“Hey, Tiesheng, what’s with that look on your face?”
“Heh heh, you definitely thought we’d been possessed and weren’t really his parents anymore.”
Grandma Lin propped herself up by the waist and sat up, pouting with displeasure. “In your heart, are we really that useless?”
Lin’s father was dumbfounded. Hearing his parents’ familiar tone and that all-too-familiar look of disdain, he said in disbelief, “Dad? Mom?”
“Don’t call me ‘Mom’—I don’t have a son as foolish as you.” Grandma Lin stood up, stretched her arms, stretched her legs, and was thoroughly dissatisfied.
This body was far too weak—in no way comparable to the physique of the Wu tribe.
Wesley and Old Black exchanged glances. Although the two were acting just as they always had, no one could be certain whether it was real or fake, and they certainly didn’t dare release them.
Fortunately, Grandpa Lin was very understanding: “We won’t go out until Xiaohe returns.”
Wesley let out a long sigh of relief. That was good.
“Old sir, madam, whatever you’d like to eat or drink, just order it. Aside from not being able to leave, anything else is fine.”
Seeing that the two were truly cooperating obediently, everyone’s anxious hearts finally settled.
Lin’s father stood by the glass, curious. “Mom, Dad, how are you… um, so normal?”
Grandpa Lin shadow-boxed in the air, and the speed and force of his punches produced sharp cracks in the air. “It’s because of the ‘Id.’ Even though we have those memories, it’s more like we were acting in a play—it’s very easy to snap out of it.”
Lin’s father pointed at Lin’s mother. “And what about her?”
Grandma Lin blurted out without thinking, teasing, “She treats everything she experienced on our side as if it were just a performance.”
Lin’s mother: …
We’re all Awakened here—no need to throw shade, alright?
Lin’s mother: “Where do you come from? Before the Shentao Empire, or after?”
Grandma Lin raised her head proudly: “The Wu tribe civilization—the very first civilization in this entire starfield!”
Pride. Pure pride.
Lin’s mother: “Oh. The one that went extinct first.”
Grandma Lin’s puffed-out chest instantly deflated.
Ah, who could have guessed that even under the leadership of the Child of Fate and with the full strength of the Wu tribe, they still couldn’t break free from the cage.
Lin’s mother asked the soul-piercing questions: “Where did we come from? Why is there a world-ending crisis? And how do we survive it?”
Grandma Lin scratched her head awkwardly. Faced with Lin’s mother’s triple-barreled assault, she could only offer three replies: “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Lin’s mother gave her a look of pure disdain. Though she said nothing, anyone could tell she was thinking: Then what’s the point of your Awakening?
Grandma Lin coughed twice and nudged Grandpa Lin with her elbow.
Grandpa Lin laid it all out: “All we know is that there’s an invisible cage over this entire starfield. Once our development reaches a certain tipping point, we get wiped out. But because the Sacred Stele exists, our souls don’t perish—they reincarnate.”
“However, according to our Wu tribe’s experiments, each reincarnation weakens the soul. Even with inheritance rituals, we can never fully recover to one hundred percent.”
Grandpa Lin let out a silent sigh.
Just by comparing with the Shentao Empire, you could tell that the soul’s weakening was pretty severe. He wondered if it was caused by the mass extinction events.
Lin’s mother had a sudden look of realization. So that’s how it was.
They had previously thought that the earlier civilizations simply followed different developmental paths from the Shentao Empire, which was why it was so hard to extract useful information from prehistoric ruins.
Who would’ve thought that, from the very essence of the soul itself, later civilizations had been weakened.
Lin’s mother: “How many more weakenings can our souls endure? In the end, will we become idiots, or simply cease to exist?”
Grandma Lin shot Lin’s mother a glance, now looking at her with newfound respect—her intuition was sharp enough.
“Hasn’t your mythology already told you all that?”
Lin’s mother recalled the most widely circulated myth in the Shentao Empire.
“In the eye of the Guixu Maelstrom slumbers our divine progenitor, Yuanzu. Yuanzu’s dreams are the empire’s reality. Each dream marks the rise and fall of an epoch. After seven dreams, she will awaken, devour everything, and reduce civilization to the dregs of nightmares—all to gather strength against the evil demons lurking beyond the maelstrom, watching from the outside.”
“This myth is called the Covenant of Seven Dreams. So, we can only endure seven resets? Which one are we on now?”
Everyone exchanged uneasy glances.
Lin Jingqiu counted on her fingers: “The Wu tribe civilization, another humanoid civilization, the Behemoth civilization, the Shentao civilization, and then us. At the very least, that’s the fifth.”
Was this good news? At least there was still a backup plan, rather than being unlucky enough to be on the seventh.
Lin Jingqiu: “Grandma, why did every civilization leave behind a failsafe, trying to awaken?”
Grandma Lin said with a complicated expression: “The Wu tribe existed for the sole purpose of breaking through the cage. If those who came after were stronger than us, we would never awaken. But if they became weak enough, then when the fated one entered the Sacred Stele, we would awaken.”
To sum it up in one sentence: present-day humanity was just too weak—so weak that even their Wu tribe ancestors couldn’t stand to watch and simply flipped open their coffin lids!
Lin’s father hung his head in shame.
Wesley, however, couldn’t care less. That was about ordinary humans—what did it have to do with them, the Stardust Humans?
As long as they were given enough time to develop, under the Party Leader’s leadership, they could take on the Wu tribe and beat them three-to-one!
That’s how confident they were!
Lin’s mother’s answer wasn’t quite so grand and heroic: “Our starting point was simple—we didn’t want the Shentao Empire’s civilization to go extinct. If there’s a way to keep living, who wants to die?”
The Covenant of Seven Dreams was just a myth. No one ever took it seriously.
Who would’ve ever imagined it was actually true?
Lin’s mother pulled a bitter face, somewhat regretting having awakened—she didn’t want to die twice.
The pain of death should be left to the reincarnated version of herself to bear.
Once everything was out in the open, the atmosphere became much more relaxed.
Wesley brought over meat and vegetables for everyone, planning to have hotpot, and even brought out his treasured stash—spicy stir-fried crayfish.
“Come on, come on, eat and drink up. Forget about the whole apocalypse thing. There’s plenty of time—no rush.”
A world-ending catastrophe sounded so distant, nowhere near as pressing as the pressure from the Zerg and the two gods.
Lin’s mother peeled a crayfish with a vengeance and stuffed it into her mouth. “Right? What’s there to be afraid of? We’ve still got two more chances. Let the seventh-era civilization worry about this century-old problem.”
She was gasping from the spice. “I don’t know why, but just knowing I have two more cycles to go makes me feel completely at ease.”
Lin’s father laughed heartily. “Because you’ve got a backup plan! People without a backup plan are the craziest. But one thing I don’t quite understand—the Wu tribe’s population probably wasn’t as big as ours, right? Where did all the extra souls come from?”
Crunch.
Grandma Lin, with her mouth stuffed full of hotpot meat, forgot to chew altogether, her eyes full of confusion.
Exactly! Souls only decrease—they can’t just appear out of thin air!
Where did all the extra people come from?!
Grandpa Lin reached over and helped close Grandma Lin’s jaw. “Never mind all that. When our little sweetheart gets back, we’ll ask her.”
The mood relaxed once again. That’s right—they still had Little Sweetheart/Little Sister/Party Leader to rely on!
But… why hadn’t she come back yet? Did negotiating cooperation really take this long?
