Meaning of Life

The workshop was occupied by Billy and Fuyanni, so Xue Ming couldn't start manufacturing machines directly. After about half a month, when the two apprentices went on a business trip, he finally had a chance to go back and work on the lathe.

Once at the workbench, he leisurely took out paper and pen and began to sketch, intending to draw out Uncle Jamie's two works and then repeatedly revise the designs. The whole process was done secretly and furtively, with the workshop door locked from the inside, for fear that nosy guests at the club might see him.

Regarding the aerodynamic design of rockets, Fragrant Dream could solve this by setting up a small wind tunnel experimental facility. This part is rather dry, so I'll just gloss over it.

He worked for eighteen hours, drew up more than two hundred plans, and used twenty-six different alloy ratios. The unsolvable problem was still "how to make the projectile maintain a straight trajectory when it breaks the speed of sound".

Uncle Jamie helped him complete the design concept for the propellant and the main body of the launcher. The remaining rocket components would have to be built up slowly over time through repeated experiments, and it couldn't be completed in a day or two.

The anonymous workshop contains many expensive materials and machining equipment. This workshop can manufacture the vast majority of the world's top light infantry weapons, so there is no worry about shortages.

So, more than a month later, at the same time that Our Holy Mother handed over the remains of Mingde, the gunsmith's new gun was finished.

Rather than saying the gun was finished, it's more accurate to say that the ammunition could finally unleash its full power in actual combat.

On March 20, 2033, Jiang Xueming slipped out of the workshop carrying a weapon case and rushed back to the clinic before his two apprentices could, intending to take the new weapons to the Dead Puppet Agency.

The nameless man's business remained busy, with Tang Ning receiving guests seeking help in his upstairs office. After dealing with the minor issues left behind by the carnivorous Canaan, Hasben went to Lieyang Fort to train a group of problematic female soldiers, who only had time to return to the club for vacation every two months.

After Meteor became a VIP, the BOSS arranged a special trip for him. Now that he's married, he has no reason to refuse anymore and has to work hard to educate his students.

Jason Megan and Katusha got engaged last month and plan to get married after the Shambhala harvest, which can be seen as setting a flag and adopting a "do or die" attitude. They are currently using the Moon God Cup preparation period to train.

At that moment, the little finger leaned close to the priest and whispered something.

"My Holy Father, I can feel it, Ms. 3301 is pregnant."

This therapist's special psychic abilities made her extremely sensitive to life; even though 3301 hadn't had a checkup, Feng Jiali could still tell that Meteor was about to become a father.

Jiang Xueming was quite surprised. "It's a good thing."

"Your life force has been draining very quickly lately, Holy Father," Little Finger said, showing great concern for the gunsmith's health. "What's wrong?"

"Uh," Jiang Xueming replied casually, "Is it strange that my wife bought a few nice pieces of lingerie while browsing Pinduoduo?"

"Oh, that's all." Pinky immediately ended the conversation. Despite having spent so much time with the gunsmith, his straightforward and somewhat beastly responses always made people inexplicably embarrassed.

"I'm going out for a bit. If any guests come looking for me, just say I'm visiting relatives in my hometown of Brenwell." Xue Ming casually made up an excuse, asking the club's guests to be patient. Lately, more and more people have been needing psychological counseling, and he didn't know why.

With that, he picked up his luggage and headed towards the Council of Five Kings.

Upon arriving at the customer service department, I saw Xiao Qi and several colleagues chatting away about something.

Logically speaking, the nameless mistress could have been considered a war hero, and she could have resigned from her job as a servant long ago. She would no longer have to toil and answer emergency Summoning Bell.

Her colleagues thought so too. With such a new person joining the company, Xiao Qi would spend her days in the customer service department after taking care of her child, chatting and jotting down conversations with her friends, making beds and bedding, and even personally doing manual labor in the laundry room—something the supervisor considered undignified.

They dared not let 9527 do any work, so this scene unfolded.

Xiao Qi walked ahead, chatting as she went, carrying a laundry basket. She talked to her sisters about parenting, while the other women behind her acted as if they were serving an empress dowager, afraid of offending this heroine. They were understandably a little uncomfortable. What would happen to their performance bonuses if the boss questioned them?

"Gunsmith's wife!" Jiang Xueming called out.

Xiao Qi was a little unhappy when she saw her husband arrive, but couldn't call Xue Ming by his real name. Seeing the luggage in Xue Ming's hands, she knew her husband was going on a long trip, so she asked, "Father? Where are you going for your house call?"

Jiang Xueming: "Not far, just a few days."

Xiao Qi immediately smiled and said, "Okay!"

Behind her, a few girls were still gossiping, wondering if the muscular psychologist had already developed feelings for the nameless mistress. Xiao Qi, who was closer, heard them clearly and immediately turned around to ask in a low voice.

"What's wrong? Do I need your permission to find a man? Are you going to stamp the marriage certificate?"

The supervisor immediately laughed awkwardly, "There's no need for that. It's just that we're worried it might have a negative impact."

