When he woke up , the sky had turned pale. The pigeons were still circling in the sky, and the howling dogs that had been banging on the door had disappeared.
Shen Siwei sat up from his seat and noticed that Klet was not beside him. He looked around the window of the spacecraft, but there was no one on the rooftop either.
They were supposed to take turns keeping watch, but Klet hadn’t woken Shen Siwei up.
A bad feeling suddenly surged in Shen Siwei’s heart, and he hurriedly got off the spacecraft only to find Klet holding a flashlight, standing at the entrance of the corridor.
“Where did you go?” Shen Siwei asked.
“Just wandering around.” Klet walked to the front and checked the engine status of the spacecraft. “Are we ready to go now?”
Shen Siwei couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but Klet’s casual “wandering around” seemed somewhat weird.
But perhaps Klet just liked museums and wanted to take another look around. There was nothing wrong with that.
“Let’s go.” Shen Siwei said.
As the sun moved overhead and gradually approached behind them, the coastline finally appeared in front of them.
From a distance, the deep blue sea separated the city and the sky, like a blue line drawn by hand. There were no boats on the sea, but occasionally giant fish leaped out of the water, attacking the birds hovering in the low sky.
They continued to fly forward, and the coastline became clearer and clearer.
The beach was littered with trash that had washed up from the sea. Colorful plastic surrounded the huge fish skeletons, creating a grotesque and ironic scene.
Shen Siwei shifted his gaze from the distance and said to Klet, who was resting with his eyes closed, “can you see Amor and Li’s spacecraft over there?”
On top of a building more than a hundred stories high in front of them, there was a spacecraft that didn’t belong to that era.
Both the color and the design were very similar to the one in the surveillance footage.
Klet waved his hand and zoomed in on the image on the windshield, confirming, “Yes.”
Shen Siwei immediately maneuvered the spacecraft towards the rooftop of the building. Amor and Li’s spacecraft had accumulated a thin layer of dust, indicating that they had been parked there for some time.
Both of them were nowhere to be found, so Klet decided to break the window and pressed the start button.
The screen lit up, and the data showed that the last flight was a week ago, which matched the timeline of their actions.
But…
“Something doesn’t seem right.” Shen Siwei glanced at the unused batteries in the back row. “Do you think they would stay here for a week?”
Klet looked at the vast sea and frowned, “I don’t think so.”
Even if they were there to enjoy the sea, half a day would have been enough. Even someone who loved the sea wouldn’t stay for a whole week.
“Let’s go down and take a look.” Shen Siwei said, and as he was about to walk towards the corridor, Klet suddenly grabbed him.
“This technology building has 110 floors. We don’t know how long it will take to find them together.” Klet suggested, “Let’s split up. I’ll search the odd-numbered floors, and you search the even-numbered floors.”
It sounded like a reasonable suggestion, but it made Shen Siwei subtly frown.
Thinking back to Klet’s unusual behavior in the morning, Shen Siwei pursed his lips and said lightly, “Alright.”
After parting ways with Klet on the top floor, Shen Siwei entered the highest even-numbered floor with a flashlight.
A huge restaurant appeared before him. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, he could see the “beautiful” coastline in the distance.
The technology building was the most futuristic architecture of its time, with some floors open to the public as tourist attractions.
Shen Siwei didn’t find any traces of the two in the restaurant, so he continued downwards. Klet’s progress was much faster than his, and the beam of his flashlight was already several floors ahead.
Shen Siwei unconsciously quickened his pace, but even after searching more than ten floors, he still hadn’t found Amor and Li.
The last open area before reaching the lower floors was an open-air garden. The garden had long been abandoned, and the dusty ground showed no footprints. It was evident that Amor and Li had not been here.
But as Shen Siwei looked at the landscape, the faded image suddenly regained its color.
He vaguely remembered when he was a child; his mother, who was an engineer, often described the scenery outside the Tree of Life, and this place appeared most frequently in her stories.
“Mom’s office had a view of the sea, but if you really wanted to see the sea, the rooftop garden had the best view. You could feel the sea breeze there, something you couldn’t smell inside the Tree of Life.”
If Shen Siwei’s memory served him right, he had seen this garden in his mother’s photos.
Going deeper into his memories, that place seemed to be called the “Technology Building.”
That should be the place where his mother used to work.
Whether guided by fate or not, Shen Siwei hadn’t expected to go there.
He immediately turned around and headed downstairs, finally finding a design center in an area of the building that was not open to the public.
At that point, whether it was an odd-numbered floor or an even-numbered floor no longer mattered.
Following the signs, Shen Siwei arrived at the engineering office floor, and it was at that moment that he noticed the flickering light of a flashlight in a certain office.
“What are you looking for?” Shen Siwei turned off his flashlight and approached the office, looking at Klet without much expression.
Klet didn’t expect Shen Siwei to suddenly appear and awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck.
Before he could answer, Shen Siwei continued, “In the museum this morning, were you also looking for something?”
Klet didn’t deny it. “Yes.”
Shen Siwei furrowed his brow slightly and asked, “So you followed me with a hidden purpose?”
Caught off guard by Shen Siwei’s wariness, Klet hesitated for a moment before smiling wryly. “I was indeed looking for something, but I didn’t intend to hide it from you.”
