The Record of Unusual Creatures

The frozen banquet hall, men and women that had turned into ice sculptures, the interrupted life band performance and feast—all were so strange that it gave people goosebumps. Seeing the scene, Hao Ren was rooted to the spot. “It seems that everyone suddenly died halfway through the party,” he said.

Nangong Sanba went up to check if there were any other clues left at the scene. These people here might have died for hundreds of thousands of years, but because of the vacuum and ultra-low temperature, everything including the food was well preserved in the frost. Most of the things were fixed on the table or ground because of icing, and the debris floating in the vacuum was actually ice flakes and human skins respectively.

The same things were also on the outside. But here, the particles were denser.

“Fashion, banquet; I really couldn’t have imagined they would die like that,” Nangong Sanba said while carefully removing a frozen body on the table. “As expected, they had inhaled the same chemical before they died.”

Nangong Wuyue could not help swallowing. “Were all of them died from gas poisoning?” she asked.

“Is there anything suspicious besides gas poisoning? What about the food?” Hao Ren asked casually.

“Food should be fine, at least according to my standards, it is non-toxic. Their death has nothing to do with food judging from the situation,” Nangong Sanba said, shaking his head. “According to the perceptive ability of demon hunter, no negative forces are lingering around. That is to say; these people did not suffer too much pain before they died,” he explained.

Hao Ren nodded and bent down to examine the few bodies near to him. His attention quickly fell on one of the male bodies: the deceased appeared to be old, wearing a solemn black suit that usually people would only wear to a lavish banquet and was considerably more luxurious even compared to the costume that people wore around him. This man was a nobility. But Hao Ren was not interested in his suit but the man’s tightly clenched fists. It seemed that he was holding something in his palms. Hao Ren carefully lifted the fingers of the man trying to see what was inside. But the frozen finger was so fragile that it broke into pieces when he tried to raise it.

Hao Ren muttered an apology to the deceased before pulling out a piece of handkerchief from the broken palm.

Hao Ren unfolded the handkerchief. There was handwriting on it, looking neat. The deceased had plenty of time penning his last words. With the help of the translation plugin, he quickly decoded the text. The content was like this:

“…Roman, my proudest son, the honored heir to the Emeraldvale family. I hope you well in the Long Night I and are still proudly leading and protecting your people. Your mother and I are attending a special banquet, which I think you have guessed the content. But don’t worry about us, it is a pleasant event, both the food and drink as well. The use of the wine of the hometown for bidding farewell to us is the most heartwarming one. Not many people would use this kind of beverage made from plants in an era where synthetic food was the dominance. I am happy to be able to taste it one more time. Your mother is sitting right next to me. And your uncle Lyon is playing the famous song of Master Aurangrok on the stage. I believe that many years ago, the ancestors of our family also had a similar dinner and prayed for our people…

“Roman, my son, I have a lot to tell you, including what I was thinking about after our last quarrel, but they are no longer critical. I heard two empty echoes coming from above the city. I think the two most vital equipment has been shut down. It is time to enjoy the food, wine, and music quietly. Please allow your father to stop here and leave the time for the other elderly here.

“Oh, that smell a bit like blue Vale Chrysanthemum.”

That was the message on the handkerchief. Vivian came up to take a gander. “What is this?”

“Looks like a suicide note?” Hao Ren’s brows knit together. “An old man wrote to his son. It seems that people here knew what was going to happen,” he said.

Many of the discoveries had proven Hao Ren’s speculation was right. Nangong Sanba and Nangong Wuyue had found some other notes on the other bodies. These words written on handkerchiefs or napkins had confirmed what happened here was not an accident.

It was a meticulously planned mass suicide.

Hao Ren and his teammates left the strange banquet hall and came out in the streets. They followed the main road that led to the end of the spherical shell space where there was a weird machine in the shape of a cylindrical mountain. But the machine was not functioning. Hao Ren thought it could be the control center of the spacecraft, or at least an equally important place, where he could find more clues.

They discovered more frozen bodies that had turned into ice sculptures. They were no survivors. The residents of the city became part of the ruins in this cold vacuum. Upon careful examination by Nangong Sanba, the cause of death of them was the same: inhalation of neurotoxic gas.

And the observant Vivian also found some other clues: most of the deceased were dressed in new clothes, new shoes, and new hats and they all looked calm and elegant, just like ordinary people going to a grand banquet. Though not everyone could enjoy the meal and music in the beautiful banquet hall, the residents still tried to put up their best looking suits and have the most exquisite food, enjoying their last moment of luxury.

“It’s like euthanasia after a carnival,” Lily said while rubbing her arms. “They indulge in the party and then let the gas poison the whole city so that they could die in their dreams,” she said.

Inspired by Lily’s description of the event, Hao Ren gazed past fine dust above Twilight City before his eyes landed on the inverted buildings at the other end of the enclosed space. He imagined the place was ushering in its last moment: When the alarm sounded, a deadly nerve gas entered the city atmosphere. Immersing in the sweet, pleasing and magical taste of the nerve gas, people dressed in their best clothes took to the streets to enjoy the last moment of their lives. They ate, drank, and said goodbye to their loved ones.

Hao Ren passed by an empty street and saw an old man sitting next to a flower bed. The old man wore a high hat on his head, covered in frost. The flower bed behind him was still luxuriant. The plants were frozen before they had time to wither. They became crystal flowers. The old man with a smile on the face was holding a fake flower folded from a handkerchief with his hand stretched out as if he was handing the flower to a child who was no longer there.

Some people were trying to bring a last bit of warmth to this dying city.

“They all died at the same time and from the same cause,” the MDT said. It had just finished examining the age of several bodies. “Things happened about a thousand years ago. It is fairly easy to reconstruct the sequence of events: a nerve gas was pumped into the atmosphere of the ark, killing everyone in a short time. These people were fully aware of what happened, which was probably the common wish of all residents, and they celebrated their death.”

“Why did they do that?” Nangong Wuyue asked in a low voice.

Hao Ren had thought of the most likely scenario. “Probably a fatal problem had struck the spaceship, such as irreparable air leakage, purification system malfunction, or resource depletion. To avoid suffering, they chose euthanasia,” he said.

“But there is more than one spaceship in the fleet,” Vivian reminded. “Did other ships encounter the same problem at the same time?”

Hao Ren did not know how to answer that. He came before the giant machine. “We might be able to find clues here,” he said.

They stopped at the foot of the enormous machine, which was a lot larger than they had imagined—almost like a mountain. Looking at the machine, Lily unwittingly curved her tail into a question mark. “Looks like a giant reactor, but looks like it has been shut down.”