Chapter 129
When Semillian woke up again, it felt like a lifetime ago.
Overly intense emotions, venting long-buried resentment, and fear in the face of death, all of this seemed to have overdrawn his physical strength, leaving him exhausted from body to soul. Although consciousness had returned to normal, he did not even have the desire to open his eyes.
——I guess he has been locked up, right? His last performance was really embarrassing... If my father saw it, he might not even want to acknowledge me as his son, right?
He covered his eyes, and his tall body couldn't help but curl up. He first suppressed sobs, and soon turned into crying.
Compared to the disappointment of not having revenge or the despair of being captured and imprisoned by the enemy, the last scene made him feel even more ashamed. He had never realized more clearly than at this moment that he was not as brave as he thought before, and not even as righteous!
Once, Semillian hid in the shadows of Landia and stirred up the situation. He watched countless high-ranking figures in the empire being manipulated by him, and watched those people show all kinds of ugly behaviors when they lost money, status, and life. Semillian was full of contempt and ridicule. But now, he realized that he was the same. Under the threat of death, he would scream and cry like a frightened little girl.
And deep in his heart, what he was even more unwilling to admit and face was that when he thought he was on the verge of death, he realized that his hatred for Rong Yuan was so frivolous, like a tree rooted in the clouds, thinking that it had luxuriant branches and leaves and deep roots, but if a strong wind blew away the clouds, it would immediately fall without support and be smashed to pieces on the thick earth.
For decades, he hated Rong Yuan deeply and regarded revenge on Rong Yuan as the most important goal in his life. But in fact, it was just because he couldn't bear the pain of losing his family, so he chose to transfer all the negative emotions to a person who could be hated.
——Who made you so strong?
You are responsible for all the misfortunes!
——Who let you survive?
You should repent to all the dead!
So he sacrificed most of his life, was involved in conspiracies, used evil tricks, even abandoned his loved ones, betrayed trust, and got his hands covered in blood. However, he struggled with the pain in his heart to justify himself, thinking that he was sacrificing himself, moving forward with a heavy burden, and fighting against evil. But in the end, he found that all this was nothing but castles in the air and a mirage!
"What have you been doing all your life?"
Semillian asked himself, hot tears rolling down his cheeks.
After a very long time, so long that his tears had dried up and his heart was dead and numb, he suddenly felt something soft touching his face.
After a few seconds, Semillian opened his eyes slowly and saw a dark shadow suddenly rushing out in front of him.
He blinked his eyes and looked carefully. It turned out that this was a cave, and the shadow was a dirty child with only a piece of animal skin around his waist. The child had disheveled hair and bare feet. The animal skin on his body was so dirty that the original color could not be seen. In one hand, he held a long and sharp animal tooth with full of vigilance. His dark eyes looked at him with fear and curiosity, and his mouth made a high-pitched cry.
While Semillian was still in a daze, he heard the howling of wild beasts getting closer and closer, and then several adults who looked and dressed just like the dirty kid, but were much more burly and ferocious, rushed in. They held "weapons" such as wooden sticks, spears or stones in their hands, and stared at him with their eyes wide open, looking like ferocious beasts ready to devour anyone, but they did not hurt him. Instead, they danced in front of him and made all kinds of strange noises.
Semillian guessed that this might be their way of communicating, but he had no interest in understanding it, nor did he want to communicate with them.
At this moment, his heart was completely filled with shock. He was stunned and couldn't utter a word for a long time.
What's this?
What is this place?
Where did these primitive people come from?
Not to mention the Landia Empire where Semillian was born, a powerful country that is considered a superpower even in the Milky Way. Even in the huge Interstellar Alliance, even in a backward place like Zhongwu Star, there is no race so primitive that almost no trace of civilization can be found.
Semillian pushed away the primitive people surrounding the cave entrance and rushed out in a few steps.
Outside the cave, the grass was green, but it was covered with livestock feces.
Twenty or thirty primitive people, wearing only animal skins and nothing at all, turned around, pointed at him curiously , and uttered strange syllables that he could not understand.
In the distance, the trees are like the sea, vast and ancient. Some animals can be vaguely seen looming among the trees. You can even see a few wild beasts as big as hills walking slowly through the forest. Occasionally, one of them raises its head and calls, like blowing a long and loud horn.
There was not a single plant that he was familiar with.
There was not a single animal that he knew.
