“No matter how much the appearance and memories change, there’s one thing that’s engraved in the soul, and that’s your unique… aura,” Chu Tianshu said. “No matter what form you take, as long as you can still operate, I can recognize you.”
Lin Huai: …
Despite Chu Tianshu’s sincere attitude, Lin Huai still had no intention of revealing the scene he had witnessed before the photo to him.
It wasn’t due to his cautious and careful nature, but rather a gut feeling that told him—if he spoke of that matter, something quite unpleasant would happen.
‘The map,’ the door, the light sphere and the bet, his rebirth, the erroneous memories, and the strange changes happening to his body now, the howl he heard when he was on the verge of losing control—behind him, there seemed to be a grand chess game.
In the best-case scenario, he was the chess player; even in a lesser scenario, he was inevitably a restless chess piece, and even in the worst-case scenario—
He remained extremely calm, believing he could overturn the chessboard.
Moreover, he also vaguely felt that Chu Tianshu knew far more than he let on.
“You left a talisman with Lu Xiaotian,” Lin Huai said. “What are you guarding against? And… from our very first meeting, you were determined to confirm my identity, weren’t you?”
“Because I was worried you might lose control,” Chu Tianshu replied frankly. “The place called ‘Civilized World’ holds a pivotal significance for both you and me. I don’t know what you encountered behind the door or what you experienced afterward to become who you are now. But the only thing I’m certain of is that I want you to see a certain scene.”
“What scene?”
Chu Tianshu pulled back the curtain, revealing the museum square outside. The potential criminals once imprisoned in glass cages were now entering the spaceship in an orderly manner.
They might be uneasy, they might be fearful, but the one thing that was certain—their smiles, bathed in artificial sunlight, with the haze cleared away, were genuine.
“I want you to see that you’ve once again brought happiness here. Whether it’s called ‘Nuclear Winter’ or ‘Civilized World.'”
Lin Huai stood beside him, quietly watching those people board the spaceship. At that moment, he suddenly felt that many questions didn’t need to be asked.
No matter how much Chu Tianshu actually knew, he thought, but he could be certain that his concern for him… was genuine. And he could also feel that, subconsciously, he believed this person was someone he could rely on.
But what he didn’t understand was, according to the facts stated in Chu Tianshu’s words, they should at least be in an adversarial relationship. Why did Chu Tianshu act as if they were both enemies and friends?
…Could it be because a useful lab assistant was too hard to find?
Lin Huai quickly extinguished this thought in his mind.
“So,” he walked over to the photo on the newspaper. The young man beside the dashing youth had his face turned to the side, but one could still see the neat and handsome features under the black, hanging hair. “The me from before looked… quite good.”
Chu Tianshu nodded: “Though still a tad worse than me.”
Lin Huai: “…But I think I was the better-looking one.”
“And the me now,” he looked at his reflection in the mirror, “also looks quite good. I remember the Fierce Ghost version of me also looked quite good.”
He tapped his chin with his finger, as if pondering something.
“Chu Tianshu,” he said, “the reason you’re so concerned about me, is it because you…”
Chu Tianshu perked up his ears.
“Are a face lover?”
Chu Tianshu: …
“Though I’ve now learned about my past identity, I still don’t feel much of a connection to the fact that I was once human,” Lin Huai sighed. “I still feel like a Fierce Ghost…”
“There isn’t much of a gap between humans and ghosts; they’re just two different forms of life. People who become ghosts later are like good friends who suddenly come out to you after ten years of knowing each other. Even if their sexual orientation changes, the times we spent together in the past won’t change. They will still be my best friends…”
“Forgive my bluntness,” Lin Huai narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think becoming a ghost can be compared to coming out.”
“Being human by day and a ghost by night is also a form of becoming a ghost—”
“Brother Lin, Brother Chu, we’re just waiting for you two, hurry up and board the ship—”
From downstairs came the call of Lu Xiaotian, who was in charge of the headcount. Zhao Jingtian stood by with his sword, silently watching the museum’s protective shield.
Outside the shield, dark clouds loomed over the city, and more and more spaceships and cannons gathered there.
“…It’s going to rain,” he said coldly.
Unlike the optimism of Lu Xiaotian and the others, Zhao Jingtian clearly understood that the upper echelons of the greenhouse would not let them go so easily. This wasn’t just a matter of a hundred or so potential criminals; their escape was undoubtedly a slap in the face to the greenhouse!
Therefore, they would absolutely not allow these people to leave. The moment the spaceship left the museum’s perimeter would be the moment they struck!
However…
“What I, Zhao Jingtian, love the most is taking on those who think too highly of themselves,” he thought decisively. “If these people insist on stopping us from leaving, then… never mind, the person who came with the spaceship must have a way.”
Thinking this, he boarded the spaceship with a cold expression. Meanwhile, Lin Huai and Chu Tianshu were just coming out of the museum.
