Reaction furnace malfunction! It was merely a reaction furnace malfunction!

A glorious civilization, an irreversible exile, a final struggle—who could have imagined that it would all be ruined by a single mechanical failure? This hibernation facility was supposed to operate for many more years according to the plan, but due to the sudden damage to the Ark's fusion furnace, the hibernation facility's mainframe was affected and prematurely activated all the hibernation pods here. Hao Ren didn't know what logic the vault mainframe was using to make this decision, but he knew that everything had definitely exceeded the designers' initial expectations. Even Vivian, who had seen so much life and death, could only sigh softly, "Truly, fate is a trickster."

At this moment, the data terminal suddenly seemed to discover something: "Wait a minute, there seems to be another room up ahead."

As it spoke, it flew quickly towards the other end of the long bridge. Hao Ren didn't understand why, but he still followed closely. The group ran across this wide bridge, hundreds of meters long, and arrived at the opposite side of the cylindrical space. There was a small door here, without any markings on it.

The data terminal hacked into the access control system and quickly opened the small door.

Behind the door was a smaller room. The first thing Hao Ren noticed was that this place was obviously not as tidy as the rest of the vault. On the floor of this room, there were countless杂物 (záwù, sundries), empty food cans and cardboard boxes that filled almost half of the space, and the remaining space was occupied by various cables and equipment. The moment he saw the scene inside the room, he realized one thing: someone had lived here!

"There's a hibernation pod here too!" Lily was sharp-eyed, and she was the first to find something behind those sundries. The others went over to take a look and saw a silver-white metal box placed in the corner. But unlike the small hibernation pods outside, the size of the metal box in front of them was obviously larger.

It was prepared for adults.

The data terminal floated over to check it and suddenly exclaimed in surprise: "There's still life response inside!"

Hao Ren was shocked when he heard the news, but he couldn't bother to pursue any details at this time: "Quickly activate this thing!"

The data terminal had already figured out the working principle of this low-tech hibernation pod. It connected itself to the hibernation pod's control circuit and, after confirming that the internal personnel's life signs and all the vital substances in the pod were normal, it started the activation process. A few small lights lit up on the outer shell of the hibernation pod, and then a burst of cold air hissed from both sides of the container. Accompanied by a subtle mechanical friction sound, the lid of the hibernation pod slowly slid upward, revealing the true face of the sleeper inside.

An old, gaunt, and shaggy old man.

Hao Ren was a little stunned. He didn't expect the person inside to look like this. The old man lying in the hibernation pod looked like he was on his deathbed. Wrinkles covered every inch of his skin, and the dark age spots and withered head made him look like a terrifying mummy. His long, messy hair and beard also seemed to have never been groomed, sticking messily and dirtily to the old man's chest, like the nest of birds and beasts.

After the hibernation pod was activated, the viscous liquid that filled the pod slowly receded to both sides under the action of some kind of magnetic field, and the old man lying there twitched, then slowly opened his eyes.

He looked at Hao Ren with empty eyes. There was no movement for a full two minutes, until Lily accidentally touched something and made a noise. The old man's eyes suddenly rolled, and a strong look of shock and excitement appeared on his face. The overly violent emotional fluctuations even made his expression seem a little ferocious. The withered old man, like a mummy, suddenly grabbed Hao Ren's sleeve with an incredible amount of strength. He made an unintelligible "hehe" sound in his throat, as if he couldn't even speak.

"Calm down, calm down," Hao Ren tried to break free from the other's wrist and then supported his arm. "Take a deep breath, first take a deep breath—okay, don't get excited. It's very safe here now. You have time to slowly explain the situation to us."

The old man trembled. He slowly scanned the strangers in front of him with suspicious eyes, and then struggled to climb out of the hibernation pod. Seeing this, Lily quickly stepped forward to help him, and together with Hao Ren, they helped the old man to a chair next to him.

Throughout this process, the old man kept muttering something as if he was delirious. After he sat down, Hao Ren could barely understand what he was saying. He kept repeating a few words: "You're here, you're finally here, I've waited for hundreds of years… I almost thought you were all dead…"

"Waiting for us?" Hao Ren's first reaction was to be stunned, but he quickly realized what was going on: the other party didn't know where he and the others came from. What the old man was waiting for were actually the people in the shelter city.

"You're probably mistaken," Vivian also heard the old man's murmur and explained subconsciously, "We're not from the Ark. We're just passing by. Our spaceship is parked outside your spaceship."

"You… are not?" The old man's mind was a little slow after waking up from hibernation. He reacted for a moment before understanding what Vivian meant and looked at the strangers in front of him with disbelief. "But you…"

He stopped halfway through his words, because he finally noticed Nangong Wuyue, who was curled up into a large ball not far away, a half-snake, half-human creature—he realized that these people really came from outside the Ark.

"I…" The old man opened his mouth, not knowing how to organize his words in great confusion. Finally, he sighed, "Are there any people left alive on the ship?"

"There are many survivors, although the situation is not very good, but we came in time," Hao Ren grabbed the other's withered hand to keep him calm. "Can you tell us about the situation on this ship? And who are you? Why were you frozen alone in this room?"

"My…" The old man shook his head up and down, trying to recall something. "I… forgot my name. I should have a name, but I forgot…"

Vivian held the other's shoulders: "It may be short-term memory impairment caused by too long hibernation. Don't worry, it may recover later. Besides the name? Do you remember anything else?"

The old man frowned and slowly said: "I remember I was going to… oh, right, I am 'Father,' I'm going to teach the children. Oh, right, right! I remember, I'm going to lead those children to rebuild society, I'm the last adult who hasn't gotten sick!"

"You haven't gotten sick?" Hao Ren became serious. "Terminal, check him out."

The data terminal flew around the old man's body for a circle: "Aging, but healthy, incredible."

"What exactly happened on the ship? Where did you come from? Why did the plague happen? Does this disease only infect adults?" Hao Ren's questions popped out one after another. "And the golden disc on the ship… tell us everything from the beginning."

"Our hometown… was destroyed," the old man grabbed Hao Ren's hand. In the first minute, he just kept repeating these words, and then he organized more language. "It is said that the same thing happened on other planets, a terrible ecological disaster. We received a warning from a higher civilization before the end came, and we built the Ark, paying the price of more than half of the population to escape from our hometown… do you know? Do you know? You must have experienced what happened in this universe, but you must be more advanced than us. You even have the leisure to investigate other people's spaceships… but we are just trying our best to survive."

The old man's mind was sometimes confused and sometimes clear, and his language was excited and chaotic, but Hao Ren did not interrupt him, because he knew that once he interrupted, the dying man would probably not know how to speak.

"…I was born on the ship, and I grew up on the ship. My father, grandfather, and ancestors were all like this. Our ships are getting fewer and fewer, and there are fewer and fewer people, but we have been working hard to live, because we don't want the bloodline to be cut off… There is a divine artifact protecting us, oh, you seemed to mention it just now, that golden disc, the higher civilization that gave us the warning brought the divine artifact, and they also taught us how to use the power of the divine artifact to avoid being hunted down… but it doesn't always work, it can only slow down the pursuers…"

The old man gasped heavily, he needed to rest before he could continue, and taking advantage of this opportunity, Hao Ren immediately asked the data terminal to pull up the image of the "Starry Sky People."

He pointed to those amorphous light clusters and let the old man see: "Do they look like this?"

"…That's right, that's how they look."