"Professor, the signal strength has dropped."
Mo Zeyang's voice came from beside him. "The connection may have been severed."
Sapling's distinctively childlike messages appeared in the Holographic Projection again.
[I did it!] [They said you're a very powerful advanced civilization, and told me to listen to you and live on without worrying.] [They... they also said to ask you to visit Kurien again. Oh, right, Kurien is the name of our homeworld.] [Homeworld... do you know what homeworld means?]
As he read the lines of text in the projection, Lü Yongchang fell silent.
Recalling the respectful attitude the Lost Giant Tree had displayed earlier, a possibility suddenly occurred to him.
Could it be...
Do they know what happened to their homeworld?
But a new question followed, temporarily pushing aside his speculation about the Lost Giant Tree's current condition.
After some consideration, he carefully typed out a message, word by word.
[Are they like you? Does each individual have an independent consciousness?]
Sapling quickly replied.
[They are who they are. They aren't an independent consciousness.] [But we all have independent consciousnesses.]
That answer completely baffled every Academician present.
Utterly confused, Lü Yongchang asked again.
[Aren't they the same kind of being as you?] [Of course not! They are who they are. Together, we make up who they are!]
Lü Yongchang: "???"
"Zero, are you sure there's nothing wrong with your translation?"
"Professor, I'm certain there are no errors," Zero replied matter-of-factly.
Lü Yongchang sighed helplessly and turned toward the bewildered Academicians of the Academy of Sciences around him. "Looks like we'll have to visit Lost Star again."
As he stared at the "chat history" in the Holographic Projection, a theory slowly took shape in his mind.
The fleet once again reached the