Chapter 1033: Flashback

Chapter 1033: Flashback

Although she had seen automobiles before, Dora was still filled with profound wonder upon sitting inside the iron box, touching to the left and peering to the right as if trying to discern how this contraption moved.

Watching the creature make such a fuss over nothing, Ye Shi could not help but complain.

"To tell you the truth, you have already ridden in a starship capable of hyperspace navigation, so what is there to be curious about in a little toy like this?"

Dora froze for a moment before she comprehended what a starship was, and then she said in a small voice.

"Starships... are more formidable than this?"

Bound into the passenger seat by her seatbelt, the little koala let out a helpless voice.

"This is probably the cruelest slander the Orion has ever suffered."

"I, I am sorry, I did not mean it that way—"

"I know," Ye Shi said with a sigh as he watched Dora anxiously explain herself, "Let me think... it seems we must start supplementing from the most basic common sense."

Perhaps after returning to Dawn City, he should go to a bookstore and buy a set of primary school language textbooks.

Although psionics was a very convenient tool for communication, a lack of common sense was also a major problem.

A convoy of sedans came to a halt at the gates of Camp Lowell.

This former military base had now been converted into an Old Age museum open for tourists to visit.

Engraved upon the half-man-high stone stele erected at the entrance was that which had once transpired here—

A general named Lowell had established an "unparalleled merit" amidst the freezing ice and snow.

Posterity's assessment of him was a mixture of praise and blame.

Some believed his ideas were good and only his execution was flawed, and moreover, the red soil had later inadvertently played some role, so it was not as utterly worthless as General Lowell's opponents claimed.

Yet others believed he was merely a paranoid tyrant, a headstrong gambler who fantasized that he was an omnipotent savior, who had caused the deaths of people who should not have died for a plan that could not possibly succeed, ruining the very last sliver of possibility for civilization to be passed down.

Still others said that if General Lowell had not attempted to gamble that nigh-impossible future with the few remaining resources, perhaps the people in this research institute would not have died, or at least half of them could have survived.

Perhaps they would have become another Vault 70.

Perhaps the people living here would have been just like the survivors of the southern seas, completely without need for a trickster's device like the red soil, not even needing anyone to lead them forward, spreading their own light and heat to more distant places by themselves...

Alas, history possessed no ifs, and the shape of an alternate future could only be left to the imagination of posterity.

Aside from the relics of the Lowell era, this museum also housed many relics from the Xilan Dynasty, the Mayue Dynasty, and other periods.

Most of these items were the private collection of Duke Nihak, the former Governor of Port King Gallen of the Xilan Empire.

After the Alliance's Institute of Social Sciences studied, scanned, and filed those relics, they returned these spoils of war in the form of a donation to this museum, which belonged to the people of Port King Gallen themselves.

Furthermore, there were some items that had flowed into the market during the renovation of the old city district.

The Port King Gallen City Hall had purchased a portion of them back from auctions through financial appropriations.

In addition to those aged relics, this place also contained some accounts of this history written by latecomers.

For instance, "Red Soil" written by Mr. Rat, among others.

However, this was an inglorious history after all.

The residents of Port King Gallen, who had wasted their time through several eras, were far less interested in this history than before, so the museum was mostly filled with foreign tourists.

As they walked toward the interior of Camp Lowell, Yodu, the Mayor of Port King Gallen, said in a slightly apologetic voice.

"If only you had told us of your itinerary a few days in advance, so we could have made some arrangements beforehand."

Han Mingyue smiled and said.

"There is no need for such trouble, we are only here to take a look and will leave very soon."

While the two were speaking, the sound of a commotion had already traveled from outside the museum.

Hearing that a guest from Alpha Centauri had suddenly visited this place, the media of the entire city was alarmed, and a massive wave of reporters rushed over in a swarm.

Fortunately, Yodu was a man who knew how to handle affairs; he had anticipated the reaction of those media outlets early on and had spoken to the people at the Guard Bureau in advance, dispatching a large force of police to erect an isolation belt outside the museum.

The guests who had already entered the museum could continue their visit, while those who came later could only wait outside.

That swarming enthusiasm gave Dora quite a fright; she had never seen so many people.

"Those... are all reporters?"

She had already heard the word reporter from Ye Shi, though she did not completely understand what the meaning of the word was.

