"Why I remember this incident so clearly is because at that time everyone was condemning it and asking the city hall to give an explanation."
Liz raised her head and looked at the line of sky between the treetops. This bright light fell into her eyes.
"……Then what?"
"The mother of two children was so sad that she fainted several times and had to be sent home to recuperate. Considering that the old couple had both worked in Dongcheng when they were young, they were very familiar with Askia, so they stayed in The legal process continued in the small apartment in the city, while their son sent his wife home to prepare for the children's funerals and take a break.
"A few weeks later, the old couple's home in the small town accidentally caught fire. The entire yard was burned to the ground. The old man's daughter-in-law died inside, and the son was alive, but his leg was broken by a falling gate."
"Who did it?" Hesta asked.
"There are many theories, but what the truth is...no one knows."
Hesta frowned slightly, "Then what?"
"You can hardly imagine how the whole Dongcheng was boiling at that time, because this incident was so cruel that everyone took to the streets to demand justice for the old man and his family. Among all the rumors, the most widely circulated one was that The official’s son planned all this in order to teach the family a lesson. However, the two elderly people really withdrew the lawsuit at this time.”
"Why are they really afraid?"
"No one understood it at the time. However, the case has been prosecuted, and the trial will continue even if the old man withdraws the prosecution. I remember my father discussed this topic with us at the dinner table one night. He said that the matter will eventually come to light. , it just takes time.
"If this was in a habitable place with surveillance on the main roads, then verification would be easy from the beginning - but there is no electricity in the wasteland, so all we can do is take out skin tissue from the children's fingernails and send them to The man rode a fast horse to a habitable place and compared it with the suspect's.
"For more than a month, everyone was waiting for the news from the livable place, and no one bothered the old couple who stayed behind closed doors. After all, they encountered such a tragedy and fell into extreme despair and sadness. It is reasonable to not want to go out.
"Later, news came from the livable place, and the results of the verification were consistent - the murderer of the two children was the son of the official. So the old man entrusted a middleman to deliver the letter. They did not want any compensation and only wanted to execute the death penalty immediately, but that At that time, the Askia government hesitated.”
"Why?"
"Because Askia has always wanted to join the third district livable area, but the third district coalition government has an iron law for all livable areas under its rule: the death penalty cannot be carried out for any crime. Before that, Askia Although Asia retains the death penalty in the law, it has not been actually executed for more than 20 years... If the death penalty is executed this time, it will be very detrimental to joining the livable land in the future...
“The trial is still going on, but everyone understands that the final result should be a huge fine, plus a sentence of hundreds of years, without the possibility of commutation.
"Everyone was angry about this incident. Residents who went to protest were surrounded in front of the city hall, but the crowd was quickly dispersed - because new strange things happened in Askia, and people disappeared suddenly every day. No one knew where they went. No one was seen alive, and no corpses were seen dead. This was unprecedented in Askia... People suddenly became worried, and no one dared to go out rashly anymore.
"But in fact, these people were all imprisoned in the cellar of the old couple's apartment."
"That old couple...were they infected?" Hesta guessed.
Liz nodded.
"That's why they withdrew the lawsuit before. The old lady's hands had already begun to chelate at that time, and she couldn't last long." Liz said softly, "The couple became chelated almost at the same time. I guess they originally wanted revenge, but they didn't know that after getting sick, people will not only let go of what they love, but also all their hatred... except for doing evil for fun, there is no other purpose.
“Asquia had a comprehensive overhaul to prevent chelation disease more than fifty years ago. At that time, in order to be able to contact habitable places in an emergency, Askia prepared three plans. Among them The first two sets are contacted by radio, one is powered by batteries and the other is powered by diesel. Every summer, Habitat will send special personnel to replace the batteries and check the generators, diesel reserves and communication equipment.
"The third plan is particularly energy-consuming - they built a very secret underground communication line. Even if all power generation facilities fail in an emergency, this wired communication can still ensure that livable places know about Askey as soon as possible. A dangerous situation occurred in Asia.
"These three plans have been strictly kept confidential during planning, because each chelate will retain most of the knowledge, skills and habits of life. Therefore, whether it is mercury needle or the coalition government, everyone is popularizing chelation disease. At all times, the focus will be on disease prevention and self-identification, and these higher-level defense measures will rarely be mentioned, lest some primary chelates carry out targeted damage to anti-epidemic facilities based on these public information. "
Liz paused briefly.
"However, no one expected that this couple, as urban planners, would be involved in the entire project."
"Have all communication facilities... been destroyed?"
"Yes..." Liz nodded, "Originally, both sides should have noticed something was wrong quickly, because according to regulations, Askia and Habitat should check whether the wired communication is normal every day in the early morning and evening - this Although the habit is monotonous, it has been maintained for decades, but unfortunately, two of the people who were kidnapped and imprisoned in the basement by the old man were specialists in charge of communications.
“At that time, the whole of Askia was like a ball of boiling lava, and the city hall itself was in chaos, because the internal confidentiality was so good that the people temporarily assigned to the communications post were not informed of the existence of underground communications. The person in charge of the coalition government in the third district was absent and had serious dereliction of duty. When Askia lost contact for days, he did not report to the superior, but clocked in as usual.
"It wasn't until the eve of the chelate wave that the mercury needle reacted first... But by that time, it was already too late."
"The mercury needle...how did you sense something was wrong?"
"During the renovation that year, the Mercury Needle team involved in the project left a last line of defense - they installed four chelate traps outside the city. The bait is a special pheromone, which interacts with the first awakening Mercury Needle. The smell is similar, but only a handful of chelates with excellent physical qualities can smell it.
“When these chelates find their way along the breath and destroy the entire device, the nearest AHgAs operating point is alerted.
"These devices, from research and development, design to production and installation, were all completed independently by AHgAs. They did not inform anyone, so these facilities... were retained until the end."