They both saw the densely packed spaceships.
An army at the gates.
“Do you know?” Lin Huai heard Chu Tianshu’s voice. “Anything that can connect to the internet can be breached. No matter how indestructible machinery and networks are built, they have their own vulnerabilities.”
“Let’s have some fun,” Chu Tianshu patted Lin Huai’s shoulder. “A king’s triumphant return should always be accompanied by a cannon salute.”
What answered him was Lin Huai’s smile.
“An interesting thought,” Lin Huai said. “But I… want to watch from the VIP lounge.”
“Even the most perfect plan should have a bit of surprise, shouldn’t it?”
Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, the spaceship docked inside the museum, carrying nearly a hundred people, began to slowly rise. As the blue flames spewed out, the protective shield that had enveloped the entire museum gradually opened.
“Don’t act yet,” the officer ordered. “Wait until they’re far from the Upper East Side before making a move.”
The Upper East Side was the wealthiest part of the entire greenhouse, housing the Capital Museum, the governor’s mansion, and many rich people’s mansions. What the officer wanted was to keep the dangers of battle away from these people.
The other areas were within the range of “acceptable losses.”
Seeing that the spaceship had slowly moved towards the West Side, the officer’s hand, which had been raised halfway, began to tighten. The thousands of people who had been deployed held their breath, staring intently at the red dot representing the spaceship on the screen, their hearts pounding like thunder.
‘Strange…’
In the corner of the monitoring room, a thought flashed through the mind of the radar operator.
He clearly knew that the person who had come to pick up this group was the rebellious general, Xiu. And the spaceship he was piloting was the most advanced model.
Such a spaceship should have been equipped with stealth and anti-radar functions. Yet Xiu didn’t seem to be hiding his tracks; he flaunted himself openly, his behavior almost provocative.
What was he trying to do? Could it be that he was confident enough to dodge all the gunfire—no, that was impossible. Not to mention that the dense barrage left no room for escape, even if he found a sliver of a way out amidst the rain of bullets, the intense maneuvers would be enough to make the other passengers on the spaceship vomit their brains out.
But what was he trying to do?
The radar operator’s mind was in a jumble, and at the same time, in a house beneath the West Side, a little girl was leaning against the window, staring at the sky.
“Mom,” she turned to her mother, “look, there’s an airplane in the sky!”
“Don’t look,” her mother ran over, covering her eyes with her hand, “the broadcast said it’s just a drill. Go back to watching your cartoons.”
“Okay,” the little girl pouted.
She jumped off the stool and returned to the soft sofa. For some reason, the programs on all the major TV channels were exceptionally interesting today. The divorce of a national celebrity couple had captured the attention of most people. For a while, the issue of gender opposition filled the entire internet. Everyone was drawn into the heated debates stirred up by countless trolls.
And the woman sitting on the other side looked at her daughter and sighed.
In another year, her daughter would also face the test that would determine her life, and this carefree child was still oblivious to it all. Thinking this, she turned her gaze to the house on the other side, where the unlit rooms were filled with silence.
A few years ago, the owner of that house had a pair of twin daughters, but after that test, they were both sent to a sanatorium—this thought flashed through her mind. Soon, the woman stopped thinking about this family’s affairs and turned her attention to her phone, which was pushing news of the celebrity divorce.
At the same time, on the big screen, the red dot representing the spaceship finally reached its designated position.
Everyone held their breath.
Three.
Two.
One.
“Fire!” the commander ordered.
At his command, countless people pressed the buttons in their hands. Dozens of pilots flew their planes, heading towards the lonely spaceship under the projected blue sky, roaring as they approached.
A sudden commotion came from outside. The roommate who had been lying on the bed took off his headphones and turned to Su Li, who was sitting at his desk: “What’s going on outside?”
Su Li shook his head, put down his book, rubbed his nose, and looked out the window.
Only to see beautiful fireworks continuously exploding in the sky, their colorful splashes falling on the azure sky, like a sea of blooming flowers. Amidst the sea of flowers, several small fighter spaceships accompanied the central spaceship, continuously parting and closing, forming various shapes. They were like knights escorting a noble king, or like backup dancers surrounding the main dancer in the center.
“Woo~ Surprise?” Chu Tianshu sat in his seat, eyes closed, his long fingers dancing nimbly, as if manipulating invisible strings. “This is the Mechanical Enemy!”
“What the hell are you all doing?!” the commander was furious. “Where are the cannons? Where are my cannons?”
“Sir, I don’t know either!” voices came one after another from the receivers. “The cannons suddenly stopped responding…”
“I can’t control my plane!”
“This… these fireworks weren’t set off by me! I had it on attack mode—”
The sound of machine errors filled the entire control room, and the well-trained, high-ranking officials were momentarily at a loss. They futilely tried to access the control panel, or pressed different buttons, but the machinery was as lifeless as a corpse, not heeding their commands.
