted the mutated virus. The biological system of the entire world underwent drastic change. Only a small number of people on Earth survived. These people were the so-called New Humans of the plan!

Meanwhile, no virus appeared on the Moon.

The instant the Moon launched the PB Drug, the entire Moon went into lockdown.

This was a colossal conspiracy by those in power, or rather, a madman's plan.

Only Mu Xiao knew what lay behind this plan,

What kind of earth-shattering extremist ideology had been hidden there. This was also the most important reason the PB Drug had gone wrong! Throughout human history, it was nothing unusual for those in power to develop fanatical delusions of "becoming immortals" or "becoming gods." Especially once they possessed countless mysterious resources, developed cutting-edge technology, and gathered humanity's geniuses and monsters from across the world—technical experts from every field who had even discovered another starry sky... It was as if they had seen the eternal path of evolution. What then could they not do?

The temptation of eternal life and becoming so-called "gods" was not something mortals could resist.

At this moment, the Federation headquarters on the Moon had split into two major camps. One was the Mad Faction, which wanted Earth to remain as it was and intended to use all humanity as laboratory rats to perfect the New Human Plan. The other was the Conservative Faction, which wanted to immediately save human lives by developing a drug to eliminate the biochemical virus.

The important figures in the council had descended into chaos as well, each holding different opinions. They could not reach an agreement in a short time. Yet with every passing second on Earth, human genes changed in countless ways. In the end, they would lose control and suffer the consequences themselves...

While all of human civilization fell into chaos, Mu Xiao remained asleep, the genes in his body continuously optimizing...

Bauhinia Building.

Shangguan Yuanxin slowly awoke from her unconsciousness and sleep, feeling a faint numbness throughout her body. As scenes of what had happened gradually returned to her mind, she suddenly snapped fully awake. Her first reaction was that of any ordinary woman: she lowered her head to inspect her clothes. Discovering that she was lying on a rest bed, her face paled. As though she had thought of the most terrifying possibility, resentment filled her eyes as she abruptly threw off the blanket covering her...

"This is..."

She froze, discovering that her clothes were intact and that she had not been violated at all.

Shangguan Yuanxin scrambled off the bed and carefully examined and felt the changes in her body. In the end, she found that she truly had not been violated by that man. While she breathed a huge sigh of relief, she was also puzzled. Was her figure and appearance not attractive enough?

"It is already good that nothing happened. There is no need to think about such boring things." Shangguan Yuanxin mocked herself with a smile. She still had the thoughts of an ordinary woman.

At that moment, the door opened, and the athletic, wild beauty of a bodyguard entered. She happened to see Shangguan Yuanxin's self-mocking smile and knew what she was thinking. Her previously grave expression softened as she teased, "Yuanxin, I was the one who carried you into the room. That man named Mu Xiao had actually tossed you outside. He seemed too lazy to even touch you again. He had no improper thoughts toward you at all. So, has your confident and proud beauty finally suffered a blow?"

"Zhou Xuan, you should be telling me what is most important right now. From your expression earlier, it looked as though something major had happened." Shangguan Yuanxin and her female bodyguard were superior and subordinate, but they were also close friends. They knew each other very well. Zhou Xuan's grave expression earlier had not escaped Shangguan Yuanxin's notice.

"More than something major—it is a world-shaking crisis." Zhou Xuan's expression was heavy, as though dark clouds on the verge of collapse hung over her head.

"Something happened to the family?" Shangguan Yuanxin recalled what Mu Xiao had said to her. She had prepared herself mentally and could keep herself as calm as possible so she could handle the problem rationally.

"It is probably not just the family that is in trouble. Perhaps the whole world is..." Zhou Xuan said weakly. "Go look from the balcony outside, and you will understand."

The room had only an open-air wall and no balcony. Shangguan Yuanxin and Zhou Xuan went into the lounge together and saw that her squad of female bodyguards was unharmed, though they all sat restlessly with extremely complicated expressions.

Suddenly, Shangguan Yuanxin noticed two additional women. She remembered that they were Mu Xiao's former girlfriend and a female receptionist, one of Mu Xiao's friends at the company. Seeing their pale faces and undisguised terror, Shangguan Yuanxin asked, "How did they get in?"

"Mu Xiao changed the room password. He may have anticipated that something would happen, so he gave them the secret. It seems he meant for them to take refuge here," Zhou Xuan explained.

