Brothers

From the Main World's perspective, this was an Adjacent Plane zone designated by the Transmigration Department.

It was still Earth's history, corresponding to the year 1963.

Earth had already conducted preliminary exploration of this plane, and both Asia and the West in the Main World had deployed exploration forces here. However, conditions in this plane were relatively stable. The risk of conflict on its current Timeline was low for the next twenty years. Major clashes between the East and West's time-space forces would take place on other nearby Timelines.

So, according to the Tian Ji's Horse Racing strategy set by Main World headquarters, the capable personnel here were to be temporarily withdrawn.

Current location: the observation hall on the island of an Arctic research vessel, beneath the waves of the Arctic Ocean.

A man who looked a lot like Wei Keng, but was clearly far more capable, was reading a transfer order transmitted from the Main World. He frowned.

The report said just one thing from beginning to end: end his work here, stay on this Timeline for no more than ten months, and reach another plane.

Wei Qiang asked the monitor from his system, "My mission's stability rating is Grade B. Why are they changing my assignment?"

The monitoring team member, Zhang Qin, replied, "It's military intelligence. We're not authorized to investigate. But your replacement has already been nominated. Want to guess who it is?"

Wei Qiang rested his forehead in his hand and shook his head. "No need. I know. Sigh... Our family's really in a sorry state. He's coming here? The waters here run deep. Can someone with his personality handle it?"

Wei Keng and Wei Qiang were obviously brothers. Of their names, Keng came before Qiang, making Wei Keng the older brother—though he was only five minutes older.

Wei Qiang had completed his master's degree at fifteen, then spent a year studying the high-energy physics of his chosen Target Plane. By the time Wei Keng was still killing time at university, Wei Qiang had already arrived in the Different Plane region their father had once worked in, and had spent fifteen years there.

Time flowed faster in Adjacent Planes than in the Main World. As Wei Qiang grew older, he found his older brother's behavior increasingly exasperating.

He didn't think his brother was stupid. Growing up, Wei Keng had shown above-average intelligence in many things. But when it came to competing with others, his personality always made him seem mediocre.

Wei Qiang thought, He's never even competed with me to be the older brother. When he found out as a kid that he was the older one, he was furious. After that, he never called me his little brother again. He always called me Ah Qiang.

From elementary school through middle school, Wei Qiang had ranked near the top in every year's exams.

What about Wei Keng? From the start of each school year, he'd slack off, then slack off some more. His grades kept falling until he was steadily drifting toward the middle of the pack. Was it because he lacked ability?

No.

Every winter and summer break, when it was just the two of them, Wei Qiang noticed that whenever he set himself a daily study goal, his older brother did the same.

Wei Keng's progress kept catching up with his. Whether it was memorization or arithmetic, he could reach Wei Qiang's level within a month or two. Then the school year would begin, and after doing well on the first few tests, he'd fade back into the crowd within another month or two.

What Wei Qiang remembered most was one of Wei Keng's favorite sayings: "Isn't being like this perfectly normal and ordinary?" From childhood on, Wei Keng had never thought there was anything wrong with being mediocre.

"Alert, alert—

Biological target detected at 73.715046° north, 64.955931° east."

The alarm aboard the ship and the flashing icon in the upper-left corner of the control interface pulled Wei Qiang from his memories.

He turned serious and put on his helmet. The visor projected footage from a drone over the distant sea directly onto his retina.

Between the white ice floes and the churning waves,

a gigantic sea monster—a squid—waved its sixty-meter-long tentacles as it attacked an iceberg. A mechanical device fastened to one tentacle emitted infrasound waves whose frequency was gradually approaching the iceberg's resonant frequency.

The deep-blue iceberg began turning white as cracks spread inside it. Then it started to crumble, flaking away.

Representing his faction's interests in this plane, Wei Qiang confirmed that their northern neighbor was conducting biological military experiments in the Arctic Ocean.

He began recording and filing the information as a matter of routine.

Most organisms on Earth couldn't cope with enormous growth because of their nervous systems. But with the right support frame implanted, hollow air sacs added inside the body, and a chip, artificial circuits, electrical muscle stimulation, and a nutrient-injection mechanism, it was possible to create a gigantic sea monster like this.

