Chapter 976: Chapter 976: Super Naughty Kid
(Still in double monthly ticket time, alright, let me continue to ask for monthly tickets—forgot about it yesterday, should I ask twice today to make up for it...)
The appearance of the strange girl Chen Xiaoxue means something, and I think it is necessary to study it carefully. My intuition tells me that this girl’s appearance is definitely not just some naughty kids from the future wanting to cause a stir. Perhaps her appearance signifies that some matters will undergo a significant turning point—who can say for sure?
The Fallen Apostle being used was a completely unexpected event for everyone; even Sandora and I could hardly imagine such a thing happening. The Fallen Apostle has always been the most cunning and dangerous enemy of the New Empire, without a doubt. Their Abyss Power, crazy and grand plans, and concealed and cunning actions have been a significant problem for us and even the Divine Race. Although no one can currently determine the strength of the Fallen Apostle, it’s at least certain that they are still stronger than the current New Empire in terms of hard power. Yet such a dangerous behemoth was exploited by two girls claiming to be the "Final Answer of the Void." Perhaps it was some information that projected from the future, or maybe they used the power of the Void Creature. Chen Xiaoxue and her sister gave a "recipe" to the Fallen Apostle, convincing them that this recipe could create a Void Clone. The Fallen Apostle invested a massive amount of manpower and resources and engaged in quite long-term research, ultimately producing a naughty kid. This bold move even made Shandora speechless at the thought of how Xiaoxue managed it.
I was extremely curious, so I asked my cheap daughter about it. She didn’t hide it and, in fact, the answer seemed much simpler than we previously imagined: "It’s really not as exaggerated as you think. Interfering with the past from the future is extremely difficult. Even though the great disaster of the Void provided us with a stable ’path,’ sending information to the past is very troublesome. We researched this plan for nearly two years and finally decided to use some of the Fallen Apostle’s established experimental projects to create our shadow: The plan to replicate Void Creatures wasn’t our design. Without external intervention, the Fallen Apostle would have indeed created a clone of Dad soon. Of course, this clone would also be a failure; it would be uncontrollable, and nothing under the Void can control the thought and actions of a Void Creature. So their plan was destined to fail, but in this process, they also obtained some research data, which was the original history. What I did—or rather what the real Chen Xiaoxue from the future did—was to slightly modify the energy sample they got from Dad, adding my own information into it, thus distorting the clone’s embryo and ultimately causing my birth. Anyway, this project was doomed to failure from the start, I just borrowed some power."
So this is how Chen Xiaoxue—or Shadow Chen Xiaoxue—came to this timeline.
I’ve barely managed to distinguish between my future daughter and the one who popped out in front of me. The analogy of the "mathematical formula" works well, so perhaps I should view the quirky girl in front of me as a shadow described by information, just like the information world principle Shandora explained to me. The description of an object determines its existence. The "Chen Xiaoxue" in front of me is like this; she seemingly has no entity, her birth process was calculated, yet the complete information description makes her no different from a normal person, even her memory syncs with the real "Chen Xiaoxue" on the right side of the equal sign. She knows she’s just a shadow but also knows she’s my daughter...
So how should I view this matter?
I thought about it for a long time, probably three to five minutes. Finally, I decided that if this girl isn’t too much trouble, I’ll raise her for now. If she’s too much trouble... I’ll still have to raise her. You can’t just throw someone out, right? Especially since she calls me Dad, after all.
"Wow, it’s like a lifetime ago!"
After passing through the Teleportation Gate from the Starport directly to Shadow City, the first thing Xiaoxue did was stand in midair and exclaim loudly. She looked at the city streets in the distance, pointing and explaining to me, "Look at that, it’s still standing after the great disaster of the Void, the whole Shadow City got revamped, and that became like a historical relic, an old building we used to play on when we were kids... Am I allowed to say this? If so, then great. When we were kids, you used to take me up there, sometimes bringing Sister Little Light along. Ha, Sister Little Light never grew taller... Uh, I’ll stop here. I really miss the scenery here. These days I’ve been staying in the base of the Fallen Apostle, and that place is so dull, everyone is problematic, all neurotic. At that time, my power wasn’t complete, I could only pretend to cooperate, but later they asked me to do combat power tests, which was absolutely the dumbest decision possible, without exception. I learned the Universal Love Fist from Dad... Hey Dad, why are you poking me... I spent every day fighting with people, of course, under the guise of combat power testing. Testing means actual combat, and as part of the testing, all those responsible for sparring with me had to withstand several direct hits from me first. I knocked them around one by one, waking them all up. Later I found it too slow, so I applied to perform an energy upload experiment, uploading my Void information into the spiritual connection. I declared that this could improve ordinary soldiers’ tolerance against the Void, and those fools actually believed it. However, to be cautious, they only gave a local network—anyway, I slowly formed a team, and we hid well. No one on the Fallen Apostle’s side realized that the comrades standing by them had reverted to Imperial Soldiers. I think if things went a bit more smoothly, I might have turned all of Harlan’s troops and even occupied his Sky Zone: Near the end, one-third of the advanced research staff had become my people. I could even arrange a super-large upload for myself without anyone noticing. But in the end, that general named Zhadom got suspicious, he tracked the information flow in the entire Sky Zone and finally discovered the Rebel Army’s movements—but luckily, the guard by his side had also been purified, and that soldier sacrificed himself to upload the information into the secret Rebel network a few minutes ahead. When we stormed out, I lost a lot less brothers... I destroyed my breeding base, then attacked several other worlds, and when enough was smashed, I started broadcasting signals in the Void, including the chaos in the Fallen Apostle’s territory and our coordinates. Actually, I wanted to add a line at the end of the broadcast, ’Dad, save me’, but then thought all this might get directly uploaded to the public link, it would seem too silly, so I didn’t add it..."
