Translator: La0o9
〖 Yue Bu earthquake memorial park 〗 watching this sightseeing spot that was being boycotted by protestors, Negary paid for the tickets and went in.
For survivors of the earthquake all those years ago, the disaster was a great scar that would likely never heal, but for others who had never been through it, it was nothing but a part of history. In fact, quite a few wanted to see what kind of damage the famous earthquake actually caused all those years ago.
From a reasonable perspective, it was necessary for the memorial park to exist, not only could those who lost their loved ones come here to pay respect, the geological formations created by the earthquake showed a lot of geological patterns, greatly beneficial to various geological researches and had the potential to become a crucial base of operation for scientists who wished to study types of earthquakes and research them.
This was the reason why not a lot of people objected to the formation of the memorial park at first.
However, as time went by, attention slowly shifted away from the disaster, and the grief associated with it also faded away. What was originally an open memorial park started to charge for admission, and when a memorial site was turned into a vacation spot, the survivors of the past could no longer endure it.
Watching a tilted large building full of cracks from afar, Negary was standing in front of a large stone monument. The monument recorded the names and number of people who lost their lives due to the earthquake, this by itself was fine, but the issue was that there was a small flower shop right next to it.
This gave off the impression of profiting from the dead, especially when there was a small monitor set up next to the monument, in which the faces of the deceased were being shown one by one, giving off the impression of the dead watching you, on top of sorrowful background music.
These factors came together to form a simple suggestive field. Some emotional or impulsive people would instinctively feel the need to do something here, only to find that they could only buy some flowers or they would feel a sense of debt towards the deceased.
〖 What a clumsy trick 〗
Negary didn’t say anything and simply walked through this place. With the existence of an organization like [Survivors], why would they have allowed this to happen? The only form of ‘resistance’ being shown at all were simply protests organized by a few natives.
Negary continued to head forward, only to find a sign that said [Geological research center, visitors please turn back’], on top of the trees in front of him, there were also a couple of monitors showing security footage, all of which was telling visitors that they weren’t allowed inside.
Unless they liked to seek thrill, normal visitors would always stop after seeing these warnings, after all, there were more places in the park to sightsee.
〖 Hidden in plain sight like this, those normal people probably couldn’t imagine that [Survivors] had actually become this insane 〗 ignoring the warning signs, Negary continued walking forward.
If it was outsiders who founded this memorial, those money-making tricks would only cause the minds of the people to turn cold, but if they knew that it was actually their fellow natives who founded this place, even their hearts would become frigid.
In fact, if someone tried to question them about this, they would most likely shamelessly declare something like: ‘The ones who died are our family members, our kinsmen. Our current work is for the sake of their vengeance, so why is it wrong that we make them contribute a bit?’
Although, it made sense in hindsight. [Survivors] was an organization that hid its army within the people; although it was secretive and each of its members were able to support themselves, as an organization, especially one whose goal was to take revenge on the government and the D.E.R division, finance was necessary.
In the beginning, these people most likely only wanted to memorialize their deceased kinsmen, but to fund the activities of [Survivors], they had no choice but to charge a fee for admission into the memorial park.
However, as their bottom-line was crossed once, it was crossed again and again, until today when the bottom-line was basically nonexistent.
Humans are experts at forgetting.
Not too long after Negary walked in, two people in security uniform walked out with electric batons in their hands, questioning Negary with a solemn tone: “What are you doing here? Don’t you know that visitors aren’t allowed in here?”
〖 Native accent, well-dressed, carrying protective tools, as well as clear earthquake scars, the two of you are survivors from the Yue Bu earthquake 〗 Negary went up to them step by step, his voice extremely clear, as if it carried some sort of magic that forced one to look straight into their inner thoughts: 〖 Then, please tell me, why is it that you are able to work here without any worries or shame? 〗
Negary’s question wasn’t asked because he was actually angry with their actions. The ones who should truly be angry were either themselves or other humans. Negary was merely attacking the existing hole in their mentality.
As security guards of such a place, they should have a basic idea of the secrets hidden here, which means that he would be able to learn the basics of what he needed from them.
Negary advanced step-by-step towards the two originally belligerent security guards. Each of his footsteps felt like a heavy strike of a sledgehammer into their psyche, causing their mentality to waver and shake.
They then started to see corpses climb out from behind Negary, corpses whose limbs were twisted, bent, stained with blood and mud, some didn’t even have all four of their limbs.
They followed Negary forward, screaming and crying out loud, questioning why their peace was still being disturbed in death, why their deaths must be exploited for money.
The two security guards collapsed on the ground, a foul smell leaking from the crotch of their pants. Their mental barriers had already been thoroughly broken through, most likely, they would either end up in some mental hospital for the rest of their lives, or take their own lives on the way home.
After getting his questions answered, Negary continued to walk inside. Just as he had thought, this so-called Geological research center was nothing but a front, in reality, this place was one of many bases of [Survivors].
Quite a few members of [Survivors] frequently gathered here in order to meet up for various reasons. According to these security guards’ observations, there were hidden passages that allowed those people to come and go without being seen.
〖 To openly build a research center like this, even if it is only a front, their forces within the local government must be quite considerable 〗 Negary analyzed.
From the looks of it, the 7th domain had already been infiltrated thoroughly by [Survivors], but this was nothing surprising. Other domains were also divided in accordance to their previous territories, so it made sense that most governmental employees were originally from their local respective areas.
However, the Yue Bu earthquake caused the original Yue Bu government to almost collapse, so a part of the current 7th domain body of personnel were actually people sent in from other regions, and the remaining part was recruited here from scratch.
At the time, survivors of the Yue Bu earthquake were judged with a bit of partiality in this examination.
With that in mind, the forces of [Survivors] might be greater than originally assumed.
Cutting that train of thought short, Negary reached the innermost part of the research center. There were only a few houses here, together with a small lake right behind them. At first glance, this seemed completely ordinary, but there was one small exception: the lake was a bit too perfectly circular.
As Negary’s eyes flickered, he could almost see the figure of a person standing right at the center of it all while everything around him collapsed and became submerged.
