Chapter 887: Chapter 887: Illusion
From a pipe worker’s perspective, Old Glick’s father is definitely an alien in this world. In this world, there are surely people who care about things beyond the world, people trying to uncover the secrets behind that energy storm, and even people worried that this world will one day stop functioning. But under normal circumstances, those who worry about these things are mostly well-inford individuals, their positions enable them to access knowledge, much like the captain of the “Hope” who is quite legendary among the populace, who was said to be a High Order Monk from the Great City Elder Council.
Yet Glick’s father was rely a pipe worker, born and raised in an unremarkable small town nad “Condenser.” He spent his life dealing with tal sorting, and such insight from him can truly be stunning.
No wonder even the seemingly gentle and kind Old Master Bernard would label Old Glick as “overthinking.” As a civilian, Old Glick indeed did not fit the mold, perhaps in the eyes of the ordinary people of this world, he belonged to the group with severe paranoia. Of course, his “paranoia” was one hundred percent true.
Glick showed us many things about his father: the squeaky data terminal, the flickering holographic recorder, and the worn notebook and paintings. Over hundreds of thousands of years, many things have been polished by ti almost beyond recognition. Even theoretically eternal Empire creations have been damaged over the years after the war. And Glick’s father, who liked “thinking outside the box,” derived the world’s truth from these ssy and confusing records, concluding astonishingly that this world has been destroyed once and now everything is going to be exhausted.
If even a pipe worker could discover such a truth, what are the people who are more qualified to find out about all of this doing in this world?
Sandora and I coincidentally thought of this.
After all, children are still children, and despite the excitent of the day causing Glick to stay up late, he ultimately couldn’t withstand physical fatigue. He rubbed his eyes to say goodnight to us and went back to his small cabin. Although this child wanted to arrange accommodations for the guests, he also knew that his small tin house was not a good place to host guests. He knew we have our own space equipnt and naturally had ans to solve our accommodation issues, so he went to sleep first.
Initially, everyone could teleport back to the Imperial Admiral to spend the night in the comfortable royal rest area. However, spending a bleak night in such a post-apocalyptic world also seems like a novel experience. So Qianqian (many people probably guessed that at tis like this, it’s definitely Qianqian’s suggestion that first pops out) excitedly dragged us to sleep on the ground outside the town…
Fortunately, Sandora set up space shielding and trigger devices around so that potential sleepwalkers would not discover a row of corpses lying beside the road outside the town, causing panic. Lying in the warm sleeping bag, my mood fluctuated; I thought of the classic joke about two people camping in the wild only to find their tent stolen, thought of the poor guy who had a snake sneak into his sleeping bag outdoors, thought of if that guy was nad Bear then that snake would have multiple pitiful experiences. More importantly, I thought about how easy it would be to rest in a warm, comfortable, and fresh air spaceship living cabin, yet I chose to sleep on the ground on this tal-polluted planet with an air pollution index of six skulls—what a silly thing…
“Experience life, experience life.”
Qianqian’s sparkling eyes flickered in the dim night light. She was blinking her big eyes, looking over here, as we laid out a large piece of high-speed polyr gel on the ground, which was almost like a giant bed occupying an area of over ten square ters. So she straightforwardly wrapped herself in the sleeping bag and rolled over like a caterpillar onto , “When watching movies in the past, I imagined that if we wrapped in a warm sleeping bag during such a doomsday, watching the last earthly night fall and slept—it would be so romantic and now this dream is finally realized…”
: “…”
From two ters away ca Lin Xue’s muttering: “Wood, you should really take Qianqian to get her brain checked soti. Do you think any of the words she just said had a normal logical character?”
All right, once more, : “…”
When with Qianqian, various speechless yet ultimately joyful things always happen, which might be one of this girl’s miraculous talent skills—that is, to beco the center, making everyone nearby happier.
We are always dragged by her to do this and that; a sudden idea from her throws everyone into chaos, such as excitedly forming her own Superpower Organization or pulling everyone in the middle of the night onto this tal ruins to sleep on the ground, discussing how romantic doomsday is—this sounds utterly foolish, but cannot deny that it is indeed a rare experience.
Later, I slowly sumd up a reason, which is that being so joyful when with Qianqian is entirely because only with her can you find an excuse for those childlike joys and then just fully enjoy yourself—”because accompanying Qianqian, so it’s better to go crazy with her,” but saying that aside, whenever was I not enjoying myself with her too?
