063. Notes & Diaries

[There's a monster right in front of me, and I can smell the scent of it... its stomach is twitching.

These...monsters, have infested our city and brought nothing but destruction. People have always said that it would make the least sense for our...civilization to be replaced by such evil creations...are the heavens all gone?

Or is it the devil who rules this world?

I've always...felt it too, but these monsters are not the...beasts we think they are, I've communicated with this one on many topics, and it has shown no less intelligence than I have, if it... ... put away your contempt towards what I have to say, and maybe we'll move on to something deeper... ( some of the graphics are missing)

I dissected it and found that its body structure was surprisingly...advanced. Its ugly appearance had only come from defining us, just as they defined us as ugly. But to be fair, their bodies are... more... I can't fool myself.

People call me "Son of Iron", but now I wonder if our resistance has any meaning, our strength...? Or is it the right thing to say?

Are they better than us?

Are they better than us?

Are they better than us?

Are they better than us?]

Gu Jun could understand 70% to 80% of the notes, and could probably guess what the meaning of the writing was even if he couldn't read it.

The more he looked at it, the more the basement illusion surged and swirled in his heart, as if he could hear the murmurings of the man who wrote down the notes who was full of trepidation and despair....

"It seems that this pictograph doesn't belong to this world," Gu Jun said, "At least not of this generation."

Infesting cities and bringing destruction, it was clear that this man's race and civilization had been pushed to the brink of extinction by a monster that has taken over the city and brought about its destruction.

And this kind of monster had also already appeared in this world, there should be quite a few of them, he had personally dissected a chest specimen of them all....

"That basement still uses kerosene lamps, and the paper is still parchment, that sort of thing... The level of technology in the world in the notes should only be equivalent to the state of Europe on the eve of the Industrial Revolution, right? Although we Homo sapiens aren't as physically fit as this kind of monster, our technology is high, so the Sky Agency (*NASA) can still destroy them now."

Gu Jun pondered that a Gatling machine gun could fire more than 1000 rounds per minute, and this monster's plate bone would definitely not be able to stop it.

It was just that he remembered the different banyan disease... no matter how powerful the machine gun was, it needed people to control it... if a plague broke out, it would be even worse than a monster, right....

Gu Jun read the diagram a few times before turning it off and opening the three pages of the diary to look at it instead.

As he read it, he mumbled in his mind, adding his own speculations to some words he couldn't understand.

October 21, the Year of the Rose, by Rebdi Piani.

It is raining heavily today, and people have often said that the Year of the Rose would not rain so heavily. But the weather pales into insignificance compared to recent events.

The spread of the cough-blood disease has expanded again, and it is out of control from the city of Biren to the city of Ely. We, the city of Sal, have also seen our first case.

The news made me want to vomit, I shouldn't have reacted that way, I had graduated from the highest medical school in the Empire, the Kalop Academy, and studied every known medical technique and delved into the workings of the human body, not to tremble in the face of a disease.

People have always placed great expectations on the medical students of the Kalop Academy, believing us to be messengers sent to earth by the divinity to control the mysteries of life and to illuminate this foolish world with the light of wisdom.

As such, we enjoyed the highest glory of the empire and gained the unconditional trust of the people.

But now, after the two most prosperous cities of the Empire, Biren and Ely, have become hells, the people have woken up and so have we.

The Kalopian students were not messengers of divinity, but mere playthings of the devil's contempt.

Is that so? I wish I could have held on to my beliefs for as long as I could, but even when I was in school, I wasn't the best one.

Langton was especially good at anatomy, and during the first anatomy class our hands were shaking, but Langton held the scalpel like it was his finger.

Because of his hardness of mind and the fact that the scalpel was made of iron, I called him "Son of Iron" for some reason, which became his nickname.

Langton and I were good friends, and although he had the most arrogant qualifications, he was very humble and very funny. Everyone said that Langton would do great things in the future, and that he thought and acted well enough to be a true ambassador of the divinity and revolutionize the old medicine.

After graduation, I returned to my home city of Sal, while Langton stayed in the capital of the country where the Academy was located.

I had no idea that the time he saw me off would be the last time we would meet.

This morning I received the secret news that Leroy Langton, the "Son of Iron", had committed suicide by slitting his own throat with a scalpel.

The public doesn't know this yet, and it would be a major blow if they did....

Langton left a suicide note, supposedly not much more than the information and some thoughts he got from being alone in the ruined Hawk City. As to why he sought death, I was not told, probably because he couldn't stand the monsters and the coughing sickness.

Langton mentioned me in his letter, so I could get the information. In his letter, Langton said, "Tell Piani not to give up, but I have to go first."

If even the Son of Iron couldn't hold it up, what was I supposed to do? I wasn't the best at that.

"Phew." After reading the first page of the diary, Gu Jun took a deep breath and went out of the bedroom to pour a glass of water to drink.

