The last rays of light on the horizon disappeared into the black oppressive clouds, and the cold wind sang the lamentation of the curtain call of the opera, rolling up the ruined dead leaves and reaching the sky; In the distance, a shuttle is brightly lit, and the light penetrates the leaves and ups and downs in the air, converging into mottled light and shadow; The roar of the shuttle, the wind, and the human voice are intertwined, scrambling to burrow into the eardrums of the listener:

"Miracle ......"

"Please come with us! It's a shame for you to stay here, and we need your help......"

"Have you decided?"

No. He replied in his heart.

- I never wanted to promise you.

But those are the experiences of another person, and he can only be a later experiencer, reproducing the scenes of that year in his memories over and over again.

The grand tragedy has long since ended, and the glorious years have become a thing of the past. All the vigor of the protagonist of the story during his lifetime turned into an insignificant speck of dust in the universe in the end.

God's gift is never a spark of hope, but a Pandora's box.

But what about me? He thought, then what am I?

"You remember to me that you are not a shadow of anyone, you don't need to replace anyone, and you don't need to live like another person-"

"Huo Lian!!"

The voice of many years ago travels through time and space at this moment, breaking through the brain's defense mechanisms without hindrance, and explodes with a bang.

The thin eyelashes quivered without a trace, and then slowly opened, revealing pupils that were pitch black to almost sharp.

With the help of the light, he saw his situation for the first time – it was a huge laboratory.

.

Abigail hurried through the hallway, nodding perfunctorily at her oncoming subordinates, then she paused and watched them disappear from sight before reaching the door at the end of the hallway.

"Iris verification passed, identity confirmed: Abigail."

"Welcome."

The light poured through the crack in the door, refracting a narrow band of light on which Abigail's figure was faintly reflected. With a rare look of excitement in the eyes of the Alliance's chief biologist, he slowly walked inside.

The mechanical door slowly closed behind her, completely insulating the lab from the outside world.

Abigail opened his personal terminal as he walked, pulled up his contact list, and sent a communication request to the pinned number.

- But no one answered.

"......" She obviously didn't expect this situation, and with a slightly surprised eyebrow, she cut off the communication, and then turned to a message:

[When it's time, I will go back to the laboratory immediately when I see the information.] 】

With a bang, the information light curtain quickly closed into a beam and sank into Abigail's left wrist. She raised her head, looked beyond the various instruments and floating monitoring data, and stopped at the young man in the ecological cabin.

His skin was pale from years of nutrient injections, making it impossible to tell his actual age, and one could only roughly surmise that he was in his prime—but in an age of 150 years of life, "prime" meant nothing. The actual age of a person is infinitely blurred, and in many cases it can only be determined with the help of specialized AI.

"Heart rate is normal, body temperature and blood pressure are normal, and the subject is in good condition......"

"The preset time has expired, do you want to wake up?"

"Confirm."

Abigail thought, "It's time for him to wake up, too." ”

The electrocardiogram suddenly fluctuated violently, and the largest spike since the experiment occurred in a few breaths. Abigail pursed her lips at the sound of the siren, opened the display screen casually, and strode towards the youth.

The eco-cabin slowly opened from both sides, and the young man's black hair was exposed to the air. He frowned unconsciously, his eyelashes drooping in dense shadows, the light lining his skin with the texture of jade carvings, and the curve of the side face snaked down his neck, as if to merge with the white neckline.

Almost at the same time that Abigail walked in front of him, the young man opened his eyes.

The sudden change in the environment caused a violent choking ......, and he covered his mouth with one hand, and then raised his eyes and suddenly met Abigail's gaze.

His eyes were a rare pure black. As the main person in charge of the experiment, Abigail naturally would not be unfamiliar with this face, but when she met the other party's eyes, she couldn't help but lose her mind for a moment, and naturally ignored the flashes of fierceness.

After a long ......time, the young man put down his right hand and reluctantly pulled the corners of his mouth: "I'm still alive." ”

He spoke unhurriedly, with a deliberate bite, and his voice was a little hoarse—the reason he hadn't spoken for so long.

