CH 51.2

Chapter 51.2 – Tower 4

Shi Yuan went to Wu Zhengqing several times.

Wu Zhengqing excitedly taught him popular science. Various spacecraft in various galaxies circled Shi Yuan and made him dizzy, he listened to a cloud of confusion.

He didn’t understand much, and Wu Zhengqing didn’t care. Instead, he praised Shi Yuan, who was patient and quiet, and felt that he had found a treasure.

The staff of the welfare center was also familiar with Shi Yuan.

In their opinion, Shi Yuan was also a big treasure – he actually stabilized Wu Zhengqing, so that the old man stopped thinking about running back to Iron City.

In short, both sides were very satisfied.

Shi Yuan was not bored. He saw the vast sea of stars, huge space stations and rockets, the birth and destruction of stars in Wu Zhengqing. He heard about gamma-ray bursts, black holes that can distort gravity, and planetary storms that can destroy everything.

These things made him feel inexplicably familiar.

Just like on the stage in his dream, it was also dotted with starlight.

“It would be great if I could go back to Iron City.” Wu Zhengqing always said, “Back to Iron City, back to other cities, back to the Aerospace Center… Shi Yuan, did you know that we can’t actually build aircraft anymore.”

Shi Yuan shook his head.

“The last aircraft assembly plant is in Iron City. With the technical strength of the Alliance, there is no way to get a new assembly plant,” Wu Zhengqing said, “The main city can still produce armored helicopters, but it is impossible for aircraft. Production capacity is declining day by day, technology cannot be innovated, and sophisticated components are becoming more and more difficult to produce. Maybe soon even helicopters will not be able to be produced. We will eventually lose the sky.”

“But,” Wu Zhengqing looked at the wall for the umpteenth time, with a picture of the sea of stars hanging on it, “The sky and sea of stars were supposed to be our journey… “

He told Shi Yuan that before the end of the world, the Alliance had tested the first frigate with great success.

The frigate was a start, he said, and once it succeeded, it meant the army could go into space on a large scale and make efficient journeys, and they could build new space stations next to the stars and look out over the Milky Way. Everything was within reach.

He said, in fact, it was only a few years away. As long as you wait a few more years, humans will be able to get rid of the gravitational pull and officially step into space and become the people of this galaxy.

“It’s just a little bit,” Wu Zhengqing said, “Really just a little bit and we can leave this planet. When the frigate was sailing at full speed, the whole space center was cheering, and the engineers and I finished dividing a whole pack of cigarettes, holding them in our mouths and getting so excited that we forgot to smoke them, letting them burn out for nothing. We were so happy that we didn’t sleep a night.”

He said in a daze: “That was really a good time.”

Starlight was originally within reach.

But it was like a cigarette butt falling in the ash, crushed by the soles of the shoes, and there were cold ashes all over the place.

There was only one old man left on the top floor of Tower 4. He lived in the past, tracing the sea of stars’ dreams over and over again.

One day, just as Shi Yuan said goodbye to Wu Zhengqing, he heard a commotion.

“Hold him down! Hold him down!”

“Where are the inhibitor?! Where’s the doctor, come here quickly!”

“…I can’t hold him down anymore! Come, come, come!”

Shi Yuan walked along the sound, and saw a mutant pressed on the bed by everyone – his pupils dilated, as if he was extremely agitated, and his beast-like claws scratched the quilt to pieces.

Sometimes the emotions of the mutants were unstable and could only be suppressed.

Wang Yu rushed over and gave him an inhibitor and tranquilizer. The mutant slowly calmed down and closed his eyes tightly on the bed.

Wang Yu was covered with sweat and sat on the chair next to her. Shi Yuan walked into the room and asked her, “Do you need help?”

Wang Yu took a few breaths and pointed to the bathroom: “Help me get that towel.”

The mutant had just knocked over the water cup and the table was full of water. Shi Yuan brought a towel and wiped the desktop.

A hand gripped his wrist in an iron grip!

When he turned his head, the mutant opened his eyes, grabbed his wrist, and there was a fanatical light in his eyes!

They stared at each other for five seconds.

Shi Yuan remembered the monsters below the stage in his dream, they had the same eyes.

He asked softly: “You…what do you want from me?”

The man’s eyes gradually blurred, he slowly let go, his head tilted, and he fell asleep again.

Wang Yu took a blood test to test his infection rate, which was so high that even inhibitors could not suppress it.

Two days later, he passed away. No family or friends came to say goodbye. The welfare center paid out of its own pocket and held a simple funeral for him. The participants were all the staff who had taken care of him.

Shi Yuan also went to see Alice once.

The girl jumped lightly between the servers, and fell lightly in front of Shi Yuan.

Shi Yuan told her about the interesting things he had encountered recently, such as the wretched fish at home almost died, but fortunately, he changed the water in time, and such as the broken-mouthed white bird, bullying the weak and fearing the hard, only dared to scold him and did not dare to scold Lu Tinghan.

