[Silently choosing the starting point,]
[Proudly choosing the return journey,]
[Those who choose dawn at night,]
[Dawn chooses him as the wind of freedom.]
[——Shelley "Choice"]
...
With a "click," the door lock fell off.
Outside was a blood-red corridor, with flickering candle flas. Noel was dressed in all-black, agile attire, with pupils reflecting a dark blue glow.
"How did you sneak in?" Su Ming’an asked in surprise.
"The news about the deity taking the City Guardian Departnt intern Su Xiaobai away has gone viral online, I knew imdiately it was you." Noel swung a bracelet in his hand: "This is a prop to hide one’s aura, getting in wasn’t hard. Let’s go."
Su Ming’an suddenly said, "I haven’t played the piano for a long ti."
Noel raised an eyebrow: "I’m also surprised the deity has even prepared a piano for you."
They walked outward, the corridor empty and silent, like a crimson tunnel.
Suddenly, Su Ming’an’s eyes widened.
—Red circles surged into his vision, these were clue prompts from his "Clue Insight" skill. In the past, he could only occasionally spot one red circle, but here in this corridor, there were four or fifty such red circles.
So many crucial clues! It’s practically a treasure trove.
Su Ming’an instantly halted, the deity must be watching his every move, even if he hurriedly escapes, he’ll surely be intercepted. Better to examine all these clues.
"Is it a clue? Go ahead, I’ll accompany you." Noel also stopped, looking at the oil paintings hanging along the corridor.
Each oil painting had a red circle, there were dozens of them.
Su Ming’an looked at the first oil painting — it depicted a female doctor in a lab coat, staring at a petri dish against the backdrop of a research institute.
At that mont, Su Ming’an felt his senses slowly fading away, as if he were falling into it—
...
[No.1 link the fire (Fire Transmitter) · Tina]
...
Su Ming’an felt his vision change, he saw the petri dish before him.
...This is the mory of this person nad "Tina."
Cheers erupted around, people embraced each other, overwheld with joy.
"—Great! The special dicine research succeeded! Though it still has major flaws and can’t be used yet, it’s already a groundbreaking breakthrough! We can recall history!" People shouted, joy echoing throughout the research institute.
"That’s great Tina, we succeeded!" A red-haired doctor hugged Tina tightly, her na was Nia.
Su Ming’an couldn’t control himself, he could only watch everything through Tina’s perspective. He felt himself move, hugging Nia back with all his might.
...Though he didn’t know which era this was, it certainly was the past. After all, Su Wensheng’s mother destroyed the real special dicine nine years ago.
Turns out the real special dicine was indeed successfully made long ago, but it was destroyed later by Su Wensheng’s mother. Subsequently, people had been using innocent citizens for human experints to research a castrated version of the special dicine.
At this ti, frantic shouting ca from outside the research institute:
"Everyone! Just now, the deity suddenly issued an oracle! Saying to destroy the special dicine! Once issued, the special dicine will make people rember history, which the deity cannot allow!"
Suddenly, the room cooled down.
Confusion, panic, fear, despair... all kinds of emotions surfaced on people’s faces. Only Tina’s expression remained calm; she imdiately picked up a glass bottle nearby and began ransacking the cabinets, pulling out sheets of docunts, with paper fluttering like snowflakes inside the room.
"Doctor Tina, what are you doing!" People saw her frenzied actions and rushed to stop her.
"Preserve it! Preserve it!" Tina stubbornly repeated. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her cheeks flushed crimson with intense emotion. She quickly stuffed the crucial research data into her pocket — she had to preserve the special dicine... Human history is more important than any property, honor, or fa, even more important than her own life. It is crucial to safeguard human history!
The awakening of life and death, the records of pioneers, the experiences that avoided destruction, the confidence to face the future... If human history lasted only a few short years, what a monotonous and fragile civilization this would be? If even their own past was forcibly forgotten, how would people find their way ho?
The more the deity sought to erase history, the more they must strive to reclaim it.
