Nameless

Nameless

The future...

This was the thing Lu Yuanming least wanted to think about.

In the future, in 2028, many people in New York City, USA, had already fallen into the Dark Matter World. New York City itself had also partially descended, along with human civilization. Judging by the timeline, the soonest it could happen was 2030, and the latest was 2031: all of humanity and human civilization as a whole would descend into the Dark Matter World. Then the entire Earth would descend as well, and Dark Matter would spread across the Solar System and continue outward. Eventually, the Milky Way and the surrounding galaxies would all become Dark Matter regions, and a new Cosmic Void would appear here.

It was hard to imagine a more despairing future.

Especially after human civilization had completely fallen, the unspeakable beings lurking in the Dark Matter World would emerge. Their mere existence was enough to kill or mutate ordinary humans. That would be the most despairing moment of all.

As far as Lu Yuanming knew, humanity and human civilization would be utterly destroyed. It was a future of true despair.

So when Elder Wang asked him about the future, Lu Yuanming had no idea how to answer.

The silence dragged the mood lower and lower. Lu Yuanming suddenly snapped back to his senses and forced a smile. "The future... Who can say for sure? At least we still have hope."

Elder Wang silently took a sip of tea, then asked, "Can we completely wipe out these ghosts?"

"..." Lu Yuanming sighed silently. "No. These ghosts... can never be completely wiped out, because the root cause isn't actually the ghosts themselves."

Lu Yuanming himself didn't realize the significance of what he'd said, but Elder Wang was a man of profound wisdom, and there wasn't a single fool among those present. Whether in the military or the government, anyone who had risen to their positions was an elite who stood out from the crowd, even if not all of them were heroes. Their minds were already racing, each of them analyzing Lu Yuanming's words.

It wasn't just them. At that moment, nearly a hundred thousand people across Z Country were analyzing what Lu Yuanming had said. For various reasons, his words were also being relayed at great speed to several major world powers. This was partly because Z Country's leadership had allowed it. The matter concerned all of humanity, and given the way the Chinese handled things, they would indeed make sacrifices without asking for anything in return. Releasing this information was a gesture of sincerity from Z Country to the rest of the world.

Those few words from Lu Yuanming had stirred up enormous waves in the minds of tens of thousands of think tanks, thousands of high-ranking officials and dignitaries, and hundreds of the most powerful people.

The ghosts couldn't be wiped out, and the root cause wasn't the ghosts themselves...

The implications were staggering.

If the root cause wasn't the ghosts, then what was it?

Aliens? Some source of a curse? But if that were the case, the root cause would still be the ghosts, or rather, whatever force was behind them—something more powerful than the ghosts. But if the root cause of the ghosts' appearance truly wasn't the ghosts themselves, then...

"Could these ghosts have been brought about by something inherent to humanity?" Elder Wang asked again.

Lu Yuanming immediately thought of the Dark Matter World's invasion. According to the research of Tang Zhean and the other scientists of the future, as long as there were sentient beings and civilizations of sentient beings, Dark Matter would inevitably descend as the number of sentient beings who died accumulated and their civilizations developed.

Tang Zhean had even told him that, according to modern scientific research and calculations, although they hadn't discovered Dark Matter before 2024, mathematical formulas had revealed some truths: ever since the universe was born, it had been continuously descending into a lower dimension. The Material World was constantly transforming into the Dark Matter World. After more than thirteen billion years, Dark Matter already accounted for over eighty-five percent of the universe's total mass, and the dimensional descent of matter into Dark Matter was still ongoing.

So it was true, in a sense, that humanity itself was responsible for the descent into Dark Matter.

Lu Yuanming nodded with difficulty. "Yes. The ghosts keep appearing because humanity itself exists, and that's not even the most despairing part... The future..."

Elder Wang's hands were trembling, but he forced himself to stay composed. "What will happen in the future? Xiao Lu—no, Comrade Lu, tell us everything you can."

