Translator: Helliot
Editor: NH
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It was only when the scene before him distorted that Adrian was able to confirm that the planet would stop revolving as soon as the AI’s core was destroyed. This wasn’t an attempt to fool them. It was the truth.
The final sentence left by the super-AI “Cocoon” to the world was a rhetorical question. Can one not deduce a human’s heart?
It had expected this fact to divide humanity within itself, that there would be humans, especially the President, who would be willing to cancel the mission in order to save Adrian’s life. But it still lost its gamble. It lost because it had underestimated the fearless determination of a martyr.
In the final moments of its life, the artificial intelligence that had been running for over two centuries finally got a rough answer to that question.
There was a white glow before his eyes.
Adrian struggled in his consciousness for a moment before he finally opened his eyes, and he recognized his surroundings to be a ward.
His consciousness was returning and he was aware that there were quite a few instruments attached to his body. The detectors beside him beeped as soon as he tried to sit up, and the door at the side of the ward slid open. A doctor and a nurse rushed inside.
“Sir Yate!” The nurse exclaimed in surprise when she saw him wake up.
The doctor quickly approached the bed and asked, “Please don’t move yet. How are you feeling?”
“How long have I been unconscious for?” Adrian asked. Having just woken from a long sleep, his voice was unusually hoarse. “Where’s the President?”
“The President?”
Both the nurse and the doctor looked at each other as if he had just said something incomprehensible to them. Even though their faces looked blurred and Adrian could hardly make out their features, Adrian could tell what they were thinking.
Both puzzled and anxious, he repeated, “The President…Where’s Zhong Yan?”
“Oh, so that’s who you mean…” Only then did the nurse snap out of it. “He’s no longer the President.”
The doctor said, “Sir Yate, it’s been ten years since you were rescued from the scrapped artificial planet. Please listen to me calmly. The Federation no longer exists. The person you mentioned is now our current Emperor.”
Adrian looked in shock at the two. After a pause, he said, “Is this a joke? Did Fayn send you?”
“I know it’s hard to take this in so suddenly…” While calming him down, he told the nurse, “Quick, send someone to inform His Majesty of the good news.”
The nurse obliged and went out joyfully.
Adrian didn’t listen to the doctor’s urging and sat up. “Doctor, I’m no medical student but don’t lie to me. At the very least, my muscles would’ve atrophied if I laid around for ten years without dying, right?” Then, he got out of the bed and took two steady steps on the floor. “I feel no different than when I went down on that mission!”
“That’s because medical technology has improved,” the doctor explained.
Adrian said, “Oh. Is that so?”
How strange. He easily accepted the explanation without even thinking twice about the actual possibility.
“Sir Yate!” the nurse returned with a look of reverence on her face. “His Majesty is summoning you! Come quickly!”
“Come…where?”
“The palace, of course!”
That’s right. Naturally, an emperor lived in a palace.
Adrian nodded and followed the nurse whose face he couldn’t seem to get a clear look of.
Something in his subconscious told him that something was strange, but he couldn’t tell what.
He followed the nurse out of the ward and headed down a hospital corridor that was pure white in color. Then, the nurse opened the door at the end of the corridor for him.
“Quickly go inside, don’t let His Majesty wait.”
Adrian took the whole “hospital corridor ending in a palace door” thing for granted and walked through that magnificent door.
Through the door was a large but narrow palace hall.
The windows were high up in the room, situated at about the height of three grown men stacked together, and there were fine and elaborate patterns carved onto the frame. The sun shone in, illuminating the circle of elegant patterns on top of the expensive marble floor inside of the hall.
A magnificent eight-meter wide, gold-trimmed red carpet was rolled out from the door all the way to the end of the palace, disappearing underneath a huge golden throne.
There sat a man right atop the royal throne.
Adrian stared deeply at him. The Supreme Emperor had an unparalleled face, and even across the entire hall, he could see every line and feature on that face.
He was sitting atop his throne in his noble and magnificent imperial attire and crown, his solemn face as cold as frost. Solemn and majestic.
“Xiao Yan,” Adrian muttered.
The instant he opened his mouth, the Emperor rose from his throne and stepped down.
They were clearly separated by the large hall, but it had only taken Zhong Yan two steps to arrive before him.
“You’re awake,” Zhong Yan said, no hint of joy or sorrow to be found in his voice. Echoing through the empty palace hall, it sounded ethereal and divine. “I thought you wouldn’t make it when the search and rescue team brought you out of there.”
Adrian said, “You were the one who saved me. I went back to that passage to get the rabbit tail you gave me, and I just happened to find escape pods installed inside the walls. Even though our ancestors from a century ago designed countless chokepoints to protect the AI from intruders, they still left their fellow men a reprieve from death.”
But to his disappointment, Zhong Yan didn’t seem to have any particular reaction upon hearing those words and only responded mildly. “I see.”
He had decided to die heroically before he found the escape pods, and that didn’t scare Adrian, but now he really felt fearful. Zhong Yan had never been this cold to him. Anxious, he asked, “What’s wrong, Xiao Yan?”
“You should not be calling me by my name,” Zhong Yan said to him in displeasure. “Since you are awake, let us talk business. We agreed that I would not do anything to disappoint you, provided you kept an eye on me. Ten years ago, you broke your promise. In the coming days where I thought you were no more, I restored the Empire and made myself Emperor. Now that you are awake, I have no intention of abdicating. So, will you lead an army to go against my rule?”
