For the next few days, the ghost ship from the desert was leaning against the walls of the basin's cliffs, and it was filled with cogwheel men who were clearing the gravel. Hundreds of cracks and damages were found in the ramparts, and there were also dense cogwheel men using a variety of tools to maintain the walls and the load-bearing structures hidden behind them.

Zijin's behavior undoubtedly consumes a lot of social resources.

If it is placed in Sunset City, a person like Zijin who releases a boat to storm the city wall does not have to think too much, and will definitely be executed on the street.

But for the cogs, for the group of beings who believe that the answer should be felt in their entirety...... Zijin became the hero of Answer City.

Gu Chuan hadn't spoken to Zijin for a few days, and when he happened to see him, he also saw him among the supporters of the psychopathic gearmen, watching the group of psychopathic gearmen listen to him tell the story of his discovery of this ghostly giant.

The other mastermind, Jing Gao, is now infinitely proud. It took him quite some time to walk through seventeen areas, meeting and talking to many of the Gear Men he once knew.

Among them is also the Kyo Kyo with the head of the mirror barrel.

Their relationship, Gu Chuan guessed correctly, similar to the relationship between Ziyuan and Zijin, they were born together and learned together in an extremely close time.

They met in the conduits of the kingdom of celestial problems.

At that time, Jiu's head was light, and several lenses of different colors were floating in the barrel, arranged in a zigzag straight line, and the round color was like the opening of flower petals, layer upon layer, looking at Jing Yuan, who was walking by him.

"You and your team have found a remarkable phenomenon that may fall under the Sixth Problem Kingdom."

Several of his disciples had spoken to him about the behavior of Jing Gao and Zijin, and this was the conclusion they had come to that Jiu did not know much about the sixth issue, and had only vaguely heard that the sixth question could be referred to as a matter of death.

"I want to thank you for your radical experimental behavior, which has brought us a lot of convenience by the act of shading the moon and exposing the zodiac."

He doesn't have eyes, but he seems to be looking.

You don't have ears, but you can listen.

He doesn't have a mouth, but he can still open his mouth to speak.

The lens barrel man was noncommittal, and simply said:

"The use of marginal effects is an act that the mentors appreciate, and you did a good job, and you did a great job of using our experiments."

Jing Yu walked forward to the dark part of the passage and asked:

"I wonder if your experiments have yielded enough results? I have a friend who is not of my clan who cares about this. ”

"Suppose there is, you'll hear from the naturalist soon."

The man flicked his cuffs and walked to the other end of the passage, not without triumph. Jing Yu stood in place, waiting for the lens tube man to walk out dozens of steps. At that time, the Lens Barrel Man suddenly stopped, and it said:

"You have taken away the mental disorder problem, and you should now return to your original mission. Number 1: The disciples of the kingdom are waiting for your return. ”

"I'm sorry, nine...... During this time, my thoughts, my perceptions have changed a lot. ”

Jing Yu walked through the darkness of the passage, and walked all the way in the dimple light, and soon, turning the corner, the lens tube man could no longer see the way he wanted to go, and he asked loudly:

"What do you want to do? Where are you going? Mentors will not remain indifferent. ”

But Jing Yu didn't reply to it, and the lens man could only see the shadow of the empty head it saw at the end, like a deep night.

The friend Jing Yu said that he didn't belong to other clans was Gu Chuan.

At that time, Gu Chuan wanted to know some details of the celestial body problem in advance, so as to prepare for the communication mission he was about to face.

It is worth mentioning that due to the proven relationship of the ghost ship, Gu Chuan and Chu Yun, who are "witnesses", are treated much better.

They no longer had to go to the private quarters of the lower class psychopaths at the time of the one-sixth standard, and were given the right of free movement within the city that was approved by the disciples of the twelfth question.

This power is embodied in the awarding of a double-circled parallel bar rice-shaped badge with twelve strokes.

"They seem to have prepared a lot of badges."

Hatsuyun pinned the badge next to her moth pin, not a kind of fun.

"The Gear Man has been here for a long, long time." Gu Chuan said, "They must have communicated with other alien races living in the Great Wilderness, and naturally some alien races will be allowed to enter a similar situation where they can move freely." ”

They also learned about the exchange of goods from the Cogwheel and other tribes.

They have no right to interfere with the materials of the Gear People, but Gu Chuan feels that the trade between the Gear People and other tribes will be a good entry point.

"We can prepare food for possible future trips, and we can hire some people."

The young men went about their work under the watchful eye of Ziyuan, cutting bamboo tubes or other wood, bone, or animal skin tanning products that could be exchanged with other races.

In addition to these, knowledge is something that can be sold at will, from fire to the chapters of medical classics, everything can be sold, and there is nothing that cannot be sold.

The Cogwheelman's language is common in this area, allowing him to communicate with multiple clans that have long-standing relationships with the Cogwheel Man.

