Epoch of Twilight

"Li... Little girl, then how did you come out?" Wu Qianru tried to ask further.

"Ah, I have no idea. I slept for a moment and when I woke up I was already underground. I then started digging a tunnel, and kept digging and digging and after a long time I was able to emerge onto the surface." The little girl spoke as she tilted her head while she was recalling the incident.

The two ladies were frightened after listening to what she had said and even though what the little girl said did not seem to be in proper English, it was still comprehensible. What exactly had she experienced during the disaster?

She could have possibly been hurt by the nuclear missile shockwave while she was asleep and by the time she woke up, without a doubt, her body would have been buried by volcanic ashes as the lava cooled down.

If everything she said was true, despite having such a frail and weak body, she certainly possessed an immense amount of some power. However, regardless of whether it was her innocent expression or the fact that she had been buried in the layers of ice, you could obviously tell she was not lying. It was simply a cruel deed to have just deserted such a little girl in the frozen wasteland.

Even though it could cause some complications if they brought her back to Hope City, her capabilities were still within their scope of comprehension as compared to Luo Yuan’s who could single handedly destroy the aliens. His powers were certainly beyond their reach. They looked into each other’s eyes, and had come to an understanding. Such a little monster should be handed over to a big monster like Luo Yuan to worry about.

...

In just a short time, the little girl had decided to follow them back to Hope City with no ulterior motives. As the three of them started talking while they were on their journey home, more and more information had been revealed by the little girl.

She had no name and no parents. Other than a number that did not have any special meaning, nothing else seemed to have been able to identify her. Similarly, according to the little girl, her brothers and sisters were the same. They were a bunch of children who had special powers and lived in a laboratory with the same level of education and upbringing.

After pondering for a short while, Lin Feiyan believed that the little girl was a human clone. She was not surprised as the apocalypse was a crazy era. When good and evil people were forced into survival mode, there was no longer a difference between them and she had heard rumors of many crazier experiments than human cloning itself. In fact, in some human experiments, the mortality rate was one person each month. However, all those were merely rumors and this was the first time she had met a real clone.

According to the little girl, there were no dark places, no medication, injections, or any operations involved, just a stricter military management.

"Oh right... How old are you?" Lin Feiyan asked as she was curious.

The little girl touched her head and started to think, "Aunty, I think I’m nine months and twenty days! I was asleep for some time underground so possibly a few days older..."

"You are not even a year old?" Lin Feiyan was so surprised that she missed a step and almost fell. She looked at the little girl and was definitely sure that she looked like a five or six year old girl. Besides that, when she was talking earlier, her speech was so fluent and clear that even if she were a five or six-year-old child, she sounded like an adult.

A normal human child would have only started to learn how to speak at the age of one!

Was she even human?

Wu Jingru was also shocked and her face showed disbelief.

"I’m considered one of the faster-growing ones. Most of my younger brother and sisters grew at a slower rate." She said. She seemed to notice the expression on both of their faces and the little girl lowered her head and blushed.

"Then how about the others? Are they as clever as you are?" Lin Feiyan asked.

"No, some are stupid. For example, brother A51621 only knows how to play and would not even complete the homework prepared by the teacher. He didn’t even complete primary education while I have completed my secondary education and am currently pursuing my tertiary education." The little girl said proudly.

"Then... You are really clever!" Lin Feiyan said as she was rendered speechless knowing that she herself was a slow learner during her younger days. Instinctively, she changed the subject and asked, "Since you’ve been alone for such a long time, what have you been eating every day?"

"I haven’t eaten for months but sometimes when I am thirsty I would eat the ice. The ice was very dirty but I could not hold my thirst so I ended up swallowing a chunk of it. How pitiful!" The little girl said. She started recalling her misfortunes and twitched her mouth, then tears started to drop from her cheeks.

Both girls started to feel sorry for her after hearing her tale and started to console her. They immediately stopped their journey, put down their backpacks and started preparing some food for her as the little girl had not eaten in months.

...

"Mayor, please have a look at the results of the underground geology analysis." An engineer carefully passed over a stack of documents to Luo Yuan. Luo Yuan’s face turned emotionless as he flipped through the layouts. He tried to suppress his anger and asked with a deep voice, "Is this your report!? How did it become so serious!?"

The officers behind him and the manager of the water factory turned pale. Their hearts started to beat quickly and they did not dare to let out even a single breath. The problem was truly serious and it was not unexpected for him to be furious.

"I can’t believe that you only began to conduct the analysis when something had gone wrong! Why on earth do I keep a bunch of useless people like you!?" Luo Yuan paced back and forth with a gloomy face.