This marvelous girl seems to have been stifled for too long, her mouth can’t stay idle for a moment. Although she hasn’t reached the level of a certain chatterbox Dragon God, she’s still quite a talker, continually spouting suspicious terms that frequently draw attention. Lin Xue is muttering all the while: "Kids need to be disciplined when they grow up... how will Miss show her face... when the time comes, I’ll have to strangle the rebirth..." and such. I couldn’t help but lightly slap Xiaoxue on the head: "Where did you get this loquaciousness from? And this carefree demeanor... I don’t think my level of education should produce such results, right?"
Xiaoxue’s eyes twirled around, putting on a compliant look: "Dad, are you angry? Actually, I’m quite obedient, and I was always a good student when I was young, it’s just that I’m more relaxed when I’m among my own people—the main reason is that I was raised by a bunch of uncles, aunts, and godparents, Uncle Sicaro even taught me Feng Shui!"
I broke out in a cold sweat, hearing about the chaotic interpersonal relationship from this marvel of a girl, possibly related to her inherently chaotic family structure. That pile of uncles, aunts, and godparents she talks about sounds muddled to me, but they’re definitely the current group of folks around me. With this thought in mind, I couldn’t help but look around, and the first one to come into view was Bingdisi, striding ahead with her long legs, causing my heart to tremble: Oh crap, when Lin Xue and I don’t have time, we end up leaving the child with that female hooligan?!
I feel this is increasingly likely, so I can’t help but feel uneasy, hurrying a few steps to catch up to Bingdisi, and earnestly hold her hand: "Sister Bing, you must lead by example when educating kids!"
Bingdisi gave me a bewildered look: "...crazy!"
Sandora took the two 1.2 meters back to the Command Center, but I felt that I might not be able to help much there, so I decided to first take Xiaoxue for a couple of laps around Shadow City: this was at her strong request. She said she wanted to see what the Shadow City looked like "back in the day."
It seems that this girl has entered an excited state, being able to cross time to come to the youthful era of her parents, hanging out with parents around her age on the streets of the past. This must be an unbelievable experience for most people; probably only my peculiar future kids could have such a grand play. Who knows what I’ll become in a few years, maybe I’ll stay the same as now, a guy who likes squatting in the doorway sipping cold water, while Lin Xue occasionally sharpens her tongue on me. I feel that immortality is quite a lackluster thing, especially when Xiaoxue occasionally mentions some projects with enormous time spans. I feel nothing about it; perhaps it’s the apathetic nature of a Void Creature that keeps me ever so composed, but more likely, it’s the everlasting plans of the Father God that already numbed me out.
Walking on the street, Xiaoxue was full of joy, strolling in the middle, forcibly dragging Lin Xue and me on each side by hand, claiming to be reminiscing her childhood feeling—to her it’s reminiscing, but to Lin Xue and Miss Xue, does it count as a rehearsal?
As for Qianqian, well, she ran off. She was there at first, but when I turned around, that girl had already pulled the main force and disappeared somewhere, probably went home first.
So it was just the three of us wandering out from the Military Zone...
"When I was little, you and Mom would take me shopping like this," Xiao Xue looked at me and then at her mom (...), dressed in a sundress in the late autumn, she was almost a sight on the street, "One on each side, holding my arms like I was some kind of puppy, and then you’d always have Sister Lamp, Sister Bub, and Sister Qi Jing hanging around you, sometimes even Pandora and Sister Visca would tag along. Back then, I really admired Dad, I thought he was like a mobile fortress when he went out..."
Me: "..."
Of course, what piqued my curiosity more was this girl’s mention of the character after Pandora and Visca. Clearly, logically speaking, she should have called those two one-meter-tall aunties, but this scene was simply too unbelievable. I had every reason to believe that even if hundreds of thousands of years passed, Pandora and Visca would remain little shorties, and those two under-thirteen-year-old faces would last a lifetime. In the name of the Empire’s legal units of length, if Xiao Xue really called those two lolis aunties, that would be truly unbelievable!
"Hey, Dad, I noticed there are some questions you haven’t asked."
After walking for a while, Xiao Xue suddenly said, "Aren’t you going to ask me about things in the future, like how many moms you ended up finding for me? Did Pandora and Sister Visca grow any taller? What happened to the Fallen Apostle? And whether my second uncle’s first child was a boy or a girl, and so on. I prepared a bunch of answers before I set off, though I’ve almost forgotten them now. Why don’t you ask?"
