Deep Space Wandering Fleet
Chapter 419 - 417: Departing from Yang Pass to the West, No Acquaintances There

Chapter 419: Chapter 417: Departing from Yang Pass to the West, No Acquaintances There

Yamamoto reached the end of his life without finding a girlfriend, let alone seeking a so-called robot companion. Perhaps he was a perfectionist by nature, or maybe he never needed a companion at all...

Who knows?

This batch of elderly people leaving the world amounted to over a thousand individuals. Many scientists were there to see them off, especially colleagues from the Unreal Laboratory, silently saying goodbye to these pioneers who had achieved great things.

Listening to these two people’s conversation revealed a sad expression on everyone’s face.

Several staff members lifted these elderly individuals, one by one, into devices resembling hibernation chambers.

Yamamoto lay down quietly, put on his helmet, and widened his eyes—an aged look as if he wanted to take one last glimpse of the world.

He said, "I’m off."

Zhang Yuan’s throat moved, but in the end, he said nothing.

Life in the Virtual World would be one’s own choice, what they wanted to do, what would happen—no one could predict, and there was nothing left to instruct.

Even the time spent in the Kunlun Mountains was just a brief moment in a long cycle of reincarnation. This was the beginning of life, not the end.

"Do you have any regrets?" asked a nurse nearby.

"Not anymore." It took a while before Yamamoto responded.

"Please close your eyes."

The chamber door slowly closed, and after the Consciousness Upload, all the vegetative bodies would be used for biological research, especially research in human-assisted brain functions...

Everyone left the room and then quietly departed.

Zhang Yuan, leaning on a cane, sighed deeply, neither crying nor laughing, as he walked slowly down the corridor, feeling somewhat numb, like a fleeting cloud.

A robot nurse continuously followed him, constantly monitoring his health. After all, for an elderly person, a fall could be dire, and government departments were very concerned about their physical condition.

His wife, Lin Xuanyuan, was also in the next room attending a similar farewell ceremony. She had just come out of the room, continuously wiping her eyes. Unlike Zhang Yuan, who had been through this many times, she couldn’t help but cry.

Zhang Yuan stood by silently for a long time until Lin Xuanyuan slowly returned to normal.

"Let’s go outside and look at the stars!" Zhang Yuan called out.

"I wonder who will go first, you or me, or maybe we will leave this world together?" whispered Lin Xuanyuan trailing behind.

"In a few more years, let’s go together... Living a long time has its benefits, even if our physical condition worsens, I always think about sticking around here," Zhang Yuan said, "We came into this world alone, and we should leave it alone. After all, we can’t really take anything with us. Oh, the only thing we can take is memories, but not drinking Mengpo Soup might not be a good thing!"

"You are really cold-hearted, aren’t you... not a bit of sadness? A good friend has left, never to be seen again."

Zhang Yuan replied, "Sadness... Sadness is actually a good thing. Without such negative feedback, humans wouldn’t learn anything. If it weren’t for such emotions, humans might have gone extinct in the primitive era! But the sadness from such events is meaningless."

The two walked to the Observatory and then sat down quietly. Their physical conditions no longer allowed them to go to the zero-gravity area outside.

The observatory was placed on a circular centrifuge, and the entire starry sky rotated along with the centrifuge.

The brilliant universe always soothes the soul. Whether it’s a great scientist or a high-ranking civilization leader, compared to the grand universe, an individual’s life and death, the ebb and flow, all seem so insignificant, almost negligible.

Even Constant Stars extinguish, much less humans?

Lin Xuanyuan suddenly said, "A long, long time ago, my grandmother said that each star represents a person, and a falling meteor means someone has died."

"Is that so? But you can’t see meteors here... There might be more stars in the Milky Way than there are humans. Are the extra stars represented by cats and dogs?" Zhang Yuan joked.

Lin Xuanyuan had long been accustomed to Zhang Yuan’s way of thinking. "You really are... But for many people, cats and dogs are like family members, and it’s sad when they die. Humans are indeed fragile creatures, the older they get, the more they tend to stay in familiar environments, even breaking a frequently used glass would make them sentimental."

"But we all know that every embrace in this world must end with letting go."

Zhang Yuan nodded in agreement: "What happens can’t be undone, and we can’t reverse the flow of time. Compared to the present, the past is an eternal loss. What do you miss the most?"

Lin Xuanyuan pondered for a while and said, "Probably saying goodbye to my grandmother before leaving Earth. My parents actually supported my decision to board the Earth Era, but my grandmother was different. I don’t know why, but I can still recall her tearful face; she was probably terrified of never seeing me again."

"I was caught up in the excitement of soon embarking on a space trip at the time, the thrill of it outweighing the sadness of separation, making it hard to empathize with the elderly’s sense of nostalgia."

"In the blink of an eye, I’ve become a grandmother myself, quite sigh-inducing... How about you? What’s your most memorable moment?"

Zhang Yuan continued, "Probably after graduation, parting with my classmates. A long, long time ago, right after university graduation, I was the last person to leave the dormitory."

"The scene of each of them moving out is still vivid in my memory. Ma Yidong left while I was sleeping in bed; he tapped my bed to say goodbye. It wasn’t until he walked out the door and I saw his empty bed that I really felt we wouldn’t have the chance to live together anymore, and suddenly, I didn’t feel like sleeping at all."

"Next was Li Wu; he got into graduate school at our university and stayed on. I helped him carry his stuff down and watched him bike away. But even though he stayed at our university, I knew we would not meet as frequently as before."

"Finally, there was Zhang Jun; his family was not well-off, and he had started working before graduation."

"That day, he came back from outside, quickly packed up, and left. I stood at the door and offered to walk him out, but he declined, slung his messenger bag over his shoulder, and walked away slowly along the corridor while I silently watched from the dorm door."

"Then he suddenly turned around, came back, and gave me a hug..."

Zhang Yuan calmly said, "That’s a farewell, sometimes a period, or an exclamation point, or an ellipsis, but you always have to write it yourself."

"Let me offer you one more drink, for once you leave Yangguan, you’ll meet no more old friends."