Looking out in the direction of the voice, he saw a tall man in a gray-white uniform standing a few meters away. Most of the people there wore the same clothes, and the man was so ordinary that Hao Ren could not tell if he had ever seen the man. The man came up to him, examined the image projected by the MDT and repeated his question. “Nolan?”
“You are…” Nolan looked at the strange man inexplicably. “Do I know you?”
“I’m Ulyanov.” The strange man was startled before he said, “I have never seen you in this image.”
“Ulyanov?” Hao Ren’s eyes widened and looked at the tall, healthy man in surprise. He did not expect to meet Ulyanov again; it was a total surprise. “I didn’t expect to see you here. I couldn’t even recognize you because you’ve got a face now!”
Ulyanov’s expression stiffened. He forced a smile and touched his face. “I wasn’t born with a face mask. Ah, meeting you reminds me of the ‘dreams’—the memories that make people feel at a loss. Oh, I should now call your Lord, Governor of the Planet or something?”
Ulyanov’s expression was a little weird. He looked at Hao Ren, embarrassed and at a loss. “I just came out of the Social Adaptation Department, and I heard the teaching of the Root of Origin. You seem to be this planet’s lord.”
He was just like other Zorm people who had just woken and a little confused about the situation at hand, but he was different in that he had seen Hao Ren before, and been together for a long time. It made him particularly overwhelmed. Hao Ren did not have that kind of intense feeling though as he just waved his hand and said, “Take it easy, I’m just an adventurer. This planet is my temporary place. I have given this planet to Zorm as its new home. You will be fine here. I’m not in charge here.”
Ulyanov shrugged. “It’s easy for you to say that.”
“Just listen to him,” Nolan said. “This guy has quite a personality, and he is as rich as Croesus. Don’t worry about him.”
Ulyanov looked at Nolan, surprised. He felt that his former superior in the dream seemed to have changed a lot.
“What a coincidence to see you here.” Hao Ren patted on Ulyanov’s arm and signaled the others not to keep standing in this place. “Let’s find a place to talk.”
They came to the place where Ulyanov was currently living. It was a hut, which was one of a dozen around the central square of the town. These huts were built with simple planks to cater for people who had just recovered from the blood pool and could not immediately assimilate to the society. Ulyanov had to live here until he ‘graduated’ from the Social Adaptation Department, after which, He would be assigned to other parts of the town, or working in production, or studying some simple mechanical devices which were needed now and could be made from currently-available materials.
“There is a shortage of manpower everywhere. Every day, strong adults are coming out of the blood pool, but it’s still not enough. We must build solid and safe settlements everywhere, reserve enough food and reinforce the town before the temperature drops; these houses are too fragile,” Ulyanov said of his life here. Strictly speaking, it was the life he had just heard from the Social Adaptation Department. He looked out through the window of the hut, from where he could see the blood pool in the central square and the silver-white alloy antenna tower standing in the middle of the town. “I may have to go to the construction site by the river. This town is near a river, which our people are trying hard to harness its power by building a water mill using the materials on hand before the coming winter so that the green seed collected from the forest can be peeled off and stored. We are going to make the tree seeds our staple food.”
Hao Ren looked at Ulyanov who looked slightly tired. “How are you doing now?” he asked.
Ulyanov rubbed his forehead. “You know, my memory is still not working properly. I just woke up from a long, long nightmare. They told me that my brain is in the midst of re-organizing the reality from the dream. The hardest hours are over now, but there will be some mild symptoms for a couple of days. I can not only remember I was fighting as a soldier and as a musician in the dream, but also the time where I was lying in a soul extractor, uploading my consciousness to the Ark. I couldn’t believe that it has been ten thousand years.”
“Your planet…” Hao Ren was a little hesitant when he talked about this topic.
“I know.” Ulyanov smiled. “We all know — the Root of Origin. Oh, you should call it Zorm, it had instilled everything that had happened into our minds so that we know what happened when we first woke up. That scene is unbearable, but things have already happened, and now we can only move forward.”
While saying that, he laughed. “We are fortunate. At least we have survived and got a new home. The original Ark plan did not foresee that kind of outcome; we should thank the Goddess for her protection.”
Y’zaks asked casually, “Do you still believe in the Goddess of Creation?”
“Of course, why not?” Ulyanov said matter-of-coursely. “Oh, though the dreams had confused a lot of people, the earliest memory came back when we woke up. We certainly remember whom we were praying to before we entered the ark.”
“Praying?” The word stuck out like dog’s balls to Hao Ren. “You said that you were praying before entering the Ark?”
“Yes. Why?” Ulyanov had no clue why Hao Ren was obsessed with that. “The Goddess of Creation is our core belief. Regardless of the level of social development, the church is always an important part of us. We should pray.”
Lily’s ears stood erect. She scratched Hao Ren’s arm. “Mr. Landlord didn’t Muru say—”
“I know.” Hao Ren interrupted her and waved his hand. “Muru knows only part of the truth. After all, he is not omnipotent. We’ll ask him when we get back out. By the way, is your life here okay?”
Hao Ren was directing his question at Ulyanov, who smiled and nodded. “As you can see, the necessities are all here. The AIs maintaining the antenna tower helped us build a part of the huts and most of the necessities of life. These things…”
Ulyanov pointed to his clothes; a synthetic fabric garment made using cheap and fast process by the AI factory. “They provide all the clothes, medicines, tools, and food. Every morning, people in the town walk to a distribution point one kilometer away. There is a large platform where a robot full of mechanical tentacles will drop the materials there. We have a total of 1.6 billion population to return to the real world, and it is impossible for the AI factory to support the population. We are now trying to rebuild our production system.”
Ulyanov pointed to the hut in where they were. “Strong men are responsible for building the hut, and the women studying animals and plants. Zorm is cloning the species we are familiar with and bring them into this world, but the species have changed to adapt to the new environment. That’s why we have to re-learn. I’ve also heard that they’re going to restrict the speed at which they release people out of the blood pool, because the material production couldn’t keep up. Although the lifeblood will make trees and crops mature more rapidly, it is still impossible to sustain 1.6 billion people in a short period. We have no choice but could only leave half of the population in the virtual world, so that the nature in the real world can thrive.”
Hao Ren listened attentively. He felt that this was a precious knowledge; a civilization restarted its life on a foreign planet, and people with nothing left was rebuilding their society with the limited support of the alien factory. The interaction between the Zorm people and the autonomous robots and the ruins of the Tannagost was not something that was common.
Hao Ren felt that it was necessary to accumulate as many experiences as he could. After all, as a person who was prone to blow things up, he did not know when he would encounter stranger tasks.
Suddenly, a noise from the central square interrupted their conversation.
