Chapter 17: The Shrew Plan

The meeting—or collective trial—ended abruptly. The cacophony of urgent calls flooded the academic hall as scholars and government delegates from around the world swiftly exited.

Xia Lin stood motionless, staring blankly at Kai S. Gao, her breathing heavy.

Kai S. Gao put on his glasses, took a deep breath, and met her gaze. "Should I apologize?"

Xia Lin remained silent, her eyes saying everything. What she had believed to be a manageable ecological crisis had spiraled into an apocalypse—one she could never have anticipated.

As people filed past the podium, curses and accusations in various languages were hurled at Kai S. Gao:
"Madman! Absolute lunatic!"
"Your people always bring disaster to the world!"
"You’re Satan himself! You deserve eternal damnation!"

...

Kai S. Gao understood some of them. He merely smiled.

After a prolonged silence, Xia Lin dialed an encrypted number. The voice on the other end spoke rapidly. Her eyes dropped to the floor as she nodded. "Yes. Humanity may face extinction. Initiate the highest-level emergency protocol."
"Understood. I’ll execute it."

Hanging up, exhaustion and defeat etched into her features. She looked up at Kai S. Gao. "I don’t know how to punish you. Human laws no longer apply."

"I’ll accept whatever comes," Kai S. Gao replied calmly.

Xia Lin clamped specialized electronic shackles onto him and escorted him to the police station. During the ride, she fell into a deep sleep, as if nothing mattered anymore.

When the car stopped, Kai S. Gao whispered, "Comrade Xia Lin, we’re here."

She jolted awake but said nothing.

Humanity’s greatest criminal was locked in a cramped holding cell alongside pickpockets, drunkards, and scam artists.

A pickpocket eyed Kai S. Gao’s tailored suit and electronic restraints. "Hey, what’d you do to get those fancy cuffs? Bet even a bolt cutter can’t break ’em!"

Kai S. Gao, unfamiliar with such company, answered plainly: "Murder."

The pickpocket recoiled. "Damn, why’d they stick you with us? Bad luck!"

A drunkard slurred, "Must’ve been a crime of passion, eh?"

Kai S. Gao’s reply chilled the room: "I am never impulsive."

Xia Lin is back to her busy schedule. She has been ordered to stay in Northspire Haven and guide the place to implement the “Shrew Plan”.

The so-called “Shrew Plan” is to build shelters underground to escape the attack of the slime fungus on human cities and the Earth's ecosystem, and then return to the surface to rebuild human civilization after the ecosystem is stabilized.

Sixty-five million years ago, a huge asteroid crashed into the northern part of the Yucatan Peninsula, leading to the extinction of almost the entire dinosaur race, and the ancestor of human beings, a small mammal similar to the shrew, hid underground and escaped the extinction crisis, which eventually evolved the human civilization.

And now humans are just going back underground.

On the same day Kai S. Gao was taken into custody, a high-profile meeting was held at the Northspire Haven government building, attended by all but ten of Northspire Haven's most important figures.

Xia Lin gave a detailed report on the current situation, and after explaining the details of the Shrew Plan, she said with a slight fatigue, “Everyone, are there any questions?”

Scanning the circle, the faces of the cadres present seemed to be in disbelief, and there were still people talking and laughing, not realizing the seriousness of the problem at all.

Of those present, it was probably just the mayor of Northspire Haven who was seriously contemplating something.

She was a middle-aged woman, her figure was not fat, but the wrinkles on her face showed that she was close to fifty years old, and even though her hair was dyed black, you could still see patches of gray at the roots.

She unscrewed the glass teacup that had already been dipped into brown color by the tea leaves, and after taking a small sip, she said unhurriedly, “Comrade Xia Lin, you're the one who came from above, and I definitely believe you, but what you've said is indeed too appalling, and we may still need some time to digest and digest it.”

“Sorry Mayor Zhao, we may not have much time.” Xia Lin braced her hands on the table and stared at Mayor Zhao dead in the face, “This is a unified national deployment, it must be acted upon immediately.”

Immediately afterward, Xia Lin pulled up a set of images and displayed them on the projected screen.

“This is an island nation three hundred nautical miles away from Eden Archipelago, with five million citizens on it, and within just a few days, the entire nation was reduced to rubble, buried under red slime molds, more than seventy percent of the people lost their lives, and the survivors will die successively due to lack of food in the near future.”

A middle-aged man next to the mayor suddenly asked, “Isn't there any country to help this poor little island nation?”

Xia Lin shook his head, “Don't you guys understand? All countries are struggling to protect themselves right now!”

“The international community has completely blocked the news to avoid panic, hoping to do something to prepare under the precarious order.”

“Within a few days, a country has perished, and this is the disaster we are about to face.”

Mayor Zhao's eyes narrowed slightly, “We will do everything we can.”

The leadership group of Northspire Haven then began to discuss specific countermeasures.

It was simply too late to rebuild the underground human defense facility, and they finally finalized to remodel the existing Riverwatch Peak bomb shelter on top of it.

Although it could only hold no more than twelve thousand people, it was already the only option.

As for the construction team, the problem of material deployment, for a prefecture-level city, this was not difficult to solve.

