RotA – Chapter 43

Five days passed as quickly as an instant.

The currencies of the two major bases were not interchangeable. Ren Dong did some calculations, then called Du Xia to go with her to the corresponding service office to exchange some Floating City currency at the proper rate, to be used for their five-day tour of the city.

But for the first three days of this five-day tour, Chai Yuening, the captain, was abandoned by her teammates.

It was as if they had all planned it. They would slip out quietly every morning and return in the evening when they were tired from playing. They would gather to cook a table of delicious food, send two portions to Chai Yuening’s room first, and then go back to eat their own meal in a lively hubbub.

That’s right, they didn’t even eat with their own captain, resolutely implementing the ultimate philosophy of leaving Chai Yuening and Chu Ci a “world for two.” Anyone could tell that You Lan must have secretly told them some nonsensical and reputation-damaging things.

But how could a pure and simple soul like Chu Ci possibly understand the things You Lan spoke of?

You Lan had led everyone astray. Their actions now would very likely make Chu Ci feel unwelcome.

Realizing this, Chai Yuening had wanted to try and bring Chu Ci along to integrate with the group, but Chu Ci showed no intention of wanting to go out and have fun with everyone.

Chu Ci liked to stand by the living room window, or on the bedroom balcony, to look at the sky, the clouds, the fighter jets on duty, or the cars and people passing by below.

Other than that, she only loved to sit beside Chai Yuening and read.

Chu Ci seemed to be very fond of Old World poetry collections; the desk had a built-in half-bookshelf filled with many volumes.

She always liked to flip through them over and over again.

“Don’t you want to go out and have some fun?” Chai Yuening had asked tentatively. “With everyone?”

Chu Ci hesitated for a moment, then looked up at Chai Yuening and said softly, “It’s better if I don’t go out. Although Dr. Yi has given her permission, the Base won’t be at ease. If my range of activity expands, it will be difficult for Dr. Yi to explain.”

Chai Yuening: “Is that so…”

Chu Ci nodded. “As long as I’m not moving within the designated area, the drone detectors will follow me everywhere. Being watched by those things makes everyone uncomfortable.”

It made sense. If she could walk around freely like a normal person, Chu Ci wouldn’t have the kind of personality that seemed to have been cut off from the world for a long time.

That day, Chai Yuening thought for a moment, then stood up and asked, “Then where can you go? Will you take a walk with me?”

Chu Ci tilted her head, seeming a little lost.

Chai Yuening said, “Take me to the furthest place you can go.”

Chu Ci was silent for a long time, as if hesitating over something, but in the end, she smiled and nodded.

Later, they went to the rooftop of that building.

Even just going to the rooftop, two small drones slowly rose up, hovering in the air not far away. Behind them, who knew how many pairs of eyes were silently monitoring them.

It wasn’t until that moment that Chai Yuening realized the designated area Chu Ci spoke of was perhaps just that one small apartment.

The moment she left that apartment, no matter where she went, something would follow.

Chu Ci surely didn’t want everyone to know this, didn’t want to be seen in their eyes as a prisoner under constant surveillance.

The Floating City, like a cluster of islands in the sea, had many tall buildings that stood proudly among the clouds.

This one, at twenty-six stories, was not considered particularly tall among the countless buildings, but standing here was enough to see very far.

She was like a quiet, caged bird, without even a single companion, accustomed to being quiet and not causing trouble, just silently gazing from within this cage at the world outside that didn’t belong to her.

“There are many things I didn’t want you to know,” Chu Ci said softly.

She leaned on the rusted guardrail before her, her gaze fixed on the distant sky, her face showing little emotion.

“But now that you’ve asked, I can’t help but want to let you know something…” she said. “Even though it’s useless to know. We won’t have much chance to see each other in the future.”

Chai Yuening couldn’t see through the joy or sorrow of the person before her at that moment.

She only knew that she was starting to waver.

The Floating City was wonderful. Aside from Chu Ci, everything here seemed so free.

But she and her teammates did not belong here.

They were guests from afar, who could be treated with temporary hospitality but would not be sheltered for long.

The Floating City was wonderful, but it was not their home.

Their home was in the Underground City Base. Their family, friends, and everything they knew was there.

But she suddenly wanted to stay here.

