Chapter 163 Values

Many times Hao Ren could deeply appreciate the vast differences in values between different races, especially when dealing with the sirens. This difference in values became even more apparent. No matter how much these deep-sea saltwater fish looked like carbon-based life forms, they were essentially elemental creatures. The biggest difference between elemental creatures and ordinary life was that their perception of the material world was different from ordinary people. Like now, the Siren Queen had solemnly transported a large pile of junk from Earth (at least a third of which was junk), and Iva looked quite happy…

Hao Ren even saw a large leather shoe that had been soaked rotten among the gifts. He didn't know which siren had picked it up while strolling on the beach. And he discovered, to his despair, that in Katrina's worldview, this thing also counted as a seafood product from Earth, and she had already begun to earnestly instill this idea into Iva…

Accurately speaking, in the sirens' worldview, anything in the sea counted as seafood—including swimming rings, drifting bottles, offshore drilling platforms, and Jack, who sank with the Titanic…

On this basis, Katrina described the living environment of the Earth sirens to Iva. Iva listened with great interest. Hao Ren didn't know what kind of picture of the Earth's ocean the Spirit of the Ocean had outlined in her "mind," but it was definitely completely different from the ocean in human perception.

"I am… happy!" Iva surged happily around Katrina and the sirens, the sound of rushing water echoing across the sea surface, "Here is also good! There are fish, there is seaweed, and there is the Iron Island! The people on the Iron Island have recently learned how to eat fish and seaweed!"

Hao Ren smiled and looked at Iva: "Are you getting along well with the immigrants?"

"Good!" Iva poured down with a rush, turning into a tumbling spray in front of Hao Ren, with a small Iva jumping around in each spray. It seemed that as her mind grew rapidly, her ability to control herself also increased day by day, "They didn't dare to leave the Iron Island at first, but then I told them there was food in the water, so they started going into the water… but they have to take a boat, they can't live in the water."

"Not all creatures can survive in water," Hao Ren smiled. "It just so happens that I should go see Lawrence too. I don't know if he's successfully leading the Ark immigrants to rebuild social order."

In the next part of the trip, the alien tourists from Earth would dive into the deep sea under the leadership of the sirens to visit the ruins of the ancient kingdom at the bottom of the sea. Under the care of the sirens and the care of Iva, this deep-sea trip would be quite safe. Everyone except the vampires in the team, who were a little resistant to this, expressed great anticipation for the underwater trip. After the sightseeing team set off, Hao Ren led his friends to the floating city clusters to check on the survival of these visitors from beyond the sky who came with the Ark on this planet.

The situation was satisfactory, even a little beyond Hao Ren's expectations: the floating city clusters themselves still showed the vicissitudes of time after enduring ten thousand years of wind and frost, but the residents living in those ancient buildings had a completely different mental outlook than before. They used to be numb, ignorant, and lived in a daze among a pile of ancient life-support machines that were about to stop working, gazing at the unchanging gray city every day, fighting for a little bit of cyclically supplied food rations, and even establishing those small, ridiculous kingdoms in the streets and alleys, fighting like primitive people. But now, the steel sky shrouded above them had opened, and a vast world far beyond their imagination had appeared outside the wall. A new order was being quietly established under the leadership of the spiritual leader Lawrence. The Ark residents had to start working hard to rebuild their homes and explore living space. They were still wearing those old and tattered clothes, and many survival materials were still ancient products dug out of the ruins, but the appearance of the new world had brought some hope to these people, and the entire floating city cluster presented a "living" atmosphere.

Workers building houses and repairing streets could be seen everywhere, and the sound of hammering and the roar of machines could be heard from the workshops everywhere. The ancient generators were running again, and the boilers that had cooled for thousands of years were also preparing to be reignited. Those workers and technicians who had just completed their studies and training were drilling back and forth between the mottled and rusty steel, trying to restore the metal-built city to operation again—although everything still presented an old and abandoned state, now, the activity of "people" could be seen among these old machines.

