Chapter 411 Starry Curtain
"Captain, do you want to eat this gold coin?"
" No , bite with your teeth to maintain purity."
Su Xia calmly took the gold coin out of his mouth and wiped the saliva off the coin. Surprisingly, there was a row of neat teeth marks on the coin.
This is something he has wanted to do since he was a child.
When I was a kid, I often saw people doing this on TV.
"Captain, just let me help you identify it. I have professional equipment here." Sarah said with a smile.
"No, you don't understand. This is more ceremonial."
Su Xia tossed the gold coin lightly, smiled slightly, and talked about his childhood: "In my world, biting with teeth is a tradition..."
After hearing this, Sarah was slightly surprised and blinked.
She asked, "Captain, are you from another planet?"
Su Xia nodded: "Yes."
"No wonder you were able to obtain this submarine. It seems that you bought it in the starry sky."
"No, there are many people like me on this planet. Here, people like me are called the Undead..."
Su Xia talked a lot, neither hurriedly nor slowly, in a calm voice, helping Sarah understand the situation outside.
This smart housekeeper is very smart, almost on the same level as Hal, so there is no harm in letting her know more.
Sarah seemed very curious and had a calm expression. She listened carefully to Su Xia's story and gradually gained a concrete understanding of the outside world. Combined with the fact that Su Xia was being hunted by the mechanical race, she roughly understood the situation on this planet.
"So that's how it is. Perhaps this planet was chosen as a gaming world by a more advanced civilization?" Sarah's eyes flickered, as if she was thinking about something.
"game?"
Su Xia looked at the housekeeper in surprise. She didn't expect her to say these two words.
Due to the limitations of system rules, he never mentioned these two words from beginning to end.
Sarah nodded slightly and asked, "Captain, have you ever heard of the 'Star Curtain'?"
Su Xia shook her head: "No."
"The Star Curtain is a weapon, also known as a 'civilization deception device'."
"Cheat? What do you mean?"
"Captain, you can probably guess what it is by listening to its name." Sarah looked up at the sky and waved her hand to draw a circle. "Use a star curtain to replace the starry sky of this planet and seal off the entire planet."
"blockade?"
"Yes, on this curtain, there are meteorites, the sun, the moon, the stars, black holes, etc. carved by advanced civilizations..."
Sarah spoke patiently and in a calm tone, describing a very horrible thing.
The reason why some planets cannot develop interstellar civilization is because they are blocked by more advanced civilizations.
On this kind of planet, the starry universe observed by their scientists through various astronomical telescopes is actually the picture on the "starry curtain" rather than the real universe.
The cosmic signals they receive are processed, and the exploration information they send out will be directly intercepted.
In other words, all the basis for their exploration of the starry sky was planned for them by a more advanced civilization.
They can see whatever the advanced civilization wants them to see.
If you don't want them to see it, then they will never see it in their entire lives.
"Is everything fake?" Su Xia was surprised.
"Yes, the entire planet, the life-long efforts of countless astronomers, are all fake. They were told this by a more advanced civilization." Sarah nodded slightly.
Hearing this, Su Xia took a deep breath and looked up subconsciously.
Unfortunately, I am now at the bottom of the sea and can only see the dark and unknown sea water, but cannot see the sky.
After living for so many years, Su Xia had never thought... that the brilliant galaxy above his head and the deep starry universe were actually fake?
Was it deliberately presented by someone using a civilized weapon?
"What's the point of doing this?" Su Xia couldn't help but ask, "Are all the advanced civilizations so bored that they have to restrict the development of a planet with a low-level civilization?"
"It's not like I'm bored."
Sarah chuckled and explained, "This weapon was originally used to restrict the 'Exile Planet'."
"Exile planet?"
"Yes, an entire planet filled with prisoners exiled by a higher civilization."
Sarah nodded and continued, "Captain, you don't know enough about the starry sky. You may not know that on some planets, the inhabitants of an entire planet are all criminals of advanced civilizations. This kind of planet is called a 'criminal planet' or 'exile planet'. It is a very special civilization."
"Don't we need prisons to throw criminals on a planet like this?" Su Xia asked in surprise.
"No need, not even a guard." Sarah shook her head slightly.
"Why is that?"
"Some advanced civilizations believe that prisons are too restrictive of personal freedom and inhumane. They need to give criminals a larger space to move around, such as an entire planet."
"Inhumane?" Su Xia was confused. "How can we be humane to criminals?"
If an area as large as a planet can be considered a prison, then wouldn't each of them be living in a prison?
Of course, this is not true.
