“Where…where am I?”
A crimson red pierced his eyes.
Opening his eyes, the people around him were very strange; their eyes were dull, their heads hung low, and their bodies were filthy, barely clothed and covered in bloodstains.
They looked very much like zombies, but they didn't actively attack people; they just swayed back and forth.
Like Zombie Puppets, they had no consciousness.
The sun in the Starry Sky was red, and the sunlight cast down had no warmth at all.
Wang Xing felt a chilling sensation to his core, a feeling from his heart, but his skin was numb to the point of no sensation.
Walking among these Zombie Puppets, he tripped over something. Looking down, he saw a head with only half a face remaining.
The other half of the head was just dark red tissue wrapped around it.
Wang Xing was startled, but the people around him showed no reaction whatsoever.
“What exactly happened to these people?”
At this moment, a red dot on Wang Xing's left wrist pulse began to flash. It was a quantum chip the size of a hair, hidden beneath his skin.
The memory of this body, carried by this quantum chip, instantly surged forth, impacting Wang Xing's neural network.
Suddenly, a female synthetic voice sounded in his mind, “Host’s Crossing to the future complete. The interstellar era background is now activating…”
“Vocal, what does that mean?”
“This is called the future? You call this the interstellar era?”
“A giant red sun, and these Zombie Puppets?”
“Also, am I human or what exactly?”
Wang Xing’s mind was flooded with a thousand galloping 'grass mud horses' (a Chinese internet meme expressing exasperation). This series of questions even stumped the female synthetic voice in his mind.
After a while, the female synthetic voice spoke again.
“Don’t worry, you are still Wang Xing. You have just come to the future, bearing the blood feud of your home planet being conquered.”
Hearing that his home planet was conquered, Wang Xing’s legs trembled slightly.
“What year is it now?”
“2200.”
Wang Xing had seen 2200 in the Stellaris game settings; it was the era when humans became an interstellar, multi-planetary species.
But the situation was too different from the game's setting, making him feel like he had been tricked by the future.
The key problem was that he had never really played the game and completely lacked knowledge of sociology.
However, the memories this body brought him were very clear, and the physical experience was a bit too real.
Besides bringing him the body's memories, the quantum chip also brought intense pain and struggle.
In this year, his home planet, Blue Star, was brutally massacred by the Interstellar Killers, and the Blue Star people were relocated to different planets to be raised.
Wang Xing had unfortunately fallen while escorting the Blue Star people during their evacuation.
Then, the past Wang Xing transmigrated into the body of the future Wang Xing, arriving in this 2200 interstellar era.
The land beneath his feet was the Trabit Planet in the Trappist-1 system, one of the Interstellar Killers' food rearing grounds.
In other words, these Zombie Puppets were being raised here by the Interstellar Killers like livestock.
Once these Zombie Puppets were fattened up, they would be slowly butchered…
Wang Xing didn't dare to think further, which made the stinging pain all over his body after being severely injured become numb.
He was still among these Zombie Puppets and didn't even know if he would live to see tomorrow.
At this moment, the female synthetic voice sounded, “You can choose to be eaten as food by the Interstellar Killers, or you can choose to live.”
“How can I survive?” Wang Xing asked without hesitation, “Did I transmigrate to become an Interstellar Marshal?”
“Because the transmigrator is too weak, the host's body functions need to be restored quickly.”
No whee.jpg (a common Chinese meme image for 'no hehe')
As expected, it was just a cold and ruthless system, killing without a knife.
Under the guidance of the system's female synthetic voice, he cautiously moved his legs and feet, while also avoiding being discovered by the Interstellar Killers who were monitoring from above.
Wang Xing felt a warm electric current flowing through his body, which made him feel very comfortable.
The pain of his fractured joints was disappearing, and the scars on his skin were healing along with it, until they were completely gone.
The recovery of his body functions actually awakened the nanometer entropy-reducing alloy shark skin.
That was a bionic skin almost like human skin, strong enough to withstand energy weapon attacks.
This allowed the dejected Wang Xing to regain an unprecedented sense of power.
Wang Xing straightened the collar of his rock-gold battle robe and curled his lips, “Turns out the future isn’t as bad as it looks.”
“Of course, future Starry Sky life science and technology can allow humans to live freely on different planets.”
“Without the limitations of light matter in the body? Can one even do without oxygen, water, and organic carbon compounds?”
“You have so many questions.” The female synthetic voice mercilessly complained, but did not answer Wang Xing.
Wang Xing sighed helplessly, thinking: It seems this system is a bit unreliable; it tends to go on strike whenever it encounters a problem.
Now it seemed, being anxious was useless; he could only explore slowly and first find a way to survive.
A light screen appeared before him, a light screen only he could see.
The light screen displayed environmental conditions related to Trabit Planet's soil, light, and temperature.
These were all data left by the quantum chip, indicating that human civilization had lived on this continent for some time before this.
With this information, he had a glimmer more hope of survival.
The Zombie Puppet crowd was being herded forward by the Interstellar Killers, moving towards a place resembling a slaughterhouse.
There, heads, limbs, and messy body tissues were scattered everywhere.
The Interstellar Killers were grabbing people from among the Zombie Puppets.
Even captive livestock would struggle a bit when their owners came to capture them.
These Zombie Puppets, however, were eagerly rushing into the mouths of the Interstellar Killers.
An Interstellar Killer with his hands covered in the Zombie Puppet's red viscous substance walked towards Wang Xing.
Wang Xing squeezed into the crowd, trying his best to avoid the Killer's gaze.
The smell in the crowd was very complex, mixed with a strong scent of blood and hydrogen sulfide.
This caused Wang Xing's stomach and intestines to feel intensely uncomfortable, but he could only grit his teeth and endure it.
“If this Killer discovers me, can I just kill him directly?”
“Of course you can, and you can also tear off his skin and disguise yourself as a Killer.”
Hearing the female synthetic voice say this, Wang Xing no longer waited for the Interstellar Killer to discover him.
He directly took advantage of the lone Interstellar Killer's inattention and used a hidden photonic knife to flay him alive.
Then, he put on this cloth-like skin and blended in with the Interstellar Killers.
As he followed the other Interstellar Killers in selecting suitable food from among the Zombie Puppets, he found it truly difficult to bring himself to do it.
But the female synthetic voice in his mind told him, “These are just mass-cloned Zombie Puppets. You need to complete the mission, otherwise you will be discovered by the Killers.”
“Are there any other living people like me here?”
“Of course there are, but you have to find them.”
The crowd of Zombie Puppets in this area was too vast; he couldn't possibly look through them all at once.
In the time to come, while selecting food with the Killers, he had to try to move deeper into the crowd.
Although these people all looked the same, half-dead, he had to seize any chance.
As long as he could find one living person among them, he would have one more companion, and his hope of survival would increase by one point.