"Jacob?" A female, but inevitably somewhat hoarse voice from long-term exposure to chemicals, echoes beneath the massive shadows of the hangar, which have been shut down, "Jacob? Are you here? ”

There seemed to be nothing in the darkness except for the huge machinery that was still in place, and the silence with the smell of pesticides and chemicals seemed to be about to be devoured. However, the slender woman carrying the light at the gate did not show the slightest look of fear, and walked into the darkness with the basket as usual.

"Jacob? I'm in? Ignoring the silence that seemed to be empty except herself, she left the little light that seeped in by the doorway, and sang a one-man show that no one else would respond to: "The city is now full of celebrations, and the people in the cargo station are beginning to toss and turn around idly." Old Hank didn't know where he heard a recipe, so he took the ration of round wheat flour and baked a spice cake, and I thought it tasted good, so I came back with a little bit. You should try it too. ”

She walked into the middle of the darkness and stopped. She couldn't see anything, but she stubbornly lifted the basket in her hand so that it was above her head. She remained in this sacrificial position for five minutes, motionless—even if the basket wasn't heavy, and she felt the stiffness and soreness of her arm muscles during that time.

Then, a heavy sigh came from the darkness.

"Aelita, you don't have to." A man's voice said helplessly, "You know I can't eat good food." ”

"That just shows that your tongue clearly lacks proper education." The woman, who was called Aelita, rightly said, "If you don't care about it yourself, then the responsibility for educating it obviously falls on us - you have to eat something good when you can." ”

“…… I'm starting to miss the time when I lived on wheat, crumbs and bran. At least the only thing I had to deal with at that time was the harvester. The man's depressed tone contrasted strongly with Aelita's excited voice.

"Hey, stop talking stupid, come down!" The woman on the ground dangled her basket and urged, "It's too dark for me to see you, but I know you must be lying on top of a trailer!" ”

But then, the man's voice ghostly appeared behind her:

"Actually, I didn't." He even deliberately poked Alita in the back.

Alita immediately let out a small scream, instinctively jumped away from the spot, and the basket in her hand was thrown out of her hand in panic, and she was thrown behind her in a hurry. It would have slammed into the man behind Alita and then landed, and the food inside would probably have been scattered - but before that could happen, a large hand had held the basket that had taken Aelita two hands to hold steadily.

Jacob took shape in the darkness. Only a glimmer of light from the hangar entrance barely outlined his tall and wide silhouette, and the overstrength of the somewhat misproportioned proportions made him look very threatening. He had tried and failed to intimidate many people with this sneaking technique that elusively appeared in the dark, but Aelita giggled as soon as she turned around and saw him.

“…… You shouldn't laugh like that. Jacob – or rather, Yago Savitarion – sighed helplessly, "I'm scaring you." ”

He said this very seriously, but Aelita responded to him as if she were reassuring a child who had failed in his prank: "Well, you did scare me, I was so scared that I threw the basket out, and there was still old Hank's spice cake." ”

This is indeed very strong evidence. On the agricultural planet known locally as Jestal, the waste of food is both legally and morally condemnable. But strong evidence still can't change the cruel reality: the crow prince who once terrified his enemies has fallen to Pingyang, and his martial arts are now useless, and can only be used to scare the basket in the little girl's hand.

But he found it not as hard to accept as he had imagined.

"You should have turned on the lights before you came in." Saivita carried the basket, which was a little cute for him, and dragged Aelita, who was inexplicably happy in place, with a little melancholy, to the well-lit doorway, "You are not like me, you can see clearly in places where there is no light. Sooner or later, you will fall on the blade of the harvester because of this. ”

"But if I had turned on the lights first, I wouldn't have found you. As soon as the lights come on, you'll definitely be out of the way. Aelita clearly didn't take his advice to heart, "Besides, you're not going to watch me fall on the blade." ”

Sevita sneered: "Are you so sure? I'm very ruthless. I could watch you fall on the blade, drain your blood, and then peel your skin, cut it carefully, and decorate the harvester, and write on it: 'Behold, this is what happens when you don't remember to turn on the lights before you go into the hangar!' ’”

He was serious. He can do it. No one should doubt the truth of the Midnight Lord's first company commander when he made a threat, after all, these things were easy for him—but Aelita giggled again: "Jacob is telling horrible jokes that aren't funny again!" ”

This reminded Savita of something that Azak Ahriman once said: some ancient literature would compare this giggling sound to a hen, a kind of fowl, which he did not remember, or did not listen to at all.