These tribes are also strange to say, and some of them have no gender—according to the knowledge of the earth, sexual reproduction is absolute over asexual reproduction among the higher animals. Because sexual reproduction facilitates the exchange of genes, resulting in offspring that are more suitable for the environment and are more likely to survive the various risks for a longer period of time.

But this world may not be so natural selection.

Some of them don't look like animals at all, they have a bit of a metal or glass-like heterogeneity like a gear man. It is difficult to imagine the way in which the inorganic elements in these organisms are extracted from nature and survive.

Gu Chuan was curious about the living environment of these tribes, but Zi Yuan stopped him from leaving.

"You have to figure out if you're going to do it."

"Can't you be accommodating?" Gu Chuan dealt with it with his mouth, thinking of finding a way to slip away while no one was around.

Ziyuan said again:

"It's not that I'm stopping you, it's that I'm not allowed to go with you to the address where they live. At that time, you will be responsible for everything that happens to you, and I can show you some information that will help you survive. ”

The young man looked at it a little, and his mind was extinguished.

He walked forward in the Population Trading Lane in the Gear Man Trading District.

It's okay to have a scarecrow or a tin man, at least there's a human form, and the introduction is a loser or a captive or something.

But what is it that only looks like an egg?

"Hello! I am a gentleman from a distant land, and I have come for the first time to the place where the first quarter moon shines, and the name is Chaos. It seemed to notice Gu Chuan's gaze, and pronounced out the name that it was not in the gear language, but Gu Chuan didn't hear the syllables clearly. "But the people here can't pronounce my name, they usually call me Mr. Dandan, it is said that I fell from a very tall tree, would you like to buy me, I have heard that I am very delicious, I can be fried with animal oil, or boiled in boiling water." ”

Gu Chuan had seen someone call it a dog egg, and some people called it an iron egg, but he had never seen a white and tender boiled egg as big as a real person, with the shell peeled.

It has a tiny, cute one-eyed that may be the eye, while its label says prey.

"I don't have any money."

Gu Chuan said honestly.

Not money in the standard sense, but the equivalent of trading with an alien. He came here to see the situation first.

"No money...... You don't have any money......" Mr. Dandan didn't seem to be very happy, "If you don't have money, don't go to the noble adoption area and look around!" ”

Then it began to sigh and sigh.

For this trip, Gu Chuan only bought salt (suspected), a staple food similar to corn, some seasonings used by different races, and a metal bucket.

When he answered that there was a fire in the city, he raised a fire and tried to eat it.

The light of the fire flickered in the round room.

Ziyuan sat on the side as usual, like a dead piece of iron, and he didn't move.

Chu Yun began to be in a daze, and Gu Chuan looked at the boiling water in the fire, and a series of mist came out, drifting towards the place where the ceiling was. After considering the twelve criteria, he needed to make a study of Sunset City astronomy in the Kingdom of Celestial Problems.

At that time, Gu Chuan suddenly heard Ziyuan say something:

"When you're done and the Celestial Issues Team is no longer holding you back, where are you going?"

He looked up and saw Ziyuan looking at it.

Those glassy eyes were so clean that there was nothing else to color. This was the first time that Ziyuan had discussed a topic of future or destination without warning.

"We're going to far, far away."

He said.

"Is this where you were born?"

"No, no, that place must not be where we were born, nor where anyone we know was born, it must be a place we have never been, and probably a place where you, and all of you have ever been."

"Are you there to answer the world's questions?"

"World problems? What is the problem of the world? ”

"Both the eighth and ninth issues are called world problems."

Zi Yuan turned her head sideways, staring at the endless rotation of gears in its room, neither fast nor slow, measuring the time she was going to spend at seven-fifths of the speed compared to the beginning.

"The eighth question asks what is the world like? And the ninth question asks why the world is the way it is. ”

She whispered.

"Half of the answerers to the eighth question have disappeared, they have all left the wilderness, and none of them have ever returned. The answer to the ninth question is in a dilemma, they want to dig through the earth, to the deepest part of the earth, to understand the whole composition of the earth. But halfway through the digging, the bottom becomes water that melts everything, and nothing can come into contact with it without melting. They claim that our earth floats on a water. ”

Gu Chuan asked about the details of the water that melted everything:

"You know, if this water melts everything, then how does the earth float on it? Won't the earth melt too? ”

Ziyuan couldn't answer, but said that the well dug by the kingdom of the ninth question had been blocked, and the ninth question solution was in a predicament, and the disciples of the ninth question were leading the general gear people and were helping the solution team of the celestial question.

"You haven't answered me yet, are you going there to answer the world's questions?"

"Pretty much...... No, there are some differences. "But it's hard for me to tell you what the difference is!" ”

Ziyuan seemed to be a little difficult to understand, so he didn't speak.

However, Gu Chuan felt that this was a breakthrough in the relationship, and he accosted:

"What do you think of ghost ships?"

"Ghost Ship...... That might involve the answer to a bizarre question...... Ziyuan said.

"Do you only have questions and answers in your mind?"

Gu Chuan laughed.

