There was silence all around, not even the sound of insects, and the sky was dark, with no stars or moon to be seen. It was a veritable dark night when you couldn't see your fingers.

In this darkness with no end in sight, there was a little light beating, and all of Zhao Yu's spirit was focused on this little light.

Zhao Yu was sitting down on one leg of the "Deathbringer" mechanical spider at this time, and the light was reflected from his hand, which was a miniature projector, playing a simple video. Zhao Yu had seen this image more than a hundred times, but he never felt bored.

This is his most precious treasure.

"Son, don't worry about us, we're doing well now." The video cuts to the next scene, where a middle-aged man is appearing, "Your brother is about to go to school, so there will be no problem." ”

The time shown in the upper right corner of the screen is August 10, 2026.

Screen switch, May 9, 2032.

"Son, you've been hibernating for 10 years, I don't know if you feel good?" This is a middle-aged woman with gray hair, "We have come to see you a few times, and I don't know if you will ...... cold"

Screen switch, June 8, 2043.

A young man smiled at him: "Brother, I also graduated from college, although I have never spoken to you, my parents and I often come to see you." Don't worry, the two elders are in good health, and I hope to see the day you wake up. ”

Screen switch, September 7, 2049.

The smile on the young man's face disappeared: "Brother, my mother passed away due to illness last week...... She was buried with your picture, and she missed you so much. ”

Screen switch, January 4, 2051.

The old man, who was already old, smiled hard: "Son, I may not be able to wait for you, I have to go to your mother...... I'll leave it to your brother in the future...... Don't worry about us, we're doing well in this life. ”

Screen switch, November 19, 2057.

A strange middle-aged woman appeared with an expressionless face: "Mr. Zhao Yu, I regret to inform you that your younger brother Zhao Xi passed away in a car accident the day before yesterday, and his family refused to continue to bear your freezing expenses." According to the agreement signed by them, your freezing will continue to be undertaken by the University Medical Center, but the Center reserves the right to carry out the necessary medical research on you. If you wake up one day in the future and have any questions about this Agreement, please consult the relevant department. ”

Screen switch, April 20, 2063.

Another strange middle-aged woman was also expressionless: "Mr. Zhao Yu, according to the agreement between the United Nations and the Buttermins civilization, your freezing matters and related equipment will be handed over to the Buttermins people as part of the scientific and technological exchange...... Good luck. ”

Screen switch, October 15, 2154.

A black officer nodded towards the camera: "Mr. Zhao Yu, welcome to wake up, you have returned to the human world." ”

Zhao Yu sighed and switched the projector to the initial screen, which was a small group photo, a middle-aged couple holding a baby, and they were surrounded by a hospital bed in the middle, and the thin young man on the hospital bed was trying to smile at the camera.

This is the only souvenir left to him in that era - even this souvenir can survive is a pure miracle, in the past hundred years, the earth has suffered all kinds of unimaginable upheavals, so that Zhao Yu once wondered if he woke up or did not cross over, but in the end he had to admit the reality.

The reality is that everything they are familiar with is gone, their relatives and friends are long gone, the relatives in the photos are all gone, and the self who is most likely to die before them miraculously wakes up more than a hundred years later and continues to live alone in this world.

Zhao Yu turned off the projector and let himself be immersed in the dark. This is his habit, and every time he looks at these images, he has to take a while to get rid of this feeling of loss.

"What a mess." He muttered habitually. For fate, he can only complain to this extent.

Zhao Yu was born in the last years of the 20th century, and although he has little memory of his childhood in those years, he is also an out-and-out family that spans thousands of years. In the first twenty years of his life, Zhao Yu was no different from others, growing up, going to school, falling in love, being addicted to the Internet, taking the college entrance examination, and ...... in college It wasn't until his junior year that fate struck him a blow to the head.

"Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis", commonly known as "ALS", has an unknown cause, and in the 21st century, the most famous patient is Stephen Hawking, and everyone knows what he looks like. And this unreasonable terminal illness suddenly befell Zhao Yu, making this 21-year-old young man lose all his strength.