"Not all of them, there are probably some people just watching the fun too." Looking at some guys in the crowd who were assuming postures of praying to gods and worshipping Buddhas, Ye Shi said with a subtle expression.

This guest from Alpha Centauri indeed possessed psionic power, that was true enough, but these fanatical fellows had probably misunderstood something.

Yet soon enough, he remembered that it seemed to be the same when he himself had landed ashore back then.

Those people called them "Iron Men," bowing and worshipping in reverence just as they were doing now.

It was only later, when they had more contact and received some education, knowing that the suit of invulnerable iron lumps was merely an exoskeleton that anyone could wear, that the appellation "Iron Man" slowly fell out of fashion.

Ye Shi suddenly felt a tinge of disappointment.

These people should have received some education, yet they seemed to be exactly the same as before.

The same recipe had merely changed its broth, and they failed to recognize it entirely.

This crowd of clever people were clearly clever to the utmost limit, yet they were foolish in the most fatal place.

As if noticing Ye Shi's expression, Yodu smiled sheepishly and said.

"I have shown you something ridiculous."

Having followed Fang Chang from a very long time ago, he could tentatively be considered an elite within this settlement.

He understood his responsibility in this very well, yet facing that unstoppable torrent, he also felt a deep sense of powerlessness.

All he could do was merely maintain the status quo.

While the Alliance still needed this place.

"There is nothing funny about this, it is hardly ridiculous," Ye Shi shook his head and said with a sigh, "To be honest... I am even wondering if my friends and I might have actually done a bad thing, perhaps we should never have come here from the very beginning."

Yodu said in a hurry.

"You must absolutely not think that way; every single resident of this settlement is very grateful to you. If you had not come, this museum would still be Nihak's pasture..."

"Perhaps."

Ye Shi raised his head to glance at the watchtower of the enclosure wall, where a centurion or a millennium commander had once been hanged.

He still remembered who it was that had hung that fellow up there.

After a pause, Ye Shi spoke again.

"A pity... the man who first captured this camp is already dead."

Yodu froze for a moment, and only after a while did he recall whom he was speaking of, whereupon he also fell into silence.

He could be considered to have met that man once, and had even offered kind words of advice before the man intended to go north; in the end, unable to dissuade him, he had accepted that resignation under Fang Chang's instruction.

Beholding this scene and thinking of that man's subsequent fate, a few measures of desolation could not help but well up within his heart.

Unwilling to write that sadness upon his face, he looked toward the outsider beside them—the guest from Alpha Centauri.

He forced a smile and said.

"I heard... you can see the souls of the dead? Could you take a look and see if there's a general with wide-open eyes around here?"

Dora was slightly taken aback, then corrected him with precise formality.

"That's a misunderstanding. Only the living have souls. The dead possess no such thing."

Yodu paused, then pressed on.

"Then... where do the souls of the dead go?"

"They go nowhere. They remain where they once existed, but they no longer belong to themselves—they become part of others," Dora said, blinking with a smile on her face. "We are all influenced by our ancestors to some extent; we carry their marks, more or less... and we are their continuation."

She had discovered these things from little Koala.

"Nowhere..."

Yodu muttered to himself, lowering his head and staring at his own hands. Suddenly, he could no longer hold back the emotions within him.

So he had gone nowhere...

He had always been here, watching them move forward.

"Don't give up."

Han Mingyue gently patted his shoulder and led Dora into the camp.

The ruins had been mostly excavated, leaving only a few lingering doubts.

Just then, Dora suddenly stopped, her gaze fixed on several iron cages in the center of the camp.

"Those were used to hold slaves during the Xilan era," Han Mingyue said in a gentle tone, noticing her puzzled expression.

Dora nodded and then asked.

"Were most of those imprisoned here... Moonfolk?"

Han Mingyue's face showed surprise.

"How can you tell?"

Dora said nothing, simply turning her gaze toward the iron cages.

As her eyes focused on the mottled rust, a man with deep-set eyes looked back at her, a look of astonishment on his face.

"You can see me."

"You are... the Great Moon King?"

During her time in Fries Port, Dora had learned about the history of the Moonfolk from Lady Han Mingyue.

Though not entirely certain, the moment she saw this man, the word sprang into her mind.

She felt he resembled Tun Nan.

They might be the same type of person, yet there were many differences.

"The Great Moon King... that's what my descendants call me?" the majestic monarch murmured, then looked at Dora urgently. "By the way, are my people well?"