Abigail: "You were on that planet at the time of the explosion, and Jerry desperately brought you out, but unfortunately he himself died in the rays from the explosion...... Your vital signs were already weak when you were brought in, and the Coalition used the best medical equipment to pull you back from the brink of death. ”

She smiled: "It's been twenty years, welcome back - Admiral Huo Chao." ”

Huo Chao raised his head slightly and returned her an impeccable smile.

How many treacherous intrigues, how many deceitful calculations, and all the glorious and tragic pasts, real and false experiences, were all hidden under that breezy smile.

He said, "Hmm...... I am back. ”

.

Five years later.

Jiang Huaiyuan pressed the ear button with one hand, pulled the windbreaker with his empty left hand, and strode down the mecha "Chengguang". The wind outside raised the hem of his trench coat in a slight arc, exposing his slender legs just right, and the luxury logo folded on the trouser hem was clearly visible: "Well, I told you a long time ago, this thing must be ...... Why are you here? ”

Hilda Chels, the nominal military adviser and deputy commander of X-19 and the private secretary of the actual commander of Jiang Da, had been standing in the cold wind for more than half an hour, and as soon as she saw him, she immediately stood on the spot: "Report to the ...... commander"

Before the word "collar" could be spoken, Hilda's legs were weak, and she almost knelt down directly facing Jiang Huaiyuan.

Jiang Huaiyuan: "......"

He didn't mean to help the other party up, but instead put his hands on his chest and asked him with an inexplicable smile: "Did I help your family build roads in my last life or what, so that you have to kneel down when you see me?" ”

Yi Zheng, who was on the other end of the communication, keenly guessed what had happened, and immediately laughed madly: "How do you know that it is a road hahahaha...... It's not worth kneeling down for such a trivial matter as building roads, maybe it was the emperor and the eunuch in the last life? ”

Jiang Huaiyuan secretly despised his laughter, and popped out a word with an expressionless face: "Get out." ”

Hilda, who had just stood in a military posture: "...... Yes? ”

Yi Zheng: "Hahaha, look at how scared people ......"

Jiang Huaiyuan directly took off the ear buttons, and suddenly felt that the world was much quieter. He turned his head sideways and looked at Hilda from a top-down angle, his black hair under the military hat twitching slightly: "What's the matter?" ”

“…… Oh, it's an entrepreneur named Zheng De in the northwest," Hilda called up his personal terminal and found an email marked with stars to signal Jiang Huaiyuan, "His two mining lines are in the northwest, and the transportation is inconvenient, and he wants to borrow our military's special channel, and he said that he can return ten percent of the profits......"

Jianghuai was far away.

"I've calculated it, according to his average income before the government/government reunification, ten percent is probably enough to build five small mechas, and it may be even higher after the reunification now......" Hilda raised her head and asked, "Commander, do you need to reply to him?" ”

"No," Jiang Huaiyuan refused without even thinking about it, "I want to agree, didn't I give the consul the handle to embezzle and take bribes?" ”

Hilda: "Ah......"

"—Besides," Jiang Huaiyuan tugged at the corners of his mouth, "You still don't know about my gossip for so long?" ”

He stopped looking at Hilda's wonderful face and turned around in style, leaving Hilda alone in the mess.

.

"This Zheng De is really powerful, I actually thought of buying you, I have known you for more than 20 years, and I have never thought of taking money to insult the only heir of the richest family...... Talents! A talent that is rare in a century! ”

Jiang Huaiyuan said: "You too." ”

Yi Zheng immediately expressed his humility happily: "Don't dare to be, don't dare to be, contemptible people are just one of thousands of ordinary people, it depends on luck to get to the current position of consul, and my dad who doesn't know where to throw it ......"

Jiang Huaiyuan's eyebrows skipped a beat.

The X-19 planet, which is on the edge of the entire human world, was once in constant conflict and war, and all kinds of characters, large and small, appeared on the stage, and the government/government was like a dying old man, who could only barely take his last breath with the secret support of the world's largest family, yes, the Jiang family.

