The Kid Next Door

Stepping out of the subway station and walking east for about ten minutes brought me to my aunt's house.

"...Are you really going to leave Earth? You're the only seedling left in your family! If you were my son, I'd definitely scold you to death!"

As expected, my aunt was teary-eyed and deeply reluctant, saying a whole lot of things to try and make me stay.

Facing these relatives who cared about me, Zhang Yuan smiled awkwardly, not knowing what to say. He shifted his gaze toward the window.

My aunt's home was on the 192nd floor; looking out, one could see scenery from very, very far away.

Donghua City was well-planned. The outermost ring consisted of agricultural and industrial zones, while the city center was in the middle. The skyscrapers were spaced far apart to ensure every household could get sunlight.

"It's already been planned. Going back on it now would make me a deserter, and I'd face very severe punishment. This was also my dad's wish; if he were still alive, he would definitely support me..."

Recalling the countless days and nights of hard work, how could I possibly give up now?

"You're not coming back?"

"Yeah, I'm not coming back..."

My aunt's eyes were red, and she opened her mouth, unable to speak.

To hide her sadness, she hurried into the kitchen to cook, wiping her eyes with her sleeves from time to time.

My uncle, on the other hand, was cracking melon seeds while watching TV, sitting on the sofa with his legs crossed.

He said quite open-mindedly, "A good man has his ambitions in the four corners of the world. Going to space is a good thing; it's not like you're dying. I don't know what your aunt is so sad about!"

"Look at this news. If I weren't so old and lacking the necessary knowledge, I'd want to sign up too!"

The sound from the TV was loud. The screen was playing a documentary about the Earth Era starship, with grand slogans like "Witnessing History," "Restarting a New Civilization," and "Humanity's First" making my uncle feel stirred up, wishing he could also head out to roam the stars.

"Sigh, I'm just too old. If only I were as young as you."

Half an hour later, the meal was ready. The atmosphere at the dining table was a bit silent. My aunt kept urging Zhang Yuan to eat more, saying strange things like "You need to be full to start your journey" and "Once you're in space, you won't be able to eat chicken, duck, or fish anymore."

To reduce his relatives' worries, Zhang Yuan took the initiative to talk about his future plans.

"...On the ship, besides some daily maintenance work, there is a lot of personal time. So, I plan to learn a bit more before hibernation. Ideally, I'd like to complete my master's and doctoral courses before reaching the destination..."

"Are there teachers on the ship, too?"

"Of course there are. There are five hundred thousand people on board! The vast majority have specialized skills and higher qualifications than I do."

"And there are many big shots, such as university professors, senior engineers from corporations, and so on. These experts are all very impressive... there are even people at the academician level!"

My uncle nodded and sighed, "That's a great idea. A person really needs to keep learning as long as they live. Ye Qingqing, did you hear that? Without learning, there's no way to stand firm in this society. Whatever you do, you need knowledge! It's not the old era anymore..."

The girl sitting next to Zhang Yuan, my aunt's daughter Ye Qingqing, was suddenly being lectured and couldn't help but curl her lip.

Although Zhang Yuan wasn't some top-tier genius, he was a classic example of someone who worked hard and was considered a "good student" in the eyes of our relatives. Ye Qingqing naturally wasn't happy about always being compared to the "good kid."

She whispered, in a voice only she could hear, "I don't need trigonometry to sell vegetables..."

Ye Qingqing didn't actually dare to retort loudly, fearing her father would hear and scold her again.

As the era had evolved, the anti-intellectual rhetoric of "learning is useless" had long been abandoned by the masses.

To put it simply, the average income of staff in major space cities and lunar bases was about six hundred thousand.

Meanwhile, the average income in the Xia Kingdom was about sixty thousand.

The average income between the two differed by a factor of ten!

The Xia Kingdom was already a very wealthy country on Earth.

If you don't learn, well, sorry, you can't get into space and will "most likely" be a low-income earner.

In short, in the eyes of ordinary people, working in a space city or a lunar base was a very respectable thing.

"By the way, when will you enter hibernation? Doesn't the TV say that the vast majority of the voyage will be spent in hibernation, and a person's average waking time won't exceed ten years..."

Zhang Yuan thought for a moment and said, "That... depends on individual ability. If your ability is outstanding, you can apply to enter hibernation later. Ordinary people will likely enter hibernation after the Jupiter resupply. You sleep for hundreds of years, wake up for a few, and then enter hibernation again. Everyone takes turns working, and that's how we'll survive this difficult time."

"It will take three thousand years to reach the destination."

"Three thousand years."

My aunt's eyes turned red again. By that time, they would have long since passed away, with not even their bones left.

Who knew what would happen in the future? No one would ever think about things three thousand years from now.

My uncle also sighed, "Alright, let's eat. Let's eat first."

Zhang Yuan felt a surge of emotion in his heart.

Every astronaut had to face this kind of choice. They needed to abandon their mother planet, abandon everything, abandon every single thing here...

Time is fleeting, and the past is hard to find. The five hundred thousand of them would become witnesses to Earth's history, seeing with their own eyes the course of Earth over the next three thousand years.

It sounded cool, but in reality, it was a profound cruelty.

They would be abandoned by the entire era.

Perhaps some would question why there were such five hundred thousand people.

It sounds strange, truly very strange.

Because... the morning mushroom knows not the end of the day, and the cicada knows not the cycle of the seasons.

Without stepping beyond Earth, one will never know just how vast the starry sky truly is.

Observing Earth from a cosmic scale, one discovers that the home of humanity is truly too small, so small it is heart-wrenching, as if it could be extinguished in the snap of a finger.

Much like the deafening cry issued a hundred years ago by Professor Qi Yuanshan, the father of nuclear fusion and founder of the Deep Space Foundation: Aerospace has nothing to do with profit!

The atmosphere grew increasingly silent, leaving only the sound of chopsticks picking up food, until the uncle suddenly said, "Uh, Ye Qingqing will be taking the college entrance exam next year. Are there any good majors you can recommend? The kind with good job prospects."

The university Zhang Yuan was admitted to was Z University, basically the best school an ordinary person could get into through hard work. Coupled with his internship at the space city, he knew the specific situation up there.

Ye Qingqing looked up; she was already in her second year of high school, with a lively personality and little love for studying. Knowing her own worth from her usual grades, she didn't harbor any delusions about getting into a top-tier university.

In her mind, not studying was the ultimate liberation; as long as she wasn't studying, life was easy and happy.

Even if she ended up selling vegetables at the market, it would still be better than studying.

Zhang Yuan thought for a moment: "It depends on her interests when choosing a major."

The aunt said with a bit of embarrassment: "She doesn't really have any particular hobbies..."

This kind of thing is normal; the vast majority of people in their second year of high school have no idea what they should do in the future, nor do they have a complete life plan.

They just study obediently because teachers and parents tell them to, only rushing to spend a few days planning their lives when it comes time to fill out their applications.