On a planet, in a farmland.
A middle-aged man walked onto the path carrying a basket filled with freshly harvested crops.
At that moment, he noticed a shuttle suddenly emerge from the clouds and fly down.
"A shuttle?" The middle-aged man looked up, staring at the shuttle with a puzzled expression.
He hadn't seen a shuttle in years.
Then, to his surprise, he discovered that the shuttle seemed to be landing towards his residence.
The middle-aged man was taken aback and immediately dropped the basket on his back, rushing towards his residence.
A dozen minutes later, the middle-aged man rushed to the gate of a courtyard with an iron bar in his hand. The first thing he saw was the shuttle parked in the courtyard.
"Ah Xiu!" the middle-aged man shouted in alarm, but the next second he stood still.
Because of his voice, a woman turned her head and made eye contact with him.
With just this one glance, the two'strangers' seemed to sense something.
"Ah Jun, you're back!" A voice filled with both tears and joy rang out, and a middle-aged woman with red eyes was waving at a middle-aged man.
That was his wife.
Standing next to his wife were an elderly man and a young man.
When they saw the old man, his body was trembling.
He was also trembling constantly.
"Chu Wenjun..." the old man called out his name in a trembling voice.
Chu Wenjun dropped the iron bar from his hand and stared at the old man in disbelief: "Dad?"
"It really is you, kid!" Chu Changhe took three steps in two to walk up to Chu Wenjun, and stroked his son's cheek with his weathered hand, looking at the wrinkles on his son's face and the white hair by his ears.
Those are all traces of the past few decades.
"You're still alive! Still alive!" Chu Changhe pounded his son's chest repeatedly, his voice trembling.
At this moment, he showed none of the air of a star marshal commanding thousands of troops.
"Dad... how did you... end up here?"
Could it be... that the Starry Empire... has already been conquered by the Mechanical Race? Chu Wenjun considered this possibility.
"No, the Starry Empire is doing well, it's just that our situation with the Machine Race is... rather special."
It's hard to explain in just a few words; I'll discuss it with you in detail later, Uncle.
We just learned that you were still alive, so we brought them here to find you.
"Chu Xuan, why don't you go see your father?" Zhao Chen came out and explained, then nudged Chu Xuan, who had been standing silently in place.
Chu Xuan?
Upon hearing this name and looking at the graceful woman before him, Chu Wenjun's eyes welled up with tears: "Xuan'er...you...you really are Xuan'er?"
I am... I am your father... Ah... Xuan'er..."
Chu Wenjun burst into tears.
A grown man in his forties or fifties was acting like a child at that moment.
Chu Xuan's eyes were a little red, but she didn't say anything.
"When you left, Xuan'er couldn't even walk yet, how could she possibly recognize you?"
"Don't scare the child!" Chu Changhe slapped his son on the head.
"Let's talk inside, let's talk inside," said Chu's mother, wiping her eyes and pointing into the house.
This is an ordinary courtyard with two floors.
It is concave in shape.
Zhao Chen and his group went inside.
There were no high-tech devices in sight, but the house was made of cement, and Zhao Chen could tell just by touching it that it was made of advanced thermal insulation and cold-resistant materials.
That's all I can say.
This house appears on the surface to be a dwelling from the agrarian era of the planetary age, but it actually conceals the technological advancements of the interstellar age.
"Sit down, sit down." Chu Wenjun gestured for everyone to sit down, his gaze fixed on his daughter, reluctant to look away.
Chu's mother set out fruit on the table, and everyone began to chat.
Naturally, it started with the interstellar war between Chu Wenjun and his wife back then. That battle was actually just one of the hundreds of ordinary battles between the Starry Empire and the Machine Race.
Unfortunately, the legion fleet led by Chu Wenjun and his wife suffered a defeat, with a large number of interstellar warships destroyed or even captured!
"The Machine race possessed a starship equipped with a 'gravity beam,' which gave them an absolute advantage in the campaign."
They then sent out these interstellar warships and captured our interstellar warships one by one.
We were originally on the ship, prepared to fight to the death with the mechanical soldiers, but they directly injected anesthetic gas into the ship.
When we awoke, we had already been transported to this planet by an interstellar transport ship.
"At that time, a mechanical life form said, 'We will live here. Everything we need is here, but we are not allowed to develop technology. If any research project is discovered, it will be destroyed.'" Chu Wenjun recounted how they came to be here.
"So you've been here all these decades?"
"Didn't you think about escaping?" Chu Changhe asked, frowning.
Chu Wenjun sighed: "Why didn't you think about escaping?"
However, there are no modern technological products on this planet, not even a shuttle.
The shuttle you left behind is the first one I've seen in nearly ten years.
Originally, I was thinking that we would wait until someone was sent over, then seize the shuttle or the interstellar transport ship before leaving.
However, we discovered that the people who were sent there were actually placed in a container-like airdrop device and directly airdropped onto this planet.
After the airdrop is complete, the container will automatically decompose and become nutrients needed by the planet.
This place is a prison isolated from the world; we have no chance of leaving.
Chu's mother peeled a piece of fruit and placed it in front of Chu Xuan. Chu Xuan accepted it somewhat awkwardly, still unable to accept the current situation.
Chu's mother said, "Fortunately, when we arrived, everything on this planet had already been arranged."
The house we live in is one that has been allocated.
Then they will assign us work.
This area is in the suburbs, and there is a city inside.
For us, farming is our main occupation.
The crops grown can be bartered with others or directly exchanged with the intelligent machines here for everyday goods such as clothes and shoes.
Others can also engage in other basic labor.
Basically, if you're willing, you can support yourself by working three hours a day.
There are laws here too, much like what we think they are, all managed by mechanical intelligence. People who break the law are sent to prison, where the environment is said to be terrible, so no one wants to go and naturally obeys the law.
This planet has a spring-like climate all year round, and all the crops grown there are of excellent quality.
In terms of daily life, there are practically no problems.
And so we have lived on this planet for decades.
"I never thought... I'd have the chance to see you all again in this lifetime." Mother Chu said, wiping away her tears.