Perhaps in the eyes of those advanced civilized creatures, only those who can leave the planet are free people. If they are confined to a planet for their entire lives, they are no different from criminals.
"Isn't that kind of criminal planet very dangerous?" Su Xia asked.
"Yes." Sarah's face became more serious. "On those planets, there are crazy bloodthirsty killers, superb psychological criminals, and bloody serial killers... Evil is everywhere, and death happens every day."
“I see…”
Su Xia probably understood, and he couldn't help but think of Australia.
This approach is to throw a group of criminals onto a planet and let them fight among themselves?
You know, everyone in the prison is a talented person. What kind of sparks will be created if such a group of people are concentrated on one planet?
This kind of planet is like an enlarged version of Arkham.
"In order to prevent criminals from escaping from planetary prisons, advanced civilizations have come up with many ways, and the 'Star Curtain' is one of them." Sarah said.
"I understand. It means to prevent these criminals from developing an interstellar civilization?" Su Xia asked.
"Yes."
"But there are always exceptions, right? Have any criminals managed to escape from the planet's prison?"
Su Xia suddenly became interested and asked curiously.
Sarah thought about it, and seemed to be checking her database, with a calm expression.
After a moment, she said, "Yes, there is, and the most recent one was more than ten years ago, and it was a very famous super criminal."
"Tell me about it."
"On the edge of the Heinlein star field, on a criminal planet numbered 10714."
Sarah waved her hand, and a blue light screen appeared in front of her, displaying a series of data.
On the light screen, a photo appeared, along with a large number of descriptions of the criminals.
When Su Xia saw the photo, her heart skipped a beat.
He blinked and looked carefully, and the person on the screen was actually Dr. Aigar!
Sarah said softly, "This is the super criminal who escaped from the planet. His name is Aigal. He was once a talented doctor with a bright future and was quite famous in the Seventh Empire. But later... for some reason, he secretly conducted illegal and evil biological experiments . After being discovered, he refused to plead guilty and even injured law enforcement officers..."
Listening to Sarah's story, Su Xia had a very strange feeling in her heart.
He often becomes Dr. Aigar in psychic hallucinations and experiences his journey through the starry sky.
Sometimes he wondered if the things in his hallucinations had actually happened.
Now seeing this real person and reading the description of his life, Su Xia had a wonderful feeling that illusion and reality overlapped.
He couldn't help but look at his storage space, where a notebook of Dr. Aigar lay quietly.
It was because of this notebook that Su Xia gained a lot of understanding about those evil biological experiments.
It can even be said that on this planet, he has stood at the forefront of this kind of biological experiment, and even Mercer and Dad cannot compare to him.
Mercer has been waiting for Subject No. 28 underground in Coral City to wake up, but he doesn't know what went wrong.
Su Xia could tell at a glance that Subject No. 28 was pretending to be asleep.
"After being exiled, Dr. Aigal lived in the capital of the criminal planet, 'Sin City', for three years. Because he was a special technology criminal, a special monitor was implanted in his body. Later, I don't know how he used it, but he actually took out the monitor..."
As she spoke, Sarah noticed that Su Xia's eyes were a little dull, and she smiled and reminded him, "Captain, you are distracted."
"Oh, I just remembered some past events." Su Xia came back to her senses.
"It seems that the Captain is not interested in the information of these criminals."
"No, I was just thinking about the game you mentioned earlier."
Su Xia got the topic back on track and asked, "If the Star Curtain is used to restrict the development of civilization on the criminal planet, then what does this weapon have to do with the game? Could it be that some advanced civilizations would treat the entire planet as a game world? In order to make the game go smoothly, they would not hesitate to stop the development of civilization on this planet?"
"I will." Sarah nodded.
"Isn't it inhumane to do this?"
Su Xia was puzzled, after all, even criminals could be treated humanely.
Sarah explained: "Captain, there are many areas of the starry sky above us that are private property."
"Yes, I see."
Su Xia had seen a lot of information on the wreckage of the spacecraft, and after hearing what Sarah said, she immediately knew the reason.
If the entire planet is someone's private property, then... this person can do whatever he wants, even treating the entire planet as an amusement park.
"But this still cannot explain our current situation. After all, everyone who comes to this planet has immortality." Su Xia talked about the current situation.
If not, the players would not be called undead.
"Captain, have you ever thought that every death is actually real?"
"What's the meaning?"
"Let me tell you an example..."
Sarah thought about it and felt that it was hard to explain, so she waved her hand and a blue light screen appeared in front of her again.
