Chapter 868: Can I accompany you?

"So, this girl is really quite miserable, but then again, in the era when the apocalypse comes, who isn't miserable?"

"She is lucky enough, taking her young brother to escape the pursuit, not being caught and humiliated, nor being chased by monsters, dying in the mouth of a beast, being involved in space-time anomalies, and having 'Anomaly-105' lend a helping hand."

"Having said that, indeed, such luck is considered very good here. Besides her, there are so many lives that have become numbers on the background board, no one cares for them, and no other Foundation members save them."

…

Alice didn't seem to feel anything about Christina's anxiety and confusion.

From the moment she became a research subject of the Foundation, those emotions called weakness were forced away from her, and this process pressed the shortcut key after she was selected for the Mobile Task Force.

What has been bothering Alice recently is perhaps the idle life and the confusion of having nowhere to go.

She wondered why the Foundation didn't activate 'Anomaly-2000'.

The world is going to die, and all she can do is sit in a corner and be buried with the world.

A bit romantic, isn't it?

Like some kind of fateful love she yearned for in her childhood.

The room fell into silence again.

The anxiety deep in Christina's heart spread like a raging fire, as if something invisible was crawling on her skin, bringing bursts of itching, giving her an urge to tear through the human facade and reveal her true self.

She raised her eyes, staring at Alice who was concentrating on reading the diary, and opened her mouth cautiously:

"Speaking of which… I always feel like I've heard your name before."

Alice put down the diary in her hand, elegantly straightened her swan-like neck, and blinked gently in response:

"Maybe, but that was a long time ago."

Thoughts took her back to the era when the apocalypse first appeared and everything hadn't become so bad.

At that time, humanity was still a whole, the various sites of the Foundation were not fighting on their own, and information transmission was still simple and fast.

"Did you see it on TV, radio, or… huge advertisements outside?"

"Probably. It must have been more than ten years, I don't remember very well." Christina was not sure.

"When the 'Broken Veil' just happened, the Foundation, in order to make the public accept its existence, promoted a group of people including me as 'superheroes'."

"Our data was drawn into comics and made into movies. They probably wanted us to become… characters like Superman and Batman."

But Superman and Batman can save the world, their group can't do it… Alice mocked herself silently.

"Superman and Batman?"

Well, the cultural products of the former Lighthouse Country also disappeared with the fall of hegemony.

Realizing that Christina probably hadn't been exposed to these individualistic propaganda materials, Alice didn't dwell on it:

"Forget it, I'll just give an example. Those things were already outdated when you were old enough to remember."

"Uh, how does it seem like you are much older than me… We should be about the same age."

Christina looked at Alice, who should be the same age as her, and felt suspicious.

Although the other party looked young, her words revealed a sense of vicissitudes of life, as if she were an old man who had witnessed the changes of the earth.

Does the Foundation still have beauty services? Christina narrowed her eyes.

"You mean me?" Alice smiled again, making Christina's scalp tighten for no reason.

"I have been staying in the outer regions since the Great Fading began. The twenty years you grew up in are only three or four years for me."

This is still an understatement.

She is a real immortal, with the right to open her mouth and say 'this land', and close her mouth and say 'you and your race'.

It's a pity that she lacks a land cruiser to open a pharmaceutical company, and lacks an administrator waiting to open the coffin.

"Wait, what does that mean?" Christina was full of confusion.

"You don't know anything?!" This time it was Alice's turn to be surprised.

"…Stepping into the outer regions so rashly, aren't you afraid of losing your life?"

Alice was really a bit speechless.

Is the generation born in the 'Era of Heavy Rain' so brave?

Silently labeling Christina as 'lacking common sense' and 'rookie' in her heart, she took the latter away from the site and returned to the ice sheet.

Sitting by the cliff, Alice looked down at the distance.

The frozen river was like a silver ribbon, passing through the land covered by trees, the trees were decorated with frost, shimmering, just like the starlight in the night sky.

"See the jungle over there?" Alice pointed to the distance.

"The leaves of those trees haven't even rotted yet. Your twenty years, for those places, may have only passed a few months."

Christina didn't understand: "Why is this?"

"The speed of time is different." Alice said, "To explain this phenomenon, the Foundation invented a term—'Time Radiation'."

"Before this upheaval, the speed of time in all places on Earth remained basically the same, following the predictions of general relativity…"

This was beyond Christina's knowledge.

"I heard the physics teacher mention this concept, but I didn't quite understand it."

In fact, due to the arrival of the apocalypse, the available land area has plummeted, the world population has decreased significantly, and a considerable amount of knowledge has been broken.

The existence of schools is more to restrain the new generation, so that they don't all become punks and gangsters, curb the rapidly rising illiteracy rate, and try to let human civilization, which is plugged into a ventilator, gasp for a while longer.

Alice felt a headache.

"The specific principle is no longer important, the key is that the current laws of physics have been broken."

"First the color disappeared, then the chaos of the time flow—the universe we are familiar with is gradually disintegrating, and the original laws and rules have become shaky."

"The Foundation calls this series of phenomena 'Reality Collapse'."

Fortunately, Christina's learning ability is okay, and she can understand Alice's words.

So, she asked eagerly:

"Since it is called 'chaos' and 'collapse', why is only the speed of time affected, and there is no change in the direction of time, such as flowing backward?"

"Time cannot flow backward, this is a more fundamental principle than the laws of physics." Alice explained patiently.

"You can imagine time radiation as a mist that affects the speed of time flow, where the concentration is high, time is fast, and where it is thin, time is slow, but in any case, there will be no negative mist."

Christina was thoughtful.

"Time outside the city moves slower?"

"You understand correctly." Alice responded.

"Time in the city flies, and one second we experience outside the city may be tens of minutes, hours, or even days in the city."

"This is one of the reasons why you have lived in the city for more than twenty years, but look about the same age as me, who was born twenty years earlier than you."

Christina struggled: "What will happen if we return to the city…?"

"Before you left the city, you didn't think about these things at all?" Alice frowned, "How long have you been away from the city?"

This child looked quite smart before, why does she sound like a silly roe deer when she opens her mouth.

"I don't know. Maybe days, weeks, months?"

Vague.

Alice sighed lightly, earnestly:

"If you have the chance, maybe it's better to go back sooner."

"…No, I still have things to do outside the city."

"Are you sure? Do you know what this means?"

"…Never be able to return to the city?" Christina said uncertainly.

Alice became serious: "Do you know why the speed of time in the city is fast?"

But as soon as this question was asked, she regretted it, Christina obviously didn't know these contents. ===== CHAPTER 870 =====