Semillian slowly raised his head. The color of the sky was slightly yellowish. Even under the scorching sun at noon, he could see three huge satellites floating in the distant sky. He could even vaguely see the shadows formed by the undulating terrain.
This was not any planet he had ever seen or known.
——This is not the Interstellar Alliance, but the Dark Star Region, a shadowy place where the light of technology and civilization has not yet shone.
——No, think about Zhongwu Star! This might not even be the Milky Way! It’s a small star system that’s isolated between galaxies.
Semillian thought desperately.
Suddenly, he began to run frantically along the hillside, shouting as he ran: "Rong Yuan, come out!"
"Come out!"
"What the hell is this place?"
"Send me back! You bastard!"
“I want to go back!”
"You can't leave me here alone!"
When Semillian first rushed out, the primitive people around him were a little nervous. But when they saw him just running and shouting on the hillside, they seemed to understand something, pointed at his head, waved their hands, and showed sympathy in their eyes.
However, Semillian didn't care what those primitive people thought of him. In his eyes, these people were no different from wild animals, barbaric creatures without wisdom and unable to communicate. The arrogance from the higher civilization had long been integrated into his blood, so - when humans do something, do they need to consider the opinions of the surrounding ants?
However, no matter how he shouted, cursed, insulted, threatened, and begged, he never got the slightest response. It was not until night fell, the cold dew soaked his pants, and his legs, which had been running all the time, fell to the ground due to soreness and weakness, that Semillian finally realized clearly and desperately that -
Rong Yuan will not respond to him!
Perhaps that person returned to Zhongwu Star after abandoning him, and exiled him forever to this primitive and vast land as a punishment for what he had done .
Semillian was too lazy to think about what kind of ability it was to be able to easily cross a distance measured in light years. He knelt on the ground exhausted and shouted with all his might in a hoarse voice:
“Aaaaaaaa——”
Several adult men among the primitive people followed behind with weapons in hand to protect him. Even though they did not speak the same language, they could feel the loneliness and despair . In their eyes, besides vigilance, there was also straightforward pity and concern.
A gust of wind blew, and the leaves rustled. On the hillside, the grass was low, and the insects hidden in it made high and low chirping sounds.
The first ray of dawn light pierced through the darkness, casting long shadows behind several people, blending together as if extending to the end of the world.
The golden sunlight was neither cold nor scorching. The breeze carried the scent of earth and grass, softly carrying butterflies dancing in the air. A big tree stretched out its branches to its heart's content, and colorful spots of light and shadows intertwined and moved under the tree.
This was the perfect weather for sleeping in. The black-haired young man lay under a tree, relaxed and sound asleep. On his chest, a little man the size of a fist lay with his face turned sideways and his limbs spread out near his heart, seemingly also sleeping soundly.
At this time, not far away came the intermittent, hoarse and sorrowful cry, like a beginner playing a low-quality erhu. The unpleasant cry was not violent, but it seemed to be soaked with all the sorrows in the world, so bitter that the people who heard it felt bitter in their eyes and mouths.
The black-haired young man sleeping under the tree frowned, endured for a moment, and suddenly opened his eyes. His handsome and young face was full of dissatisfaction!
The kid lying on top of him had already sat up, listened for a moment, and said, "Um, Rong Yuan..."
"Don't say it, I won't listen!" Rong Yuan said unhappily, "There are so many miserable people in the world. Even if the light of the Virgin Mary shines upon the world, she can't take care of so many. What's more, I'm not the Virgin Mary!"
He half sat up and raised his voice, "Hey, you over there, you're disturbing my sweet dreams. Can you cry somewhere else?"
Pea clenched its little fists nervously - it knew that the civilization on this planet was not very advanced and the individual qualities were limited. If they fought, Rong Yuan would definitely not lose, but it just couldn't help its nervousness.
——Maybe it’s because... this time it feels that they are not right?
The crying sound stopped and did not resume for a long time. Rong Yuan nodded with satisfaction, yawned, lay down and fell asleep again.
In the summer afternoon, even a light sleep is extremely comfortable. If it weren't for the rustling footsteps getting closer, Rong Yuan could have slept longer.
He half-opened one eye and squinted to see a man dressed in black and with a frosted face slowly approaching him, holding a long sword covered in scarlet blood. His appearance seemed to make the bright sunshine become cold and silent, and the murderous aura and bloody smell all over his body made Wandou hold his breath, but looking at his expression, it felt like seeing a subtitle in capital letters -
“Why is my life so hard?”, “My life is full of tragedy”, “I feel so hopeless”, “I might as well just die”.
