Hum—
The roaring motorcycle sped through the tunnel; blizzards and sandstorms offered a greeting salvo, darkness blurred the vision, the cold wind tore at her cheeks, and the red-black clouds hovered overhead—all seed very much like hell.
However, upon careful consideration, and in light of the teachings from scriptures and tos, perhaps hell might be much warr than the Outer World.
Miss Mirror easily charged into the endless night. Perhaps influenced by Li Aozi’s words, she occasionally looked up at the red-black sky.
"I could have borne the darkness, if I had not seen the light...?"
Miss Mirror murmured softly.
"What arrogance."
She was driving fast. As a Gamma Phase, she disdained to wear any armor except a helt. The faint Qi Energy clinging to her body could easily repel the windblown sand and frost snow, and the Gamma Phase bio-frequency signal she emitted, undisguised throughout the journey, kept the deford monsters at bay.
Soon, Miss Mirror arrived at her destination—Cold Iron Settlent.
If you’ve never been outside the city in your lifeti, then the Four Nations’ understanding of the Outer World and the Four Nations itself is quite narrow.
In fact, the Outer World is not so much an area as it is a Status.
Any place that is not protected by particle barrier emitters and lacks a unified national identity and administrative designation is disdainfully referred to as the Outer World by civilized people. So were declining nations; others were independent but abandoned by the Four Nations after being occupied for their resource mines—leaving the people as refugees.
Therefore, Azure Star has never been short on population. With the new fertilizers developed by Mingji Heavy Industries, settlents in the Outer World, though scattered, can form an enormously large Population.
However, survival and living are two different things.
Miss Mirror parked the motorcycle next to the cargo wheel of an old-era sunken ship, walked through the half-open-air container deck in the cold, and went underground. Conditions here were not as simple and sparsely inhabited as people might imagine. On the contrary, the permafrost beneath the shipwreck, even though hollowed out extensively by generations, was still cramped and lacking in housing.
How ironic it was that even in this near-apocalyptic wilderness, people still lacked shelter.
To the residents of the settlent, Miss Mirror’s arrival was no longer foreign. They huddled with all their belongings in the corners, not even having the courage to glance at her.
"Miss Mirror..."
"She’s back, but where’s Yage?"
"Shh, you should call her ’Sir’."
Miss Mirror didn’t care about these murmurs from the Outer World people.
Outer World people ford settlents inside old-era preserved submarines, containers, and cargo ships. So lucky settlents had stumbled upon the nuclear power equipnt of the old-era giants and managed to eke out an existence. Due to a lack of organization and civilization, the natural population grew uncontrollably, resulting in chronic poverty, hunger, and cold among the Outer World people.
Miss Mirror had no way to solve this problem, and she had always thought that no one on this planet could.
Even not her highly respected ntor.
Clack.
Miss Mirror stopped in front of a sailor’s bedroom. She raised her hand and knocked on the door, saying:
"It’s , Arkannu."
The next mont, the door opened automatically, and inside sat a man who resembled a crow—around forty or fifty years old, tall and well-built, with black hair tied into a ponytail and fastened with a black feather.
The middle-aged man wore a yellow and black overcoat adorned with a pendant made from an old-era radiator hung around his neck. His sleeves sported the patch of a skull and wrench, signifying his status: a seasoned Scavenger.
Facing Miss Mirror’s arrival, the man sat in front of the bed, lifted his head slightly, and casually remarked:
"There is a fire burning inside you, Mirror."
"I’d like to ask you a question, teacher Bedia Arkannu," she said.
Miss Mirror slowly walked into the room, closed the door, approached Arkannu, and looked him straight in the eyes as she bluntly put forth:
"Teacher, do you believe that the Sun and the starry sky exist?"
"What kind of stupid question is that?!" Arkannu chuckled: "Anyone with common sense wouldn’t ask such a thing."
"I want to know what you think," Mirror insisted, still staring into Arkannu’s eyes. His silvery eyes resembled so pure substance—more noble than silver, more sanctified than snowflakes.
"Whether you believe it or not, the Sun is there, and Azure Star revolves around it while also spinning on its own. The cosmos, of course, also exists. Even if to the cosmos, the Sun is no more significant than a grain of sand," Arkannu explained evenly: "Is that it? My good apprentice, you’ve co all this way to Sky Ring to find , just to spread word of your attacks and protests, or to ask an old madman like such a dumb question—you went to school, don’t be stupid."
As he finished, Arkannu chuckled, shaking his head in disdain and contempt.
"Teacher," Mirror began: "Do you want to go into space?"
Arkannu’s laughter stopped abruptly as he turned his head, staring at Mirror as if he were seeing this little ghost for the first ti.
"Tell , you haven’t gone mad yet, although sooner or later you’ll beco half a madman like ."
"At least not now." Mirror rolled up her sleeve, sweeping her gaze over the shattered patterns on her arm. They had hairline fractures, reflecting a faint glimr, sothing that couldn’t be reflected by a human arm.
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