Chapter 1374: The Nonexistent Answer

Human memories during trauma are nothing but fragments.

Han Suiping didn’t know how long he had lost consciousness. Even before he opened his eyes, he felt the violent and howling electromagnetic pulse waves in the world around him. Like a thin leaf, he was tossed into a maelstrom of storms, torn and pulled from all directions, threatening to shatter his consciousness. Without even realizing it, he curled up, and a muffled groan escaped his throat.

Nothing was left; everything was gone. The place that had nurtured his growth, his loved ones, and his memories was now a burning and vaporized ruin. His parents, the pair of eyes that had looked at him countless times, the hands that had held him and patted him—their flesh and blood were now turned into radiation dust, blown away by the scorching wind and drifting beyond the bottomless pit.

That claw… if he didn’t retract it, he would die here.

As if ages had passed, he finally understood the meaning of this thought. It took another age for him to restore his right arm to its original state. The electromagnetic pulse waves receded like a receding tide. However, they still lurked beneath the dark sea level, glaring at him.

He opened his eyes to total darkness. He couldn’t lift his head or get up. It felt like a large part of his body didn’t exist anymore, as if it had been swept away. He was still alive, but his consciousness floated in an endless abyss.

“Where am I?” he tried to say, but no sound came out. Why was there no light?

No one answered him. The piercing alarms reverberated among the chaotic and sharp sounds around him, urging the ship’s hull to be repaired as quickly as possible. The floor vibrated with hurried footsteps, interspersed with someone crying, “Sis!” Waves of scalding seawater splashed on him as if trying to scald him alive.

After a while, Han Suiping realized that these voices weren’t what he heard. His brain directly sensed the sound wave signals, but his ears were silent.

“Her life will be saved,” one man’s shout cut through the other murmurs, yelling at whoever it was. “I’ll take care of the next one. You deal with the ship!”

Someone rushed past him, and Han Suiping wanted to ask for help, to ask them to stop and look at him, but no sound came out. He floated alone in the dark abyss, feeling like he was sliding deeper and farther away, with no chance of being pulled back into the human world.

The person who ran past him suddenly stopped. He seemed to hesitate for a few seconds, then Ji Shanqing’s voice, still with a bit of a nasal tone, finally sounded, “Here, there’s one more.”

A glimmer of hope surged, and he could breathe again. After a while, he felt someone squatting beside him.

“Han Suiping?” Silvan’s soft, comforting voice said. “Don’t worry. Your eyes should only be temporarily blinded. Let me treat your injuries now.”

What happened? Han Suiping opened his mouth and silently asked. He knew what had happened but hoped someone would tell him a different version of the story.

“A nuclear bomb,” Silvan said in a near-calm manner. “When we entered Exodus, we were hit by the airblast shockwave. Ji Shanqing came back just in time, and… not all of us died.”

Not all of them died. Then who died?

“Don’t move for now,” Silvan said, holding his shoulder, not answering the question. “Your injuries are severe.”

Han Suiping lowered his head and lost consciousness once again. He didn’t remain unconscious for long. When he woke again, Silvan was gone, but the alarms echoed. Despite the spaceship’s severe damage, he could feel the ground slightly shaking, and the engine’s hum echoed in his ears—could he hear now? Was Exodus flying?

Han Suiping groped around and struggled to climb down from a bed. His vision still hadn’t recovered, and more than half of his body had turned into dead flesh. Dragging himself on the ground while crawling, he could feel a long, blood-tinged, warm, and moist trail left behind as he moved.

But no matter how much pain he endured, he had to go, he must go… After listening for a while, Han Suiping gradually moved toward the darkness, inch by inch.

As soon as his arm transformed into a claw, the chaotic electromagnetic pulse waves pierced his brain like thousands of steel needles, causing his teeth to chatter. Fortunately, the spaceship was rushing into the sky at top speed, escaping the range of the nuclear explosion on the ground. At this height, the impact on him was much smaller, and of course, he could sense fewer signals—unless he relied on external assistance.

He gasped for breath and dragged his almost uncontrollable claw to a nearby panel. Signals surged into his consciousness, and he sighed in relief—he had found the right place. This was indeed the spaceship’s communication system. Fortunately, the antenna was still intact and could still capture signals from the ground.

Even if he died from excessive blood loss the next moment, Han Suiping had to crawl over.

Because he couldn’t understand what had happened.

Yes, Silvan said that a nuclear bomb had exploded, but he couldn’t comprehend why a nuclear bomb would appear.

When Lin Sanjiu talks about rebuilding the balance of this world, Han Suiping almost sheds tears. At that moment, he made a secret decision—he wouldn’t leave. He wanted to grow with his world and witness its new changes. There were so many things he could do; he eagerly wanted to pass on messages to her, design blueprints, and establish networks. He looked forward to sleepless nights for her future.

All that excitement, brilliance, and enthusiasm in his heart turned into ashes.

He had always thought he wasn’t stupid, but no matter how hard he thought, he couldn’t understand why there would be a nuclear bomb.

“Because I think you might harm ordinary people, so to prevent you from harming ordinary people, I will kill you along with them?”

Or was it, “I want to protect this world, but you won’t let me protect it, so I’ll blow up this world?”

No logic he could come up with could explain that nuclear bomb. Han Suiping felt that the answer might be on the ground. Even if he died in front of the spaceship’s communication system, he still had to crawl over and search every signal on the ground.

He didn’t know where Ji Shanqing and Silvan had gone. He lay alone on the ground, plunged into darkness, and his consciousness swept across the land with countless passersby. The place where the city had been was now a huge chaotic electromagnetic pulse eddy; he had to carefully avoid the ruins of his hometown and search in a more distant area.

He was like a stumbling and stumbling ghost, with countless fragments of information flashing through his mind like endless ocean currents. He didn’t even know what he was looking for, and he couldn’t even find a needle in the ocean—until he inadvertently stumbled upon a conversation between a father and a son. They should have been talking face to face, and perhaps there was a sound receiver in the room that happened to allow him to hear it.

His sight was pitch black, and only the voices fell into his consciousness. The slightly younger male voice trembled as he said, “Over ten million people… All dead.”

The sound of a teacup and lid clinking.

“Hmm, significant casualties,” the father said in a deep voice. “The situation escalated too much; we had to make a decisive move.”