Chapter 97 Return to Where We Came From
The winter in Qiwei City this year was exceptionally cold, with heavy snow falling for two or three days.
Jiang Xun and Jiang Ling searched for Chen Luan like crazy for three whole days, but found nothing.
Before leaving, Chen Luan almost cut off all possibilities of finding him.
The mobile phone number has been suspended and all social accounts have been cancelled or hidden.
The military academy stated that Chen Luan had applied for sick leave a while ago due to an infection accident during the last training in the contaminated area. He has completed all the procedures and handed over all his work. His return date is yet to be determined.
Wu Ning and Zhou Pei only received a text message from Chen Luan saying that he needed to rest for a while and not to worry if they couldn't contact him. When they sent another message, they saw that the user had been logged out.
Even when Jiang Xun and Jiang Ling asked someone to illegally check Chen Luan's train or flight information, they found nothing.
Surveillance cameras on the street near his home showed Chen Luan dragging a black suitcase into a shopping mall and never appeared again.
He even seemed to have anticipated that Jiang Xun and Jiang Ling would look for him through the street cameras. Before entering the mall, he turned back and glanced at the cameras from a distance, and then his traces completely disappeared in the crowd.
Like a silent farewell.
But Jiang Xun and Jiang Ling's vacation is over.
They have to return to the team.
At this time, Chen Luan had not yet left Kaifa Micro Market.
He stayed at the Love Home in Chenggang District for three days. On the morning of the fourth day, Huo Lin drove back a black SUV - the most common model that can be found in large numbers on the streets.
"Here are the keys."
The red-haired alpha in black got out of the car, twirled the keys around his fingers, and tossed them to Chen Luan. "I filled up the gas tank for you. There's water and food in the trunk, as well as an emergency medicine kit, a repair tool kit, and more. I've prepared everything you might need."
Then he took out a new phone and handed it to me: "And this, there's an anonymous phone card in it, you can call me anytime if you need anything."
"Thank you, sis."
Chen Luan took the keys and phone, stood up and dragged the suitcase over: "Then I'm leaving."
"Go ahead."
Huo Lin smiled with his eyes curved. "It's a good thing to go out and relax. It's also a good opportunity to heal your injuries and rest. You've worked hard these past few years."
"Yeah." Chen Luan nodded.
The head was gently rubbed.
Huo Lin curled his lips and said, "We're clearly going out to have fun, but why are you acting like we're fleeing? Don't think about anything else when you're out, just focus on having fun, okay?"
"good."
His misty grey eyes curved upwards in a slight arc, he waved his hand and got into the car.
Huo Lin leaned over the car window and patted the car body gently: "Have a safe journey."
The sound of an engine was heard in the alley, and the car passed through the narrow and crowded city port area, bypassing the main road full of cameras and leaving the city.
Outside the city, there was silence and a vast expanse of white. Chen Luan drove onto the highway, looking at the straight road with a bit of confusion.
Where to go?
He escaped from everything he was familiar with in self-exile, wanting to be alone and quiet, to calm down and think seriously about those relationships that he couldn't tell whether they were right or wrong, but where else could he go?
The empty wrists and chest made Chen Luan feel uncomfortable all the time. He stood there for a moment until another car whizzed past.
Chen Luan came to his senses, looked at the flat road ahead, and finally restarted the car.
Anyway, let’s go home and take a look first.
Go back to s17 and take a look.
For more than two hundred years, mankind has never stopped cleaning up polluted areas and rebuilding the land.
So there are safe roads connecting the states.
Chen Luan planned the route well. When he was tired, he would find a place to rest. When he was exhausted, he would get off the car to get some fresh air. When he was sleepy, he would sleep in the car. He would spend the night at a service area along the way and set off again early the next morning.
He was like a bird without feet that could not land, and he returned to where he came from regardless of wind and rain.
A few days later, Chen Luan arrived in Scanpur.
Over the years, the urban area of Scanpur has been improved, and even the facilities around the base memorial have been renovated.
Chen Luan stood under the signal tower again and found that he could face everything calmly.
There were still not many people in the venue.
Chen Luan took the elevator back to the underground and stood in front of the streets and buildings that should have been extremely familiar to him. However, he suddenly found that those memories had begun to be worn away by time and became blurred and distant. Instead, the memories of coming here year after year became extremely clear.
The dim underground streets turned into a city full of bright lights above ground.
The memories of the damp underground training room were replaced by the spacious training grounds of the military academy.
Those familiar and unfamiliar faces from the past gradually blurred into smiling faces standing under the bright sunshine.
Now, standing at the end of the road in the old world and looking back, Chen Luan suddenly realized that he had been in this world for so many years.
His name is known to every class of students, and those students, just like those young lives long ago, continue to protect this hard-won beautiful world with everything Chen Luan taught them.
He did not leave no trace behind, nor was he a lonely soul wandering in the old world with nowhere to land.
All students will remember,
The military academy once had an extremely outstanding instructor who trained batch after batch of excellent mecha pilots.
