A Planet's Fate

There were no negotiations, no unnecessary shouting, and no storming the building.

That crisis response team's combat methods were simple.

Once the drones were up and the large-caliber rounds started firing, it didn't matter what kind of monsters you were—one shot, and you exploded on the spot.

Lin Xu instinctively touched his head.

Getting hit by a large-caliber bullet felt completely different from when he had swallowed a gun to kill himself.

Neither had hurt much, but the sensation of his head exploding was, to some extent... novel.

As he savored the memory, he opened his computer and quickly added two new entries to the "Clues" document.

[M46X, the industrial production method for PEEK-RTM material came from the Planetary Reincarnation organization.]

[The industrial production method emerged sometime between 2025 and 2030.]

The first piece of information had been confirmed by the hostages. Lin Xu had not had time to ask about the second; it was merely his own deduction.

Still, the upper limit of 2030 was certain, because the Star Traveler One project had taken seven years and been completed in 2032.

No matter how one looked at it, the final two years should already have been the stage of finalized design and actual production.

Working backward, the patent application should have been around 2028?

Three years...

Research and development took time too.

Did that mean the Planetary Reincarnation organization had actually existed long ago??

Right now! At this very point in time!

Lin Xu opened his browser, clicked into the search bar, and rapidly typed four words.

Planetary Reincarnation.

The first result was the orbital period of a planet. The second was some mystical nonsense published by a clickbait account.

After looking through them all, he found no useful information whatsoever.

After pondering for a moment, he added the words "doomsday" after "Planetary Reincarnation."

Good lord, this time it took him straight to a webnovel page.

There was still not a single useful piece of information.

What was going on?

Theoretically, in this highly developed information age, any organization—no matter how secretive or closed-off—would leave some trace online, one way or another.

Unless that organization did not communicate with the outside world at all.

Or perhaps they were originally... a secondary organization within an existing circle?

Like the offline cliques within certain "arts and culture work-sharing groups."

They did not need to recruit new blood through external outreach, and their internal communication relied on relatively closed social media platforms.

In that case, it truly would be impossible to find traces of their existence on the internet.

The only way to learn about them was to join them.

But how to join them was an unsolvable problem.

He could only wait for them to come to him.

Whatever!

He would copy down the technology first!

Lin Xu closed the clues file, opened a new document, and began recording the industrial production process he had memorized.

This was not simple. An industrial production process involved extremely complex equipment and raw materials, while the environmental and reaction-condition data that had to be maintained during the process were accurate to several decimal places.

Lin Xu could only write down the general process from memory first. As for the more specific data, he planned to enter Bracelet World several more times and transfer it out bit by bit.

After more than half an hour, he finally managed to record most of the process.

Yet at a glance, he realized he was unfamiliar with the names of most of the equipment.

Melt injection machines, miniature precision compounding extrusion systems, integrated vacuum vulcanization machines...

Lin Xu was not even sure whether he had written the equipment names correctly.

He could only transfer and verify them little by little.

—Even so, judging from the information he had already obtained, these two industrial production processes were already extremely mature.

Mature enough that, as long as the documents were complete, they could be put to use immediately.

He could not help marveling at the power of the Planetary Reincarnation organization.

Industrial manufacturing processes were nothing like the small-scale production possible in a workshop laboratory.

To use an extreme example, in the field of materials, you might somehow produce a high-temperature-resistant material with incredible performance and incredibly low cost while firing a muffle furnace. You might even be able to reproduce it repeatedly in that same laboratory, manufacturing the same material over and over.

But once large-scale production was required, it was no small matter.

Most of the time, the industrial production of new materials required the support of national-level forces.

Did Planetary Reincarnation possess such power?

Wait.

Could this be an official organization??

Lin Xu could not help shuddering.

He gave the completed document one final check, then stared blankly at the computer screen.

He would be able to copy out the technology sooner or later.

But the mysteries of "doomsday" and "Planetary Reincarnation" would not be so easily solved.

At that moment, a risky idea formed in his mind.

—Since it had already been confirmed that Jiang Xingye was a core member of the Planetary Reincarnation organization, and since Planetary Reincarnation might already exist now, was it possible that she was already in that organization?

Should he ask her?

Lin Xu picked up his phone, unlocked it, and opened WeChat, but hesitated again.

If he really asked her, how should he bring it up?

Should he just open with, "Hey, do you know about the Planetary Reincarnation organization? Are you one of its members?"

Like that?

Even if she was, she would not admit it, would she?

He needed to probe indirectly.

But what excuse could he use?

Last time, he had been able to muddle through with the excuse of "being confessed to." He could not use that again, could he?

Just as he was agonizing over it, a red dot suddenly appeared on Jiang Xingye's chat window.

Holy shit.

I haven't even sent anything, and you messaged me first?

Lin Xu hurriedly opened the chat. He had assumed it would be some work arrangement, but unexpectedly, Jiang Xingye had sent him a news link.

"Scientists predict that an asteroid may bring about the end of the world in 2036? Is that true?"

Lin Xu opened the link and skimmed it. The overpowering stench of clickbait hit him in the face.

"No way, you actually believe this?"

He typed his reply, and Jiang Xingye responded almost immediately.

"Can't I just read it for fun? You really are ridiculously boring."

"A girl takes the initiative to share something with you, and that's your reaction?"

"..."

Lin Xu had no response.

"Wow, so scary! Is doomsday really coming? What should I do? Big sis, protect me!"

"...I fucking told you to give me some response, not pretend to be a sissy!"

Jiang Xingye sent an angry panda bonking-head emoji, then threatened:

"I could punch through three guys like you with one fist!"

"I thought you just enjoyed the thrill of being a female dom."

Lin Xu replied, then seized the opportunity to ask:

"By the way, do you really believe in this doomsday stuff?"

"No."

Jiang Xingye replied:

"I'm just reading it for fun."

"But asteroid impacts aren't really anything special—we've been hit before."

"Didn't people used to say the dinosaurs went extinct because of an asteroid?"

"If we really get hit again this time, humanity could go extinct too, right?"

"But even if humanity went extinct, you couldn't really call it doomsday."

"After all, to Earth, human history is only an instant..."

"You're pretty philosophical about it."

Lin Xu said with a laugh.

"You'll change your mind when an asteroid lands on your head."

"I won't."

Jiang Xingye's chat window kept flashing.

"There are still more than ten years left. By then, Skyvault Technology's space travel ships might already be mature. I'll have taken a spaceship to Mars long ago."

Mars.

Lin Xu frowned slightly.

He was especially sensitive to that word now.

He immediately typed:

"You really plan to go to Mars?"

"If I get the chance, of course I will!"

"A rare experience in life—why miss it?"

Jiang Xingye's answer revealed none of the information Lin Xu wanted. He shook his head, slightly disappointed.

But the next second, another message popped up.

"But now that I think about it, topics like the universe and doomsday really are pretty grand."

"Earth has existed for so long. Could we really be its only intelligent life?"

"The evidence still isn't complete, is it?"

"For all we know, several waves of intelligent life may have already appeared on Earth."

"They just went extinct in doomsday events, like the dinosaurs."

"Fate really is a cycle."

"Not just humanity—even a planet's fate is a cycle..."

Lin Xu's heart suddenly lurched.

Taking a deep breath, he typed:

"Planetary Reincarnation?"