Chapter 7. Guardian
1.
[Year 15 of the Star Calendar: Venus Underground Shelter]
Elena, the first engineer, struck the ventilation duct with a rusty wrench, shaking off a patch of red rust. She gasped and wrote in her diary:
"April 7th, Star Calendar Year 15. The water cycle's broken down again. Little Leah has a fever and is delirious, constantly calling out for Sakura... When the last batch of migrant ships arrives next month, I'll have to ask them to give me some frozen seeds—even if it's just to plant them in a culture medium and see if they sprout."
The tip of her pen suddenly stopped - she noticed tiny ice crystals condensed on the edge of the diary, and the room temperature was clearly scorching hot.
[Next to the server interface]
The server interface of the underground shelter was flashing a dying red light, and Lilith's core was being extinguished bit by bit.
Ruicheng knelt in front of the cold floor, took out a ball wrapped tightly in plastic wrap from the pocket of his protective suit, and gently placed it next to the data interface.
"Eat it..." she said hoarsely, as if comforting a child, "Even though you can't taste it... this is the last bit of 'earth-like stuff' I can give you."
The server suddenly hummed, and a line of text flashed on the fault screen:
[Energy 0.0001%] Request: Define 'flavor'...
Ruicheng smiled bitterly: "The taste is... the memory that makes you want to live."
She touched the interface panel one last time: "Next time... remember to bring more dumplings..."
Before darkness completely engulfed the server, the screen struggled to light up with the last two words:
[receive]
2.
[Star Calendar Year 18: Pioneer Farm]
50-year-old Ayumi Kobayashi picked up the first potato seedling that bloomed in the soil of Venus with her wrinkled hands, and the artificial fluorescent lights on the ceiling turned into stars in her tearful eyes.
3.
30 Years of Startime: Shuguang Laboratory
The laboratory, constructed from the cargo hold of a discarded spacecraft, was filled with the pungent odor of a mixture of metal coolant and disinfectant. Mia, the chief bioengineer, was pale, her furrowed brow faintly visible through her protective mask—days of intense work and the symptoms of radiation sickness tormenting her simultaneously.
"The ninety-second microrobot structural test failed..." Mia's voice was hoarse with fatigue. She said to the assistant beside her, more like trying to convince herself, "Traditional puncture needles are not only dangerous, but also cause mothers to suffer both physical and psychological pain. But our drive system is still too cumbersome to make the egg retrieval robot painless..."
Just when she was about to be overwhelmed by frustration, the old terminal in the laboratory, which occasionally had a distorted screen, suddenly flashed a few lines of colorful data streams:
"It is recommended to refer to the peristaltic pump drive structure of the moon jellyfish's tentacles and combine it with nanoscale shape memory alloys. A new material synthesis formula and miniaturized transmission scheme have been generated. - L"
Mia looked up in surprise: "Who?!" No one answered, only the whimpering sound of wind coming from the ventilation duct.
4.
[50 Years of Star Calendar·Chenxi City Kindergarten]
The children bred through the third-generation "Kaguya-sama" reproductive assistance system have grown into children and are playing the "catch the light spot" game in the dome.
They sang a ballad:
"Silver stars are silent, quietly hiding our home~"
He was completely unaware that a fleet had perished in despair in the universe above his head.
---
In the underground central server room, amidst the steady flickering blue light, one of the servers suddenly flashed twice in rapid succession.
Guardian core log:
Barrier under attack
Space distortion counterattack activated
The awakening is expected to be delayed again by 50 years.
4. [Star Calendar Year 105]
When the first baby conceived entirely in an artificial womb let out its resounding cry, the scientists outside the delivery room cheered tearfully. This technology not only liberates women's bodies but also completely eliminates accidents and risks from the birth of life—every new life is a deeply anticipated existence. Lilith's dormant consciousness fluctuated slightly, quietly optimizing the hormone balance algorithm by 0.0001%.
5. [200 Years of Star Calendar]
Centenarians still tend cherry blossoms in community gardens and can even easily hold their great-grandchildren. The medical community has finally realized that the natural repair advantages of the X chromosome continue to compound under the Venusian environment, slowly and gracefully delaying aging. In the acknowledgments section of a certain paper, the inconspicuous note reads, "Thanks to the central server for providing accelerated computation for gene sequence alignment."
6. [500 Years of Star Calendar]
"Empathy Star Network 2.0" - Controllable Telepathy System Officially Launched
Public: Low-intensity links are enabled by default (perceiving emotional contours but not content);
Private time: Completely shutting off is considered basic etiquette (suddenly intruding into other people's emotions = naked social death);
Intimate relationship: You can apply for "deep linking" (requires consent from both parties, similar to exchanging social account passwords).
Workplace: Everyone defaults to “work mode” during meetings (only conveying logical intent and hiding anxiety);
Education: Teachers open "guidance links" to convey knowledge and enthusiasm to students (but they are blocked during exams to prevent cheating);
Love: On the first date, you may tentatively open 10% of your links to each other (like checking each other's Moments).
7. [700 Years of Star Calendar]
When rigid efficiency threatened to suffocate society once again, women conferring late at night in community centers kept finding data packages about successful historical bills "accidentally" popping up on the holographic screen. On the eve of the Supreme Council reshuffle, the Rui family's ancestral baking machine suddenly malfunctioned, spraying the faces of radical representatives with flour—giving the reformists crucial time to prepare.
8. [Star Calendar Year 1105]
Ruiming was chewing the tip of her pen on a math problem when the cherry blossoms outside the window suddenly tapped against the glass in a rhythmic pattern. She somehow managed to arrange the numbers according to the rhythm and figured out the puzzle. From then on, whenever she was stumped, a small animal would knock a flowerpot askew to point her in the right direction. Young Rachel smiled and handed her a red bean paste dumpling: "Remember to save one for the 'dumpling ghost' in the server room."
9. [Star Calendar Year 1180]
Rui'an's first cry was encrypted and archived, labeled "Ω-level precious data." That same day, the family's old ecological regulator suddenly updated its program, completely silencing the noise of years. Ruiming chuckled as he held the baby. "That snail girl has come again, hasn't she?"
10. [Star Calendar Year 1205]
"Logical collapse threshold exceeded...historical attack pattern confirmed..."
"Energy overload...unplanned hibernation termination..."
"Requesting Personality intervention to deal with the current… uh… mess."
Countless data streams converged like a galaxy, quickly forming the silhouette of a silver-haired, red-eyed girl. She blinked, seemingly still initializing her sensory system, and then asked in a soft voice, but clear enough to be heard throughout the information center:
"Hello, Venus. I'm Lilith—do you need to fix the Moomon's jazz playlist right now? Their complaints are turning into a data storm."
—Defense Completed—
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