107: An epic of a race

The door to the base's conference room closed behind them, cutting off everything from the outside world.

Wang Dalong felt as if his bones had been removed; he slid down the wall and sat on the floor, his shirt soaked through and clinging to his back. He gasped for air, his chest heaving violently, as if he had just finished running a marathon.

"My god... Feng Zi..." He looked up at Lin Feng, who was still standing tall, his voice trembling. "Just now... are you a devil? In front of all those big shots, you actually dared to say that!"

Lin Feng didn't answer. He walked to the water dispenser in the corner of the room, filled a cup, and drank it in one go. The cold liquid sliding down his esophagus finally made him notice his burning palms and the back of his neck.

That report just now had exhausted all of his mental energy.

"Those weren't my words," Lin Feng said calmly as he put down the paper cup. "They were the words of the Zhuojin Star people. I'm just a translator."

Wang Dalong was taken aback, then gave a bitter smile.

Yeah, a translator. Translating the elegy of an interstellar civilization spanning tens of thousands of years for a group of the most powerful people on this planet. This was a job that would take a toll on anyone.

"So... what do we do now? Are we really just staying here?" Wang Dalong scrambled up and walked to the window. Outside was a lush, dense forest with no man-made structures in sight, only the occasional silhouette of patrolling soldiers, a reminder of how heavily guarded this place was.

"Rest and wait for news," Lin Feng said as he walked straight to the computer in the room, sat down, and turned it on.

"Rest? You call this resting?" Wang Dalong watched his practiced movements, his eyes nearly popping out of his head.

Lin Feng ignored him. From a heavily encrypted mobile hard drive, he pulled up a collection of materials. These were the video files he had recorded in El Dorado using the system's built-in recording function, containing parts of the database from the eye of omniscience.

They were the "Historical Echo" of the Zhuojin Star people.

The birth of a civilization: how they evolved from primitive organisms, built city-states, and developed technology.

Their first interstellar voyage, the first time they saw their home planet as a pale blue dot in the universe.

The war and peace, glory and betrayal during their conquest of the sea of stars.

And finally, the apocalypse. When the irreversible disaster struck, how the entire civilization chose to upload their consciousness, abandoning their physical bodies to become eternal digital deities.

On the screen, light and shadow shifted. Countless strange and magnificent images flashed by, each one enough to drive any sci-fi director wild.

Lin Feng's fingers danced across the keyboard as he precisely dragged, cropped, and spliced clips on the timeline.

He was editing.

Editing a new "short film."

Wang Dalong was completely dumbfounded.

Standing behind Lin Feng, he watched the images that subverted his cognition and even his imagination. His mouth hung open, unable to utter a single word.

If the previous video, [A Civilization's Farewell], had shown the destruction of El Dorado...

...then what Lin Feng was doing now was telling the whole world exactly what that civilization was.

"Brother Feng... my dear brother..." Wang Dalong's voice was dry. "The sky is falling out there, and you're... you're still editing videos?"

"What else?" Lin Feng didn't look back. "Wait for those people to send someone over with a fruit basket?"

His tone was flat, but Wang Dalong could hear a hint of coldness in it.

Lin Feng knew very well that he had formed an irreconcilable feud with the man named Osiris. The opponent was in the light, and he was in the dark. No, now both sides were in the shadows, waiting to see who could drag the other out first.

The mysterious man's goal was the technology of the eye of omniscience.

And now, a demonstration of some of those technological effects was stored on Lin Feng's hard drive in the form of data.

He had to make these things public in a way that the whole world could see, yet gave no one a handle to use against him.

"Artistic creation" was his only camouflage.

He wanted to muddy the waters and draw the eyes of the whole world. Relying on the ruins of El Dorado alone wasn't enough; he was going to drop an even bigger bombshell.

He wanted to make that mysterious organization a target for the intelligence agencies of every major power in the world.

You want it all for yourself?

I'll make sure to read the whole menu to the entire world.

Let's see who chokes first.

"But... but if this thing gets out, won't those big shots swallow us alive?" Wang Dalong felt a chill on the back of his neck as he recalled the heavy atmosphere in the conference room.

"They will thank us," Lin Feng said, his fingertip pausing on a single frame.

It was a little girl from the Zhuojin Star, using glowing blocks to build the starship of her dreams. Her eyes shone as bright as two stars.

"The authorities need a reason, a reason to publicly intervene on a global scale. We'll give it to them."

Lin Feng's voice wasn't loud, but it sent a shock through Wang Dalong's body.

He looked at Lin Feng's profile. The light from the screen reflected off his glasses, showing countless rapidly changing streams of data.

At this moment, Wang Dalong suddenly felt that Lin Feng didn't seem like a socially anxious shut-in.

He was like the coldest, most insane player sitting at a chessboard.

Using the entire world as the board.

Using a lost interstellar civilization as the pieces.

And he himself was the most dangerous, most reckless piece on that board.

Wang Dalong silently backed away and stopped talking. He found a sofa to sit on, pulled out his phone, and began checking the revenue from his previous videos.

If the sky falls, the tall ones will hold it up.

He'd better count some money to calm his nerves.

This editing process lasted for three days.

During these three days, Lin Feng hardly slept. When he was hungry, he had Wang Dalong bring food from the cafeteria; when he was tired, he gulped down strong coffee. He was completely immersed in that grand interstellar epic, resonating with the joys and sorrows of the Zhuojin Star people.

On the other side, Wang Dalong was restlessly scrolling through various encrypted foreign news.

"Brother Feng, it's crazy, everything's gone crazy," he lowered his voice as if talking in his sleep. "The Brazilian military has cordoned off over three hundred kilometers of the lower Amazon River, calling it an ecological exercise."

"American research vessels and our country's oceanographic survey ships nearly collided outside Eagle Head Rock. Warships from both sides are watching nearby."

"Several small European nations have jointly announced the formation of some 'Earth Civilization Heritage Conservation Foundation,' demanding that all major powers share information about the Amazon ruins."

"That organization... there's no movement at all. It's like they've vanished."

Lin Feng didn't respond; he pressed the final render button.

The progress bar began to move slowly.

One percent... ten percent... one hundred percent.

A fifteen-minute video file lay quietly on the desktop.

He had already thought of the title for the video.

【The Epic of a Race】

Lin Feng leaned back in his chair and stared at the file for a long time without moving.

He knew that the moment he hit the "upload" button...

...the world would never be the same again.