RAAS Chapter 90: Copy Life (3)

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Communication failed?!

Shi Qing was suddenly startled. How could the system message fail to send?

Unwilling to give up, he tried sending it a few more times, but each attempt was met with the same failure notice—without any explanation.

Shi Qing’s expression darkened instantly. Countless thoughts raced through his mind, but the worst possibility gripped his heart—had something happened to Qin Mo? Was that why communication was impossible?

What exactly had happened?

The mere thought of it filled him with unease.

However, he quickly forced himself to calm down. In this unfamiliar world, he couldn’t afford to lose his composure. If something had indeed happened to Qin Mo, he needed to help him. If he panicked now and got himself into trouble as well, then what?

Moreover… Shi Qing’s heartbeat gradually steadied. He believed in Qin Mo. He trusted his host. He would be fine.

Regaining his composure, Shi Qing’s mind raced through possible explanations.

Eliminating the worst-case scenario, there were other reasons why communication could fail—perhaps the distance between him and Qin Mo was too great, exceeding the system’s range, or maybe it was due to the nature of this world itself.

After all, system missions were already an anomaly. Having additional restrictions wasn’t entirely out of the question.

With this reasoning, Shi Qing grew even more composed. Still, he hoped to find Qin Mo as soon as possible.

Lost in thought due to this unexpected event, he was suddenly jolted back to reality by an angry shout.

The speaker was a tall, thin young man, probably in his thirties, dressed similarly to Huang San Bian. However, he was much slimmer—though compared to the miners here, he still appeared well-fed and strong. His face was greasy and shiny, a clear sign of overindulgence.

At that moment, he was mercilessly whipping a frail, hunched old man with a two-meter-long whip, cursing, “Can you work or not, huh? If not, hurry up and die! Stop wasting food and taking up space, you useless old bastard—”

Shi Qing didn’t hear the rest. His anger flared instantly.

Without hesitation, he reached out, grabbed the whip, and yanked it hard, causing the young man to stumble.

The man was clearly caught off guard—he hadn’t expected anyone to dare resist him. Holding onto the whip, he stood frozen in shock.

Shi Qing frowned. Something felt off, though he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what.

But the next moment, the young man exploded in fury. His thin face twisted into a hideous expression, his brown eyes filled with disgust and loathing. Without hesitation, he picked up the whip and lashed out at Shi Qing.

“You worthless piece of trash! How dare you resist? Do you have a death wish?!”

Shi Qing, who had been bending down to help the old man, simply tilted his head slightly and narrowed his eyes dangerously at the young man. With a mere flick of his finger, a thin streak of emerald-green energy shot straight toward the man’s forehead.

The young man had no chance to dodge. The attack struck him squarely. His eyes widened in horror as pain surged through his body.

It hurt—unbearably so.

It was as if a venomous snake had sunk its fangs into him, sending excruciating pain coursing through his entire body. He convulsed violently, his eyes rolling back as he trembled uncontrollably before finally collapsing into unconsciousness.

Shi Qing didn’t spare him a second glance.

He wouldn’t take a life, but he also had no intention of showing mercy to such scum. Teaching him a painful lesson was the least he could do.

He then turned his attention back to the elderly man, gently helping him up.

The old man’s hair was completely white, his face deeply wrinkled, and his body little more than skin and bones. He was so frail that he felt as light as a child.

Though Shi Qing had saved him, the old man’s eyes were filled with terror and despair. He looked at Shi Qing, his voice trembling as he spoke, “Child… you… what have you done…”

Before he could finish, he was suddenly wracked by violent coughing, as if he were about to cough up his very organs. Shi Qing couldn’t bear to see it and quickly infused him with a trace of spiritual energy to ease his pain.

The old man finally stopped coughing, though he was still gasping for air. His eyes shut tightly as his breathing gradually steadied.

His furrowed brows relaxed, as if he had been freed from his suffering.

But at that moment, Shi Qing froze.

The old man’s body had lost all signs of life.

He had stopped breathing…

Death—something even he was powerless against.

In the next moment, an even more bewildering scene unfolded before Shi Qing’s eyes.

The frail old man still leaned against him, his eyes closed, breathless—already dead. But then, his body slowly began to dissolve, starting from his limbs. Though clearly made of flesh and blood, he melted away as if ignited, turning into wisps of fine gray smoke that drifted lightly upward, swirling in the air before vanishing completely.

Shi Qing had never witnessed such a thing before. He couldn’t comprehend it at all.

Meanwhile, the group of teenagers following Shi Qing first showed deep despair upon seeing this sight, but then their expressions shifted to one of relief. They closed their eyes, clasped their hands together, and murmured softly under their breath.

It wasn’t until the old man had completely disappeared that Shi Qing finally asked, “Why… why did he…?”

Why did a human body disintegrate into ashes on its own? How was this even possible?

The girl who had spoken to Shi Qing earlier replied, “Xiao Qing, leave. Hurry and get out of here. If you have any chance to escape, take it! They won’t let you go. Live as long as you can—if you can even see the outside world for a single day, it’s worth it.”

Her voice trembled, as if she were terrified. Yet beneath that fear, there was a faint trace of longing and hope.

Shi Qing frowned and looked at the group of teenagers. In a low voice, he asked, “Why do you all stay here?”

A short boy at the very end of the line suddenly raised his voice, “Where else could we go? Weren’t we born just to work here?”

Shi Qing stared at him, and a sinking feeling rose in his heart.

He stepped past the group and strode forward. Every five or six hundred meters, he saw figures similar to Huang Sanbian—overseers dressed in yellow. Unlike the miners, however, these overseers bore no markings on their foreheads.

Seizing one of the men in yellow, Shi Qing’s voice turned ice-cold. “Tell me—where is this place?”

The man’s gaze first landed on Shi Qing’s forehead. Upon seeing it clearly, his anger flared up, and he was just about to start cursing.

But before he could, Shi Qing’s eyes darkened. He released an overwhelming pressure that instantly subdued the man.

With his divine sense extending outward, Shi Qing’s black eyes swirled with a hypnotic vortex. The man in yellow fell into a daze, then obediently began to speak.

“This is Mine No. 8908 of the Mia Empire. Daily output: one hundred thousand tons. Total area…”

After a long and detailed report on the mine’s statistics, the final sentence made Shi Qing’s pupils contract sharply.

“There are a total of 239,658 black-class replicants.”

Replicants?!

Black-class replicants?!

Shi Qing guided the man to continue speaking, and at last, he fully grasped the reality of this world.

Replicants were far from the marvel he had initially imagined.

This technology had been developed to counteract humanity’s declining birth rate. With the workforce expanding rapidly, resource extraction surged, society advanced at breakneck speed, and people’s lives grew increasingly comfortable.

Yet, the darker side of this world had also deepened.

By now, cloning technology had reached full maturity.

Almost every human could create and replicate their own copies at will. The process was simple, incredibly cheap, and highly practical.

The ranking system for replicants was brutally rigid.

White was the highest rank, followed by yellow, then red, green, blue, and purple—while black was the lowest of all.

Every replicant bore an inverted pentagram on their forehead, its color indicating their classification.

White-class replicants were completely bonded to their original human. They functioned as the master’s right hand, sharing memories and experiences with them daily. These were typically used for critical, high-status, and close-proximity work.

Yellow-class replicants ranked just below white. Most of them were tasked with learning and record-keeping. They retained a semblance of dignity; though they did not stay with their masters constantly like white-class replicants, they had the advantage of being able to merge with them once a week—allowing their masters to absorb the knowledge they had acquired.

They exist to bear these bitter and exhausting tasks.

Yet until their deaths, they have nothing.

Just like the old man earlier, who turned into a wisp of smoke and completely vanished from the world.

From the eyes of the man in yellow, Shi Qing saw himself—saw the black five-pointed star between his brows, filled with deep irony.

A clone?

Why had he become a clone?

