Chapter 33 Desert Ruins - 7 Lu Yi frowned...
Lu Yi frowned. Judging from the attitude of those mutated poisoners, the organization conducting the genetic experiments here was a resistance group that extremely hated orcs, and Tang Bufan had a close relationship with this organization...
Lu Yi had wanted to ask Tang Bufan a question for a long time, but he hadn't been able to bring himself to ask it.
The orc boy's golden-green eyes narrowed with caution. After a moment's hesitation, he spoke in a tactful tone, "Teacher, from the first day I met you, I felt you weren't a member of the resistance faction. Are you... a pro-beastman or a neutral party?"
"Neutral." Tang Bufan answered decisively. He had been in this apocalyptic world for four years and had long considered this matter.
The original orcs were converted from death row inmates, but later, many humans who committed minor crimes or protested against the government's excessive arrests were arrested and forcibly converted into orcs. At this point, the conflict between orcs and humans intensified.
Furthermore, the orcs had been enslaved by humans under the guise of labor reform for over two hundred years, harboring resentment. This led to their ruthless attack on the dungeon, resulting in complete irreconcilable enmity between the two sides.
Until the "Peace Pact" was proposed, humans provided criminals and orcs provided supplies.
Compared to the continued war between humans and beastmen, the humans were starving in the dungeons, and the beastmen were unable to reproduce on the surface. The "peace pact" was the best solution to the dilemma faced by both sides at that time.
As a transmigrator, Tang Bufan neither sided with humans nor beastmen; he remained neutral.
In fact, he didn't have long to live, and all he cared about was finding an answer and trying to see if he could go back. As for this dilapidated apocalypse, to put it bluntly, what did it have to do with him?
He's not a savior; he can't even save himself.
Hearing that Tang Bufan was a neutral party, Lu Yi silently breathed a sigh of relief.
But looking at the transparent umbrella with the symbol of the protest organization, Lu Yi hesitated for a moment before continuing to ask, "Then how did you get this umbrella, teacher?"
Now that things had come to this, Tang Bufan could no longer hide it from Lu Yi, so he sighed and told him directly:
"When I was stranded in a ruin on the edge of the Black Sea, the Doctor tried to rescue me in a completely transparent spherical flying vehicle. However, he unexpectedly encountered Uncle Wolf and Eberron in a motorhome. The driver thought the motorhome could fire cannons, so he stopped the rescue. The Doctor disagreed and accidentally kicked this umbrella out of the flying vehicle during the fight."
Lu Yi understood, her golden-green eyes fixed on Tang Bufan's pale complexion, and asked cautiously, "Then... what is the relationship between the teacher and the doctor?"
Tang Bufan fell silent. He sat there with his shoulders slumped, glanced at Lu Yi, then lowered his head, and then looked up again.
"What do you think of me?" Tang Bufan asked him first, knowing that Lu Yi had noticed his abnormality early on.
"The teacher is a bit... uh... strange." Lu stammered, trying to be as tactful as possible: "He doesn't seem like... a normal dungeon human."
"I'm definitely not." Tang Bufan gave a bitter smile, his tone complicated. "If I said I was also the doctor's experimental subject, would you believe me?"
"..." Lu Yi was not surprised. He glanced at Tang Bufan carefully and nodded slightly.
"Then guess what kind of 'experiment' I am?" Tang Bufan asked him, mainly because the idea of time travel was too outrageous for him to say.
“…A thawed human?” Lu Yi stared at him: “Human cryopreservation technology already existed in the 21st century, and people in that era…had strong views on gender.”
When reproductive technology makes a breakthrough in the 22nd century, and men and women can freely marry and reproduce, people will start to care only about whether they love each other and are compatible when looking for a partner, and will no longer care about gender.
Lu Yi was surprised when he heard that the man was a staunch heterosexual. Generally speaking, even if a man likes women, he would still be willing to date a very outstanding man.
"Wow, the 21st century, you guessed that?" Tang Bufan exclaimed, not expecting that even his choice of sexual orientation would betray his abnormality.
“Nobody cares about gender anymore.” Lu Yi earnestly reminded Tang Bufan, “Teacher, please don’t say this in front of others in the future.”
Tang Bufan thought to himself that his behavior was probably the same as the ancients in the 21st century shouting: "Not getting married by 20 is considered late marriage!"
"The 21st century is right, but I'm not a thawed person." Tang Bufan did some mental preparation before letting out a long breath and formally confessing to Lu Yi: "I am a time traveler."
Lu Yi was stunned, staring blankly at him.
"A time traveler?" He stared at Tang Bufan, his eyes widening slightly.
“Yes, a time traveler.” Tang Bufan patted his chest: “The real deal, a time traveler from 1200 years ago.”
"Oh!" Lu Yi exclaimed, leaning back strategically and scrutinizing Tang Bufan for a moment before lowering his head closer, his voice much softer: "Then... Teacher, did you come from a time machine?"
"There's no such thing as a time machine." Tang Bufan leaned down as well, and the two of them sat on the iron bunk bed, talking furtively: "I was just getting off school or get off work when suddenly my foot slipped and I fell here."
After he finished speaking, he felt a tightness in his chest, thinking of the deceased Chen Fei, and his voice lowered even more: "My student came here with me... but he is already dead... his body couldn't withstand the surface environment."
Lu Yi thought of the old children's backpack and suddenly realized that all the strange things about Tang Bufan were explained.
