The Last 299 Days of Humanity

Xiaoya, Daya, and the little girl called "Bread" were like three frightened fledglings, settled in the Gu Yi villa in the Wengshan base living area.

Their slender fingers gripped the hem of their clothes tightly, and they walked cautiously with each step, as if the ground beneath their feet was not a smooth floor, but thin ice that could collapse at any moment.

They each lived in three adjacent, separate rooms, where the lighting was adjusted to a soft, warm yellow, the walls mimicked the texture of natural wood, and all sharp corners were covered with upholstery.

Yu Qing knew that giving them a sense of security was the first step, but this first step was extremely difficult. Even the slightest sound of a doorknob turning could make them tremble.

Yu Qing assigned two humanoid maidens to each of them, whose appearances had been specially modified to closely resemble "original" human women. One was responsible for taking care of their daily lives and was called a life assistant; the other served as their mentor and was called a learning assistant.

The assistants always had perfectly timed smiles on their faces, and their voices were as gentle as a spring breeze. They never cared about any hostility or resistance from Xiaoya and her friends.

The personal assistant is programmed with the gentlest touches; every movement she makes is calculated to ensure it doesn't cause any abruptness or fear.

She patiently taught them how to use the harmless bathroom facilities, how to recognize simple icons on synthetic food packaging, and how to comb their tangled hair. Each stroke of the comb was as light as a feather.

However, in the first few days, even a simple gesture from the assistant to hand over a glass of water would make the three girls cower in a corner like frightened birds. They were especially afraid to eat the strange foods they found strange, and only dared to secretly try them after the assistant demonstrated.

They would carefully touch the food with their fingertips, then quickly withdraw their hands, repeating this several times before daring to take further action.

In reality, they were unable to adapt to such a meticulous lifestyle and were clearly anxious and uneasy. They couldn't even sleep peacefully at night, waking at the slightest noise, their dark eyes empty, reflecting no light. Late at night, they often sat on the edge of their beds, hugging their knees, until dawn.

The work of a learning assistant is even more challenging. She needs to start with the most basic language pronunciation and numerical concepts, trying to bridge the huge gap in civilization bit by bit. She repeats the simplest syllables with the patience of teaching a baby to speak.

She displayed 3D images of plants and animals, explained the simple scientific principles of day and night and weather changes, and guided them through gentle stretching exercises and coordination drills. Butterflies danced in the projection, but they brought no smiles to their faces.

After their initial numbness, Xiaoya and Daya occasionally showed a flicker of curiosity in their eyes, but mostly they were confused and exhausted. Their bodies had been in a state of malnutrition and high stress for a long time, making even simple balance training difficult. Their thin legs struggled to even stand.

Bread completely shut herself off; she showed no reaction to any instruction, simply sitting silently or unconsciously drawing meaningless lines in the air with her fingers.

It took a top-tier humanoid learning assistant five days to teach her the numbers one through ten! Her blank gaze kept fixed on a certain point in the void.

Teaching simple Mandarin conversations is even more tedious and slow, and is often interrupted by a sudden nightmare or frightening flashback, resulting in very little progress. The words they learn fastest are "eating" and "convenience."

Yu Qing once thought they might all be born idiots. This thought gave him a sharp, desperate pain.

But upon calming down and thinking about it carefully, it's not entirely their fault. Clearly, the facilities at Fifth Paradise may have had problems long ago, forcing the people there to work day and night to survive, gradually giving up entertainment and education.

The loss of a civilization often happens within two or three generations, but in some places, the lineage may have been broken for several generations. The spark of knowledge is quietly extinguished under the heavy pressure of survival.

Everything at the First Paradise was in perfect condition, and no one ever had to worry about living there. As a result, Yu Qing had plenty of time to learn various cultural and scientific knowledge from his parents from a young age.

Even so, he was still at a generational gap with the outside world, let alone Xiaoya and the others. He recalled the shock he felt when he first saw Daji, a humanoid beauty, and now he could better understand Xiaoya and the others' bewilderment.

Yu Qing couldn't imagine how they could possibly revive and promote human civilization within a century or two. This burden was far too heavy for these girls, who struggled even with basic communication. He sighed and rubbed his throbbing temples.