Alice listened with relish.

She said: “In my database, there are many such stories, but they are not as interesting as yours.” She smiled with her dimples. “Maybe because you’re my friend! Your story is the most interesting!”

“Yes.” Shi Yuan said, “It’s fun to tell stories.”

He remembered Lin Yeran again, Captain Yan who was forbidden to be mentioned.

Alice thought for a while: “It’s a pity that I have been staying here and I don’t have my own story to tell you… How about this, Shi Yuan, do you have something you want to ask me?”

Shi Yuan thought for a while and asked, “Who gave your doll unicorn?”

“It’s me!” Alice replied quickly. “Everyone else has a gift during the New Year, but I don’t have one, so I got one for myself. I can get more—” She flicked her finger lightly, and countless dolls gushed out at her feet, she giggled, “It’s a pity that I can’t send you one.”

“It’s okay,” Shi Yuan said, “Someone will play with me when I go home.”

Alice: ?

AI appeared to be stuck for a short time.

Shi Yuan asked again: “Is the ‘Echo’ project almost successful?”

“Yes.” Alice nodded. “I’ve been calculating for 49 years, and now I’m finally close to having an answer. But it will take a long, long time for ‘Overlook’. The universe is so big that even if I formatted all my storage space, it wouldn’t fit the details in a light year.”

“Can the ‘Overlook’ still succeed?”

Alice said, “Give me enough time, of course, it can. All I want is time.”

Shi Yuan was a little relieved.

He knew that humans valued these two projects very much and almost regarded them as hopes for the future.

It was a pity that Alice couldn’t be discovered by others. She didn’t have much time to stay, there were only a few seconds left.

Shi Yuan asked the last question: “Do you know what ‘love’ is?”

He was still struggling and still learning.

“Love… of course, I know.” Alice smiled and bent her eyes. “I have relevant materials, according to statistics, most people have a very high degree of identification with them, even to the point of liking, which is enough to prove their authority. I transferred them to your mobile phone. It may take some time. You can watch them when you get home.” Her figure gradually became transparent. “Wait for next time, wait for next time – come visit me again!”

Shi Yuan went home.

When Lu Tinghan’s car just came back, he was lying at the window watching, the tip of his tail wagging wildly.

Lu Tinghan was not the only one who came this time. Two people got out of another car and saluted Lu Tinghan to say goodbye. Shi Yuan recognized them. They were by Lu Tinghan’s side that day and seemed to be plotting something.

He didn’t know if it was his illusion…

Lu Tinghan seemed to have more frequent contact with these people, and their cold and hard expressions were always disturbing.

Fortunately, every time he went home, it was the same Lu Tingting who would touch his head.

Shi Yuan: “Touch!!”

Lu Tinghan rubbed his head vigorously.

That night, Shi Yuan and Lu Tinghan went to the abandoned energy tower again.

The night wind was strong, blowing thousands of windmills, and the abandoned northern district was littered with broken lights. It was still what Lu Tinghan had seen and heard when he was a child.

Shi Yuan’s gaze crossed the city and stayed on the black Tower 4.

The top of the tower was lit with emergency lights from the Welfare Center for the Mutants. It was dark in the middle of the tower, where the phone was ringing constantly, and there were still a few yawning operators sitting there. As for the bottom of the tower… Alice was holding her unicorn, walking barefoot in the torrent of data, closing her eyes, and watching the eternal summer and fireworks.

That was a magical place.

The top of the tower was the past, old dreams buried in the stars; the middle of the tower was the present, the stories of others would come through electromagnetic waves, interweaving a miniature of the world; the bottom of the tower was the future, algorithms and logic, echoes and distant views, trying and failing again and again, mankind always had to find a way to hope.

The wind was getting stronger and stronger. Lu Tinghan embraced Shi Yuan and blocked the cold for him.

Shi Yuan buried his head on his chest and said in a muffled voice: “Lu Tinghan, I finally found the answer to ‘love’ today.”

This was really rare, Lu Tinghan raised his eyebrows: “Well?”

“Someone passed it to me, I haven’t looked at it yet.”

Lu Tinghan: “…passed it to you?”

“Yes.” Shi Yuan fumbled and took out his mobile phone. “Look—”

The screen opened, and Alice’s newly transmitted files were clear at a glance.

[Shocking! High-definition XXXXXXXXX]

[Male teacher and male student XXXXXXXX, and finally the principal also participated! Click to see!]

[Once in a thousand years! XXXXXX Demon Fox and Cold-Faced Taoist XXXXXX 18 XXXXX Extreme Sad*mas*chism S*x XXXXXX]

[Shocking! XXXXXXXX! XXXXXXXXX!]

Lu Tinghan: “……”

Lu Tinghan：“…………?!!”