Recalling the pleasant times in Fries Port, Dora smiled shyly.

"They're all doing well, at least... the ones I've met are fine."

"That's good..."

He seemed relieved, letting out a long sigh, and a gratified smile appeared on his face.

"Thank you. I feel much better now."

Seeing the king as if a weight had been lifted, Dora asked in a puzzled voice.

"Did you do something wrong?"

The Great Moon King was silent for a moment, then shook his head.

"I don't know, but... they did suffer because of me. I heard them kneeling here, calling my name, praying to me every night as darkness fell."

"But... lately, I've heard them less. I thought they had all died."

"It's good that they're still alive."

He smiled with contentment, his transparent shadow gradually fading, as if it had never existed.

Their silent exchange went unheard by anyone.

Dora nodded slightly, watching the faint phantom dissolve into the wind.

Just then, another shadow emerged from behind the mottled rust.

This man's aura was completely different from the Great Moon King's; he resembled the "officer" with wide-open eyes that Mayor Yodu had mentioned.

But—

Through her psychic sense, Dora could clearly feel that he was not the man Mayor Yodu had spoken of.

Moreover, they were two entirely different kinds of people.

"Those bastards... I gave them the Red Earth to save people, not to use as chips for grabbing territory! Doesn't anyone think it's stupid? Playing primitive tribal wars in a zoo!"

"And—the nuclear winter is over, why are they still using that stuff as food? Damn it! They've even brought back slavery... They're regressing more and more!"

Dora was stunned, not understanding his rambling complaints, but fortunately, there was someone nearby who knew a bit about psychic energy.

Perhaps because they both bore the mark of the Human Federation, this time Ye Shi also "saw" that man, and together with Dora.

No surprise.

He must be Lowell.

Looking at the muttering figure, he couldn't help but blurt out a remark.

"Isn't it possible that your Red Earth only thrived after the nuclear winter ended?"

He speculated with malice that just the warm spring weather might not be enough.

The expansion of Red Earth might also be inseparably linked to the rivers of blood during the tribal war era.

Someone had to repeatedly push humanity's lowest limits before Red Earth could find the soil truly suited for its growth.

That was when only one thought remained in everyone's hearts—

Survive.

Beyond that, everything else could be abandoned.

This retort left Lowell speechless.

He stared wide-eyed at the insolent younger man before him, his nose twisted in anger.

"Who the hell could have thought of that? What was my situation? Did I have any other choice? A hundred million people! My forces weren't even enough to fill their teeth. If I couldn't feed them, do you know what would happen? Cannibalism—I'd be damned to the history books!"

As he said this, General Lowell suddenly fell silent again, sighed in defeat, and sat down on the ground.

"Forget it... what had to happen happened anyway. I'm already in the history books. I know you want to mock me—go ahead, laugh all you want."

As he spoke, he suddenly couldn't continue. He pressed his hand to his forehead and muttered in pain.

"I admit, I was wrong too—at least half the fault... I let down the soldiers who trusted me. Some things can be overcome with spirit; some things cannot. I let down those scholars. They said it couldn't be done—even at the peak of the Human Federation's prosperity, a massive research institution would be needed to complete this project—but I thought they were the Federation's scholars, and with a bit of effort, there would always be a way..."

"I cannot judge, but in a world built of matter, the spirit truly has too many things it cannot accomplish," sighed Yoshi. "For instance, black cannot become white, square cannot become round—even psychic power cannot achieve that."

Lowell suddenly lifted his head, a glimmer of hope rekindling in his eyes.

"Are they... doing well?"

Yoshi was silent for a moment, then countered.

"Can you not see?"

Lowell shook his head, casting his gaze toward the camp's wall, his eyes distant as he spoke.

"I cannot see beyond. It started with some fool—I think a self-proclaimed Moon King. He feared those who ate dirt would oppose him, so he built a wall here. Though he miscalculated—while he lived, no one dared defy him—those who came after imitated him, raising the camp wall higher and higher."

His Adam's apple bobbed as he continued.

"And... my sense of them grows fainter. Perhaps it has been too long. I am not worth their remembrance. Soon enough... I will carry my folly with me and vanish into this land."

Yoshi shrugged noncommittally.

Though he sought no one's forgiveness, at least he admitted his own folly.

But just then, Dora seemed to grasp something and suddenly spoke.

"You... might not actually be here."

