Collapse, survive

The Mole's Great Adventure!

Beat the bad guys!

Successfully hired.

Not only Hook, but Xing plans to recruit everyone she knows and doesn't know to be her tour guides—this is simply an alternative form of Belloberg's socializing.

It was just as exciting for her as a game.

"Only children would think this is a game; mature adults know that this is work."

He was conscripted into the army and didn't like museums at all, just like Seele still didn't like reading and preferred hands-on experience. He also didn't like messing around with these things.

But there's nothing you can do; a job is a job, and it's not something you can decide just by liking or disliking it.

He gave a perfunctory, listless reply, like a bluebird.

Xing couldn't keep an eye on him all the time, since she needed to recruit more men, especially since Hook missed Clara.

Not long after she left, Fang Jie decisively skipped work.

"Thanks for your hard work."

Seeing this explanation, Natasha smiled slightly: "Seele is a nice girl, I hope you two get along well."

"It will definitely be enjoyable."

Fang Jie watched as Natasha, who could be considered Seele's mother, guided the young Seele of the "Hunter" to grow into such a beautiful young woman.

If it were a quantum character from the butterfly element next door, they would probably have to sacrifice their lives to accelerate their final growth...

That would be bad.

Speaking of which, Seele is now a girl who embraces life and death.

Lost in thought, Fang Jie sat down next to Natasha and sprawled out lazily.

Work is so annoying.

It feels so good to be lazy after work.

Perhaps happiness is relative; being dragged along by Xing to do things isn't so bad.

"Ms. Natasha."

"Just call me Nata, that's what Seele calls me too, little Fang Jie."

“Okay, Nata.”

Fang Jie readily agreed, "How have you been lately?"

"very nice."

Natasha looked in the direction of her former adoptive parents' home.

"it's actually very good."

Although things have changed and the past is hard to recount, in the end... I feel relieved, a long-lost sense of relief. I no longer have to walk on thin ice every day, painfully considering and calculating how to sustain my remaining life.

"Is Nata still practicing medicine?"

"Yes, many patients have received more effective treatment."

Natasha looked at the museum before her, which recorded Belleberg's past. Fang Jie wasn't very interested in it because these past memories weren't so beautiful; they were cruel and cold.

In order to help children learn and remember, these items were modified, and some things that were not suitable for display were silently recorded by the elderly.

Seele rarely talks to him about those things, and doesn't like to talk about the past, probably because Seele doesn't have any missions with him.

happy.

Natasha has it.

Hooke also has it.

The changes brought about by Fang Jie have altered these things, but Xing will likely handle them well; she's a woman who can recruit men from Fang Jie, how powerful she is.

"Xiao Fangjie, can I ask you for a favor?"

“Of course you can, just as I said, Nata, you can tell me any wish you desire.”

Fang Jie's generosity towards those he respects is almost limitless, perhaps because everything he has gained has come too easily, and he is determined not to make it too difficult.

Nata smiled, as did Seele; no wonder they played together: "Walk with me for a bit."

The two ignored the curator's authority and promptly left work.

.

P.S.: Hey everyone, good morning, good afternoon, good evening! It's pouring rain here, but it's so refreshing (?o?o) ??

The update is a bit late today, please wait a moment.

Chapter 155 Immunity to Wind and Snow, Sprout of Wishes.

Natasha's stroll wasn't a casual visit to Belleburg; on the contrary, she led Fang Jie out of Belleburg.

In the snow-covered plains, human presence remains scarce.

Fortunately, the snowstorm in Belloborg gradually dissipated, and even the monsters from the Rift were defeated by Seele and Fang Jie's elbow strikes, no longer swaggering around. Walking on this snowfield, which had become almost safe and harmless except for the lingering cold, Natasha remained silent for a long time.

She led Fang Jie through the snowfield, seemingly having finally made the decision to go somewhere.

"Sorry, I suddenly asked you out, and I was so busy doing my own thing that I forgot to tell you why."

"Nata, I'm listening."

