Chapter 31: Thirty-One Days of Lying Flat Like a Salted Fish

“Well…” Geshu Qing hesitated for a moment. “It’s hard to explain. To put it simply, I might have seen you in the memories of the Desolate Planet.”

“…Huh?” Given Lu Yuan’s intelligence, he rarely encountered things that were unexpected or beyond his understanding. But today, such occurrences were exceptionally frequent.

More importantly, this was something he genuinely cared about.

“If you don’t mind,” Lu Yuan said, “could you explain it in a bit more detail?”

“I’ll start from the beginning,” Geshu Qing said generously. “Do you know about Mental Power? Some people possess a special kind of power, though it’s a bit hard to describe…”

“I know,” Lu Yuan said.

“Oh, that makes things easier then.” Geshu Qing nodded. “My Mental Power helps me see certain special things. For instance, whether something is alive or not.”

…So it really wasn’t Communication.

However, this trait was quite interesting. It was something Lu Yuan had never seen before.

It was likely a mutation.

Under normal circumstances, Mental Power traits were hereditary. If a person manifested a certain trait, one could usually trace it back through several generations and find a similar trait among their elders.

Because Mental Power traits that cannot be stably inherited gradually disappear, and even relatively stable ones can be overwritten when encountering a more dominant trait, there are only a few hundred common types of Mental Power traits.

That might seem like a lot, but given the vastness of the Galactic Empire and its massive population, a few hundred traits were actually very few in comparison.

Some of these were even exclusive to certain families.

For example, the Geshu Family had “Communication,” while the Imperial Family had “Inspiration”…

Of course, the majority of traits were common ones held by many people.

The Mental Power trait of Lu Yuan’s elders was usually “Self-Detonation.” It was a common trait, but generally useless.

As the name suggested, this trait allowed a person to turn themselves into a bomb and blow up. The power was significant; the problem was that once you blew up, you were gone.

Yet, this trait was actually quite common. Among Awakened individuals with known traits, those with this ability accounted for about thirty percent.

After learning the Geshu Family’s theory regarding the Spiritual Sea, Lu Yuan had speculated that this trait might not be a “trait” in the true sense of the word. It was more like a method of using Mental Power—rapidly drawing a massive amount of energy from the Spiritual Sea until the body could no longer contain it and exploded.

But not all Mental Power traits came from heredity.

Some people’s Mental Power would suddenly manifest strange characteristics. These traits were often unstable and might only appear once in a single individual over a long period before disappearing entirely.

For example, this trait of sensing whether something was alive or not was a first for Lu Yuan.

Lu Yuan’s own trait was also very special.

In fact, the Empire’s research department had gone through several rounds of debate regarding whether his Mental Power even had a trait.

One side believed that everyone’s Mental Power had a trait; those who seemed to lack one simply had a level too low for it to manifest. Someone like Lu Yuan, with such high Mental Power, couldn’t possibly lack a trait. He had to possess a mutated one.

The other side felt that if it wasn’t there, it wasn’t there. If the person himself felt he didn’t have one, you couldn’t just invent one for him.

Indeed, Lu Yuan felt his Mental Power had no specific trait.

If he had to name one, it would be “capable of everything, able to learn anything.”

For instance, he had easily learned his family’s ancestral Self-Detonation. He had also mastered Communication, even if not as well as Geshu Ming. This made him the only person outside the Geshu Family capable of using the Communication trait.

There were other things too, like the previously mentioned “Healing,” or “Empathy”—sharing one’s senses, thoughts, and emotions with others—and “Deterrence,” using Mental Power to exert intense pressure on an opponent…

As long as Lu Yuan wanted to learn, he could have any of these traits.

But he truly did not know what his own original trait was.

However, he didn’t learn just anything.

Like this ability to judge if something was alive… he could see that with his eyes. There was no need to go out of his way to learn it.

“Then one day I discovered,” Geshu Qing continued, seeing that Lu Yuan had no objections, “I discovered that this planet seems to be alive.”

Lu Yuan: ?

Lu Yuan was stunned. He looked at him in surprise, only to realize with a start that the man wasn’t lying.

He truly believed he could feel that the planet was alive.

