Heavy aircraft set sail from the valley, and the blue air jets slowly lifted the fuselage.

In the cabin, Ti Lan sat next to the seat by the window, and on the round table in front of her was an incubator, in which five birds were huddled together to keep warm, wrapped in white fluff, like five plush balls.

The roar outside the window gradually weakened, and the aircraft slowly rose into the air and began to accelerate.

As if remembering something, Ti Lan took out a small chip from her pocket, which had a bright dark pink color, and was dotted with bright blue foam dots like splashed ink, which was very new.

Looking at the chip, Ti Lan waved her hand to the self-discipline unit not far away, and then it came to the girl with the player in her arms, and placed the dark gray and wood brown player on the table.

The exterior of this player mimics the tape recorders of the past, and it looks a bit retro mechanical.

Pressing the button on it, the card slot pops open, and Ti Lan presses the chip in with her finger, then closes it, and soon the small screen of the player shows a fluctuating array of colored dots, which then converge into a line of text.

['Polka dot recorder' - Mei]

Then the words disperse, and the polka dots representing the undulating tones appear, and then a slightly languid and lilting song sounds, which makes people feel relaxed, like a drunken wine, like walking in a night alley, with the lights flickering and the bright walls covered with graffiti.

It was a gift from a singer from the Right Angled Field, whose full name was Mae Fentini Zenani, though she was generally referred to as 'polka dot recorder', which was her favorite title and was chosen by herself.

Mei's rise to fame was relatively late, she was only discovered at the age of 29, and before that, she had been working and living as an ordinary cashier.

The right-angled shelf star field is located in the south of the federal territory, separated by 3 star fields from the four-leaf crystal star field, which is the early star field of the federation, but the economy is not developed, and it is also full of pollution, poison, radiation, etc., which can be said to be very similar to the situation of the four-leaf crystal.

However, unlike the four-leaf crystal, the right-angled shelf star field is quite ancient, and the earliest pioneering period has to be traced back to the early Quaternary Age.

There are still traces of old times, with abandoned steel buildings, huge works across the continental shelf, labyrinths of rusty forests at the bottom of the sea, ancient machine factories filled with smoke and steam, and so on.

Mei grew up in such an environment, her father was a mechanic and her mother made a living by making simple working meals on a steam stove.

May didn't go to secondary school, she dropped out of school to work after graduating from elementary school, which would not be the case in a federally administered area, but the area she lived in was not, it was a small town in a sea of radiant, rusty ruins, and the people who came and went most often were salvage workers who came to hunt for treasure.

These salvage workers drive modified submarines, deep underwater full of corrosive radiation and mutated sea beasts, salvaging goods or items left over from the Fourth and Fifth Ages, and occasionally with a bit of luck, they can find good antiques, and then sell them for money in the central bustling star field.

As a child, Mei did not have the conditions to receive music education, and her biggest hobby was probably listening to the music played on the old-fashioned tape recorder at home.

It is an antique, said to be from the early Fourth Age, that plays music recorded on tape.

The tape recorder was repaired by his father, and he thought that he would sell it for money, but because he saw Mei when he was a child, he refused to let go, and finally his father, who loved his daughter, gave up the idea of selling it for money.

There were only two tapes accompanying the tape recorder, and the songs recorded in them were listened to over and over again, no matter every beat in them, or the noise and paste in the tape, and even the place of the cassette, she was deeply imprinted in her mind.

This became the style of her music in the future.

At the age of 13, May began to help her mother cook meals and sell them to workers who came to salvage, and then when she was older, she went to work as a cashier in a shop in a small town.

They live in a small town that is not connected to the federal central bank network, and shops cannot afford expensive credit card machines, and the currency used for trade is green copper, an extraordinary metal that is not very valuable and is used by locals as a currency substitute.

Located in an area that is out of federal control, this small town in a sea of ruins can be described as chaotic, but fortunately, there are a few local gangs to maintain law and order, and it is still mostly habitable.

During her time as a cashier, Mei Ke has become accustomed to seeing all kinds of guests, whether it is a half-modified human, a salvage worker with multiple robotic arms, an archaeologist dressed in precious fabrics, or a brutal mercenary.

After the apprehension and adaptation of the previous years, May has fully adapted to the work of a store cashier, and even finds time to fiddle with some music at work, and what she loves most is to pluck the tuning keys of the tape recorder up and down, listening to the freshness of a tune in a transposition situation, which has almost become the only pleasure in her life.

