Chapter 3304: Untitled
Although Tie Xiong had a lot of outrageous thoughts about the Thousand Treasures Sea, the haggard old man was, after all, the leader of the civilization of mankind for more than a hundred years and a ‘god’ that countless people believed in, cursed, and had to believe in. Tie Xiong calmed himself down and reported the riot that had taken place in the fleet over the past few days to the old man.
It had been determined that the riot was a well-planned operation.
With the destruction of Earth, the fleet of the New Earth Union Fleet was further and further away from home. After multiple massacres and purges, the old order had long been gone.
The millions of survivors and the dark, cold universe were merely separated by a cold iron wall. In such a confined, high-pressure, and desperate environment, it would only take one second for human beings to turn into animals and animals into devils.
During the hundred years of escape, the opposition to the Thousand Treasures Sea had never died down. Small-scale riots and strikes had taken place, but they were all minor problems and did not affect the mission of the coalition fleet much, because none of the objections could solve one problem. “If we don’t listen to the command of the Thousand Treasures Sea and move forward to the other side of the universe, the source of the meteoroids, where should we go?”
If the problem was not resolved, the riot would always be a riot. It was just the venting of the dissatisfaction under the exhaustion and pain.
However, the ‘returners’ were different.
The ‘regressionists’ were the most dangerous ideology that had emerged in the coalition fleet in recent years. They were already very persuasive and destructive.
Just as the name suggested, the Returners claimed that, after a hundred years of self-purification and repair, the Earth had been freed from the destructive solar storm and regained part of its vitality. At least, compared to repairing the Earth, the hope of finding a new home at the end of the universe was slimmer. Therefore, the coalition fleet should not continue marching toward the unknown darkness but turn around and return to Earth.
“Sailing in the sea of stars is much more difficult than we expected. It will take us tens of thousands of years to reach our destination. The food circulation system and the hibernation system are not enough to support such a long journey. We are doomed to fail and perish in the ultimate darkness!
“Let’s turn back. There is no end to the sea of bitterness. Let’s turn back now!”
“It’s not too late to change our route now. The way back has been explored clearly by us. We won’t run into any more obstacles. We are definitely going back.”
“Born on Earth, die on Earth!”
“Go back to Earth and rebuild our most beautiful home. In the vast universe, Earth is our only paradise!
The returners were spreading such rumors in secret. They were corroding the bodies of the coalition fleet of Earth like venom and slowly eroding the last bit of trust that people had in the Hidden Sea.
Different from the complaints and meaningless catharsis in the past, the ideology of the homers was not only tempting but also highly operable. After several major setbacks and the heavy losses of the fleet, the blue planet in the past had become the paradise that countless people dreamed of again. The strength of the homers grew stronger and stronger day by day. Right now, they could even link dozens of starships together and launch large-scale protests for half a month. Finally, they had become a major headache for the coalition fleet.
“My commander-in-chief!”
Although Wan Canghai was not the nominal supreme commander of the coalition fleet of New Earth, all his trusted subordinates addressed him in such a way. Tie Xiong was no exception. “The Return Party has grown big. If we continue to retreat and compromise, the fire of destruction will only burn brighter and brighter. It’s time… to make a decision!”
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“The road ahead of us is long. The march of suffering might not be over for many years. A loose fleet of immigrants is not destined to reach their destination. Only an iron-willed, disciplined army will do!
Tie Xiong’s heart was beating fast. He explained the whole scheme that he had been thinking about for a long time.
Whatever the old man’s reaction was, it was within his expectations.
However, the old man was as unresponsive as rotten wood and neither agreed nor disagreed.
Tie Xiong gathered his courage and moved close, only to hear Wan Canghai say in a low voice, “Got it. You may leave.”
Tie Xiong was dazed for a moment. Rolling his eyes, he did not intend to ask further. He bowed to his ‘commander-in-chief’ and left the room.
The lights in the room suddenly dimmed. In the dim and subtle atmosphere, it was a long time before the feeble breathing of an old man could be heard.
Contrary to Tie Xiong’s expectation, Wan Zanghai’s lack of response was not because of any tricks, but because he really did not care about anything that happened to the Rogue Fleet anymore.
As his brain gradually dried up, his vitality was drained bit by bit. After the destruction of the Earth and the massacre in the outer solar system, the world outside of the Thousand Treasures Sea was gradually collapsing. Like all the other old people, he was more and more immersed in the painful memories, the regrets in the past, and the people and things in his childhood.
He gradually experienced hallucinations and hallucinations. He often thought that the starship he was on was the rusted internal organs of an iron beast. The zigzagging, dark pathways were like the digestive tract of the beast, and he was being tortured in the stomach of the beast.
