"Don't be surprised, I'm just a virtual image." The bald boy laughed heartily, pointing to the "cocoon" behind him, "The real 'me' is in there."
"You are... the King of Tang?" Zhang Fan's tone was not very firm, the other party looked too young.
“Yes.” The bald boy grinned. “I look too young, don’t I? This was made based on what I looked like when I was 17, so I look younger.”
"Here's what I was thinking: since it's a virtual image, I should try to make it look as good as possible. I'm really sorry for causing you trouble."
"It's nothing, it's nothing." Zhang Fan waved his hand, his gaze towards the bald boy changing to one of respect. He had so many questions he wanted to ask the boy, and for a moment he didn't know where to begin. "I..."
"Wait a minute." The bald boy smiled and waved his hand to interrupt Zhang Fan. "I know you have a lot of questions for me, but before that, could you please answer a few questions for me first?"
“Please speak, senior.” Zhang Fan sat down opposite the bald boy.
Qiu Wanlan also came over and sat down next to her.
"Who is this young lady?" the bald boy asked with some doubt.
"Qiu Wanlan, the 48th generation descendant of the Qiu family of the Western Liang Women's Kingdom, pays her respects to Grandfather Emperor Taizu of Tang." Qiu Wanlan bowed to the bald-headed boy.
"Oh, so you're my great-great-great-grandson." The bald boy nodded. "Forty-eight generations? That means a thousand years have passed, right?"
“It has been 1,008 years since my great-grandfather left us,” Qiu Wanlan replied respectfully.
"One thousand and eight years... So much time has passed." The bald boy pondered for a moment, then looked at Zhang Fan and smiled, saying, "And you? Where are you from?"
“I come from…” Zhang Fan paused, thought seriously for a moment, and then said, “I come from the solar system, a celestial system bound together by the gravity of a central star, which includes eight major planets. The planet I came from is the third planet from the center of the solar system, and it also has a satellite…”
"Is it that blue planet?" The bald boy's eyes lit up, and he blurted out.
“Yes.” Zhang Fan nodded. “Blue Star, also called Earth.”
“I come from the fourth one.” The bald boy laughed, arranging the prayer beads in his hand around the wooden fish in a pattern, then pointed to the fourth bead, “It has two satellites.”
The pattern before me was so familiar, unchanged even after millions of years, because it was a map of the solar system.
"Now that you've come here, does that mean you've already obtained what we left behind?"
“Yes, we call it ‘Phoenix’.” Zhang Fan briefly recounted the history of humankind on Earth, focusing more on events that occurred after the New Era.
"Mars... Phoenix... Reborn from the ashes..." The bald boy pondered for a moment after hearing this, "It's a really good name."
"So you were the only one who came. You went through a catastrophe before. You must have had a tough time." The bald boy laughed heartily. "Please don't be discouraged. What we went through was much more difficult than what you went through, but we still made it through. Our descendants—that is, you—are doing quite well now, aren't they?"
"Moreover, your civilization started on the surface of the planet, which is far more advanced than ours."
"Yes." Zhang Fan nodded.
It took the ancestors of humankind on Mars 100,000 years to reach the surface from the Martian core. After the "star core" was stolen, it took another 300 years to return to the ground. What a desperate and dark 300 years of history that must have been.
“You’re wrong. Those three hundred years weren’t all darkness,” the bald boy said with a smile. “During those three hundred years, we saw the most shining aspects of humanity. Everyone was upright, united, optimistic, and positive, and they all selflessly contributed their small share of strength.”
"It was these faint, spark-like forces that came together to allow us to break through the limitations of the strata and return to the surface of the planet."
"Even in the last days of humanity, on the day we left Mars and headed west, I saw from the porthole of the spacecraft that they, young and old, climbed every mountain peak to see us off."
Even when frozen solid in the sunset, I could still see hopeful smiles on their faces...
The bald boy recounted everything with a smile, but tears streamed down his face.
