1 The Last Journey on Earth
The moon shone dimly with a dark red glow. Stars of various colors surrounded it, shining brighter than the moon. Further out in the sky, a massive black star was hanging there.
The ground was covered with blue and white frost, faintly reflecting the light of the countless stars above in the dark.
Lu Yuan sat in the driver's seat and looked back at Lu Yao.
"We have to go."
Lu Yao has a pair of cute eyes, however her skin was as pale as a piece of white paper. The little girl nodded her head, "~en" and then Lu Yuan started the engine.
With the slight hum coming from the nuclear fueled engine, an untimely serious female voice spoke between the two.
"A warm reminder from the Transportation Committee that the outside temperature is now minus 215 degrees Celsius. Please take care to keep warm and avoid being directly exposed to the severe cold…"
Lu Yuan snorted coldly.
"Shut up."
The Transportation Committee immediately went silent.
The Transportation Committee is the Transportation Committee. It's Lu Yuan's personal photon computer assistant, which is basically known as Artificial Intelligence. This technology is the final result of humanity's best efforts.
When he was naming the photon computer assistant, Lu Yuan with a sense of black humor chose to call it the Transportation Committee. So when he gets a warm reminder from the Transportation Committee, Lu Yuan feels the fear of seeing traffic police and speeding tickets.
Even though the traffic police don't exist anymore.
As such, there are no traffic tickets to be given out.
Then a garage door slowly opened. The garage had a three-story tall closed structure. It hadn't been opened in ten years. When the gates on the first floor opened up, frigid winds and frost went inside. Lu Yao watched with interest outside the window as everything she saw became covered in a thick white frost.
The winter crawler slowly drove out of the garage and continued out into the world.
Lu Yuan has not left this Bay Area nuclear power plant for 20 years. By now, the sun has also stopped shining for 35 years.
No one knew why the sun died. According to scientific observations, the sun should continue to burn for a billion years before it undergoes helium flashes, expands into a red giant, and then finally collapses into a white dwarf star. However most people weren't concerned about these events billions of years in the future.
But what they didn't know is that they don't have a few billion years, or hundreds of millions of years, or even thousands of years. They don't even have a few decades —— only a handful of days and hours.
After a certain night, the star which had been shining on Earth for billions of years was suddenly extinguished. Instantly, the whole world was plunged into darkness. Looking from a distance, one would only see the large dark remains of a dead star.
However the worst wasn't the darkness, but the cold.
Without eating food, a person could live for seven days.
Without drinking water, a person could live for three days.
Without breathing air, a person could live for 5 minutes.
However in the extreme cold of more than -100℃, a few seconds of exposure is enough to cause death.
The winter crawler silently moved forward in the dark. The headlights' white beams reflected off the thick snow. As before, Lu Yao was fascinated with looking at the outside landscape through the window. Even if there was only more constant snow and darkness outside, Lu Yao would still want to see it.
Since Lu Yao has never left the nuclear power station before.
This is the first time, and it should also be the last time.
She had been diagnosed with high risk leukemia. Normally this type of cancer is treatable with the current medical technology. However, because of the global crisis the treatment is no longer possible. So Lu Yuan went to search the entire Bay Area nuclear power plant, but he couldn't find the equipment needed for the treatment. He could only tell Lu Yao the truth. He asked if she had any final wishes.
Lu Yao said.
"I want to see the ocean".
So Lu Yuan took her there.
This is the last promise a father can make to his daughter.
The snow crawler was moving slowly over the snow, making a crunching snow noise. However Lu Yuan knew, this blue and white colored icy snow was not made of water, but the condensed gas of oxygen and nitrogen from the air.
He also remembered during the years when the sun died, the whole world was covered with an endless blue snow.
It's even said that troops were mobilized to wear protective clothing, shovel the snow, and bring it back. After the snow was placed indoors, it melted into clean air.
Thinking of this, the corners of Lu Yuan's mouth turned upward. However, the smile was soon frozen on the corners of his mouth.
Because all the people that survived the initial crisis were dead now.
The Bay Area nuclear power plant is located near the ocean, since it needs a large supply of water to operate.
At first, people thought even if the sun had died there was enough nuclear fuel to last multiple human lifetimes.
But the reality was that the water they needed for power was all frozen.