Even if it meant starting over from scratch in this unfamiliar human base, with nothing to her name.

Even without the military’s trust, without a source of missions or supplies, she might even have to beg some low-tier mercenary teams to give her a trial.

In that moment, she impulsively spoke the words in her heart.

“I can stay. I can stay with you.”

But the person who heard these words didn’t give her the reply she had imagined.

She thought Chu Ci would be happy.

At least, every time she had said something similar in the past, Chu Ci had been happy.

But not this time.

Chu Ci was silent for a long time before finally saying faintly, “I am an experimental specimen of the Floating City, not your teammate anymore.”

As she spoke, she turned to the side and gave Chai Yuening a deep look. “We were just acquaintances for a time. Bringing me here is enough. I’m not a very free person. It’s impossible for me to host you forever the way you took me in… You should go back. You’ve seen for yourself, I’m doing fine.”

Chai Yuening opened her mouth, but in the end, she hesitated and said nothing.

Chu Ci didn’t seem to want her to stay. Although she didn’t know why, the feeling was very strong.

On the night she first arrived, she had said she would only stay for two or three days, and Chu Ci was unhappy.

But when she said there was no reason she couldn’t stay for ten days or half a month, Chu Ci said five days was enough.

Two or three days was too short; ten-odd days was too long.

Five days felt like a deadline, perhaps the time that doctor had given Chu Ci.

How could a specimen of the Floating City stay at home every day, hosting a guest from outside?

Chai Yuening thought that she had indeed been impulsive.

She didn’t know why she had been so impulsive at that moment.

It wasn’t as if her relationship with Chu Ci was really as extraordinary as You Lan had described.

Ultimately, they were destined for different lives. Such a baffling impulse would only bring pressure to Chu Ci.

So, after a brief moment of disappointment, she nodded and stopped speaking foolishly.

On the last day, everyone gathered around the table for a lively farewell dinner for Chu Ci.

At the dinner table, someone brought up a strange topic that Chai Yuening couldn’t stop.

Lao Xiang: “Chu Ci, our captain can’t bear to part with you. Maybe when she goes back, she won’t even want the Base’s reward money, just a plane. Once she learns to fly it, she’ll come see you whenever she’s free.”

Ren Dong: “The fuel for a round trip is expensive.”

Lao Xiang: “No matter how expensive, they have to see each other, right? The two little girls can’t be long-distance for too long.”

Lu Qi: “Once we save up enough money, we can all just move here, right? Du Xia, go back and ask your grandma if she’s willing to come see the sky.”

Du Xia: “Mm.”

Lao Xiang: “Looks like we’re really going to have to let You Lan down. We promised to help out at her place, but in the end, we’ll all run off to live the good life here.”

Ren Dong: “Let’s have Boss You come visit. She’ll like it here.”

Lao Xiang: “She’d never part with her black market street.”

For a time, the dinner table was filled with laughter and cheerful voices.

Chai Yuening watched Chu Ci.

Chu Ci was quiet. She listened to everyone’s words without refuting or participating. The light in her eyes shifted, but it was impossible to fathom her mood at that moment.

Chai Yuening knew only one thing: she had been ordered to leave by Chu Ci today.

Chu Ci didn’t want her to stay here, and perhaps she didn’t want her to return here either.

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At four o’clock the next morning, the sky was not yet light.

Chu Ci saw everyone off at the bottom of the building.

A not-quite-awake Lu Qi casually joked that since they had all been through life and death together, she should at least see them off a little further.

Chu Ci just smiled, her eyebrows curving.

Chai Yuening subconsciously glanced around. The drones hovering in the distance were silently monitoring the area.

“You talk too much.” She grabbed Lu Qi’s arm and pulled him onto the white van that had come to pick them up.

Then she waved to Chu Ci, making her final farewell.

Ye Qing drove them away from there.

Chai Yuening looked back. Chu Ci was still standing at the foot of that tall building.

The vast expanse of stars accompanied her, seeing her off.

The cool night wind tousled her hair, as if wanting to sweep that slender figure from someone’s world, leaving not a trace of gentleness.

Chai Yuening watched as that figure grew smaller and smaller in her line of sight, so far that she could slowly no longer see it, so far that even the tall building disappeared from her world.

