176: Wanli Jinsha (2)

(Let's get this straight: this person is not being recruited, just needed to flesh out the background)

...

People often say that history is a prostitute.

To those who desperately pursue her, she only offers a vague and illusory back.

Yet, when facing those who know nothing about her, or even those who disdain her, she is willing to generously open her heart and take the initiative to let them leave a heavy, colorful stroke upon her—

That's right, that youth, who was the young Muldra,

He was that lucky one favored by history.

Before him, those who had spent their lives struggling to solve the wasteland problem were great people who held ideals and were willing to burn themselves to light the way forward.

In stark contrast to them, Muldra at that time was nothing—

He was just a rat in a settlement.

Their group was loathed by ordinary residents, exploited by gang members, and periodically cleansed by the settlement's administrators.

The malice of the whole world was directed at them; in this world, not even a tiny place to stand or a cup of water and a grain of rice were willing to be spared for them.

And Muldra, living in this environment, did not turn out to be "unstained by the mud."

That time, Muldra, as usual, followed a caravan leading two-horned camels out of the settlement—

Such caravans usually left behind a large amount of trash along the way. As long as he followed them for nearly a day's journey and took two days to return,

the money he could get from the scavenged trash, after paying all the rent, protection fees... and a pile of miscellaneous charges, would at least guarantee his survival for another five or six days.

At first, his journey was relatively smooth; he successfully followed them to the first night's camp.

After this camp, the caravan would discard some disposable, recyclable items, and for him following behind, that was the harvest season.

However, this time, his luck—or rather, everyone's luck—was not very good:

Without any warning, without any pre-alert, an overwhelming sandstorm swept in overnight.

Because it was the windless season, neither the caravan nor Muldra had any preparations,

although under the roar of nature, no preparation would have been of any use.

In an instant, they were swallowed by the flying sand.

Muldra had thought he was dead for sure; he never expected that he would be able to open his eyes once more,

so much so that when he woke up in a cave, he felt like a fool, doubting his own reality for a long time—

At first, he thought he had entered the legendary hell, and if he walked deeper, he would enter a place where souls were eternally tortured.

It wasn't until his senses and intuition gradually returned to Muldra that he dared to believe he was truly still alive in the world.

The retreat behind him had been blocked, so he had no choice but to walk deeper along the cave,

and at the end of the cave was a small storage room.

Just at this moment, the wheels of fate began to turn—

Two things that changed his fate, and also changed the fate of this planet, were lying quietly in this small storage room—

That was a small AI processor and two heavily worn books.

Perhaps the original owner of the cave wanted a companion to spend the lonely years with, so that AI processor was equipped with a voice module,

and those two books were the most primitive physical books.

The books were severely worn. When the ignorant Muldra picked up the first one, it disintegrated directly into powder, leaving only a few pages and half a cover,

while the other one was relatively better, with only a few pages having fallen off.

"Do you know?"

"At that time, I only picked up those two books out of curiosity."

Muldra, sitting in the interrogation room, said this while opening his right mechanical prosthetic leg, reaching in, and taking out a sealed bag.

Looking at that bag, his face was full of nostalgia and reminiscence, and then he slowly continued,

"If I had known things would turn out like this today—"

"Even if I had let them rot in the ground, I definitely would not have picked up those two books."

At that time,

when he was looking at the ragged books in his hand, at a loss, suddenly, the AI core on the side made a sound.

That AI, which had been in standby for who knows how many years, didn't need a long boot-up time like humans,

it asked immediately, "Do you need help?"

Immediately, Muldra was startled and threw the broken book in his hand directly at the source of the sound,

and so—those two books were damaged again; they became page by page and mixed together.

"At that time, I just asked it one thing: Can you tell me how to get out?"

"It told me about a secret passage behind the cave immediately."

"The ignorant me at that time thought it was a person who had been cut off at the hands and feet and trapped in a big iron box,"

"And 'AI' was his name."

