Chapter 17 Where Did We Come From?

The sedan chair suddenly stopped.

Stepping out of the sedan, he saw that he had arrived in front of the Lingxing Gate of the State Religion.

At this moment, a figure stumbled over and crashed into his arms. It was his sister, Yun Qian.

"Brother!" Yun Qian buried her head into Yun Bai's chest, greedily enjoying the safety and warmth coming from her brother.

"Qianqian, I'm back. Don't rush." Yun Bai subconsciously glanced at his own clothes.

Ever since he made his Breakthrough, he hadn't worn any decent clothes.

His clothes had long been tattered from fighting monsters, and before he could change, he was thrown into prison. Just now, after the brawl in the cell, he was covered in the stench of blood again.

Fortunately, Magistrate Hu Qian was thoughtful enough to have Yun Bai bathe and change into clean clothes before setting off.

This Magistrate Hu Qian certainly knew how to conduct himself. Yun Bai sighed.

It was a pity, though; in this world, having great strength was the only hard truth.

Holding his sister, Yun Bai felt emotional. The near-death experience he had just gone through made him realize the cruelty of this world.

"Brother, are you okay?" Yun Qian asked worriedly, seeing that Yun Bai had been silent.

"I'm fine. Your brother is so capable, how could anything happen to me? It's you I'm worried about—you were in such a rush, weren't you afraid of falling?"

Thinking of his sister's headaches, Yun Bai didn't want to worry her further. "After Magistrate Hu Qian found out I was a Cultivator of the State Religion, he treated me like royalty with great food and drink. I was more worried about you—has anyone been bullying you at the State Religion these past few days?"

"No, no, Sister Jiang Shuanger and Brother Zhang Huai have been very good to me," Yun Qian said, beaming with joy. "They even taught me how to read! Oh, right, I've already picked out our new house, I was just waiting for you to come back and give your approval!"

"Brother Yun Bai, you're finally back! How could I dare to bully little sister Yun Qian?" At this moment, Zhang Huai walked out with a grin. "Brother Yun Bai, it was my negligence that caused you to suffer."

"Not at all, not at all," Yun Bai replied politely. He didn't dwell on the matter and held no grudges against the State Religion. "Brother Zhang, has Qianqian caused you any trouble these past few days?"

"No, no, Qianqian is a cute and obedient girl. We all like her very much." Zhang Huai was very fond of Yun Qian.

The reason for this was probably because Jiang Shuanger also took great care of Yun Qian, which gave him more opportunities to interact with Jiang Shuanger.

Afterward, Yun Qian pulled Yun Bai along, wanting to go see the new house she had chosen.

Meanwhile, the busy Jiang Shuanger was surrounded by Cultivators at the front desk, so Yun Bai, who had wanted to say hello, had to give up on the idea. Because Yun Bai had once again shamelessly asked Zhang Huai for a favor, Zhang Huai left after handing over the house keys and other items to Yun Bai.

"Brother, let's go." Yun Qian hugged Yun Bai's arm and left the National Temple in high spirits.

After discussing it, the two decided to return to their old home first. The medicinal herbs Yun Bai had previously bought on credit were still piled up there, along with some other important items.

The National Temple was in the city center, while their old home was in the more working-class West Side of Chu Prefecture. Although the West Side couldn't be considered a slum, it was indeed where the families of modest means lived.

When Yun Bai stood before their old home again, he couldn't help but sigh in his heart.

An Acquired Realm Martial Artist needed a massive amount of resources to temper their body and bones. Medicinal herbs, food, energy, and time were all indispensable.

Over the years, he had exhausted his family's fortune for his sister's illness and his own Breakthrough to the First Realm.

In the end, he had no choice but to live in a house like this.

In fact, having a three-section courtyard with one main hall and two inner rooms in the West Side was already considered relatively good conditions.

For Yun Bai, even if he had to suffer, he couldn't bear to let his sister suffer. His sister was the one who spent most of her time at home, so the house couldn't be too bad.

The old house was like an elderly person in their twilight years, sitting silently on the cold ground. The courtyard gate that had been torn down by Chen Qiang and Li Pazi was stacked in a corner of the yard. The bloodstains from the previous battle in the yard had already been cleaned up.

The house was empty, containing only a cabinet, a low wooden table, two small stools, and two beds. It was truly a case of having nothing but bare walls. At this moment, sitting on the stove was not a pot, but an old clay pot for brewing medicine.

Seeing this, Yun Bai's eyes grew slightly moist. That was the medicine Yun Qian had brewed for him before. This medicine was originally prepared for his Breakthrough to the First Realm.

Yun Qian, on the other hand, was not overly sentimental. She and her brother relied on each other for survival, and for her, wherever her brother was, that was a warm home. She limped into the house and called for Yun Bai to start packing up.

"Brother, your medicinal herbs. Although you don't need them anymore, we can take them to the market and sell them for quite a bit of money!"

"And this, and this—these bowls, although a bit old, can still be used. That day, you just took those two bastards down with a couple of moves, but you weren't careful, and a lot of things got broken!" Yun Qian pouted.

Yun Bai looked at Yun Qian, who had turned into an accountant, with a wry smile. These frugal habits were just another mark left on them by their past. However, he didn't stop her, but instead stepped forward to help his sister pack everything up one by one.

"Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck." Yun Bai suddenly heard a strange sound.

Following the sound, Yun Bai looked over and was surprised to see a large yellow chicken with glossy feathers, pacing contentedly in the yard.

"What is this?" Yun Bai was stunned.

