See you again
The divorce application went more smoothly than Ivy had imagined.
At eight o'clock, after having breakfast, she received the document sent by Xin Lan and read the terms word by word.
Lorraine generously left her the house she had lived in, a large sum of cash, and some additional things.
For Ivy, when money reaches a certain level, it is just a number. But she was inevitably surprised by the amount and looked sideways at Lorraine.
He was signing his name on another application, using his usual fountain pen and ink that was so blue it almost looked like night. His signature was crisp and clear, and every letter was written beautifully, formally, officially, and formally.
He usually uses cursive, and this time he wrote it as neatly as the seal on the marriage application.
Ivy retracted her gaze and signed her name forcefully in the lower right corner. The sharp tip of the pen left a shallow scratch on the paper. She put down the pen and gently rubbed it with her fingertips, trying to wipe off the ink marks stuck on it, but the dark blue ink like the night sky had already slowly soaked and spread along her fingerprints.
The housekeeping robot in charge of tidying the room slowly moved over, its four claws nimbly flying in the air, and pointed at the tray above its head and told them sternly.
"Respected Admiral Hector, the quilt in the room has been severely damaged over a large area, with multiple lacerations and tear marks—"
Lorraine raised her head: "Please replace it with a new one for me."
Ivy was a little uneasy. She had indeed torn the quilt yesterday - but could those small scratches caused by her fingernails be considered "extensive and serious damage"?
The housekeeping robot continued to report in a serious tone: "There are also birth control drugs. Do you need anything else--"
"No," said Lorraine. "Thank you."
The little robot saluted with two parallel military gestures using its four paws. "You're welcome, Admiral Hector."
It continued to move slowly, the rollers under its body moving forward, doing its job conscientiously.
Ivy said, "I thought you didn't know how to say thank you to a robot."
Lorraine did not answer the question directly. He put away the divorce applications and handed them to Xin Lan beside him.
"If you encounter any problems in the future, you can still contact me," he said. "Goodbye."
Ivy stood up and subconsciously stretched out her hand, wanting to shake his hand politely; Lorraine's eyes fell on her outstretched hand, and after a while, he restrained himself and shook her fingers.
"Protect your secret," Lorraine said, "and I want you to keep the divorce a secret until the legal marriage is dissolved."
Ivy said, "I will."
Lorraine nodded slightly, turned around, and strode away.
Ivy didn't see Lorraine for the next two months.
Her last impression of Lorraine was the military uniform that almost covered his entire body, and the last time he gently held her hand through his gloves.
Perhaps it was the exaggeration of her memory, or perhaps life in the wasteland in the following two months was very difficult, but when she recalled it, Ivy had the illusion that he was actually trembling at that moment.
It was probably just an illusion.
Lorraine did not contact her again until the information on her electronic ID card changed from "married" to "single".
The email exchanges between the two also stopped steadily two months ago. Before the fierce quarrel, Ivy had consulted him about a question about the expedition team; Lorraine, who she thought was impatient, actually used more than 2,000 words in detail to respond to her short two lines.
Ivy didn't tell her parents about this for the time being. She didn't have the extra energy to think about it.
The Green team's first expedition is coming to an end. They have successfully destroyed two artificial intelligence "nests", cut off a lot of solar energy supply, and cooperated with the military to mark out a new piece of land with an area of nearly two million hectares within fourteen days, intending to plan and enclose it in a safe area.
She was full of energy at first, getting up at five in the morning, running, doing morning exercises, and then driving around to patrol and check the boundaries... But when she found that a huge bulldozer had completely demolished an entire poplar forest that had grown for twenty years, Ivy was not so happy.
The new safe zone is industrially planned land, where large factories that can provide more abundant materials for human beings are built; small streams are refilled with stones, soil and cement, and forests are quickly razed to the ground. The cars of luxury brands serving the rich are waiting outside, waiting to transport the wood that has grown naturally for decades, so that they can be used as "natural" and "wild" to make high-priced furniture and other handmade products.
With the rapid development of industrialization today, only the rich can afford the price of "natural".
The fish, shrimps, and crabs in the stream were sealed under cement. The clumsy little turtles were picked up, quarantined, and then transported to pet stores in the city. The small animals in the forest fled in all directions. Some were captured and used as food, some were sent to safe areas, and more died in various accidents, such as uncured cement, traps and trenches dug by humans, huge machines, and cars...
Ivy went to the person in charge to confirm: "If we fill the stream, what will happen to the small fish and shrimp in it?"
The person in charge was stunned for a moment, and asked nervously: "Hasn't the expedition team already written the species report? Neither you nor Iris mentioned that there are any rare species... Have you discovered any new endangered species?"
Ivy said, "No, but..."
"That's good," the person in charge breathed a sigh of relief. He glanced at Ivy and knew that she had no background and was just an ordinary person who passed the assessment. He began to look a little impatient, but his tone was still polite. "Thank you for the biological test report you provided. I hope you can maintain accuracy in the future."
Ivy said, "Aren't ordinary small fish and shrimp important?"
The person in charge looked at her in surprise and said, "Does it matter? They have strong reproductive capacity and will not become extinct in the short term. Think about how much value these factories can create for humans. These sacrifices are necessary. When humans use stoves to keep warm, they always need firewood to make fire."
Ivy understood.
In fact, she is just like the ordinary fish and shrimp in these small streams. She has no extraordinary talents and no high IQ. She is just an ordinary person in the world.
