Chapter 42

Yan Yue nodded. “The Underground Base’s chief commander, but he’s not here right now. Most of the time, he’s in New Loch City.”

“Oh, okay.” Horne had thought such a place would be led by Hels, but on second thought, that didn’t seem likely.

The negative second floor was for sustaining life, with special food cultivation dishes.

“Colonel, come take a look!” Yan Yue quickly led Horne to a glass room.

It was a biological cycle pod, with a miniature, precisely operating ecosystem inside. Artificial light real-time followed the changes in the sun’s angle relative to Earth, simulating dawn and dusk transitions, with water vapor condensing into fine mist that shimmered with tiny lights.

There were several such glass rooms, each set to different ecological environments, arid or rainforest.

The glass constantly reflected Horne’s face, and Yan Yue, who bounced beside him without stopping, seemed to have endless energy.

“A sparrow may be small, but it has all its vital organs.” Yan Yue thought for a moment, confirming that was how the saying went; she had forgotten which base member she’d heard it from. “But the output isn’t much. Plus disease control, medical conditions, the base’s size, and limited resources mean it can’t accommodate too many people.”

Apart from the researchers, most people worked here. Everyone in the base had their own work station, forming a good ecological closed loop, self-sufficient.

Yan Yue explained that she also worked here, handling inventory, sorting, and transport of supplies, though she occasionally did other things, like helping out upstairs or volunteering to show Horne around the base.

“People from New Loch City rarely come here. Even when they do, it’s just those few. From the time I was born until now, you’re the first new face I’ve truly met.” Yan Yue was in a great mood; she even invited Horne to have a late-night snack together later.

“Secretly.” Yan Yue whispered.

Horne showed a faint smile. He felt that in such an environment, Yan Yue’s personality was rare and very endearing.

Yan Yue took Horne on a tour, finally returning to the negative first floor research level, which covered research and production in all fields of science and medicine.

A large hall connected several corridors; they entered one of them. At the end of the corridor were several huge chambers.

“Though our numbers are few, we still have brave scientists, like…” Yan Yue led Horne around, finally stopping in front of a door. She knocked and mimicked a sound effect with her mouth. “Ding ding ding dang!”

Not long after, the door opened, and a man walked out.

“Like this guy!” Yan Yue made a confetti-throwing gesture. “Hee hee, I brought the colonel over.”

Horne had speculated about this before, so he wasn’t too surprised now. He just remained expressionless, as he couldn’t have a good attitude toward someone who had sold him to the Red Light District to work as a duck.

Wang Wudao nodded at him and said, “Colonel, welcome to the Underground Base.”

Horne replied coldly, “Mm.”

Wang Wudao suddenly remembered something. He laughed twice, the wrinkles on his face deepening as he bowed to Horne. “Hee hee, very sorry, Colonel. It was a necessary evil. Our country has an old saying: Of two harms, choose the lesser; of two benefits, choose the greater. You should understand.”

Horne said nothing and followed him into the room.

Wang Wudao turned to glance at Yan Yue, who wanted to follow, and kept making shooing gestures with his hand. “Hey hey, what are you coming in for? Go to negative three, find an empty room, clean it up. You think hosting the colonel is playtime?”

Yan Yue rolled her eyes and ran off.

It was a data recording room, surrounded by screens and jumping characters.

Wang Wudao poured Horne a cup of hot tea and gestured for him to sit.

Horne calmly sat on the deep blue sofa.

He had known it wasn’t a coincidence. Someone knew exactly where he would go and had been waiting there. At that time, he had just woken up, and his ignorance of the world made him extremely easy to deceive.

“Colonel, I think you already know this, but I still want to ask: how much do you know about the Aliens?”

The air was silent for a moment before Horne faintly said, “Some.”

He should know some of this information, but recalling it now still felt a bit fuzzy.

Wang Wudao’s swivel chair turned a circle to face Horne.

“Alright then, Colonel. I’ve heard a bit about your story.” Wang Wudao said. “Humans misunderstood you deeply once, but fortunately, the chief commander defended you strongly and cleared up everything you did.”

“Chief commander?” Horne asked about this person again; he had already heard about him from Yan Yue.

Wang Wudao looked puzzled. “You don’t know? You should have met him already, right?”

Horne recalled for an instant but found no information about this person in his mind. Before he could speak, Wang Wudao waved his hand. “Never mind, not important. You’ll meet him sooner or later. Anyway, let me give you a quick rundown.”

He gestured to the image on the screen.

Horne leaned back on the sofa, legs crossed, sitting impeccably.

A 3D model of a star system.

“See, this is a conceptual map of the Tau Ceti Star System. Tau Ceti is not far from the Solar System and was once a key search target in the extraterrestrial civilization project. Now we know the Tower Aliens come from there.”

The screen changed to an image of a fallen angel.

“Azazel—this name comes from the Old Testament of the Bible, later modified by humans as the scientific name for this branch of Aliens—AzarZel. Ah, how do you pronounce this translation? Azazel, oh right, Azazel. Such a mouthful; we don’t usually call them by their scientific name.” Wang Wudao’s face scrunched up as he read it several times. He pulled up an image of the Aliens, the six-winged, double-faced ones familiar to Horne.

Seeing this form, Horne still felt uncomfortable. His fingertips tightened, gripping his pant leg, and he bit his lower lip until it was bloodless, then released.

