Extra-Five Years Later
Year five of the interstellar calendar, Earth.
The weather this morning was not very pleasant. It had been raining all night. Xu Wei walked along the neatly manicured garden path holding two bouquets of flowers.
"The scenery here is really well maintained." She sighed as she looked at the tall and short stone tablets in the distance.
The girl holding the umbrella for her moved it further away, fearing that she would get wet in the rain, and continued, "Teacher, please be careful because the road is slippery."
Xu Wei glanced at the cobblestone road under his feet and said, "Okay, just drop me off here. I'll go meet my friend."
The girl stood there holding an umbrella, watching the woman holding two bouquets of flowers and walking further away in the dense rain.
The first year of the interstellar calendar is the first year that humans have completed the Judgment Game. After the game ended, in order to thank human civilization for its contribution, cosmic civilizations began to exchange science and technology and culture with Earth. Some cosmic creatures came to Earth to travel and settle down. Earth's technology has exploded and officially entered the interstellar era. In addition, human players in the Judgment Game wake up in batches from their slumber according to the degree of pollution.
With the help of interstellar civilization, countries on Earth quickly resumed home construction and organized an investigation into the Earth invasion. As the only human being who had complete contact with a destructive alien attack, Xu Wei was naturally highly valued by the authorities, and an alien incident investigation bureau was established with her as the core.
A few years have passed, and apart from the haze and dark clouds that still exist in some people's hearts and the pollution left over from the battlefield, everything has become better, as if the destruction of the world was just a small episode in the development of the earth. Human beings have survived and used this as a springboard to move into the vast universe.
Xu Wei has been a regular here for five years.
This cemetery is flat and spacious. No effort was spared in using land during its construction, and a lot of effort was put into the greening outside the designated cemetery area. Xu Wei once called this an excellent burial place.
She stopped after walking a short distance. In front of her were two strange tombstones. They were separated from other cemeteries and not far from each other, as if they were dividing their own territories. They not only disdained to mix with other cemeteries, but also were full of rejection of each other's proximity.
Xu Wei squatted down, wiped the water marks off one of the tombstones, and said with a smile: "You would never have thought that, but players who normally die in a dungeon will have system archives. As long as the Second Law is unlocked and humanity wins, everyone can be resurrected. If you had been more conservative and not contacted any evil cults or been baptized, maybe you could still be waiting for them with me now."
"I have also found your family members, including your parents and brothers. They often come to see you. Does it comfort you?"
Of course she didn't get any response. Only the sound of the dripping rain highlighted the silence at the moment.
Xu Wei sighed, "Why didn't you tell me earlier that you had turned over a new leaf? If we had known earlier that all the priests were using special weapons to kill players to collect sacrifices, and that the sacrifices and the sea monster were the conditions for its complete descent, perhaps things would have been much easier."
"That's strange. You're usually so noisy, but you keep this kind of thing to yourself. You're not really afraid that I'll find out you're a cult member and deal with you, right? Well, it's possible."
"Okay," she patted the water stains on her hands and stood up. "Thanks to you for purifying the weapon, 'it' didn't come to the dungeon in its complete form, giving Ye Yan, Mao Cheng and I the opportunity to delay. What the above means is that the right and the wrong are half and half, which can be considered offset. I have helped you settle your family, and you can rest in peace."
"Thanks."
She picked up another bouquet of flowers, walked to another clearly separated tombstone, and carefully picked up the leaves on the tombstone.
"Sister Ye, I have called you this for five years. Today, I came here to tell you a good news - Ye Yan will wake up soon. She is the person who has faced the dark cloud for the longest time besides me. After five years, she can finally return to this world. You must be very happy."
After she finished speaking, she stood there motionless. But no one here could respond to her, so she stared at the tombstone in silence for a long time, as if she was lost in her memories.
For most players, there is system protection in the early stage, and they do not have to face the dark clouds in the later stage. They do not have a deep impression of its existence, whether it appears or is eliminated.
As for Xu Wei, the dark clouds have brought him to the brink of life and death time and time again, his friends and companions have died in front of him in a manner that is almost brutal, and his homeland has been destroyed in an instant...
Even if it is an unforgettable memory.
His wrist trembled, someone sent a message, Xu Wei raised his hand, and the red bracelet projected a holographic display screen.
It was the girl who came with me just now, a new investigator from the Extraterrestrial Incident Investigation Bureau. She stood in the rain with an umbrella and said carefully, "Teacher, the bureau said that the interstellar civilization sent an expert to help us deal with the trial system. We need to go there now."