Yu Qing's troubles go far beyond these.

The situation at Fifth Amusement Park was also causing him considerable distress. His efforts to monitor and "peacefully persuade" the Chen family seemed to be yielding little result, leaving him even more exhausted. Every day, he spent several hours studying the surveillance footage, searching for a breakthrough.

Real-time images and data transmitted from concealed observation posts on the edge of the jungle painted a worrying picture. Old Chen had clearly regressed completely to a state of survival based on primal instincts. His eyes gleamed with a wild, animalistic vigilance.

He clumsily but persistently set up various rudimentary traps around the cave where they were hiding, using sharpened branches, vines, and stones. In Yu Qing's view, these traps were ridiculously crude; they might not even be able to trap slightly larger wild animals, let alone deal with the well-equipped Sheng Tian team members.

It took Old Chen two whole days to set a trap, but he was still enjoying it immensely. He'd rather spend that time finding more food.

But this behavior clearly conveyed Old Chen's deep-seated fear and hostility—he stubbornly believed that those "monsters" outside were always looking for opportunities to harm them. Every night, he would get up and check the traps several times.

What's even more tragic is that his understanding of technological creations has become completely distorted. As a small reconnaissance drone silently swept across the jungle on a routine patrol, thermal imaging captured Old Chen's reaction:
Instead of hiding, he pulled his family to the ground and knelt before the blurry shadow of the aircraft in the sky, performing a strange, fearful act of worship, muttering incantations as if begging for forgiveness or mercy from "gods." His forehead was pressed tightly to the ground, and his whole body trembled.

He began to worship this incomprehensible force in a primitive, religious way. After each drone flight, he would kneel and pray for a long time.

Even greater challenges lie ahead. Their food crisis has already arrived.

They fled in haste, taking nothing with them. The food they could find nearby was exhausted, and Old Chen lacked effective hunting tools and skills; the wild fruits and roots he gathered were far from enough to satisfy the needs of his family of four. The children's eyes were sunken with hunger.

In the surveillance footage, the two children's cries were barely audible from hunger, and the two women were emaciated and vacant. He himself even began eating withered leaves. He chewed on dry leaves, a pained expression on his face.

What happened next sent a chill down Yu Qing's spine. The high-sensitivity sound sensor detected unusual activity inside the cave. Old Chen and his slightly older woman were engaged in a violent struggle, their suppressed arguments breaking into fragments. "Someone has to die..." Old Chen's hoarse voice was faintly audible.

Immediately afterwards, Old Chen's eyes turned unusually fierce. He suddenly pushed the woman to the ground, his hands trembling but resolutely reaching for her neck!
He bit off her ear and began to chew it. It seemed he was trying to sacrifice his own woman to ensure the survival of the other three! Blood trickled down his chin.

If Yu Qing hadn't witnessed all of this through the remote terminal, tragedy might have struck immediately. He yelled at the on-site monitoring personnel, "You must stop him right now!" His fingers turned white from the force of his shout.

The command was executed instantly. A low-power pulse, precisely controlled by energy, shot out from the device hidden in the forest and accurately struck Old Chen's right arm, the very arm he had used to commit the crime.

He screamed in pain as his arm went numb and he involuntarily released his grip. Almost simultaneously, several compressed nutrient packs were silently airdropped not far from the cave entrance. The silver packaging gleamed faintly in the moonlight.

The scene that followed plunged Yu Qing into deep silence.

Old Chen, clutching his numb arm, stared in terror at the "object from the sky" at the cave entrance. Instead of immediately picking it up, he pulled his still-shaken family members and began to kowtow repeatedly towards the night sky, more devout and fearful than ever before. Blood even trickled from his forehead.

From then on, birds flying through the forest, shooting stars streaking across the sky, and even a slightly stronger gust of wind could make him kneel down in fear, as if the whole world was filled with unknown gods who needed to be pleased and feared. His spirit was completely dominated by fear.

