Chapter 318
Chapter 318: Chapter 23: Fly to the East Sea Chapter 318: Chapter 23: Fly to the East Sea Alas.
Lin Xian let out a soft sigh, lifting the crumpled bundle of fake flowers to his chest just as he had done 600 years ago, pinching the wrinkled tin foil with his fingers, smoothing out each piece one by one, restoring some order to this bouquet that had traversed time.
It was just like that night of Zhao Yingjun’s 24th birthday, an extraordinary birthday gift.
She said she would remember it for a long time.
But she didn’t expect…
that memory would stretch across 600 years.
These were 600 years after all.
It was a span from the prosperous era of the Yongle Emperor in the Ming Dynasty to the present year of 2023.
To him, it was as if he just yawned at night, laid down in bed, and those 600 years lightly flew by.
But for Zhao Yingjun.
She didn’t miss a single second of those 600 years, enduring them moment by moment, minute by minute.
That kind of loneliness was beyond words.
Lin Xian closed his eyes, recalling the look in Zhao Yingjun’s eyes the first time she lay in the Hibernation Pod.
Every ten years of hibernation followed by half a year of awakening to witness this strange and lonely world, what did that feel like?
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From the slides shown along that projection corridor earlier, it seemed that when the first generation Hibernation Pods were put into use in 2026, side effects like mental retardation, intellectual disability, and brain atrophy had presumably been solved by the drugs researched by Tang Xin.
However, the side effect of “memory loss” that Xu Yun had mentioned right from the start apparently couldn’t be avoided.
And it was precisely for this reason, to not forget the past time, the past memories, that Zhao Yingjun chose the detrimental plan of awakening every ten years after hibernation.
The continuous cycle of hibernation and awakening placed an enormous burden on and wreaked havoc on the body.
Even if memories could be preserved, the body’s condition was bound to worsen progressively, and she might have had to endure much suffering during this process.
Lin Xian didn’t understand, nor was he clear.
He didn’t know whether Zhao Yingjun’s wish to not let him see her old age had anything to do with the devastation this manner of hibernation inflicted on the body.
Therefore…
He gripped the bouquet tightly.
No matter how he had failed in this future, or how Zhao Yingjun had survived these 600 years of solitude.
[He was determined to make this part of the future a history that didn’t exist!]
He couldn’t fail to appreciate Zhao Yingjun’s kindness nor could he let down her thoughtful efforts spanning 600 years.
He had to find what she had left for him.
And then…
change everything!
Looking back over everything in this exhibition hall, Lin Xian felt that the answer to the Mirror Puzzle that Huang Que talked about, probably wasn’t here.
Logically speaking, regarding the temporal flux, Huang Que simply couldn’t be Zhao Yingjun.
Beyond a doubt, Zhao Yingjun had perished in the future, her death witnessed by everyone in Rhine Sky City, her ashes scattered into the winds that blew across the four seas.
Therefore, Huang Que could not be Zhao Yingjun who traveled from the future.
Moreover, Zhao Yingjun didn’t just die once.
In the earliest of the second dreamland future, Zhao Yingjun had already died due to an accidental shooting, and before that, Huang Que had already appeared in reality, delivering that fake Genius Club invitation to the front desk of MX Company.
It didn’t fit with the logic of time and space.
Considering that Zhao Yingjun indeed died in the future, where then did Huang Que come from?
Anyway, no matter how you put it, these two might genuinely only resemble each other in temperament, and in reality have no connection—
Huang Que is Huang Que, and Zhao Yingjun is Zhao Yingjun.
Just like the relationship between CC and Chu Anqing.
Thinking of this.
Lin Xian couldn’t help but think of CC.
Today, as he and Big Face Cat Ah Zhuang were preparing to ascend in a helium balloon, he had also inquired about Tem Bank and the Hafnium Alloy Safe.
Both of them had no clue, stating they had never heard of such a bank.
This also troubled Lin Xian.
No Tem Bank in Rhine Sky City, nor in the world above, so where had Tem Bank gone?
If he couldn’t find Tem Bank, then where in this world was CC?
Lin Xian didn’t mean that he absolutely had to meet CC.
It just felt like CC’s existence was to him a sense of security, an anchor, an indispensable companion.
If he couldn’t find her in this dream…
What about the next dream?
And the dream after that?
Would she drift further and further away, to the point that he could never find her?
At this moment, Lin Xian truly realized how vast this world was.
He simply couldn’t find CC.
Unless…
He had to find Tem Bank first.
Where exactly was the problem?
Was it because of major changes in the world that Tem Bank went out of business early and disappeared into the dust of history?
Or is it because…
The temporal flux was too intense this time and the Tem Bank, which was supposed to be established in the second half of 2023, never came into existence and was completely erased from history?
What exactly was the reason?
“Hey hey hey!
Hey hey hey!”
Beneath him, the trashcan robot VV was circling around him irritably, its mechanical claw constantly poking his knee:
“Come on, just spit it out!
Don’t keep us in suspense!
You’ve piqued our curiosity, and now you’re just standing there daydreaming and playing dead!”
“Say what?” Lin Xian looked down at it.
Whoosh.
The trashcan robot VV stretched out its claw, pointing at the fake rose bouquet in Lin Xian’s hands:
“You just said that it’s not true that you’ve left no trace here, what exactly do you mean?”
“Ah, that.” Lin Xian smiled faintly, lifting the bouquet in his hands:
“This bouquet, this is what Zhao Yingjun left for me.”
“Yi——————” The trashcan robot made a disdainful sound: