The journey was short and coincidentally, he and the doctor were arranged at the end of the sixth floor where he once taught children to read poetry. In Eden, he had his first formal lunch in many days, a bowl of potato soup. It might not be as delicious as the one cooked by himself but after eating compressed biscuits and nutrition granules for a few days, this was already rare good food.

The doctor seemed to have a lot of worries. At night, An Zhe went out to grab water for him.

There were people in the tearoom. The lady who clashed with the officer during the day was weeping against the wall and there was another researcher next to her, patting her on the shoulder. “Perhaps the Lighthouse can hold on.”

“It ‘s impossible.” Her voice was hoarse. “The oxygen content of the planet’s air is less than half the original. After the air filtration system is activated, fresh oxygen will only be given priority to the Garden of Eden. Residential areas, the military bases and even the Twin Towers will only receive the secondary supply and won’t be able to survive.”

Then she looked up, saw An Zhe and whispered, “Who is this? Is he one of ours?”

The researcher next to her answered, “It is said he is the assistant of Dr Ji from the testing centre.”

She muttered, “Dr Ji can bring his assistant… because his work is better than ours.”

“This is the way it is. Don’t be sad for him. If we can get through this disaster then we can train new assistants.”

Her nose was red and her eyes full of tears. Once she heard this, she laughed bitterly before reaching out to cover her face, trembling.

“Do you think…” She paused. “I’m… do you think it is just because of my assistant that I’m sad?”

“The inhabitants of the main city were glad they weren’t the ones abandoned when the outer city was blown up.” She spoke in an intermittent voice. “However, they were still abandoned. We stand here today at the expense of everyone else in the Lighthouse… maybe tomorrow we will be disqualified. The sea will submerge and the areas exposed to the water will be less and less. The time is coming. We… why are we insisting on holding on? For the sake of humanity as a whole?”

“For the benefit of the entire human race.”

She bowed her head and gasped violently. “This era is killing people but humans are killing themselves.”

“Still, you must accept it, Dr Chen.” The other researcher whispered. “As the winners, we aren’t qualified to mourn for them.”

“I know… I’m just a fellow human being like them and emotionally can’t accept it.” She finally wiped away her tears and smiled reluctantly. “Or do you want to say that we aren’t qualified to have emotions either?”

“…I don’t know.”