We gradually grew up, gradually beca worldly and mature, wore off edges, and discarded childishness and innocence. We wrapped ourselves in steady and competent shells, forcing many silly things that were evidently not over to be thrown into the corner of mory. But for Qianqian, it seems this process of losing innocence never began. Her heart stays forever in that sparrow-leaping era when she could jump out with childhood friends and play. She’s lively, clever, and whimsically full of childlike innocence, without needing to care about her identity or others’ eyes, is imrsed in whimsical joy, pulling us along to go crazy, allowing everyone an excuse to shed shells and release suppressed childishness imperiously—for example, camping outdoors in ruins.
This might be her strongest aspect, making , Sandora, Big Sister, Lin Xue, everyone utterly outmatched.
“Ah Jun,” Qianqian only poked her head out from the sleeping bag, she always dread of hiding in a sleeping bag in the wild to stay until dawn like in adventure novels she read as a child, and now her wish finally ca true, “this really feels like a big bed.”
: “…Oh.”
“Ah Jun is sleeping on a big bed with lots of girls.”
“Hah!”
Is this girl’s brain working in another dinsion when speaking?
A suppressed giggle from Lin Xue not far away sounded like she was about to burst into internal injuries, Sandora didn’t make a sound but her body stiffened visibly, Big Sister let out a faint sigh from the other side: “…Even I got counted in, Ah Jun, soti we really should check Qianqian’s brain.”
Accompanying Qianqian to act insane by sleeping outdoors also included Yakumo Lan, though the fox was currently too busy to deal with us. She was struggling to stuff her nine tails into the sleeping bag, which was no easy task. After half an hour of effort, she had only managed to fit the sixth tail, and the sleeping bag was out of space. I am truly curious about one thing, as an all-round animal with nine tails, does she really need a blanket?
“Lan, need help?”
I turned to look at the fox not far away who had almost turned into a ball, Mother Zi let take this guy out to see the world, and also said she could be our assistant, but now it seems this fox is only useful as a cuteness launcher for the rcury Lamp or Little Baobao.
“No need, I can do it myself—sleeping bags are such strange things, why weren’t they designed with room for tails?”
I rolled my eyes speechlessly: “Because we don’t grow tails. You keep struggling, rember the fur on your tails just grew back, don’t cry if you rub it off.”
Lan might have vaguely agreed, but now my eyelids were already heavy. I didn’t hear anything clearly, and after adjusting the pillow under my head, which felt out of place with the sleeping bag but Bingdisi insisted I use, I neatly slipped into a dream.
The sleep only lasted a short ti; perhaps this environnt was really not suitable for resting. In a daze, I was awakened by a sudden chill and woke up.
All around was darkness. In this ruins world, artificial light was considered precious due to the additional energy required. No one would set up street lamps in the wilderness, even if this “wilderness” was only a kiloter away from the nearest habitation. High above in the sky, one could only see a faint red halo, the low-power outer space fusion reactor providing the minimal nightti illumination and temperature maintenance for this world.
The nightti temperature here was indeed low. It seed that the artificial atmosphere on this ruins planet was not very strong, unable to efficiently retain heat. The ambient temperature was probably only a dozen degrees. Fortunately for us, environntal temperature was long out of consideration with our physique.
Qianqian quietly slept beside , curled slightly like a baby. It was rare to see her sleeping posture look a bit better; I believed the semi-enclosed structure of the sleeping bag played a crucial role in maintaining her sleeping pose.
The sky lacked sun, moon, and stars, making it impossible to tell the ti. I could only read from the data link and discovered I had slept for less than thirty minutes.
Perhaps it was insomnia caused by a foreign environnt; I felt no drowsiness. After idly lying for a few more minutes, I decided to get out of the sleeping bag, planning to walk around. Maybe so moderate exercise would help with sleep later, and I was also a bit curious about this world’s nightti scenery.
The post-apocalyptic world was silent at night. It seed so philosopher once said there were only two periods on Earth with the purest, quietest nights. The first was before human civilization was born, and the second began on the second night after the world’s end. Now, this was confird: without the clamor of human civilization, this world could indeed be so quiet.
Unknowingly, I was already several hundred ters away from the campsite. After rounding a small hill ford by turret armor plate wedged into the ground, a vast wasteland of scrap tal stretched before . Sharp and twisted steel spiked up from the earth, like countless skeletal, emaciated hands reaching for the sky from hell in the deep night. My enhanced vision allowed to see these bizarre, twisted alloy skeletons in such dim light, yet I couldn’t dispel the eerie aura they cast.