"Hee hee, this is the chicken you bought the other day, Brother. I was waiting for you to come back and make soup for me~" Yun Qian covered her mouth and giggled.

"You've just been letting it roam free here these past few days?"

"Yeah, a place as solemn as the State Religion isn't suitable for raising chickens. I'm not very familiar with the neighbors, so I had to leave it here."

Yun Bai was speechless. He took the Storage Pouch off his waist and started packing things up with Yun Qian.

Previously, at the National Temple, Zhang Huai had handed the Storage Pouch and his identity badge to him. Now, he was an official Cultivator of the State Religion.

This was a three-section courtyard with one main hall and two inner rooms.

Yun Bai and Yun Qian quickly packed up the front hall and Yun Qian's bedroom, and only then did they start packing up Yun Bai's room.

The things in Yun Bai's room were very cluttered.

The room was filled with simple wooden shelves that Yun Bai had built himself, and on the shelves were various "strange" scientific instruments.

They were all devices that Yun Bai had made himself. On the left shelf were a simple pendulum, a Foucault pendulum...

On the right shelf were optical instruments, such as a prism, a double-slit plate, a telescope... and on the innermost shelf were measuring cups, measuring rulers, hourglasses, and so on.

The three shelves crowded the already small room even further, leaving only enough space for the bed.

This was an experimental platform that Yun Bai had built with his own hands. Over these years, Yun Bai had used scientific knowledge from his past life to gain a deeper understanding of the world he had descended into.

"Qianqian, do you remember our origins, the things Brother told you you must never forget?" Yun Bai looked around the room, his tone somewhat heavy.

"Yes." Yun Qian nodded obediently. "I remember. Brother has always told me that we come from another world, that we are visitors from an alien world. Our home is a Universe with many, many stars, and we lived on those stars."

"With technological progress, human civilization became increasingly prosperous. Until we started the Hundred-Year War against the Zerg, humanity was outmatched, our home planet was destroyed, and human territory kept shrinking. At that critical moment of life and death, my brother and I, along with other team members, received orders from our commander to execute a secret mission."

"We piloted a spaceship capable of traversing the Universe, broke through the space-time membrane of our original Universe, and arrived in this brand-new, unknown alien Universe! Before we set off, the commander told us that here, there exists a Cultivation civilization created by a god. This civilization shares the same roots and origins as ours and has an extremely similar cultural background, except that it branched off at some point in its evolution."

"If we could find the center of their civilization—um, that is, the 'Heavenly Court'—and send a distress signal, they would surely be able to help us and save our home. However, just as we successfully arrived in this Universe, the spaceship we were riding in came under an unknown attack, and within a mere quarter of an hour, the ship completely lost control and initiated self-destruction. The countless precious data, instruments, and so on that the ship was carrying were all lost."

"At that time, the two of us could only watch helplessly as the ship self-destructed, and Brother and I entered the escape pod. The escape pod crashed at the coordinates of the nearest planet. But because the escape pod suffered an accident during landing, we were both severely injured and couldn't be treated. In the end, we had no choice but to use the two Rebirth Systems inside the escape pod, utilizing them for memory storage and biological information recording, and then we were reborn through the biological pods."

"The embryos of our new bodies should have been gestated and developed in the biological pods until we were over six years old, at which point we would have the ability to leave and return to the biological pods independently. But because the escape pod suffered an accident during landing, not only were we released from the biological pods prematurely, but my original memories were also slow to recover... The symptoms of my headaches are very likely caused by this..."

By the end, Yun Qian's tone had also become low.

Hearing this, Yun Bai also sighed and said, "Qianqian, the people of our homeland are enduring the most brutal massacre in the entire Universe; the disasters we have encountered are not even one-billionth of what they are suffering... When your illness is better, let's go find the Heavenly Palace together, okay?"

"We still have an unfinished mission, we must do everything we can to seek help from the Heavenly Palace!" Yun Bai repeated with a firm tone.

"Mm, as long as I'm with Brother." Yun Qian nodded vigorously.

Yun Bai had asked Yun Qian to repeat these words more than once, just for fear that his sister would forget where she came from.

Yun Qian's situation was very complicated.

Awakening memories of a past life was not as simple as just having some words and scenes appear in one's mind. Awakening a memory spanning decades would undoubtedly change a person's personality, thinking, behavior, and every other aspect.

For Yun Bai, Awakening memories before the age of six, when he hadn't yet formed a complete personality, was relatively easy to adapt to.

But now, his sister was already fourteen, mature for her age, and very sensible. If she were to awaken her past life memories now... it might kill the "personality of the current sister," which might be a cruelty to her.

To be honest, Yun Bai couldn't bear it.

There was one more thing Yun Bai didn't tell Yun Qian: in their past life, all the crew members of the spaceship responsible for this Universe-traversing mission were equipped with a batch of top-tier auxiliary AI brains. Except for a few core personnel who were equipped with the most powerful "Huan"-class auxiliary AI, everyone else had "Yu"-class ones.

Both Yun Bai and Yun Qian's were "Yu"-class AI brains. Yun Bai's AI brain was "Number Six" (which is why Yun Bai called it "Little Six"), and Yun Qian's AI brain was "Number Seven," which was "Little Seven."

Yun Bai had asked Yun Qian if she had ever heard a strange voice in her mind. Yun Qian shook her head and said she never had.

Therefore, Yun Bai and Little Six speculated that "Little Seven," which was housed in the quantum microtubules of Yun Qian's brain, had also been completely destroyed.

This kind of damage had greatly affected Yun Qian's hippocampus, which was what had led to the many problems she now faced.