Xu Wei responded, and after the call was hung up, he looked at the tombstone without a grave in the distance, and a bouquet of flowers that had been added not long ago in front of the tombstone.
She smiled and said, "Mao Ting, your teacher is here to see you."
An Earth had passed when Xu Wei returned to the Investigation Bureau. When he walked into the office, he saw a short creature that looked like a combination of a rabbit and a hamster standing in front of the French window, with its short arms behind its back, looking at the training ground downstairs.
"How is it? Is our team of investigators well-trained?"
The creature turned around and stroked his beard with his short hands with a serious look: "Not bad."
After the trial game, a small number of people on Earth showed signs of evolution, so the authorities brought these people together, incorporated them into the investigation bureau system, and strengthened control through targeted training.
The evolutionary trends of the investigators are quite intriguing.
Most investigators' physical fitness has become different from that of ordinary people, but their mental state has become unstable. A small number of them have developed special abilities specifically for maintaining the mental stability of the former. The two complement each other and are inseparable.
But this is only a brief conclusion drawn by the Investigation Bureau after several years of research. Anyone can see that the relationship between the two is far from as simple as it seems. The teacher sent by the interstellar civilization to Mao Town must have some concerns.
Xu Wei walked to the desk and took out a can of tea from the shelf behind it: "Longjing? Just purchased."
The creature nodded, jumped onto the guest seat and sat down leisurely, and continued: "I have seen the same situation in the ancient documents of the Federation. It was on the distant planet Sura. The residents there were divided at birth. They had no gender and were distinguished by their own special abilities - either they were monsters with powerful combat power, but their temperaments and thoughts tended to be beastly and intuitive, or they were controllers with the ability to control the emotions of these monsters and manipulate their minds."
"This kind of innate symbiotic relationship is called - in Earth language, sentinel and guide."
Xu Wei poured hot water into the tea leaves in the cup: "That's a good description, but I don't think our investigators have been affected by evolution to that extent."
If what the other party said was true, then the relationship between the investigators was indeed like that between a sentinel and a guide, one attacking and the other controlling the situation, but the situation on Earth was far less bad than on Vigu Star. Although those investigators with strong attack capabilities were easily emotionally volatile, they were still able to control themselves. At most, they were irritable, and after being spiritually comforted, they were no different from ordinary people.
She poured the tea and pushed the cup in front of the creature: "Parker, can you tell me what interstellar civilization is worried about?"
Parker placed his short hand on his lips and waved it slightly, and the tea flowed into his mouth from the cup in a thin stream.
It smacked its lips and said, "You Earthlings always like to say that we should learn from history, but why are you only focusing on the present?"
Xu Wei sat down and poured himself a cup of tea: "Not focusing on the present? Compared to you interstellar creatures with extremely long life spans, am I being a little too worried about the future thousands of years from now?"
"I've read the data. Within a few hundred years after this evolution occurred on Sura, wars broke out frequently, until a war that engulfed the entire planet developed in the millennium. The Sentinels became distorted and frenzied, and unknown pollution sources appeared on the surface. Within just a hundred years after the global war, the entire planet was desolate, with only the survivors of the massacre of alien species transformed by the Sentinels."
Afterwards, Sura became a barren planet with no signs of life, a forbidden area for interstellar navigation full of unknown sources of pollution.
Parker stroked his beard and said, "As the head of the Extraterrestrial Affairs Bureau, aren't you worried?"
"Hey, you asked the right question," Xu Wei leaned back and found a comfortable position with his head resting on the back of the chair. "In fact, you have to talk to the second-in-command of our investigation bureau about these things. I'm here because - everyone on Earth believes that your students and I have saved the world together, and I really can't continue if I don't stay here. But I personally - as I said just now, focusing on the present is tiring enough, and there are plenty of people on this planet who want to talk to you about future plans."
Moreover, the Earth is currently at the beginning of the interstellar era. Unlike the previous self-government of various countries, it has gradually become a planetary community with common interests. The collective is synonymous with the planet rather than the country. In addition, the Earth is also on good terms with various cosmic civilizations, so it is unlikely that internal or external wars will break out in the short term.
This guy really hasn't changed at all.
Parker complained in his heart. He came to Earth to meet this person as soon as he cleared the Judgment Game. At that time, her condition was very bad, both physically and mentally, but she still forced herself to discuss the reconstruction of the Earth with these strange aliens. They even decided together which group of Earthlings to revive first. She asked him to go back and praised his colleagues in the Star Alliance Association for a long time. She really deserved to be a human warrior who faced the dark clouds many times.
