Qi Yan realized that he seemed to be in a curved space and time.
He walked in a long corridor with shadows, and there were mirrors on both sides. The mirror on the left showed him sitting alone in the courtyard of the Qi family when he was still young. The building blocks were thrown aside, and he was dismantling the power engine of a toy hover car.
A parenting robot stood two steps away, emitting an electronic voice saying “No, this kind of behavior is not allowed!”
The mirror on the right shows him sitting in his mother's laboratory, flipping through a thick paper book. His mother, Lin Zhi, wearing a white lab coat, is quickly recording something on the reader, with a very focused look on her profile.
At that time, he was not yet six years old. He had been taken away from the Qi family by Lin Zhi for nearly three years. He liked the life during that period very much, because when he showed characteristics different from his peers or even ordinary people, no one would be surprised or frightened like Qi Wenshao. Many people would say:
"This is normal. I was like this when I was a kid, too. Or rather, I was a little better than you. When I was your age, I was studying the Joseph equation."
"You want to change the amount of input into this function? No problem. Come, let's take a closer look to see if your idea can be turned into reality..."
Looking further ahead, in the picture, he seems to be a little older, looking for papers and materials. After reading a part, he starts arguing with the person next to him.
Qi Yan automatically completed this part of the picture - the time was when he was nine years and six months old, and the object of the argument was August, who was thirty-nine years old at that time.
Another scene appeared. Mom finally completed the project she had been working on for eight years. Everyone was cheering, Eliza raised her glass and even shed tears.
The eleven-year-old boy sat in the corner, but felt a vague fear.
Qi Yan instinctively didn't dare to go forward.
He could almost determine what kind of scene he would see if he went forward.
However, this curved space-time channel was not affected by his will. He took a step uncontrollably, and the scene on the right soon emerged - the residential area where Lu Fenghan was rescued.
Eight years ago, this residential area had not been completely abandoned. He remembered that day, Lin Zhi returned to Leto alone without telling anyone, and he followed her quietly almost relying on his sixth sense, and took the starship with Lin Zhi to several jump points.
After Lin Zhi disappeared behind the closed door, Qi Yan waited for a long time and forcibly changed the door lock system and opened the door.
What hit my nose was a strong smell of blood.
His mother, Lin Zhi, one of the best scientists in the Alliance, committed suicide.
Qi Yan felt very cold, with the sound of continuous rain ringing in his ears. At the same time, the curved corridor of time and space became more and more distorted. All the images, his childhood, his teenage years, the cheering people, the bookshelves, the walls, the buildings - everything, were scattered like broken pieces of a puzzle.
Amid the sound of thunder, Qi Yan suddenly opened his eyes.
There was a burning flame in front of him, and above his head was a cone made up of several long pointed stones, and he was lying on a stone below the cone. A few steps away, bean-sized raindrops hit the ground, and the air was full of humid water vapor.
He was wearing a coat and resting his head on Lu Fenghan's thigh.
"woke up?"
There was a pair of hands pressed against his ears, as if shielding him from the thunder.
"Yeah, I'm awake." Qi Yan's voice was hoarse and his throat was sore. The scene of the starship explosion appeared in front of his eyes. He turned to Lu Fenghan and asked, "Are you injured?"
Lu Fenghan raised the corner of his lips: "You don't care whether you are injured or not, but you care about me first?" He pulled up his sleeves and exposed his arms. "Does this count? When the escape pod crashed, it was scratched by something and has solidified."
Seeing Qi Yan staring at the wound, Lu Fenghan sighed, "It doesn't hurt. Do you think everyone is as afraid of pain as you are?" Then he pointed to Qi Yan and said, "The escape pod on the civilian starship is of good quality. It carried us out of the jump channel and broke through the atmosphere of this planet. When it hit the ground, you can still roughly see its original shape."
Qi Yan looked over and saw a nearly oval object lying upside down on the ground. Its outer shell was charred and its metal surface was curled up. It was only half a step away from being destroyed.
"Is the positioning system up there still there?"
"Yes, the personal terminal cannot connect to the star network. This planet is uninhabited and there is no living creature. Fortunately, this thing is of good quality. The rescuers should be able to find our location through the coordinates of the escape pod."