"He explained for a long time before I realized it was just a human creation."

"Later, I asked it if it could teach me to recognize the characters in those books, and it said it could, but it didn't have a camera,"

"Which means I had to start from scratch."

"At that time, I stayed in that cave, and it even guided me to find the nutrient paste left by the original owner of the cave, as well as a pile of daily necessities."

One person and one AI just like that, hiding in a small cave hidden from the sun, quietly spent several months.

At first, Muldra learned with extreme difficulty, unable to even recognize five characters a day,

but after only a month, once he adapted to the rhythm, his learning efficiency became higher and higher,

and in less than three months, he was able to read the text on those two old books with difficulty on his own.

During these three months, he also went out several times and discovered that standing on the hidden exit, the settlement where he lived was within sight.

Such days lasted for more than eleven months,

by then, he could already read those dense square characters smoothly—

Even, he used his own knowledge to reassemble the scattered broken pages in his hands.

But it was also at this time that the AI core, which had accompanied him for nearly a year, finally reached the end of its life. After an alarm of "Insufficient energy," it fell into an eternal sleep.

"That AI core didn't seem to have completed a backup,"

"I tried to restart it and restore it later, but no matter what, I couldn't change a set fact—"

"My first teacher—it has permanently perished."

While narrating, Muldra gently opened the sealed bag in his hand and took out the two broken books,

his voice gradually filled with a sob,

"Do you know? People on this planet revere me as a savior, a person favored by the gods,"

"But what truly saved them was that AI, it was these two books, and it was also themselves—"

"But it could never be me!"

Xi Hai watched him take out the books, curiously leaning forward, wanting to see the two ancient books through the screen,

and Muldra picked up the first book in his hand and said,

"You must be very curious about what these two books are right now, aren't you?"

"I will tell you—I will tell you one by one."

"This first one—its cover is not that ragged, and two characters of the title can still be seen,"

"《Ancient ■ Sutra》, it is also the blueprint for the faith in the lord of the sand sea that I founded."

Subsequently, he picked up the other extremely ragged book,

"But, actually, the previous one was just a supporting act,"

"The reason the wasteland was ended in my hands is because of this book—"

"Even though it has less than 4 and a half pages left."

"《■ ■ ■ ■ ■》"

Behind the screen, Xi Hai's pupils shrank sharply—

No way?

Could it be that book?

His heart lifted instantly, and a feeling that could not be described as tension or expectation rushed into his mind,

and Muldra's next sentence followed, like a thunderclap, striking Xi Hai's ears:

"It was this book that told me to launch '■ ■', to '■ ■ ■ ■', to '■ ■ ■ ■',"

"It told me not to overly mythologize the enemy, and not to overly belittle myself,"

"To combine with specific circumstances..."

Muldra was still talking on the other side,

and upon hearing his first sentence, Xi Hai immediately stood up and shouted to the others around him:

"Everyone stand up!"

The few people beside him stood up immediately, but all with confused faces.

Only then did Xi Hai realize that he seemed too excited.

He looked at the circle of people around him and explained briefly:

"Sorry, I was too excited."

"The book he took out in his hand is a representative product of a great era—"

"That is one of the most brilliant thoughts created by humans in the ancient mother planet era,"

"Even if it is just a fragment, it deserves the highest respect from everyone."

The scribe next to him raised his hand and asked:

"In that case, shouldn't we kneel down to it?"

Xi Hai shook his head quickly, looking at the scribe seriously,

"No—it's a pity that it's a fragment,"

"If you had seen the complete version,"

"Then you would understand that kneeling to it is the greatest blasphemy and betrayal to it."

After speaking, he signaled to the people around him that they could sit down,

while he remained standing, staring at Muldra on the screen.

That guy had already finished a simple introduction of the two broken books,

and he began to talk about how, after leaving that cave, he led the people of this planet step by step to break free from the abyss named despair.

...