A Home in the Ghost City

The hovercar stopped near a residential district surrounded by high-rises. The Nangong couple led everyone to the place where they were currently staying. They ushered their guests into the living room, and Elsa took the food they had brought back from the mall that day into the kitchen. Nangong Wudi sat down with the guests on the large sofa, preparing to answer a series of questions.

Hao Ren looked at the furnishings around him. Clearly, the former inhabitants of this planet had been highly similar to humans on Earth, and their civilization had also been somewhat akin to Earth's. The objects in the room were strange, but most of their uses could be guessed. The house was clean and orderly, with all kinds of supplies arranged neatly in convenient places. It was obvious that the people living here had turned it into a stable and comfortable little home. As the residence where a pair of stranded spouses from another world had spent a century together, this place was unexpectedly quite nice.

"Elsa took care of most of it. Many of the things here are strange. Fortunately, my wife is gifted and clever; otherwise, I really wouldn't have known what to do." Nangong Wudi noticed his guests' gazes sweeping around the room and smiled. "When we first arrived here, we were in quite a fluster for a while. Thinking back on it now, I can't help laughing."

Hao Ren noticed that Nangong Wudi's manner of speaking was somewhat strange. After thinking about it briefly, he realized that it carried the tone commonly used by traditional Chinese gentry more than a century ago. This man had been away from Earth for a hundred years, and his isolation from the world had allowed him to retain the way people spoke back then. The