"Big Brother, you finally came. I’ve heard many people talk about your story... Big Sister, she isn’t going to wake up ever again like Duoduo’s mom and dad, is she?" Her head tilted, she clung tightly to the hem of her dress, "That’s good, that’s really good... Big Sister is asleep, so she doesn’t have to eat the yucky mushrooms anymore. Big Sister is so gentle, she shouldn’t have to go through what Duoduo did, she shouldn’t..."
Despite smiling, tears began to well up in her eyes as she looked at Su Ming’an approaching her.
Just like the time before in the basement, Duoduo simply recounted her story, and then, with innocent, wide eyes, she watched him.
"But now, it doesn’t matter anymore." She smiled at Su Ming’an, spreading her hands out to him, "Big Brother has reached this point, so solve the puzzle that has troubled Duoduo for so long—so, who really is the little girl who picks the mushrooms?"
[Upon discovering the final truth of the world, you have entered the "Perfect Pass" storyline·Intelligence line.]
[Please select your response.]
[Note: If the deduction cannot continue, you can use the speculations in the clues column at any time to assist in extending your thoughts.]
[You have obtained the final clue: The true file of Duoduo, all clues are automatically connected, no proof needed.]
Yu Ruohuo looked on in shock at this scene—she never imagined that the unremarkable room she had been in for so long would suddenly produce that terrifying little girl.
Looking at Su Ming’an holding the file, she spoke:
"At first, I thought the little girl picking mushrooms must be Duoduo herself. Trapped by the virus and having died among it, she would use the entire X City as her mushroom culture medium.
But later on, I found two different antidotes, purple and colorless... Weirdly enough, they work in some situations, but are ineffective in others..." Su Ming’an said slowly.
The purple solution could cure Yang Changxu of the zombie virus. The colorless solution could heal Yuanyuan’s patches, but it couldn’t cure the zombie virus in him.
"—I think, the cause of the Apocalypse wasn’t just the fungal virus, right?" Su Ming’an said.
[Clue connection! Forming deduction 1: There is more than one virus, and correspondingly, more than one vaccine.]
[Deduction correct! Final reasoning progress: 10%]
"That’s correct, Big Brother," Duoduo said with a smile, "But why would there be more than one vaccine?"
"The hidden virus from the mushrooms, it would lie dormant within the human body, and its vaccine must be cultivated on a corpse, then turned into a colorless liquid. If Yuanyuan, who had eaten Hericium erinaceus biscuits, doesn’t drink that colorless liquid, she would slowly mutate into a zombie..." Su Ming’an speculated.
"So," Duoduo, who seemed to know everything that happened in this world, suddenly interrupted him, "when the Apocalypse broke out, why didn’t Big Sister mutate into a zombie?"
"If I’m not wrong..." Su Ming’an recalled the sunlight that was pouring down and the rapid deterioration of Yuanyuan when she entered the dark, cold basement after the first death: "It must have something to do with sunlight, right?"
[Clue connection! Forming deduction 2: The fungal virus gets suppressed by sunlight!]
[Deduction correct! Final reasoning progress: 20%]
The system’s prompt confirmed his guess, and with the last shred of doubt gone, Su Ming’an continued: "The colorless bottle can heal the fungal virus, but it can’t heal the zombie virus. While that purple bottle... must be the perfect vaccine that can cure everything, including the zombie virus and the fungal virus."
[Clue connection! Forming deduction 3: The two vaccines are, one to cure the fungal virus, and one perfect vaccine that heals both the fungal virus and the zombie virus!]
[Deduction correct! Final reasoning progress: 50%]
"Wow, Big Brother is really smart," Duoduo clapped excitedly, but then her eyes suddenly sharpened, "...so why didn’t you drink the purple antidote that could have cured you of the zombie virus when you were infected?"
"Because... I had already figured everything out," Su Ming’an said, "Even the colorless fungal antidote was cultivated on a human corpse. How could a precious medicine like the purple antidote that cures both viruses be so simple—if I’m not mistaken, that purple liquid must be your blood."
"How could my blood possibly be purple?" Duoduo said with a forced smile.
"Because of this." Su Ming’an slapped Duoduo’s file folder onto the table.
[Clue taken out · True · Duoduo’s file folder]
[Begin guiding deduction]
Aside from Duoduo’s photo, which was already in the fake file folder, there was also a picture of Duoduo after her death.
In the picture, beyond the endless wounds on her body, there were splatters of purple fluid dripping onto the ground—obviously, it couldn’t be paint.
When Su Ming’an first saw the purple blood streaming out of Duoduo after her death, he had understood this point.
"The perfect antidote that could save everything, protect everyone from the risk of infection—it was collected from your body, right?" Su Ming’an stared at her, "Because of your certain experience, you had a resistance to this virus. The dean, for the sake of everyone, actually sacrificed his own kin—sent you to the operating table, and then, from your body, he collected everything
—indeed, he was the real ’Little Mushroom Picker.’ My guess isn’t wrong, is it?"
It was also because he thought that the purple liquid could be Duoduo’s blood that Su Ming’an didn’t drink it, for the final boss stage, fearing it contained some hidden debuff.
There was no need for Duoduo to answer further, as the system notification had already replied for her.
[Clue linked! Formed deduction 4: Duoduo’s father, the dean himself is the "Little Mushroom Picker!"]
[Deduction correct! Final reasoning progress: 75%]
"It turned out, it turned out to be ..." Yu Ruohuo covered her mouth.
She had never thought that, in her eyes, the little girl who was like a demon, would actually be the most innocent victim in the story.
Duoduo lowered her head.
Her beautiful, bright red dress gradually dissipated, the breeze blew through her hair, and beneath the vanishing dress was the body wrapped in layers of bandages. When she lifted her head again, her previously egg-white complexion was marked with scars from surgical knives.
"—You didn’t die from domestic violence." Su Ming’an said, "but on the operating table, at the hands of your own biological father, due to his urgent need to save the common people... right?"
"Su Ming’an!" Yu Ruohuo quickly tugged at his sleeve, her action was subconscious, not yet realizing that the person in front of her was no longer the ordinary student from before, she was just looking at the girl covered in bandages, with eyes filled with pity and distress, "Stop it, she’s also a victim..."
"That was a statement about the past." Su Ming’an didn’t look at her, simply said in an extremely light tone:
"Now, reborn from the most primitive evil, she is the perfect perpetrator."
He remembered the scene he had seen at the time of that death.
The dean and his wife, who were supposed to have the perfect vaccine, turned into zombies.
...They wanted to save the masses with Duoduo’s blood, but clearly, they didn’t succeed.
Even more so, they were turned into the very thing by their own target, that they least wanted to become.
[Clue linked! Formed deduction 5: The cause of Duoduo’s death was the dean’s doing.]
[Deduction correct! Final reasoning progress: 90%]