Chapter 105 Frozen Banquet

The frozen banquet hall, the men and women in gorgeous attire turned into ice sculptures, the meal in progress, and the accompanying band that stopped playing midway—all of this was so eerie that one couldn't help but get goosebumps. Hao Ren stared blankly for a few seconds at the scene: "It looks like they suddenly died in the middle of a party."

Nangong Sanba stepped forward to examine the clues left at the scene. Although the people here may have died hundreds or thousands of years ago, the entire banquet hall had been perfectly preserved due to the vacuum and ultra-low temperature, even including the food in the cups and plates, which had been well-preserved by the frost. Most of the things were fixed on the tables or the ground due to the ice, and some debris that had fallen from the ice layer floated in the air in a weightless environment. A kind of thin mist-like particulate matter was suspended in the hall—broken ice shavings and fragments of human skin.

In fact, the same things were floating in the space outside, but here, the suspended matter was particularly dense.

"Formal attire, banquet, I can't believe they died in this kind of situation," Nangong Sanba carefully separated a frozen corpse from the thin ice on the table. "...Sure enough, they also inhaled the same chemical substance before they died."

Nangong Wuyue couldn't help swallowing. "Could it be that the people in the entire city were killed by poisonous gas?"

"Besides poisonous gas, are there any other suspicious points? Was there something wrong with the food?" Hao Ren asked casually.

"There shouldn't be any problem with the food, at least it's non-toxic by my standards, and according to the scene, the problem is not related to the food," Nangong Sanba shook his head. "In addition, according to the way demon hunters perceive things, there is no dark and cold negative energy entrenched here, which means that these people didn't suffer too much before they died."

Hao Ren nodded and bent down to carefully observe the dead closest to him. His attention quickly fell on one of the male corpses: this dead man looked old, and he was wearing a solemn black dress that would only be worn to high-end banquets. This dress could be called luxurious even compared to the beautiful clothes of the people around him. Obviously, this man was a nobleman in his lifetime. But Hao Ren's attention was not on the dress, but on the man's tightly clasped hands, where something seemed to be hidden. Hao Ren wanted to carefully take out the relic from the dead man's hands, but as soon as he exerted force, the male dead man's fingers, which had frozen into hard ice, turned into crystal dust in the vacuum.

Hao Ren muttered an apology in his heart and took out a piece of cloth that looked like a handkerchief from under the other party's broken palm.

He unfolded the handkerchief and found that there were indeed words on it, and they were written very neatly. Obviously, the person who left these last words had plenty of time. With the help of the translation plug-in, these characters were quickly reorganized and parsed, and the content was as follows:

"...Roman, my most proud son, the glorious heir of the Emerald Valley family, I hope you are well on the Long Night and still proudly lead and protect your people. Your mother and I are attending a special banquet, and I think you have guessed the content of this banquet. But don't worry about us, this is a pleasant event, satisfying in terms of both food and drink. It is most appropriate to see us off with the mellow wine brought from our hometown. Few people still taste this kind of beverage made from plants rather than factory synthesis. I am very happy to be able to taste this kind of thing once in my life. Your mother is sitting next to me, and your Uncle Lyon is playing Master Olangerk's famous song on stage. I believe that many, many years ago, our family's ancestors also had dinner in such a situation and prayed for our people…"

"Roman, my son, I have a lot to tell you, including what I have been thinking about since our last quarrel, but these are no longer important. I heard two hollow echoes coming from above the city. I think the two most critical devices should have shut down. Next is the time to quietly enjoy the food, wine, and music. Please allow your father to stop writing here and leave the time to us old people."

"Oh, that thing smells a bit like Blue Valley Chrysanthemum."

The message on the handkerchief ended here. Vivian leaned over and took a look: "What is this?"

"Looks like a suicide note?" Hao Ren frowned. "An old man wrote it to his son. It seems that the people here knew what was going to happen."

Many clues that followed proved Hao Ren's guess. Nangong Sanba and Nangong Wuyue found some things with last words written on them on other corpses. These fragments of words written on handkerchiefs or napkins clearly confirmed that what happened in this city was not an accident or some other sudden event.

But a well-prepared mass suicide.

Hao Ren and his party left the bizarre banquet hall. They came to the streets of the intra-ship city and began to move along a main road leading to the end of the spherical shell space. At the end of this main road was the non-functioning, strange machine that looked like a cylindrical mountain peak. Hao Ren felt that it should be the control center of the spaceship, or at least an equally important place. They should be able to find some clues there.

And along the way, they found countless corpses turned into ice sculptures. None of the former residents of this city survived. They and the city had become part of the ruins in the cold vacuum. After Nangong Sanba's inspection, the cause of death for everyone was the same: inhalation of nerve gas.

Moreover, the careful Vivian also found some additional clues: she found that most of the bodies were wearing brand new clothes. The stiff ice corpses were all neatly dressed, with bright shoes and hats, and peaceful and elegant expressions on their faces, as if they were going to a grand banquet. Although not everyone could enjoy a grand meal and music in a luxurious house, these residents took out their best clothes and food as much as possible before they died. Obviously, they wanted to splurge one last time.

"It's like euthanasia after a carnival," Lily rubbed her arms. "They ate and drank to their heart's content, and then filled the whole city with poisonous gas and died in their sleep."

Hao Ren was moved by Lily's description. His gaze passed through the thin dust above this shimmering city and landed on the inverted buildings on the other side of the closed earth. He imagined the scene when this place welcomed its last moment: when the system issued an alarm, the city's atmospheric system was blown into deadly nerve gas. When that sweet, hallucinogenic gas that made people feel happy filled the streets, people put on their best clothes and walked onto the streets to enjoy the last joy of their lives. Some were feasting, some were drinking, some were saying goodbye to their lovers, and some…

He passed through an empty street and saw an old man sitting next to a flower bed. The old man was wearing a tall top hat and covered with a layer of frost. The flower bed behind him was still lush, and the plants were frozen before they had time to wither, and now they had become a crystal clear crystal flower bush. The old man had a smile on his face and was reaching out forward. He was holding a fake flower folded out of a handkerchief in his hand, seemingly to hand it to a child who no longer existed.

Some people were also bringing the last bit of warmth to this gradually dying city.

"The time of death for everyone is the same, and the cause of death is also the same," said the data terminal, which had just checked the age of several corpses. "The incident happened about a thousand years ago. The situation at that time is already easy to restore: nerve gas was blown into the atmosphere system of the starship ark, killing everyone inside in a short time. And these dead people were fully aware of this, which is probably the common wish of all citizens, and they were still feasting before they died."

Nangong Wuyue's voice was low: "Why did they do this?"

Hao Ren said the most likely possibility: "Probably the spaceship had a fatal problem and could not be repaired, such as air leakage or a problem with the purification system, or the resources were exhausted. In order to avoid pain, they decided to euthanize themselves."

"But this fleet has more than one spaceship," Vivian reminded. "Did the other ships encounter the same problem at the same time?"

Hao Ren didn't know how to answer, but he found that the giant machine that looked like a cylindrical metal mountain was already close at hand: "There should be some clues over there."

The group stopped at the foot of the giant machine. They found that the size of this thing was even larger than they had imagined. It could really be said to be a majestic mountain. Looking at the appearance of this device, Lily's tail unconsciously bent into a question mark in the air: "It looks like a giant reactor, but it seems to be shut down?"