In the infirmary of the missile cruiser Orion, Jiang Xuezhou lay quietly on a medical bed, her entire body wrapped in bandages. Beside her, the intensive care equipment emitted soft, rhythmic beeps.
She was still alive.
Yet she had not awakened.
Facing the flat, gentle waves of the electrocardiogram on the holographic screen, Luo Yi, who had already stripped out of his powered armor, frowned slightly and turned to the doctor at his side.
"Still not awake?"
Before the doctor could answer, a nearby nurse rolled her eyes.
"It doesn't happen that fast. It's a miracle the kid is even alive, all right?"
Luo Yi offered a wry smile.
"I didn't mean to rush you..."
He might indeed have been a bit impatient.
After all, everyone was utterly in the dark about their current predicament.
Not just him—plenty of people were anxious to find out what in the world had happened.
And where things had gone wrong.
Lin Youyou, who had been staring at the vital signs monitor and brooding in silence for a long time, suddenly looked up.
"Come to think of it, something's strange."
Luo Yi turned to her. "What's strange?"
Resting a knuckle against her chin, Lin Youyou murmured thoughtfully, "After we administered the tissue regeneration gel, her wounds have indeed been healing, but her metabolic rate and heart rate haven't shifted at all..."
As she spoke, something else seemed to cross her mind, and another sentence slipped out.
"It felt like this before, too."
Luo Yi asked, "Before?"
"That kid named Ye Shi," Lin Youyou said, recalling the situation truthfully. "We patched up his injuries and repaired his bionics, but neither his metabolic rate nor his heart rate showed any signs of recovery... Oh, and his body temperature too. It wasn't anywhere close to a normal person's. I was terrified the whole time that he'd collapse."
Luo Yi's brow furrowed slightly.
Just then, a prompt from the Eighth Department popped up over the comm channel.
Without hesitating, he pressed the accept button.
"Hello?"
"Do you have a moment?"
"I'm free whenever. Get straight to the point."
The voice on the other end wasted no breath. "Get down to the lower deck reserve depot... the emergency survival supplies depot. We've found a new lead."
"On my way."
Luo Yi nodded and cut the line, then hurried out of the infirmary toward the warehouse mentioned by his colleague from the Eighth Department.
The depot was not far from his duty post, though it was still a bit of a trek from the infirmary.
It took him about five minutes to reach his destination. There, an Eighth Department security officer stood before an open locker, accompanied by the warehouse clerk who had filed the report.
"What happened?"
The security officer who had called him raised a hand in greeting, then walked over holding a datapad.
"We just received a report from the emergency supplies manager. A hibernation pod went missing from the reserve locker, and the lock was forcibly broken."
Luo Yi inquired, "Just discovered now?"
The security officer nodded. "Yeah. Everything was fine during yesterday's inspection, but today it was gone. The weird part is that the security system malfunctioned again. Sound familiar?"
Luo Yi frowned. "Could the warehouse staff have made an error?"
They were trapped in the hyperspace rift; nobody could leave. The missing hibernation pod had to still be aboard the ship.
More to the point, he could not fathom who would bother stealing something like that.
The security officer shook his head.
"I don't think so... because we've already found the missing pod."
Luo Yi froze, staring at him in bewilderment. "...Then what's the problem?"
The officer looked back with an odd expression and continued, "The problem is... we found the missing hibernation pod at the 'accident site.'"
...
In the lower deck security office, the key participants of Operation Daybreak stood with grim expressions.
Captain Zhao Tianhe was among them, as was Executive Officer Wu Mengke, Dr. Wu from the Fifth Department, and several others.
Their plan had been flawless.
Yet, for reasons unknown, it had still ended in failure.
Gazing at the sleeping young woman on the screen, Zhao Tianhe pinched his tired brow between thumb and forefinger, letting out a slow sigh.
"It seems the universe is far crueler than we imagined..."
Wu Mengke looked at him, the crow's-feet at the corners of her eyes weighted with sorrow.
"So... we failed?"
Zhao Tianhe did not answer.
What they were currently experiencing was vastly more convoluted than any battle he had ever waged.
None of his past experience was of any use here.
"No, we didn't..."
At that moment, Dr. Wu, who had remained silent all along, suddenly spoke.
Pairs of eyes turned toward him.
Zhao Tianhe, his cousin Wu Mengke, the navigators, numerous other senior officers, and Sergeant Luo Yi, who had just stepped up to the doorway to report...
