The forr Dao Ya City was a place of broken walls and ruins, but here it’s styled like Silicon Valley in the new Technology Age.
In the center of the city stands a magnificent building, predominantly blue, like a massive pool of water flowing in the air, with a white glow constructing a grid-like defense shield, where fine yellow talismans hang at the intersections of the grid.
When Xin Yue touches the blue flowing water, it automatically opens a passage, allowing them to enter.
Inside is a spacious hall with corridors leading in all directions, and thousands of people are active within. The hum of computers is quite loud, and people holding laptops are seen everywhere.
"This is the neutral faction area of The World of Old Days. Sotis the Church declares war on us, but it always ends without consequence. After all, humanity can’t sustain too much internal strife," Xin Yue explains.
"Neutral faction?" Su Ming’an surveys the surroundings: "It’s really like a ga. Divided into good faction, neutral faction, evil faction. If you all had green and red nas floating above your heads, it would be no different from a ga."
Xin Yue laughs: "You’re right; there are indeed people who claim they’ve seen ’nas floating above everyone’s heads,’ but those are just hallucinations—there are a lot of ntal disorders in the world, and so can see what others cannot. But after seeing these illusions, their spirit quickly collapses, turning into low-level anomalies and exotic species."
Su Ming’an follows Xin Yue as they keep moving inward, passing through one automatic door after another.
"So." Xin Yue suddenly stops, holding his hand, with her other hand pressed against his lips.
"Alliance Hierarch, if you see sothing others can’t see, hear sothing others can’t hear, please don’t investigate further—just pretend you haven’t seen or heard anything."
Her fingers press against his lips, with red nail polish shimring under the light, her face devoid of a smile, extrely solemn.
Su Ming’an’s expression turns serious.
"...Even if I see, I must ignore. Even if I hear, I must feign deafness, is it?" he murmurs.
"Yes," Xin Yue says: "If you delve further, there’s a risk you will be assimilated by ’anomalies.’"
Her rose-colored eyes reflect him under the lights.
"Eyes need not see, ears need not hear," Xin Yue slowly moves her hand away: "Please be a foolishly wise person—in this world, those who see too much inevitably go mad."
Su Ming’an nods.
"I just heard a sound that only I can hear; it’s a precursor to the risk of being assimilated," Su Ming’an says: "I understand, next ti I’ll act as if I haven’t heard and won’t engage with it."
"You truly are wise," Xin Yue smiles faintly and continues forward.
At this mont, Su Ming’an hears faint echoes again, but he stares ahead, covering his ears, refusing to contemplate those sounds.
Xin Yue takes him to Su Wensheng’s office, where Su Ming’an walks around, traversing the areas Su Wensheng used to frequent, but fails to regain any mories.
...Could it be that Su Wensheng truly didn’t leave behind anything like mory fragnts?
Su Ming’an ponders.
It seems to really depend on following the main quest—first needing to increase Su Luoluo’s fan count to ten thousand.
Su Ming’an shakes his head towards Xin Yue: "I haven’t regained any mories."
"Alright, it seems you’ve co up empty-handed," Xin Yue shrugs: "Before you leave, may I have so of your blood?"
"What?" Su Ming’an is puzzled.
"Every so often, you leave us so of your blood as an Eligible, used to sustain the lives of certain people," Xin Yue takes out a long needle: "Will you donate blood this ti as well? Once you’re done, I’ll send you back."
"Then take to see them first," Su Ming’an says.
Xin Yue nods and leads him through several secret barriers.
Su Ming’an senses the surroundings, finding that the people inside the building mostly have combat power ranging from Third Level to Fourth Level, indicating his strength is sufficient.
"Xin Yue, who is this?" a young man with a naplate sees Xin Yue.
"He’s a friend of the Alliance Hierarch, here to see the hibernation room," Xin Yue introduces.
The young man ceases his inquiry, turns around, and inputs the code to open the door.
Su Ming’an observes that Xin Yue holds a high status, able to freely bring people into secret areas; she must be soone Su Wensheng trusts greatly.
The code door opens, releasing nitrogen-like white gas. Su Ming’an enters inside, finding a circular white hall, with extrely low temperature akin to an ice cellar.