I felt like this girl might have just introduced some remarkable problem, but I merely shook my head: "Wouldn’t knowing everything take all the fun out of life? Life is exciting because of its uncertainties, and that’s what drives us to keep going. Moreover, considering the situation before and after the great void cataclysm, you probably can’t tell me much about the future anyway. Just look at Snow... uh, your mom. She can foresee the future, and probably with more accuracy than your intel, yet she lives a pretty whimsical life, doesn’t she..."
Miss promptly glared at me viciously: "What do you mean by a whimsical life?"
Xiao Xue glanced back and forth between us and then suddenly smiled: "Were you and Mom always like this? It’s so interesting—Dad, what you said just now, Mom often says too, ’A future that’s completely certain holds no color,’ that’s Mom’s famous saying. She wouldn’t let me casually use my abilities, saying that to use subjective consciousness to turn an uncertain life into a bonsai is the most irresponsible act. You educated me from a young age to be responsible—Oh, by the way, I even wrote a paper on this in elementary school and won a full scholarship. Dad, could you treat me to a barbecue? I just said I was hungry..."
Suddenly, it occurred to me that besides Bingdisi, this girl was probably also brought up by Qianqian a large part of the time.
As for Lin Xue, her face hadn’t been normal since a moment ago, and Xiao Xue would occasionally hug her arm and call her Mom. Miss was at a loss about how to respond, but she was about to explode at any moment.
The two of us dragged along this noisily bouncing daughter that had just fallen from above towards Academy Road. Outside the Imperial Military Academy, there was a food street primarily established by the frequently roaming Misakas and Heroic Spirits who were looking to make a small trade. It was one of the original bustling areas of Shadow City that developed slowly due to being frequented by Sandora, and the economic development was nothing short of a miracle. By now, it had advanced from a line of food stalls by the school gate to ten li (half a kilometer) worth of restaurants. Xiao Xue seemed a bit unfamiliar with the environment, probably because it had developed into something entirely different many years later. Lin Xue and I rushed her to the nearest restaurant by the school gate, and to be honest, we were a bit hungry too. This place was known for its generous portions.
In fact, all the restaurants on the food street were generous with their portions—Sandora often visited, and they had to save on tableware. Truthfully, if it weren’t for the regular customers, these restaurants would probably just serve meals directly out of pressure cookers.
"The Imperial Military Academy, huh, that school was still around when I was born, but it’s no longer in Shadow City."
"Did the school move later?" I asked in surprise while watching Lin Xue order.
"It had to," Xiao Xue replied as she spontaneously picked up a passing three-headed Mercury Lamp waitress and gave her a big kiss. Watching the little 60 cm doll bounce around in panic, she was quite satisfied, "The academy eventually became massive. The shadow space was established to the extent of resembling a densely-packed universe, with Shadow City and the Mother Star at the core of the space, surrounded by numerous star systems, all artificial celestial bodies not following any orbit, inhabited by settlers from various worlds and ’natives’ of the shadow space. The academy took up three planets, a main campus and two branches, one focused on the technology side and the other on the mysterious side, three planets, imagine how big it was—Sister Lilina even used divine power to create an isolated continent in outer space between the three planets for the students to conduct experimental classes. It’s the most famous experimental ground in the Macro World, filled with countless big and small countries, Magic Civilization, Technology Civilization, Magic Civilization, Crystal Stone Civilization, Religious Country, all forms of civilization you can think of. The mentors dared to try anything on it, incorporating everything from various worlds after adjustments. The experimental ground also hosts indigenous creatures, some even evolved civilizations, while others were enlisted from the Macro World as civilians. I even played in the experimental ground, and the natives treated me like a god. Before I set off, the student council was studying whether to categorize those indigenous creatures as free civilizations. The Empire’s law has such a provision: Biological groups that possess intelligence and the ability/drive/tendency to explore the world should have the right to free development, and should not experience direct contact before they acquire space exploration capabilities. But moving them out is quite tricky; we’d have to design a similarly peculiar planet or even star system for them, and where would the student council get so much money? Even when I sold pictures of Dad dozing in meetings online, I couldn’t gather enough for the marine system... uh, Dad, you won’t hit me, right?"
Xiao Xue looked cautiously over my way, but by now Lin Xue and I had already entered a state of shock. This girl babbled on a bunch of things that were quite overwhelming. I couldn’t help but pat her on the head: "To be honest, wasn’t there a chatterbox called Salon Qian Yuhao teaching you how to speak when you were little?"
"Yes, yes, my second granduncle probably did say that, but sometimes too much talk really is annoying... My language teacher was my fourth uncle, Hercules, and he was also my P.E. teacher..."
I suddenly sadly realized that my dear daughter might turn into a super naughty kid with all the mischief in the future under the influence of those eccentrics.
(So at the end of the Chapter, I ask for a monthly ticket once more...o(╯□╰)o) (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for recommendation and monthly tickets on Qidian (). Your support is my biggest motivation.)