But when the original order was re-established on Earth, she suddenly felt like she had let out a sigh of relief, and all her energy was drained away. She lost interest in such great undertakings of the times as interstellar coexistence and rebuilding a better Earth, and all she wanted was to spend her retirement guarding the cemetery alone.
It was the emergence of the human evolutionary trend that allowed her to come out again and become a signboard to control the police station. Those unruly investigators, both registered and unregistered, who wanted to cause trouble had to look at who lived upstairs.
Parker asked one of the purposes of the trip: "Aren't you worried about your condition?
As the only human being who faced the dark cloud pollution throughout the entire process and still survived, Xu Wei inevitably evolved.
Her evolutionary path is very strange. Although her general trend is towards attack, she possesses mental stability far beyond that of ordinary investigators. She can even heal herself from pollution and hardly needs mental maintenance.
Based on this, the Earth and even the entire universe civilization believe that she may become the strongest warrior representing the entire galaxy, but only she and a few people know that currently, no one can provide her with mental stability.
All the investigators on Earth who have mental stabilization abilities are unable to resonate with Xu Wei's abilities, let alone soothe his emotional fluctuations.
This also means that the sharpest blade in the galaxy is out of control.
If, as demonstrated by the history of Sura, the trend of evolution is increasingly manic spirits and destructive power, then in the near future, if the evolved beings show a longer lifespan than normal humans, Xu Wei may very likely become the next "dark cloud" from Earth because of his inability to maintain mental stability.
Parker admired her very much and didn't want her to have such a fate.
Xu Wei looked like he knew what you were going to say. He took a sip of tea and said calmly, "So what? There's nothing we can do right now. The medical department said that we can only wait for someone who can purify me to be born."
She shrugged. "I have nothing to worry about. No one can kill me now. As long as I don't come into contact with pollution and don't participate in wars, the possibility of distortion is very small. Even if I am a little irritable, I can just read a few of my favorite novels."
Parker understood her to some extent. If she was really as indifferent as she seemed to be, and had been as numb and indifferent as she was at the beginning, she would not have come to the investigation bureau and even started to participate in the training of investigators.
After all, everything that was experienced at the time was a physical and mental trauma that could never be healed for any living being for the rest of their lives.
She was just a little depressed, but she was strong enough.
Sensing the other person's depressed mood, he changed the subject: "Your friends should be waking up soon, which is always a happy thing."
Xu Wei finally smiled: "Unfortunately, it happened recently, and he is also an old acquaintance of yours. Do you want to stay and get to know him?"
Parker's beard twitched as he spoke. He waved his hand and said, "Forget it. It's just a one-time meeting. Let me meet Mao Ting."
"You come here every year. Mao Ting should be moved by you and wake up." Xu Wei opened the bracelet as usual. "Wait a moment. I will give you the authorization."
Parker saw her operating the bracelet and waited for a while. Instead of being silent as before, he said, "I am his father."
Xu Wei looked up in surprise.
"I'm not your biological father. I'm his adoptive father," Parker said. "You've always wondered how the Lik survived. In fact, when I found Mao Ting on a deserted planet, he was alone and dying from a long-term lack of energy. Even as an adult, his nematodes had not yet developed."
The Lik people were born in rivers with clean water, without a father or a mother. Due to their completely harmless racial talents and gentle temperament, they are very popular on developed planets and in areas that are in urgent need of talent.
There are not many of them, but they occupy many computer science-related jobs - but this is for the Lik people who were born on civilized planets.
Although interstellar civilization has developed to the point where most planets have been explored and developed, there are still some remote galaxies that are uninhabited, and a few star regions have become forbidden planets due to war and pollution.
The chance of survival for the Lik people born on these planets is almost zero.
Xu Wei had found information about the Lik people in bits and pieces over the past few years, and had learned more and more about Mao Cheng and his race, but she still had not anticipated that Mao Cheng's past had been so troubled.
After all - the teacher is a well-known Alliance scientist. In the trial system built by gathering the power of all interstellar civilizations, he is the only administrator of the game and the leader of the entire process.
With such an identity, it is impossible to connect him with the dying little slime on the barren planet.
"In front of outsiders, he always calls me teacher," Parker said. "For so many years, even though he has grown into such an outstanding young scientist, he is still afraid of his own background-"
He shook his head and sighed, stopping talking.
"Excuse me for saying so much," Xu Wei was surprised, "Interstellar civilization has developed to this level, but there is still discrimination based on origin."