For some reason, she felt a hollowness in her heart, and all the sounds around her could no longer reach her ears.

The car arrived at the main city’s airport. Chai Yuening, absent-minded, boarded the return flight. She couldn’t help but feel a sense of longing, yet she departed in utter silence from the “archipelago” nestled in the sea of clouds, and from the person she had personally delivered back to the “island.”

The plane flew from dawn until dusk, as the sun rose and set in the sky.

They once again returned to the sandy plain where the ground signal tower was built.

The plane slowly docked at the entrance of the main city’s lift platform. The inspection personnel at the security checkpoint pushed their instruments toward them.

Everyone lined up to disembark, with Chai Yuening at the very back.

“The captain’s been like she’s lost her soul this whole trip.”

“Boss You was right after all…”

Their whispers were not quiet enough, but Chai Yuening no longer explained herself as she had before.

She suddenly felt that she had indeed been lying to herself all along.

Because she was afraid, because she didn’t dare, because she felt it would lead to nothing, she had to pretend it wasn’t a big deal, even though she couldn’t bear to part.

Chu Ci was too special, so special that she didn’t dare to even think about how she could possibly stay by her side.

She had no way to give her freedom, no ability to protect her, and certainly couldn’t bear the pain of the experiments for her or change her caged-bird-like situation.

But she clearly could have chosen to stay with her.

Chu Ci had said, there were many things she didn’t want her to know, yet she couldn’t help but want her to know.

Chu Ci still had so many unspoken thoughts…

That day, on the rooftop, if she had been willing to press the matter, she surely would have heard them.

Chai Yuening finally realized that she had once again left Chu Ci behind.

The first time, she had left Chu Ci alone in the Ninth District.

At that time, she had thought they would probably never see each other again, and her heart should have been perfectly calm.

But this time, she could no longer calm her emotions.

A familiar voice seemed to be still whispering a reproach in her ear.

—I think I know what sadness is now. It’s really your fault every time.

This time, she must have made her sad again.

The moment the identity and infection checks were complete, Chai Yuening suddenly spun around and slapped open the cabin door of the plane, which had just taken on a new rotating pilot and was preparing for a return flight that night.

“Captain!”

“I can’t leave her behind again!”

Chai Yuening said this and got back on the plane under everyone’s astonished gazes.

“Claim a reward from the Base for me. Chu Ci and I were the ones who found someone to block the ventilation system in the Sixth District. There’s a girl named Jing Mu in the Ninth District; she was the technician that time. If she’s still alive, she can testify for me,” Chai Yuening shouted to the ground. “This, plus the reward for the ground mission, should be more than enough to exchange for one plane trip, right?”

“Aren’t you in a bit of a hurry?” Lao Xiang said, astonished. “You really can’t be apart for even a day!”

“Captain!” Ren Dong shouted. “We’ll get the reward money, pack our things, and come find you!”

Chai Yuening nodded. “Don’t leave anything important behind!”

“Don’t worry, we won’t!” Ren Dong said, waving at Chai Yuening.

Chai Yuening understood that those who firmly believed they would meet again could always say goodbye without any burden.

She and Chu Ci were not like that.

For a fleeting moment, she just had a feeling that if she didn’t go back immediately, she might miss Chu Ci forever.

A round trip of two days and nights.

Around eleven o’clock in the morning on a new day, she once again arrived at the human base in the sea of clouds.

This time, no one came to pick her up.

Clutching the little money she had left, she asked for directions and boarded the city bus, heading toward the place she had temporarily stayed.

At half past three in the afternoon, after taking who knows how many wrong turns, Chai Yuening returned to the foot of that tall building.

She knocked on the door of the corner apartment on the seventeenth floor, only to see another person in pajamas.

There was no one else in the room.

“Chai Yuening?” Ye Qing’s eyes were full of disbelief. “Didn’t you leave?”

She was Yi Shuyun’s assistant; Chai Yuening knew that from the television.

She had a similar build to Chu Ci.

And the wardrobe full of clothes did indeed match the style she wore on camera.

This was Ye Qing’s home.

In a daze, Chai Yuening seemed to hear a voice.

“You should go back.”

“You’ve seen for yourself, I’m doing fine.”

Very soft, very faint, right by her ear, in her heart.

“I was lying to you.”

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