In the following years, his parents tried everything to treat him, and even gave birth to another child despite his advanced age, hoping to be useful for his treatment, but Zhao Yu still weakened day by day, his body gradually became unable to move, unable to express his meaning, and could not even commit suicide, and the terrible thing was that his consciousness was always awake, and despair hung over his head all the time.

Finally in 2022, Zhao Yu's father's old classmate brought a not-so-good news: the medical school of a university in the United States is researching cryonics technology, which can freeze people, and then thaw treatment when the medical technology is mature in the future, and is currently recruiting volunteers - so accompanied by his parents, Zhao Yu came to the United States, lay down in a cold instrument, and tried to remember the faces of his parents and younger brother before losing consciousness.

He knew that he would wake up from this sleep, and he might not even wake up at all.

But he didn't expect that when he woke up, he saw a completely different world than he expected.

************************************

"You old man has been out there for almost an hour." In the cockpit of the "Deathbringer", a sergeant is reminding the screen, "Is he okay?" ”

Captain Borg took a leisurely puff on his cigarette: "It's okay, he does it a lot." ”

"But he didn't wear a mecha combat suit, he was too conspicuous in the field, and if a satellite or reconnaissance plane passed by, he would be exposed immediately."

This time it was Hunter who interjected: "Don't worry, sir, that's an old man!" ”

The sergeant was silent for a few seconds, and finally shrugged helplessly: "I hope he is as magical as the legend, otherwise it will affect everyone." ”

"I was scared more than you were at first, man." Borg laughed, "Don't worry, you'll soon know how reassuring it is to be with an old man." ”

*************************************

Zhao Yu suddenly raised his head and looked at the sky.

The sky was still pitch black, perfectly integrated with the earth, and every time Zhao Yu was in this kind of complete darkness, he had the illusion that the whole world had left him.

"Is this the sky of the western United States, where the environment is beautiful and pollution-free, and you can see the Milky Way every night?" Zhao Yu grunted, stood up straight, turned on the lights on his uniform, grabbed the handrail of the spider behind him, and then jumped up familiarly.

Of course, he himself knows that this complaint is useless, not to mention the romantic time of watching the Milky Way and counting the stars, in this earth-shaking 22nd century, even the United States does not exist.

After waking up from freezing, the medical school, which had been unrecognizable, arranged a ward for Zhao Yu, giving him time to digest what had happened in the past hundred years, and it was obvious that he had been prepared for this kind of thing for a long time - this is also a matter of course, Zhao Yu was not the first person of the "old century" to wake up from freezing, there were more than a hundred people who entered the cryophoric chamber with him with hope for the future, and before him, about thirty people had woken up.

Despite a little psychological preparation, when Zhao Yu clicked on the document called "Historical Memorabilia", he was so frightened that he almost sat on the ground within three seconds.

In the first forty years after Zhao Yu entered the freeze, the world was calm, as always, several major powers continued to intrigue, local wars continued, the environment continued to deteriorate, and the population continued to increase...... All in all, the earth is just like Zhao Yu before hibernation, all the way to the lazy operation, in time, say, another thousand years, maybe it can successfully turn into a big garbage dump.

However, the future does not go in this direction.

Just in the fourth year after Zhao Yu's younger brother died and his family transferred Zhao Yu's cryogenic cabin to the university's medical school, aliens calling themselves "Bartmins" arrived on Earth and openly came into contact with Earth civilization. The Buttermins made it clear from the beginning that they came on behalf of the largest civilization federation in the galaxy, hoping to help the earth's civilization reach the corresponding heights in order to join the civilization commonwealth, and for this purpose they were willing to provide various technologies to the earthlings, in exchange for the hope that the earthlings would promise to join the civilization federation and abide by the rules of the civilization.