Mayor Zhao closed his pen cap and fiddled with the neutral pen, saying, “We will arrange for the relevant personnel to finalize the specific details overnight, but right now there is still one major issue that we need to decide on.”

“Which people go in?”

Xia Lin's expression changed immediately, hesitated for a while, and said somewhat officially, “Selection is based on the principle of maximizing the likelihood of continuing human civilization, with priority given to young people who are fertile and free of genetic diseases, experts and scholars in various fields, and those with special skills.”

“Lin ah!” Mayor Zhao suddenly said in the tone of an elder, “Come out, let's talk alone.”

Mayor Zhao pushed open the heavy door of the conference room in front of him, holding the handle, letting Xia Lin walk out first.

The hallway was empty and Mayor Zhao leaned shallowly against the wall, clasping his hands and laughing, “How many years on the job, Lin?”

“Sorry, that has nothing to do with today's meeting.” Xia Lin said back somewhat unpleasantly.

“Well, then I won't beat around the bush.” Mayor Zhao smiled down, then said nonchalantly:

“You probably don't understand the local situation, to build a shelter in such a short period of time while deploying enough resources would require those rich businessmen and construction bosses to contribute, so on what basis would they listen to the arrangement? Especially in this case.”

“Inevitably, they will have the requirement of dragging their families along, otherwise no one will be able to live if the shelter is not built.”

“Furthermore, in order for this to move forward smoothly, won't the leadership team of each department be needed for coordination, and other staff for implementation, so much so that they'll be needed to keep the shelter running in the future?”

“Mayor Zhao, what do you mean by that?” Xia Lin was a bit impatient.

“I don't mean anything else, but the reality is like this, it's the same no matter where I am, and there's nothing I can do about it.” After saying that, Mayor Zhao buried his head, patted Xia Lin's shoulder, and then walked back to the conference room.

Xia Lin disheveledly retreated to the wall, turning her head to look at the endless corridor, somewhat helpless.

The corridor was not lit, the light was dim, and on the style display wall, there was a bright line - the needs of the people is our mission, the difficulties of the people is our work.

Two days later, the construction of the shelter began successfully, other work was also carried out in an orderly manner, and the list of selected people was also finalized.

When the form was sent to Xia Lin, she simply glanced at it and couldn't bear to read any further.

She even saw Derek Zhong and Miomi Guo's names on it.

It was only then that she realized she was wrong, very wrong.

Twenty days later, Xia Lin drove alone in an armored police car to the police station where Kai S. Gao was being held.

He was alone in the holding cell, his suit was visibly wrinkled, and his mental state appeared haggard.

Seeing Xia Lin, who was also out of sorts, Kai S. Gao smiled lightly and said, “Comrade Xia Lin, are you finally coming to pronounce my sentence? How do you plan to dispose of me?”

“Just follow me and you'll know.” Xia Lin didn't say much, opened the lock and took Kai S. Gao into the car.

The armored car moved forward slowly through the city's roads, Kai S. Gao saw the sight outside the window, it was a red color.

“They're coming, haha, they're coming.”

Xia Lin was expressionless and said somewhat indifferently, “Did you also anticipate this abnormal rainy weather nationwide?”

“Of course not, weather is a chaotic system, let's just say that God is on my side too.” Kai S. Gao had his face pressed against the glass, excitedly watching everything in his field of vision.

“God? That doesn't sound like something a scientist would say.”

Driving all the way to Riverwatch Peak, Xia Lin realized the mountain road was blocked by people's cars.

She hadn't joined the large group because she was coming to pick up Kai S. Gao, and no one was driving, so she was stuck halfway up the mountain.

She pulled the armored car to the side of the road, opened the rear door and said in a dry tone, “Get out of the car.”

Kai S. Gao was unperturbed, “You built the shelter in this mountain, didn't you?”

“Yes, thanks to you.”

“I don't think I should go in there, I'm a criminal.” Kai S. Gao laughed softly.

“That's why you need to redeem yourself, you know this slime mold the best, you'll be needed in the future!”

“No, I don't know it, it's like a baby, it will have a life of its own, a future of its own, with endless possibilities.” Kai S. Gao's face gradually turned gloomy as he was relieved, “You might as well shoot me in the head, after all, I'm going to kill countless people, and that's what I deserve.”

Immediately after that, he even closed his eyes tightly.

Xia Lin's face was a bit unsightly, “You know what, the top didn't do anything to you because it doesn't make any sense.”

“So Kai S. Gao, I have the power to sentence you.”

“Suspect Kai S. Gao, you are suspected of crimes against humanity and are sentenced by me to be exiled to the end times, with immediate execution.”

Upon hearing this, Kai S. Gao opened his eyes and laughed bitterly for a few moments.

Then Xia Lin programmed the electronic shackles with a countdown to unlock, and turned away indifferently, heading up the mountain on foot.

Her back quickly disappeared from Kai S. Gao's view.

The walk to the air-raid shelter only took half an hour, and with the security personnel opening the way, she easily made her way through the congested crowd to the entrance of the shelter, where she scanned the area with flashing eyes before decisively stepping into the shelter.