Chapter 287: Digging One's Own Grave_1

Logic's eyes were full of bloodshot veins, his face haggard, and his body so thin it seemed it might not support his own weight.

Two centuries of hardship had accumulated upon him, seemingly ready to completely crush him.

The hallway was empty except for when he was leaving, where he encountered a child on the way home from school.

Logic noticed that the child stared at him with a strange and complex gaze, surely the result of something the child's parents had instilled in him.

Logic had long since given up caring about such things, as unwilling to fuss over them as he was to fuss with a child, and he walked past, step by step heading out of the building.

Outside, Logic found that the snow was still falling.

He opened his hand, letting two snowflakes drift down onto his palm, and as he watched them melt, Logic felt a profound sense of loss.

Snowy days always brought on a feeling of desolation between heaven and earth.

The desert and the sky were both blurring into dusk, like the blank spaces in a traditional ink painting. Logic imagined adding his own figure to this emptiness, and that was the last painting Zhuang Yan had left behind.

After spacing out in the snow for a while, Logic finally made his way to the highway and after a few minutes, flagged down a car. Inside were a young couple who warmly offered him a lift.

The couple were Hibernators returning to the old city, and in front of Logic, they didn't hide their affection for each other, occasionally whispering, laughing, or the girl feeding the boy some snacks.

Logic watched them, enraptured. If he weren't a Wallfacer, he might also be able to enjoy life with Zhuang Yan like that!

Then, suddenly illuminated by an oncoming car's headlights, the girl looked back inadvertently, "Ah! He looks just like a Wallfacer!"

The boy also turned around, and Logic could only admit that he was indeed a Wallfacer.

The car came to a stop. "Get out!" the boy said coldly.

The warm scene was abruptly shattered, but Logic didn't move; he was still immersed in the moment's warmth.

The man said again, "Please get out!"

Logic read the message in their eyes: It's not your fault for lacking the ability to save the world, but to give the world hope and then shatter it, that is an unforgivable sin.

Logic had no choice but to get up and out of the car, and his backpack was thrown out after him.

The wind outside, mixed with snowflakes, howled and pelted Logic's face.

Logic felt an indescribable chill, both physically and in spirit.

Watching the car disappear into the snowy night, Logic then slowly walked towards a bus stop not far away.

…

On the outskirts of the Jupiter Civilization Circle, Jiang Yu finally received a message from You Ze.

It was a dim photo, and in it, Jiang Yu saw Logic's lonely figure from behind, and he finally felt relieved.

He immediately contacted Ai Qi and Tao Yue, "If I can't make it back, wake up Manuel Rey Diaz who's hibernating in Guanghan City straight away, and make him the new Wallfacer!

"Also, we can send out a ship to rescue us now!"

Without waiting for Ai Qi and Tao Yue to ask questions, Jiang Yu ended the call.

Jiang Yu glanced at the timer on his wrist; in just over forty minutes, Number Three would arrive at the ship.

Part of Jiang Yu's consciousness entered the Wallfacer's Shop, where he converted all his Deception Points into "Stealth," and then, without hesitation, used the first "Stealth":

"It's time to act."

Number Three, following behind Jiang Yu, asked, "Is it really that dangerous?"

He had anticipated danger today but hadn't expected it to be to the extent that Jiang Yu would be making his final arrangements!

Jiang Yu initially responded with an evasive, "For the next while, Sophon won't be able to monitor us!"

Then he laughed and said, "Of course it's dangerous, but the Trisolarans have been played by me for the past two years, and even now they're still in the dark!

"Hahaha, the feeling of speaking freely is truly exhilarating!"

Talking like this, they reached the hangar and boarded a space fighter.

While Number Three was operating the fighter, he asked, "But you don't seem nervous at all!"

Using a program already prepared on the smart computer, Jiang Yu operated two other fighters to fly in different directions from theirs:

"The moment I became a Wallfacer, I put life and death out of my mind!

"Now that Number Three has reached Jupiter, my role as bait has been accomplished; Number Three is no longer a threat to Humanity, but just to you and me. Now all we need to focus on is escaping with our lives.

"Leave the rest to Logic!"

The fighter continued to accelerate while Jiang Yu kept his eyes on the timer.

When only ten minutes remained on the timer, Jiang Yu had Number Three shut off the plane's engines and turn off all the lights on the exterior of the aircraft.

Using the optical camera, he kept an eye on the spaceship from which he and his companion had just departed.

By then, they had put some distance between themselves and the spaceship, continuing to move away at high speed.

The spaceship had vanished from view, only the eternal Jupiter bore witness to Jiang Yu's every move.

The high-definition camera on the fighter still displayed the massive spaceship before Jiang Yu and Number Three.

It hung there quietly, looking rather majestic.

With seven or eight seconds left on the timer, suddenly a streak of light darted towards the spaceship.

Jiang Yu said coldly, "Here it comes!"

The two of them watched as the streak of light pierced the massive hull; the light moved so quickly that afterimages appeared on the screen.

Then the light streaked through the ship from another direction, and in the blink of an eye, it had turned the spaceship into a sieve.

Jiang Yu curled the corners of his mouth, "How much must the Trisolarans hate me?"

By the time the internal explosions of the spaceship began to tear it apart, the streaks of light were still piercing back and forth, as if determined to leave no corner of the ship untouched.

Only then did Number Three realize the Trisolarans truly didn't know they had already left the ship. So, "Can you really evade Sophon's surveillance?"

"Why would I lie to you?"

"Then you really are dark—never mind, I don't care who you are."

Jiang Yu smiled without a word, "Put on your helmet, we're preparing to leave the fighter."

...

Logic waited for over an hour, covered in snow, before a bus heading in the direction he needed to go finally arrived.

The bus was half-empty, with only six or seven passengers on board.

The journey was smooth, but after more than an hour, someone recognized Logic.

As a result, the people on the bus unanimously demanded he get off.

Logic argued that he had already paid for his ticket with Credit Points, and of course, he had the right to take the bus.

An old man with graying hair pulled out two cash coins, now rarely seen, and tossed them to Logic, who nonetheless got thrown off the bus.

As the bus pulled away, someone stuck their head out the window and asked, "Wallfacer, what are you doing with a shovel?"

Logic said coldly, "I'm digging my own grave!"

His words provoked a burst of laughter from the passengers.

No one knew he was telling the truth.

After walking for more than an hour in the snowy night, Logic arrived at the graveyard. He turned on his flashlight and began searching the tombstones one by one.

Finally, he saw the words "The Tomb of Ye Wenjie."

Standing before the tombstone, Logic reflected, "Teacher Ye, the great upheavals in my life started with you, let them end here as well."

After saying this, he took out the shovel and began to dig his own grave.

He had thought it would be difficult to dig, but he found loose sand beneath the thin layer of snow.

Under the sand, the ground began to harden, but fortunately, it was early winter and not yet frozen solid.

...

On the outskirts of the Jupiter Cultural Sphere, Jiang Yu, along with Number Three, left the fighter.

As far as the eye could see, off in the distance, there was a faint red glow – the remnants of the large spaceship still exploding.

Besides that unignorable Jupiter, it seemed as though there was nothing else between heaven and earth.

Yet Jiang Yu could instinctively feel the threats that lurked within the starry sky.