Of course, the big and small countries on the earth have become a mess in an instant, and there have been two years of bad things around whether aliens can be trusted, how to communicate with aliens, who will communicate with aliens, and how to share the fruits of communication, during which several small-scale wars have even broken out, and finally it is the five permanent members of the United Nations who have taken on the heavy responsibility of negotiating with extraterrestrial civilizations for the first time in human history -- and they can only do this, and which other countries dare to do it for them will be taught to be human in minutes. There have been countries that are not capable of doing enough to prove this.

In the year 2063, Earth reached a cooperation agreement with Buttermins, and everyone was cheering for the arrival of a new era.

Three years later, the war broke out against the Buttermins, for the first interstellar war.

There are more than 30 countries that have launched attacks on the Buttermins spacecraft, mainly in the Middle East and South America, God knows what these countries are thinking, maybe it is because they are jealous of the monopoly of alien technology by a few big countries, or maybe they think that the Buttermins have always maintained a friendly attitude, maybe they are scum with only 5 combat power, it is better to grab a handful, in short, the war broke out suddenly.

In the early days of the war, the Bartmins still maintained restraint and allowed the earthlings to bomb their bases every day, but kept protesting, hoping that the United Nations could stop this "unfriendly behavior", but the United Nations behaved as inefficient and incompetent as before (Zhao Yu guessed that several major powers might also want to take this opportunity to probe the bottom of the aliens), and finally simply played a trick and declared that they had no command power over the military operations of these countries, hoping that the alien friends could understand.

The Bartmins finally asked, "So can we deal with it ourselves?" ”

The United Nations replied very cheerfully: "Without endangering the civilization of the earth as a whole, please do it." ”

Two hours later, the Buttermins politely sent an ultimatum to the countries that were bombarding them indiscriminately: "Please cease the unfriendly hostilities and withdraw your troops within one hour, or you will bear the consequences." ”

There are people and birds, and he is called a ghost.

One hour and five minutes after the ultimatum was issued, a spaceship slowly rose from the base of the Buttermins, and then - and then God knows what happened. Despite the fact that almost every country on the planet is keeping an eye on the area with satellites or other monitoring equipment, and many countries are secretly stuffing spies into the besieging army, no one knows what is happening.

In what way the Batmins did it, no one sees. All the surveillance equipment was scrapped in an instant, and the troops besieging the base ...... There are no more armies.

Judging from the final image, the alien spacecraft seemed to emit some kind of flash, and in just ten seconds, hundreds of planes, thousands of armored vehicles, tanks, and military heavy equipment such as rocket artillery and missile launchers were all turned into scrap metal that could not be seen as it was. They were also finished with an army of more than 700,000 men, and those who arrived later could not even see the corpses, and the scene was only a series of black smudges, and in the barracks, which was far away from the base of Batmins, about a few hundred kilometers away, it was possible to find objects that looked relatively like corpses, and according to the test results, these poor creatures were turned into char by the heat of thousands of degrees in a matter of seconds.

However, what is even more terrifying for the earthlings is that within the range of this extremely short large-scale strike, there are still several civilian towns, and the fate of these towns is ...... Not even a single dog died.

In other words, in a large-scale attack covering an area of tens of thousands of square kilometers, the aliens accurately avoided all civilians, and only wrote off all the soldiers along with their weapons.

The Bartmins, from a civilization a thousand light-years away, really showed their strength for the first time in this interstellar war - maybe the Bartminns themselves don't think it's a war, it's just a "small punishment" - it's overwhelming, there is no room for resistance in all directions, the earthlings can only admit that the Bartmins don't regard the earth's civilization as an opponent or a worthy object to guard against at all, and their attitude towards the earthlings is like keeping pets.

And the only thing a pet has to do is to be obedient.

Two months later, the United Nations obediently presented a sincere cooperation treaty, which, according to the tabloid comments of later generations, "had taken off his pants and lay down on the bed, broke his legs with both hands, and warmly welcomed the aliens to enter", announcing the official beginning of cooperation with the Bartmins civilization.

But in the eyes of the people of this era, the ancestors have just made the first real mistake.