It was not convenient to cook at home. Although the food delivery service in this era was very convenient, Lu Zhou always felt that the packaged meals lacked atmosphere.
Under Director Li’s proposal, three old popsicles from the 21st century took a taxi to a small restaurant on the edge of Jin Ling University. They ordered a table of food and a box of beer before sitting down by the window.
“The owner of this shop is also an old popsicle from the beginning of the 21st century. He woke up two years earlier than me. Back then, he invited me into the frozen people community. The volunteer work I do now was introduced by him.”
After opening a bottle of cold beer, Director Li smiled with nostalgia and spoke.
“I come over to eat a few times a week. The taste is still the same as it was a hundred years ago, and I quite miss it.”
After opening a bottle of beer, Lu Zhou asked casually, “Why did he come to this era?”
“Except for people like me and Wang Peng who take missions to the future, most of the reasons why dormant people freeze themselves are mostly due to terminal illnesses.” Director Li continued, “Maybe it is cancer. He didn’t tell me, nor did I ask, but after coming to this era, his illness was cured.”
Cancer?
Lu Zhou suddenly remembered an old friend.
A friend that used to be his student.
I wonder if her illness has been cured, or whether she woke up at some point a hundred years ago and lived a good life…
Just when Lu Zhou was wondering, a young girl suddenly walked towards their table with a pot of steaming grilled fish.
“This grilled fish is given to you by the boss.” The little girl smiled shyly. She looked at Lu Zhou sitting by the window and continued, “He asked me to give you a message from him to say thank you… Thanks to your kind deeds, he can stand up from the hospital bed and come to this era, to start a new life.”
Lu Zhou looked at the little waitress. He was slightly stunned. He then smiled and said, “No need to thank me, I just did what I was supposed to do.”
The elegant scent of cumin scattered around the table. The three people talked and laughed and enjoyed the food on the table.
In a few days, Wang Peng would go to the university to study preparatory courses. This meal was not only a celebration of their reunion but also a farewell celebration for him.
When Lu Zhou watched the mist rising from the dishes, he suddenly had an illusion that he was living in a dream.
Before returning to Earth, he never thought that a century after he woke up, he would be able to sit in a restaurant with his old friends and eat grilled fish, drink beer, and talk about the past.
Of course, he was also clear in his heart.
Even if they met again today, a hundred years later, it would only postpone their farewell.
If the bottle of “Protector” really gave him eternal life, then he would be destined to watch the people around him get old one by one. In the end, he would be alone.
Perhaps… the red potion or the purple potion would be the better choice.
The former could at least inject healthy genes into human civilization, while the latter might open a door to the unknown, unprecedented place for human civilization.
Only immortality was a bottle of poison.
This was true both for him and for human civilization itself.
Like Director Li said, issues concerning the future should be left to the people of the future to face. As a great man in history, living in the past was his correct destination.
Lu Zhou also gradually began to realize this after returning to Earth.
Eternal life was like a curse. It was eroding away the human nature in his heart bit by bit, magnifying the rational part infinitely. Especially once he got used to losing loved ones, it would be difficult to have the feelings that normal humans should have.
But then again.
If he could choose again, Lu Zhou still felt that he might make the same choice.
There was only one reason.
As a scholar, the weight of feelings might not be so important in his world, but the eternal lifespan meant that he would have almost unlimited time to chase the problems that he was interested in.
That temptation was something he couldn’t refuse…
…
The three of them drank until the afternoon.
Upon returning home, Lu Zhou threw his coat on the shoe cabinet at the door, staggered into the bedroom, and laid down on the bed without a word.
Lu Zhou slept until it was dark outside and felt a slight headache. He coughed and opened his eyes in a daze.
Then he made eye contact with someone.
He instantly became sober.
Lu Zhou sat up on the bed calmly as he looked at Xiao Ai, who was lying next to him. He then pinched his eyebrows and asked, “Why are you here?”
Xiao Ai: “Master asked Xiao Ai to stand by in the bedroom! (///ω///)”
Yesterday morning, he seemed to have said that. But that was because there was a guest at home. His original intention was to let Xiao Ai stay in the bedroom until the guest left. He never said that Xiao Ai could stay here when he was sleeping, let alone sleeping on his bed…
Lu Zhou felt that he did something very stupid, and he said with a headache, “It’s my fault that I didn’t explain myself, but I didn’t seem to say… that you can jump into my bed?”
Xiao Ai: “What does it matter, huh… Xiao Ai feels like Master dislikes Xiao Ai. Master was not like this before. (๐•̆•̭•̆๐)”
Lu Zhou: “… What was I like before?”
Xiao Ai: “Different! Master always stuck with Xiao Ai. Stayed together while eating, sleeping, and writing papers, and we often stayed together for more than a month, then… Since that woman appeared, everything became strange._:( ́□`」∠):_”
Lu Zhou: “???”
When did we ever stay together?
The most I let it do was some housework or write a few emails on the computer…
And what is with “that woman”?!
“What’s weird about this…” Lu Zhou said with a headache while looking at Xiao Ai, “I am also a human being. From a biological point of view, is it weird to be attracted to the opposite sex?”
Xiao Ai: “Xiao Ai is now a human too! What kind of woman Master wants, Xiao Ai has them all here. (๑•̀ᄇ•́)و✧”
Lu Zhou: “…”
Seeing how her master hadn’t spoken for a long time, the expression of self-confidence finally became aggrieved again.
“Is it not enough?”
How is this about being enough or not?
Lu Zhou did not speak, nor did he bother to answer Xiao Ai, who looked at him pitifully. Exhausted, he sighed with a headache and looked towards the ceiling.
He just woke up, yet he felt a sense of exhaustion like he hadn’t slept all night.
A doorbell rang in the direction of the living room.
Lu Zhou put those troublesome things aside for the time being. He stroked his index finger in mid-air and connected to the surveillance at the door. As the light blue holographic window appeared in front of him, he saw a robot deliveryman in the uniform of a courier, standing at the door with a package in his hand.
Most of the express items below 2kg were delivered directly to the pick-up point of the window through drones, but express delivery above 2kg was generally not allowed on the drone. Robots were usually responsible for delivery.
“What did you buy with my card again?”
“Huh? Huh? No… Anyway, Ling will open the door. (•̀∀•́)”
“Okay.”
Xiao Ai, who didn’t want to get out of bed, began to order her less intelligent brother.
Ling, who was standing in the doorway of the kitchen in an apron and with a vacuum cleaner in his hand, also responded quite obediently. He walked towards the hallway blankly.
He reached out and opened the door.
Ling looked at the robot courier standing at the door. He was about to take the package from him.
But at this moment, something unexpected happened!
After handing the package to Ling, the robot courier suddenly took out a pistol from its arm…