Strings of data and text appeared on the light screen, presenting a real case that had happened to Su Xia.
The name of this case is "Killing Planet".
"More than three hundred years ago, there was an interstellar collector who had a sudden idea..."
"He wanted to know what would happen to humanity if there was no death, if there was no need to worry about life and death?"
"He planned to conduct a long social experiment, and devoted the rest of his life to it, consuming countless resources and years, and finally created an ideal planet."
"On this planet, there are two kinds of people, one is called 'natives', and the other is called 'adventurers'.
“Among them, the natives only have one life, just like the NPCs in the game who can be killed, while the adventers have immortal bodies, just like the players in the game.
“The indigenous people are the native inhabitants of that planet.
"The Adventers were selected from another planet. They were all told in advance that they were immortal. It was like playing a game, so they had nothing to worry about..."
Sarah spoke softly and slowly.
Su Xia frowned as he listened. The more he listened, the more he felt that it was very similar to his current situation, even many details matched.
Then, Sarah said a very crucial message: "As for 'immortality', it is not true immortality. Every death is a real death."
"Could it be that he was resurrected through another body?" Su Xia asked.
"Yes. After the Adventer dies, his memories are transferred into another identical clone, allowing him to wake up in this clone."
Clone!
Is this what is called immortality and infinite life?
"Of course, Captain, the planet you are on is different from the experimental planet I described." Sarah smiled gently.
"The time of death?" Su Xia looked at her.
"Yes."
Sarah nodded. In the case she described, after the death of the Adventer, it took some time before it could be resurrected in a specific location, which was the cloning center.
The Adventers did not know that they were resurrected through cloning and believed that they were truly immortal, so they called the cloning center a "resurrection point" or "fountain" or "cemetery."
Sarah smiled and said, "On your planet, all the undead can be resurrected on the spot the next moment after death. There is no resurrection center. This is something I can't understand either."
After all, she is just an ordinary smart housekeeper and doesn't know much about the starry sky, perhaps not even as much as Hal knows.
Su Xia nodded silently and fell into deep thought.
While the two were talking, the small exploration robot outside was not idle. It was bringing the treasure boxes in the shipwreck back to the submarine one by one.
After the small robot's exploration, it was found that there were a total of thirteen rooms with such treasure chests on the three decks inside the shipwreck, and each room had more than twenty chests.
If the box was full of gold coins, based on the gold price on this planet, that would be a fortune of more than 2 billion!
Su Xia can really retire and enjoy life.
At this moment, a small robot suddenly sent back a message, saying that it had discovered something more valuable than gold coins.
"Captain, a sword was found."
Sarah smiled and reminded: "Don't think too much, what you have now is real. Even if this world is really created, it doesn't matter. Even if there is a so-called mastermind behind it, you can't resist it now, Captain, right?"
"Yeah, that's right. I can't resist. I can only enjoy it."
Su Xia shrugged, thinking that the housekeeper was right.
He came back to his senses and looked at the screen in front of him again.
Just a moment ago, a small robot found a rusty sword in the second to last room on the third floor of the deck.
The hilt is engraved with a golden fleur-de-lis pattern and is most likely the legendary sword of imperial power.
"The Sword of Power of the Iris Empire suddenly disappeared a hundred years ago and was not found until the moment the country was destroyed by the Mechanical Clan." Su Xia looked at the picture on the screen, and information about the empire emerged in his mind.
It is said that whoever possesses this sword possesses the supreme power of the empire.
Of course, it's just a legend.
It's the modern era now, no one will surrender to others just because of a sword.
What's more, now that the entire Iris Empire is gone, this sword only serves as a collection.
"If it is really that sword, it should be able to fetch a good price. I can sell it when I need money in the future." Su Xia pondered, "If I go to the Western Continent, the people there will definitely offer a higher price for this sword."
…
At the same time, in the southern waters of the continent, above the sea surface.
Mercer was quietly suspended in the air, with a calm expression. He was wearing a black tuxedo and seemed to have regained his elegant appearance.
He quietly looked at the sunset over the distant sea level, wondering what he was thinking.
"Lord Mercer, all nearby islands have been searched, and no trace of the masked man has been found." A new message came.
"Lord Mo Se, the nearby ships at sea have also been searched, and no masked stranger has been found." Another message came.
The pieces of information were summarized here, like invisible streams of light. The information of the entire mechanical race was integrated into a vast network, and Moser was the center of this network.
As time went by, more and more news came.
Mercer's eyes moved slowly.
He lowered his head slightly, expressionless, and stared at the choppy sea below.
