Earth is gone... Is gone... Gone!
No no no, this isn't real. The one that just disintegrated was a black planet. Wasn't Earth the Blue Planet? This one had no single bit of blue on it!
However… the space station that Yao Si was on was on the backside of the planet. It was the side without light, so it was very normal for it to look black. Besides, if she had really come to the future, after all these years, the resources on Earth would have been used up, so it changing to a different color didn’t seem to be...
No, there was no way Yao Si was accepting this horrifying truth. She still had a whole hard-drive of TV shows she hadn't finished watching; a wall full of anime she hasn't seen yet; a whole phone full of novels she hadn't taken a peek at yet. She had been in a rush when she left the house, so she hadn’t even fed the cat yet.
Has anyone considered the cat's feelings? Do your hearts not ache?
The main thing was that even though she was this old, she hadn’t left the boundaries of F city before. There was a whole wide world out there that she hadn't seen yet, so how could it be gone?
"Miss Yao, Miss Yao?" Her shoulder became heavy as she was suddenly pushed by someone.
"Huh..." Yao Si was shocked and finally retraced her thoughts. Her brain was still a mess, so it took her a while to look up at the person next to her. "Dr. Wang?"
"Commander Lu and the deputy commander are here." Dr. Wang pointed to the door. "They have some questions they want to ask you."
Commander and deputy commander, weren’t they the first and second in charge of this place?
Yao Si turned around to take a look, and a face filled with agitation and accusations stared right at her. This person was in a black uniform, and there was a sense of "I’m not someone you mess with" about him.
It made Yao Si's heart sink, ummmm... She didn’t owe this commander any money, right?
"Nice to meet you, commander Lu." She waved her hand and greeted him.
Upon a closer inspection, she realized that there was another person behind him. Compared to the "you owe me money that you haven’t yet repaid" commander, the deputy commander behind him looked much kinder. With a face full of smiles, he responded with a nod.
The commander’s with the last name of Lu line of sight flew right past Yao Si, and he asked the person beside him, "Is the genetic examination done?"
"It's been done, the results will come out in a few minutes," Dr. Wang answered.
"Okay." He waved his hand over his forearm and pulled up an optical screen. Yao Si guessed that it was probably something like a portable computer.
He seemed to have opened up some file, for with a look of "business is business", he cast his eyes at her again and asked, "Your name is Yao Si?"
"Yes."
"Identify your gender, race, age, planet, and the person in charge of that planet."
Yao Si was dumbstruck, was this… a census survey? Still, she replied obediently, "Female, Chinese, 28, lived on the planet... Earth, person in charge..." Who should she name…
"Are you joking around?"
Before she had the chance to finish, commander Lu's brows twisted into a knot. If back then he had been owed five million, then the amount had just increased to ten million.
"Miss Yao, if you want to be acquitted of a charge, please at least find a better excuse." With a "beep", Commander Lu shut the optical screen in his hands down and stared with a great disapproval at her. "The third planet Earth has been unsuitable for living since tens and thousands of years ago, the entire galaxy knows this. Using this excuse to avoid punishment, are you treating my No.333 space station as nothing?"
"Acquitted of a charge?" Yao Si was a little confused. "What charge?"
"Need I remind you?" Commander Lu chuckled sarcastically. "Entering without permission into the locked level-ten dangerous planet, seriously affecting the planet termination plan of the Union, wasting the Union's search resources. Every single one of these violations is enough for me to report you to the galactic law court."
What was this galactic law court?
"Hold up!" She needed to clear this up. "The level-ten dangerous planet that you just mentioned...You're not referring to Earth, are you?"
"What other level-ten dangerous planet is there in the solar system?" The accusation in the commander's voice deepened. "Young people like you really don't know the immensity of heaven and earth, what do you think planet termination is? A scenic planet for tourism? Can you fool around there?
"How could you ignore the galactic union's law at such a young age. No matter what race you belong to, your ministry of foreign affairs needs to give us an explanation."
Oh shoot! How did this escalate to the ministry of foreign affairs? Growing up, the most important official Yao Si had ever seen was just a university dean.
"You mean… I trespassed onto Earth and affected your work, so I have committed a crime?" The commander didn't reply, the answer was obvious. "But… I was originally on Earth? I was born there, it's you guys who..." Dug me out.
"That's enough, no more quibbles." Commander Lu impatiently cut off her sentence. "Relax, you won't be locked up for too long, but you're not going to get away from the two percent maximum jail time."
"What I said was all true!" She was really wronged for goodness sake! And what was this two percent jail time? Didn’t they go by years at this place?
"My dear commander, my brother, please listen to me. I have been asleep underground for a long time, maybe even thousands or tens of thousands of years. I still don't know how to calculate the exact time yet, but it's definitely before your plans even..."
"Enough!" Lu Ren clearly didn't believe her words. He turned and walked out with no hesitation. "If you have anything to say, then say it in the galactic law court."
Oh hell, things weren’t going well for her. Being turned into a vampire was acceptable, but waking up from a nap to learn that Earth was gone? And the next thing awaiting her was jail… Was she really that unfortunate?
"No wait, commander..." Listen to me, let me explain!
"Commander." The deputy commander that was standing silently nearby turned and gave her a "don't worry" look. He extended his arm and stopped commander Lu Ren who was about to walk through the doorway. "From what I see, I don't think she's lying, maybe..."
"Maybe what?" Commander Lu’s hard face didn’t change. "Even if she's truly healthy and robust, you saw what the environment on the third planet was like. In that condition, no race can survive for more than two days, so how could she have been there before the planet termination plan?"
"It's not… completely impossible." The deputy commander's voice became coarse.
"What do you mean?" Lu Ren's brows twitched. As if he had remembered something, his eyes suddenly widened. "You mean..."
The deputy commander nodded. "We found her in a place a few thousand meters underground, and that place was the third planet..."
"Impossible, it's not like you don't know how protective that race is of their own people? If they knew they had any of theirs unconscious for a few days, they would have sent people over here a long time ago."
"But… they do have the tradition of going into hibernation."
Lu Ren folded his brows, then turned again and looked at her. His expressions was extremely weird. He was so attentive that it was like he was going to stare a flower out from her face.
Yao Si had goosebumps from being stared at by him and moved uneasily. However, the next moment that person turned around in a haste again, shaking his head firmly.
"Even if they do, it still wouldn’t be her." Lu Ren felt that he was having some groundless worries. "You've heard her, she said she was only 28. You think about those people, how can this age be possible?"
"It's always wise to play it safe." The deputy continued to persuade him, "Her race still remains a question, and besides, she's not the only trespasser that we caught this time, how about ..."
"No! It was because of our previous connivance that there was so much added difficulty to our work. No matter what, this violation must be treated with seriousness." The commander seemed to be angered by his words, for his voice had reached ten notes higher. "This is a matter of our space station's glory! How can you cave in to some minor external uncertainties, where's your dignity as the deputy commander?"
"..." The words that were about to roll out of the deputy's tongue were forced back down his throat.
"Huh, I don't believe this. A big space station like ours can't even dispose of a violating trespasser. Didn't you do the genetic test? What's the result?"
"Commander, it's out," Dr. Wang replied.
"Send the result over to me!" When the commander finished speaking, he slapped the deputy's shoulder. "Wang, you always like to worry for nothing. If she’s really from that race..." He turned and gave a look at Yao Si, then humphed with contempt. "Humph, I will eat poop right now."
He said those words while turning on the optical screen on his arm with great force.
He took a look.
Then...
His face turned pale...
Then it flushed green...
And then it deepened to black...
Even his hands began to tremble, and his eyes widened and widened as if they were about to fall out from the sockets.
And just like that, he stared at the optical screen for whole ten minutes, then turned it off with a beep...
The next instant, Yao Si felt like wind was about to rise, and a smiling face that looked like it was about to crack suddenly appeared before her eyes. Commander Lu held her right hand in both his hands and asked with a voice that sounded as sweet as dripping honey, "Honorable lady of the bloodlings, are you hungry? Are you thirsty? Would you like some duck blood curd?"
His attitude was very amiable, the voice so lively, with innumerable raises and falls in intonation. "Do you want me to eat hot poo, or cold... Pah! Do you like to eat fresh blood curd or the quick-freeze ones? I have both."
Yao Si "..."
Huh????