Mu Shicheng was nearly frightened out of his wits. He absolutely could not accept this kind of humanoid monster.

Tang Erda was comparatively calmer. “Then do we go straight in now? Or should we call Mu Ke and the others first and report the situation?”

“The phone lost its signal the moment we landed.” Bai Liu opened the satellite phone and showed it to Tang Erda. The screen displayed a weak signal and said it was unable to make calls.

Tang Erda frowned.

All the way here, no matter how severe the weather had been, the signal on this satellite phone had never dropped. It had always been able to make calls. Why had it started acting like this the moment they reached Taishan Station...?

“This should be an important location in the game.” Bai Liu lifted his chin, signaling for everyone to get off the aircraft. “Hold your guns. We’re going straight in.”

Tang Erda controlled the helicopter, hovering and taxiing forward. As a test, he flashed the signal lights toward Taishan Station to indicate that someone was landing. After a moment, Taishan Station also flashed its signal lights several times, indicating that there were people there to receive them.

“The things inside Taishan Station can communicate with us using this kind of high technology...” Mu Shicheng now felt suspicious of everything he saw. He nudged Bai Liu with his elbow. “They should be human, right?”

“Maybe this group of monsters has extremely strong learning abilities and has already learned this level of communication, specifically to trick humans into landing there,” Bai Liu said lightly.

Mu Shicheng rubbed the goosebumps on his arms and honestly shut his mouth.

He had realized that there was no way to get the words he wanted to hear out of Bai Liu’s mouth.

This guy just liked scaring him!

When Tang Erda flew directly over Taishan Station, he looked down and saw someone on the ground waving a red flag to indicate a landing point. He turned and exchanged a glance with Bai Liu. After receiving Bai Liu’s consent, he began controlling the helicopter’s descent.

The helicopter blades gradually came to a steady halt, and the ski-style landing gear locked into the depressions in the snow.

Through the helicopter’s transparent side door, amid the swirling wind and snow, Bai Liu and the others could make out the general attire of the person waving the red flag.

The person was wearing an orange-red penguin-style ski suit. In the fierce wind, he used a ski pole jammed into the ground to steady himself. Most of his face was hidden beneath a thick woolen hat. He waved both hands at the helicopter, seemingly overjoyed to see Bai Liu and the others.

That joy made Mu Shicheng shudder despite himself. He shrank behind Bai Liu’s shoulder. “Damn, is he a monster or a human...?”

“We’ll know once we get down and take a look.” Bai Liu pushed open the helicopter door without the slightest hesitation and jumped down.

The person behind him wanted to step forward and catch Bai Liu, but Tang Erda, who jumped down from the other side, vigilantly blocked him aside.

“I can do it myself, thank you.”

The person pushed up his hat, revealing a face flushed red from the cold. As soon as he spoke, it was in fluent Mandarin. He was so excited that he almost cried, bouncing in place as he spoke.

“I’m a stranded member of the Taishan Observation Station. You’re people from outside, right?! This is the first place you landed, isn’t it?! My God! This is the first time in a year that I’ve seen anyone from the motherland here, aside from the people at the observation station. You definitely haven’t been [parasitized]! You’re definitely human!”

“Hurry, come inside!” The man hastily led Bai Liu and the others inward. As he walked, he looked around warily, pointing his gun in every direction.

Bai Liu and Tang Erda silently exchanged a glance, and the group followed behind this somewhat neurotic team member.

When they reached the entrance of Taishan Station, several other observation station members in penguin suits were standing there. Their postures were ramrod straight, with guns propped beside their feet, making them look like sentries standing guard.

These “sentries” coldly scrutinized Bai Liu and the others. When they saw their faces, their expressions eased slightly—Bai Liu and the others clearly looked like they were from the same country—but very soon, the “sentries” became wary again and aimed their guns at their heads.

The person who had led them over excitedly explained to the sentries, “I’m Fang Xiao Xiao, the weather forecaster who just went out to receive the aircraft. They came from outside Antarctica. Can I bring them in?”

The sentries remained unmoved and said coldly, “They, including you, need to have their cell activity tested after leaving the station before they can enter.”

Fang Xiao Xiao smiled apologetically at Bai Liu and the others. “You just arrived, so you may not know this, but something happened here in Antarctica. Every time we go out, we have to undergo cell activity testing before we can reenter the station. This is to protect the safety of the people inside.”