Adrian was stunned. Lead an army against Zhong Yan? Just like back in those anti-AI days?
He should be against it. The feudal imperial system had its authority centered around a single person with each citizen born in unequal circumstances. This was a system fraught with ills that had been abolished thousands of years ago. But now, Zhong Yan has restored it. No matter how he looked at it, it was absurd.
Adrian said, “I…”
“You’re going to betray me again,” Zhong Yan cut in with a cold smile. “You did that ten years ago, and you’re going to do it again.”
Betrayed. Again.
Adrian was thunderstruck but he could find no words to refute him. Indeed, he chose to save the world and leave Zhong Yan behind in the final moments of life and death.
He was clearly the one who committed himself to Zhong Yan when they just got married, and his life would belong to Zhong Yan in the future. But now, Zhong Yan had accused him of betrayal, and it was a justified accusation.
After the successive overthrow of the AI’s rule, did he now have to throw himself into the campaign to overthrow Zhong Yan’s rule as well? Then how would it end for Zhong Yan? Would he be defeated and completely pulverised just like the AI?
“No,” Adrian said. “In those last few seconds, I made a vow as I entered the escape pod. If a miracle did come and I lived, then I will belong only to you in the future. I have already died once in the world, and I have no regrets in this world. Only you. So…”
He went down on one knee in front of the Emperor. “I am willing to devote the rest of my life to you, Your Majesty.”
The Empire was bound to be subverted, but that was the task of their descendants. Now, all he wanted to do was protect Zhong Yan’s reign for the decades to come. If Zhong Yan was destined to be spat upon by the annals, then he was willing to go through that with him.
Adrian took Zhong Yan’s left hand and bowed his head down for a pious kiss, but he soon realized that something was wrong.
“Where’s your ring?” Adrian asked with a terrible look on his face.
Zhong Yan slowly withdrew his hand and said casually, “I took it off. I have already dissolved my marriage with you, but it is good news that you are not going to go against me. Then, you shall stay with me as my escort.”
“Escort?” Adrian said in disbelief. “Is it because of the institutional changes that dissolved our marriage? But I’m back now! Aren’t you supposed to name me your Empress or something like that?”
Zhong Yan shot him a glance and said, “The Empress’ seat is already taken. He is the heir of the Yate family, your cousin. Speaking of which, he and I were supposed to be optimal marriage partners as initially decided by the AI more than a decade ago, and we do get along just fine now.”
Adrian could tell that this face must have distorted. Did Zhong Yan not like him anymore? How was that possible?
…How could it not? He was the one who betrayed him first, and he had been lying in bed for the past ten years. No one stipulated that Zhong Yan had to keep his feelings for him.
He was put in a state of panic for a moment and he had no idea how to remedy the situation. Right at that moment, he had a clear look at the crown on Zhong Yan’s head.
There were not three sharp triangles as recorded in the history books, but instead two long semi-ellipses.
They were rabbit ears.
Zhong Yan really liked rabbits, huh? Even his crown had to be made into the shape of rabbit ears. He wondered if he could please him by buying him a giant space rabbit and offering it up as a gift.
But that’s not right…All his money was with Zhong Yan. He was penniless.
Wait a second…Didn’t he already buy Zhong Yan a giant space rabbit?
The scenery around them began to fade away, and Zhong Yan’s figure blurred. Adrian reached out to grab him and he shouted anxiously, “Xiao Yan! Don’t go!”
He opened his eyes and found himself lying in a hospital ward.
The monitoring apparatus at his side beeped, and a nurse quickly rushed in. When she saw Adrian with his eyes open, she exclaimed, “Commander! You’re finally awake! That’s wonderful news. Please don’t move, I’ll call the doctor now—”
“Wait,” Adrian called out to her, but his voice was unusually hoarse after having not spoken for a long time. He observed the nurse’s face carefully. He was able to see it clearly. It was a young, round-faced nurse. Only then was he sure that he was no longer in a nightmare. He breathed a long sigh of relief and asked with a hoarse voice, “Where’s the President?”
“The President?” The nurse repeated in puzzlement, seemingly not able to understand why he mentioned the President.
Adrian’s heart jumped in an instant. Could it be…that earlier wasn’t a nightmare? Was it a precognitive dream?
Without waiting for his response, the nurse finally had a realization and said to him understandingly, “You must be talking about Mr. Zhong, right? He left just a few minutes ago. I’ll ask someone to call him back immediately—Oh, that’s right. Mr. Zhong is no longer president. He resigned from his post less than two months after you were rescued. You’ve been comatose for most of this year, and your condition improved just last month. That’s when Mr. Zhong finally found some free time to establish the Giant Space Rabbit Conservation Association, and he now holds the position of president there.”
Resigned as the President and established a Giant Space Rabbit Conservation Association? Adrian’s mind was somewhat muddled after having just woken up, and hearing that sentence made him dizzy. His mind was still stuck on the solemn-faced Zhong Yan with his rabbit-eared crown, and he thought that it might be an organization of a similar nature to the specimen chain shop. Only, could he be in higher power as the head of this organization than being the President?
“So, what does this Giant Space Rabbit Conservation Association…” he asked seriously, “do?”
The young nurse gasped in horror and answered in a stutter, “The Giant Space Rabbit Conservation Association…conserves giant space rabbits.”
As soon as she finished speaking, Wei Lan just happened to enter the room, and the nurse looked as if she had found her savior. Mournful, she said, “Doctor Wei, bad news! The Commander seems to have hurt his head!”