17: The entire internet was moved to tears.

The bullet chat, for the first time, became sparse.

In Chen Xi's livestream room, which boasted a popularity of over eighty million, this was an unprecedented and eerie sight.

Usually, at this time, the screen would be filled with banter, jokes, and various funny patterns made of symbols.

“Master Xi is showing off again!”

“To the person above, don't talk nonsense if you don't understand. Does Master Xi even need to try to show off?”

“Today's lunch box is secured. Brothers, place your bets: how many minutes can Master Xi survive?”

But now, all of that was gone.

The screen was as clean as a pane of glass washed by rain.

The few scattered bullet comments that drifted by seemed cautious.

【Don't talk, just listen.】

【Why am I... a little nervous.】

【The look in this NPC Little Chen's eyes... it doesn't look fake.】

Across the entire Dragon Country, tens of millions of viewers—be it students slacking off in class, office workers who had just finished their day, or veterans resting at home—everyone seemed to be under a binding spell, simultaneously putting down everything in their hands.

They just watched the screen quietly.

Watching the streamer named Chen Xi and the young Soldier named Chen Shusheng sitting side by side on the ruins.

Listening to the calm dialogue between them, which seemed so out of place in this war-torn world.

When Chen Shusheng asked that question, the atmosphere in the livestream room completely froze.

“Brother Chen, tell me... what will the future China be like?”

This question was like a bladeless knife that easily pierced into the heart of every viewer.

The bullet chat stagnated.

A full ten seconds of absolute silence.

On the screen, there was only Chen Xi's face flickering in the firelight, and beside him, Chen Shusheng's clear eyes, filled with expectation and longing.

An old history professor was using a projector to show the livestream to his students as a case study for his lecture on 'Historical Reconstruction in the New Media Era'.

He had been talking incessantly about the simulation of senses by virtual reality technology.

But at this moment, he stopped.

He adjusted his reading glasses, looking at that young face on the screen, blackened by smoke. His lips trembled slightly, and he couldn't say a single word.

The classroom was deathly silent.

An internet troll with the ID 'Master Xi Must Die Today' had just clicked into the livestream. He was about to send a few sarcastic bullet comments to find some fun, as he usually did.

But he couldn't bring himself to send the message he had already typed: 'The streamer is being melodramatic again, his acting is too fake.'

He just stared blankly.

Watching Chen Xi, with red-rimmed eyes, begin to describe their future China in a hoarse yet gentle voice he had never heard before.

“First of all, everyone will be able to eat their fill.”

“White flour buns? No one will even care for those anymore.”

“The houses will be much taller than the Western-style buildings in the concessions—so tall they reach the sky.”

“When night falls, the entire country, every single city, will be lit up. Thousands upon thousands of lights, brighter than the stars in the sky.”

These words came from Chen Xi's mouth.

Yet they were like vivid scrolls slowly unfolding in the mind of every viewer.

They saw the 24-hour convenience store downstairs from their homes.

They saw the food delivery they had just ordered, which could arrive in half an hour.

They saw the shopping malls crowded with people on weekends and the city skyline at night, as bright as day.

These lives they were accustomed to, and occasionally even complained about for not being good enough.

At this moment, through that small screen, an incredibly strong and heartbreaking connection was forged with that dark, hungry, and desperate land from eighty-nine years ago.

Bullet comments began to appear sporadically.

【White flour buns... I feel like I haven't eaten them in a long time.】

【I just gave a bad review because the delivery guy was five minutes late...】

【The lights in our city are indeed brighter than the stars.】

【What Master Xi is describing... isn't that just our lives?】

When Chen Xi spoke of how future children could go to the best schools to study, could become anyone they wanted to be, and would never have to risk their lives or trade their tomorrows for an uncertain future like they did.

In the livestream room, the first sound of crying appeared.

It was a bullet comment from an ID that used a voice changer to sound like a funny cartoon character.

【Waa... I don't want to go to school anymore, I want him to go in my place...】

This bullet comment was like a signal.

A tiny spark that ignited a powder keg.

The long-suppressed emotions could no longer be contained.

“That's wonderful...”

In the screen, Chen Shusheng's heartfelt sigh and his subsequent earth-shattering shout became the final straw that broke everyone's emotional defenses.

“We are holding our ground here precisely so our descendants can live the life you described, Brother Chen!”

Boom—!

It was as if an invisible emotional nuclear bomb had detonated simultaneously in the hearts of eighty million viewers.

After the eerie stagnation and sparseness, the livestream's bullet chat erupted instantly with an unprecedented, terrifying density!

【I'm broken.】

【I'm a thirty-year-old man, damn it, crying like an idiot on the subway.】

【I was wrong, I was really wrong. I shouldn't have complained about life, I shouldn't have complained about this country.】

【Salute!!!】

【Salute to the ancestors!!!!!】

【Wuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!】

At this moment, no useful information could be seen on the screen anymore.

There were only overwhelming 'salutes' and strings of 'wuuuu' representing weeping.

They converged into a white ocean, drowning the entire screen as if to completely wash away nearly a century of time.

The internet troll named 'Master Xi Must Die Today' silently deleted all the text he had drafted.

Then, character by character, he typed a new bullet comment.

【I'm sorry.】

The old history professor could no longer control himself and wept openly in front of his entire class.

He took off his glasses and wiped his face haphazardly with the back of his hand, his voice choked with emotion.

“Students... our class for today ends here.”

“Before class is dismissed, please... everyone, stand up.”

“Let us all bow to these most beloved people, our greatest ancestors.”

“It was they... it was they who traded their lives for our privilege to sit here today and discuss history.”

A retired veteran was watching the livestream at home.

He watched on the screen as those Soldiers, after hearing Chen Xi's description, stood up one by one, silently checking their weapons, the light in their eyes reignited.

The veteran's body trembled uncontrollably.

He suddenly stood up from the sofa, straightening his back which was somewhat hunched from injuries and illness, and gave an incredibly standard military salute to the screen.

Cloudy tears slid silently down the wrinkles on his face.

At this moment, the entire Dragon Country seemed to have been put on pause.

In front of countless screens, countless people stopped everything they were doing.

They finally understood.

This was not a game at all.

The people on the screen were not NPCs made of data.

They were Chen Shusheng.

They were Shangguan Zhibiao.

They were Xie Jinyuan.

They were the millions of heroes who left their names in history, or did not, who used their own flesh and blood to build the first Great Wall for future generations.

They were our ancestors.

And this livestream was not a form of entertainment.

It was a mirror.

A mirror that spanned eighty-nine years of time and space, incredibly cruel, yet incredibly burning.

It reflected that darkest period of the past.

And it also reflected the hard-won, radiant light of our lives today.