CH 191

"Yes, you guessed right," I said as I patted the baron's shoulder.

"The great beauty had sacrificed herself to save us. If I had known she was going to do this, I wouldn't have bickered with her," said Zhang Bao'er guiltily.

"This is not the time to wallow in sadness. We need to leave this place as quickly as possible if we don't want to be locked right back in after the core recovers," I said loudly.

"Canyue, I want to go up first with my thrusters. If it's safe, I'll signal all of you to come," said Old Du. I immediately approved his request.

After turning on the thrusters on his morph-capable suit, Old Du slowly soared toward the exit that had opened above us. Shortly after, he went through the moderately sized opening in the ceiling. A few minutes later, I saw him beckoning at us from above.

"Canyue, it's safe. Come up," his voice came from the communicator.

We all jumped into action after hearing his confirmation. With the help of our thrusters, we left Cloudcast's core, a place that had bought us hope and joy alongside death and sorrow. Surprisingly, the moment we left, the ground sealed up under us. The opening we used was completely covered, as though it had never existed in the first place. Only then did I notice that we had arrived at the bottom level of a battleship with its top blown off. The exit was located right under this ship.

"From the condition of this ship, it was recently damaged," said Master Crystal as he studied the damaged part of the ship.

"From the age of the damage, this ship is most likely one that had been struck during the recent conflict between the empire and the league," said Old Du.

I also studied the damaged part of the ship and then pointed at the topmost level and said, "The ship is blocking our line of sight. Let's go to the top floor to have a better vantage of our surroundings."

Following my command, everyone used their thrusters to reach the top level. Only then did we realize that we were actually inside a massive repair center. We hurriedly hid inside the cockpit-cum-command-room at the top of the ship. 

From the command room, we could see that the ship we were in was piled in a massive square alongside more than a thousand other battleships with varying levels of damage. Countless droids were wandering back and forth, repairing these damaged ships. On the ground, countless Eternal soldiers and maintenance vehicles were roaming about as well, all working on repairing these ships.

"We probably entered their repair center. This facility is probably at the front side of the planet," observed Old Du.

"This might be our chance. The ships here are those that have been damaged from war. We can wait until it's dark before stealing a repaired ship to complete our main goal here," suggested Master Crystal.

"Master Crystal is right. We should rest up here and move after it gets dark." I started giving out orders, "Dondon, connect Spacetime with the encrypted channel. See if you can get in touch with Kelly and the others."

Everyone sat down on the floor to recuperate. At that time, I noticed that Baron Sisse was still holding the two organs Li Yizhi left behind. He seemed to be in deep thought from the blank look in his eyes.

"I had not expected Li Yizhi to actually be an android. No wonder her physical appearance is so perfect. The person who had created her must have designed her based on the highest standards of beauty," said Old Du, breaking the silence.

"I don't understand. Since the programs in the core only have illusions that will work against organic brains, why was Li Yizhi's body actually destroyed?" asked Zhang Bao'er.

"That proves that the final core is not an illusion. It is an actual manifestation of nuclear fusion," said Baron Sisse.

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"I understand. Perhaps the final room is the energy supply for the entire core. Therefore, the senior had to sacrifice herself to disrupt the core's natural cycle," said Zhang Bao'er, addressing Li Yizhi as a senior for the very first time.

"I had suspected long ago that the senior was an android. Master Crystal once scanned her body and found that her body temperature was only 20 degrees. Also, she is able to survive without protection in many extreme environments. She can also easily enter all the rooms in the core. And, during our time in the water room, the water droid's first target was Li Yizhi. For the droid, she was its kind. Thus, she became the priority target," I said.

"Since you knew, why didn't you tell us earlier?" asked Zhang Bao'er.

Master Crystal replied on my behalf, "She is very different from normal droids. When I scanned her, I noticed that she was probably made from artificial fibers, giving her the same biological cells as a regular human. Only her brain and heart were produced from unique materials. Thus, it was very hard to judge if she was a droid or if she was merely a new species."

"Yes, and all her biological parts had been burned clean by the nuclear fusion," said Baron Sisse. "Only the two synthetic organs were left. I scanned the two organs. They weren't produced from elements known to us. Even now, they still feel warm to me. It is obvious these organs are still alive in a way."

"When I checked, these organs seemed to have been produced in the year 2122?" said Old Du.

