Chapter 589: Living Brain Cells (XI)

"Midnight Dad, are you really a space alien?"

On the pristine floor, Hydra sat cross-legged, tightening the screws on the security door's surface with a wrench, murmuring: "Something feels off."

After a draw, the survivors' new grouping is: Master Pi Fu, Hydra, Su Nisheng;

Laughing God, dir;

Zhongli Mieming, Out of Control, Edith;

In principle, during the vote to exile Midnight Dad, Zhongli Mieming and Edith—who played key roles—should not be in the same group.

Otherwise, if both of them are Alien species, then anyone grouped with them is basically a little black speck stuck under the desk that can't be scraped off—dead (booger) for sure.

"What do you mean?"

Li Cheng was also turning the wrench; for some reason, the motion of tightening screws always gave him a strange sense of familiarity.

"Think about it—if Midnight Dad really is a space alien, why would he willingly walk to his death?"

Hydra said: "He'd be better off suddenly lashing out, killing a nearby ordinary person to clear the path for his allies. All space aliens' goal is to obstruct the repair mission, right?"

"Maybe Midnight Dad fears the sentry robots."

Su Nisheng said calmly: "After all, no human, no matter how fast, can outrun lightning."

"Hard to say," Li Cheng said casually. "If you told Midnight Dad his girlfriend or lover was pregnant, he might hit 50% the speed of light and vanish."

Black kids usually don't have dads, right? What a hell of a joke.

Su Nisheng's demeanor was detached; the sarcastic remark only spun once in her mind, never spoken aloud. She simply watched Li Cheng and asked: "Have your personal memories returned?"

"A little. Before arriving at Xinxiang Base, I think I ran a factory that made toys."

Li Cheng tapped his helmet, pausing: "Compared to personal memories, general knowledge has returned more quickly and fully."

"I've recalled some memories too—deep sea, hunting, long voyages."

Hydra said uncertainly: "It seems the noise boy's memory-cleaning effect is fading over time."

"That's good—at least when we finish all repair tasks, upload our consciousness, and get executed, we'll die as lucid ghosts."

Li Cheng said offhandedly, twisted the wrench hard, and unscrewed the screw from the medical room.

The upper levels of Xinxiang Base are: dining hall, weapons depot, medical room, recreation room.

The dining hall repair task was completed in the previous round. Just now, the three of us fixed the power distribution box in the weapons depot, but all equipment inside is locked in safes, and the few left outside are forcibly bound to specific user IDs.

Items like stun batons, shock guns, Gao Zhoubo oscillating cutting knives—all fail to activate. We had to give up.

"This is the medical room? It's kind of..."

Li Cheng paused, unable to say the word "advanced."

Compared to other areas of Xinxiang Base, which feature seamless flooring and sleek, sci-fi-style soft-lit bulbs and mysterious, awe-inspiring devices, the medical room's decor is thoroughly retro: the floor is covered in 1990s-style red-green-yellow terrazzo, the walls are painted green, and on the solid wood desk lies a thick sheet of glass, beneath which are faded photos, letters from loved ones, birth certificates, stamps, and yellow pages; atop the glass rest a calendar, a yellow desk lamp with a cord, and a red landline telephone.

"This decor is older than I am."

Li Cheng instinctively muttered, and faint memories surfaced in his mind.

Placing glass atop a solid wood desk was a common folk custom in China during the 1980s–90s, originating from the need for writing with hard pens and the 1971 birth of Luoyang float glass technology.

Indeed, judging from the documents under the glass, the desk and entire medical room belonged to a Dr. Wang, born in 1990, who completed his undergraduate and master's studies at a domestic medical college in 2008, earned his master's and doctoral degrees seven and ten years later, joined the National Space Medicine Research Center, assisted China's 2030 crewed lunar landing mission, and in 2031, as a space physician, landed on the lunar permanent base codenamed "Guanghan Palace." Eight years later, he became a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences on the Moon.

In 2070, as chief medical officer, he joined the interstellar colony ship "Zhu Xing," built by the collective effort of all human civilization.

Looking at this Dr. Wang's life, his youth saw his country still building strength, his home still using terrazzo floors and landline telephones.

In his youth, national power surged rapidly; in middle age, he personally stepped onto the Moon; by his eighties, he joined the grand interstellar colonization project.

Hydra surveyed the room: the spacious hall held only two medical devices—a scanning imaging unit resembling an X-ray machine, and a medical pod the size of a single bed, equipped with a glass cover and precision robotic arms.

The technology's advancement and sci-fi aesthetic sharply contrasted the retro decor—especially since the glass layer still held a grain ration ticket, inscribed: 【1992, Shandong Province, Jinan City, Grain Bureau, Five Catties of Grain Ration Ticket】.

"Incredible."

Hydra couldn't help saying: "An 80-year life spanning from grain ration tickets to fully automated medical pods and sublight interstellar ships..."

"Nothing strange about it. A human lifespan can encompass historical events that feel astronomically distant from one another."

Su Nisheng carefully examined the documents under the glass, speaking calmly: "When China's crewed lunar landing occurred in 2030, there may still have been people alive who had seen Emperor Guangxu."

"True."

Li Cheng flipped through the calendar, saying casually: "Zhang Xueliang listened to Jay Chou's songs;

China's modern diplomat Gu Weijun's wife died in 2017 at age 112; she was born when Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu were still alive, and died half a year after Trump took office in the U. S.;

The widow of a Union veteran from the American Civil War died in 2020 from COVID-19;"

"Wait."

Even the usually calm and detached Su Nisheng turned back: "The American Civil War ended in 1865, right? That's 155 years before COVID-19."

"You wouldn't know that."

Li Cheng flipped the calendar page by page: "One soldier enlisted in the final phase of the Civil War. In his nineties, childless, he wanted to leave his estate to his comrade's descendants. But due to high inheritance and transfer taxes, he simply married an underage girl—the comrade's granddaughter. The U. S. forbade single men from adopting underage girls, but child marriage was allowed."

And that underage girl, the Civil War veteran's widow, lived into the 21st century—didn't she die of COVID-19?"

You can do that?

If their space suit helmets had display functions, Hydra and Su Nisheng would definitely be rolling their eyes.

"Anyway, focus on the task."

Amid his companions' "Who's really not doing the work?" glares, Li Cheng lifted the calendar, flipped to the last few pages: "See? From January 2070 to March 2071, and beyond, these calendar pages were all drawn by this Dr. Chen himself."