Dr. Wu fixed his gaze on the surveillance terminal, watching the comatose girl on the holographic display, and swallowed hard.
"We succeeded. It's just that the final outcome isn't what we originally imagined..."
Zhao Tianhe's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
Wu Xinghuan pulled his eyes away from the holographic screen and stared intently at the captain.
"You deduced that once the Gemini confirmed we refused to follow orders, they would inevitably fire a neutron torpedo... correct?"
Zhao Tianhe nodded, his tone brooking no doubt. "Knowing Song Yuchuan, the captain of the Gemini, as well as I do, he certainly would have."
Wu Xinghuan pressed, "What kind of man is he?"
Zhao Tianhe replied without hesitation, "He's a wolf. Ruthless to others, and even more ruthless to himself. If there were ten radicals among a hundred civilians aboard a ship, he would write off the other ninety innocents as necessary collateral without blinking."
Wu Xinghuan pressed harder. "Which is why you fired without hesitation."
Zhao Tianhe did not dodge the question, nodding bluntly. "Yes. Against a beast, there is no other choice. It was a kill-or-be-killed situation... Are we really going to debate this now?"
"We must debate it, because it is the crucial factor behind why we are trapped in this situation."
Wu Xinghuan stared at him unwaveringly, his tone deadly serious. "Now imagine you are the captain of the Gemini—or rather, imagine you are Song Yuchuan himself... Facing you is someone who knows you inside and out, someone who will show no mercy, who will abandon all illusions instantly and make the worst possible choice... If you were him, what would you choose?"
Zhao Tianhe's pupils dilated slightly.
It was an answer that required almost no thought; the option surfaced in his mind automatically.
"...I would strike first."
Wu Xinghuan stared at him, pressing on. "You would definitely strike first. You know your opponent understands you are a beast; you know your opponent will kill you without the slightest hesitation or guilt... So how would you make your move?"
The air in the security office went dead still. Every eye locked onto the two men.
No one made a sound.
Zhao Tianhe fell silent for a long time before shifting his gaze aside.
"I would hide a neutron warhead inside the lander..."
Wu Mengke's eyes widened in sheer shock as she stared at Captain Zhao in disbelief.
The other officers reacted the same way, unanimous astonishment written across their faces.
They were not shocked by their commander's own choice.
They were shocked because their commander, putting himself in the enemy's shoes, had deduced the opponent's most probable course of action.
Back then, the lander might never have carried living people from the start...
Yet Wu Xinghuan was not satisfied with that answer, pressing further. "Just that? Going down together with your opponent? You still had an unfulfilled mission. Your ruthlessness was directed not just outward, but inward as well..."
This time, Zhao Tianhe remained silent for an exceptionally long interval.
In the end, however, he spoke the ultimate measure aloud.
"...I would upload the minds of the entire crew to the shipboard servers. Before the neutron torpedoes they fired could strike us, I would kill myself first. That way, we would hold an unassailable position from the outset, ensuring the orders from the Lagrange point space station would be executed properly even after our deaths."
In the end, it was simple.
They had not come to blows over petty interest; they were merely fighting for their conflicting convictions.
They were not enemies born of hatred.
In fact, once everything was over, he might even have considered making amends for what he had done—
Such as using the data and profiles backed up on the server to resurrect the comrades he had personally killed.
There was no need to deduce what came next. They had unraveled the full chain of events, and the truth was far crueler than they had ever imagined.
Zhao Tianhe's Adam's apple bobbed.
In that single instant, he seemed to age by more than a decade.
"...I'm sorry, comrades. I still underestimated their resolve."
"There is no need to apologize, Captain. This has already happened... It is merely that we, existing in a state of superposition, were unaware."
Wu Xinghuan shook his head gently, then turned his gaze back toward the young woman on the holographic display, murmuring as if to himself.
"To be honest... the moment I saw her, I understood everything."
"We are all in a superposition—two distinct superpositions, originating from two completely parallel timelines, Alpha and Beta. Our entanglement has two points of intersection: an origin, and a terminus."
"That boy, Ye Shi, is our origin, and this girl, Jiang Xuezhou, is our terminus. Yet within their own loop, everything is reversed: Jiang Xuezhou is the origin of it all, and the boy is the terminus."
"And we are already dead."
In the end, he had discovered new physics after all.