However, since Yi Zheng graduated from the First Military Academy of the Alliance five years ago and returned to his hometown, the X-19 government/government was calm on the surface, but secretly began a large-scale personnel transfer, until Jiang Huaiyuan, who was two terms younger than Yi Zheng, returned and directly took over the post of commander of the army.

After three years, the Eden X-19, which was once an arms dealer, pirate and warlord, has faintly shown signs of unification under the combination of Yi Zheng and Jiang Huaiyuan, two high-achieving students of the alliance military academy.

The meteors of artillery fire gradually disappeared into the sky, and the gunfire in residential areas had long since dissipated into the air. The once shattered and devastated planet is finally about to usher in the first ray of light after unification.

- Only the last Sanna remains.

Jiang Huaiyuan meticulously put on his gloves and immediately quickened his pace. At dusk, the artificial light source moves to the west, and the tall buildings that rise from the ground reflect the dim light, creating a strange scene. Jiang Huaiyuan raised his head in the fainter and fainter sunset, his pupils reflected the newly completed military base in front of him, and from time to time soldiers hurried past him and saluted him with a solemn military salute.

Jiang Huai watched the other party go away, and Yi Zheng, a world-renowned chatter in the ear button, started his daily chatter again: "...... Speaking of which, I really don't dare to compare with you, Uncle Jiang and Aunt Wei are both understanding people, except for our official government/government, no one has ever stood in the team, there is no problem in politics at all, why don't you tell them that you are from the Jiang family? Otherwise, there wouldn't have been so many veterans mutiniing in the first place......"

Jiang Huaiyuan said lightly: "I don't say that they also guessed it." ”

"Can that be the same? Gossip and the main owner's admission are two different things, what do you think is the person called Da What is scared by you? Eh, surnamed Jiang," Yi Zheng paused, and suddenly had a terrible guess, "Do you plan to use this to scare the other party in a fight in the future, and then you are so surprised, right?" - you, you scheming! ”

Jiang Huaiyuan didn't speak, he was thinking about a very profound question: After Yi Zheng fought his father to take the throne, how did he not get ousted today?

Maybe he is called a big fool and a wise man, Jiang Huaiyuan thought.

"But when you said that to what Da Hesi just now, didn't you just admit that you are a super rich second generation? Will there be people chewing their tongues in the future, saying that you rely on your background to be on top of the hierarchy? Yi Zheng thought quite comprehensively, "Do you need me to go back and make a clarification statement?" ”

"No," Jiang Huaiyuan said, "Hilda won't talk nonsense. ”

Yi Zheng: "Your trust is too cheap......"

"I'm afraid they won't make it?" Jiang Huaiyuan sneered, thought about it and added, "Actually, the only reason I don't want to make it public is that I'm worried that you will ask my family to fund the mecha in my name...... Anyway, it's not been a day or two since you've coveted my property, have you? ”

The consul of Yida, who has devoted his life to defrauding the confiscation of the big family's property in the name of the righteousness of his family and country, and interstellar peace, rarely lost his words, and was silent for several seconds before he denounced it: "-Scheming!" ”

"Don't dare to be, the contemptible person just knows you better." Jiang Huaiyuan replied politely, "-When will the ten mecha you promised be approved?" ”

"I didn't say yes!!" Yi Zheng was angry, and he seemed to slap the table heavily when he heard him, and then he was stopped. He had to calm down considering that there were outsiders present, but he could still hear the undisguised gritting of teeth in his voice:

"Do you know how much military spending accounts for total fiscal expenditure? Forty percent! Even if the council is all my people, they can't stand it! I could understand it before, but isn't it now unified? If we don't recuperate and improve people's livelihood, I promise that in less than two months, someone will have to jump out and make a revolution! If you are short of money, you go to Aunt Wei or the Zheng De in front, I promise not to sue you for corruption and bribery! ”

The gate of the military base detected the arrival of the highest authority, and slowly opened to the sides, and Jiang Huaiyuan stepped into the brightly lit hall with the last rays of the setting sun. He glanced at the sergeants who were seated, and went up the stairs without stopping long, his boots falling silently to the ground, only the slight friction of his trench coat and the sound of unhurried speech in the air: "...... I understand, I'm just worried that if the alliance sends someone over......"