Suddenly, he recalled his earliest moments—the hazy sensation when he had just crossed over.

Could it be that he had really been copied?

And now, was he just a clone of himself?

That was absurd!

Shi Qing stood frozen for a long moment. His spiritual sense expanded outward, allowing him to see everything clearly—the relentless cruelty and death unfolding in this mining facility at every moment.

The fallen black clones would turn into wisps of smoke and disappear into nothingness, while the overseers, their faces devoid of any emotion, showed not even a sliver of pity. It was as if this was all natural, making one's heart turn cold.

This world was utterly abnormal.

Shi Qing withdrew his thoughts and gradually calmed down.

Slowly, he quelled the storm raging in his chest and came to a resolution.

Black clones—whether they were human or not, in the end, they were still living beings.

And all life deserved the respect it was due.

This mining facility was designated as 8908. He didn’t know how many other places like this existed in this world, but now that he had seen one, he would deal with it.

The mining site was vast, with countless black clones and thousands of human overseers.

But these overseers were just ordinary people. Even if there were tens of thousands of them, Shi Qing wouldn’t consider them a threat.

Still, he had no intention of slaughtering indiscriminately. Though these people bore countless deaths on their hands, Shi Qing did not see himself as a law enforcer. He only wished to free this place.

Releasing his spiritual sense, Shi Qing closed his eyes, and a sudden surge of pressure erupted, enveloping everything in its range. In a place so vast, taking them down one by one would be a waste of time—it was best to snuff them out all at once to strike fear into their hearts.

There was almost no resistance. Under the oppressive force of such an overwhelming spiritual energy, every overseer in the 8908 mining facility fell unconscious.

The exhausted clones stood in stunned silence.

Then, a crisp yet deep voice, somewhere between a boy’s and a young man’s, rang out above their heads.

Descending from the sky, like a god.

"Leave this place. Choose your own life. Whether to live or to die—that is up to you alone!"

A brief silence was followed by utter chaos!

Shi Qing used his spiritual sense to scan the situation, but the final outcome was beyond his control. He had opened the door and pointed them toward a way out. Whether they could take that step forward was up to them.

Retracting his spiritual sense, Shi Qing turned his gaze toward the dozen or so youths beside him.

Their eyes were filled with a mix of fear and reverence. Such overwhelming power—nothing like they had ever seen or heard of before.

Not even the highest-ranking humans could possess such abilities.

He was… he was practically a god from legend!

A deity descending from the heavens to save the world!

Terrified, the youths all fell to their knees, trembling as they kowtowed repeatedly.

Shi Qing glanced at them but did not stop them. Some things could not be explained, nor was there a need to.

But in the end, he was soft-hearted. He retrieved a large amount of food from his wristband and placed it on the ground.

Without saying another word, he turned and left.

He needed to find Qin Mo. He missed him dearly.

The unease in his heart grew with the presence of the mark on his forehead.

A clone… Was he really a clone?

Then where was the real him?

Leaving the mine, he soared through the sky on his sword, expending a great deal of spiritual energy to maintain the wide range of his spiritual sense—this way, he could find Qin Mo in the shortest possible time.

He traveled across half the continent, searching for ten whole days.

Along the way, he encountered dozens of mines and hundreds of farms… witnessing countless black clones.

He repeated the process each time, throwing the world into unprecedented chaos.

Just as Shi Qing thought he might have to scour the entire world, a familiar presence suddenly appeared.

His heart clenched tightly—he could feel it. At last, at long last, he had sensed Qin Mo’s aura.

The excitement in his heart was beyond words, and Shi Qing almost dashed toward it at full speed.

The moment he saw Qin Mo, he couldn’t help but smile.

The gloom of the past days seemed to be swept away.

But just as he was about five steps away, Shi Qing suddenly froze.

There was someone beside Qin Mo.

Someone who looked exactly like him.

The only difference was that this "Shi Qing" had a smooth forehead—without any mark.

In that instant, Shi Qing felt as if his heart had stopped.

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