The Last 30 Days

The Last 30 Days

July, Xia Kingdom, Donghua City.

The sun blazed overhead. Not a breath of wind stirred, and sweat streamed down their faces.

Two young men were discussing something at the foot of a mountain.

"We're already here. We might as well climb up and take a look."

The other hurriedly refused. "It's too exhausting! If it weren't for that damn task, I'd rather stay home with the air conditioning on!"

"Then... I'll go up by myself!"

Sunlight filtered through the dense canopy, scattering copper-coin-sized patches of light across the ground.

The earth beneath his feet was real, solid soil, thick and reassuring. He could jump around all he liked without worrying about making the mountain collapse. The oxygen filling his lungs was a natural product of photosynthesis.

"Home planet really is the best!"

Zhang Yuan reached the mountaintop right at six in the evening.

Panting, he sat down on a rock and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Few people would be crazy enough to climb a mountain just to watch the sunset, especially in the hottest season of the year.

The sun sank slowly. The clouds on the horizon glowed red, and a few birds flew past, chirping as they went, free and carefree.

These were beautiful sights no one could find in space.

"Only... thirty days left?"

Zhang Yuan sighed and opened the memo app on his phone, checking off "Witness a sunset with my own eyes."

The words "Completed" appeared on the screen.

Zhang Yuan couldn't quite tell whether he was on vacation or carrying out an assignment from his superiors.

The strange memo listed all sorts of little things, such as "Eat a fancy meal," "Climb a mountain," "Get caught in a light rain," "Witness a sunset," and "Run a marathon."

It was a hodgepodge of just about everything.

The medical AI Green Elf had gathered personal data and created a customized memo for each person.

As one expert had put it, "Let them leave without any regrets. That can reduce the chances of psychological problems arising along the way!"

Fine. In plain English:

Zhang Yuan had no serious illnesses or suicidal tendencies, and he certainly wasn't "a guy who owes a hundred million and wants to run off with his sister-in-law."

"Leaving" meant leaving Earth and the solar system aboard the Earth Era, bound for the planet Gliese 581g, 20.3 light-years away, to take part in interstellar colonization!

20.3 light-years!

Anyone with even a little knowledge of space knew that was a truly astronomical distance.

The journey ahead was long. The ship would travel at seven-thousandths the speed of light, and the entire voyage would take... about 3,000 years!

Humanity had been preparing for this deep-space colonization mission for a very, very long time. The starship Earth Era, along with 500,000 carefully selected volunteers from all walks of life, would be responsible for restarting civilization on Gliese 581g.

That said, no matter how thoroughly they prepared, a three-thousand-year interstellar journey was an expedition unlike anything humanity had ever attempted. No one could guarantee they would succeed.

So, out of humanitarian concern, almost all the volunteers were given a long vacation after completing their spaceflight training, so they could experience their last days on Earth...

For all these reasons, Zhang Yuan was enjoying his final month of vacation.

"Three thousand years. What will Earth's civilization be like by then?"

"It'll definitely be incredibly advanced..."

"Maybe the spaceships people build in the future will even catch up with our first colonization ship!"

Zhang Yuan took a deep breath, imagining humanity's bright future. The thought that they were about to become pioneers in history filled him with ambition.

The sun slowly sank below the horizon...

Just as he had started down the mountain, a tall young man with wheat-colored skin came hurrying over, wiping sweat from his face.

His name was Li Zhendong. Like Zhang Yuan, he was one of the astronauts about to leave the solar system.

Li Zhendong couldn't handle the heat as well as Zhang Yuan. Even though he hadn't climbed the mountain, he was drenched in sweat, as if he'd just been hauled out of a pool.

Fanning his face with his hand, he complained, "I told you we could see the sunset from the foot of the mountain. You just had to climb all the way up. What the hell is this memo for, anyway? Can't we skip it? We finally get a vacation, and they still make us do this stuff. Isn't watching a sunset something old people do?"