Geshu Qing met his gaze and nodded vigorously to confirm he hadn’t misheard. “Yes, I was shocked too. I can understand a flower being alive, a person being alive, or even many tiny things on the ground being alive. But a planet being alive… that’s really hard to wrap your head around.”

Indeed.

There were people who had proposed the “Planetary Life” hypothesis; Lu Yuan had heard of it. But Lu Yuan himself remained skeptical.

Simply put, a living thing should at least be able to respond to external stimuli. Lu Yuan had yet to see such a response.

“If I may ask,” Lu Yuan said, “what is the definition of ‘alive’ according to your Mental Power?”

“I don’t know,” Geshu Qing shrugged. “I just feel like it’s alive. But it seems to be in a sort of half-dead state, which is why I wasn’t sure before.”

“Wow, incredible.” To the side, Goudan couldn’t help but marvel. “Can I write this setting down? It sounds really cool.”

“…Write it down?”

“Yeah, I’m a director. I’ve filmed a lot of TV shows,” Goudan introduced himself. “This setting is very novel. I think I might be able to use it when I film something in the future.”

“Director? TV shows?” Geshu Qing was confused.

“…I thought you knew a lot about the outside world?” Goudan was surprised he didn’t know what those were, but quickly explained, “It’s a form of art! A great art!”

“I see.” Geshu Qing understood, looking at Goudan with admiration. “Of course you can use it! Feel free!”

“…” Siming covered his face in pain as he listened from the side.

Lu Yuan felt helpless. “Don’t let him lead you astray. Continue.”

“Oh, right.” Geshu Qing nodded. “Then I noticed that every so often, its level of ‘aliveness’ changes. Every once in a while, it becomes more alive, and then it gradually fades back to that half-dead state. And this change is very regular.

“Out of curiosity, once I got a bit older, I left home. I wanted to travel around and see if I could find any new information.

“But there was almost nothing. Along the way, I met some people and learned things about the outside world, but information about this planet was incredibly scarce.

“The only thing I found out was that in different places, the timing and cycle of it ‘coming alive’ aren’t exactly the same.”

“…This is getting more and more ridiculous,” Siming muttered.

“I think it’s ridiculous too! If it’s one whole living thing, how can different parts have different levels of aliveness? But if it were just a collection of living things making up a whole, I wouldn’t perceive it as a single entity.

“For example, a person has many parts—a head, hands, blood… but I don’t perceive the vitality of those individual parts. I perceive whether the person as a whole is alive.

“Conversely, there are countless tiny living things on the surface of everything. They’re piled together, invisible to the eye. But I don’t perceive them as a single entity either.”

“Help, you can even sense microbes!” Goudan suddenly realized something. “Doesn’t that make your world incredibly noisy?”

“It does. At first, I didn’t even know those things were microbes. But it was terrifying, you know? Suddenly, my world was filled with all these living things! They’re everywhere! I couldn’t see them, and I didn’t know what they were.

“Back then, I thought they were ghosts. Then I thought ghosts couldn’t be that small. Then I got even more terrified because I couldn’t imagine what they were!”

Geshu Qing looked deeply troubled by the memory. “To escape that fear, I had to force myself to focus on the large living things and ignore the tiny ones… That’s how I was able to notice the planet was alive.

“In truth, it’s not that ‘alive.’ If you don’t pay attention, it’s hard to feel.”

“…The logic is actually quite sound.” Siming was deeply shaken. “So Mental Power can actually work like that? Why doesn’t mine?”

“Yours isn’t strong enough,” Lu Yuan explained.

“?” Siming looked at Geshu Qing in horror. “Is his Mental Power stronger than mine?”

“Not necessarily,” Lu Yuan said. “His family is quite special. Their traits manifest as soon as their Mental Power awakens, regardless of strength. Even though his has mutated, it seems he still inherited that characteristic.”

Geshu Qing glanced at Lu Yuan.

He could tell that Lu Yuan was very familiar with his “family.” However, Lu Yuan didn’t seem to want to elaborate, so he didn’t press for details. It would have been far too impolite; after all, he was the one receiving help.

Lu Yuan was quite satisfied with this.

Geshu Qing continued, “This situation persisted until a few days ago, when I suddenly discovered that the cycle of the place I was in had changed.”