It felt like walking on the rotting corpse of a giant. Everything on this ruins planet was emitting a stench of death at this mont. The giant starship wrecks that looked sowhat majestic during the day had now turned into monotonous silhouettes in the darkness, leaving only doomsday’s desolation under the simplest light and shadow, without a trace of beauty.
The small path underfoot was perhaps the framing beam of so spaceship. Having walked along it for a long ti, I found myself at the end of the road, standing on a cliff.
This precipitous cliff might be at the junction of warships, with a special interface section forming a spectacular projection tens of ters over the cliff below. I felt like I had reached the other end of this tal station. Before lay a strange small basin, and the “Condenser” town should be on the opposite side of this basin—right in the direction I had co from.
The surrounding temperature seed to drop even lower, as if even the last heat radiation from the outer space fusion reactor had ceased. The world was imrsed in an unprecedented silence, and I stood in this eerie quietness for a while until I suddenly felt a deep rumbling beneath my feet.
Oppressive, low, and slowly spreading, it seed like an unimaginably massive beast was slowly waking from the earth’s depths. A kind of sub-audible low-frequency sound wave was transmitting from beneath that tens of thousands kiloter thick tal ground below, forming a nauseating resonance in the air that many random, chaotic images seed to flash across my mind. Dimly, I saw the full picture of this ruins planet.
In the deep darkness, it shuddered, quickly covering itself with dark red cracks.
The illusion in my mind suddenly overlapped with the scene before , and a piercing, sudden, and sharp whistle rang in my ears, followed by the ground splitting wide open before my eyes.
A rift opened suddenly in the small basin near , spurting bright energy sparks. The rift initially was only tens of ters long but within seconds erupted beyond the horizon where the eye could see, connecting with several other wide rifts extending from there, forming a chaotic network covering the entire ground, sparking with energy. Blue-white ghost energy sparks leaped between tal fragnts, swiftly heating them until their edges blazed fiery red like in the illusion. I watched the giant change before in a daze, thinking of the people in town who might still be unaware of this impending catastrophe, yet for so reason, I felt no urge to take action.
I seed to have beco a bystander, watching the earth crumble before my eyes as if viewing a docuntary long since occurred. The ruins planet, silent for hundreds of thousands of years, now stretched its form, shaking off the dust coating its surface, and thus everything was overturned in an instant.
The crack extended quickly from the basin toward my feet and suddenly shifted direction, extending beneath in no ti. Then, the rapidly expanding crack inevitably engulfed , surrounded by the howl of wind as my body descended rapidly…
The bizarre oddities stopped abruptly here. When my eyes snapped open, I was still shrouded in the calm night, with the dim fusion reactors hanging three thousand kiloters away in space, evenly arranged in the sky like low-voltage tungsten lamps, only leaving a weak halo of dull red light.
The shattered earth and the reactor start-up noise from beneath the ground disappeared. After being stunned for a few seconds, I realized I had just had a bizarre dream.
Rubbing my eyes to clear my head slightly, I suddenly felt a weight on my chest. Glancing down, I saw Qianqian’s face sleeping soundly and silly. This girl was almost entirely piled on top of , striking a pose as if a crane was spreading its wings, while her sleeping bag was nowhere to be found…
Apparently, the scene in the dream was indeed absurd. Even a sleeping bag couldn’t restrain Qianqian’s exquisite sleeping posture. I thought probably nothing in the world, other than Taville’s coffin cabin, could prevent Qianqian from being adorable when sleeping.
Gently placing Qianqian aside, I got up and walked to the edge of the campsite, careful to step over Yakumo Lan, who rolled to my feet at so unknown ti. This big fox seed to have won overall last night, managing to stuff all nine of her tails into the sleeping bag, but regrettably, she forgot herself outside…
Indeed, as you imagined, this scatterbrained nine-tailed girl stuffed all her tails in the covers, yet slept stark naked outside. She really did love to sleep nude.
Just as my eyes swept over the fox, a sinister voice ca from behind , “Wood, take another look, and see if you believe this Miss won’t wake up Sandora and Qianqian?”
My body gave a shiver; I quickly focused my mind, ignoring the pretty fox nonchalantly flashing before , and turned to Lin Xue with a silly smile, “Morning, girl.”
“Morning? It’s not morning anymore.”
Lin Xue was already fully dressed, even her damp hair indicating she had just been tidying up. She looked up at the still dark night sky, her gentle words carried by the night breeze, “It’s already morning, but those fusion reactors haven’t lit up yet.” (To be continued. If you like this work, please support by voting for recomndations and tickets on Qidian (qidian). Your support is my greatest motivation.)
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