It's unbelievable, yet I have to believe it.
But soon, his brows furrowed deeply.
"So this resistance faction has mastered time travel technology?" Lu Yi asked in a deep voice.
"My guess is that we've got it, but not completely." Tang Bufan continued whispering to Lu Yi, "The Asian Rift Valley, which was created by the earthquake four years ago, was very likely caused by the aftershocks of the experiment. Wasn't the epicenter near the underground city in the East District?"
"Yes." Lu Yi realized what he meant when he heard that: "So the epicenter was that organization's experimental base?"
After Lu Yi finished speaking, he raised his wrist and asked Evelyn, "Evelyn, do you have a photo of the epicenter of the Great Rift Valley earthquake?"
"Online search in progress, please wait," Evelyn's gentle electronic female voice announced.
Tang Bufan gasped, his face changing, and he blamed Lu Yi: "Why did you open Evelyn? Did it spread my secrets online?"
He is currently only wanted by the Eastern District Dungeon and the Eastern Federation of Orcs, but if the whole world knew that he was a time traveler, would the scientists in the Western and Northern Districts be able to sit still?
Tang Bufan didn't want to be arrested by the whole world.
"Don't worry, Evelyn is my personal AI, absolutely loyal." Lu Yi reassured Tang Bufan, "Even my father has no right to access its database."
"You said that if anyone finds out about my past, I'll hold you accountable." Tang Bufan looked at him seriously.
Lu Yi couldn't help but laugh: "Okay, I'll take responsibility for you."
"Still laughing." Tang Bufan muttered, but his trust in Lu Yi put him at ease, and he felt much more relaxed after confessing.
He no longer needed to hide his relationship with Lu Yi.
Lu Yi was also very happy.
"Teacher, why do you smell so good?" Lu Yi lowered her head and sniffed Tang Bufan's neck, quite intrigued: "I heard that in the 21st century, even the wind smells good."
"That's an exaggeration, not at all." Tang Bufan smiled and gently pushed his head away. His curly hair tickled his neck. Then he sighed nostalgically, "But our Fujian province has the best air quality in the country. In spring, all the flowers bloom in the school, and the fragrance of flowers and grass is truly delightful."
“Just like you?” Lu Yi gazed at him tenderly.
"...Wrong, I'm not a delicate flower, I'm a resilient little grass...the school heartthrob!" Tang Bufan was happy after confessing, and couldn't help but talk more: "I've been the school heartthrob since I was a child."
"Laughing grass?" Lu Yi asked curiously, "What kind of grass is laughing grass?"
Tang Bufan couldn't help but laugh.
At this moment, Evelyn projected dozens of photos into the air. The two stopped joking and looked at them seriously, discovering that most of them were photos of the earthquake surface, while there were only a few of them of the rift valley.
“The epicenter of the Great Rift Valley earthquake was eroded by underground magma, and there are no man-made structures left in that area,” Evelyn told the two. “After the earthquake, the East District Underground City was severely damaged. At that time, the researchers in the East District Underground City and the Orc Eastern Alliance were studying the best and fastest repair plan and did not conduct an immediate study of the Great Rift Valley, so there is not much data.”
Lu Yi and Tang Bufan were both somewhat disappointed. They stared at the photo in the air in silence for a moment, and then Tang Bufan turned to look at Lu Yi.
“We need to go back to the mothership,” Tang Bufan said, his voice heavy with worry as he thought of the doctor. “He’s been here before; there might be other clues beneath the mothership.”
"It's a pity that this beacon self-destructed." Lu Yi picked up the fragment and looked at it again. The edges were charred from the explosion, and it was almost impossible for the chip to remain.
“If there are other mutated poison people down there, maybe we can get some information out of them.” Tang Bufan frowned. “The old poison person who stabbed me with scissors said Father is on the island. If he is on the island… should I not have gone to the East District dungeon?”
Upon hearing this, Lu Yi looked at Tang Bufan, who was as thin as a skeleton, and his eyes dimmed slightly. He thought for a moment and shook his head: "No, we still have to go to the East District Underground City, otherwise you won't survive, teacher. Besides, that doctor forged an identity for you, didn't he?"
Tang Bufan was jolted awake from his dream and turned to look at Lu Yi.
“The identities of residents in the underground city are strictly managed by the ruling party. Since that doctor was able to forge an identity for you, it means he has a wide network of connections.” Lu Yi looked at Tang Bufan seriously: “So as long as you show up, someone will definitely come to meet you.”
Tang Bufan felt much more at ease and immediately realized that he hadn't made a mistake in being honest with Lu Yi, as Lu Yi could help him fill in many gaps in his knowledge.
"We'll go back to the mothership tomorrow during the day to see if we can find any clues. If we don't, we'll continue our journey after nightfall." Lu Yi arranged for Tang Bufan and then told him to continue eating dinner: "Teacher, don't worry. Eat well, sleep well, and stay alive so you can find that man."
After saying that, he handed the beacon fragments back to Tang Bufan, got up and walked towards the kitchen: "I'll go fry some meat for you."
Tang Bufan looked at him with emotion, then looked down at the beacon fragments in his hand, and couldn't help but feel a little resentful again.
No one has the right to arbitrarily ruin someone else's life.
Tang Bufan didn't know whether the doctor was bad or not, nor did he know the reason why he had sent him to this world, but his student was dead and his life was ruined... He needed justice.
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