Although the situation was unknown, Lu Fenghan spoke very easily.
Qi Yan sat up and found that the fire was made up of several brown stones, and the flames were a light blue. He looked around, the fierce rain limited the visible range, but there were scattered stones on the ground.
"This place... is a bit like a mining planet."
The Alliance calls planets that are poor in biological resources but rich in mineral deposits mining planets. Usually, after the exploration team has made a clear exploration, they will dispatch a certain number of mining robots to carry out mining operations.
"It should be." Lu Fenghan casually pulled the coat that was sliding down Qi Yan's shoulders, "I just don't know if we are still within the alliance. In addition, there are nutrients stored in the escape pod. If we drink them sparingly, the two of us can survive for a week."
He joked again, "It's just that the two-day trip to Planet Woz turned into a multi-day trip to an unknown planet."
Qi Yan recalled carefully: "When you asked everyone to press the escape pod button, I saw Ye Pei and the others did as you said."
"Well, it's probably nothing. He'll just float in space for a few days, and at most he'll end up on an uninhabited planet like us. He'll definitely not die." Lu Fenghan had been forced to land on an uninhabited planet more than once or twice. After figuring out the general situation around him, he wasn't scared at all.
Reassured, Qi Yan discovered that the place where they were seemed to be a plain, but apart from a few pointed rocks, there was nothing else on the plain. Rainwater gathered on the ground and quickly seeped into the ground.
When the next thunder came, Qi Yan pulled the loose coat he was wearing closer.
Lu Fenghan leaned against the stone wall, one leg bent, his arm casually resting on his knee. He caught a glimpse of Qi Yan's little movements and asked, "Are you afraid of thunder?"
Qi Yan nodded: "Yeah."
Perhaps because he had just experienced an accident, or perhaps because they were the only two people on this planet, Lu Fenghan rarely gave up his sense of propriety and asked, "Why are you afraid of thunder?"
silence.
Amid the overwhelming sound of rain, Qi Yan replied softly: "It was also raining like this on the day my mother committed suicide."
Lu Fenghan's breathing stagnated.
He had secretly speculated on the cause of Qi Yan's mother's death. With the current medical technology of the Alliance, many diseases can be cured, so he thought it might be an accident or a genetic disease.
But I didn't expect it to be suicide.
He remembered again that Qi Yan once held a soft pillow and knocked on the door of his room, and every time there was thunder, he would nervously wrinkle the sheets.
Perhaps still influenced by the images he saw before waking up, Qi Yan stared at a certain point in the air and continued, "Actually... I had a premonition a long time ago. She has been ill and her mental condition is very bad, but because she has been working on a project, she seems... very calm and rational. But she is like a taut bowstring. When it is stretched to the extreme, it will break."
"Everyone was surprised and thought she would never commit suicide. How could she commit suicide?"
Lu Fenghan looked at Qi Yan, watching him hug his knees and curl up in his coat.
It's so pitiful.
"My mother once said that she has always been in a delicate state of madness and clarity. Once what she is doing comes to an end, she will be swallowed by the darkness." The blue flames reflected in Qi Yan's eyes, and he was absent-minded for a while, "Eliza has been helping my mother develop medicine, but it's no use. Her condition has been up and down.
I now understand a little bit, she... lives a very hard and tiring life."
As he spoke, Qi Yan's narration became a little confused. "When I walked into that door, the smell of blood was so strong that I couldn't breathe. I knew what happened. When she left quietly without telling anyone, I guessed what she was going to do.
I was already eleven years old at that time, and I had the ability to think independently. I was able to grow up safely under the protection, so she was relieved...
In fact, I should act less smart, right? A little clumsy, a little timid, always needing her care - but,"
Qi Yan whispered to himself softly: "She will leave anyway."
No one will always be with him.
Lu Fenghan had encountered countless rainy days, in Leto, on the uninhabited planet, at school, and on the front line, but no rain made him so upset and depressed.
His memory is so good that every time there is a thunderstorm, the scene that happened will be repeated exactly as it happened.
Will you even be unable to distinguish between reality and memory
What does it feel like to watch your mother die over and over again, to be powerless over and over again, and to be told clearly and constantly that she would still leave
Lu Fenghan closed his eyes.
