Chapter Forty-One: First Encounter with History

The energy core factory within the inner city, with its distinctive and iconic architecture, could be seen from any corner of the capital—just lift your head and it would catch your eye. People habitually called it the Great Javelin, though it had a more formal name, which Ye Chen vaguely remembered as the Collector’s Needle.

As for how it was built, no one really knew. Some old folks from the outer city had spoken of it, albeit hazily. But even they had only heard it passed down by word of mouth from their grandfather’s grandfather. According to the tales, the Collector’s Needle was constructed alongside the inner city itself.

When Ye Chen and Ye Shanshan had first moved from the farm outside the city to seek a living within its walls, they too had been captivated at first sight by the towering, mysterious Great Javelin. So tall, so grand, so enigmatic, so dazzling. Yet, in the next instant, the rumbling in their stomachs dragged them back to reality. Reality, after all, was always painfully lean—lean enough that your chest pressed against your back.

Ye Chen had once taken an interest in human history, but he had nowhere to study it. Like most people in the outer city, the struggle to survive consumed almost all of their energy. Who had time to learn history? The outer city didn’t even have a proper school. Of course, the inner city did. As for the various workshops in the outer city where masters took on apprentices, those didn’t count—they were about teaching survival skills.

Ye Chen himself had once learned by secretly observing the old hunters. If you, in your youthful exuberance, deliberately spent time studying the past, people would laugh at you and call you a fool. With that free time, you’d do better to hope for a good harvest tomorrow—maybe then you’d eat better, dress warmer. And if you were stubborn about it, the people around you would almost relish watching you starve in your room, only to seize whatever you left behind.

He remembered once, the three of them were sitting in a small tavern, drinking and chatting. Out of curiosity, Ye Chen asked, “Old Jin, did you ever go to school?”

Old Jin nodded.

Ye Chen pressed on, “Did you study history?”

Old Jin laughed and cursed, “Study history? What history? All they ever taught was how glorious and great the first few city lords of the inner city were. If you think it’s history to know how many wives they took or how many children they had, I’d rather grab a stool and sit in the marketplace listening to the vendors gossip about who’s cheating on whom. That would be far more entertaining.”

Ye Chen had been taken aback—what on earth were they teaching in the inner city? Wasn’t that just brainwashing? From then on, Ye Chen lost interest in the origins of the Great Javelin, or even the city itself.

But Jin Yinghui sighed softly, “See? I mention it just once and you lose all interest. Most people react just like you. Sigh… That’s actually a sign of civilization’s collapse. Without history as a mirror, people don’t know if they’ll make the same mistakes again. Pity that they don’t even understand the essence of history. Or maybe, they simply don’t care.”

Still, for all his complaints, Jin Yinghui eventually rummaged through his belongings at home and found the history textbook he’d once used, handing it to Ye Chen to read. Jin explained, “No matter what the truth is, there’s one bit of history that everyone who’s been to school knows. Humanity was almost wiped out by a plague that swept across the continent—incurable, unstoppable. Only after the plague did the survivors gather in small groups and eke out an existence.”

Ye Chen opened the textbook to the first page and found the account:

Hundreds of years ago, wildfires raged on the horizon, plague ravaged the land, beasts grew frenzied, and people even turned on one another. Once harmonious human cities, battered by both natural disasters and man-made calamities, teetered on the brink of collapse. This chaos escalated into inexplicable and horrific wars among allied nations. The once mighty weapons of humanity became the greatest accomplices in slaughter. Though no one used them to destroy the earth itself, they shattered countless lives.

In the wake of this disaster, the first city lords of each capital emerged, bringing “hope” to humanity. These figures gathered the scattered survivors, provided them with shelter from the elements, gave them work, and offered just enough food to sustain them. Utilizing their abilities, they collected what remained of humanity’s technology and taught it to the people, preventing civilization from regressing completely. At the same time, they introduced a more advanced method of energy extraction—what everyone now used: energy cores.

From that point on, energy cores slowly changed people’s way of life, and new city-states began to emerge. The beginning of the account struck Ye Chen as abrupt, but also strangely natural.

Beneath the opening passage, Ye Chen noticed a note written by Jin Yinghui during his student days:

Even though the inner city hoards the vast majority of resources, even though the class gap is immense, even though they wield their power to exploit endlessly, for those barely clinging to life, mere permission to survive is a kind of mercy. A deeply ingrained sense of servitude and class consciousness took root in the earliest generation and has been passed down ever since. So now, people always look up to the inner city with distant admiration.

After reading the note, Ye Chen slowly raised his head and looked at Jin Yinghui, whose temples were dusted with white. The man just smoked in silence, his eyes cold as he stared out the window toward the inner city. But when Ye Chen asked him what else he had learned, Jin Yinghui fell silent again.

Once, Zhou Peng confided to Ye Chen that Jin Yinghui never spoke of his life before coming to the outer city—not even he knew the details. But Jin was apparently good with numbers; every month it was Old Jin who straightened out the chaos of Zhou Peng’s shop accounts, his only payment a free round of drinks.

Just then, Zhou Peng came back from fetching wine and called out to Ye Chen, “What are you doing, contemplating the meaning of life?”

Ye Chen smacked himself on the forehead. “Damn it, how could I let my mind wander while drinking?”

Late that night, another convoy rumbled grandly into the city. The massive tires of the trucks crushed the snow on the road, their headlights shining so brightly that the snow reflected white light. The roar of engines echoed down the street as the convoy swept past. Only the lead SUV bore the emblem of the City of Energy; the five trucks that followed had the marks of other capitals—plain, ordinary freight vehicles, every one.