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Chapter 27: Hope
"Despair." The alien mantis stared at Li Xingyuan with its multifaceted compound eyes. "This emotion your species has evolved is truly fascinating."
It adjusted its scythe-like arms, its voice remaining calm. "I have a proposal—I can take you away."
Li Xingyuan was momentarily stunned. "What did you say?"
"You're an interesting individual," the alien mantis flexed its pair of blade-like arms. "So I’m willing to make an exception and collect your brain—your companions’ too, if you wish. You already know everything, so if you prefer, you don’t have to enter the virtual world. We can converse during our journey. I can tell you many things—about beachhead civilizations, the Black Tide, our philosophies and culture. I’ve gleaned much knowledge from the minds of your kind, though not all of it is easily understood. You can explain it to me along the way."
"When we reach a safe place, you could become the new ruler of your race—a king, as you call it. You could lead your people in building a new civilization."
It was an invitation.
An invitation to escape, to leave behind a doomed human civilization and flee into the stars.
King.
Before the apocalypse, Li Xingyuan had been nothing more than an ordinary tabloid journalist. But by accepting the alien mantis’s offer, he could become the ruler of humanity on the far side of the starry sea.
"Haven’t you already despaired?" Seeing Li Xingyuan hesitate, the alien mantis pressed further. "Despair—it’s actually a rational judgment. Rationality is the only thing that sustains us as a beachhead civilization. If you stay on this planet, you will inevitably die. Perhaps you’ll outlive your peers slightly, but that wouldn’t be luck—it would be a cruel misfortune. Come with me, Li Xingyuan. The universe is vast, and life even vaster."
Li Xingyuan’s mind churned. He glanced at Old Liu, then at Lin Song.
"I’m not going," Old Liu said firmly. "I need to return to my unit."
Lin Song seemed hesitant, his brows furrowed. He looked up at the sky, then down at the ground, and finally back at Li Xingyuan. With a resigned smile, he said, "I’m staying too, Mr. Li. If I die in space, my son won’t be able to burn paper offerings for me."
The alien mantis paid no heed to Old Liu and Lin Song’s words. Its target had never been them.
Li Xingyuan gazed at the alien mantis. On its iridescent, liquid-metal-like surface, he saw stars flowing—the Black Tide, the black waves Chen Yancheng had once described to him. They surged forth again from the depths of his mind, stirring violently, swallowing constellations whole, reducing countless civilizations and faces to nothingness. The Great Wall, the Pyramids, the Eiffel Tower—all were drowned beneath the tide.
Despair clutched at his heart like a pitch-black hand, squeezing until he couldn’t breathe. He wanted to cry, but no tears came.
Run.
That’s what his rational mind told him.
"No," but the word that escaped his lips was different. "Thank you for the invitation, but I won’t go."
The alien mantis stared at Li Xingyuan. It was hard to read any emotion on his face, but it nodded slightly.
"Is that so? That’s precisely why you’re so interesting," the alien mantis rose to its feet. "Then, our interview is over. Farewell. Oh, could you give me a souvenir?"
"A souvenir?" Li Xingyuan blinked in surprise. "Of course, what would you like?"
"Cigarettes," the alien mantis replied. "Don’t you always give cigarettes to your interview subjects?"
Li Xingyuan laughed, surprised by the request. Still chuckling, he pulled the crumpled, rain-soaked pack from his pocket and extracted the last two crooked cigarettes, handing them to the alien mantis.
"Just one will do."
The alien mantis curled its scythe arm and gently touched one cigarette. In an instant, the cigarette vanished, just like the Tibetan heads earlier.
"Wait," Li Xingyuan suddenly spoke, his voice tinged with pleading. "Could you return Tsering Chokyi’s brain? She still needs to go to Nanjing… She still wants to see her boyfriend…"
"Li Xingyuan, don’t make decisions for others based on your own desires," the alien mantis said simply. "Besides, she’s already met the person she wanted to see."
With that, the alien mantis left.
It didn’t board any vehicle, nor tear open space, or perform any terrifying act. It simply disappeared, like a mirage that had never existed, after one final flutter of its translucent wings.
Everything vanished, leaving only the headless bodies of the Tibetans and the three men standing on the barren, desolate land.
"Mr. Li," Old Liu said, breaking the silence. "What exactly did that alien bug mean?"
Neither of them had heard Chen Yancheng’s theories, so they couldn’t fully grasp the mantis’s words. Only Li Xingyuan understood the full implications of their conversation.
They knew only the gist—that Earth was doomed, and the alien offered to take them away.
Li Xingyuan slowly placed the remaining cigarette back into the crumpled pack, using the deliberate motion to organize his thoughts. But when he rolled the pack shut, he chose to speak in harsher, more direct terms: "It said we’ve already lost. Before anything even began, we were already defeated."
He summarized the concepts of the "Black Tide" and "beachhead civilizations" in the simplest language, focusing on the cold core of the message: humanity’s destruction was inevitable, like sandcastles destined to be washed away by the rising tide.
But to his surprise, neither Old Liu nor Lin Song reacted strongly.
"Ah, so that’s all it was?" Lin Song remarked. "Mr. Li, we’ve known the world is ending for a long time now."
He slung his rifle back over his shoulder, his smile tinged with resignation. "We just got confirmation from an alien this time."
Li Xingyuan was taken aback, but Old Liu patted his shoulder. "Let’s gather the Tibetans’ supplies. We need to keep moving. Be careful—some of those Zan gods might not be completely dead."
Only then did Li Xingyuan realize that Old Liu and Lin Song had likely grown accustomed to despair long ago.
Only he knew there was still a glimmer of light.
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