Chapter 110 - Old Acquaintance

Chapter 110: Chapter 106: Old AcquaintanceLi Cheng sheathed the White Bone Armor, took a step toward the back door, and all the still-functioning mechanical arms immediately responded, transforming into various weapons, eager for action.

"Be careful..." Little Red Riding Hood nervously warned, her hands clutching the dinner knife dripping with sweat.

Jin Huixing’s face was similarly tense, really wanting to persuade Li Cheng not to move. At the beginning of the reality show, the broadcast had mentioned that the program aimed to establish normal standards of romance for the youth of the Wasteland World.

The ’standards’ here probably refer to heterosexual love between a man and a woman... After all, the Wasteland has much to rebuild, so it’s doubtful there are hospitals establishing sperm banks for in vitro fertilization. To ensure the continuation of the population, promoting heterosexuality is necessary.

Now, with one boy and two girls left on the field, if the Ant dies, can the program continue?

Buzz Buzz—

The mechanical arm turned into an electric chainsaw, rapidly rotating its metal chain, emitting a threatening noise. Another mechanical arm transformed into a demolition hammer used for breaking rocks, aiming with the assistance of the fire control system.

"I’ve had a doubt during the course of the show."

Li Cheng, holding the rusty broadsword, continued to stroll toward the back door, "The barrage mentioned the concept of ’old humans’, specifically referring to all the contest participants. And opposite to old humans, naturally, are new humans. The question is, what are the standards for differentiating between the old and new humans?"

"Appearance? No, the voiceover mentioned that there were previous shows like ’That Corpse Ghost Made Me Love’ and ’Which One Should I Choose: The Two-Headed Mutant Sisters’, and indeed the barrage believed that all contestants were handsome men and beautiful women. This means that, even in the outside Wasteland World, human aesthetics have become more diverse without shifting in any particular direction."

Li Cheng touched his handsome cheek with his finger and suddenly jutted out his chin, raised his eyes eccentrically, a sickly twisted smile emerging on his face, as he held his hands in front of him in a grasping gesture,

"With my handsome face and beguiling, proud smile, I still can dine anywhere without paying a dime. Hehehe hahaha..."

...Don’t think I can’t see right through your face acting within the city, that’s not beguiling or proud, it looks more like a serial killer who has just escaped from a mental institution, and people would believe it too?!

Jin Huixing really wanted to loudly ridicule him, but she held back. Couldn’t help but glance at Little Red Riding Hood next to her, her eyes conveying a clear message, ’You know him, right? What does he do in real life?’

’I have no idea, maybe, should be, probably, possibly a great detective...’

Disregarding the silent exchange between the two, Li Cheng continued to analyze, "The eight contestants show no obvious signs of mutation. The barrage once mentioned, "Is this an old human?" which means viewers can distinguish between old and new humans based on certain external features.

Like... the presence or absence of physical mutations.

New humans might generally have three eyes? Or four arms, a second head, octopus tentacles, and the like."

The broadcast system, which had been silent and not interactive with the players, finally spoke up and asked, "Do you have any evidence?"

"This."

Li Cheng snapped his fingers and took out an empty Nuclear Cola bottle he had found earlier in the mansion’s fridge, with ingredients listed on the bottle significantly different from cola in the real world.

"Water, white sugar, fructose are not the problem, the issue is with strontium isotopes, and dimethyl sulfoxide."

Li Cheng held the machete horizontally and placed the empty bottle in the shadow underneath the blade, with the inner wall of the bottle immediately lighting up with a red glow, "Strontium compounds have good fluorescent properties, usually emitting red light, but under specific conditions can also produce orange, yellow, green and other colored lights. It can be used to create fluorescent powder, fluorescent lights, fluorescent screens, and fluorescent dyes.

Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is a polar aprotic solvent, hailed as a universal solvent. Not only used in the chemical industry, it can also leverage its solubility and permeability to assist drugs in penetrating human skin without oral ingestion or injection.

Its effectiveness is so good that care must be taken when in use to prevent DMSO from introducing substances into cell membranes that should not be absorbed by organisms. This could cause harm.