Yu Qing turned off the live feed, rubbed his furrowed brow, and a profound sense of powerlessness almost overwhelmed him. He realized that hoping Old Chen would awaken on his own in such extreme circumstances, understand and accept assistance, was something he might not see in his lifetime.

Waiting meant watching them slowly march towards destruction through barbarity, superstition, and fratricide, or disappear completely in a crisis he couldn't intervene in time. The thought suffocated him.

Can't wait any longer.

He remotely summoned Su Qing, Nightingale, and the other leaders of the surrounding security detail. His voice was weary, yet carried an undeniable resolve as he said:
"Our strategy of 'observation' and 'peaceful guidance' of the Chen family is officially terminated." Silence fell over the meeting room.

He pulled up a topographic map and monitoring data of the jungle and continued:

"They have completely degenerated, are incapable of rational communication, and are facing an imminent survival crisis, potentially annihilated at any moment due to internal conflict or external threats."

We cannot stand by and watch these last few 'original' samples perish in this way. His finger traced the heatmap on the holographic projection.

He pointed at Nightingale: "You immediately devise a forced relocation plan. But I have three requirements."

First, we must absolutely guarantee four objectives, especially the child's life safety, and minimize physical and psychological trauma.

Second, when using non-lethal weapons and control measures, personnel must exercise restraint.

Third, the operation must be swift and covert, ensuring control and relocation are completed in the shortest possible time once it begins. His gaze swept across everyone's faces.

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the crowd before finally settling on a blurry thermal image showing the Chen family huddled in a cave. Those four tiny dots of light were so fragile, and so distant.

“We are saving them, even if the way we are saving them looks like a barbaric act of violence… Anyway, let’s act now.” His voice was filled with a heavy determination.

The operation unfolded in the darkest hour before dawn. Nightingale's task force infiltrated the jungle like ghosts, swiftly subduing the terrified and struggling Chen family with a powerful tranquilizer. The entire process was lightning fast, minimizing their fear.

However, the return journey was far from smooth. While flying over a radioactive desert, the transport plane was suddenly targeted and interfered with by an unknown energy weapon on the ground, causing a brief malfunction in its navigation system and severe turbulence.

Although the accompanying technicians quickly resolved the malfunction, the precise attack made Yu Qing frown. He suspected that it was the remnants of "Dadian" or the "Saviour Brotherhood" lurking in the shadows, ready to strike at any moment.

A few days later, as the convoy traversed the final stretch of canyon leading to Wengshan, rocks began to tumble down from the cliffs on either side, clearly not a natural collapse. This second setback further confirmed Yu Qing's premonition: there were indeed enemies lurking in the darkness, coldly observing and waiting for their chance to strike.

Meanwhile, the investigation into the mysterious disappearances of the residents of Seventh Paradise remained stalled, and the desolate emptiness hung like a dark cloud over everyone's hearts, causing great unease.

The process of settling the Chen family was also fraught with difficulties. They were temporarily placed in a separate wing of the Gu Yi Villa, but unlike the relatively younger Xiao Ya and her friends, the Chen couple's mental and physical decline was much more complete.

The glaring lights would trigger their screams, and the soft beds would keep them awake, forcing them to curl up on the floor in a corner.

Old Chen exhibits intense aggression towards any humanoid creature that tries to approach him, while his wife mutters to herself all day long, as if living in her own world.

Faced with their severe post-traumatic stress disorder, malnutrition, and deeply ingrained primitive thinking, Yu Qing realized that conventional comforting and teaching were no longer effective.

At Su Qing's suggestion, he finally decided to send Lao Chen's family to Wengshan Hospital, which has better facilities and a quieter environment, for long-term recuperation and psychological rehabilitation.

In the pure white corridor of the hospital, Yu Qing watched as medical staff escorted the calmed-down Old Chen into a special care ward. The pervasive smell of disinfectant stirred up a bizarre memory in his mind. He recalled that not long ago, also in this hospital, he had first met the humanoid doctor, Chang'e.

Now, she no longer exists. Yu Qing didn't know why he felt such complex sadness for a creation without true life. Was this inexplicable emotion stemming from human loneliness and a lack of emotional outlet, or from his disillusionment with the present situation? (End of Chapter)