The propagation of information could not only exceed the speed of light—it could transcend time and space.
Their meeting across the gulf of time was the ultimate proof.
Whether this memory was ultimately explained away as a dream, déjà vu, or some psychological phenomenon... they had already carved proof of their existence into each other's timeline.
He wanted to give this startling discovery a name, but after a moment's thought, he let the idea go.
Better to leave it for future generations to formulate...
This peculiar field where information entangled with information.
A long silence hung over the room.
The one who finally broke it was Wu Mengke, the starship's executive officer—its second-in-command.
"...I don't know why, but hearing you say we're already dead actually made me sigh in relief."
She let out a self-deprecating laugh, gazing at the terminal's screen with mixed emotions as she continued, "At the very least... their presence proves that our choice wasn't wrong."
Zhao Tianhe glanced at her, a hint of surprise in his eyes. "In what sense?"
"In every sense."
Wu Mengke pondered for a beat before adding, "The boy we saw earlier was a vault resident... and this girl must be a wastelander."
Zhao Tianhe nodded. "Perhaps."
Wu Mengke looked at him, and her habitually stern face suddenly relaxed into a warm, gentle smile.
"Actually... isn't that wonderful? Even though they're clearly different from us, I still saw so many things in them that we used to celebrate—like love, and courage... and plenty of other things I don't even know how to put into words."
Luo Yi, understanding what the executive officer meant, mused for a second and offered, "Are you thinking of... hope?"
Wu Mengke smiled and nodded. "Probably. In any case, I think leaving the future in their hands sounds pretty good."
They had not turned into beasts.
They were still human beings.
If that was the case, there was nothing to fear.
As for death?
That was merely an inevitability.
At that moment, she looked just like a kindly grandmother.
Even though she was not really that old—merely middle-aged.
"Perhaps you're right," Zhao Tianhe said softly after a brief silence.
According to Dr. Wu's theory, the Gemini's lander had never carried living people from the start; it had contained only a full payload of neutron warheads, and perhaps androids or AI programs sent to commandeer the ship.
In other words, the entities forming the superposition were not the Orion and the Gemini, but the Orion and itself.
And whether they died at the exit of the hyperspace lane or at its entrance, their deaths were a predetermined fact.
Framed that way, Operation Daybreak could never have succeeded from the very beginning.
And they were destined never to reach the future two centuries ahead to honor their promise to that boy.
Pausing, Zhao Tianhe turned to Dr. Wu Xinghuan.
"So according to your theory, there is nothing we can do... is that right?"
Wu Xinghuan shook his head.
"Not at all. Even if our death is predetermined... there are still things we can accomplish."
Sensing every eye in the room turning back toward him, he took a deep breath and continued.
"Just as I said... right now, we exist in a superposition. Even if our superposition has already collapsed in the future, within this lingering sliver of non-existent time, there is still something we can do."
Zhao Tianhe asked in a deep voice, "And what is that?"
"Our exit." Wu Xinghuan held his gaze, speaking with absolute certainty. "We can decide which future we go to..."
Everyone stared at him.
Their expressions were a tapestry of surprise, gravity, astonishment, and disbelief...
Zhao Tianhe pressed, "...Could you be more specific?"
At this moment, Wu Xinghuan was calmer than he had ever been, weaving together the tangled web of clues thread by thread.
"...We truly received information from the future, didn't we? Through the quantum entanglement of superpositions, through some field beyond our current understanding. Regardless of the mechanism, we truly saw them."
"We share this collective memory, even if it never occurred on our own timeline. We know that two hundred years from now, an organization called the Alliance will arise. Guided by ideals and passion, they will bring an end to the Wasteland Era, sweep all remnants of the old world into the grave, and lead our children into a new dawn!"
"That shared memory is their coordinates. That is where we need to go—to the future where those two kids exist!"
Though it sounded like the delusions of dying minds, that shared memory was no fabrication; it was an undeniable reality stamped into their brains.
And it was a memory that resonated with every single one of them without exception!
It was precisely because of that shared resonance for the future that none of them had given up, even now.
Zhao Tianhe looked at him intently. "How do we get there?"
"It's simple... and yet not simple at all. We must close the loop with their timeline!"
Seeing the solemn resolve settle over everyone's faces, Wu Xinghuan shifted his gaze to Luo Yi standing by the doorway.
"I remember you ran the head count. Exactly 227 people heard the explosion... correct?"
