'SEE YOU MORNING' 032 A Free Heart

Since arriving at the Nevada desert base yesterday, Li Haojun and Kesiya only received the notice to attend a meeting inside the base this afternoon. They took an unmanned flying car dispatched by the base and arrived at the base nestled in the valley. The facilities here were simple: fencing, a helicopter landing pad, fuel storage areas, garages, barracks buildings, and the main base building.
Led by the other party's personnel, they entered the facility, went through security checks, and signed safety rules. Throughout the process, Li Haojun noticed that this should be a very old military base—rough concrete poured with wooden formwork, exposed cables on the walls, cable trays, and dim explosion-proof tungsten lamps.
After being brought into a room, the staff left and closed the heavy blast door behind them. Li Haojun glanced at Kesiya, who remained perfectly calm.
Soon the door opened and two people entered—an older man with black hair and round glasses wearing a suit with wrinkled trousers, and a younger man who seemed to be an assistant. After introductions, they got straight to the point. The room was sparsely furnished, with a projector casting directly onto the wall. The base technicians first explained the application scenarios of various Talaski BioGen Innovations products, such as human injury recovery, physical enhancement, and mental injury recovery, then detailed the technical pathways for using Talaski BioGen products—some used directly, others processed as intermediate products for final applications. After the presentation, they shared issues discovered during actual use. After Li Haojun discussed some details with them, they handed out a questionnaire for Li Haojun and Kesiya to score the correlations between various events.
After finishing the elementary-school-level exam, the two were sent back to the hotel. It seemed the client would verify today's work tomorrow, so Li Haojun and Kesiya had to wait here. After having dinner at the nearby hotel, they decided to go out for a walk. They walked aimlessly along the road.
Li Haojun took Kesiya's hand and had her walk on the roadside. Kesiya chuckled and asked,
"Are you being biased?"
"Why do you say that?" Li Haojun asked curiously.
"It won't rain here, so you're not going to put your arm around my waist?" Kesiya whispered.
"Hahaha, she? She told you that?"
"Mm," Kesiya answered softly, a touch of shyness in her voice.
Li Haojun did as he had with Malaya—even without cold rain or holding clothes overhead, he put his arm around Kesiya and asked as they walked,
"Is it like this?"
"Hehe, she didn't go into that much detail."
"Oh, now I understand."
"What do you understand?"
"The reason your sister argued with you. Because I can't hold both of you like this at the same time, that's why she asked not to come find me with you."
"Oh, is that so? Then do you actually want both of us to keep you company?" Kesiya asked with a smile, a mischievous tone.
"Ah..." Li Haojun didn't know how to answer for a moment. Saying he wanted it would make him seem too greedy; saying he didn't want it would be letting down the two girls' kindness. After a brief awkwardness, he couldn't help but ask,
"Then does she feel lonely at home now?"
"No, she meditates by herself whenever she has time."
"Oh." This answer surprised Li Haojun somewhat.
The sky grew darker, stars becoming visible above the distant mountain peaks, and the desert evening wind turned cool. They decided to head back. The return journey felt less fresh and exciting than the outward one, but more familiar and peaceful. Li Haojun moved Kesiya to his other side, still keeping her on the roadside, still holding her with both arms.
On the other side of the sky, the moon rose quietly, illuminating the earth. Li Haojun stared in that direction, momentarily lost in thought.
"Do you miss her?" Kesiya asked.
"No, I just thought for a moment that the base might not be using our products only the way he described. There could be more application possibilities."
"Mm, so what?"
"That would be very unfair to ordinary people. And those who don't accept technological modification would lack competitive advantage. Even though there are relevant laws, they always lag behind. For organizations like companies or consortiums, the result of long-term competition would definitely be different. They have the full ability to manipulate individuals, social behavior, and national power. And individuals are like stones in that competitive torrent—swept along or crushed."
"Oh, are you worried about world peace?"
"Haha, you're teasing me."
Kesiya smiled with her lips pressed together and said nothing more, listening quietly to Li Haojun's words.
"There won't be any world wars or anything like that in the future, at least not ones that ordinary people will see. The conflicts between interest groups won't take the form of wars anymore either. As for ordinary people, there won't be any more revolutions. They simply can't fight back against those who oppress them anymore. They don't even know they're being oppressed, or who's doing what to them. Remember the questionnaire just now? It can interfere with mental injury, and it can also interfere with original thought patterns."