But if they failed in their resistance, they’d be condemned by the deity as sinners attempting to subvert order, who among future generations would rember their sacrifice?
People hesitated, yet Tina kept stuffing things into her pocket, seemingly uncaring of what her outco would be. Soon, the second person took action, it was Nia. She began ransacking another cabinet, stuffing research data into her arms.
Then, the third person, the fourth, the fifth...
They tacitly worked in their respective areas, stuffing research data into their pockets. Each person’s expression bore a determined madness, like a burning fla.
No one spoke, yet it seed as if a silent outcry resonated through the room, accompanied by the rustling of paper.
—Don’t think you can erase our history!
—Don’t expect to see the lamb die kneeling!
Resist, resist, resist.
In the re fifteen minutes before the Holy Alliance Army arrived, people quickly sorted out the research data, duplicated it using a non-networked computer, and saved it on a USB drive. After a brief yet highly efficient discussion, they decided to entrust all the data to Tina, while they covered her escape through the institute’s secret tunnel.
"... give it to ?" Tina held the glass bottle containing the special dicine and USB drive. She never expected people to entrust the special dicine to her; her position at the institute was not high, yet she carried everyone’s hope.
"Each of us might betray in the final monts, perhaps to protect family, perhaps due to the pain of punishnt, or perhaps from the fear of death... But you won’t, you were the first to defy the oracle, Tina, you are the most determined among us." Tina’s teacher, Mr. Riley, patted her shoulder sternly: "Go quickly! Tina! Preserve human history!"
A variety of life-saving and teleport talismans were stuffed into Tina’s hands. Tina looked at them — they were not without fear, so cried and trembled, so already regretted, but be it fervor or conformity, at least at this mont, they were heroes.
Clearly, they were just ordinary people who usually arrived late for work, complained about the canteen food being unpalatable...
Tina morized their brilliance at this mont.
"Tina... goodbye." Nia gave her one final embrace.
Tina left through the escape passage at the rear.
Through various escape talismans, she managed to escape smoothly.
The fierce wind battered against Tina, her legs running swiftly under the blessing of the talismans, pain from oxygen deprivation pierced her chest. She didn’t look back, didn’t listen to the cries of agony behind her; she hid the glass bottle in the inner pocket over her left chest, close to her heart, she knew, here — was stored the entirety of human history.
A vast history, spanning thousands of years, the traces left by countless billions — the cumulative fruits of an entire civilization.
The scorching lack of oxygen hit her, yet she felt — she had finally defeated the world once, with her plain and mundane life of the past twenty-eight years.
Since childhood, she had been an ordinary person, aside from getting into the research institute through hard studies, she had nothing extraordinary.
If the end of the world did co, and super heroes were to save the world, she’d be the civilian cheering them on, the cara wouldn’t linger on her for a mont.
But now—
She clenched the glass bottle at her heart, feeling an open, stirring emotion fiercely beating within her chest.
—Can ordinary people beco super heroes too?
Even though she was terrified to the point her legs began to tremble, cold sweat sliding down her forehead, her vision blur with tension, she felt an elation — the fear of death, the fear of deities, and her own passion collided frenziedly, making her feel like a bird breaking free from its cage, struggling to fly out among the thorns.
Don’t try to take away our history!
Not even gods can attempt!
She used teleportation talismans to escape repeatedly, ti passing swiftly until she reached the edge of a small country, walking down the street, gazing at the televisions hanging by the roadside.
——It was a live broadcast of the collective execution of everyone in the research institute.
Blood burst forth, as if draining her soul.
Tina finally felt bewildered.
She looked around, feeling there’s nowhere to go——if the entire history of humankind had been condensed into a small glass bottle, who, as one lone individual, could she entrust it to, and how would she preserve it?
Then, the Holy Alliance Army spotted her, a talisman pierced through her right chest.
Bleeding profusely, Tina stumbled away, heavily injured. She didn’t know where she could go or whom she could trust. Gods seed like the heavy shadow of the sky, and how could the lambs on the earth remain standing?
She didn’t know.