He had no interest in what a hen was, and he didn't want Azak Ahriman's swaggering stupid face to dominate his mind too much. He kicked all of this stuff out of his head, and then abandoned all the topics that could only make him humiliating, and returned to reality:

"You're back sooner than I thought." He asked, "I thought you were going to find a place to live in the first city these days." Do the people in charge of the selection care about it? ”

Aelita shrugged, "I didn't pick it." ”

"I didn't think there would be such a thing. They say don't look at it and you have 'blue gray', but I thought they just said it because it was unsightly. As they walked out into the light, Aelita saw Sevita's raised brow: "Our little Aelita is the prettiest girl in the Fourth District, and if she doesn't make the party, the Governor of Deville or the Imperial Tax Collector's aesthetic taste will be subject to some legitimate questioning." ”

The muscles that needed to move to make this expression pulled at the scars on his face, and the twisted marks combined with his rough skin and mean appearance made him look even more fierce. Leaving a video record of his current expression to put it in is undoubtedly able to stop the child's night crying, but Aelita still only laughs.

"It's not because of those things, it's because of this scar here." She gestured at the base of her neck on the left side of her neck, "The uniform of the welcome team looks like this—" she said, drawing a semicircle with her fingers near her collarbone, "They said that if I wore the uniform the scar would show up, so no." ”

Sevita knew where the scar came from. No one knows it better than him, not even Aelita herself.

The scar was a result of an engineering accident two years ago, a deep wound cut from a piece of metal from the cylinder that had cut into the lower part of Elita's side neck, not fatal from Sevita's point of view, but enough to scare her enough. The fifteen-year-old girl was stunned, and she only knew that she was lying on the spot in tears, and that the ration of the corresponding potions or sprays on Jestal was always out of stock, and finally it was Sevita who borrowed the right needle and thread to help her stitch up the wound after debridement - he finished all the work in two minutes, and the sewing was so fast and so good that the doctors who were late were amazed at it. Once the wound healed, the stitch was barely visible, leaving only a straight, white trail on Aelita's skin, not the more common, ugly multi-legged worm that snaked and crawled.

It was also the first time he realized that the craftsmanship inherited in the Eighth Legion could still be used in this way.

Once again, he threw these indifferent feelings out of his mind, and then asked, "You lost the election, but you don't seem very depressed." ”

The girl suddenly came to her senses: "Because I have met the Hasteen technical officer!" He told us that he hoped we could bring back the news that he was going to expand the technical department and add a training school! The official announcement had to be made after the celebration, but he thought it would be better if everyone knew about it as soon as possible...... Jacob, do you think I'll be able to get it if I sign up? ”

"I don't know everything, either." Sevita shrugged, "I can't say if you can be selected if you sign up, but I know that if you don't, you won't be selected." ”

"Wow, you're using nonsense to perfunctory me again."

"It's really nonsense, but it's the right nonsense. For you, instead of worrying about how things will play out in the future, it is better to do what you can first. ”

"I just want some confidence! Jacob, you don't understand other people's minds too much! ”

"Hey...... Actually, I know, but I did it on purpose. ”

"Then you're too annoying!" Alita puffed up her hand to the basket and pulled out a piece of bread from it, "Look at me blocking your mouth that doesn't have any good words at all!" ”

She shoved the caramel-colored, wonderful-scented dough into Sevita's mouth. The latter knew that if she didn't give some face, the girl would never give up, so she took the cake in her mouth, allowed the aroma of spices and barley mixed not very harmoniously to bombard her taste buds, and smiled and gestured with body language that she raised her hand in surrender.

As they spoke, they had already left the building and came to the open space in front of the cargo station. Old Hank and his fox friends have made a crooked oven out of discarded parts and promethium, trying to find a way to mass-produce his spice cakes. They were preoccupied with their own research, and did not devote the slightest attention to the belated Elita and the isolated Jacob. Through the smoke from the burning of promethium and the evaporation of the flour, it is easy to see the vast fields that have been harvested, the huge machinery waiting to be stored, the brown-yellow earth in the fields, and the huge golden haystacks on it.

The breeze blew the aroma of round wheat and straw, and Aelita shouted as she prepared to join Old Hank's oven team. Sevita declined all invitations to him, carrying the forgotten basket and quietly watching them laugh from the edge of the crowd. It was a sight that barely existed in his old memory, but it seemed increasingly commonplace in the nearly ten years that he had been in exile in Jestal.

Their harvest is getting better every year, their rations are increasing year by year, and people are getting enough to eat. The Empire's tax ships have appeared above the first city's airport, but this year's harvest has even left them with enough surplus to pay off the taxes owed for centuries before. There will be no punitive development restrictions on Jestal, and there will be enough goods to trade with the rest of the world after the new farming season. Credit goes to Governor de Ville, a truly good man, and everything on this planet is steadily improving, and people's faces are filled with joy and hope.

The only thing that should not belong to Yago Sevitalyon's happiness and hope.

The commander of the Midnight Lord's company knew that he would never be able to shake off his past. If he cherished what was in front of him, then in the first place, he shouldn't have stayed here.

His past always catches up with him. And now, some kind of hunch told him that it was coming.