'SEE YOU MORNING' 081 Peaceful Days

On her morning run, Liana spotted her sister sitting quietly alone in the holographic experience chamber. It was rare to see her so still. Curious, Liana walked over and saw that she was wearing a sensory capture device. Instead of activating full immersion mode, she simply stared around, as if listening to music.
“What are you doing?” Liana asked.
“Interacting with him.”
“How?”
“I pretend to be a stranger and see how he reacts.”
“How does he respond?”
“He acts differently in different periods of his life.”
“I see. Have you learned everything about his past?”
“Yes. Do you want to try?” With that, Lydia took off the helmet and handed it to her sister.
Liana sat down beside her and put on the helmet. She checked his life timeline and noticed an intense emotional outburst from his early childhood. She wondered what had happened. How could such a young child experience such extreme turmoil?
Liana activated the immersive function of the helmet and jumped to that moment. The world before her blurred, and the ground thudded and trembled beneath her feet. He clung tightly to his mother’s leg, shouting desperately, “Stop it! Please stop it!” He feared his father would hurt his mother badly. His small frame was powerless to intervene, and he could only scream until every breath felt drained from his lungs, his chest heaving against his back. His throat grew hoarse, and he could no longer raise his voice to stop the fighting. The ground kept shaking, and his tiny body swayed helplessly between them like a leaf caught in the wind.
Liana opened her eyes, removed the helmet, and looked at Lydia.
“Have you felt all of this?”
“Yes,” Lydia replied calmly.
“It is like poison,” Liana said as she set the helmet aside.
“That is why he needs spiritual healing, isn’t it?” Lydia asked.
“He does. Yet he can move past these pains. The real hardships came later, when his beloved relatives passed away, and…” Liana trailed off, noticing Lydia smiling at her.
“Come on. Don’t let this low-vibration mood get to you,” Lydia reminded her sister.
“I won’t,” Liana answered. She picked up the sensory capture helmet once more.
On this day, Liana was scheduled to hold a video conference with representatives from other races on rotating duty to discuss their respective divisions of responsibilities. The ascension of Earth had long been widely spoken of, and astronomical observations confirmed that the solar system had entered a new band of material energy. Even so, Earth was far from the utopia described in legends. The involvement of various interstellar races had only complicated the timeline. For every individual caught up in these great changes, the upheaval became an opportunity for self-improvement and a test to face challenges head-on.
Though a policy of non-interference was upheld in theory, interference had never truly ceased. Different races and forces held their own overt and hidden agendas, influencing Earth’s civilization since ancient times.
Towards the end of the video conference, a delegate from a branch of the Sirius race raised a protest to Liana.
“A few days ago, we detected that you took away a human from Earth. That person is one of our star seeds. You have no right to take him.”
Liana had already turned to leave, but the words irritated her, so she turned back.
“If he belongs to you, why did you abandon him to that hellish birth family?”
The opposing delegate remained stubborn.
“That was his own life plan. You must respect his free will.”
“Very well, respect his free will.” Liana raised an eyebrow.
“In 2025, he made it clear…” Liana had intended to say he began working for them, but adjusting her words after recalling the evidence in her possession, she continued, “…that he chose to stand with us.” She presented the relevant proof, then repeated the other party’s own words. “You ought to respect his free will.” With that, she spun around and left in anger.
Peering through the porthole of the starship, Liana gazed down at the blue planet below. White clouds scattered across the deep blue ocean. Sunlight glinted off Earth’s thin atmospheric layer, as well as the starship’s windows and cabins. She had lived in low Earth orbit for many years. With a lifespan far longer than that of humans, she often felt as if she watched mortal lives unfold from a divine perspective. Her heightened sensory abilities let her feel the joys, sorrows, anger and grief of countless people, as if she had lived each of their lives herself. Still, a faint doubt lingered—none of these feelings felt entirely real.
Beneath her, city lights blazed brightly while rural areas lay dim and quiet. She wondered what it would be like to spend an entire lifetime down there.
Back in her quarters, Liana activated her combat situational awareness device to access his memories. Instead of selecting a specific memory segment, she let the system match content to her current mental frequency and consciousness vibration.
The memory that appeared was from his childhood. It was winter in an industrial northern city, home to paper mills, chemical plants and metallurgical factories. Factories lined the river winding through the urban area, and most local residents relied on these facilities for their livelihoods.
School had ended for the day, and the whole class was invited to a classmate’s home for a birthday party. Everyone was given a slice of birthday cake, and it was the very first time he had ever tasted one. The birthday boy was also talented, performing breakdancing for all the guests.
As the party drew to an end, classmates began to leave one by one. Lin Yuhui set off for home. It was the first time he had wandered so far from home and returned so late to an unfamiliar area. The sun had sunk behind the western hills, leaving only a streak of crimson across the horizon, while the sky faded to a dull greyish blue. Struck with a faint unease in the unfamiliar surroundings, he hurried along the road he had taken to get there, hoping to reach familiar ground before night fell completely.
Luckily, he made it back to the familiar intersection of roads and railways just as the last hint of red faded from the sky. Beyond the railway stood the red brick wall of the paper mill on the left, and the playground wall of the middle school on the right. Snow covered the roads, and patches of smooth ice lined the sides, worn smooth by students sliding across them. He ran and slid along the ice, moving quickly with little effort, overjoyed at the chance to get home faster.
At the gate of the paper mill stood a large circular flower bed, with a copper-plated rotating deer statue in the center, serving as the factory’s brand emblem. It was a place he often came to play, but today he had no time to linger. The busy road, normally bustling with vehicles, had grown quiet in the winter night. Further ahead lay the roads leading to the factory residential compound. Thick snow blanketed the shrubs behind the roadside fences. Night had fully descended now, and warm lamplight spilled from countless windows onto the streets. From time to time, the rich aroma of scallions stir-fried in hot oil or pan-fried hairtail fish drifted through the air from nearby homes. Watching the warm glow of lit windows in the dark winter night, filled with the comfort of family, he grew more anxious. He ran onward, thinking of his grandmother and fearing she would worry about him, pushing himself to quicken his pace.
He glanced back at the path he had traveled. The darkness crept up behind him, swallowing the road little by little. Only the scattered lamplight nearby lit his way forward.
The frigid winter air burned his lungs with every quick breath, mixed with the scent of his own sweat. A sharp north wind blew harder, shaking snow loose from the willow trees beside the road. Snowflakes swirled down through the darkness, glinting yellow and white from different angles as he moved. They looked like fairies dancing in the night, guiding him through a fairy tale world.
His vision blurred slightly from running. After turning the next corner, he would soon be home. His heart felt light with eagerness, as if wings had sprouted from his chest, carrying him toward his only refuge in the dark night.
Liana exited the immersive memory, wondering why this particular segment had been selected. She rose and walked to the window to look out. The starship orbited Earth at approximately eight kilometers per second. Yet even a vessel thousands of meters long was no more than a tiny grain of sand against the vast backdrop of the universe.