As he spoke, he opened his mouth out of habit. A sentry put on gloves and carefully used a cotton swab to scrape a small sample of mucosa from the inside of Fang Xiao Xiao’s mouth, then placed it into a small test tube.

The sentries took out three new cotton swabs and signaled for Bai Liu and the others to open their mouths.

Bai Liu calmly pressed down Mu Shicheng, who was about to raise his gun, then obediently took off his hat and stepped forward. He parted his lips slightly, allowing the other party to scrape a sample from the left side of his oral mucosa.

Mu Shicheng and Tang Erda also had samples taken from their mouths.

Fang Xiao Xiao said to them, “Please wait a moment for the test. It’s very quick. If there are no problems, we can go in after about ten minutes. Please wait a little.”

Bai Liu took the opportunity to ask calmly, “What happened here that made you so cautious?”

Fang Xiao Xiao sighed. “That has to be explained starting from August a year and a half ago. I’m not very clear on the specifics either. At that time, it happened to be around the summer rotation period for the polar regions.”

“Summer rotation?” Bai Liu asked.

Fang Xiao Xiao explained, “The team members at polar observation stations basically rotate once a year because the weather in Antarctica is too extreme. During the cold season from April to October, there are four months of polar night.”

“Staying in darkness for four months causes severe psychological damage. It easily makes people lose their minds and suffer from T3 syndrome. So the members who overwinter in Antarctica basically leave the following summer. At that time, an icebreaker brings a new batch of members over for the handover.”

“But we’ve already stayed here through three winters.” Fang Xiao Xiao smiled bitterly. “Originally, our batch of observation station members should have been rotated out the summer before last, but no one ever came to relieve us. We were almost out of food...”

At this point, he suddenly stopped, as if he had touched on some unspeakable topic. The young researcher seemed to choke up, unable to figure out how to continue.

Bai Liu expressed an appropriate amount of admiration. “You’re quite impressive to have lasted until now on one year’s worth of supplies.”

Fang Xiao Xiao fell into rare silence. He closed his eyes, and tears seeped from the corners.

The expressions of the two sentries beside him also dimmed considerably. Still, they seemed unable to bear it and patted Fang Xiao Xiao on the shoulder.

“—It was all for survival.”

The cell test results came out at just the right time. Everyone’s cell activity was within the normal range.

Fang Xiao Xiao let out a breath of relief and joyfully led Bai Liu and the others inside. “I’ll take you to the living quarters. You must have come a long way from outside. Rest first and get a good night’s sleep.”

Bai Liu noticed that Fang Xiao Xiao had mistaken them for summer team members coming from outside to rotate with them, but he did not expose this. Instead, he pretended to know nothing and asked, “Since you were trapped here, why didn’t you contact the outside world yourselves?”

“Because we couldn’t.” At this, Fang Xiao Xiao’s smile grew increasingly bitter. “We’ve been trapped here for a year and a half, and we’ve tried every possible way to call the outside world for help, including the internet and satellite phones. But the internet disappeared long ago, and the external receiving stations seemed to have problems too. There was never any response. We waited a year and a half and never received a return call from the receiving stations outside.”

“We even took the risk of sending out twin-engine military aircraft and helicopters directly, but as soon as the aircraft flew out of Antarctica’s range, their radar detection was disrupted by the magnetic field. In the end, they all crashed onto the glaciers.”

Fang Xiao Xiao shook his head, his eyes blank as he murmured to himself, “If you hadn’t come, perhaps we really would have had no way to reenter human society. Everyone would have gone insane in the polar night...”

Seeing Fang Xiao Xiao’s sorrowful expression and dazed look, Mu Shicheng could not help leaning close to Bai Liu’s ear and whispering, “This NPC is so pitiful. It seems like he’s been trapped in Antarctica this whole time and doesn’t even know that the outside world is also undergoing global cooling. The people at those external receiving stations he mentioned were probably frozen to death...”

Against the backdrop of global cooling, people trapped in the extreme cold environment of the polar regions would have difficulty perceiving the change. The climate here was already extreme, survival was already difficult, and communication with the outside world was already hard. Therefore, it was highly likely that Fang Xiao Xiao and the people at Taishan Station believed there was something wrong with their communication equipment and had not yet thought in the direction of an Ice Age.