"The future..." Lu Yuanming chose his words carefully, doing his best not to reveal details about the Dark Matter World. "Imagine the ghosts appearing more and more often, in greater numbers, while their domains grow larger and larger. In six years, seven at the most, an enormous domain will cover the entire Earth. There won't be any ghosts you can kill within it—or rather, there'll be ghosts everywhere. You won't be able to kill them all, and killing them will be useless. That domain will cover the Earth forever. There'll be nowhere to hide, nowhere to escape. And there's more..."

Lu Yuanming abruptly stopped speaking. After thinking for a moment, he asked, "Grandpa Wang, are there any murderers who definitely need to be executed? The truly depraved kind, like drug traffickers—people who've lost their political rights and have definitely been sentenced to death. Could you bring one here? I want to try telling him part of the truth and see if anything happens to him."

Elder Wang immediately took an interest. He looked at the One Spike One Star Officer, who nodded at once and practically ran out of the room. Everyone else fell silent. But the silence didn't last long. The government officials were all shrewd, and they began chatting about interesting things happening around the world, striking up conversations with Lu Yuanming one after another.

They were all sharp people. None of them put on an official airs when speaking to Lu Yuanming. They were all old enough to be his father, yet they kept the conversation lively, without fawning on him or acting like superior officials. They knew just how to strike the right tone. Even though Lu Yuanming was wary of them, he couldn't help chatting with them about a few proper things.

Meanwhile, Elder Wang also talked with Lu Yuanming, sometimes asking about his family and sometimes about ordinary people's livelihoods: food, transportation, housing. Lu Yuanming liked Elder Wang far more than he did the other officials. He answered everything, though he had little experience of the wider world, so he could only talk about his own life.

They talked for about twenty minutes. Then Lu Yuanming fell silent for a moment and asked Elder Wang, "Grandpa Wang, I want to know her name."

Elder Wang took another sip of tea. "She never gave her name, even at the end of the battle. I assume that was her wish. Do you still want to know?"

Lu Yuanming nodded earnestly. "She may have thought I'd hold what happened before against her, but I still want to know her name."

Elder Wang sighed. "Then let me tell you about her family... Her father died in action near the end of the Y Counterattack War. I think it was 1988. He was hit by a stray bullet. She wasn't even a year old at the time. Her mother... was a senior nuclear physics expert, working on a very important project. She spent years in the Gobi Desert, making major contributions to our country's military development. She died of cancer in 1996..."

"She grew up in a military compound and studied extremely hard. Even as a child, she told us she wanted to carry on her parents' legacy. She wanted to protect the country her parents had given their lives for... Because of her circumstances, she'd never worked at the grassroots level. That's why she could be so forceful, both in how she spoke and how she handled things. Xiao Lu, forgive her."

By then, tears were streaming down Lu Yuanming's face. He lowered his head. "I forgave her a long time ago. Back in the first domain, when she was the first to charge at the ghosts alongside me, I forgave her... What was her name?"

"...Nameless."

Elder Wang sighed. "Like so many of our fallen heroes, that was her final wish. Nameless—and yet it could be any name. Xiao Lu, if you truly want to know her name, you can look through her file whenever you like. Or you can remember what she did, rather than just a name. Remember her whenever you see the red flag rise, whenever you see the People's Monument, whenever you see the countless people who look to us as their backbone, their support... I think that would be enough."

Lu Yuanming clenched his teeth and wept silently, his tears falling without restraint.

Just then, someone knocked on the door of the private room. Before anyone else could open it, the One Spike One Star Officer came in. He first nodded to Elder Wang, then said to Lu Yuanming, "Mr. Lu, everything's ready. Shall we begin now?"

Lu Yuanming wiped his face carelessly, then stood up. "All right. Let's go."

After taking a few steps, Lu Yuanming suddenly turned to Elder Wang. "Grandpa Wang, she, and all the others... They're already the light in my heart. Don't worry. I won't lose heart. I..."

"I'll light the way for everyone."