Chen Yifei's arrival did not surprise Chu Muyun at all.
He smiled slightly, dragged a chair out of the convenience store, and gestured to Chen Yifei to sit down.
"It seems that you finally have the patience to listen to me about our 'justice'."
"I'm all ears."
Although Chen Yifei was eager to know everything about the USB drive, he believed that since Chu Muyun had given it to him, he would definitely explain it. So he waited patiently for Chu Muyun to start from the beginning.
"How much do you know about the Great Catastrophe?"
Chen Yifei recalled what Dr. Lin had said before,
"It was said that a red meteor streaked across the sky, and the gray world intersected with this world, affecting it... and disasters would crawl out. That's all."
At this point, Chen Yifei suddenly remembered that he had also seen the red meteor on the news in the USB drive...
He seemed to have thought of something and widened his eyes in shock.
"Wait... The one in the USB drive, is it the world before the Great Catastrophe?!"
"That's right." Chu Muyun looked at him in surprise, as if he didn't expect Chen Yifei to guess it so quickly. "What you just said is the 'Great Catastrophe' known to most people in the Nine Realms, but the actual 'Great Catastrophe' is far more than that..."
"What do you mean?"
"According to rumors, the world before the Great Catastrophe was prosperous and thriving. People could use the power of science to do many things... such as flying into the sky, reviving the dead, cities lit up all night like daylight, building virtual worlds in reality, and even leaving this planet to explore the more mysterious and unknown 'universe'..."
While speaking, Chu Muyun observed Chen Yifei's expression and found that the latter had no emotional fluctuation. He couldn't help but ask,
"Aren't you surprised?"
"Huh?"
"What I said, isn't it enough to surprise you?"
Chu Muyun, like everyone else in this world... no, in this era, grew up here and naturally had never seen the technological level before the Great Catastrophe. For them, everything described in the legends was illusory, just like modern people listening to myths.
"...Oh, it's quite amazing." Chen Yifei nodded expressionlessly.
It's just airplanes, medicine, electric lights, games, and spaceships... These were already commonplace for Chen Yifei, who lived in a modern city.
But if his so-called "previous life" was actually the world before the Great Catastrophe, then didn't that mean he hadn't traveled between worlds...
But through time?
"In summary, 379 years ago, a red meteor streaked across the sky, and since then, human material civilization began to decline." Chu Muyun recited it as if it was a predetermined line. "The technological marvels that humans were most proud of collapsed first: photolithography machines, spaceships, and super weapons that could annihilate the world..."
"You mean... human civilization is declining?"
"That's right. People before the Great Catastrophe found that they could no longer manufacture new things like these. It was as if the most basic scientific principles within them all failed. Even if they perfectly pieced together every part, with no difference from before, it just couldn't function...
As time passed, more and more things lost their function: mobile phones, computers, high-speed trains, and large-scale power stations...
Panic spread throughout human society. They didn't know how far material civilization would decline... In this fear, they began to kill each other."
"Wait." Chen Yifei interrupted Chu Muyun, "The decline of material civilization should be a dilemma faced by all humanity. Why didn't they unite and collaborate to overcome difficulties, but instead engaged in mutual destruction?"
"They did unite, but it didn't work." Chu Muyun paused for a moment, "And as I said, they possessed some kind of super weapon that could annihilate the world, but not every country had such a weapon...
Once these weapons all failed and everyone's technological civilization retreated to the same level, the original balance of power would be broken... The strong nations would no longer be strong, and the weak nations would no longer be weak.
To protect their status, resources, and wealth, the strong nations would choose to..."
"Launch all super weapons and annihilate the weak nations that don't have such weapons??" Chen Yifei seemed to have thought of something, "A world war?!"
Chen Yifei naturally understood the importance of nuclear weapons to strong nations. If they were the first to know that the technological level of all countries would retreat to the same starting point, they would inevitably initiate a war first,
Because losing weapons meant losing deterrence, and other countries would inevitably target their oil, wealth, and other things...
"What you said is basically correct, but strong nations didn't only attack weak nations... They also attacked each other, because if the technological level really retreated seriously, human resources would truly determine the survival of a country. They wanted to balance the strength of every country, so they had to weaken the population of countries with different positions as much as possible.
The crystallization of human civilization accumulated over hundreds of years, under the tide of retreat, ultimately became nothing more than a pure killing machine..."
Chen Yifei was silent for a long time and slowly said,
"The intersection of the Gray Realm is not the fundamental cause of the Great Catastrophe... It's the mutual destruction of humanity."
"After that Great Catastrophe, the world was in ruins, and the survivors thought that the world had a new order, but they didn't expect that just a few days later, the Gray Realm began to intersect with reality...
Pollution from an unknown world eroded the earth, and vicious disasters slaughtered living beings. The already exhausted human society suffered a devastating blow.
After that, there was no longer any distinction between countries in the world. The survivors gathered together and established nine bases. Later, they mastered the method to resist the intersection of the Gray Realm, and the nine bases gradually expanded into the current Nine Realms."
"I see." Chen Yifei sighed deeply.
Wait...
If what Chu Muyun said was true, then didn't that mean his parents would also perish in the Great Catastrophe?
Not just his parents, but all the relatives, friends, and colleagues he knew would be swept into this catastrophe... And how many of them could survive?
The people standing on the street watching the news at that time never imagined that the world would undergo a tremendous change soon.
Chen Yifei's eyes fluttered slightly. He now knew everything that happened in that era. He knew that almost everyone he cared about would perish, but he was powerless... That era was nearly four hundred years ago. What could he do now that he knew?
"...You told me these things, and then what?"
"Then, there's the only purpose of our Twilight Society, which is also the 'justice' we believe in." Chu Muyun pointed outside the door, "What do you think of the Aurora Realm?"
Chen Yifei's mind immediately conjured up the image of Wu Youdong limping, the rickshaw puller's disdain for the enforcers, and the ruthless and arrogant people of Bingquan Street, as well as the enforcers who colluded with them for profit...
"...It's chaotic." In the end, he only managed to squeeze out these two words.
"Then if I tell you that, compared to other realms, the Aurora Realm is actually quite good?"
Chen Yifei was stunned.
"The Twilight Society gathers a group of unfortunate individuals who are not tolerated by society. In the eyes of the world, we may be crazies, failures, executioners... The only common ground we have is that we are completely desperate about this era..."
"So, we gather together."
"Gather together, and then what?" Chen Yifei asked.
As the dusky sunset gradually sank into the earth, half of Chu Muyun's face fell into shadow.
He took a deep breath and spoke word by word,
"Reverse the era, restart the world."