So after the sea was completely frozen, the nuclear power plant slowly stopped working.
As Lu Yuan was thinking about this, he suddenly saw the ocean in the distance.
Of course, the only difference was that the ocean was a little more smooth than the ground. Since the surface of the frozen planet has already been covered in a thick layer of nitrogen-based snow.
The snow crawler stopped next to the ocean.
Lu Yuan pushed Lu Yao's wheelchair down from the carriage of the snow crawler. Both of them wore thick protective clothing, as a nuclear battery provided them with enough heat to survive in the cold environment.
Looking at a sheet of ice fully covered in a layer of blue snow, Lu Yao tilted her head sideways to ask.
"Is this place the ocean?"
Lu Yuan nodded.
Lu Yao pointed at the huge black sphere above the ocean.
"Is that the sun?"
"Then is…"
"When Daddy was a kid, did the sun still shine like how I saw on television?"
Lu Yuan didn't respond.
He only pursed his lips.
"Then when Daddy was a kid, he was so lucky. He could actually see the shining sun. "
After saying this out loud, Lu Yao smiled and reached out to hold Lu Yuan's hand.
"Daddy, Thank you for taking me to this world "
...
...
"LU YAO!"
Lu Yuan stood up abruptly, and pushed away the chair underneath him. It made a harsh screeching noise as the chair scraped against the ground.
Everyone in the classroom stopped writing and stared at the person causing the disruption.
"This student, please keep quiet."
The Examination Invigilator stood up and walked toward Lu Yuan. In a soft voice he said.
"If you create another disruption like this again, you will suffer the same consequence as cheating on the exam."
At this moment, Lu Yuan came back to his senses. He looked around and saw the sun shining brightly outside the window. Although he was currently wearing a t-shirt and shorts, he still felt cold since the air conditioning was turned on.
All around him were row after row of students sitting at their desks. They were spread out as if they were taking an exam.
"Wait, an exam?"
Lu Yuan was immediately overwhelmed, he stared at the exam papers in front of him.
On the paper printed in black ink were the words.
"2125 National College Entrance Examination Paper
(National Exam Vol. 1)"
"Mathematics"
Next to the grade number, he saw his own name written on it.
"Lu Yuan"
"The college entrance exam?"
"This is the college entrance exam?"
Lu Yuan sat down, he felt his head had exploded with this new information.
Outside the window, the buzzing sound of cicadas could be heard. The window was bright and clean, the trees were deep green, and the sun was shining brightly.
Have I —— returned to 2125?
The year I take my college entrance exam?
And today is the day I have to take the mathematics college entrance exam?
At this huge change, Lu Yuan felt an emotion of disbelief. He was a little suspicious of whether he had dreamed of a bleak future and he had simply fallen asleep during the college entrance exam. But that dream felt so long and real, that Lu Yuan couldn't dismiss that it was only a dream.
For now, though, it seems more important to complete the exam in front of him.
Sigh, the college entrance exam.
Lu Yuan looked at the front of the classroom. He was happy to find that there was a wall clock in the exam room.
"16:03"
Lu Yuan looked at the exam time written on the exam paper.
Mathematics Exam: 15:00 —— 17:00
'Shit!'
Lu Yuan almost yelled out loud.
In other words, in the blink of an eye he'd already spent an hour of the college entrance exam asleep?
Was I really so carefree?
With a foreboding sense of unease, Lu Yuan looked at his exam. The first multiple choice question was completely blank.
In my dream I've been a senior engineer for many years, so these high school math problems should be...
Lu Yuan stared at the first question for three minutes, before realizing he didn't know how to solve it.
Will the first thing after his rebirth be to turn in a blank exam?
Is life really so cruel?
However this was to be expected, since Lu Yuan hasn't done a high school mathematics problem for many years. The last time he ever touched a high school mathematics problem was when he tried to teach his daughter Lu Yao. But even then he had trouble solving even middle school math problems.
"Will I really have to turn in a blank exam?"
Lu Yuan muttered to himself.
When he was talking to himself, Lu Yuan heard a familiar voice speaking in his ear.
"A warm reminder from the the traffic committee: The current temperature is 24 degrees Celsius, which is suitable for outdoor activities. It is recommended that you and your family take some tents and sleep in the wild to enjoy nature's majestic beauty."