It was as if invisible strings had followed every inch of the cables, spreading everywhere, entering the network world. They entangled every 1 and 0, every control character and command character, wherever electricity could reach, it became a stage controlled by it, danced by it. Where it touched, its domain, its kingdom.
They watched helplessly as the spaceship soared in the sky, like a bluebird spreading its wings, or swimming in its divine kingdom. It spread its wings, carrying the sound of wind and roar, with fireworks and cannon salutes, leaping into the distant horizon.
That night.
“No matter what, we must retrieve that spaceship!” the commander’s veins bulged on his forehead. “If we can’t get it back, we will…”
He didn’t say what would come next, but everyone knew. None of them could withstand the wrath of the governor.
But everyone knew this was impossible—the spaceship had irreversibly flown away, traversing the entire greenhouse, from the northern border to the southern frontier, then it crossed the crust, flying to the surface—a place they couldn’t reach.
“It’s over, it’s all over,” the commander threw himself onto his seat, clutching his forehead, despairingly thinking. “My path to promotion, my merits, my future—”
All ruined!
All because of those two… that number 81, and that rebellious general Xiu. Number 81 was one thing, but that general, did he have a cat worm in his brain??
And that power… the power that controlled all the machines…
Who were they?
Just as he was sinking into utter despair, his secretary ran over with a phone: “Sir, it’s the thirteenth governor’s call.”
The commander tremblingly took the call, but a familiar voice came from the receiver: “From now on, abandon the pursuit of them.”
“Yes!”
The commander felt as if he had been granted amnesty. After hanging up the phone, he collapsed on the sofa, relievedly let out a breath.
At the same time, in the thirteenth governor’s mansion in the Upper East Side, the thirteenth governor also put down the phone and looked at the uninvited guest sitting across from him.
“I’ve followed your wish and stopped the pursuit of the spaceship,” he said.
Sitting across from the governor was a young man dressed in a red suit. He leaned back on the sofa, the corner of his mouth curled up, as if he had seen something interesting.
From the moment this person appeared in the room, the thirteenth governor hadn’t even thought about resisting. Like the other twelve, he had already seen what this person had done in the broadcast room on TV. He calmly realized that he didn’t have the ability to resist this person.
“You’re the smartest among the thirteen, no wonder you’re the one holding the reins now,” the red-suited young man said, propping his head up with one hand. “In that case, we don’t need to play this game again with you.”
Saying this, he flicked the revolver in his other hand and tossed it into the thirteenth governor’s lap.
“Russian roulette is a game from ancient Earth times. The rules are simple: place one or more bullets in the six chambers of a revolver, spin the cylinder randomly, then close it. The participants take turns pointing the gun at their own head and pulling the trigger; those who get shot are naturally out, those who chicken out also lose, and the last one standing is the winner,” the young man said in a casual tone. “This was originally a game I prepared for the two of us, you know, for opponents of higher status, it’s only polite to play along to show sincerity.”
The thirteenth governor took the revolver and looked at him: “It sounds like you’ve already visited the other twelve governors.”
“Yes, but some tried to arrest me right away, some just fainted, really, am I that scary?” the red-clad young man shrugged. His complaining voice actually had a bit of a nasal tone, making it somewhat sticky, even with a hint of a bad kid acting spoiled: “So I had to mimic Jigsaw and play a game with them, to make them truly understand the meaning of life, after which they would probably value life more. You’re much better, at least we can have a proper conversation.”
“So, what do you want?” the thirteenth governor looked at the face half-hidden in darkness and half-lit by moonlight; it looked beautiful yet sinister, difficult to approach, untouchable.
“Don’t think of me as someone who makes unreasonable demands. I’m here just to make a peaceful agreement,” the young man squinted and smiled.
“After we leave the greenhouse, we won’t return. So you don’t need to worry about us causing trouble in the greenhouse. And in return—you must not go up there, of course, from now on, for five years, we will accept unofficial escapees to the surface, after five years, we will close this passage,” the red-clad young man said. “How about it?”
The thirteenth governor didn’t hesitate: “Deal.”
“Then it’s settled,” the red-clad young man walked towards him. At that moment, even the usually calm and composed governor couldn’t help but lean back. He was grabbed by one hand, while the other hand landed in his palm, giving it a light touch.
“From now on, the agreement is in effect,” the young man said, walking to the window. “You’ll be a man of your word—and it’s time for me to go back.”
The thirteenth governor watched his back, opened the revolver’s cylinder.
“Forgive my bluntness,” he said, “I’ve seen videos about you and know about the abilities you’ve displayed. Does this mean that even if you were shot in the head, you wouldn’t die?”
What answered him was a soft laugh.
“Yes, so,” the young man under the moonlight turned back, the corner of his mouth curled up, his dark eyes reflecting the moonlight, “I’m not a gambler who bets it all, but—”
“The eternal winner.”