It's an area where you can't connect to the star network, and the most entertainment for people is to watch the videos and videos excavated in the ancient ruins, as for the Federation's latest immersive movie, sorry, they don't have an immersive pod available to experience, that kind of thing is too expensive, not to mention, you have to connect to the interstellar network, and you can't use it without a legal license.

In this way, when he was 28 years old, a tourist to this small town was drinking at a bar when he heard the music plucked by the cashier next door, and he recorded this sound with a bit of curiosity and novelty, and then asked Mei a few simple questions.

Later, the traveler departed, edited into a video of the journey and posted it on Star.com, only to notice the girl and the old tape recorder she had in hand.

As a modern resident, the tape recorder is something that has not been introduced in textbooks, and many people are curious about it, and it is also under the popular science of some netizens that they slowly learn about this ancient audio player.

As a result, Mei's figure left a small trace on the Internet.

So it wasn't until the following year, when another traveler came to this place, that Mei was specifically approached and wanted to see the tape recorder and listen to the tunes played in it.

Again, Mei stands in front of the camera, turns on the old tape recorder, and the scathing and indistinct music in the background, accompanied by the cacophony of human voices, the clashing of wine glasses, the roar of the steam oven, and the crash of steel machinery, compose an impressive scene.

And then Mei hummed along with the music, which was recorded by the camera and appeared in the eyes of the public.

Three months later, a delegation of envoys sent by the Federal Central Council took Mei to the Central Star Field for testing, and it was determined that she had awakened the talent of a singer, and she nicknamed herself 'Polka Dot Recorder' based on her childhood favorite.

The confirmation of Mei's talent as a singer sparked a lot of discussion on the Internet, with many people obsessed with her novel and retro musical style, and then more people began to imitate it, until historians examined ancient history and officially named the style.

'Vaporwave' means, retro dynamic, soothing and smooth, with a sense of moisture.

The music sounds incredibly romantic, and you can feel the feeling of moisture just from your ears, as its name suggests. Someone said, "It's a moment that sounds like you're soaking in a big pink bathhouse and listening to retro dynamic music on the radio next door."

The old CRT TV, the blurred dots of light in deep pink and blue, the slightly hoarse and fuzzy music, the raindrops and windows full of traces of time, tell the end of an era, and the loss and sadness in the collision of wine glasses, like an intoxicating poison, which makes people addicted.

The antique player played the slightly watery singing voice of Mei singing, the hazy light point beating, and the music with a slight white noise sounded, telling the old scenes in the memory, just like the newspaper used to cushion things at the bottom of the cabinet was turned out again, and the news and deeds reported in it, the things that were once popular and people cared about, have long been forgotten in the depths of memory.

Raindrops hit the glass window outside the aircraft, obscuring the scenery outside the window.

Leaning back on the seat, the girl listened to the music of the rotating player, and time flowed quietly.

In this way, until the aircraft slowly landed in the south area of the night, it was raining in the sky, and outside the black rain curtain were flickering screens and floating colored light spots.

————

"Hesia, do you know what chalk is?"

In the classroom many years ago, the teacher asked her to answer with good academic performance, because most of the other people in the class were sleeping and playing secretly, and they didn't care what the teacher said.

"Chalk is a kind of calcite, the main component is calcium carbonate, but unlike calcite, its origin is mainly the remains of ancient microorganisms, so the texture is softer, like a condensed powder, in the distant past, can be used as natural chalk, writing words."

"That's right." The teacher sat Hehia down with satisfaction, and then talked about the geological changes and the impact of ancient biological activities on the entire geological environment.

Everyone knows that there are traces of life's activities, but the impact of these traces is so far-reaching that it may not be recognized by the general public.

The activities of ancient creatures have profoundly changed the geological conditions of the planet, and the gray-white rocks that were crushed under the bottom layer would have been the remains of life in the distant past.

After all, there are so many such gray and white rocks that it is impossible to ignore that it is not the product of natural geographical changes, but the traces left by life.

Maybe there will be many galaxies and countless planets in this universe, but among them, there can be chalk calcite and oil, maybe one or two hands can be counted.

Matter is common, but life is scarce, even miraculous, although those distant lives have long since died, but the traces of their activities, their corpses still remain in this world, and even change the trajectory of today's civilization.