The entire Hope City was relying on the underground water source for its daily activities as well as its source of drinking water. However, based on the geological structure drawings, there was an indication that since two months ago, one of the underground rivers which was located 300 meters deep was almost depleted. The original location of the underground river had formed an enormous cavity.

Based on the forecast, Hope City would lose its water supply in five days.

However, that was not the main reason that he was pissed off. It was the fact that none of the officers had conducted any underground river inspections until the lowest level of the underground city had collapsed.

Hope City would not have been in such chaos if there had not been a collapse.

Luo Yuan took a deep breath and calmed himself down as he realized that he have frightened the people around him with his temper.

He pondered and realized that he was not supposed to put the blame on them as he had allocated most of the scientists and technicians to work on the spacecraft earlier, resulting in a lack of manpower to inspect on the water bed. Besides that, too little attention was paid to Hope City which had led them to the danger they were facing today.

"Could you explain further?" Luo Yuan walked towards the collapsed site and spoke softly.

"We have neglected the possibility that the layer of ice could affect the underground water supply. The frozen surface layers have interrupted the water circulation, causing the rainfall to be unable to penetrate into the ground to replenish the underground water." The worker spoke while sweat dripped down from his forehead. Luo Yuan’s emotionless face made it impossible for them to guess his thoughts. All the workers hence remained extremely nervous.

In fact, the water supply was not the main issue but rather it was the huge bottomless hole that was affecting the entire underground city. That level was initially an empty space which was transformed into an agriculture area after the disaster. As it was the lowest level of the underground city, the foundation’s stability would greatly affect the entire city which may end up putting it on the verge of collapse if it became unstable.

Although the affected area this time was more than a few hundred square meters, the impact to the overall structural stability was minor. However, the occurrence was a sign that the hole was formed and the geological structure had changed. Even if the water drawing activity was stopped, no one could guarantee that it would not continue to collapse. Perhaps a low magnitude earthquake was sufficient to destroy the entire underground city.

"How much water is left in the water reservoir factory?" Luo Yuan asked.

"It’s sufficient for three days of normal consumption." The worker replied hurriedly.

Luo Yuan let out a sigh of relief and said, "Starting from now, stop all the water drawing activities!"

"Yes!" An immediate reply was given.

While listening to the mayor’s order, the workers immediately felt that they had been granted amnesty.

"Besides that, what is the plan to solve the huge cavity that had formed underground?" Luo Yuan asked.

"Pour in cement or set up many supporting poles!" An engineer suggested.

Secretary Chen Guanghui reminded him, "Mr. Mayor, we are running out of cement and there is not even one hundred tons left."

Luo Yuan was aware of this as a lot of construction materials had been used to reinforce the underground city to help overcome the frequent earthquakes, hence, there were not many materials left in the store. In fact, cement was not the only material which was almost depleted. Other resources were facing the same problem as well. If Luo Yuan had solved all this earlier, humanity might have ended up hiding in the comfort zone of Hope City and slowly died in it.

"If we don’t have cement, water might work as well. Water could help a lot in supporting the entire structure."

The main reason why the collapse had occurred in the first place was due to the underground water turning dry. Therefore, replenishing the underground river was a feasible solution except that it was not an easy stunt to pull off in a such a short notice. He looked at his watch and told Chen Guanghui, "Inform the leader of every city to assemble for a meeting at 4PM!"

"Yes mayor, I’ll do it now!" Chen Guanghui said politely. As it was already three something in the afternoon, he rushed towards the office and called every city’s leader to attend the meeting. During the impact of the nuclear antimatter smart orbital ballistic missile, a strong electromagnetic wave had damaged most of the telecommunication equipment. The only working telephones right now were the old phones which were easier to repair.

Luo Yuan nodded again and continued with his inspection of the water factory. He only managed to calm his nerves a little after looking at the large pool of water already in the reservoir.

Though the water supply had become abnormally plenty after the nuclear winter, the ice on the Earth’s surface had increased up to ten meters. If all that ice melted, it will form a vast sea and solve their problems. However, it was not easy to break the ice under such an extreme weather as the ice was harder than the steel. Normal metal equipment was rendered useless and utilizing it would only end up wasting time and energy. Furthermore, the water was not drinkable even if they could break it or melt it as one-third of the water contained impurities and a very high percentage of the water contained a lot of electrolytes. A series of complicated chemical processes were required before it was safe for consumption. Undoubtedly, all these took time to complete.

Nevertheless, there was an additional buffer time of three days which should be enough.