If the alliance is compared to normal human society, then X-19 can only be described as a poor village in the mountains. The two are separated by a continuous series of mountains, which have forcibly divided what should have been human society into two worlds - between X-19 and the Alliance lies a huge spatial wormhole, filled with various spatial turbulence and mecha wreckage, which can be shattered if you are not careful.

No one paid attention to when it appeared, it had been there since Jiang Huaiyuan could remember, and the gravitational pull had torn all the light of the stars that had passed through light years to pieces, and it itself grew stronger and stronger, like a black cloud falling on everyone's heart.

When Jiang Huaiyuan and Yi Zheng came back from the Alliance Military Academy, they took the interstellar route left hundreds of years ago - this was still Jiang Huaiyuan's father, Jiang Shaojun, spent a lot of money to hire someone to repair it, but because it was abandoned for too long, this channel had no advantages except for good secrecy, and after Jiang Huaiyuan returned, it completed its mission and was honorably scrapped.

X-19 and the Alliance, there is no more channel.

So Yi Zheng scoffed at his worries: "I've decided, I'm going to change your remarks to 'surnamed Qi'." ”

Jiang Huaiyuan: "? ”

Yi Zheng snorted twice, and the liberal arts student regained his sense of superiority at this moment: "You are worried." ”

Jiang Huaiyuan: "......"

He opened his mouth to refute, but he didn't think of a good wording for a while, so he had to let Yi Zheng continue to talk about it, and listen to the latter's babbling explanation to him about what it means to be worried, Jiang Huaiyuan himself turned the staircase, habitually glanced at the window of the corridor, and then walked up to the second floor.

However, he had only taken two steps before he paused, and turned his head as if sensing something, and then his pupils shrank slightly.

At that moment, the glow of the sun was reflected in Jiang Huaiyuan's eyes, and even the curvature of each of his eyelashes was nowhere to hide. He couldn't help but be stunned for a moment, but quickly came back to his senses, turned around and went downstairs, his trench coat cutting a neat semi-circular arc in the air:

"Level 1 alert!! Inform Hilda and get him back at once! ”

The sergeants downstairs realized the seriousness of the matter from his words, and they didn't even have time to ask why they were ordered to deploy. Yi Zheng didn't understand the situation at all, and just wanted to speak, Jiang Huaiyuan snorted back: "Where are you now?!" ”

"City Hall, what's ......?"

Jiang Huaiyuan: "Come out and take a look at Sanna's direction." ”

The sky, which should have been plunged into darkness, suddenly erupted in a thousand rays of light, rendering the horizon golden red. The fiery cloud spread out in all directions under some unknown force, emptying the oval sky in the middle, like a giant eye, silently peering at the new planet.

And underneath that eye, a wisp of black smoke was slowly rising, blending in with the position of the pupil.

"I just wanted to say, in fact, wormholes are not exactly dead ends......" Jiang Huaiyuan whispered, his voice seemed to be blown away by a gust of wind, "- the people of the alliance are here." ”

.

Sanna. Just below the "eye".

Boom ——!

The aftermath of the explosion had not yet dissipated, and in the faint light of the fire, the silhouette of the object could be seen - this was Sanna's no-man's land, and as far as the eye could see, it was full of large swaths of rubble, piled up in an irregular manner. Due to the continuous erosion of flowing water, the surface of many stones has cracked, revealing the rock layers below, silently telling the vicissitudes of the past.

As the flames faded out, the surrounding temperature dropped dramatically, and the molten rock re-solidified, plating the original gray stone surface with a layer of golden red.

The hustle and bustle returned to silence, and on the other side, Jiang Huaiyuan, who had planned to capture Sanna the next day, gave an order in advance.

- Capture Sanna, unify X-19.

Before Sanna's original warlord Madison could recover from the surprise visitors, he was shocked to find that the government/government troops stationed outside Sanna had already attacked.

Sanna's defense tower is almost equivalent to a space station, and it has a unique location advantage, and it has extraordinary lethality to later invaders, which is the main reason why Madison has been able to hold up until now. This time, however, he missed it.