“A few days ago?” Goudan asked.

“Um… I’m not sure how long I was unconscious for?”

“It’s been a little over a day since we picked you up.”

“Then it was probably about two or three days ago,” Geshu Qing said. “The cycle of that place works like this: for about three months, it stays in a half-dead state.

“Then, for the next three months, it enters a state of fluctuation. It gradually comes to life, then suddenly goes half-dead again, then slowly revives, then suddenly goes half-dead once more.

“But two or three days ago, I noticed that when it was supposed to suddenly go half-dead, it didn’t. Instead, it became even more alive. And I felt a distinct…

“I don’t know how to describe it. Perhaps a desire to confide? Anyway, I felt something similar to Mental Power trying to talk to me. I tried to meet it with my own Mental Power, but I couldn’t reach it. So I walked out the door and followed the direction that… desire to confide was coming from.

“I walked for nearly a day until I reached a desolate place where there was no sign of human life. Luckily, I brought food when I left. At that moment, I realized I had reached the place where it was most alive.

“Then I received a flood of things. Some were still images, some were moving, and there were some sounds. In short, there was a lot of content. Then I fainted. When I woke up again, I was here.”

“That ‘gradually coming to life and then suddenly going half-dead’—how many times does it happen in each cycle?” Lu Yuan asked.

“Seventeen times,” Geshu Qing said. “The change happened this time after the twelfth.”

The others nearby vaguely realized something.

Zhu Rong said, “The Garbage Ship.”

Goudan gave her a thumbs up. “Quick reaction, little girl.”

Zhu Rong tilted her head at him.

To the side, Siming looked down at the floor. He had completely lost the mood for joking, and his entire demeanor turned serious.

Seventeen and twelve were exactly the total number of locations where the Garbage Ship they captured was supposed to dump trash, and the number of locations it had already finished.

If they hadn’t intercepted it, the Garbage Ship would still have five more places to go. Calculating that five locations would take about a month, it would have taken roughly five or six days to reach the next spot.

It had been eight days since they captured the Garbage Ship. Two or three days ago, the time Geshu Qing noticed something was wrong, corresponded exactly with the time the Garbage Ship should have arrived at its next target location.

Geshu Qing was not a local. With Lu Yuan’s abilities, if he had been lurking nearby over the past few days, it would have been impossible for Lu Yuan not to know.

And if he hadn’t been here before, he couldn’t have known about the Garbage Ship, nor could he have known what they had discussed before—how many places this Garbage Ship was supposed to deliver to, how many times it had already delivered… and the data for each point in time.

Yet, everything he said perfectly matched the situation of this Garbage Ship. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

Furthermore, they had originally been very puzzled as to why a Garbage Ship wouldn’t just dump its trash nearby, but instead had to make a huge circle around the Desolate Planet.

Now, it seemed there was a very good explanation for that question.

Siming was finally certain that everything Geshu Qing said was true—it wasn’t a fabrication, nor was it a hallucination from looking at microorganisms for too long, but a reality.

And…

“It seems the Garbage Ship isn’t just as simple as supplying resources to keep us alive,” he murmured.

“What are you talking about?” Geshu Qing asked curiously.

Lu Yuan glanced at Siming—explaining the Empire’s conspiracy regarding the Desolate Planet was Siming’s job. However, before Siming began his explanation, he had to confirm one more thing.

“We’ll talk about that in a moment,” he said. “Do you believe the images you received were of the Desolate Planet?”

“I think so. Because I feel that this living thing I sensed is the Desolate Planet itself, so what it confided to me should be its memories.”

-This little fellow’s traits are truly not simple,- Lu Yuan couldn’t help but think.

Being able to sense the vitality of microorganisms was already miraculous enough, but now it seemed he had also inherited some ability for Communication. Moreover, after the mutation, this Communication had changed; while he couldn’t communicate with ordinary things, he could communicate with a planet…

Even Geshu Ming couldn’t do that.

“In those images of yours, were there any other people?” Lu Yuan asked.

“No. It was just you sitting in a chair. Actually, it might have been a video, but the scene didn’t really change.”

“Then,” Lu Yuan asked, “did you hear any sounds?”

“For example… the sound of drums.”