There are so many races from different planets, some of which are not even silicon-based creatures, and some, like the Liks, are born without reproduction. Can this also lead to discrimination based on origin?
Parker said helplessly: "Planets are divided into developed and undeveloped, and galaxies are divided by their distance from the central galaxy. For those creatures in remote galaxies, the general public perception is that they are not suitable for high-end research. This is determined by environmental conditions."
Xu Wei was silent.
She asked, "Why are you telling me this all of a sudden?"
Parker smiled bitterly: "I don't have much time."
He lifted up his beard and showed her the layers of white on it. "My race has a life span of three thousand years. I have lived long enough, but I still can't let him go. I have thought countless times, maybe he is still alive? In another world, another dimension?"
Xu Wei didn't know how to answer him. She looked at the respected chief designer of the Trial Game in front of her.
There had not been much contact in the past few years, but his memory was that although he was old, he was always full of energy, and he was more energetic than young men when it came to scientific construction. But at this moment, he sat there withered, like an old tree that was about to wither, which used to only lose its leaves in the wind, but now had almost dried up its branches.
She shook her head slightly: "I don't know, maybe."
After fiddling with the bracelet, Xu Wei signaled to Parker that he could start.
Parker took out a bracelet from his pocket and put it on, triggered the entry command, then closed his eyes and fell asleep.
The office fell silent for a moment, leaving only the sound of Xu Wei flipping through paper documents. She made a rustling sound as she flipped through the pages, flipping faster and faster, until finally she slammed the table in annoyance and pushed the documents away.
Although Parker described only a tiny fraction of Mao's past, she was still moved by it.
Mao Ting, he has no relatives in this world, only a respected adoptive father, why would he go to such lengths for interstellar civilization?
Even if the dark clouds had won and interstellar civilization had entered an era of escape, the universe is so vast that even if interstellar creatures have a long life span, they would not be able to survive until the destruction of the entire universe.
When the dark clouds really destroyed the universe, Mao Ting might have died of old age. Doesn't he know how difficult it was for him to get from the desolate planet to where he is now?
Everyone says that she and Mao Cheng are the greatest contributors to saving the universe, but only she and a few other people know that everything has been about him since the very beginning of the timeline.
At that time, Mao Cheng connected himself to the trial system, his consciousness was connected to billions of data, and he gradually achieved advanced evolution across dimensions. He was no longer limited to his own entity, but became the entire trial system.
They are creatures of the same level as dark clouds. Time is nonlinear in front of such creatures, and they have the ability to influence reality in countless time coordinates.
Therefore, he can cross the timeline and act in the past, present and future at the same time. The dark cloud also has this ability. It even naturally restrains Mao Ming because it is full of pollution.
Mao Ting calculated billions of times before finding the timeline that was most likely to defeat the dark clouds, but no one knew that in the billions of years before he succeeded, he could only fight the dark clouds alone in the void of the universe.
Only him.
Xu Wei couldn't imagine how lonely such days would be, and what kind of faith and hope it would take to firmly implement the plan when she found her 1% possibility.
Even if it’s only 1%.
From waking up in the trial game to fighting against dark clouds, from the marker pen mission to gradually understanding interstellar civilization, from the dungeon attack to the customized dungeon... She grew up quickly due to many coincidences, gathered 7,865 partners, and became known to players all over the world because of the "accidental invasion" of dark clouds. In the end, she was able to reach the end as if following the instructions of fate.
After completing the game, Xu Wei suddenly realized that in the past few years, she could not count the number of past events that were caused by Mao Cheng, but she knew very well that there was more.
But is it worth it? There are so many opportunities to escape from it all, why not go?
Xu Wei knew that she would never be able to truly understand him, but she understood that perhaps noble spirits never distinguish between species, and this was just one of the many advantages of this outstanding alien friend.
There was a knock on the open door of the office. Xu Wei's messy thoughts gathered and she looked at the person who came.
The person had fair skin, a pretty and delicate face, and was wearing a brown dress with her ponytail tied high. She looked gentle yet a bit cool.
Her fingers were still on the door, and she smiled and said, "I see you've been in a daze for quite some time."
Xu Wei was helpless: "My mind is a little confused. Xunxi, I want to take a leave and rest for the next two days."
Chu Xunxi raised an eyebrow: "Okay, put the leave note on my desk and sign it yourself. Also, someone from the investigator A15 team received the bounty in private yesterday and has been detained in solitary confinement. Can you go and take a look?"