Luo Yi nodded. "Yes... And I have something else to report. The hibernation pod we found in the lander is the one missing from our stores."
Wu Xinghuan snapped his fingers, looking around the room with renewed vigor.
"The timeline has already shifted! That is the most direct proof! It shifted the moment we sent that boy away!"
"That is why I said our Operation Daybreak didn't fail—it just unfolded differently from what we envisioned!"
"Back then, we didn't know we were already dead. We thought the lander would be packed with heavily armed soldiers. Only when we found it completely empty did we realize our mistake—our opponent was far more ruthless, and far more tenacious, than we had ever dreamed!"
Zhao Tianhe began to grasp his meaning.
"The timelines completed their first intersection... and they need a second intersection to form a closed loop. Is that what you mean?"
"Precisely!" Wu Xinghuan's eyes burned bright as he swept his gaze across everyone present. "We successfully received information from the future. We already know our own deaths, and we even know how many will survive and how many will die."
"Exactly 227 people heard the explosion... Neutron radiation travels far faster than sound waves. Under what conditions can someone hear the detonation of a neutron warhead?"
"...It might sound like stating the obvious, but I must say it: only the living can hear the blast of a neutron bomb."
Luo Yi's eyes went wide, as did those of many others in the room.
He had harbored a vague inkling of this long ago, but the thought had been lost amid the clutter of trivial clues.
Zhao Tianhe stared intently at Wu Xinghuan, then suddenly burst into laughter.
"It seems I am the ghost after all."
Not just him.
Virtually all the senior officers on the bridge at the time had heard neither an explosion nor any alarms triggered by one.
It was only when someone ran up to report that they realized something had happened on the lower deck.
Now he finally understood why.
The equipment had not malfunctioned.
It was simply that they had not lived long enough to reach the 'next second' when the alarms would have sounded.
Yet here within this hyperspace lane where time stood still, they had nonetheless managed to exchange information across an unknown field.
In other words...
They were not merely exchanging information with the future; a resonance field existed among themselves as well.
Composing his expression, Zhao Tianhe looked at Wu Xinghuan with an unflinching gaze, speaking without a trace of fear.
"Go on. Tell us... for the sake of the new era two hundred years from now, what can we dead men still do?"
"There is only one thing you can do—return to the exact moment we entered the hyperspace lane, remain in the positions you occupied then... and await death."
Looking at his cousin, Wu Xinghuan forced out the words through his pain, then turned to Luo Yi at the door.
"And the rest of you... myself included, along with all 227 who heard the explosion. We are the survivors of the neutron radiation. Though we were fortunate enough not to be killed instantly, death remains merely a matter of time."
"Even so, we still have a window before we perish from asphyxiation or starvation... During that time, we must close the temporal loop. We must guide the girl lying on that medical bed to our location, and we must prepare weapons for them to help them defeat the enemy we failed to overcome."
"It seems what we ought to leave behind isn't 'Celestials,'" Wu Mengke quipped, "but something else."
Luo Yi raised his hand, looking at everyone with solemn determination. "I'll handle the hibernation pod... The emergency supplies depot is right next to my office. I heard the blast. The moment it happens, I'll breach the depot and haul the pod into the lander back then."
Koala remained silent for a moment before raising his hand as well.
"Leave the guiding to me... I heard they crashed into the lower deck. My workshop is nearby. I'll build a holographic beacon to guide the girl... er, toward the room where the hibernation pod is?"
"That's not enough." Zhao Tianhe shook his head, looking toward Wu Xinghuan, who seemed about to speak. "She has to engage the ship's warp drive, doesn't she?"
"Yes, and more than that," Wu Xinghuan nodded, continuing coolly. "Two hundred years from now, the Celestials occupied our ship and seized control... at least over the vast majority of its systems, including weapons. We must also help her and her companions reclaim control of the vessel."
Sweat beaded across Koala's forehead. "Th-that's asking a bit much of me."
He didn't even know how long he would survive once they dropped out of the hyperspace lane.
"Haha, don't sweat it, brother," an AI specialist from the Tenth Department draped an arm over Koala's shoulder, clapping him with a laugh. "You've got us! You focus on designing the navigation beacon to help her locate the warp drive controls. We'll leave a little surprise in the engines for those grave robbers."