“These creatures, their life form is special—not carbon-based or silicon-based as humans understand, but a quantum particle-state lifeform. Each cell is actually a particle cluster, maintained by quantum entanglement and energy fields. Reproduction is also via particle replication. They have a ‘superpower’: infinite regeneration.

“But now, their planet’s energy field is weakening and will completely disappear over the next millennium, so they started a migration plan, trying to adapt to survival in another form. Earth is the target they searched for a long time to find.”

The screen showed a blue planet, hovering for a moment before turning into two particles.

“When suffering physical damage, their bodies rely on quantum entanglement energy fields to slowly repair over time, which also gives the race an advantage: immortality. Speaking of particle state, cough.”

He cleared his throat. “Their thinking doesn’t rely on a brain but on information exchange among all body cell particles. After successfully fusing genes with the opposite, they can freely change form. So after arriving on Earth for a while, they learned to imitate humans and build human bodies for themselves. This way, they can adapt to life on Earth without being affected by their home planet’s energy field and want to make this place their new home.”

Horne had a vague impression. They had appeared northeast of Greenland. When first discovered by Europe, their demand was peaceful coexistence, but human missiles fired first. That massive explosion heralded the beginning of a century of conflict between humans and Aliens. Though humans fired the first shot, it seemed they wouldn’t be the last ones standing.

“But wanting to live as humans on Earth has its downsides, as you know. Human bodies are very fragile.” Wang Wudao chuckled, then turned to Horne and saw him just holding the hot tea without drinking.

He paused and said, “Colonel, is the tea not good?”

Horne was also taken aback; he hadn’t even thought about it. He looked down at the tea in his hand and said, “No.”

Wang Wudao explained, “This is Qingcheng tea, produced in my hometown, Qingcheng Mountain. But I haven’t had authentic Qingcheng tea either; I just planted it myself on negative two according to the literature. Not sure if the taste is right. If you don’t like it, I can switch it for something else, juice?”

Horne took a sip of the tea and said faintly, “No need.”

“Alright then.”

He continued, “Azazel have astonishing recovery and transformation abilities, but they’re not truly immortal. They’re limited by the energy field—the one from their original planet. After coming to Earth, they lack this energy source, so they’re greatly restricted in all aspects. First, transformation and recovery—the more restricted, the more it shows their home planet’s energy field is weakening. They’ll eventually settle on a long-term form to sustain the race, which is becoming human. But biological evolution is slow; we won’t go into that now…”

“Wait,” Horne interrupted him. He frowned slightly, his finger slowly tracing the rim of the cup as he thought quickly. “Discovering this must have been a process. How did they discover they could turn into human form and integrate into human society?”

Wang Wudao’s unfinished words stuck in his throat. He had to recall the answer to Horne’s question on the spot. His mouth hung open, eyes rolled up as he thought for a moment, then said uncertainly, “I think I’ve heard about this. The first Alien to turn human-shaped was very early, probably when you were little. I heard it turned into a woman and went to Langdao City.”

Wang Wudao’s face wrinkled as he muttered to himself twice. “What happened later?”

“Ah, I have a bit of a recollection.” He immediately raised a finger high and continued quickly. “At that time, the Aliens hadn’t realized the consequences of turning human-shaped, and no one knew how she became human. After that woman integrated into human society, she was discovered, and the Aliens killed that transformed kin of theirs. Sigh, anyway, later Langdao City fell, residents migrated to Loch City, and there was no more news. It wasn’t until over a dozen years after humans surrendered that the Aliens started transforming into human form on a large scale.”

Wang Wudao recalled for a moment, but he had heard this long ago, and no one paid much attention, so he didn’t remember clearly.

He waved his hand. “Not important anyway. Now, if you’ve seen an Alien switching between human and true form, you’d notice the change time is extremely short—absolutely no more than ten seconds. Because we’re over a dozen light-years from their home planet, the energy field support is insufficient. Once their body enters particle dissociation state and exceeds ten seconds without recombining, the particle structure collapses and dissipates.”

At this point, he let out a deep sigh, like a survivor after a disaster. “This is good for humans. Something with form is easier to deal with than formless. If the Aliens ignored this rule and could stay in indefinite particle state, dispersed, omnipresent, invisible and intangible—it would be—extremely terrifying!”

He lowered his voice, grave and heavy. At the same time, “Pa!”—the room’s lights went out, plunging it into darkness along with the final fading syllables.

Horne was just about to ask what was going on when “click,” a crack opened in the darkness, warm light shone in, and the door was opened.

Yan Yue poked her head in and went, “Eh?” “Why didn’t you turn on the lights?”

Wang Wudao was annoyed to death; he slapped the table, making it shake twice, and shouted, “You just had to come in right now! I just turned off the lights!”

Yan Yue had no idea what happened and felt baffled, but she still continued with her purpose. “Sorry about that. Colonel, Mr. Hels asked me to ask if you want ice cream? We have homemade cheese flavor.”

Knowing the lights were turned off deliberately by Wang Wudao, Horne relaxed and silently drank his tea without turning his head. “What?”

Yan Yue said loudly, “Cheese ice cream. Mr. Hels asked if you want some?”

Horne asked again, “Who asked?”

Yan Yue continued, “Mr. Hels asked.”

“Oh.” Horne set down the teacup, took a tissue, casually wiped his mouth, stared at the image on the screen, and said indifferently, “Don’t know him.”