Barely suppressed the emotions.
Qi Yan did not allow himself to indulge in this emotion. He pinched his brows and his face turned pale: "Elisa said that if I keep recalling this incident, it will make my condition worse."
Before Lu Fenghan asked, Qi Yan took the initiative to speak: "Eliza is my mother's doctor and also my doctor."
After he finished speaking, his voice was still hoarse, but he had recovered and changed the subject: "The Alliance and the Rebels, is the situation not good?"
Lu Fenghan followed his wishes: "Why do you think so?"
"The space pirates have been hiding for twenty years, but now they dare to take action near Leto. They are not afraid at all."
"There will be a war soon." Lu Fenghan said bluntly, "The pro-war faction is weak, and the pro-peace faction thinks they are in control, which will only make the rebels and interstellar pirates more emboldened, and give rise to the arrogant idea of swallowing Leto in one gulp."
But there was nothing he could do.
From the moment he was ambushed on the front line, the outcome of this matter was foreseeable at a glance, and it was not something that could be reversed by one person's efforts.
The thoughts and plans of the alliance military leaders are just a narrow gap. The choices and destinies of countless people intertwined will turn this gap into a chasm that cannot be easily filled with sand.
The Alliance is bound to experience an inevitable war.
Prayer: "Will the war reach Leto?"
“A high probability.”
Holding his chin, Qi Yan looked at the dark blue flames and thought, if a war really happened in Leto, he would definitely be taken away for safety. By then, Lu Fenghan—
Lu Fenghan probably won't go with him.
So he asked again: "Will the war happen within two years?"
Noticing the time limit of "two years", Lu Fenghan stared at Qi Yan for two seconds and was forced to look away: "The rebels can't wait that long, two years."
That is, the war will begin before the contract expires.
Lu Fenghan will leave.
Qi Yan said "Oh" and lowered his eyes to look at the raindrops falling on the ground.
The two fell silent again, each thinking about their own things. For a moment, the only sound was the heavy rain washing over the sky and earth.
There is no data to refer to for the climate and day and night of this planet. Calculated using Leto time, it rained for almost two hours. After the dark clouds dispersed, a "sun" appeared in the sky, but the heat was not very high. After a long time of exposure, the ground was still wet.
The two men came out from under the pointed stone and walked around nearby. As far as the eye could see, there were nothing but stones. But this also showed that as long as there were enough nutrients, they would be safe until rescue arrived.
Lu Fenghan recalled that when he was in the First Military Academy, he took a course called "Space Psychological Training". At that time, they all felt that this course was too contemptuous. What was there to train for
It was not until the teacher threw them all into the simulation cabin and the entire space appeared in their field of vision in a holographic way and everything seemed real that they realized their arrogance.
As a tiny carbon-based creature, a ray of radiation or a bit of flying ash in the universe could be fatal.
If we encounter special circumstances, such as flying for a long time without being able to touch the ground and being forced to land on a planet with no life, it will induce the "space phobia" hidden in human genes.
But Lu Fenghan didn't think about it anymore, because the rain started again, and the rain was still heavy. This made Lu Fenghan wonder where such a large rain cloud came from. Did it think it was a sprinkler system? It rained for a while and then came again.
The two men hid back under the pointed stone cone. The sky was dark and lightning flashed.
Hearing the thunder, Lu Fenghan patted his thigh and asked silently.
Qi Yan followed his inner thoughts, moved over, and rested his head on Lu Fenghan's thigh.
Covering Qi Yan's ears with his hands, Lu Fenghan lowered his head and leaned closer to ask Qi Yan: "Do you want to sleep for a while? When you wake up, the rain will stop, and maybe the rescuers will arrive."
Qi Yan raised her eyes to look at him: "Don't coax me, I'm an adult now."
Lu Fenghan asked back: "Why did you coax me that night?"
Qi Yan closed his eyes, turned around, turned his back to Lu Fenghan, and pretended not to hear.
Lu Fenghan laughed and pinched Qi Yan's thin white earlobe with his fingers: "You can't even ask this, huh?"
Qi Yan ignored him.
It’s not that I can’t ask, but... he doesn’t seem to know the answer either.