Lowell froze, glanced at his feet, then around himself, a strange expression on his face.

"I'm not here? Then... where am I?"

Yoshi was also thrown off by Dora's words.

Though his mastery of psychic power might not match this "Temple Maiden's," the resonance field already formed could not be false, could it?

It was like speaking ghostly words right in front of a ghost...

But Dora thought otherwise.

Gazing at the specter invisible to ordinary eyes, she continued in a silent yet certain voice.

"The real you is in every person here... They are you, or rather, your continuation."

"What remains here is only the you from long, long ago... the you who lived two hundred years past."

"The you who has not yet died."

"All of me..." Lowell stood stunned for a long while, and for some reason, fear crept onto his face.

"No..."

"Such a thing..."

Dora nodded, watching him intently, even if he might not wish to hear more.

"You have not been forgotten—neither your red earth nor your folly..."

"Your soul is held sacred by everyone here, like the Insov Tree itself. They sing of your stories and the miracles you wrought, passing them down as examples from generation to generation."

"No! Stop, shut up—!"

He screamed hysterically, covering his face with his hands, then vanished into the wind as if wailing.

Or perhaps—

Returned to his original timeline.

Yoshi, who had been perplexed, suddenly felt a flash of insight.

So that was it.

What he had seen was not Lowell, dead for many years, but the tyrant who had knelt on the execution ground two centuries ago, roaring hysterically.

His soul, at the brink of death, had crossed time, glimpsing this land two hundred years later in the moment before his end.

It was not true time travel.

Like the crew of the Orion.

They were merely the same individuals on different timelines, brought to a shared deduction or association by the high resonance of their spirits.

Psychic power was only one medium to trigger resonance, not the bridge connecting spirits themselves.

"...So this is the resonance field."

Yoshi suddenly realized his understanding of psychic power and resonance fields had deepened.

And the void drew closer to him than before...

Dora's shoulder trembled slightly, as if struck by some impact, and she swayed backward.

Han Mingyue, standing nearby, caught her shoulder, asking with concern.

"Are you alright?"

Dora slowly opened her eyes and shook her head.

"I'm fine."

Noticing something unusual in her gaze, Han Mingyue's expression grew eager as she looked into her eyes and pressed.

"What just happened? You saw Lowell himself... didn't you?"

Dora nodded with a complex expression, yet her eyes held a hint of confusion, or perhaps bewilderment.

Seeing her nod, Han Mingyue quickly continued.

"What did he say?"

"He... cried, and he wept bitterly. I wanted to comfort him, but he pushed me away."

Dora shook her head, paused, then continued with a touch of loneliness, "I told him everyone here is his continuation... He should have been happy, but for some reason, he broke down sobbing."

Almost every soul she had encountered before felt comforted upon learning they continued in another form.

Including Little Koala's father.

Including the "Great Moon King."

But General Lowell was different.

When he learned that every person here was his continuation, his agitation surpassed even his regret over the red earth.

As Dora spoke to herself, not only Professor Han Mingyue standing nearby was stunned, but everyone—including Professor Sun Zewen and Mayor Yodu—stood frozen.

But it did not last long. Professor Han Mingyue soon recovered and said.

"I think I understand... You saw the him from two hundred years ago, right?"

Dora nodded gently.

"Yes."

Han Mingyue's face lit up with a genuine smile.

"Thank you. I think I understand."

Dora stared at her blankly, a joyful expression spreading across her face, and said timidly.

"Did I help?"

Han Mingyue nodded earnestly, her gaze settling on the camp before her.

"The final piece we lack is none other than General Lowell's own testimony."

"After his men succeeded in their rebellion, they destroyed nearly every relic he left behind—whether notes or personal garments. As a result, only fragments of General Lowell's own opinions remain, and the clues that survive are mostly indirect assessments by others, or clumsy forgeries of his notes made by later generations."

"Whether they acted to preserve their commander's last shred of dignity or to uphold their own legitimacy, their self-important erasures have gravely hindered our excavation of the ruins and our restoration of the full historical picture."

"Indeed, their self-important deeds, much like Lowell himself, have inspired—or rather, influenced—generation after generation of self-important descendants, causing an impact far greater than that of Red Earth, and one beyond measure."

As she spoke, a gratified smile spread across her face, as if the final brick had been laid atop a great undertaking.

"...Thanks to your help."

"This blank space has finally been filled."