"I'm sorry." Jiang Xueming didn't know what to say. After all, another aspect of the persecution of men and women by stereotypes is fidelity and chastity. "Her Madness Index has worsened again. The boss wants me to be responsible for the gunsmith's wife's mental health. This is my fault."

Upon hearing this, Xiao Qi immediately started acting up, covering her forehead and trying to burrow into the priest's arms, which was truly despicable.

"Oh dear! I can't take it anymore, I'm going to faint! I'm going to feel terrible without a priest to comfort me."

Putting aside this little incident, Xue Ming still needed to go to the cabinet to meet the BOSS--

Saladin's journey raised many questions in his mind, questions that even the Arcane Library could not answer. To explain them in detail, they would probably all be classified as Alpha-level secrets in the documents and archives.

After saying goodbye to his wife, he took the elevator down to the boardroom counter and saw two groups of people hurrying past. One group consisted of Lapis Lazuli Guards, and the other group consisted of soldiers from the 33rd District Local War Group. They all bore the Vita Imprint, perhaps a result of the riots and plagues brought about by the regional Spirit Calamity.

He didn't want to go up and ask, so he joined the long queue for the Cabinet and waited for more than an hour before Mr. Marcus finally welcomed him into the Cabinet.

Ming De waited for the gunsmith. The cat looked very energetic. When it saw its most beloved passenger, it climbed up from the chair and jumped onto the table.

What brings you here?

Jiang Xueming: "Boss, I got Berloberg, but there are still some things I don't understand."

Boss: "Ask away, I'll do my best to answer your questions."

Jiang Xueming: "Before we discuss that, I have a small question. What's the situation outside? Why are the soldiers of the 33rd District's battle group infected with the Vita Imprint? Even Qingjin, with his strong immunity, was affected?"

When this matter was discussed, the BOSS also looked worried.

"I don't know, I'm not sure, I don't understand."

First came a series of confusing questions.

Then come another Qin Chuan triple strike.

"Very mysterious, with a story, extraordinary."

The boss is so worried precisely because he doesn't understand the reason.

"I have already assigned the Gate of Wonders and two VIPs to investigate, but there are no clear results yet."

Jiang Xueming: "Should I go take a look?"

"No need. Your brain is only good for fighting; this isn't your area of expertise." The BOSS waved his paw to stop them. "If you really want to say something, this should be considered a sign."

"When a region experiences a large-scale plague even though there is no Spirit Calamity, the concentration of Spirit Calamity is normal, people live happily and healthily, and their mental state is very good, it is like a sign that a natural disaster is about to occur."

"In the past, in areas where the Madness Butterfly cult had infiltrated, we could find many ordinary people suffering from the Vita Imprint, which was not surprising at all. But now that the cult members are all dead, the Vita Imprint still maintains its vigorous vitality. This virus will periodically break out in a certain region. It does not have an incubation period of several days, and we cannot shut down the sites for the sake of a curable disease."

"Based on the useful experience I've gleaned from my own mind and analyzed it carefully, it seems Mother Earth is angry—she's on her period and wants to punish me, her disobedient child, for destroying her tax-collecting instruments."

Jiang Xueming: "Taxation tools?"

"Yes, I've always believed that the Vita Imprint is a tool used by [Alaya-vijnana - Earth's Will] to enslave life." Ming De stated bluntly, "This mysterious psionic substance, somewhere between a biological entity and a virus, is like the powerful expression of Earth's DNA; it's assimilating us."

"We are born from the earth, using Mother Earth's material foundation to construct our lives. The experiences gained in survival, the wealth of Inspiration created throughout a lifetime, and all the souls, at the moment of death, are returned to Helheim or other Spirit Realm large and small, becoming part of [Alaya-vijnana - the will of the earth]."

"Death is a tragedy for an individual, the end of life, but for Mother Earth, it is evolution, absorption, and a harvest."

"The Vita Imprint is like a useful tool, a scythe that harvests life. It makes ordinary people extraordinary, gives ordinary people who have lost their abilities psychic powers, throws orderly human society into chaos, and turns Homo sapiens into flesh and blood machines."

"The process of collecting primordial matter is like producing products. Mass-producing death is like a form of sacrifice. And these souls, taken away by the Vita Imprint, should eventually be packaged whole and taken to the central nervous system of Mother Earth by idols created by a Madness Butterfly Sect."

Jiang Xueming: "I saw Mimir/Mim's heart in the Elf Holy Land, and it was also infected by the Vita Imprint."

"The giants who worked with me also used the Vita Imprint to attack me," Ming De replied. "They all came from Muspelheim, and Mimir/Mim was their ancestor, the progenitor of giants—this oldest giant was a hundred kilometers tall, just like Pangu in our mythology. His body was paralyzed, and after being corrupted by the Vita Imprint, he chose to give his essence to the [insects] on his body."

"Did you find its heart near Saladin? Does the size match?"

If what Ming De said is true, the "blue heart" that Xue Ming saw should only be a very small part of Mimir/Mim's ventricle; that heart was simply too small.

"That heart is too small." Jiang Xueming continued, "If Mimir/Mim is also defeated by the Vita Imprint, can we survive this? Are humans destined to fight this world forever?"

Ming De snapped his fingers.

"--Good question!"