Fang Jie stayed by his side silently, and probably guessed something.

a long time.

Natasha finally stopped trekking, stood still and took a deep breath, pressed her hand to her chest, and looked into the depths of the snowfield, just as she had looked in the same direction as she had looked towards Beloborg earlier.

"Thank you, Fang Jie. Leading an organization like Earthfire had made me almost forget how to rely on others. Thank you for helping me rediscover that feeling."

Her expression was gentle, as if she had unloaded all her burdens. In this secluded place, she felt much more relaxed, yet also much heavier, and no longer needed to suppress herself.

Fang Jie acted as a confidant, listening silently.

"A lot of things have happened, so many things."

Natasha knew he was listening and that he would definitely help. "I have another favor to ask of you, something... more personal, about my past, my foster parents, my brother, my sins..."

"After the passage to the [hearth] reopened, an idea popped into my head. I wrote a letter to my adoptive parents' old house address and asked Sambo to deliver it for me. I didn't have high hopes, but to my surprise, Sambo actually brought back a reply from my mother..."

Sambo may seem unreliable, always frivolous and provocative, but if you ask him to do something, he'll do it quite satisfactorily.

Natasha wasn't entirely satisfied, but she was certainly pleasantly surprised.

"Thanks to this letter, I found my parents again. Actually, I didn't need the letter; they still live in the same old place. Although they are no longer working on the front lines, they still maintain contact with the college and the hospital. It's just that I didn't have the courage to look for them at first..."

"But I was wrong. Almost the day I received the letter, I abandoned my work and the patients who needed treatment. My desire to reunite with my parents was overwhelming. I could feel from my mother's reply that they were just as excited as I was. Finally..."

“We are reunited. Like many others in Belloberg, we are very fortunate and grateful to you all.”

Natasha can still recall everything from that moment: her adoptive mother, who had aged considerably, rushed towards her, and she rushed towards the past even faster than her.

They hugged each other tightly and looked at each other intently.

It's been too long... far too long.

So long that her adoptive father had already passed away.

Her mother told her: That was three years ago. Don't be sad for him. He didn't suffer when he left; he only regretted not seeing her again, and...

Wach.

Her brother.

Natasha's adoptive mother told her not to blame herself, that it was not her fault for not being able to stay with her parents for the past ten years, and that the blockade between the upper and lower levels was not because of her.

But Natasha knew that the blockade couldn't stop her; she could have evacuated from the very beginning.

But she chose to fulfill her duties as a doctor, and later, to become the leader of the Earth Fire, and from then on…

After reuniting with her family, Natasha learned more, not only about her adoptive father's passing but also about Vah.

A doctor who also dedicated himself to the medical cause in the lower classes...

She told Fang Jie:

"This story begins from the beginning. My brother, Vah, had a dream since childhood—to develop a drug called 'Snow Immunity.' He viewed the human body's fear of cold as a disease and hoped to develop a drug to combat it, allowing humans to survive in cold waves. That way, people could leave Beloberg and rebuild their homes in the snowfields."

Fang Jie maintained a suitable silence.

As an ideal, this idea is not wrong. If one doesn't even dare to think about it in the environment of Belleburg, there is no way out. The wind and snow are there, and people must overcome them.

But clearly, there are limits to human capabilities.

Even in the Milky Way, miracles can happen, but humanity has its limits.

Natasha continued, "To be honest, I don't know how to achieve 'immunity to snow.' But I admire his ideals and perseverance, so I've always chosen to believe in him since I was a child."

“I knew his research at the higher levels wasn’t going well, so I often wrote to him, asking him to come down to the lower levels and spend some time with the children in the orphanage—just as a break.”

"But I was too young then, and I didn't know how long-term setbacks could crush a person and have a terrible impact on them..."

Looking into Fang Jie's eyes, Natasha had a strange feeling; he knew everything, even if there weren't many details.

He was so powerful that he could do anything and showed mercy to this.

I confide in you.

"During his time in the lower levels, he came into contact with some patients who were slightly affected by the rift erosion. Their bodies reacted differently to hot and cold, a characteristic that fascinated Wach."

