Chapter 239: Tombstone_1

Jiang Yu and You Ze rode a shuttle that landed directly at the Desert North Farm.

Number Three had made arrangements long ago, and Jiang Yu and the others were taken to a large farm where they lived with a family for a while.

The family consisted of five members: an elderly couple, a younger couple, and a child around seven or eight years old.

In addition, they employed a few people to help manage the farm.

Desert North Farm was a place name, with a total of over a hundred farms, most of which operated on a leasehold basis. Only a few farms were directly run by the business department of the Solar System State.

The Science Academy of the Solar System State had created this greenery and continued to work on climate control.

The farm would have been even larger, but the PDC only allowed the Solar System State to build to this scale.

Even though reclamation could combat desertification and stimulate economic development, the PDC was not willing to grant more land to the Solar System State in order to limit its power.

To the naked eye, agriculture here seemed primitive, still at the mercy of the weather, but amidst the wild grass, in the forests, the hidden white nozzles and the "climate base stations" visible from afar, standing dozens of meters tall, were the things that broke the old rule of dependence on the whims of the weather.

Nowadays, whether it rains or how much it rains on the farm is up to the owner to decide.

Even new services had been added, such as defrosting, melt-the-snow rain, and the "refreshing service" during summer.

If it were not for the concern of the growth of crops, it should always be spring here; frost and snow had not yet formed when the warm air sprayed from the white nozzles into the sky would raise the local temperature above the point of frost and snow formation.

The frost and snow then would turn into dewdrops.

Because it was shot into the sky, forming a large-scale climatic change mid-air, the vegetation around the nozzles would not be greatly affected.

Moreover, as a counter to the PDC's refusal to grant more land, only legal residents of the Solar System State were allowed to lease farms here, although there was no such restriction for those working on the farms.

But now, not many people were willing to farm; most of the work was done by agricultural robots.

Those who worked on the farms included robot repairmen, programmers, and so on. A perfectly good farm got turned into something resembling an IT company.

Uncle Hao's family owned this farm, and they were all followers of the Wallfacer. When Number Three offered to pay rent and food expenses, they refused no matter what.

They even said that taking care of the Wallfacer's daily life was their honor.

It was only after having a meal on the farm that Jiang Yu felt the sensation of being back on Earth.

He had lived in Guanghan City for nearly two years before hibernating, and upon awakening, he was on Mars; he seemed to have grown accustomed to the life of the colonies.

Yet upon returning to Earth, he realized that living on Earth was indeed more comfortable!

It was just that gravity suddenly felt much stronger, and he found his legs a bit weak and sore after walking just a few steps.

Jiang Yu's social skills were rather good. Over the course of a single meal, he was already calling out Uncle Hao, Younger Brother Hao, and Auntie Zhou.

Seeing that the Wallfacer wasn't standoffish, the initial nervousness of Uncle Hao and his family gradually dissipated.

The seven- or eight-year-old child, who at first only dared to hide behind his mother, now dared to sit at a corner of the dining table to eat.

Uncle Hao loved gardening, and the large dining table was surrounded by numerous flowers and plants. Jiang Yu felt as if he was dining in a garden.

After staying at the farm for a few days and feeling mostly adapted to Earth's environment, Jiang Yu had You Ze prepare several bouquets of fresh flowers, and they drove to the now-deserted cemetery in the Beijing Suburbs.

Spirit money and the like were nowhere to be bought; thus, Jiang Yu prepared a bunch of fresh flowers for each of his parents and his sister and brother-in-law.

Sitting beside his mother's tombstone, Jiang Yu wiped away his tears, "I never expected you had been gone for so many years before I had the chance to come and see you."

In his grief, the sound and smiles of his parents and sister seemed to appear before his eyes.

After sitting in front of his parents' graves for over ten minutes, Jiang Yu went to pay his respects to Ye Wenjie with a bouquet of flowers, "Teacher Ye, rest assured, Yang Dong is doing well."

He placed another bouquet of flowers in front of Chu Xu's grave and said, "Bet you didn't expect me to bring you flowers, eh?

"You better take good care of the account you opened for me. There's nowhere to buy paper money anymore, and once I'm dead, there won't be anyone to burn it for me.

"At this rate, I might have to come join you! And let me tell you, if you dare deny it, I'll fight you to the death."

The photo on the gravestone had long since been scoured away by the wind and sand, leaving only the inscription still clearly visible.

Jiang Yu brushed the dust off the gravestone with his sleeve and reflected inwardly that if it weren't for the hibernation technology, chances are no one would remember the people buried here at all.

In a few hundred years, after the two-dimensional foil reaches the Solar System and this space collapses, who knows what might remain in the two-dimensional world?

Jiang Yu then drove to another cemetery to offer a bouquet of flowers to Chief Ji.

Guided by You Ze, he arrived at Chang Weisi's grave and placed a box of cigarettes in front of his old colleague's tombstone: "I originally wanted to burn these for you, but then I thought, what's the point if it all turns to ashes? You won't be able to smoke it anyway!

"I'll just leave it in front of your gravestone; grab one if you feel like smoking.

"Be sneaky when no one's around—otherwise, you might scare someone to death!

"Smoke them sparingly; nowadays this stuff is incredibly precious. I heard that there's only one cigarette factory left in the whole world.

"If it weren't for me being a Wallfacer, I wouldn't enjoy the privilege of having an entire industry preserved just for me."

You Ze, not far away, watched Jiang Yu talking to himself in front of the tombstone and felt an upsurge of solemnity.

People have seen the Wallfacers' power and glory, their saintly front, their easy laughter and conversation, but who has noticed that the Wallfacers' closest kin and friends have all turned into headstones?

Of course, those in hibernation are an exception, but even they can't accompany the Wallfacers!

Jiang Yu sat in front of Chang Weisi's gravestone and lit a cigarette for himself: "Old Chang, I've known since my student days that one person's power can't change the tide of the era, and I firmly believed that truth.

"But I was young back then and still did some things I had no business doing.

"Now I've realized, guess what, heh heh, I really can't change the tide of the era. I just managed to kick up a few waves within it.

"Old Chang, modern folks think Sophon is no big deal, but only our generation knows that Sophon is an insurmountable chasm.

"With that chasm in place, there's no way I can make any substantial change, even if I gave it my all.

"You might say, didn't we get an additional fifteen hundred interstellar warships?

"That's just fifteen hundred big firecrackers. Sophon is still Sophon, The Waterdrop is still The Waterdrop.

"Oh, you might not know what The Waterdrop is, right? Pretty soon you'll find out, and quite a few people will be 'checking in' with you.

"But the situation is about to change fundamentally. I did attempt some things I had no business attempting, but as soon as I realized something was amiss, I immediately went into hibernation.

"I'm way too slick to make an enemy of the whole world!

"Heh heh, just you watch, a big show is about to unfold."

Jiang Yu smiled mischievously at Chang Weisi's gravestone: "Old Chang, Old Chang, I'm pretty much a lonely old man now. Give it some time, and I'll be truly alone.

"How lonely that is!

"What? Wake up Yang Dong? Ha, now's not a good time to wake her. Let's wait a little longer, wait a bit more."

Jiang Yu got up, dusted the dirt off his buttocks, and looked at Chang Weisi's gravestone for a while: "I'll come see you again when I've got the time!"