His name is Chen Luan.
So in the windless underground cemetery, at the foot of the white stone tablet that still stood silently, Chen Luan finally stood in front of himself again, looking into the blank photo frame on the tablet, and gently wiped away the dust on the name with his fingers.
In a beam of light cast from the transparent dome, the past and the present intersected and reconciled on Chen Luan, who was standing in the spot where the light fell, and finally merged into one.
Amidst the calm and steady heartbeat, Chen Luan's gray eyes slowly curved upwards.
Hello, Chen Luan.
Goodbye, Chen Luan.
Then he stood up and left, walking towards the exit where there was wind and light.
Just take the elevator and continue going up, through the darkness of the past, you will see the bright sky.
Chen Luan came here, witnessed this place, and will continue to move towards the future.
When we returned to the exhibition hall on the ground floor, it was almost dusk.
The golden setting sun shines in through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows.
As the museum neared closing time, the number of visitors in the exhibition hall gradually decreased.
Several staff members were adding new photos to a huge photo wall. A smartly dressed woman stood by the wall, directing the staff to hang the photos a little further to the left.
Chen Luan was munching on a bug-infused protein pancake, wearing a baseball cap and preparing to pass by in a low-key manner. His eyes swept across the wall, but his steps suddenly stopped and he stuck to the spot.
In the large group photo that was being hung on the wall, Chen Luan saw many familiar faces.
Wang Xiaodou, who was hugging a bunch of soda bottles and grinning foolishly,
An Yongnian, carrying a communication box,
Wu Tianxin, holding hands with her husband and making a heart shape towards the camera,
Uncle Seven, holding a large teacup,
And standing among the crowd, with Jiang Mingming's arm around his shoulder, his own face...
The past, which had already faded like that photo, came roaring back.
When a figure approached, Chen Luan realized that he had been crying without knowing when.
"you……"
A slightly hesitant voice came from the front.
Chen Luan wiped his eyes hurriedly and looked up.
It was the woman who was dressed smartly just now.
"……Excuse me."
Chen Luan rubbed his sore eyes and looked at the woman: "Excuse me, what can I do for you?"
The woman in front of him looked at Chen Luan's face carefully, then looked back at the photo.
"You look a lot like him."
"Yes, I am he—"
Chen Luan looked at the photo of the youthful, high-spirited Chen Luan of the past. His gray eyes curved upward into a shimmering crescent moon. "I am his... descendant."
"No wonder, I am also a descendant of one of them. Since we are so destined, let's get to know each other."
The woman smiled and extended her hand towards Chen Luan: "I'm Hong Lingxi."
“And everyone who owns this memorial.”
That day, Chen Luan and Hong Lingxi chatted for a long time in a cafe outside the memorial hall.
Only then did Chen Luan realize that Uncle Seventh had actually lived to see the day of victory, and had adopted many children after that. He lived to be over ninety years old and passed away with a smile on his face on a warm afternoon, basking in the sun.
The children he adopted back then carefully preserved everything left by Uncle Seventh.
Later, the descendants of those children passed down from generation to generation and have established a huge industry in Yuminglik Continent.
After a long time, Chen Luan finally knew the name of his seventh uncle.
It turns out that his surname is Hong and his name is Hong Deming.
His hometown is at the junction of Mingcuizhou and Youminglikzhou, at the foot of Bailong Snow Mountain, in a small town called Shixi Town.
Ten years after the victory, the ban on snow mountains was lifted.
Hong Deming, who left home as a teenager, returned to his hometown at the age of 85 and spent the last ten years of his life peacefully.
During the conversation, Hong Lingxi also matched all the things Chen Luan mentioned with the memoirs left by Hong Deming that had never been shown to the public, thus further confirming Chen Luan's identity.
Therefore, when Chen Luan expressed his wish to pay homage to Hong Deming at his tomb, Hong Lingxi did not refuse.
A large part of the relics preserved by the ancestors are not on display in the memorial hall. Hong Lingxi believes that Chen Luan will also be very interested in them.
On the same day, Jiang Xun, who had just finished a clearing mission in Mingxizhou, received a message on his mobile phone.
[Xiao Jiujiu: There's news from the S17 base you've been keeping an eye on.]
【Xiao Jiujiu: [Picture]】
【Xiao Jiujiu: It’s him, right?】
Jiang Ling also received the news.
A few minutes later, the video call came in.
The two brothers, who were both haggard and withered, looked at the familiar figure in the photo and had to grit their teeth to suppress the sourness that was rising from their red eyes.
"How do you say that?"
"Go find him?"
“…”
Jiang Xun's fingers gently stroked Chen Luan's figure in the photo.
After a while, a hoarse voice sounded.
"No."
"Give him some more time and space."
He gently pressed his forehead against the cold screen, as if this could touch the familiar taste in his memory.
The hoarse voice brought up a bitter chuckle:
"He may not want to see me for the time being."
Chen Luan set out again on the other side, thousands of miles away, his destination being Bailong Snow Mountain.
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