The hall is very spacious, with dozens of ice coffins placed in the center; each ice coffin houses a person. They are arranged in rows and columns, like ice-white tombs.
Su Ming’an’s heart is slightly moved.
Like wind chis ringing, he feels a strange resonance.
He approaches the ice coffins, finding nurous blue and red tubes connected to life-sustaining devices outside the coffins, with screens displaying these people’s temperature and heartbeat—all normal values. Yet their eyes remain shut as though they are unresponsive vegetative states.
There are young people, the elderly, n and won, and even children under ten years old. They slumber in the ice coffins, motionless and with closed eyes.
Among them, Su Ming’an sees a girl asleep in an ice coffin.
Her features aren’t beautiful, but her skin is exceptionally pale, nearly transparent enough to see the blue veins on her arms. Jet-black hair surrounds her small face, though expressionless, rely looking at her calms the heart and soul.
The closer he draws to her, the stronger he feels a magnetic-like attraction.
After gazing at the girl for a ti, Su Ming’an finally asks: "What’s wrong with these people?"
"...They’re people on the brink of death," Xin Yue says: "Through various circumstances, they’ve reached a critical state. For instance, being impaled through the heart by exotic species on the warfront. Or having their brain shredded during combat. At the brink of death, you saved them, sustaining their vital signs with your blood. Perhaps one day they’ll awaken, or perhaps one day they’ll suddenly perish. It’s unpredictable."
"The blood of Eligibles is truly miraculous, akin to a magical weapon," Su Ming’an murmurs: "Are they all very important to ?"
Su Wensheng can consistently supply blood to sustain these people’s vital signs—these individuals must be extrely important to Su Wensheng.
"Yes," Xin Yue nods.
Her face now devoid of lightheartedness, deeply solemn as she gazes at these ice coffins like a forest of stone tablets:
"—They are humanity’s heroes, and your good friends."
Su Ming’an looks at these n and won, roughly estimating around sixty to seventy people, including gray-haired elders, young girls with black hair, and even young-faced children—he finds it hard to imagine the past warti devastation for humanity, how many collapsed during dream tours, how many died at the front due to warfare, regardless of identity, regardless of age.
The "ga" in this world isn’t a ga; it’s painful, despairing, heavy, entangled with blood, life, soul, and the destinies of races.
—Just like the world’s "ga."
Su Wensheng uses his own life and blood to clutch these people suspended by a spider’s thread, preventing their fall into the abyss. Awaiting soone to awaken.
Su Ming’an is not Su Wensheng; he doesn’t know these people’s significance to him. But for Su Wensheng, maybe they are just as important as Lv Shu, Yuanyuan, and Noel. Thus, despite draining himself, Wensheng insists on keeping them alive.
Xin Yue walks to the ice coffin of an old man and softly speaks: "This man is nad Lin Yuelin, once your literature teacher. He was forcibly killed by his other students during a large human internal strife due to ideological disagreent."
Su Ming’an listened in silence.
Xin Yue walked to a middle-aged woman: "This is Liu Li, your comrade and the head of the logistics departnt within the alliance. She is gentle and kind, often concerned about your health. She was killed with a single blow by an exotic species that breached the city walls during a city siege battle."
Su Ming’an followed her steps.
Xin Yue walked to a white-haired teenager: "This is Shun Hang, your student. He’s a bit mischievous, often chatting with you and making you laugh. He’s skilled in reconnaissance talismans and died during reconnaissance from an energy wave attack from a long-range exotic species."
"This is Jun Yi, captain of the command departnt. He died from a breakdown in dream patrol."
"This is Yun Yun, once the Vice Alliance Hierarch, died due to an abnormal assault while engraving a talisman."
"This is Chang Ning..."
"This one..."
Xin Yue’s words were slow as she introduced these forr comrades to Su Ming’an one by one, even though he didn’t rember any of them.
Their bodies were quite complete, most dying from ntal breakdown, looking as if they were just asleep. They gradually ford into the blurry image of Su Wensheng in Su Ming’an’s eyes.
Humans in social relationships are inherently a union of "others" coming together. It’s these spider-web-like interpersonal connections that form the essence of "human."