“I haven’t done well enough. I have let them down. I’ve stopped here. I should have continued to follow them.”
"What about them?" Zhang Fan asked. "The other three people who traveled with you?"
“The enemy’s power is far greater than we imagined.” The bald boy’s expression turned serious. “Before that, I need to explain how we got here.”
"Although we had already made a breakthrough in gravity engine technology at that time, our material conditions were not sufficient for us to manufacture it, so our 'White Dragon' interstellar spaceship could only travel at one-thousandth the speed of light."
“Our lifespans are insufficient to allow us to reach this point. Therefore, the four of us have entered cryogenic hibernation mode, with one of us waking up for one day every 500 years to check the ship’s course and status.”
"This took so long that we eventually lost track of how long we had been flying, or when the spaceship was caught in a naturally formed wormhole and jumped out. Even a deviation of an atom in the spaceship's course would cause it to drift away from its destination by tens of thousands of miles."
"We were able to get here because we received help in the past."
"Help?" Zhang Fan was taken aback. "Who?"
“A superior civilization in the carbon-based camp,” the bald boy replied. “Our spaceship accidentally entered a wormhole and warped into their world. At the time, they were at war with a rival silicon-based civilization and had no time to spare. But after learning of our purpose, they still risked violating the law of non-interference among civilizations to guide us.”
"The principle of non-interference in civilizing civilizations?" This was the first time Zhang Fan had ever heard of it.
"There are countless interstellar civilizations in the universe, which can be roughly divided into three levels. The higher-level civilizations almost completely crush the lower-level civilizations."
"If an advanced civilization encounters a less advanced civilization, the less advanced civilization will almost inevitably be assimilated by the advanced civilization and eventually evolve into an interstellar civilization just like the one it came into contact with."
"Isn't this a good thing?"
This is equivalent to an overall upgrade in the level of civilization, just like how Europe, after arriving on the African continent, directly brought Africa from slavery into modern society.
"You're wrong to think that way. The progress of civilization comes from the diversity of civilizations," the bald boy explained. "Can you imagine what kind of world it would be if Earth evolved into a world with only one advanced species, humans, and humans never mutated during their evolution?"
“Then humanity will perish,” Zhang Fan replied.
“The carbon-based camp is well aware of this as well,” the bald boy said. “The principle of non-interference among civilizations requires that higher civilizations not actively contact or cultivate lower civilizations, but rather give lower civilizations the space to evolve on their own.”
“But,” Zhang Fan thought of a crucial question, “they stole our ‘Star Core,’ doesn’t that interfere with our work?”
“That’s true.” The bald boy nodded. “Lane was already on the verge of collapse. This wasn’t a collapse of social order, but the natural end of the planet’s lifespan. Without the ‘star core,’ Lane would have been annihilated long ago.”
"Then why..."
“Because of war,” the bald boy continued. “The hostile silicon-based faction doesn’t care about civilization level; they will wantonly invade and destroy every carbon-based civilization they encounter.”
"In the ancient battlefield of the Chaotic Lands, two Level 3 carbon-based civilizations and a Level 3 silicon-based civilization clashed. Ryan's involvement provided assistance to the Level 3 carbon-based civilization, contributing a small amount of strength to that great battle."
"And it was this small bit of help that allowed Ryan to avoid the punishment for interfering with a lower-level civilization."
"Don't feel it's unfair. Type I interstellar civilizations like ours on Mars are as numerous as dust particles in the universe. No normal person would punish a Type II interstellar civilization that helped them for a speck of dust."
Zhang Fan listened to all of this quietly without saying a word.
"I just heard you say that you called the two envoys from the higher civilizations who helped us 'Buddha' and 'Guanyin Bodhisattva'?" The bald boy shook his head. "It seems that the people they found after they went back were really unreliable. The names are similar in pronunciation, but the meanings are completely different."
"And that Journey to the West thing? It's got way too many personal biases!"