It was difficult for him to enter the hibernation state again. Even the most effective hibernation drugs were not enough to stop the flames, pools of blood, and the ghosts from his dream.
The victims included the nobles and the rich who had been killed by him in the massacre of the outer Solar System, as well as the ordinary people who had been abandoned by him when he left Earth. The nobles, the rich, and the ordinary people all looked the same when they were killed. Their faces were twisted and pale, and they stared at him in bewilderment, sorrow, and desperation.
They did not need to shout or stretch out their hands. Just looking at him with such desperate eyes, looking at him, looking at him all the time, he could not bear it any longer and was on the verge of collapse.
“Ahhh! Karma! Karma! This is our karma!”
Sometimes, the old man would wake up from his nightmare, waving his skinny arms and struggling like a drowning man, trying to get rid of the ubiquitous fear and desperation.
“We can’t run away. We can’t. Hehehehe. Nobody can run away from Earth. Nobody!”
Sometimes, he would spend half a day staring at the back of the starship, as if his eyes could see through the walls, cabins, and pathways, through the dark stars, and back to Earth where he could see the miserable state of the planet after the apocalypse.
Was it important to protest, riot, and retreat? It was not important at all. Even if there were no retreats, there would still be some and some. There would be all kinds of bizarre stories, exposing the ugliest side of human nature and killing the hope of survival.
Even if they could survive and reach their destination after all the difficulties, would they still be human beings?
He didn’t know. He really didn’t know.
When he was young, he had once made up his mind to look for hope at the end of the universe.
But it was not until the end of his life that he realized what the will of mankind was in the face of the vastness of the sea of stars and how terrible the price was to defy the natural order.
He failed after all.
He had reached the end of his life after all.
After all, there was no hope to find a way to reverse time, even if he had become inhuman and turned himself into a devil beyond recognition at any cost!
The happy and the sad, the righteous and the evil, the trusting and the betraying, the sinking and the rising, the human nature and the bestial nature, the angels and the devils—they were all jokes, dust-like jokes, when viewed from the scale of the universe.
Was this the end?
Wan Canghai asked himself.
Then, he heard a faint whimper. The pain of surviving a disaster was mixed with the joy of reuniting after a long time. A clear and melodious voice like that of a lark called out, “Brother?”
Wan Canghai’s eyes suddenly bulged. The bulging veins and the black age spots were mostly gone. He seemed to have regained his vitality and could not believe his ears until the voice came again. “Brother, I’ve finally found you!”
It was his sister’s voice.
For a moment, Wan Canghai was in a trance. He seemed to see a cluster of translucent brilliance crouching in a corner of the room, vaguely condensing into the shape of a human being, which looked like a ghost in the legends who had turned into a little girl in ragged clothes. She was fair and cute, but her legs were too thin to support the weight of her body. She could only curl up and look at him pitifully with her watery eyes.
Wan Zanghai was like a nightmare; he could not control himself.
His dirty tears almost blinded him, making him unable to see anything except his sister whom he had not seen for hundreds of years.
“Bai Linger, is that you, Bai Linger?”
Wan Canghai breathed heavily. He rolled off the bed and crawled toward the ghost on the corner of the wall, his hands shaking. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you for more than a hundred years. I couldn’t find you. I couldn’t find you, Bai Ling’er!”
“I couldn’t find you, either, brother. At first, I couldn’t find you. Later, I didn’t dare to look for you for fear that I would destroy you.
The ghost that looked like a little girl had two streams of tears on her face, too. “At that time, I stayed in the village with everybody and waited for you and my big brother to come back with food and drugs. When you didn’t come back, I risked going out to take a look. Tombstone Town was destroyed. All the towns nearby were destroyed. Then, the major gangs in the Furious Blood Wasteland such as the Citi Gang, the Vulture Gang, and the Scorpion Gang were all destroyed. The entire Furious Blood Wasteland lost its order. Many bad guys were running everywhere. Our village was destroyed, too. Most of the people were killed. I was sold as goods because of my ‘ability’. I didn’t know what I was or where I was even after twenty years.
“Later, my ‘ability’ grew stronger and stronger. Many people gathered around me and called me ‘Goddess’. I gradually learned of my brother’s whereabouts, too. But by then, you were already a big shot in the Hidden Sea with a bright future ahead of you. You were the shining star of tomorrow. It was even more inappropriate for me to disturb you and let the bad guys discover your real identity. I knew that you must’ve suffered a lot to get to where you are today. I couldn’t destroy you.
“Then, there was the meteoroid attack and the solar storm. The entire planet was on fire, but the immigration starship flew away in advance. What was going on exactly? Brother, didn’t we agree that everybody could leave together? Why didn’t you bring us?”