Chapter 1523 — 落潮之后

The awkward part was that the Nuoyi and the Star Covenant Alliance had no choice but to carry on with a period of “make-up communication” afterward, and the experts and scholars at the Solin Command Center worked overtime to explain to their interstellar friends why a single planet could hold so many bizarre and varied races—and why those races could nonetheless coexist harmoniously and form an “alliance.” Throughout the whole process, Gao Yang stood by watching, his mind churning with strange thoughts.

He really hadn't expected that the first contact between Loren and Noyi after they finally managed to reestablish communications would end up unfolding like this. It didn't feel like serious, official communication between two civilizations across the sea of stars at all—more like two interstellar rookies who'd finally gotten connected on a voice chat, the kind where they talked nonstop until midnight and only then had to disconnect. Right before logging off, one sent "Bedtime, bedtime," and the other sent "See you, see you." But less than half a minute later, the other side sent a selfie, and this side replied with a photo set. The two of them put their heads together and decided to chat another five yuan's worth, and when they looked up again—holy crap, it was 5:30 in the morning.

Gao Yang felt exactly that way now, but what frustrated him most was not this embarrassment—it was that he found it very hard to put this little association and feeling in his heart into plain, easy-to-understand words for others, not even for the shadow assault goose in front of him that he had trained to understand more than half of Earth’s memes. Once this string of things in his head was spoken aloud, it would need at least forty pages of explanatory notes to go with it—which was somewhat similar to the siren materials the Star Covenant Alliance had sent to the Noi.

But then again, Gao Yang also felt that this little bit of emotion in his heart really couldn't be considered an overreaction—after all, standing at the scale of this vast starry sky, Noyi and Loren, two civilizations that might not even survive the demonic tide, really were just a pair of interstellar rookies...

On his side, his mind was wandering in fits and starts, while the communications between the exchange specialists led by Beiyila and the Noyi were still streaming in. He watched the sentences spit out line by line on the paper tape, saw the specialists explaining to the Noyi the unique structure of intelligent species on Planet Loren, explaining that those creatures, which to the Noyi were downright terrifying, were in fact each one gentler and more harmless than the last, and he saw that Beiyila had even sent a message personally, which read:

“The sirens are the friendliest race on our planet. They possess great power and advanced technology, but they are peace-loving by nature and keep a low profile. Apart from their somewhat strange diet and their highly variable individual forms, they are not much different from conventional races on our planet such as ‘humans’ and ‘elves’...”

Then the Noyi people sent a message: "The recipe is a bit strange? Why would you say that?"

Honestly, when Gao Yang saw this exchange, he broke out in a cold sweat, but fortunately the expert group on Beiyila's side reacted quickly and swiftly shifted the topic to the dragons' erudition and generosity and the Cecil people's love of peace...

By the time the two sides had said goodbye to each other again and ended the communication, it was already two hours later. Throughout it all, Gao Song's cold sweat had hardly stopped; only after confirming that nothing new was coming from the Noyi side and that the superluminal communications array had switched to routine standby did he unconsciously let out a breath—and then heard Amber, to his surprise, let out a breath as well.

He exchanged a glance with Shadow Assault Goose, who waved a hand: "My blood pressure spiked just now—it was all because of what you said earlier. Now whenever I hear that string of descriptions—dragons are generous and erudite, Cecil loves peace, sirens are gentle and harmless—I always feel it's getting worse the more you explain, and I can even picture a whole crowd of victims and victimized gods popping up in my head at the same time. That's too weird."

"Don't say anything—let me get this straight first," Gao Yang said, waving his hand repeatedly, cold sweat beading all over his forehead. "Something's not right. I clearly thought all of us, from top to bottom, were quite peace-loving, open, and tolerant—humans and gods alike. Aren't we all holding goodwill and seeking a bright future..."

Upon hearing this, Amber wanted to roll her eyes, and a single sentence scrolled across her churning mind like a banner—the capital of the gods is already plagued by the Lady of the Night, and you're still here babbling about the Light?

But she only dared to let this sentence churn and surge in her mind; she would never dare say it out loud. After all, Gao Yang is a tolerant, friendly person who hates violence—if he heard this, he would definitely grab a table and slap her against the wall, and afterward, even with a spoon, you wouldn't be able to scrape her off...

网络繁忙，请稍后重试

"Mm," Gao Yang snapped out of his reverie and glanced up at the holographic projection at the edge of the desk. "You've had it rough on your end too."

"The deeper our exchanges with the Nuoyi people become, the more strongly we feel the enormous differences between our two civilizations," Beiyila did not conceal the sigh in his heart. "Many things we take for granted could very likely seem bizarre and absurd—even frightening and worthy of vigilance—in the eyes of an alien civilization... I think we should accumulate experience in this regard. Whether we continue communicating with the Nuoyi people later, or encounter other intelligent beings in the more distant future, we must always take this kind of worldview discrepancy into account."

Gao Yiwei nodded. This was exactly what he had wanted to say, but now it seemed there was no need for him to speak up and remind them—Beiyila and the expert team at the Solin Command Center had already realized this on their own.

There are enormous differences between the Noy and the Loren, differences that manifest simultaneously in the cultures, histories, living environments, and physiological structures of the two peoples. Moreover, even though such differences exist for both sides, it now appears that the situation of the Star Covenant Alliance is the one that would shock the Noy a good deal more—and thankfully, when the communication this time reached its later stages, the exchange specialists responded in time with Song, preparing accompanying explanations and briefings for the information sent to the other side, and many of the more sensitive details were never disclosed at all; otherwise that bunch of interstellar friends would probably have been shocked into vibrate mode...

"Are you all right?" Gao Yang rubbed his brow. After resting for a short while, he felt his mind gradually cool down, which also gave him the energy to care about other things. "Right now, in the communication process between us and the Nuoyi, all the parts involving data processing, assisted translation, and scenario simulation are handled by your servo-brain array. For long communications like today's, is the load heavy for you?"