The discovery of oil has made great strides forward in the energy and power technology of civilization, catalyzing social change, changing the way people live, and even creating different cultures and personalities.

The photosynthesis of paleontology produced oxygen that made a large number of life extinct, but laid the foundation for the birth of more massive life in the future.

Even though some groups of organisms have long since disappeared, the traces of their existence have deeply influenced future generations.

Time has not disappeared, but has precipitated in another form.

Maybe it's a rock, maybe it's a sound.

The individual is small and helpless, even if he exhausts his life, he may only be a tiny drop of water in a splash in the tide of the times, he can only see these things, and only experience these.

Perhaps some of the water droplets were lucky enough to emerge at the peak of the waves, allowing them to see the most vast and beautiful scenery, but more of the water droplets were just plain and unremarkable in the waves, rising up, falling, shattering, and silently as the times progressed.

Everyone is unique and different.

Another implication of this sentence is that the world is not absolutely fair, and some people are born to run fast, fly high, jump far, and be smarter and more beautiful.

If it is recognized that more work is more rewarding, it means that there will be a gap between the rich and the poor.

The side with more and more resources will also become more and more powerful.

According to the evolution of nature, the strong individuals will be constantly selected and then survive, while the weak ones will be eliminated.

But the development of civilization is different from nature, and the strength of the race, or collective, is far superior to that of the individual, and even the weak individual, as long as they are gathered, can easily defeat the powerful and scattered opponents.

In order for countless individuals to come together willingly and cohesively, it is necessary to take into account their interests, give them their due rewards, and ensure a fair system and environment.

If justice is to be guaranteed, should it be distributed according to the results of labor, then this means more work and more rewards, and the generation of rich and poor.

The weaker side will try to unite again in order to get better treatment, they are the group of the group, and they are the race of the group, fighting against others in order to protect themselves.

As a result, new groups emerge, which once again divide the ethnic groups, no longer be tight, and weaken, which is manifested in the tearing of the social level, and the minds of each class are different.

At this time, the more 'just' the law is, the more it will increase the crushing of the superior party against the weak party, causing the gap to further widen, until finally the whole society is torn apart, and everyone loses the future in the internal friction struggle.

In order for the whole society to remain cohesive, it is necessary to add patches, that is, at the same time, pay more for those who are weak, so as to bridge the gap, so that the society will not be torn apart, and in this sharing and giving, the common emotional connection should be reconstructed.

This is reflected in the imposition of more taxes on high-income earners and the support of poor areas in richer regions.

The original intention is good, but the stronger the party, the easier it is to grasp the authority, cede one's own interests, and fund others, which is undoubtedly painful.

Human beings are still animals, maintaining the instinct of seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages, if it is a living other life in front of people to pray, there is a high probability that they will receive harmless alms to share, but if they are faced with lifeless screens and numbers, how many people are willing to take out the fruits of their labor and deliver it.

Will it really be given to those who need it, will it really be put to good use, is it really not a scam by some politicians, is it really paid by everyone, and is such a tax really fair?

Suspicion, deception, like poison erodes trust, people are afraid to give, afraid of being used, which makes them no longer believe in the collective, gradually separated and scattered, and then slowly weakened.

The predicament faced by the Four-Leaf Crystal Star Domain is only one of the many problems within the Federation.

When a collective is large enough, it needs a strong skeleton to support the connection, and in the material reality, the Federation may still maintain a strong military force, deterring the idea of separation and all kinds of grievances, but on the spiritual level, it has long ceased to be the original prosperity and unity, and the scene of being united and joining hands with each other has slowly disappeared into history.

When the suffering of the barren areas is not seen and valued, the happiness of the rich areas will not be recognized.

People began to escape from reality, obsessed with the simple and beautiful past, no one had the luxury of the future, and even if there were fantasies about the future, most of them were full of despair and pessimism.

The popularity of the 'vaporwave' style of music is also the frustration of most people in the Federation today, and the glorified fantasy in the filter of the old time, the enchanting lights, and the hazy vocal music have become a dream land to escape the pain of reality.

Chalk-colored calcite, the raw material for making cement, the cornerstone of the building, and now the inconspicuous gray powder, but it is also a tiny life that once existed ordinarily, but such corpses are too common and ordinary, making people gradually forget its original face.

But the activities of life will still leave traces, constantly stacking and precipitating, and even such a powerful Rose Federation will slowly cover the gray color, losing its former freshness and brilliance.

(End of chapter)