Chapter 1 Guests in Hearthstone

As guests who had offered assistance, Hao Ren and his group received hospitality in Hearthstone. Though the castle governor appeared to be a stern and rigid man, he maintained proper decorum when entertaining guests. However, given the world's desolate and dilapidated state, even the most sincere hospitality couldn't provide much comfort. Willie led Hao Ren and the others to the castle—the lower levels of the old factory. Along the outer walls was a row of small rooms prepared for guests. Enclosed by sheet metal and pressed board, they contained some rudimentary furniture, cramped and humble, with a faint strange odor, but they were already among the best guest rooms in Hearthstone.

Seeing the number of holes in the sheet metal shacks in the commoners' district outside, Hao Ren knew his group was receiving quite high-level treatment.

This also indirectly showed that although the castle governor was strict with Willie, he still valued his son in his heart. Otherwise, he wouldn't have gone to such lengths to entertain those who had saved his son.

Willie went to invite the renowned "Scholar Auro," while Hao Ren and the others squeezed into one room, exchanging their opinions. After witnessing the absurd and bizarre state of this ship-city, everyone had many guesses and thoughts, and they urgently needed to talk.

"Anyway, their inheritance has clearly been broken," Vivian said, looking out the window. From there, she could see the scene on the square, where a group of dirty children were running around on streets piled up with scrap iron and plastic blocks. "Civilization has regressed to the age of cold weapons."

Nangong Wuyue muttered, "The social structure has even returned to the feudal kingdom period."

"The social structure hasn't really changed much. According to the discoveries on the 'Mount Mass' earlier, these ark residents were also monarchical during the high-tech era," Hao Ren waved his hand. "I'm curious as to what had to happen here for the entire society to regress so neatly. These people seem to have no concept of a spaceship at all. They don't even know what it means for the gravity system to malfunction. Terminal, analyze it."

The data terminal was nestled in Hao Ren's pocket but transmitted its voice directly into the minds of everyone present: "A massive reduction in population or the complete collapse of the industrial base could lead to a significant decline in civilization, but neither should be as thorough as what we see here. Even if technology were lost, people should at least know that their ancestors were once well-off. Their current state shows they have no concept of their own world, as if…"

Lily couldn't contain her curiosity. "As if what?"

"As if an entire generation died," the data terminal said calmly. "Unless their entire generation simultaneously vanished, causing the next generation to receive no systematic education or only very little, it would be possible for civilization to be cut off at the root. Or a massive memory wipe, where everyone's knowledge disappears at the same time, and then they can't find a way to remedy it."

"From what we know so far, this ark fleet had constant malfunctions in the latter half of its voyage, and the ships had to rely on piecing things together to continue running, but this crisis wouldn't lead to the situation we see here," Vivian rubbed her brow. She was knowledgeable, but her knowledge wasn't really useful at this time. "The ark's failures and accidents were a gradual process, not something that would wipe out an entire generation."

Hao Ren pondered silently, his gaze inadvertently sweeping out the window, just in time to see three men in coarse cloth robes maintaining the street lighting in the dirty alleyway outside. One of the slightly older-looking men climbed onto the lamppost, carefully removed the broken light fixture, and replaced it with a new one. Then he climbed down from the lamppost and, together with the other two, bowed to the light and the wiring and flipped the switch. When the new light bulb lit up, the children watching the commotion nearby immediately cheered, and some even began to sing, praising the "electricity spirits" who brought light.

"They still have electricity, and they have new light bulbs to replace. These people still know how to install these things—though they don't know the principles," Hao Ren pointed out the window. "Part of the ark's functions are still working, such as generators and factories. Since these factories are still usable now, it means that the civilization inside wasn't destroyed by life support system failure."

"Not a spaceship malfunction?" Nangong Sanba frowned. "Could it just be because of civil war? A forced shift from spaceship civilization to primitive feudalism?"

At this moment, a soft "creak" came from the door, and Willie pushed it open: "Um… sorry, I should have knocked, but the door wasn't locked. I've brought Scholar Auro."

A hunchbacked old man walked in from behind Willie. He looked at least eighty years old, with white hair that had fallen out, leaving only a circle around his head, and wrinkles on his face that almost spread to his neck. The old man was wearing a dirty, thick cloth robe, with a series of colored silk rings woven on the chest. Each ring had a small metal object hanging on it. Hao Ren looked closely and found that the things that looked like ornaments were actually capacitors, fuses, copper wire connectors, and other things: the scholar had turned these electronic parts into decorations on his clothes.

Lily was the first to stand up and greet the old scholar, appearing extremely enthusiastic: "Hello, old man! Have you eaten?"

This peculiar greeting made the scholar pause, and then he laughed, saying in a loud voice, "What a spirited young girl! I heard that a group of wandering warriors saved Willie. I thought they were rough men like those brutes in the castle, but I didn't expect there to be polite ladies."

Willie helped the old scholar sit down on the creaking chair by the door. Despite being the governor's son, he was as respectful as an apprentice: "Teacher, these people are very interested in your wisdom. They want to hear the stories you told me."

"Oh? Oh… yes, those old stories," a look of surprise flashed across the scholar's face. He hadn't had time to hear more about Hao Ren's group from Willie and had assumed that these people were wanderers from some remote place. At this moment, he widened his cloudy eyes to take a closer look and found that although these people were dressed strangely, they were clean and tidy, completely different from those disheveled wanderers. "You're interested in this kind of thing? Nowadays, few people other than scholars study these boring legends."

"We happen to be interested," Hao Ren smiled. "'Winter is coming.' Signs appeared many years ago, and now it's time to pay attention to the warnings of the elders."

"Winter, winter is really coming…" The old scholar subconsciously tightened his robe. When he heard this cold word, he looked serious. "Five years, it has been five years since the Ancestral Furnace went out, much longer than its last slumber. The world is getting colder every day. Half of the Giant's Nose, which blows hot wind at the end of the world, has frozen, and it started snowing in Lutherweitan last year… Winter, this is truly a harsh winter."

Hao Ren was almost certain that what the locals called the "Ancestral Furnace" was the giant reactor and its control device—the central control station—at the end of this closed space. When traveling on the Kingdom Avenue, he had seen from afar that the state of the giant reactor was quite bad. Although it was still running and seemed more energetic than the extinguished reactor on Mount Mass, more than half of its grids were still dim.

The life support system of this ark seemed to be reaching its limit. Its power source was about to shut down.

"How many times has winter come?" Nangong Sanba asked curiously.

"How many times? Oh… many times… It happens once or twice every century. Sometimes it only lasts a year, but sometimes it lasts for more than ten years," the old scholar's head shook up and down. "A winter that lasts for a year only brings some fright, but ten years of low temperatures can kill a third of the people. When there are too many dead, even the recycling furnaces will be filled. A nightmare from hell, it's truly chilling."

"But this winter doesn't seem so bad," Willie suddenly interjected. "It's not that cold. So far, you can stay warm by wrapping yourself in leather clothes."

"That's because you're in the warmest place in this world," the old scholar gave Willie a reproachful look. "And the real cold is far from arriving. The milder the winter comes, the more terrible it is because a slow cooling means a slower warming. The winter will last for a very, very long time."

The locals used their own way of understanding to explain the environmental changes in the ship-city after the core power furnace malfunctioned. Their theories also seemed logical and self-consistent, but they were far from the truth of this world. Within a limited knowledge system, people couldn't understand that their world was supported by a giant machine.

(I have to go out today and will only be home in the morning, so I'm updating in advance.)