But this sea monster's technology shouldn't have existed here. It was the product of another Timeline in this plane. Its presence was the result of changes made by other Transmigrator factions.

The iceberg was halfway destroyed when the enormous octopus, oxygen tubes embedded in its belly, seemed to notice that the research vessel to the south was monitoring it. It stopped the experiment and plunged back into the deep sea.

What the sea monster's controllers didn't know was that a fish carrying electronic equipment had been attached to its head. It was secretly transmitting sonar signals.

Aboard the research vessel, Wei Qiang reclined in his chair and watched a red dot on the electronic map on the main screen drift toward the coastline.

The sea monster's biological base seemed to be located—well, alongside their northern neighbor's nuclear submarine base.

On this beautiful day in the Main World, a tiltrotor aircraft landed at the school. The military had come to select National Defense Students ahead of schedule, and a number of high-ranking officers had arrived. Many people went to watch, leaving some areas quite empty.

Wei Keng was fishing for a cat—the same one that had stolen his sweet fish cake a few days ago. Now the animal watched the grilled skewer in his hand warily, yet couldn't bring itself to leave. Wei Keng had eaten most of the meat, leaving a tiny piece at the tip of the bamboo skewer, tied on tightly with cotton thread.

The cat edged closer, then suddenly opened its mouth and bit down, trying to retreat with the meat. But the grilled meat was tied on too tightly, and it couldn't pull it free.

"Come on, Mimi. Be good."

Like a wicked uncle, Wei Keng kept dangling the skewer. He blew gently, sending its savory aroma toward the cat.

The White Cat meowed.

Wei Keng meowed back.

Wei Keng's gaze grew more and more focused as he calculated the distance between himself, his hand, and the cat. If it came just a little closer, he'd have a better chance of grabbing it by the scruff of its neck.

With a clatter, the manhole cover over a storm drain wobbled. The cat bolted in fright, and Wei Keng realized that a group of people had come up behind him.

His cat-fishing expedition had been cut short, and Wei Keng couldn't help feeling a little annoyed.

He was tempted to jump up in anger. A little, yes—but he couldn't.

There were four people in all, including a professor from his department and some formally dressed person whose department he couldn't identify.

He was a little surprised when he realized they'd come to see him.

"Enlist? Isn't Plane Travel voluntary?" Wei Keng asked, trying to get out of it.

"Two days ago, a new law changed it to a system of compulsory military service. You're a student funded by a state loan, so you meet the requirements," explained a representative of the Space-Time Shuttle Human Resources Development Committee, patiently.

Then one of the school staff tried to persuade him. "One person enlists, and the whole family brings honor." It sounded encouraging, but why did it come across as pressure?

Wei Keng couldn't help replying, "If I enlist, then the whole family will be enlisting." Before he knew it, he'd jinxed himself. "Why do I have a feeling the whole family will die for the country?"

The people from the Time-Space Department had Wei Keng's file. Otherwise, he wouldn't have passed the review.

When they heard Wei Keng say that, one of them told him in a very solemn tone, "Student, the organization knows your family's circumstances. But the country needs you now. After careful deliberation, we've come up with a plan. If either you or your younger brother encounters danger in the Sub-dimension, we'll do whatever it takes to ensure that one of you gets off the front line."

With the organization making that promise, Wei Keng had no choice but to go with them. Along with the other National Defense Students called up, he pinned on the bright red flower given to new recruits for good luck. After completing the paperwork to suspend his studies, he lined up to board the tiltrotor aircraft.

At the staff's direction, a number of upperclasswomen and underclasswomen brought cups of water to the students, pinned flowers to their lapels, and finally slipped an egg into each person's pocket.

This farewell ritual supposedly dated back to the 21st Century, and it made Wei Keng strangely sentimental. Of course, it would have been even more authentic if they'd worn floral headscarves.

Sitting inside the aircraft, Wei Keng saw the White Cat perched on a tree branch outside, watching him as though it were seeing him off. The cat licked its paw, then held it out and waved. Wei Keng gaped at the animal's "farewell" gesture, dumbfounded.

