Chapter 67

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Chapter 67: The Edge Coordinates

Luo Yu leaned against the driver’s seat and dozed off for a while, suddenly jolting awake. She quickly sat up and glanced around the cockpit; it was pitch black and silent, with the dark expanse of space still visible outside.

She examined the status panels on the control desk, which showed that the Shan Hai Jing was stable and the external environment was normal. With a sigh of relief, she pressed her fingers to her forehead.

Since departing from the Ponsuo Tribe, they had been in the time and space passage for three and a half hours, taking a short rest at this point. Checking the time on the control panel, she noticed they had already been stationary for five hours.

At that moment, the sounds of Zhu Huai snoring reached her ears. Turning back, she saw Ying Zhao still asleep with her eyes closed. She resumed her thoughts, quietly calculating their journey.

Currently, they were halfway to the edge coordinates they needed to reach, and they still had time to rest. If they rested well before departing, they could make it there in one go.

Noticing that the alarm clock still had an hour left, she carefully sat up, trying not to make any noise to wake the others. Everyone had been in a highly tense state during the journey, and the energy expenditure was considerable.

She picked up the water pouch and took a sip before reaching down to pull a backup panel from the slot beneath the control desk, pressing the power button.

This was a backup panel where Zhu Huai had stored the livestream recovery data before closing the deployment process. It also contained the criminal confession video of 015 and various recordings of their experiences in this world.

The contents were prepared specifically to handle inquiries from the Special Operations Department upon their return. They aimed to demonstrate their complete disconnection from Fuxi and the organizations behind the sky curtain, while also explaining how they managed to gain the support of higher civilization thirty thousand years ago.

Before departing, they had already agreed on their narrative. However, as she sat in the cockpit, watching their coordinates draw closer to the space station’s communication edge, she began to repeatedly ponder the inquiries they would face upon their return and the potential consequences of their statements.

As she contemplated deeply, a groan came from the co-pilot seat beside her, followed by the sound of turning. Zhu Huai sat up, scratching her head and looking at Luo Yu, “You’re awake? Did you rest well?”

Luo Yu responded with a soft “Mm”, wanting her to keep her voice down so as not to wake Ying Zhao. Just then, she noticed Ying Zhao had just woken up, rubbing her eyes and asking, “What time is it?”

Upon hearing they had been stationary for five and a half hours, Ying Zhao sat up a bit more. “Then we still have some time to rest. Let’s eat something!”

Zhu Huai agreed, nodding, “Yes, we should eat something. This nap left my stomach empty.”

Ying Zhao smiled at this, unbuckled her safety strap, and turned to grab three bags of nutritional supplements, handing one each to Luo Yu and Zhu Huai.

These were special nutritional supplements that Ti Ran had brought from the time and space transit center, designed for long space journeys. They not only quickly replenished energy but also had a rich flavor with the familiar taste of Ponsuo Tribe cooking.

Zhu Huai opened the nutritional supplement and took a couple of sips. Noticing the backup panel in Luo Yu’s hands, she asked, “What are you looking at? I backed up everything, so don’t worry.”

Luo Yu returned the panel to the slot and opened her own nutritional supplement. “I was wondering if there are any flaws in our narrative. Once the Special Operations Department and the Bureau finish their routine inquiries, I wonder how the higher-ups will react.”

“The Bureau’s Inspection Department is overseeing this. Right now, they’re with Zhu Long, so they are our own people, nothing to worry about. As for the Special Operations Department…” Zhu Huai pondered. “We’re not lying; we just need to say what’s necessary and say less of what isn’t. No matter how powerful they are, they can’t implant a brain chip on us, so why worry?”

The brain chip technology in their world was similar to the memory extractor used by the Ponsuo Tribe, but it was technologically inferior. It still hadn’t resolved the issue of electromagnetic waves harming memory and brain nerves. Therefore, the primary use of the brain chip in their world revolved around murder investigations, utilizing memory playback from corpses to identify killers, and it was prohibited from being used on living people. Naturally, the Special Operations Department couldn’t make exceptions either, so any inquiries they faced would likely only involve a lie detector test.

Their prepared narrative regarding the livestream recovery would be entirely truthful, including all that happened during the broadcast’s loss of control. Once they handed over the backup panel, those situations would also be revealed, so there was nothing to conceal concerning the malfunction.

As for the two trainee team members, they intended to report their experiences truthfully. 014 had perished immediately upon landing, while 015’s crimes were discovered by them afterward; having confessed, he starved to death in guilt.

Regarding the Ponsuo Tribe’s circumstances, they needed to be cautious about how much they disclosed to avoid unnecessary complications for future operations.

Their agreed-upon narrative was that thirty thousand years ago, this historical time period contained an unexpected higher civilization. During the repair of the time and space module, they had received some assistance from the locals. However, they rushed to return within the passage’s validity period, so they didn’t understand that world more deeply.

They edited a portion of the data into a video, showcasing only the societal and technological conditions of the Ponsuo Tribe. They collectively decided not to mention anything related to the cycle of civilization to the Special Operations Department or the Bureau for the time being.

One reason for this was that the theory of the cycle of civilization was overly abstract, and many validations were stored with the Ponsuo Tribe, which they hadn’t brought back. Thus, even if they discussed it, no one would believe them, and it might lead to more relevant inquiries, disrupting their original plans.