She didn’t know how to continue living.
Blood flowed abundantly, and when she reached the outskirts, she was forced to fall to the ground, her legs losing strength.
Under the high and far sky, a fine drizzle began to fall, as she gazed at the pale sky, vaguely thinking spring was about to arrive, at which ti the dead plants would sprout new buds, and the wildflowers not quite dead yet would blanket the earth.
That scene must be beautiful.
Her blood-stained hand gripped the glass bottle, her breath growing weaker.
In the mont before her death, she saw a figure walking toward her.
"Are you alright? Why are you covered in wounds..." said a middle-aged man.
Tina didn’t know who he was. But she knew——she definitely couldn’t let humanity’s history die here with her.
She used the last of her strength, struggling to hand the glass bottle to the middle-aged man.
"Cough cough, please... you, stranger."
The voice grew fainter, like wind about to disperse.
"Please... you... preserve... humanity’s... history..."
"Pass the... ’fireseed’... to... the next person..."
She called this small glass bottle a "fireseed."
Humanity’s fireseed, the fireseed of hope, the fireseed preventing civilization from solidifying, the fireseed containing millennia of history.
This might be the end of a superhero, passing the fireseed to the next person, and then, dying.
She really liked spring.
But if history is buried, civilization’s spring will never co, people will forget all warm things, becoming cold and standardized, with no enduring art and songs to awaken their original souls.
She might die, she feared it, but she hoped the flas would continue to burn.
So, even though she didn’t know who the other person was, there was no choice.
——To let you, whom I’ve never t, bear this responsibility, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please accept this "fireseed."
Tina closed her eyes, ceased breathing.
...
Su Ming’an ca back from the oil painting, pressing on his heart, which was beating fast.
He looked at the painting——a female doctor in a white coat staring at a petri dish under the light. The aning of this painting in his eyes had changed, containing the burden of a soul.
"Twenty seconds," Noel said next to him, "You’ve looked at this painting for twenty seconds."
Su Ming’an nodded, realizing the flow of ti was different.
He turned to the second oil painting, depicting that middle-aged man——the middle-aged man calling loudly in a conference hall, with the parliant mbers watching him.
Soon, Su Ming’an’s senses imrsed within.
...
[No.2 link the fire (Fire Transmitter)·Ruth (Lusi)]
...
Lusi never forgot that dead woman.
She handed him a small glass bottle, as if it were her clear heart.
For so reason, when he touched the glass bottle, all of Tina’s mories flooded into his mind, as if it was a transfer of mories.
Lusi was a politician in the Union Governnt. After obtaining the special dicine, he decided to hide it well, until he beca strong enough to spread the dicine out.
He constantly attended etings, urging people to value history.
He stood on high platforms, urging people to reclaim past mories.
He wrote articles and hoped to find soone who could utilize the special dicine.
However, Gods quickly targeted him, discovering the special dicine hidden in his hands.
That day, Lusi sat at ho, the sunset falling inside the glass bottle in his hand, like a shining star in the universe.
Before the Holy Alliance Army ca to execute him, he teleported the glass bottle through a talisman. This was a completely random teleport, and there’s no knowing where the glass bottle would go.
——Whoever it may be, please accept this "fireseed."
He had already reached the end of his life, but this glass bottle, will continue to... be passed on.
Until the day it sees the light of day.
"I actually always liked past ballads."
He sat on the bed, gently humming a song. Gods didn’t allow people to trace back history, but he rebelliously, repeatedly sang his hotown’s folk songs solo, songs from hundreds of years ago——
"It was a wonderful era,"
"The gaps in the walls would be filled, and the garden flowers would bloom."
"People will love amidst flas and shouting."
"Wind, oh wind, please don’t go away and never return, please don’t go away and never return."
"White morning glory flowers are right here, blessings of the earthly world co in dreams."
"Child, oh child, please don’t go away and never return, please don’t go away and never return."
"You bring light to life, peace and prosperity forever."
"Life after life, eternal life. Life after life, eternal life..."
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