Of course, the shadow left by the colonial spacecraft era still remained in every corner of the floating city clusters. After all, the people in these spacecraft had experienced a civilization discontinuity of thousands of years, and it had only been a year since they regained their civilization. It was difficult to fundamentally change this society, even with the support of religious power and strong spiritual beliefs. Although Hao Ren did not investigate in depth, he could still see that the primitive dynasty system still remained in this exiled civilization. The internal divisions caused by the initial split into several kingdoms had not yet been eliminated. It would probably take the efforts of an entire generation to change this.

But what they had done was good enough.

Hao Ren and his party found Lawrence in the ancestral furnace of the Throne Ark—which is now the "capital" of the floating city clusters. This old man was the spiritual leader of the Ark civilization and the actual ruler of these floating city clusters today. After relying on the power of religious belief, he had completely stabilized his position in the group and successfully promoted his civilization revival plan on this premise.

Lawrence was very happy about the visit of Hao Ren and his party. He wore a simple white robe and stood on the high platform in front of the ancestral furnace, overlooking the city below. His tone was quite emotional: "It's been a year, and they finally understand how to survive in this new world. At the beginning, they even had to learn the concept of the sky from scratch, adapt to the alternating day and night and the phenomenon of sunny, cloudy and rainy… Those were really difficult days."

"The most difficult days are finally over, aren't they?" Vivian said with a smile, "Your ability amazes us. We didn't expect you to do so well at all… To revitalize a society with such a severe discontinuity of civilization and start the reconstruction project so quickly is not something that ordinary people can do."

"Material reconstruction is easy, but spiritual reconstruction is difficult," Lawrence shook his head. "It will take a long time to change them in terms of thought. I am only taking the first step now. Our most important task now is to repair the buildings damaged during the spacecraft deployment process and provide survival security for those 'refugees' who lack the most basic living materials, and repair some simple facilities in the city. This is far from being a social reconstruction. But I have already started a new plan. I have built a school in the center of the Throne City. The first batch of students are learning basic scientific and cultural knowledge there, and then they will go to general schools in various places to serve as teachers and spread this knowledge. After ensuring the basic survival, the first priority is education. I hope that at least the young people under the age of twenty in this generation will complete the reshaping of their worldview in three to five years, so that there will be sufficient talents in the next stage of construction."

Hao Ren nodded: "Well. By the way, I saw personnel activity on the other floating cities just now. Are you preparing to expand part of the population over there?"

"We are currently only doing some preliminary investigation work," Lawrence said, "The other immigrant starships have been isolated from the Throne for hundreds to thousands of years, and the situation on them is completely unfamiliar to me, so we must investigate them in advance. On this planet without land, we will have to expand our range of activities to other immigrant starships sooner or later—after all, the floating city clusters are the only foothold we have on this planet."

Lily stood on the edge of the high platform, looking around curiously. Suddenly, she saw something new in the square below. It was a large pool, and there were two goddess statues in the center of the pool. For this ethnic group that was waiting to be rebuilt, such a building was obviously an amazing project, so the husky girl immediately exclaimed: "Ah! These are the Ice and Fire Twin Goddess statues you just erected? Wow… They look so handsome looking at me…"

"In the early stages of civilization revival, spiritual support and religious guidance are the most useful and necessary means," Lawrence said, "Because people at this stage lack sufficient cognitive level, you cannot tell them in a short time why they should do this, so you can only tell them with an absolutely irresistible reason that they must do this. In fact, we also planned to erect a statue for Iva, the master of the ocean, but that goddess… is a bit naughty. She always changes her image, and sometimes she deliberately changes into some forms that we cannot understand to play with us, so in the end I chose to use 'water' as the basic element to represent her. Every statue is accompanied by water, and water is everywhere, which also symbolizes Iva's omnipresence. I think maybe we will become a water-worshiping nation in the future…"

"But this primary stage will end sooner or later," Hao Ren reminded from the side, "Humans must learn to walk on their own."

"Of course," Lawrence laughed, "We will never be content to live in these ruins forever, and besides… our lease on this planet is only two hundred years."

Hao Ren shrugged: "It depends on the situation. If you can't find a suitable new home, it is possible to renew the lease for you at that time."

At this time, Nangong Wuyue suddenly frowned. She seemed to hear some sounds, making a gesture of listening intently, and then poked Hao Ren's arm with the tip of her tail: "Landlord, Her Majesty Katrina just sent a message saying that Iva is looking for you, it seems she has something to give you."