Chapter 68
Afternoon of June 22, 17th year of the new calendar.
Outside the wall, D-16 new decontamination training area.
Lin Yao folded his arms, his beautiful silver hair fluttering in the breeze that carried the scent of fresh grass. His delicate face puffed slightly, his lips pouted unhappily, his gaze drifting to the students in the distant training ground, frantically dealing with a low-level polluting beast. His eyes were filled with boredom and disdain.
Standing beside him in stark contrast was Lu Cheng. The young master of City D, now a senior instructor at the Academy of Supernatural Powers, wore an unsuppressible smile as he gazed gently at the group of energetic young people, clearly in a very good mood.
"What's wrong?" Lu Cheng tilted his head, teasing him knowingly, his voice filled with obvious amusement. "Hasn't someone always dreamed of participating in the exploration outside the wall? Now that your wish has come true, why are you unhappy?"
He deliberately emphasized the words "exploring outside the wall".
Lin Yao's cheeks puffed out even more, like a pufferfish that was inflated with air. He snorted unhappily, "Who wants to participate in this kind of exploration?"
He wasn't interested! The slightly stronger polluting beasts had long been wiped out by the vanguard, leaving these crooked creatures as melons and cracked dates, purely as practice targets for those newbies who had just awakened their powers and couldn't even control their energy.
And he, a dignified SSS-level psychic, now felt like a... babysitter for a three-year-old child.
Yes, nanny! He was forced to use his mental power, which was enough to kill high-level polluted beasts in seconds, to accurately perceive every corner of the training area, and then, like an old mother, broadcast the news in real time to the group of excited and reckless students.
"Hey! That long-haired hedgehog in the bushes on the left has a low F-level energy fluctuation. It can be dealt with individually. Don't be scared!"
"Right! Behind the dead tree on the right. There's a lurking shadowcat, C-rank! Its breath is unstable, as if it's injured, but you three should come together and coordinate!"
"Stop! Don't jump into that pit. There's a rotten smell down there. It's not fatal, but you'll be covered in mud for three days."
...It's so annoying!
As the leading teacher of this training, Lu Cheng only needs to coordinate the overall situation and ensure that there are no dangers beyond the students' ability to cope with. Most of the time, he seems to be at ease, and even... he is in an unusually good mood!
Especially when he saw Lin Yao's face, which always had an expression of control or innocent laziness, now filled with genuine depression and frustration, Lu Cheng felt that this off-site training was well worth the price.
Perhaps sensing Lu Cheng's undisguised, slightly gloating smile, Lin Yao suddenly turned his head and glared at him fiercely. His azure eyes clearly read: I'm very unhappy!
He didn't bother to pay attention to this gloating guy. He just picked a random direction and started walking forward. His steps were a little angry, clearly saying: I'm angry! Don't follow me!
Lu Cheng looked at his angry back and shook his head helplessly, but the smile on his lips deepened.
Of course he had to follow.
It’s not that he was worried that Lin Yao would encounter any danger - under the coverage of SSS-level mental power, this area was no different from his own backyard to him.
He was afraid that his failure to follow up would be noted in a notebook by some petty person, who would then harass him for at least a week, using various "inadvertent" ways to remind him, "You didn't pursue me then."
Although Lu Cheng was happy to accept this kind of punishment, after all... a well-behaved little ancestor would be less troublesome than a noisy one.
The two of them, one in front and one behind, quickly moved away from the students' training area and went deep into the land that had just been purified.
The air is fresher, with the scent of earth and new growth.
Lin Yao, who was walking in front, suddenly stopped. It wasn't because he was no longer angry, but because he was slightly shocked by the scene before him.
On a piece of land that had clearly been carefully cultivated, a simple trellis was erected, covered with green vines. Between the vines lay many plump fruits—green and red, plump and tempting.
"Tomato?" Lin Yao muttered to himself with a hint of disbelief and surprise.
This kind of vegetable, which was everywhere in his original Garden of Eden and even made him sick of eating it, had long been extinct in the Gaia world.
Existing humans may have only seen its pictures in the oldest historical materials and have never even heard of its taste.
Lu Cheng walked over to him, followed his gaze, and explained gently, "Yes, it's tomatoes. The purification formula I found in Otto's memories is more effective than expected. The polluted land is recovering rapidly. The research institute has already begun to experiment with small-scale planting of some ancient crops."
His voice was filled with longing for the future. "Soon, we'll be able to eat real vegetables grown from the earth, rather than synthetic nutrient solutions or expensive soil-free cultivation."
Lin Yao squatted down, curiously stretched out his finger, and gently touched a green and red tomato. He felt a slightly cool and smooth touch on his fingertips.
He hesitated for a moment, but finally reached out and plucked a fruit that was obviously unripe and mostly green.
He leaned in and smelled it, and a fresh, slightly pungent plant scent entered his nostrils.
Then, before Lu Cheng could stop him, he bit it with a "Ah Wu"!
"hiss--!!!"
The next second, Lin Yao's entire delicate face wrinkled into a ball, and a strong sour feeling instantly swept over his taste buds, making him gasp for air and almost burst into tears.
He made two "Pah" sounds and quickly threw away the juicy green tomato that he had only taken a bite of, like throwing away a hot potato.
"careful."
Lu Cheng was quick-witted and quick-handed. He took a step forward and steadily caught the rejected tomato.
Living in the Dome Age where resources were extremely scarce, he had long developed the instinct to never waste food.
Looking at the bitten green tomato in his hand, although he knew it would be so sour that it would make his teeth fall out, Lu Cheng still brought it to his mouth without hesitation and ate the part that Lin Yao had left.
“Hmm…”
The sour taste spread in his mouth, causing Lu Cheng to frown slightly, but he still swallowed it in a few gulps.