Furthermore, the rules surrounding the cycle of civilization involved issues of chromosomal degradation, which could easily provoke extreme reactions from certain groups, potentially backfiring on them.

Hence, they decided to summarize their experiences during their time with the Ponsuo Tribe as “language barriers and limited time prevented us from gathering more detailed information to return for in-depth analysis.”

The so-called “information” was carefully selected content that Zhu Huai had compiled into a short clip, with translations of the locals’ dialogues labeled as “speculative” subtitles, aimed at reporting the results of their unexpected landing to the Space Administration.

“It mainly concerns our observations of the Ponsuo Tribe,” Luo Yu pointed at the panel in her hand. “We’ve cut down quite a bit of content, but we’ve retained the superiority of their technology and systems from thirty thousand years ago, which will definitely attract unwanted attention and could lead to invasion plans.”

“Invasion? Ha.” Zhu Huai swiftly finished the nutritional supplement, placing the empty pouch in the recovery box and leaning back. “What would they invade with? With our level of technology, even if there are ill-intentioned people, they would still get beaten up in that world. Plus, the time period for the passage is already half over; in such a short time, no one could reach that place.”

The technology of the Space Administration’s time and space bureau was currently leading the world, but all existing time and space modules could only reach historical time periods of five thousand years ago. Their landing thirty thousand years ago was purely accidental, and being able to navigate such a long time tunnel for their return was thanks to Zhu Huai modifying the technical solutions provided by Lei Ming and the spacecraft designer. Even so, the original design of the Shan Hai Jing was not capable of supporting multiple long-distance trips.

In other words, once they successfully returned, the Shan Hai Jing would be close to being unusable. Furthermore, the other operational time and space modules couldn’t be upgraded within a short time to enable such long-distance journeys. Even with Ponsuo coordinates, they simply couldn’t make it.

“Not right now, but what about in ten years?” Luo Yu glanced at Zhu Huai and then back at Ying Zhao.

They had a ten-year agreement with the Ponsuo Tribe, and Ying Zhao also hoped to expand the time bureau and space station’s scope for time exploration over the next decade. This way, they could confirm what had occurred in those ten-thousand-year blind spots between their civilization and Ponsuo. If possible, she also wanted to attempt observing the last discontinuity point of the Ponsuo civilization to see if they had truly ascended.

To achieve these goals, they would need support from the Space Administration, but that would undoubtedly attract ill-intentioned individuals looking to replicate the prior sky curtain deployment and exploit historical time periods for their gain. After all, the natural environment of their world had already deteriorated to a near irreparable state, prompting the Federation to propose a large-scale interstellar migration exploration plan for three consecutive years, believing that this world was no longer suitable for human habitation.

“Of course, in ten years,” Zhu Huai replied firmly, her gaze sharpening, “so we need to resolve both overt and covert threats during this decade.”

Luo Yu’s initial determination to return was to bring back life-saving medicine and related technology for her niece. However, upon learning about the cycle of civilization within human civilization, the significance of this mission grew even greater, as it would determine whether their time period could continue after the exit of secondary beings, avoiding the reset at the end of the cycle. This also meant that the resistance they faced would be greater and more complex.

Inevitably, many challenges lay ahead. While success would be ideal, if they struggled to prevent that world from sliding into the abyss, at the very least, they needed to avoid dragging the Ponsuo time and space into it. Even if it was unlikely their world would develop the capability to invade within ten years, they absolutely would not allow even a single flower or blade of grass to be harmed. Ensuring the stability of that time period was the baseline for their consensus.

The three of them nodded firmly at each other inside the dimly lit time and space module.

After resting for a bit longer, when the alarm for their re-launch time sounded, they each gathered themselves and sat tight. Luo Yu reached out to press the start button, and the power compartment erupted with a thunderous roar as she pushed the control stick forward. The Shan Hai Jing surged toward the coordinates at the edge of the space station.

This time, navigating without real-time guidance from the space station made the long-distance journey significantly more challenging. Despite ten full days of simulations, the fluctuations from small gravitational fields still caught them off guard along the way. In fact, during a gravitational shear at a turn in a time tunnel, two of the eight detectors on the outer hull were damaged.

Fortunately, Luo Yu was agile enough to evade those dangers, and Zhu Huai kept a watchful eye on her while Ying Zhao verified the ship’s route in real time with the panel, helping them avoid large gravitational field fluctuations ahead. This way, they safely maneuvered the Shan Hai Jing through the time and space passage without getting caught in gravitational fields and losing their way, which had been their biggest concern.

Five hours later, the displacement indicator revealed they were nearing the designated coordinates. As the target approached, the three of them breathed a sigh of relief, yet they also sensed a growing weight of seriousness.

They were about to enter the signal coverage of the space station, which meant the difficult part of their journey was about to begin.

Before long, Luo Yu pulled the control stick, bringing the Shan Hai Jing to a steady stop at the designated coordinates. She turned to Zhu Huai and Ying Zhao, nodding at them before lifting the communication device.

“This is the Shan Hai Jing; I’m team leader Luo Yu. We are returning from the historical time period of our accidental landing to the communication edge and now request navigation guidance. Our coordinates are…”