"Once we dreamt that we were strangers. We wake up, and find that we were dear to each other."
The man softly recited the poem, his deep, magnetic voice like the solemn, resounding toll of a church bell.
"Beep—"
He put down the collection of Tagore's poems and picked up the communicator.
"…" The man with the communicator held to his ear listened to the report. After a long silence, he finally said faintly, "No, let him go. You did well."
After putting down the communicator, he reopened the poetry collection, searching for something among the melancholy words.
After a while, he read softly—
"I sit at my window this morning where the world like a traveler stops for a moment, nods to me and goes on."
"Apologies, I kept you waiting."
As a light, punctual melody sounded, the man with a cane and a gentleman's hat appeared before the Fifth Squad. His polite and apologetic smile allowed the slightly tense Fifth Squad to relax a bit.
Himeko said sternly to the Chairman: "No, you are perfectly on time."
"Am I? But I feel this moment has been long overdue. I truly made you wait too long." The Chairman pressed his hat down and said with a smile.
"Not at all." However, it was Ato who answered the Chairman, not Himeko. Her short hair fluttered in the breeze, and she said calmly, "Please board the transport plane now, and let us do what we must."
The Chairman nodded, leaned on his cane, and slowly walked past them.
Himeko frowned slightly. She noticed that the Chairman's movements were somewhat slow, and his steps were uncoordinated. The cane did not seem to be merely decorative...
"Chairman, is your leg injured?" She naturally couldn't pretend not to notice; protecting the personal safety of these high-ranking officials was their responsibility.
"No, I am merely old." He said without turning his head. "When people age, their bones rust, their flesh decays, and their minds become cloudy. I am simply walking the path all humans must walk. There is nothing surprising about it."
"Regardless of my status, the fact that I am human will not change."
"Just like a bad person does not become a good person just because they do one good deed."
"You want to leave?"
Upon hearing Lin's question, Spassy was silent for a few seconds, pausing his hand that was adding medication, and looked at Lin.
Days had passed, but Lin's condition hadn't improved; the corrosion of Honkai energy was only temporarily suppressed.
There was no physical change, only his mental state had returned to normal.
"You are alive, instead of being in a crematorium or on an experimental table, not because you are special, but because I am keeping you alive. If you leave the treatment pod, your organs will rapidly lose vitality, and you might die in a matter of days."
"Thank you."
"I'm not asking for your gratitude; I'm merely stating a fact."
"I have someone I want to see, and a question I want to ask."
"…"
Spassy's expression was subtle, with a hint of... surprise.
"Is it important? To you?"
"I don't know."
"…"
"No, it is important." Lin answered seriously.
"Su, aren't you going to rest?" Director Fahd placed a can of hot coffee on Su's desk, but the latter only glanced at it weakly, showing no intention of reaching for it.
"Rest, huh... But how can I rest assured when the patients' conditions are collectively worsening? How can I rest assured with this abnormal phenomenon?" Su sighed, greatly worried about the critically ill patients on the list. "Why is this happening..."
Director Fahd unceremoniously opened the coffee and took a sip: "I have bad news, and it's the only news."
"What?"
"It's not just the Honkai Sickness patients, and it's not just our hospital. Patients in other regions have also experienced varying degrees of worsening symptoms, and no cause can be found."
"…"
"Su, although this shouldn't be said by a doctor like me." Director Fahd's hand slowly clenched, leaving creases on the coffee can. "What is happening now is likely no longer explainable by medicine."
"But…"
"Knock, knock."
The door was knocked, interrupting their discussion. A brown-haired woman with a ponytail, wearing a white doctor's coat, appeared at the door.
"Dr. Su, Director Fahd, a patient's Honkai Sickness has erupted. We need to perform an excision surgery immediately."
"Dr. Ragnar, please prepare for surgery immediately, Su…"
"Director Fahd, I haven't finished yet. Please calm down." Ragnar pursed her lips, her eyes twitching. "It's not one patient. It's fifteen patients. Their Honkai Sickness is rapidly spreading simultaneously, about to corrode their hearts."
Director Fahd and Su exchanged a look, both seeing shock in the other's eyes.
"...Is this what happened to Lin?"
She put down the letter and walked out the door, into the sunlight.
The light that illuminated all things was somewhat harsh at the moment.
"When exactly did the mistake begin?"
She quietly murmured the last line of the letter. The person who wrote it had stopped trembling when writing this sentence.
He was filled with doubt, determination, and even murderous intent.
The first half of the letter was a farewell to Lin, but the second half was a farewell to himself, suggesting that he might be conscious, looking at his own actions from a third-person perspective.
"No one is born a mistake, and no one is born a hope. But in the process of growing up, we make mistakes, and in the process of aging, we correct those mistakes. This is the process of human history."
The letter was filled with that person's ideals and ambitions. He understood his own cunning and wickedness, and to some extent, he even despised himself.
That was why he said those things to Lin.
"Loving humanity, huh…" she whispered.
This letter was supposed to reach Lin's hands. Its impact on him was predictable.
So, she put the letter back in the envelope, then tore it up along with the experiment log, shredding them into irreparable pieces, and threw them into the brazier, igniting these papers that recorded words and the past.
"I'm sorry, it seems I won't be able to deliver this to Lin. But I believe he will proceed according to his own 'right,' even if that 'right' goes against your ideas."
"However, it's normal for a child's ideas to differ from their parents', isn't it?"
The pink-haired girl watched the sparks drifting in the air, stepped over the brazier, and walked back in the direction she came from.
"This is Elysia. I have searched Dusk Street and found no anomalies."
Elysia suddenly turned back, looking at the house.
"Yes, there is nothing here."