"Yes, maybe one day you'll wake up and have already forgotten me."
"I won't let anyone mess with my mind. No temptation will ever make me."
"Are you sure?"
"For your sakes, I won't."
Seeing Li Haojun's earnest and resolute expression, Kesiya stopped asking. She knew who the "your sakes" included.
Back at the hotel, Kesiya went to wash up. Li Haojun lay on the bed, easing the day's fatigue, and couldn't help but follow the thread of their earlier conversation to his own situation. Why had he lost his memory? Could it really have been a car accident? But he hadn't found any trace of that. Was he also like other people, living the life he thought he was living, while it was actually completely different from what an outsider would see? Qin Wenjing had once mentioned that she and he might have identity chips—the price of being quasi-interstellar residents, or perhaps the price of working for a high-tech company. But it wasn't certain whether the chips could affect his thinking through brainwaves or monitor his life. He had once wanted to use his own research to remove this shackle, but the promotions and increased work assignments that followed seemed to be blocking that very idea.
Li Haojun had this feeling but couldn't confirm it, and he didn't want to sacrifice the time he spent with Qin Wenjing to continue his research. The choice between the present and the future was always hard to make, especially when it meant sacrificing the one he loved. And he was already middle-aged—his remaining golden years weren't many, so it was better to spend more time with the people in front of him. Then Kesiya and Malaya had walked into his life too. Li Haojun also wondered: could they have been arranged by the company? Was one Qin Wenjing not enough to pull his attention back? But they were so young—they could have had better choices.
So was his consciousness being manipulated or monitored? His current life was real, Qin Wenjing was real, and the two sisters were real too. Their companionship, their care, and his feelings for them were all genuine. Living in such sweet days, what more could he possibly want?
Lost in thought, Kesiya had already finished washing. She wore a bathrobe and walked over, drying her hair. Li Haojun remembered the time her hair was dripping water as she helped him up—it felt like just yesterday.
"Ethan, do you want to take a shower?" she asked as she walked.
"Yeah," Li Haojun said, getting up and heading to the bathroom.
The bathroom light was still on, the air thick with steam and the scent of body wash. Kesiya had just showered here—the same space, just a different time. And at this same moment, what was Qin Wenjing doing?
The hot water from above flowed over every inch of his body, like a warm, gentle caress. Kesiya's youthful presence filled the air around him. What kind of night would this be? Li Haojun didn't know himself. After washing quickly, he turned off the water, killed the light, put on his bathrobe, and tiptoed out of the bathroom. Fortunately, the bedroom light was already off. He entered the room—the curtains were drawn, and through the pale moonlight, Kesiya was already asleep in her bed.
Li Haojun carefully lay down on his own bed, making sure not to make any noise. He relaxed on his bed, but the light from the window was distracting. He turned his head toward the wall. In a daze, Kesiya had already come over and squeezed onto the edge of the bed.
"Oh no..." Li Haojun said instinctively, but didn't finish.
"Alright then." He moved closer to the wall, his right arm around her back to keep her from falling.
Kesiya said nothing, just followed Li Haojun's movements, burying her face deep into the space between his shoulder and neck. Li Haojun wrapped his left arm around her shoulders and neck, his right hand resting on her waist. The scent of her hair seemed to wrap around his soul, her breathing connected to his lungs and spleen, making it hard to let go.
The warmth seemed to bridge any boundary, making the two of them no longer two separate individuals but one unified whole—intimate and gentle, light, shedding the weight of their bodies, flying out the small window, looking down at the fine sand and green grass under the moonlight, stretching their bodies, caressing the ripples of the breeze, rising to a higher realm, hand in hand with the moon scattering white gauze across the world, drifting toward the moon palace.
The earth below grew ever more distant, its outline blurred through the white gauze, while the scale of their own bodies seemed to stretch endlessly. His arms could feel the curvature of the earth, the dome of the sky above seemed to draw ever closer. Standing on the moonlit white gauze, the sky behind looked even deeper, the stars brighter. Among those endless stars, there seemed to be a longing woven into fate itself.