Cen Yemeng's home was on the top floor of a high-rise building.
Jiang Ye arrived at her doorstep and used facial recognition.
With a beep, the door actually opened.
Jiang Ye's heart trembled slightly. He had only known Cen Yemeng for a day, and he already had the freedom to enter her private chambers. Was this the legendary love at first sight?
He entered and closed the door, then toured the various rooms. Last night, he had entered in the dark and gone straight to the bedroom; he hadn't visited the other rooms.
Cen Yemeng was definitely a rich woman. The apartment was huge, at least five hundred square meters.
The decoration and furniture were exceptionally high-end, visibly exquisite. On the study wall hung an oil painting of a faceless head, the skin evenly covering the features, possessing a strange beauty. Upon closer inspection, Jiang Ye was astonished. The hair on the head and the subtle wrinkles on the skin were all depicted with clarity, the brushstrokes so fine they were terrifying.
Looking at the signature in the bottom right corner, Jiang Ye was once again greatly surprised.
"Leng Jun's 'Faceless,' circa Earth Calendar Year 2046"
Jiang Ye had heard of this painter. He was from the same era. When Jiang Ye was a child, he saw news reports of his paintings selling for tens of millions of yuan.
After so many years, it had become an antique painting, its price undoubtedly even more astonishing, easily exceeding hundreds of millions.
Cen Yemeng's financial strength was not just impressive; it was formidable.
The study was at least a hundred square meters, with rows upon rows of bookshelves. Jiang Ye browsed the shelves, his eyes suddenly lighting up as he pulled out a book titled "Memoirs of the Third World War."
He hoped to understand the ins and outs of the three world wars, but this book didn't provide that. It was entirely a survivor's memoir, interspersed with excerpts from diaries during the war. Fragmentary.
Jiang Ye flipped through it, his breathing growing heavier:
"The bunkers are gone. It's said that Type 6 robots appeared on the front lines, capable of impersonating officers to infiltrate defense lines and self-destruct. They were also intelligent enough to guess passcodes. The current problem is, Type 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 robots have all appeared. What exactly does Type 4 robot look like? Could it be among us? The war has been going on for four months, how is it possible that not a single Type 4 robot has been captured?"
"Neighbor Shen Ka's son was returned, retrieved from a nuclear zone. His skin had all rotted away, and he kept vomiting and urinating blood. He's estimated to have only a few weeks to live. But Shen Ka doesn't seem to recognize me. I greeted him, but his gaze was distant. For a moment, I worried he was a robot, but that must just be my overactive imagination. The technology isn't that advanced yet. Humans are humans, robots are robots."
"At eight in the morning, the terrible news arrived: the Arctic front had fallen, with at least four hundred thousand casualties. My brother might be gone; he hasn't sent any messages. Mom sat by the phone all day waiting for news, filling the trash can twice with tissues she used to wipe her tears. She said she woke up from a dream at five in the morning, and her heart ached. She must have sensed her son's death. Mother and son are connected; she can feel it."
"The air-raid shelter north of the city collapsed at two in the morning. They say three thousand people were buried alive. What's most outrageous is that when the rescue teams arrived, they ignored the injured struggling on the ground and instead snatched gold watches from their wrists! Those people had bleeding wounds all over, crying on the ground, hoping someone would save them. But the people passing by only took the watches from their wrists! My cousin went to rescue people, only to be knocked to the ground by patrolling soldiers. Her earrings were ripped off, her earlobe torn, and her clothes were covered in blood. This is shameless robbery! This is murder! Our own people robbing our own people, how can the war be won!"
The sound of a door opening.
Jiang Ye came out of the study. Cen Yemeng had just entered.
She was wearing a red dress and black stockings today, holding onto the shoe cabinet as she took off her high heels.
"I took time off work to come back," Cen Yemeng glanced at the book in his hand. "Do you like reading memoirs?"
"I just want to understand how the world I knew collapsed," Jiang Ye asked earnestly. "What are the ins and outs of the Third World War?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?" Jiang Ye was stunned. Such a significant event would surely be included in elementary school textbooks.
"The Third World War is a forbidden topic," Cen Yemeng walked over barefoot, put her arms around Jiang Ye's waist, and rested her chin on his shoulder. "You won't find academic books about the Third World War in bookstores. Textbooks gloss over it, and there isn't much information online. If you post asking for information about the Third World War, someone will tell you to go to the police station for a cup of tea."
"How is that possible?" Jiang Ye was shocked.
"There must be something they need to conceal. Anyway, so many years have passed, what happened back then is no longer important," Cen Yemeng said. "The book you're reading is one of the few memoirs, but they're all in small segments, with key parts blurred or deleted."
Jiang Ye felt his brain wasn't enough. What exactly happened during the Third World War that made it a history that couldn't be known?
"I checked some information at the bookstore today. Your era was a very prosperous and peaceful golden age. So you're very lucky, aren't you? You didn't have to deal with World War II, nor did you experience World War III. Don't think too much about it. You've made a name for yourself now. The TV just reported it; you've become a General Commander, right?" Cen Yemeng gently rubbed her face against his. "Congratulations, General Commander Jiang."
"Thank you," Jiang Ye sighed. "Holding you makes me feel particularly at ease."
"Don't you feel at ease usually?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Every time I realize how vastly different the current world is from the world of my childhood, every time I realize that the future I didn't know has become a history I don't know, I feel incredibly lonely," Jiang Ye wrapped his arm around her waist and walked towards the bedroom. "Can I chat with you? I want to know more about the present."
"Of course!" Cen Yemeng hugged him clingily. "How do you want to chat?"
"Just lie down and chat slowly," Jiang Ye thought for a few seconds, then added, "with my head on your lap."
"Okay, I'll tell you anything you want to know."
Cen Yemeng knelt on one leg on the bed, took off one stocking, then knelt on the other leg and took off the other stocking.
Jiang Ye lay down on the bed, staring at her blankly. Her movements were incredibly elegant, a charm that emanated from her very core.
Cen Yemeng lay down on the bed, and Jiang Ye rested his head on her lap.
"What do you want to know?" she reached out and ran her fingers through his hair, stroking it repeatedly.
Jiang Ye was silent for a few seconds. "How far away is Earth from here?"
"About 1100 light-years."
"Holy cow, are you serious?" Jiang Ye's eyes widened.
"Yes, we're in Cassiopeia."
"Damn it, I feel even worse," Jiang Ye said with a mournful expression. "Does that mean I can never go back?"
"No."
"How can we go back from so far away? Even a rocket couldn't get there!"
"Warp gates. It only takes a few minutes to get there."
"Warp gates?" Jiang Ye tried to search his mind for the term. "Is it a kind of wormhole?"
"You know quite a bit. You could say it's a type of wormhole," Cen Yemeng said gently. "Earth is like a large museum now, a popular tourist destination. Millions of people go back every year for ancestor veneration. It's just that the tickets for warp gates are very expensive; ten million per light-year. You can do the math yourself for how much it costs for a round trip."
Jiang Ye silently calculated in his mind, and after a long while, a faint smile appeared. "There's still a chance to go back and see."
"You want to go back that badly?"
"It's my hometown, after all. I want to see what's left."
"Honestly, I can't understand that kind of sentiment. Most people nowadays drift between planets. Some spend their entire lives on space fleets, so they don't have much of a hometown complex," Cen Yemeng reached out and touched his face. "But I support you. I wish you success in achieving your dream of returning to Earth."
"In my time, wormholes were considered an impossible technology," Jiang Ye said. "I want to know, what level has the current technological advancement reached?"