She is an "ordinary human" with "strong reproductive ability" in this society. She will not become extinct anytime soon. There will always be ordinary people like her in the world.
Will sacrifice for some great cause, even if they die no one will really care;
It is a rare species that is not intentionally protected, and it is the firewood that releases heat in the furnace and makes this society a better place.
In the last two days, Ivy took two days off and did not go on patrol.
The first person to discover her abnormality was Congcong.
Congcong worriedly accompanied her in morning exercises, breakfast and lunch. At dinner, she was completely unable to keep up with Ivy's exercise progress, so she asked breathlessly if she was feeling unhappy.
Ivy shook her head.
She didn't know what to say.
So Cong Cong quickly found Yu Mo.
Yu Mo was also very busy in the past two months. Not only did he treat the members of Team Green, he also enthusiastically rescued the injured from other expedition teams. Medical supplies were limited, so he took the initiative to cut his own new shirt, disinfected it, and steamed it to make bandages. In his spare time, he also went to collect some Chinese herbal medicines.
Relying on his medical skills, he successfully earned a considerable sum of money for the expedition team.
Yu Mo brought a little devil squirrel to see Ivy. The little squirrel's right front paw was broken. Yu Mo made a small splint for it with pine branches and bandages, and patiently peeled pine nuts to feed it.
After seeing the injured little devil squirrel, Ivy became even more depressed.
She realized she was powerless.
The most frustrating thing is to have the will but not the ability.
Yu Mo seemed to have seen through her thoughts. He did not persuade her to do anything. He just invited Ivy to visit the small animal rescue center he had established. It not only rescued the devil squirrel, but also sparrows, hares, pheasants, snakes, and even locusts.
In his eyes, these things are equal.
"We can't be perfect," Yu Mo said softly, "but we can choose to do what you think is right within our capabilities."
Ivy raised her hand and touched the black, injured snake through the cage. It looked pitiful, but the black scales reminded her of Lorraine.
He is black.
She shrank her hand.
Yu Mo asked, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Ivy asked. "What will happen to them?"
"Release them in the wasteland at night," Yu Mo said, "Humans are too greedy. They cannot be left in the human safety zone."
Ivy seemed to realize something: "The safe zone for humans is actually a wasteland for these small animals—"
She paused, stood up, and turned around. Yu Mo's green eyes, which shone with a jewel-like luster, looked at her tenderly.
"Xiaobao," he said, "did you have a quarrel with Lorraine?"
"...No," Ivy said, "Don't mention him - do you plan to stay in the expedition team forever? Green's salary is too low, and if so, you can't continue in the institute -"
"It doesn't matter," Yu Mo was understanding. "The work in the research institute is also restricted in many ways. Compared to that, I prefer to stay in the expedition team and do what I can."
At this point, he suggested, "Do you want to go out for a walk? I'm just about to release a few cute little ones. Maybe you'd like to see them run to freedom."
Ivy agreed.
In fact, they hadn't talked so freely for a long time.
Lorraine firmly believes that Yu Mo has ulterior motives, but Yu Mo is the brother next door who grew up with her, and was almost killed by the robot with a laser.
She even felt that after the divorce, she unconsciously thought of Lorraine more often than she thought of Yu Mo, saw Yu Mo, or talked to Yu Mo.
Ivy's assault jacket was torn, so Yu Mo gave her his. Ivy drove him and the release cage all the way to the edge of the safe zone, crossed the defense line, and stopped in the small forest.
They happened to meet the army returning and gave way.
Ivy recognized Lorraine's car almost at first sight. His car had many traces of modifications. Xin Lan mentioned that those modifications were all done by Lorraine. After the divorce, Lorraine gave her a detailed design drawing and accessories of the car modification, and even noted the purchase or source of the accessories.
Through the car window, Ivy couldn't see what was inside the car. She only realized that the car didn't stop at all and drove steadily into the safe zone.
She turned around and saw the silver-haired Yu Mo kneeling on the ground in the sunlight and opening the cage door.
Four or five hares ran quickly towards the freedom of the jungle under the warm light.
"Releasing wild rabbits..." Xin Lan said to Luo Lin with a smile, "It's a very childlike activity."
Lorraine was watching the surveillance screen in the car - the camera in the car faithfully recorded every second and every minute of Ivy's passing.
He has looped the short five minutes and twenty-six seconds of footage seventeen times.
After clicking, the screen finally froze on Ivy's surprised expression when she saw the car.
"She must have recognized your car," Xin Lan said, "but this expression..."
He analyzed it carefully: "No joy, 70% surprise, 20% bewilderment, 5% helplessness, 3% curiosity, and 2%...sadness."
“Maybe it’s time for you to get cleaned up with your sentiment analysis system again,” Lorraine said. “Why is there sadness?”
Xin Lan said: "I'm not sure, maybe because I realized that the person in the car was you. You know, ex-husbands are the most unpopular species in the world. Many people would exchange their ex-husband's life for benefits when making a wish."
"We are getting a divorce through a peaceful agreement," Lorraine said coldly, "Ivy is a good kid, she wouldn't have such an idea."
Having said that, he turned his gaze back to the screen.
The surveillance camera captured this scene, and Ivy's expression as she looked at the car -
It was not until the eighteenth time he watched this surveillance video that Lorraine noticed the silver-haired Yu Mo releasing a rabbit at the edge of the screen.
Very hypocritical.