"He began trying to reproduce the effects of mild rift erosion, believing that this research could facilitate the development of [snow immunity]. These reagents cannot cure all serious illnesses—there is no such panacea in the world. Wach created them only to stabilize the symptoms of the research subjects in the short term so that he could observe changes in their vital signs."

“In a corner I wasn’t looking at, he had been distributing this reagent to innocent residents. By the time I noticed something was wrong… his sanity had been almost completely eroded by the horrific research, even extending to the children in the orphanage…”

Without a doubt, this was a horrific human experiment. People who trusted the doctors and came to the doctors for the medicine unknowingly became experimental subjects.

Natasha still feels pain: "It all happened right under my nose. It's laughable that my trust in my family blinded me..."

“After his experiment was exposed, Oleg and I discussed for a long time how to deal with the aftermath. It was just before the lockdown order was issued, and the Silvermane Iron Guards at the lower levels had almost disappeared. We thought for a long time but couldn’t find a way to deal with Vah.”

"In the end, Oleg suggested expelling him and banishing him from the Lower District forever. If his victims found out the truth, Vah would surely be torn to shreds by the angry people of the Lower District. I was young and weak then, and Oleg must have been considering my feelings when he made that suggestion."

A delicate juncture in time.

Even before the upper and lower levels were sealed off.

It's hard to say whether Natasha's subsequent stay in the lower ranks was affected by this incident, whether Oleg, as a Silvermane Guard at the time, was also affected, and whether the punishment was too lenient.

But Natasha couldn't forget: "Oleg and I brought him back to the upper levels. Vach's last request to us was to take him outside the city, to the snowfield he had always wanted to conquer."

“Right before my eyes, he walked alone into the snow. From that moment on, I kept repeating one sentence to myself in my mind—'Wach is dead.'”

"But unexpectedly, he didn't die like that; he continued his research, trying to conquer the snowfield..."

That snowfield swallowed up too much, far too much.

Natasha wasn't very good at telling these stories, but now she had returned to the snowfield, for her family, and for the news she had received after reuniting with them.

“Wach is a terrible older brother and an incompetent doctor. He has left a mess for everyone. I recently received a letter from him that he didn’t send to me. He himself thinks so.”

Natasha took the letter from her bosom; she had always kept it with her—a letter from Vah:

Natasha:

I am pleased to receive your letter and wish you a peaceful winter.

As I mentioned in my previous letter, I am indeed jealous of you. No matter what kind of patient you're facing, you always remain calm and composed… It's that innate charisma that fuels my envy.

I still remember my speech when I first enrolled: I stood on the stage, raising my arms and shouting, constantly proclaiming my ideal of developing "snow immunity"... Looking back, I was incredibly foolish. In my final days at medical school, I became increasingly stubborn and isolated. My mind was filled only with experiments and ambitions; the patients who should have been my responsibility became increasingly blurred...

Natasha, I dare not ask for your forgiveness. I owe so much to the people of the lower districts.

If you hadn't granted my request for self-exile, I might have remained a freak drowning in my own ideals for the rest of my life. The biting cold made me realize my own arrogance. How could a child raised in a greenhouse possibly grasp the magic to dispel the harshness? Thank you for giving me one last chance, allowing me to find the answer.

I slept under abandoned eaves, experimenting and breaking through barriers in the wind and snow. I trembled, not from the cold, but because I was getting closer and closer to success. I had become repulsive, ashamed to return to civilized society, ashamed to face my parents, but I did not despair, for I had found the meaning of my life. I was on the right path.

The reagents I created in the lower zone have a fundamental flaw: focusing solely on solving organ hypothermia and failure leads to a vicious cycle of depletion and repair, without end. I should have shifted my research focus long ago, finding ways to enable controlled warming of the body's organs and circulatory system.

Thank you, Natasha. You helped me find the answer to immunity to snow.

Reading these words, Natasha could hardly imagine the state of mind in which he wrote them, but she knew one thing.