For the time being, Bai Liu did not intend to tell this internally fragile-looking NPC that the outside world he spoke of had long since turned into a frozen wasteland just like Antarctica.

After all, this NPC currently did not seem capable of withstanding such news.

Bai Liu’s gaze inadvertently swept over Fang Xiao Xiao’s open coat pocket. He saw two small bottles of medicine inside, and they happened to be one of the types Mu Ke had mentioned to him—medicine used to treat severe mania and depression.

“One year’s worth of supplies, and you’ve held out for two and a half years. How did you do it?” Bai Liu brought up the topic with interest.

“The polar region stores solar energy during the polar day. If we conserve daily energy consumption, it’s barely enough. As for fuel...”

Fang Xiao Xiao covered his forehead and let out a long, pained breath. “I know the Antarctic Treaty stipulates that we can’t touch the wildlife here, but over the past year, the number of krill here increased at an abnormal rate. In October last year, they almost dyed the coastal waters of the Ross Sea orange-red.”

“The penguins, seals, whales, and other large polar organisms here all feed on krill. The abundance of food caused the reproduction rate of these organisms to become abnormally fast, and their populations doubled in just one year. Moreover, these organisms are extremely rich in fat...”

Fang Xiao Xiao pursed his lips, a kind of pain born from violating his own moral principles appearing on his face. “You also know that when early humans explored Antarctica, in the absence of sufficient food and fat, they would hunt these penguins and seals...”

“So you ate penguins and seals?” Mu Shicheng could not understand Fang Xiao Xiao’s pain, but he could roughly understand that these Antarctic researchers probably held great respect for these creatures.

Mu Shicheng sympathetically patted Fang Xiao Xiao on the shoulder. “You had to survive. It’s normal to eat animals when there’s no food...”

When Fang Xiao Xiao heard Mu Shicheng say the word “food,” he could not help shuddering violently. His face turned a mix of green and white.

“No, he didn’t eat penguins and seals,” Bai Liu said calmly. “During early Antarctic exploration, because penguins and seals were rich in fat, they were not mainly used as food, but as fuel for burning.”

Bai Liu looked up at Fang Xiao Xiao. “If I’m not mistaken, you hunted seals and penguins in large numbers not to eat them, but to refine fuel to run the entire observation station. Otherwise, you would have frozen to death, right?”

Fang Xiao Xiao bit his lower lip and gave a very soft “mm.” There was a glimmer of tears in his eyes. “The fat extracted from animals can’t be used directly as fuel, but after certain technological modifications, it can be burned in a simplified way to generate power...”

“...But currently, the observation station isn’t short on food or fuel.” A flash of desperate hope burst from Fang Xiao Xiao’s eyes. He stepped forward and tightly gripped Bai Liu’s hand. “What we lack most is medicine! We lack psychiatric medication! Everyone is suffering from severe T3 syndrome. We can’t control our emotions and behavior, and we can’t distinguish reality from hallucination. We’re all going mad!”

Bai Liu looked at him unhurriedly. His tone remained calm. “So your food doesn’t come from those seals and penguins. Where does it come from, then?”

Looking at Bai Liu’s face, which showed not the slightest ripple of emotion, Fang Xiao Xiao felt as if his hands had been stung by bees. He withdrew them in panic, his gaze flickering and his breathing growing rapid.

“I’m guessing your food is all frozen in the ice crevasses outside, isn’t it?” Bai Liu said coldly.

“After you performed various experiments on those humanoid monsters that had transformed into humans, you originally planned to discard them as waste. But the shortage of food made you decide to reuse that waste, so you stored them in the natural [refrigerator] outside.”

Bai Liu’s voice was very light, as though he were stating an insignificant conclusion.

“Your food is humans, isn’t it?”

Fang Xiao Xiao screamed, his eyes bloodshot. “They’re monsters! They’re animals! They’re not human!!”

—

Author’s Note:

The part about using penguins and seals as fuel for fire is based on a documentary description of Scott’s Hut, built in 1912 by the second explorer to reach the South Pole. In the hut, penguins and seals were used for heating. It is said that people would kill penguins with clubs or cut open seals and use them directly as fuel, because they were rich in fat and could burn for a long time.