Earth Era - Chapter 35

Chapter 35: Speech

“I’m a celebrity?” Zhao Huasheng was stunned, then he forced a laugh: “I’m just doing what I should be doing, and what any qualified human should be doing.”

“But under such circumstances, it’s hard to remain true to one’s humanity and not be lost in it,” Meng Zhuo lit another cigarette and said, “It doesn’t matter; if you’re interested, you can go to the ‘Voice of Humanity’ website and take a look. The website was set up to commemorate the 400,000 victims of the riots.”

“Oh, I see,” Zhao Huasheng said. “But… given my identity, am I fit to appear in public?”

Meng Zhuo shook his head: “I don’t know. But since the higher-ups have decided this, they must have their reasons. They made a mistake once, they probably won’t make it again. Alright, you should rest now. Call me if you need anything.”

Meng Zhuo walked out; Zhao Huasheng stretched out a lazy waist and then climbed out of bed. After extreme fatigue, a sufficient sleep made Zhao Huasheng regain his energy. The cold air blowing into his face actually gave Zhao Huasheng a refreshing feeling.

Zhao Huasheng tidied himself up and then walked out of the room, a smell of food coming into his nose. At this moment, Li Wei came out carrying a plate, seeing Zhao Huasheng come out, she smiled: “You have slept for so long, are you hungry? I just made it, come and eat it quickly.”

During this time, Li Wei and Zhao Huasheng have been living together, but in two different rooms. Zhao Huasheng is a stiff person, and he has always ignored Li Wei’s hints. Since they established the relationship until now, the most intimate thing between them has only been holding hands, and it was always Li Wei who took the initiative to hold Zhao Huasheng.

At this moment, Li Wei appears to be somewhat different to Zhao Huasheng than before. Perhaps due to the recent chaos and bloodshed, Zhao Huasheng has never felt such a longing and desire for something beautiful. In front of him at this moment, what else could be more beautiful than the smile of Li Wei?

Zhao Huasheng took the plate and put it on the table, then turned around and tightly hugged Li Wei, saying, “Thank you.”

Li Wei’s body tensed up and then relaxed, and then seemingly a bit at a loss, she also extended her arms and tightly hugged Zhao Huasheng.

This time, Zhao Huasheng had taken the initiative to hug himself, which even made Li Wei feel like the sun had risen from the west. Li Wei’s eyes reddened without her noticing: “After knowing that a riot had happened and you still hadn’t come back, I was really worried about you. I wanted to go out and find you, but I was stopped by the police, they wouldn’t let anyone leave here.”

“Oh.” Zhao Huasheng didn’t know what to say and just responded with an “Oh”.

Seemingly already used to Zhao Huasheng’s stiffness and poor communication skills, Li Wei wiped away her tears and chuckled: “Hurry up and eat, otherwise you’ll get hungry.”

“Okay.” Zhao Huasheng then let go of Li Wei and sat on the chair. Li Wei then turned and left without knowing what to do.

After they had finished breakfast, Zhao Huasheng and Li Wei sat on the sofa together and turned on the TV. In a while, the public speech of the leader would be broadcast, and it was obvious that this speech was related to the recent riot.

Soon after, the elderly man’s face appeared on TV; his face had not changed much; only the wrinkles on his face were more noticeable, and the fatigue in his eyes was slightly thicker.

“My fellow citizens, the old man’s words spread. In the past three days, we have experienced the darkest period in human history. During this time, a total of more than 400,000 people have died and at least 10 million have been injured. Here, I don’t intend to explain to everyone the causes of this incident and the handling mechanism of our human civilization’s government. I’m sure everyone has a lot of questions, such as why the weather has turned cold, why we’ve all gathered at the equator for such heavy labor, and why we have to suffer so much… It’s okay, I will tell everyone everything we know.”

“It’s true, the sun is getting cold. In the past period of time, something we still don’t understand has happened above the sun, and our scientists are still unable to fully describe the change and find solutions. They are candidly telling us that they don’t know how cold the sun will get or how long this disaster will last.”

“Therefore, it is why our government has led the large-scale migration work in the past period of time, gathering people from all over the world to the Equator City—in order to smoothly complete the work and reduce the losses we may encounter, some lies were told during the migration, which I believe everyone can understand.”

“As for the deteriorating living environment… sorry, our civilization is not strong enough yet, so we don’t have a way to still guarantee everyone a comfortable life in this end of the world. The outbreak of the crisis was too sudden, so we had no time to make preparations in advance. That’s why our current workload is so heavy, because we must build enough shelters in Equator City, the place with the highest global temperature, to ensure that most of us can survive. All the efforts we make are for ourselves. The houses we build will be ours to live in, the food we produce will be ours to eat, the pipelines we lay will give us access to clean water sources… everything we do is for ourselves.”

“The world has changed, and in order to continue our civilization and ensure the survival of most of us, we have to endure what we have now… We have worked hard to make our lives better, and we have to be honest and say that the current living standards are the limit of our human civilization. At least, there is still enough food to sustain us, enough clothing to keep us warm, and a warm and safe place to rest. We will not starve, we will not freeze, and we will not be homeless in the night. We have successfully ensured the stable lives of at least eighty percent of the population, and we have minimized the impact of disasters on our human civilization.”

“Perhaps many of us are dissatisfied with our current lives, but do you know…? At this moment, there are still tens of thousands of researchers scattered around the world, even when the lowest temperature has dropped to minus 120 degrees Celsius and the cold air is so frigid that it can freeze your respiratory tract. Still, hundreds of thousands of workers are in the ruins of the previous cities, trying to salvage the wealth we once created, with thousands of people dying every day from the harsh environment. Even more people are working in the wilderness to ensure the connection between the equatorial city and other places, to make sure our lifelines are not cut off. It is the sacrifice of these countless people that is securing our current conditions of survival.”

“Our grain reserves can at least last for three years, so at least within this three-year period, everyone need not worry about the grain supply problem. Agricultural scientists are also working hard to develop various new grain cultivation methods, and I believe that soon there will be a glimmer of hope. Therefore, I request everyone, for the continuation of our civilization and for our own survival, not to listen to conspiracy theorists, doomsayers, and cultists. No gods or extraterrestrial civilizations from legends can save us on this earth; the only one who can save us are ourselves. We must rely on our own hands and effort to build the cities that can sustain us, live in them, and wait for the dawn to come. Then I’ll tell everyone about the City of Life.”

“Our research personnel have done a lot of work in this period of time, including launching a manned solar exploration spacecraft and more than thirty probes. More than 300,000 top scientists are working hard to find a way to solve the crisis. It is not clear when their work will be effective, but they are still all of us and the hope of our human civilization. Therefore, we have built the City of Life for scientists to live and study science in peace. I think this is very logical. Scientists are responsible for saving our civilization, and our civilization tries to give them the best research conditions. The City of Life is not a place for the wealthy to escape the end of the world as the conspirators said, it is actually a research base for scientists.”

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“Please remember that science and scientific researchers are our only hope for the continuation of our civilization. Until scientists find a way to solve the problem, I will stay with everyone in the Equator City and wait for dawn together.”

“Finally, on behalf of our human civilization, allow me to express the deepest condolences to the 400,000 victims of this event. I hope we can all learn from this event, and I believe that none of us want such an event to happen again in our human civilization.”

“I hope that after the crisis passes, we can all still live well on this beautiful planet.”

The old man finished his speech and bowed deeply toward the camera before leaving the microphone. The scene changed, and he disappeared.

“This speech means that the sun crisis has been officially announced to the public, confirming all the previous speculation. Who knows what kind of impact it will have on our human civilization?” sighed Zhao Huasheng.