"That'...... Or else? ”

"Have you ever wondered what you're going to become? Is it a long, long time from now, what will you be like? ”

The young man asked.

She said:

"It's a question that has been in history, and it's a question that has been answered. We'll try to disassemble ourselves and make new gear people. In particular, those of us who successfully answer a split question will carry on the legacy of our teachers as new teachers and new disciples. At that time, we will no longer need to perform tasks, but as the people who assign the flow rate of the tasks work, and the people who coordinate the tasks, or the people who arrange the tasks. ”

This is the future that Ziyuan was described as a child when he was very young.

The cogwheel man who made her, and which still makes her feel so close, seems to be sleepwalking, and tells her all that she has to do, everything she wants to become, and everything she wants to have.

At that time, the gracious cogwheel man said to her, "Soon, you will inherit the results of my existing answers to questions, you have my owe in you, and you will have higher qualifications than those cogwheel men who have been made out of nothing, from birth."

"Oh......"

At that time, Ziyuan just nodded in confusion.

"So you have to complete the mission for me, complete the mission for me, complete the mission for you, and complete the mission for all of our kindred, this is a glorious thing!"

Ziyuan's previous generation said to her excitedly, like those warriors of the alien race who were about to ascend to the throne of the tribe.

"When we answer the questions we want to answer, the Gear Man will be incomparably great, which means that everything in the world is no longer in doubt for us! And when the time comes, we, no, you will be able to do whatever you want, and you will no longer be bound by any material or spiritual confinement. I will be immensely proud of you, and you will glorify all of us as our supreme guru. ”

For Ziyuan, she didn't know what the gear man meant by "anything you want to do". In fact, she didn't know what the confinement was all about.

But later, the actions of the psychopathic gear man made her understand a little.

Hunting, resting endlessly, or commanding aliens who have been trained to be their own servants.

"You don't seem to be very excited...... Do you feel like you won't get these rewards? And you can't have such thoughts! ”

Actually, Ziyuan didn't know what she was thinking, she felt that she would seriously complete the mission of the Gear Man, why should she be excited about the mission of the Gear Man?

Her questions had not been answered for a long time, so she quickly forgot about them.

The beginning of Ziyuan's life was spent in the process of serving the previous generation. The previous generation continued to disassemble his body after Ziyuan was born.

Before she dismantled the last part of herself, and before Ziyuan's coming-of-age ceremony, he and another cogwheel man brought Ziyuan, Zijin, and several others who were born at the same time as them to the outskirts of Answer City.

At that time, Ziyuan asked:

"What are we going to do here?"

She looked up at the first quarter moon with Ziyuan, and the clear and light moonlight fell on them, illuminating her body exceptionally brightly. She said:

"Look, this is the moon, isn't the moon beautiful?"

Ziyuan Says:

"Well, it's beautiful......"

She dragged the stump and said to Ziyuan excitedly:

"And one of the purposes of our tenth question is to reach the moon, to bring the moon into our known vision, Ziyuan, what a great, what a great dreamy act! No one has ever done it, only we can do it! ”

Ziyuan Says:

"Yes...... It's great. ”

"And that's not all." She took Ziyuan to the highlands, looking out over the mountains in the middle of the barren desert, and continued excitedly, "The answer to the eighth question will tell us what the world is like, you can go to all kinds of places, know everything. The answers to questions 9 to 12 will tell us how everything came to be, and it will also guide us to what everything is going to become—we can predict our future, and we will have infinite power! We may be able to...... Forever ......"

"Yes, I feel honored."

Ziyuan said.

The memories of the past and the imagination of the future are mixed together in the barren sand, wafting with the smell of dreams and glory.

Until her death, her previous generation had been telling her about the glory of the Gearmen who answered the questions, and the glory of the entire race of the Gearmen after answering the questions. She said to Ziyuan that knowing the world is equivalent to controlling the fate of the world, and also said to Ziyuan that after the answer is completed, your name will be forever engraved in the history of the race and even the world, and will be admired by all intelligent beings. And you will be like a mentor, mentoring countless cogwheel people in the future......

But Ziyuan at that time, like Ziyuan now, was listening to it and was spoken by the sound tower.

The tower told her to go on a mission.

In the past, the task was to fill a bucket with water and then splash a large piece of equipment, but this time the task was to ask Gu Chuan:

"Have you passed the linguistic test?"

The linguistic test criteria are the ability to introduce oneself and others, and to be able to describe the composition of a substance or the environment in which it is located.

"yes, what's wrong?"

"On your behalf, I will report to the disciples of the celestial bodies. After I report on my work, it will be what you have stated. ”

She got up and walked out.

Gu Chuan asked her:

"Have you ever thought about leaving here and going somewhere else?"

Ziyuan paused, she didn't look back:

"Until I dismantle me, it is not possible, because everything for me does not belong to me, but to my kingdom."

By the time she left, the water was already boiling. Corn-like food that has been boiled in water has a vague aroma, mixed with the hazy mist, and it is not really smellable.