"I just don't have hair, I'm not a bald monk!" the bald boy said, somewhat embarrassed and angry.
"That writer named Wu Cheng'en, I'm going to beat him up the next time I see him!"
Zhang Fan felt a little embarrassed, but after talking for so long, he felt that he hadn't gotten to the crux of the problem yet.
"Senior, where is our 'Star Core'?"
"I don't know." The bald boy shook his head.
"You don't know?" Zhang Fan was stunned.
“I really don’t know,” the bald boy nodded and said. “If I knew where it was, I wouldn’t have stayed in Xiliang.”
"So, what have you been doing in Xiliang all this time, senior?"
"I've been waiting for you." The bald boy stood up with a smile. "Now that you're here, my mission is complete, and I can leave."
"Where are you going, senior?" Zhang Fan also stood up.
"See that hibernation pod?" the bald boy said, pointing to the "cocoon." "My brain is inside, which is why I can talk to you."
"Actually, saying 'talking' is incorrect. We are only communicating through brainwaves. The three-dimensional virtual images that you see in front of you do not actually exist. They are just projections of brainwaves onto your retinas."
"Without the 'White Dragon' spaceship, the hibernation pods are not capable of sustaining a person in hibernation for thousands of years..."
"So, senior, when the Queen passed away, you had your brain removed, placed in a hibernation pod, and buried beneath the royal mausoleum?" Zhang Fan interjected.
“Yes.” The bald boy nodded. “I have been away from my queen for a thousand years. Now it is time to go to her.”
"Can you do me a favor?" The bald boy pointed to the "cocoon" whose light was gradually dimming. "When the energy in the hibernation pod runs out, take out my brain and place it next to the Queen. Because I don't want any part of my body to leave her."
"This energy will be used up quickly?" Zhang Fan was stunned, then became anxious. "Senior, I still have many questions I want to ask you!"
"But I have nothing more to tell you," the bald boy said with a smile, spreading his hands and then pointing at Qiu Wanlan. "If you have any questions later, you can just ask her..."
“No, no.” The bald boy shook his head again. “I’m confused. It shouldn’t be her, but the 47th generation descendant of the Qiu family.”
"Mr. Qiu?" Zhang Fan asked in confusion.
"That's right, that should be it." The bald boy grinned again, just like he had at the beginning.
"I'm so happy to meet an old friend in a foreign land today."
"Now that I've seen you, I can leave in peace."
"You are all excellent, more excellent than we were in the past."
"Although you have made some mistakes, it is only because we, as your predecessors, did not tell you, which led you to go through a period of division similar to ours."
But tomorrow will definitely be better!
"As a senior, I have nothing to advise you."
"But remember, if you want to do something, go for it."
"We will always be with you..."
The image of the bald boy gradually blurred, and the light of the "cocoon" gradually dimmed until it disappeared completely.
Click!
"Stardust" fell from the groove, the "cocoon" opened, and a box was revealed.
Zhang Fan stood there for a long time.
"Let's go." Zhang Fan carefully took the box out of the box and held it in his arms.
Where to?
"Go back to the main hall first and put this box back into the spirit coffin."
Qiu Wanlan felt her head throbbing. She had witnessed the whole process and had so many questions for Zhang Fan, but she knew she couldn't finish them all in a short time, so she decided to stop asking now and wait until she left Wangling and returned to the Qiu family home.
The two walked up the suspended ladder.
"Don't you think the stone steps are even more shaky than before?" Qiu Wanlan slipped and almost fell, but grabbed Zhang Fan tightly.
Zhang Fan also observed his surroundings with suspicion. The swaying of the suspended ladder was obviously greater than when he came up.
Click, click, click—
A faint cracking sound came from all around. Zhang Fan looked around and found that tiny cracks were spreading across the hexagonal dome.
Holy crap!
"Run!"
Zhang Fan grabbed Qiu Wanlan's arm and jumped down the suspended ladder in one leap, taking three steps at a time.
"This place is going to collapse!"
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