Shen Siwei didn’t respond.
“Really, I was looking for an agreement,” Klet said helplessly. “I don’t know if it truly exists. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to misunderstand and think I was talking about a conspiracy.”
“What agreement?” Shen Siwei asked.
“The ‘Tree of Life Development Agreement,'” Klet said. “According to rumors, the ancestors of the Marg tribe signed this agreement with the engineers and workers responsible for building the Tree of Life at that time. The agreement stipulates that everyone has equal access to energy, regardless of their social status.”
Klet didn’t seem like he was making up a story, so Shen Siwei slightly lowered his guard and asked, “Why haven’t I heard of it?”
“Because it’s a legendary agreement, and no one knows if it actually exists,” Klet said. “The Nightingale asked me to help find this agreement. I didn’t want to help at first, but since I had to accompany you to the ruins, I thought I might as well take a look.”
“So you chose the city center as the first stop,” Shen Siwei said, “because of this agreement?”
There were many important buildings there, and it seemed that while Shen Siwei was sleeping, Klet had already gone out to search.
“Yes,” Klet shrugged. “But I didn’t find anything.”
“Then why did you think it would be here?” Shen Siwei asked again.
The Southern Ruins were vast, and they couldn’t even find two living people like Amor and Li, let alone a legendary agreement.
“Because the owner of this office is special,” Klet said, shining his flashlight around the room. “I mentioned before that I enjoy exploring. About six or seven years ago, I came to this office and accidentally found a design blueprint.”
“A design blueprint?” Shen Siwei asked.
“A deep-sea energy station design blueprint,” Klet said.
Upon hearing this, a hint of astonishment flashed in Shen Siwei’s eyes.
He suddenly thought of how Moran wanted to extract information from Klet about how to reach the deep sea. The whole chain of events seemed to be connected to the deep sea.
“You should know that there are giant creatures in the deep sea,” Klet continued. “But they don’t actively attack humans.”
“Hold on,” Shen Siwei couldn’t help but interrupt Klet, “It’s common knowledge that giant creatures attack humans. Otherwise, the military wouldn’t have been unable to enter the deep sea for so long.”
“No,” Klet shook his head, “They don’t attack humans. They attack light. As long as you don’t have any light on you, they won’t pay attention to you.”
So…
That was the reason why Klet could go to the deep sea?
Moran had been trying to figure this out, but he didn’t expect the answer to be that simple.
Various fragmented pieces of logic gradually pieced together, and Shen Siwei said incredulously, “You found the deep-sea energy station design blueprint here, and then you went to the deep sea alone, fixed the damaged pipeline in that core energy station? destroyed all the lights in the energy station, and since then, the giant creatures haven’t attacked anymore.”
Klet replied, “That’s right, because the deep-sea energy station had only one pipeline damaged. I followed the blueprint and fixed the pipeline. After that, I destroyed all the lights in the energy station, and since then, there haven’t been any more attacks from the giant creatures.”
The Tree of Life was constructed over a hundred years ago, and the deep-sea energy station started operating around that time.
“You’re so bold,” he asked, “How did you know that the giant creatures only attack light?”
“Do you remember the friend I mentioned?” Klet said. “When he saved me, I was only five years old. At that time, in order to escape, I travelled from the artificial canal to the deep sea. Back then, I had no idea about the ‘giant creatures attacking humans’ theory.”
“You…” Shen Siwei was stunned for a moment, “You went to such a dangerous place at the age of five?”
“Because I didn’t know,” Klet replied.
As he said this, Klet’s tone was very casual, but when one thought about it, they could understand how cruel it was for a little boy.
The deep sea, a place even adults dared not go, and yet he went to the dangerous place unknowingly in order to avoid danger.
But speaking of this, everything made sense.
Klet had been to the deep sea when he was a child, and perhaps he had been there several times afterward, familiarizing himself with the habits of the giant creatures.
Later, when he came to explore the Southern Ruins, he found the deep-sea energy station’s design blueprint in this office, and he went to the deep sea again to repair the energy station.
And then, five years ago happened.
Moran definitely knew that the deep-sea energy station had been repaired, but he didn’t expect the environment in the deep sea to remain the same. He sent many task forces to explore the deep sea, but they were all attacked by the giant creatures because no one would think to turn off their lights in the dark deep sea.
“Can you see the surrounding environment clearly in the deep sea?” Shen Siwei asked.
“I can,” Klet replied, “It’s better to go during the day; my visual ability is good.”
Shen Siwei wasn’t surprised by Klet’s physical fitness. He fell silent for a moment and said, “You said five years ago was when I found out that you had repaired the deep-sea energy station.”
“Yeah,” Klet nodded, “Before the military ordered the bombing.”
“Also,” Shen Siwei paused, “you said the owner of this office is special.”
“Yes. Whoever had the design blueprint for the deep-sea energy station must have been involved in the construction of the Tree of Life, so I thought of coming here to look for the agreement.”
Shen Siwei pursed his lips and looked at the four words “Chief Engineer” on the door. He slowly said, “This is my mother’s office.”
1It was mentioned earlier that in Shen’s memories, he had only signed up for the transformation program because Moran made it so ,so he didn’t remember saving klet as a kid.
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