His comrades, his subordinates, his teachers, his friends...
Su Ming’an quietly observed their appearances, listened to their personalities and positions, and morized them one by one.
Finally, he arrived at the place of the black-haired girl.
"So, the last one, who is she?" Su Ming’an looked at the sleeping black-haired girl. She gave him a strong sense of resonance.
"This is the girl you brought back while exploring the Land of Utter Darkness," Xin Yue said. "We don’t know her background, nor do we know her identity and past. But you treated her well, and her cause of death is quite strange."
"Strange?"
"She died due to ’consciousness death’," Xin Yue said. "She hadn’t suffered any attacks, and there were no issues ntally, yet she suddenly died in the next second. It’s as if her consciousness suddenly died."
"What caused it?" Su Ming’an looked at the tranquil face of the black-haired girl.
"We suspect it’s because she died too many tis during dream patrol. In the ga ’The Cat and Her,’ so characters can return after dying, which is a ga chanism," Xin Yue explained. "However, continuous dying and rebirth. This cycle happened too many tis. Eventually, our brain might perceive that we have truly died, and when that happens, our consciousness would never awaken again, even if the body is still alive; we would fall into eternal death."
Su Ming’an was silent for a mont, his pupils slightly trembling.
"How many tis did she die?" he asked after a mont.
"Let think..." Xin Yue thought for a mont, "According to her, it was 43 tis."
"43 tis." Su Ming’an repeated and said no more.
"Alright, let confirm with you one last ti," Xin Yue shifted the topic and took out a syringe, "Do you still wish to continue providing blood for these people? The current number is 72 people, do you wish to reduce the number?"
She asked this with utmost seriousness, as it was a solemn asure of life, with blood on one side of the scale and seventy-two lives on the other.
"If I don’t provide, they will die imdiately," Su Ming’an said.
Xin Yue nodded, her expression heavy, "Yes."
"Do they want to live?" Su Ming’an asked.
He knew so might not want to live at all.
"I don’t know what they think, the decision is yours," Xin Yue said.
She hesitated for a mont and added, "Frankly, many have not awakened yet. Providing blood would cost you your lifespan. I do not recomnd continuing to provide blood."
Su Ming’an pondered for a mont.
"If they awaken, would it be beneficial to the human strategic situation?" Su Ming’an asked.
"Yes," Xin Yue nodded without hesitation, "Death has always been an unknown realm for humans and a delicate borderline between humans and exotic species. People believe, if soone could awaken from the brink of death, exploring their brain changes would hold significant aning for researching the principles of exotic species’ formation."
"Then I have no problem," Su Ming’an said. "Provide it."
Originally, he thought if it was simply for maintaining life, it would have no aning. But if it could help win the war, that beca different. The victory in human warfare would likely be his perfect pass goal. Otherwise, it would be better to choose TE1·Destroy the World.
Perhaps he could be considered Zhai Xing’s Savior. But he gradually beca the savior of these worlds.
Just like in the Ruined World, he could have chosen the downgrade dinsion plan of the Dawn System, abandoning tens of billions of lives, but he chose the most difficult path instead.
He felt a weight on his palm as Xin Yue held his hand again.
She seed to really like holding his hand, gently, as if it were a simple touch, looking for short-lived reliance in the midst of a harsh world.
Her rose-colored hair leaned on his shoulder, brushing past his cheek, very softly.
Rather than an ambiguous relationship between a man and a woman, she was more like an elder and a big sister. She let him, who had first entered the world, understand who he really was and what he should do.
"Alliance Hierarch, if there’s another voice, you must pretend not to hear it," her voice was also very light, her breath brushed his ear, "You are humanity’s hope against the Deity, the great advancer of dream patrol progress; you absolutely must not go crazy."
"Hmm." Su Ming’an nodded.
...
[Number One Player.]
[You are the hope of humanity against the Organizers, the great advancer of the human points progress bar — you absolutely must not go crazy.]
...
Su Ming’an closed his eyes briefly and tightened his grip on her hand:
"I can’t hear anything."
He matched her smiling gaze and smiled in return.
He heard nothing.
...
...
[San Value: 55 points]
...
Reviews
All reviews (0)