Most of the students called up this time had excellent grades. Wei Keng, however, had been selected as a special case.

There was a reason for that.

In the 27th Century, Plane Exploration was still in its early stages. Exploring each plane meant dispatching people to various Timelines, and after they returned, permanent nodes had to be maintained.

These permanent nodes took many different forms because the physical rules varied from plane to plane.

However, in some planes, the permanent nodes were often locked to the genes of the previous explorer. This had led to actual inheritance in the transmigration profession.

So, in terms of family background, Wei Keng was second-generation on Earth.

[Wei Keng's father and the other Transmigrators of his generation hadn't known this would happen. As the first batch, they had inadvertently left behind things that could be inherited.]

Now that the organization wanted to send a replacement to the Sub-dimension where his father had transmigrated, Wei Keng and Wei Qiang were the best candidates. Sending other Transmigrators would mean interrupting their progress and forcing them to start all over again.

The plane where Wei Qiang was preparing to end his mission already had the foundation their parents had laid when they'd sent the two brothers there to serve.

Wei Keng's father had transmigrated there in 1937. His first fortune had come from exporting chips, specialty steel, engines, and electronic control systems across planes. The capital he accumulated there allowed him to organize manufacturing and research. By the time he left that plane, he was the founder of a large trading company.

During the early stages of Plane Exploration, explorers often needed to build up capital quickly to get their missions underway. As a result, many of their methods couldn't be called righteous. Capital had to expand, and that meant getting involved in wars.

As a state-backed Plane Exploration operation, making compromises to establish a foothold was a normal part of transmigration.

Four hours later, Wei Keng was assigned to his training base.

The bright red flower on his chest had been swept away by the gusting wind as he stepped off the aircraft. He had no idea where it had ended up.

After reaching the assembly point, he received a cross-plane call from his younger brother.

Cross-plane calls required specialized facilities, and the training base was near the Gravity Well Mouth facility in Pu Hai.

Wei Keng found his destination, climbed into a hibernation pod, and connected his neural system. The chip controlled his dream state as he linked up with the Phase Particles at the Gravity Well.

[The two planes had different rates of time, so to complete the call, Wei Keng had to enter hibernation, block out his body's sensations, and synchronize with the other side.]

When he opened his eyes in the dream, he found himself in a ship's cabin. Before he could look around, Wei Qiang, seated in the captain's room with a Jingdezhen ceramic tea set in hand, spoke up.

Wei Qiang said, "My dear older brother, I read the evaluation your school gave you. 'This student is helpful and thrifty.' Tsk, such a by-the-book evaluation. I guess they had nothing else to say. I don't think you're cut out for studying." His delivery had the rhythm of a comedy routine, as if he expected Wei Keng to play the straight man.

Wei Keng said, "You're the one who signed me up, aren't you? It was you, right? It had to be!"

The three questions came out with all the resentment of Ma Chao attacking Cao Thief, though the resentment was just a thin layer of oil floating on water.

As they spoke, Wei Keng also confirmed that he was a life-size projection in front of Wei Qiang. He couldn't pick up a teacup and drink with him.

Wei Qiang continued, playfully, "Big brother, traveling between planes is great. You can get drunk with beauties on your lap and wake with the world in your hands. Once you've tasted it, you definitely won't want to leave."

"What beauties on my lap? What world in my hands? I heard there was some sort of conflict in the space-time situation and you're short on people, right?"

Wei Qiang smiled and didn't answer.

"Take care. Be cautious."

"You too."

There was no need for brothers to get sentimental. They only had to understand each other.

Wei Qiang still had things to take care of. He walked over to the communications screen and began an intense argument with the company's management about the "Group Heir" issue. Wei Keng had nothing to add, so he logged off.

Wei Keng stared at the blank screen, gazing at the wall as he sat lost in thought for a while.

In this life, Wei Keng had actually made his own plans.

Wei Keng had planned to spend a hundred years living an ordinary life, forgetting the bad things from his previous life. He wanted to forget the self who'd been driven to the edge and had no choice but to respond to the world in kind. Then, with the simple hard work and hope of this life, he would be reborn, cast off his old shackles, and live as himself.

But life often wasn't up to him.