Jianghuaiyuan's Chengguang was no longer stationed in the rear, and finally reached the front line.

In this era when mecha is the main force of combat and shuttle is the main force of transportation. The X-19 still retains many of the starships left over from the last century. The shuttle is small in size, low in cost, and can still be popularized, but the mecha that requires high mental power to control is too expensive to discourage most people.

Even the government/government army, which has high hopes, has only a handful of small mechas, and only one medium-sized mecha - the latter was donated anonymously by a large consortium.

Madison suddenly remembered that the owner of the light-bearing plane seemed to have reached a terrifying 80 in his mental power.

He remembers that at first he refused to believe it, he had been in Sanna for so long that he had hardly paid attention to the turmoil of the outside world, and his understanding of the government/government was still in the stage of "joking". It wasn't until he was knocked on the door by Jiang Huaiyuan at this moment that Madison realized how ridiculous he was sitting in the well and watching the sky.

He gritted his teeth fiercely, swallowed all the unwillingness and humiliation back into his stomach, and gave his last order:

"Contact the one surnamed Jiang, and we will surrender."

At this point, the era of war and chaos in which X-19 was divided has finally come to an end.

.

Far from meeting the surrendered Sanna warlord, Jiang Huai turned directly to the center of the huge "eye of the sky" where the explosion occurred.

He quit the military channel and called Hilda: "What did you find?" ”

Hilda had been ordered to infiltrate the rocky beach where the explosion had occurred, and had been waiting for a long time. The cold wind mixed in his not very smooth voice, and passed down the personal terminal into Jiang Huaiyuan's ears: "Commander...... That ......"

Jiang Huaiyuan: "Speak simply!" ”

"Commander, or ......," Hilda swallowed and said bitterly, "Come and see for yourself......"

Jiang Huaiyuan immediately asked: "Then what do I want you to do?" No matter what you find, it's difficult to find a way to take away the useful ones, dispose of the useless ones on the spot, come back and send me a few pictures and write a report? ”

Hilda tried to argue: "It's an eco-pod, it's supposed to be out of the mech......"

"Then you can deal with it." Jiang Huaiyuan said, "Give a gag order to everyone present, and the rest will come back ......."

Hilda: "There's someone inside. ”

Jiang Huaiyuan's eyebrows jumped, and he faintly had an ominous premonition. He asked, "The living and the dead?" ”

- If you can, don't have any contact with the Alliance, after all, my suspicions with them haven't been cleared yet.

But Hilda's next sentence disrupted all his assumptions: "Alive, and...... He woke up. ”

Jiang Huaiyuan's first reaction was "He didn't die after such a violent explosion", and then realized that after three years, he was finally going to come into contact with the behemoth of the alliance again.

Those chaotic memories, dreams that seemed to be real and illusory, it took him countless long nights to bury them in a deceptive way, and now a corner of the shadow has resurfaced.

Jiang Huaiyuan closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, his eyes were already cold without emotion.

The mecha "Chengguang" slowly landed on the rocky beach, and through the spiritual network connected to the mecha, Jiang Huaiyuan accurately captured the only unfamiliar face.

The young man's white clothes were stained with blood, and his skin was sickly pale, and he looked a little embarrassed, but he did not pay the slightest attention to his appearance, and calmly handled it, lowered his eyes, and explained something softly to an X-19 officer.

As if feeling Jiang Huaiyuan's gaze, he tilted his head uncomfortably, and looked at Chengguang, who represented the highest combat power of the entire X-19-

It was obviously an extremely unfamiliar face, but Jiang Huaiyuan felt a ridiculous sense of familiarity at that moment.

Have I seen him? Jiang Huai thought far away.

“…… So I think it's better for you to come ......" Hilda turned around and saw the belated Chengguang, "Commander, you've arrived?" ”

Jiang Huaiyuan snorted, picked up his windbreaker and walked down Chengguang, and didn't forget to put on his gloves, "Did he say who he was?" ”

"Huo Lian, he said his name was Huo Lian."