Xu Wei frowned: "Again, when will it be quiet? I understand, I'll have dinner and come over this afternoon."
She thought for a moment, then pointed to the sleeping Parker with her chin: "Mr. Mao is in the game now. Do you want to talk to him? You two are the ones who pay the most attention to him."
Chu Xunxi didn't hesitate, nodded in agreement, and stood at the door without moving.
Xu Wei packed up her documents and prepared to go out, but she suddenly said, "I always feel that he is not dead. Sometimes when I stay in the game, I always feel that the NPC in the dungeon will call out my name like him."
Xu Wei paused.
Chu Xunxi should be the human that Mao Cheng has had the longest contact with in the game. Xu Wei doesn't know when they met or when they started to cooperate. He only knows that since some time ago, Chu Xunxi has become Mao Cheng's best helper on the human side.
Their relationship is like that of friends, but compared to friends, they trust and understand each other more.
The start of the final plan requires Chu Xunxi to transfer the authority of the Judgment City to herself. As smart as Chu Xunxi is and having assisted Mao Cheng for so long, how could she not guess Mao Cheng's final plan.
In the game, they gradually became familiar with each other because of Mao Machi, but later on they saw each other less and less due to being busy with various affairs.
Chu Xunxi did not appear in the first few years after the trial game ended. Xu Wei thought that everything was over, but when she joined the Investigation Bureau and announced that she would use the trial system as a training aid, Chu Xunxi appeared again.
She had experience in managing the City of Judgment and was a high-end talent in related industries. When the Earth was being rebuilt, she was in urgent need of talent. She was soon incorporated into the investigator system and became the second-in-command of the Investigation Bureau.
She made only one request to Xu Wei - to have the right to enter the trial game anytime and anywhere.
The two stood face to face, and fell silent after Chu Xunxi suddenly spoke.
Xu Wei did not remain silent for too long. She did not want to disappoint the only two creatures in the world who cared about Mao Cheng, so she said vaguely: "Who knows? Maybe before we die of old age, Mao Cheng will suddenly shout loudly on the Judgment City broadcast and scare us half to death when we are in our seventies and eighties."
Chu Xunxi smiled when he heard this: "Who knows."
"Also..." She narrowed her eyes and smiled slyly, "You'd better not go home for dinner recently."
"Ah?" Xu Wei looked up at her again while sorting out the documents, "What's wrong? Is there any inspection coming soon?"
Chu Xunxi blinked at her and stopped talking.
*
Xu Wei walked into the cafeteria with her lunch box. Investigators kept greeting her. She could be heard saying "Hello, Director Xu", "Hello, Boss", and "Hello, Teacher" all the way.
Xu Wei seemed like a nodding machine, nodding all the way from the cafeteria entrance to her seat with a smile on her face.
As soon as she sat down, she answered a call. The food delivery robot next to her busily took her lunch box and filled it with food.
"Mom, yes, I won't be back for dinner today," Xu Wei took the lunch box from the robot and gestured to the holographic projection of her mother on the screen, "Look, I've already eaten."
She picked up a piece of stir-fried pork with peppers with chopsticks and said: "I know, I know, the dishes made by machines are definitely not as delicious as yours. I won't come back to eat recently. I'm busy lately."
"Oh, stop urging me to get married. It's already the interstellar age. Why are you still urging me to get married? You're really behind the times," Xu Wei felt helpless as she listened to the voice in the headset. "Can you learn from Aunt Wang next door? Human life expectancy has more than doubled. You are still young. Do more things that young people should do. Don't always urge me to do this and that like a parent who is hundreds of years old on another planet."
The nagging started again, and Xu Wei felt both angry and amused.
When I was in the trial game, I was so afraid that my family would suffer something wrong that I couldn’t wait to reunite with them. But after a few years back in reality, I started to feel helpless after hearing their nagging.
She simply gave up: "I'm living such a good life now, why would I want to find another person to bully me? I don't care, unless he can serve me at home every day, cook for me, and be a good talker, handsome, good character, and love me so much that he is willing to die, otherwise I don't want him."
"I'm not kidding. Anyway, I haven't found anything like this..." Xu Wei was talking excitedly, but suddenly his shoulders sank.
Logically speaking, no one in the cafeteria would "dare" to provoke her except Chu Xunxi.
Xu Wei turned around in confusion.
Stunned.
Suddenly tears welled up in his eyes.
She trembled and asked, "You guys are back?"
"Yeah, we're back."
"I'm back, Xu Wei."
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