Of course, the so-called harm is with respect to old humans. For the new humans targeted by Nuclear Cola, DMSO can incorporate strontium isotopes into cell membranes, causing the user’s body to emit a radiant glow. Perfectly matching the so-called quantum flavor of Nuclear Cola."

Li Cheng put the cola aside, casually remarking, "The Nuclear Cola that new humans drink like water is poisonous to old humans. Hence, all the cola bottles in the refrigerator are empty, to prevent contestants from getting the idea to drink it.

And this leads to a new question: old and new humans, not only have significant differences in physical appearance, but their internal body structures must also be vastly different."

"Why does the program specifically gather eight old humans for a performance in front of a group of new human viewers?"

"..." The broadcasting device did not answer this question.

Jin Huixing hesitated before speaking, "For... entertainment?"

Online video platforms in the real world, such as YouTube, Bilibili, TikTok, and Kuaishou, are not short of bizarre content in the eyes of ordinary people.

For instance, the sludgy street food of India (with the vendor barefoot and unwashed hands, surrounded by swarms of flies), the exotic delicacies of Southeast Asia (silkworms, apple snails’ eggs fried with eggs, fried toads)

Watching these can satisfy a curiosity for the peculiar and evoke a subtle sense of superiority, much like some bizarre prank variety shows.

"It probably isn’t." Little Red Riding Hood shook her head. Although she was unclear about what was happening in the wasteland world outside, her intuition told her that the show’s purpose wasn’t simply to revel in the grotesque.

Li Cheng strode out of the back door, and the villa’s mechanical arms immediately swept across, with the chainsaw roaring as it aimed to cut him at the waist.

Clang!

Li Cheng swiftly turned around, his thick broadsword creating sparks as it violently clashed with the chainsaw chain.

A cold breeze mysteriously blew from above, and a cone-shaped mechanical arm transformed into an engineering hammer, hovering above Li Cheng’s head and then plummeting straight down.

Death Curse Torrent!

The White Bone Armor on Li Cheng’s left arm sprayed out a high-pressure water stream, the force of which pushed him backward on the spot, narrowly avoiding the falling hammer. He also activated the Fog Concealment Skill.

A thick fog quickly spread from Li Cheng as the center, shrouding the villa’s outside yard like a veil of cloth.

One of the mechanical arms instantly morphed into an infrared night vision scope, scanning the dense fog. However, the effects of the Fog Concealment Skill included dampening the caster’s voice, thermal reflection, and presence, making it impossible for the night vision to detect his shape.

"So that’s how it is,"

Li Cheng’s voice faintly came through the fog as he stepped and kicked the ground, "The surface of the open space outside the villa is coated with a special black paint, possibly some kind of water-based acrylic? It strongly absorbs all kinds of visible light. That’s why it’s so hard to see the outside view from within the villa.

Not just the open space, but the walls and ceiling of the spherical studio covering the villa are coated with this paint and equipped with sound-absorbing material."

Faced with provocation, the mechanical arms inside the villa no longer restricted themselves to the shapes of melee cold weapons and reassembled, combining into a large demolition-grade Meteor Hammer, swinging it heavily through the thick fog.

"Heh, instead of transforming into a rotary machine gun or a tank cannon, which would be more efficient thermal weapons, you assemble into a Meteor Hammer. This response further corroborates my speculation."

Li Cheng’s nonchalant voice came from the fog, "Not that you can’t, but that you won’t.

You don’t want to destroy the studio, you don’t want the contestants to see the truth of the outside world."

He walked over the rough and uneven ground and saw the shattered remains of a human body, blown apart by a Cloud Burst Bomb.

(It might be Leonardo, or it might be Will; it’s hard to tell if they are black or white as the charred flesh makes them indistinguishable. In any case, they’re people I knew.)

And amidst the remains, he picked up a small portion of a broken metallic chain.

When the owner dies, the equipped item reverts to an unowned state, and the item’s description clearly emerges in his field of vision.

"The effect of this chain is to automatically seek and attack the nearest hostile target after the host, which is Will, dies. It first attacked Leonardo, which is enough to prove that there are no mutated wild beasts outside the villa. The terrifying screams that contestants previously heard inside the villa were all faked. They were all designed to make us stay put inside the villa."

Li Cheng dropped the broken chain, clapped his hands to dust them off, "You two, come over here."