Rong Yuan glanced at the merit value above the man’s head, too lazy to pay attention to him, closed his eyes and continued to sleep.
But the man seemed to be coming towards him. He walked straight towards him and finally sat down in a position not too far from Rongyuan, holding the sword with both hands. His body was as straight as the sword in his hand, but it gave people a feeling of being shaky and ready to collapse at any time.
He was like a wild beast expelled from his own species, and although he still appeared tenacious and even ferocious on the surface, he actually exuded uncontrollable sadness and helplessness. He was unconsciously looking for a home, longing for light and warmth, like a drowning man chasing a floating straw, but it seemed that he had already stepped half a foot into the bottomless abyss.
This man obviously had a story. When Rong Yuan had just left his home planet to go on adventures, he would have been happy to listen to this man's story. But now, he already had enough stories of his own and they were bizarre enough, so he really had little interest in other people's stories.
He just wanted to have a good sleep.
But the man didn't care whether he wanted to listen or not, and asked without thinking: "You said... why do people live?"
"Because I don't want to die." Rong Yuan said casually in his drowsiness.
"Then...people who want to die...should they just die?" The man said softly, looking at the sword in his hand.
He looked as if he would kill himself immediately if Rong Yuan said "yes".
Rong Yuan sighed - Do I look like a close brother?
He was actually really sleepy and really wanted to say, "Please go away," but if someone's death was because he gave the final push from behind, he would still find it unacceptable to him.
In particular, the look in this person's eyes always reminded him of a friend, the chubby girl who once stood on the roof of the teaching building and was about to jump off. Although the two were actually very different, the pervasive loneliness and despair were the same.
So he became more serious, turned over, put his hands behind his head, looked at the leaves above his head, which reflected the single green color in thousands of postures, thought for a moment and said, "Generally speaking, I think if a person wants to die, it's because the world he sees is too small."
The man was a little surprised and turned to look at him.
"Look, a teenage girl might jump off a building just because she doesn't want to have her hair cut."
"But when she's in her twenties, she can cut her hair or not, but she will jump off a building because of a broken heart."
"When she is in her 30s or 40s, she will probably find out that love is just a bubble and that daily necessities are the true meaning of life. Then she will jump off a building because she has lost her wealth."
"If she could live to be 60 or 70, there wouldn't be many things in the world that would make her jump off a building... Even if her family was broken up, her relatives were separated, she was all alone, or even the end of the world, she would be strong and hold on until the cruel reality forced her to end her life."
"Of course, this is only a high probability situation, and individual cases ."
"But... as you experience more and see a wider world, you will naturally feel that the things that made you miserable in the past may just be an insignificant bubble in the long river of life. As long as you are alive, you will always encounter more and better things."
The man was silent for a moment, then suddenly asked, "Why are they all jumping off the building?"
This question is not nonsense, but because this world is relatively primitive, the level of construction is not high, even in big cities, the floors are mostly short. So unless you jump headfirst, you will not die, most of the time you will just break your legs.
Rong Yuan also knew this situation. Although he had no intention of publicizing his identity as an alien, he was too lazy to cover it up with lies, so he lazily said, "Where we are, the buildings are very tall and there are many of them."
The man looked at him with complicated eyes and said, "It seems that you come from a very good place, more prosperous and more peaceful than here." After a pause, he continued, "And... you must have never lost anything important or a loved one."
Rong Yuan glanced at him and snorted, thinking, who said I didn't have it? It's just that you don't know my experience. But he was too lazy to argue, so he just let him think so.
The man stood up and looked into the distance.
As far as the eye can see, there are grasslands as vast as the sea, fields as crisscrossed as a chessboard, the sky is as blue as the water, and the clouds are as white as brocade. Everywhere you look, there is peace and beauty.
But he knew very well that such a beautiful and peaceful scene was only an appearance. Outside this quiet and remote valley, there were years of war, countless heavy taxes, and the greed and exploitation of noble officials. Even the little people struggling at the bottom did not have the simplicity, passion or sincerity described in the biography. There was only mutual oppression, deception, betrayal, and exploitation, and the viciousness of tearing the flesh and blood from the same suffering people.
This is a corrupt and rotten world. Even if he could wield a sword to slay the world, he could not slay all the endless evil thoughts in people's hearts.