"The Earth has experienced several extinction events. Each time, it was like Mother Earth throwing a tantrum, giving the insects and fungi on her body a thorough cleansing. Life forms that couldn't survive had to go extinct. Only those species that survived extreme cold, extreme heat, and even meteorite impacts were able to witness the new era."

"The Vita Imprint is the same for me."

"Since it couldn't kill me completely, I'll use it to make medicine and give it to you to cure your poisoning."

"But I think, to Mother Earth, we're like a batch of carnivorous bacteria in her laboratory petri dish."

"She nurtures us with all sorts of external factors, enabling us to transform the biosphere and create the natural environment. This is also her way of survival—compared to other planets or stars, Earth is too much like a rationally thinking life form."

"Her surface environment is constantly changing, her biological populations are constantly rotating, and there is also mysterious psychic energy within her core. This psychic energy itself is her powerful bioelectric field, and her geomagnetic phenomenon."

"If you ask me about this issue of survival, I've always maintained a positive and optimistic attitude."

The good cat grinned.

"I believe in the capabilities of Homo sapiens, and this isn't blind confidence; there are two reasons—"

"--In previous extinction events, the giants and trolls of the underworld, or the ancient Sumer civilization, did not have such a large population. Their population base was pitifully small. With such vitality, they could not generate the spark of industry, let alone psionic industrialization."

"But such an opportunity can be found in Homo sapiens. The Vita Imprint is like a vicious whip. I, as your wet nurse, can save your lives for now, but what about in another one or two hundred years? If this virus becomes more and more vicious, and the outbreak cycle is not as long as ten months of pregnancy, but only two or three months to take people's lives, even squeezing me dry won't be enough to feed you -- then you will have to rely on yourselves to solve this plague problem."

"Mother Earth uses this method to train and select humans, and absorb the knowledge and memories of the dead, trying to find a proper solution in Homo sapiens. Perhaps she herself suffers from the Vita Imprint, and even if she is the biggest source of the plague, she cannot simply die. If the Earth's core dies, the geomagnetic field will disappear, and if the geomagnetic field disappears, the fierce solar wind will take away all life."

"From beginning to end, I have always believed that Mother Earth loves us deeply."

Even if she wants us to suffer, life is full of so much pain and so much joy, love and hate, beauty and ugliness.

"But when parents give birth to children, creation itself is an expression of love. No matter how much you talk about indifference—giving birth but not raising, raising but not educating—it can't compare to the organic matter that this yellow earth gives us—without it, there would be no us."

"Another reason is that research institutes have been studying the Wen Bucai' literary talent' for the past few years."

At this point, the BOSS's expression became very strange, as if he had seen some kind of bizarre creature.

"When we were researching Wen Bucai's Gate of Death, we discovered—this thing is off-limits."

"My Black Gem God of War Card seems to be a forbidden existence that must never be touched."

"Once you force him into a state of Gate of Death, put him in a life-or-death crisis, perform a bloodletting procedure on him, and send him into a state of suspended animation, all sorts of problems will arise during the experiment—there will always be strange reasons that interrupt the experimental process."

"For example, the gas in the rock strata in some areas begins to heave, geological activity makes various wild animals restless, the walls of the laboratory crack, and the laboratory experiences a major power outage."

"Finally, the Arcane Library, based on the text of the Dead Sea Scrolls, came to a rather absurd conclusion; of course, this was merely speculation without any evidence."

"Wen Bucai Mother Earth's own son—like Mimir/Mim, he is the eldest son of the Homo sapiens era."

"It's like the Original Seed's major disease detector, the tonsils in the throat. Once the tonsils become inflamed, the body will begin a natural stress response, and the immune system will be fully activated. If the tonsils are removed, perhaps in the short term, we will feel that our body seems to have improved a little—and we won't feel the pain of swallowing razor blades in our throat anymore."

"But the serious illness that followed came without any warning."

"Is it possible that the previous extinction events were caused by Wen Bucai being in the form of a loose mouse or a fish, facing a fatal threat in the harsh natural environment? This led Mother Earth to mistakenly believe that there was something wrong with her body. After all, Wen Bucai's evolutionary path has always been that of a dominant life form. Even with such strong vitality, it was still no match for this terrifying environment, which caused Mother Earth to activate her immune system and carry out a great cleansing of life on the surface."

At this point, Ming De pursed his cat-like lips, revealing two sharp little fangs, and shrugged indifferently.

"We don't know for sure, but we dare not try it. These few experiments with the Gate of Death almost made the feng shui masters of the Arcane Library resign on the spot—their great- Grandfather were also outstanding craftsmen, and they assured me that choosing this place to build the Arcane Library would be absolutely no problem."

"Many years ago, during the hunting duel between Wen Bucai and Fafnir, the District 18 also experienced the largest earthquake disaster in a century, accompanied by the strongest cold wave in recorded temperature history."

"So, gunsmith, that concludes..."

Ming De clasped his hands together in a gesture of respect, thus concluding his statement.

"The Vita Imprint is indeed terrifying, but I believe Homo sapiens has a chance to survive it, because Mother Earth loves humanity and has left us a seedling for experimentation."