Zhang Yuan was sweltering too. He shook his head. "All right, all right. We should do what we can. Things that seem annoying and troublesome now might become good memories someday."

He looked toward the horizon, streaked with fiery clouds. "...After all, unless we're reincarnated, it doesn't seem like there's any other way for us to return to the solar system. This is a one-way ticket. There's no going back."

He paused to catch his breath. "All right, that one's done. Let's see what's next on the memo..."

He tapped the screen. The next item read...

"Find a girl you like and become a real man!"

What?

Zhang Yuan's heart skipped a beat. He cursed the AI that had made the memo, thinking it had a screw loose!

What kind of psychological counseling was that? He had only a month left of vacation. How was he supposed to start dating?

Below it, Green Elf had added a line explaining why it had included the item: "Women are men's best teachers and the pillars of their inner lives. Deep-space travel is lonely and isolating. Mr. Zhang Yuan, given that you have yet to..."

He didn't have time to read the rest. He hurriedly tapped the screen again, trying to move on to the next item.

But Li Zhendong had sharp eyes. He caught the words on Zhang Yuan's phone and stared as if he'd discovered a whole new world.

"Wahaha! Zhang Yuan, you're still a virgin? You've never dated anyone?"

"How embarrassing! How embarrassing!"

His delighted laughter made passersby turn and look.

Green Elf was a medical AI that had been in development for over fifty years. It had served billions of people and boasted exceptional analytical accuracy, with an approval rating of 61.69%.

Well, for a demanding medical system, that approval rating wasn't actually bad.

If Zhang Yuan's memo said "become a real man," then he was obviously still a virgin. No doubt about it!

"Shut up! Just shut up!" Zhang Yuan's face burned, and he felt mortified.

Many college students had dated so often that they couldn't count their relationships on both hands.

Someone like Zhang Yuan, who was already twenty-three and still hadn't had sex, could easily be thought to have a whole host of physical problems that were hard to put into words.

"I've dated n times already, okay?" Li Zhendong boasted, laughing.

He held up his fingers one by one in front of Zhang Yuan, proudly displaying the number of women he'd picked up.

Seeing the look on Li Zhendong's face—"you're not good enough"—Zhang Yuan reluctantly retorted, "What are you talking about? I dated someone in high school too!"

He pulled up an old, old photo on his phone. "Look. Take a look. This was my girlfriend in high school. Isn't she soft and cute?"

Li Zhendong looked. Sure enough, it was a photo of Zhang Yuan with a girl, the two of them nestled close together and smiling happily at the camera.

"She's pretty cute... She isn't your biological sister, is she?"

Zhang Yuan gave him an exasperated look. "Come on, where would I get a biological sister?"

"And then?"

"...We broke up after graduation. There were all sorts of reasons."

"How dull."

Li Zhendong seemed to think of something. "If you really have some hard-to-describe condition, you'd better get treatment soon. Once we're on the ship, we'll only have a few lousy AI doctors. There won't be a bunch of infertility specialists around!"

"Get lost. I'm perfectly fine!" Zhang Yuan kicked at him, but Li Zhendong nimbly dodged.

"I've got things to do. See you."

Zhang Yuan hurried over to an electric car and climbed in.

The car's left turn signal flashed once, and it slowly pulled away.

"Bye!"

Watching the white car drive off, Li Zhendong let out a long breath.

He licked his lips, narrowed his eyes, and glanced from side to side like a thief.

Carefully, he opened his own memo.

His whole body jolted!

The memo displayed the same big words: "Find a girl you like and become a real man!"

Li Zhendong muttered, "Damn, this AI's a real idiot..."

(A new book, a fresh start. After n months of preparation, I've finally more or less finished the outline. The beginning may feel a bit like an academic-success story, but this is really a story about the stars.)

(If you have any votes, please cast one. Thank you, everyone!)

(Anyone investing in the new book? Surely I can at least get past the signing stage...)