Chapter 12: Chapter 4: Surviving in the End 4.3 display one's talent for the first time
Midnight, Antarctic Ice Sheet
Lin Mo's boots crushed against the ten-thousand-year-old ice, with a mobile ark composed of twenty plutonium-bacteria reactors trailing behind him. This was the craziest energy experiment in human history—using glacier-sealed nuclear waste to nourish bacterial colonies, transforming Antarctica into the blue heart of Earth.
"The radiation concentration is ten times that of Chernobyl," Su Wan's mycelium tattoo pierced into the ice layer, its fluorescent blue veins spreading like blood vessels. "But the bacterial purification rate is breaking through theoretical limits."
An Ran's drone swarm projected holograms in the aurora, witnessed synchronously by global media: the radioactive purple patches on the ice sheet faded at a visible speed, with the melted water converging into a fluorescent river, surging into the most polluted Pacific gyre.
The Capital War's First Blood
Junyao's counterattack was swifter than anticipated. They froze 80% of the reserves of "PureLight Coin" in Credit Suisse vaults, and the International Energy Agency suddenly announced that plutonium-bacteria technology violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
"This is our last chance," An Ran slammed the encrypted file onto the conference table. "Either we make PureLight Coin a legal tender, or watch the global stock market crash in seven days."
However, Lin Mo tossed the file into a plutonium-bacteria cultivation chamber. The instant the paper was consumed, Credit Suisse's firewall data was exposed on the dark web—it turned out that their money laundering for Junyao was hidden in the PureLight Coin reserve pool.
The Violent Manifesto of Bio-Art
Li Feng's mercenary squad occupied the Louvre in Paris. They set up plutonium-bacteria petri dishes in front of the Mona Lisa, with mycelium etching the glass in a Da Vinci Code arrangement:
"The amount of radiation consumed per square centimeter by the bacterial colonies equals the ecological debt of Junyao shareholders extending their lifespans by one year."
When riot police burst in, the painting suddenly ignited, and from the ashes emerged a new portrait—Lin Jianguo standing in front of tunnel ruins, holding a banner transformed into fluorescent mycelium entwining the Earth.
Su Wan's Transformation
Laboratory alarms pierced the night sky as Su Wan locked herself inside a plutonium-bacteria reactor. Surveillance footage showed her mycelium tattoo consuming the reactor's shell: "My genetic chain and bacterial colony synchronization rate have reached 99%. This is the only way to control them."
When Lin Mo smashed open the lead-glass door, all he caught was her shed human-shaped serpent skin—the new Su Wan emerged from the mycelium cocoon, her pupils now a ghostly blue like radioactive material.
"I no longer need to breathe," her voice carried an electronic buzz. "Now, I am the purification program itself."
Junyao's Desperate Counterattack
Gu Zhenting's wheelchair appeared at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, with ten ghostly cargo ships loaded with plutonium-238 behind him. His mechanical prosthesis plugged into the reactor control console: "If the world doesn't need Junyao, then let the world restart."
But the cargo ship engines suddenly reversed—Chen Xing had embedded backdoors in all of Junyao's shipping systems seven years ago when he was paralyzed. Instead, radioactive waste was dumped at the former site of Junyao's headquarters, where the bacterial colonies feasted joyously on this final banquet.
The Coronation of the New King
At the UN emergency summit, Lin Mo's speech draft was replaced with a genetic sequence chart. He tore up the speech and tossed Su Wan's serpent skin sample at the delegates from various countries:
"Humans turned Earth into a casino over three centuries. Now, the house has changed."
A global pollution map lit up the screens, and the delegates were horrified to discover—all the red dots were moving, as if dragged by invisible hands towards Junyao's overseas asset zones.
Cracks Beneath the Sharp Edge
At the celebration banquet, Chen Xing's hacking program suddenly captured abnormal fluctuations: every PureLight Coin transaction was paying an "ecological tax" to an unknown account.
Li Feng's cybernetic eye pierced through Lin Mo's spine—deep within his bone marrow, mycelium was quietly weaving into another nervous system.
An Ran dug out a recording from three years ago; Lin Jianguo's last words before the tunnel collapsed were: "If necessary, let Mo become a new species."
That night, Lin Mo stood alone at the peak of the Antarctic ice dome. The glacier beneath his feet cracked, as if Earth itself was laughing at his naivety. He held up Su Wan's serpent skin, and under the moonlight, his father's holographic code appeared:
"The devourer shall ultimately be devoured."