The people here have learned to plunder and lose since they were still unable to walk or talk. There will never be girls in their teens or twenties who would commit suicide because of their hair or love, because they must have long been accustomed to more cruel realities.
That kind of world sounded too gentle, too beautiful, and too fragile, just like the fabrication of this strange young man after a daydream. But for some reason, the man believed it naturally without any doubt.
He turned to look at Rong Yuan. Even though this young man was just lying on the ground leisurely, he revealed something that was incompatible with this world from the bottom of his heart. Perhaps this was why he chose to believe.
There was no calculation or gloom in those eyes. Instead, they were filled with vigor and hope that was almost overflowing, and they were full of high spirits!
Seeing such eyes, such a person, and hearing that there is such a beautiful world, even his almost cold and dying soul trembled a little. He was silent for a long time, and suddenly asked: "Do you think... I can see a wider world?"
After a pause, he asked again: "...Can I?"
There was a humility and trembling in his tone that he himself could not detect.
Rong Yuan was stunned for a moment, looked at him, sat cross-legged on the ground, and began to think seriously.
Since entering the interstellar space, his ship has only occasionally been boarded by temporary rescuers, but there has never been any other permanent crew members except Emilida.
On the one hand, he has many secrets of his own, which even Emilida does not know. But if there are too many people around him, it is inevitable that they will be exposed.
On the other hand, he himself was not a person who liked crowds very much, or rather, he hated noise and gatherings, and subconsciously did not want another tragedy like Paco's to happen to someone he knew.
One of the costs of being a "Book of Merit" contractor is that evil thoughts and misfortune are more likely to gather around him. Therefore, the possibility of people who stay with him for a long time encountering danger will be greatly increased.
But at this moment, Rong Yuan felt unable to refuse.
Perhaps it was because interstellar travel with two or three people was still too lonely, even the quiet and shy Emilida often showed her desire for socializing;
Perhaps it was because, even if the person in front of him saw the peas, even if he heard words that sounded like lies, he did not question, did not ask, and did not even look at me twice. He trusted everything he said without reservation and thought seriously. Therefore, even though he exuded negative energy, he would not pass this emotion on to others. Being with him did not make people feel burdened, but rather relaxed and comfortable.
Perhaps it was because he knew in his heart that for a man like this to burst into tears, it must have been an extremely painful experience. He didn't want to ask, but he understood, and he couldn't bear to cut off his hope and prayers;
Or perhaps it was because of the look in his eyes - it was as if he had chosen to walk into the stinking swamp, quietly watching himself being swallowed up bit by bit, but when he was about to drown, he reached out a hand to the people watching by the swamp!
Rong Yuan felt that he would never forget that unconscious struggle and cry for help, that desperate cry in silence.
He hesitated for a moment, then let out a sigh of resignation and said, "I hate cooking and I'm too lazy to learn. If you can cook... well, I'm still short of a cook on my ship."
The man's eyes lit up, and he said with some joy and relief, "I can only do some simple things, but I can learn."
"Yes." Rong Yuan nodded, stood up, narrowed his eyes slightly, and said slowly with a bit of intimidation: "Once you get on my ship, you are mine. I can still give you a chance to regret it now, but if you betray me again later... Believe me, you don't want to know the consequences."
"That day will never come." The man said firmly, "By the way, my name is Barabi. What's your name, little brother?"
"Rong Yuan. But you have to call me Captain."
"Yes, Captain, please give me your guidance." Barabi threw the sword, which he once regarded as his life, to the ground in a casual manner. From then on, his hands could only hold pots and shovels.
"Oh, Captain." Barabi seemed to be infected with some vitality. He asked curiously, "Is our ship big? Is it a schooner? Is the captain's hometown on the other side of the sea?"
"Believe me, the world you are about to see is much wider than you can imagine. As for our ship..." He grinned with some ill intentions, "Ha, you will know when you see it."
"Rong Yuan, Rong Yuan!"
Rong Yuan opened his eyes and saw Wandou sitting on his shoulder and rocking him, her little face full of worry.
"Hmm?" Rong Yuan made a questioning nasal sound.
"What's wrong with you? Are you... thinking about what Semillian said before?" Pea asked cautiously and tentatively.
"No." Rong Yuan said, "It was just a dream."
Pea leaned forward, gently touched his brow with her little hand, and asked softly, "Is it a sad dream?"
“Hmm…” Rong Yuan turned his head to look at the sunlight outside the window and smiled gently.
"No, it was a very good dream."