Even though there is newly reclaimed land now and there is hope for more abundant food in the future, the years of experiencing material shortages and even having to rely on nutritional paste to survive have already engraved the cherishment of food into his bones.
"So sour! What is this?"
Lin Yao frowned, stuck out his tongue, and looked deceived, as if he had eaten some poison.
Lu Cheng looked at him helplessly: "Tomatoes, you just picked them."
"tomato?!"
Lin Yao widened his beautiful blue eyes as if he had heard a fairy tale. "How can tomatoes be sour? They are obviously sweet! Sweet!" He retorted firmly.
Lu Cheng: “…”
He was speechless for a moment. Tomatoes...aren't they supposed to be sour?
According to the descriptions of the flavors of Old World crops that Lin Yao had dug out and sorted out from Otto's memory, tomatoes, whether green or ripe, have a flavor description of "with a unique fresh sour taste."
"Student Lin Yao," Lu Cheng reminded him with a mixture of irritation and amusement, "you were the one who provided the crucial information that tomatoes are sour. It's written in black and white in the database you extracted from Otto's memories."
He emphasized, trying to awaken the memory of the instigator.
Lin Yao didn't even think about it and immediately passed the blame on to the person, saying confidently, "I must have accidentally given him the wrong information, or maybe Otto's memory is off. Tomatoes must be sweet."
That look of "I don't want to listen, I don't want to listen" makes him look like a naughty child.
Lu Cheng looked at his unreasonable appearance and smiled helplessly, but his thoughts involuntarily drifted back to fifteen years ago.
At that time, the final showdown with Otto had just ended, and there was a lot of work to be done.
Lin Yao extracted from Otto's cold, mechanical remains a vast amount of information, enough to cause any S-rank psychic to instantly collapse. The sheer volume and depth of the information was simply unbelievable.
Whenever he thought of this, Lu Cheng couldn't help but have a complicated feeling towards Otto - that mortal without any special powers, relying on his wisdom beyond his time and his paranoid will, he used his brain to carry and construct a blueprint that could subvert both worlds.
He clearly already possessed abilities that were almost like those of a creator, enough to become the god he longed for, but he was obsessed with becoming a person with special abilities that he could never reach. This obsession, which was deep in his bones, eventually led him to the abyss of self-destruction.
How powerful, yet how tragic.
And what about Lin Yao? This little ancestor of his only showed amazing patience and concentration when it came to things that interested him.
As for systematically organizing the massive amount of information that was extracted and could change the world, entering it into written form for archiving and making it available for people to consult... this kind of boring and tedious work was definitely not within his scope of interest.
Lu Cheng remembered it clearly.
The first time we tried to get him to write the report by hand, he wrote five words, and the handwriting was crooked, then he dropped the pen and ran away.
The second time, he dictated, and the researcher took notes. He kept this up for ten minutes, his speech accelerating, his eyes becoming increasingly erratic, and finally he began babbling nonsense: "Hmm... this energy node... probably... maybe... maybe it's red?" The researcher was so angry that she nearly went on strike.
The third and final solution. Lin Yao directly used his SSS-level psychic ability to roughly categorize the information stream he extracted from Otto's memory, packaging it into one hundred mental imprints. Like taking out the trash, he shoved them directly into the brains of one hundred researchers. Then, clapping his hands, he left, his achievements and fame hidden.
He turned around and curled up on the sofa to continue playing his Kirby Star Wars game.
With that simple and crude way of transferring information, which was like a mental bombardment, Lu Cheng was absolutely sure that Lin Yao would never have the leisure to pay special attention to such a small detail as "whether the tomato is sour or sweet", and it was even more impossible for him to tamper with such an insignificant information for a prank.
"Yeah," Lu Cheng looked at Lin Yao's stubborn expression that said, "Tomatoes must be sweet, I have the final say," and nodded obediently, his tone extremely natural, "You're right, tomatoes are not sour."
He saw through it clearly and understood that this little ancestor was simply bored with the training and was being jealous, so he was in a bad mood and was looking for trouble. His purpose was to coax him.
As for the actual taste of tomatoes? He doesn't care at all.
Lu Cheng's gaze passed over the small tomato field and looked further away.
There, on the same reclaimed land, there are green cucumber vines growing, green beans climbing on the bean racks, and eggplants with dark purple fruits hanging... The seeds of these crops are all legacies searched from the secret warehouse of the Purifier Organization.
What Otto called creating a new world was indeed not just empty talk.
He collected almost all the biological seed banks and civilization data of the old world, intending to replicate his ideal perfect world before pollution began on this purified wasteland, a new era defined and shaped by him personally.
These vibrant seedlings are part of his blueprint.
Lu Cheng's eyes fell on the green that symbolized new life, but an indescribable feeling flashed through his heart.
He knew that with the lifespan of an ordinary human being, he would probably never be able to see the new world of prosperity and revival in Otto's dream come true in his entire lifetime.
It is a long process that requires several generations to build and improve.
A faint sense of sadness about the passing of time quietly arises.
But the next moment, this sadness was dispelled by the warmth around him.
Lu Cheng's gaze returned to Lin Yao. He was wrinkling his nose, gently kicking the dirt on the edge of the field with his toes, still brooding over the sour tomato. The sunlight fell on the tips of his silver hair, giving him a soft golden hue.
Looking at this face that was still vivid, willful, and touched all his heart and soul no matter how many years had passed, Lu Cheng's heart was instantly filled with a great tranquility and satisfaction.
But, it doesn't matter.
He stretched out his hand and naturally held Lin Yao's slightly cold fingers.
As long as Yaoyao is by my side, every moment and every place is a paradise.
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