Shangguan Yuanxin remained silent and walked to the large balcony behind the office desk. Before she could even see the scenery and terrain below, she saw thick smoke filling the sky, like dark gray dragons sweeping across the heavens. The roar of fighter jets rang intermittently in her ears, while the noisy clamor below could be heard clearly even from such a height—hysterical, bone-chilling screams of madness...

"What exactly is happening!"

Uncontrollable panic filled Shangguan Yuanxin's stunning face. She vaguely saw ant-like crowds below fleeing for their lives in dense masses. As far as she could see, smoke and flames were everywhere. Buildings spewed massive plumes of fire and smoke, magnetic levitation vehicles exploded like fireballs in midair, and countless people screamed in terror... The once prosperous, beautiful, and charming City of Magic now seemed shrouded in layers of darkness, fear, and unease.

"A riot?" Shangguan Yuanxin asked in disbelief.

"I am afraid it may be worse than that." Zhou Xuan brought over a high-performance telescope and handed it to Shangguan Yuanxin. "With this, you should be able to see the most horrifying things down there clearly."

Shangguan Yuanxin immediately took the telescope and looked down. Her panicked expression turned deathly pale. Her entire body trembled violently, shaking like a sieve.

Blood-red, muscular monsters were attacking the crowds. Some people were torn in half and had their bloody flesh brutally devoured mouthful by mouthful by several monsters... Most terrifying of all, the "dead" whose flesh had been eaten began rapidly growing dark gray flesh, transforming into half-corpse monsters before repeating the cycle and attacking the crowds everywhere.

Through the high-performance telescope, every scene of people being eaten below was vividly displayed before Shangguan Yuanxin's eyes, as though she were witnessing it firsthand.

Blech!

Ignoring her mature and elegant image, Shangguan Yuanxin pressed a hand against her chest, lowered her head, and retched.

She was indeed a powerful businesswoman, but the situation had far exceeded the limits of her understanding, let alone her ability to deal with it. Setting aside her business skills, she was still only an ordinary person. She had no idea how to handle any of this.

Zhou Xuan patted her back and said, "Though I am a retired soldier, seeing what is happening below makes me want to vomit too. It is already very good that you have not collapsed completely. Those two women connected to Mu Xiao were frightened out of their wits just from hearing us discuss the situation outside. They did not even dare look at what was happening. So compared to ordinary people, your willpower is already quite good."

"Zhou Xuan, do you think this is the time to comfort me?" Shangguan Yuanxin recovered enough to take a handkerchief from her pocket and wipe her mouth. But when she recalled what she had just seen below, another wave of nausea churned in her chest.

"Other than comforting you, I really do not know what else to do." Zhou Xuan delivered news that left Shangguan Yuanxin ashen-faced. "All networks are down. We cannot send any messages, and we cannot contact the family. The family may not even be able to take care of us now."

"Then what do we do..." Shangguan Yuanxin was momentarily dazed.

Suddenly, one of the female bodyguards approached and said quietly, "Miss, Mu Xiao's female colleague, Lü Xiaoman, says she needs to see you. It seems Mu Xiao left an encrypted message, marked as information intended for you."

The instant Shangguan Yuanxin heard that, she remembered Mu Xiao's strange words earlier. She also recalled his instruction for her to take refuge at Warehouse No. 9.

"He knew something major was going to happen so early on. Why did he not say it directly..." Shangguan Yuanxin's thoughts stalled, and she instantly understood why he had not told her in advance. Something so unbelievable would have been impossible for her to believe at the time. Compared to him and his background, her family had been far more influential, and his words had held no credibility. But now, all of her identity and background seemed to have lost their usefulness.

As Shangguan Yuanxin realized that the identity and background she had relied on and taken pride in were useless, the panic in her heart grew even more intense.

"What is wrong?" Seeing her look utterly lost, Zhou Xuan understood that such unknown terror truly made it impossible for anyone to feel at ease.

"Nothing. Let us first see what hint Mu Xiao left me. Perhaps this sudden unrest is only temporary and will be over in a few days. After all, we still have the Moon as our greatest support." Shangguan Yuanxin tried to comfort herself.

If she had known that the Moon might not suppress the disaster with all its strength, she would have fallen into complete despair.

"What exactly did he leave me?" As though clutching at a lifeline, Shangguan Yuanxin quickly straightened herself, barely maintaining her usual dignified bearing as she returned indoors.