The contents of this so-called medical treatment work diary were completely different from what he had imagined. However, as a slave of medicine himself, he could feel the tremendous pressure in Rebdi Piani's seemingly steady handwriting... Peyani must have been holding the diary thingy over and over, but couldn't write anything valuable about the diagnosis and treatment, so he wrote this...

Gu Jun looked at the setting sun in the sky outside the balcony, the dying sun was like blood.

This foreign language had an origin, it seemed to be another world, another civilization.

Looking at it again, he sipped his water as he continued to read the next page of the diary.

[November 8, the Year of the Rose _ Rebdi Piani

In just ten days, the city of Sal has fallen.

My hometown of Sal is known as the land of flowers, where a quiet life is lived, not like the hustle and bustle of the nation's capital, nor the coldness of those machines.

The people of Sal are always seizing every opportunity to make new friends by any means possible, and by the end of the day, almost everyone here knows each other.

During the annual flowering season, everyone would pick the flowers that were growing in their yards and give them to each other. Even the most down-trodden homeless person in the street is surrounded by the fragrance of flowers every day during the flowering season. Such as autumn flowers, golden flowers, soft flowers, lilies, moonflowers....

Of course, in the Year of the Rose, bright roses flourish in every corner of the city and become everyone's headdress.

I used to love this "Sal culture " so much, but now, I hate it more and more.

All the pure joy of the past had turned into even more pain in the last ten days.

The first one to die was Uncle Jonson, who owned a shoe shop in the street, and every time I passed by, he would ask me warmly how I was doing and recommend to me the new shoes in his shop. Uncle Johnson had never been anywhere where there was an epidemic, and he had never been out of Sal City in his life, but suddenly he was sick with the disease.

All people with coughing blood disease start that way, their lungs become edematous, their lung function begins to fail... (can't speculate on the content here)... bursting... massive spurting of blood from the mouth! ...and eventually the blood spills out of the skin of the chest automatically as well, and life comes to an end.

We, the holy and great doctors of Kalop!

It's not even possible to figure out if coughing up blood is a viral disease, or a parasitic disease.

It's also unclear how it's transmitted, it's not airborne, it's not transmitted from food...it....

We were at our wits' end.

A few days ago, Mila died, Cugard died, Orenton died, Nannie died...friends I knew died one by one, roses all over the city wilted, but the blood they coughed up still stained the city red.

And my parents...they died right in front of my eyes.

I'm worried about Leda now, she's developed some coughing fits today. Don't be her, don't be....

Goddess of Life, if you really exist, please...]

"Phew... " Gu Jun only read the second page of the diary, frowning and gripping his heart as he continued to read the final third page.

This page was written on February 5th of the Year of the Violet, and if the Year of the Rose was followed by the Year of the Violet, then a few months had already passed.

[February 5th of the Year of the Violet____ Rebdi Piani

It's been almost three months since Leda died of coughing blood disease, and I've been reluctant to think about it, let alone write about it.

I met Leda as a teenager, and she was of modest birth, the daughter of a blacksmith. But when I first encountered her in Lily Street, I was overwhelmed by her charm and was deeply smitten by her. She was dressed in a very ordinary white dress, slender and light, with a pure and sincere smile.

I later learned that she was the big sister to all the children on Lily Street, and that she was the one who spent her days bouncing around with them, freeing up their parents to do other things.

This was my favorite trait. However, when I first met her, I knew nothing about her, but I was already determined to marry this girl.

My pursuit of Leda went well, and while I wasn't as good as Langton, I had qualities that Leda could appreciate.

We had kept in touch by letter during the years we had been at Kallop Academy, and she was worried that I would choose to stay in the capital after graduation and not go back, but hoped that I would think of my own future, for Sal City was a country place after all.

But how could she know? My heart had never left Sal City, and never left her.

From the onset of her illness, Leda progressed quickly and left on the fifth day. I couldn't keep her for even a few more days.

When Leda died, all my hope died too, and what the world was like no longer meant anything to me.

My despair was different from Langton's. I had read his suicide note, and he had more noble aspirations and more sublime destructions.

Yet I had only a few ordinary thoughts. My parents, my old housekeeper, my aunt, my friends, Leda...if any of them were still alive, I might have been able to hang on, but they were all gone.

Leda's death made me realize that there are no gods in this world, and if there are, they have been defeated by demons. Gods don't allow people like Leda to die in such a miserable way! The last thing she said to me was, "Rebdi, I'm sorry I can' t make it to the wedding day." We were supposed to be married in December of the Year of the Rose.

What about death is a return to the embrace of the Goddess of Life, an exaltation of life. I don't believe it.

The world is about to be reduced to a shambles, but what is there to be sad and afraid of?

All my grief and fear went away with Leda's passing.

I did not fear the destruction of the world, I feared that she was in the depths of hell, or that there would be something worse after death? I worry about everyone I know, too. Their bones have melted, their nerves no longer beat, but they are still spreading the fruit of their disease, not with a virus, but with their deaths.

Father, Mother, Langton, Leda, please forgive me, please wait for me.

For I, Rebdi Peyani, will die with you all."