"That's odd. When the senior first met us, she said that she had left Blue for a way to defeat Gliese during the onset of the war in 2070. But she was produced in 2122? Is she a time traveler?" I muttered to myself.

"No wonder she seems so much more technologically capable than us. So she's from the future," said Zhang Bao'er as he recollected how she had been acting.

"It's a pity. I had thought that the so-called nirvana refers to an act of sacrifice when opening the room's door, not throwing your life to open a path out. It was my fault for not being good enough at the programming language used to code these programs. Why hadn't I spoken more to her? I won't have the chance to anymore. I did not appreciate her presence while she was around. Now that she's gone, I realized that there are many things I didn't get the chance to tell her yet," said Baron Sisse, blaming himself.

"Baron, don't be too sad," I comforted. "The situation in the core was too urgent. None of us had much of a chance to talk. Since the senior's two main organs are still around, we can try to look for advanced technologies on other planets to reconstruct her body. At worst, we will only have to wait 30 years for the technology used to manufacture the senior to appear."

"Resurrect her? Yes. So long as we can find the correct human cell manufacturer, we can resurrect her by reconstructing her according to her original structure," said Baron Sisse as he regained some hope. He carefully put the two organs into his backpack.

"Canyue, I have a feeling the senior had known about you long ago," Old Du suddenly said.

"Yes. Her last words were very odd. She said that protecting me at all costs was her highest priority. Was she sent here to protect me?" I guessed.

"Year 2070. What were you doing at the time?" asked Old Du.

"Nothing. I was a newborn. I didn't even know what was going on around me. The war had just erupted at the time," I answered.

"I think I understand. Have you watched a movie called The Terminator? In the movie, an android from the future had been sent back in time to protect a boy. I reckon this was the case for Li Yizhi. She was sent back in time to protect you," Zhang Bao'er suddenly said in excitement.

"That's too big an exaggeration. Only you would believe a story like that. In 2070, I was only an infant. Also, we found her on Cloudcast, not Blue. She had been asleep on Cloudcast for 20 years. This place is over 600 lightyears away from Blue. The probability of her being sent back to protect me is lower than the odds of something winning the lottery," I said.

"You're wrong, very wrong. Canyue, your train of thought is incorrect. Ever since we started carrying out all these missions, I have had the feeling that everything we have done was the arrangement of fate. Perhaps everything that has happened to us up until now is merely a chain of events that the prophet has laid for us. This would explain the many coincidences we encountered in the course of our missions," said Zhang Bao'er.

In fact, Zhang Bao'er's argument was quite reasonable. Even I was unable to refute his words. Although I still refused to believe his words, after reflecting on our experiences, I really couldn't argue against him.

"I believe Brother Zhang Bao'er is right. However, there are many things we need to verify about his theory. If we can resurrect Li Yizhi, we will be able to answer many questions. Moving on, we need to start paying attention to technologies and materials related to human cell production. I believe that in a universe this wide, there must exist a civilization with the technology to resurrect someone," said Master Crystal approvingly.

With Master Crystal's support, Zhang Bao'er's face turned into his usual smug look. That also seemed to be the end of the conversation, and we started resting silently. Only Dondon was still busy trying to get in touch with Spacetime. However, no contact had been established. While chatting and resting, we noticed that up in the sky, Betelgeuse was as bright as ever. It did not show any sign that it was going to set anytime soon.

"Shit. I think the front side of Cloudcast will always be facing Betelgeuse. The sun will never set on this side of the planet," said Master Crystal after we spent a long time waiting.

"Even if the sun doesn't set, these Eternals still need to rest, right? We can wait until it's their resting time before making a move," suggested Zhang Bao'er.

"Canyue, did you see those repair droids?" asked Baron Sisse, who had recovered from his sorrow.

"Yes. I can see that they don't need rest. They are able to work non-stop all day long," I said.

"Yes. Some of these repair droids are also capable of flight. Regardless, each of these repair droids has a small antenna on its back," said Baron Sisse. He was much more attentive to details than I was.

"Are those antennas for the purpose of transmitting data?" I asked.

“That is possible. But they are also probably for the purpose of transmission control. This planet's magnetic fields might be stronger, so the antennas are needed to strengthen their signals," said the baron.

"Baron, what idea do you have?" I went straight to the point.

"I want to catch one of these droids and destroy its antenna to prevent all communication. Then, I'll try hacking into the droid to look for a restored battleship," suggested the baron with a firm look on his face.