Koala breathed a sigh of relief, offering a weak smile. "That's a relief... Hacking really isn't my strong suit, especially when the other side has experts too."
Just then, someone raised a hand.
"I have a question. Can't we design everything right now while time is frozen? We could even... have the dead chip in on programming."
An extra pair of hands was always welcome.
Besides, the ship was full of talent, not just the coders in the Tenth Department.
Yet Dr. Wu shook his head, dashing their hopes of exploiting a loophole.
"It won't work. Every alteration we make inside the hyperspace lane will be wiped clean. Aside from memories, which have already been proven capable of persisting... nothing can be left behind."
Seeing the crestfallen faces around the room, he quickly pivoted.
"Rehearsals, however, are another matter entirely... We can run through it as many times as we want. Information can be preserved through the resonance field, and that doesn't violate any of the principles we've pieced together."
Watching everyone pool their minds and generate an ever-growing list of solutions, Zhao Tianhe's stern face could not help but soften into a faint smile. He offered a rare joke.
"Who knew dead men could still pull off so much?"
Wu Mengke chuckled. "After all, we don't actually die until the 'next second.' Technically, we're still kicking."
Zhao Tianhe fell quiet for a moment, his expression a mix of release and wistfulness.
"Still, thinking about it leaves a bit of regret. I had plans with someone I met online... We agreed to take a vacation in Shilong City once the war was over."
Come to think of it, two hundred years from now, that place was supposed to be called Port French Fries.
He'd heard the scenery was quite nice.
Wu Mengke stared at her normally humorless superior as if looking at a mutant from the wasteland.
Noticing her odd look, Zhao Tianhe gave her a quizzical glance. "Something wrong?"
"No..." Wu Mengke shook her head blankly. "It's just that I've never heard you mention this before."
Zhao Tianhe laughed. "Hahaha, why would I talk about that sort of thing on the job? It would only make you all think I was unprofessional."
Fair enough.
In truth, he wasn't some austere saint; he was just an ordinary human being.
Away from the eyes of his colleagues, he had a personal life of his own, including a few stashes on his virtual machine that he had intended to delete but probably wouldn't have time to now.
The reason he usually maintained such a stern demeanor was simply because the duties of command demanded it.
Now that he knew death was imminent, the burden had slipped from his shoulders, allowing him to be his true self.
"I'm already starting to think that..." Wu Mengke pressed a finger to her temple, looking thoroughly overwhelmed. "You should have taken that secret to the grave. Thanks a lot."
"Don't mention it! Just pretend I was talking out of my ass, haha."
Zhao Tianhe chuckled and turned his eyes to the terminal screen. His smile grew considerably fonder, and the lingering wistfulness melted away.
"Then again, after chatting with you for a bit, I don't feel much regret anymore."
Wu Mengke sighed. "...Meaning?"
Zhao Tianhe smiled. "Don't you think that girl... and that boy look like our own kids?"
Wu Mengke paused, her eyebrows arching slightly. "Is that the kind of cheesy line you used when flirting online?"
Zhao Tianhe coughed. "Come on... I'm being serious."
Wu Mengke turned her eyes toward the girl resting on the medical bed on the holographic screen and said softly, "I've always thought so... If I had a granddaughter, or a great-great-great-granddaughter, she'd probably be just as brave and resilient as her."
"Then I suppose I was the slow one," Zhao Tianhe chuckled. "Still, I've come around now. There's really no need for us to make it two hundred years into the future. They are our continuation... The world we won't get to see, they will see for us."
Wu Mengke remarked wryly, "If only everyone could see things as clearly as we do."
"That's impossible."
The gentle smile vanished, replaced once more by resolute determination upon Zhao Tianhe's sharply defined features.
In that instant, he seemed to transform right back into the unyielding captain.
Resolve was not a trait exclusive to beasts.
Yet beasts seemed to harbor the same misunderstanding time and again—believing that so long as they were crueler and more depraved than humanity, so long as they could shock those standing upright into submission, they could ultimately herd people into cages.
He would show that bastard on the Gemini and the madmen at the Lagrange point just how absurdly mistaken they were, and how laughable their delusions had always been.
"A bunch of decrepit relics hoping to steal our roost, fantasizing about taking over when everything turns to dust... Keep dreaming, you bastards."
"Whether it's two hundred years or two thousand, even if I have both feet planted in the grave, I'll drag them straight into the coffin with me! We'll lie down together!"
Chapter 996