Following the swallow, Lou Xinrui walked into this treehouse.
Although it was her first time stepping into this place, she had already understood during her days at the camp that this was the camp leader's room, as well as the place for meetings.
Finally, she would learn the truth…
Excitement, unease, fear, or something else—whatever it was, once she entered, the mystery would be unveiled.
—Where is this place? Why is she here? What's going on with these terrifyingly huge trees? And…
So many doubts filled her heart, and today she would finally get her answers.
She remembered a few days ago, when she couldn't help but ask her doubts, and the swallow's reply.
—"Where… exactly… is this?"
Lou Xinrui's home was in City H, a city known mainly for tourism and leisure. It might not be as bustling as City S or the capital City B, but even by her well-traveled, critical standards, it was absolutely the best place to live.
—Of course, City H wasn't bustling, but it wasn't this sparsely populated either. And since it was a coastal area, there were at most a few hills; a landscape like this, almost like a large forest reserve, was absolutely impossible.
—"I'm sorry, I can't answer that right now. Please wait. After the rest of your group wakes up, the leader will summon you. Then your questions will be answered. Until then, you'd best move around as much as possible, at least to regain your ability to move."
At the time, the swallow's expression carried an apologetic inability to answer and a bitterness whose source Xinrui didn't know. Yet the firmness in her gaze told Lou Xinrui that asking further would yield nothing.
Over the next few days, since the swallow wasn't always free, other women sometimes accompanied and cared for Lou Xinrui during her recovery exercises. She noticed many other anomalies.
For instance, there were very few women in this camp—only about one-seventh or one-eighth of the total population. Everyone was young, with most between 25 and 29, making up roughly two-thirds. What unsettled her most was that everyone here could jump two to three meters straight up, including herself.
—Is this still Earth? Is this still my body? She was afraid to ask, afraid of getting an answer that would terrify her.
All kinds of supplies seemed very scarce here.
She hadn't paid much attention at first, but later she noticed that everyone's clothes were woven from crisscrossed plant bast fibers. Only their underwear was made from soft plant fibers using the same method, and a few wore clothes cut from animal hides.
Every day, the food consisted of a few wild fruits, a bowl of wild vegetable soup, and a piece of jerky or dried fish. Though she was full, the food was always this coarse. Even the sweet tree sap the swallow had given her earlier was a special treatment for when she was weak; ordinary people didn't get it.
She had even wondered if she had "time-traveled" like in the novels. Yet apart from these anomalies, the people around her talked like ordinary urban men and women, casually tossing in trendy internet slang.
So she could only suppress her restless heart, enduring day after day of growing confusion, until finally this day arrived.
*
—Entering the meeting hall, there were already several people inside.
Facing the door, sitting in the middle, was presumably the leader. He was nearly thirty, very ordinary-looking, but had a quality that made people instinctively trust him. He glanced at Lou Xinrui and gave her a reassuring look, instantly calming her nervous heart.
To the leader's left sat a middle-aged man who looked nearly forty. After glancing at her, he nodded, which she found baffling.
Further left of the middle-aged man was another man of similar age, who had the look of a scholar or expert.
To the leader's right was a man slightly younger than the leader, quite handsome, looking at her with keen interest. Although he wore a smile, it felt more like a hollow, professional one, which made her a bit uneasy.
At the far right was someone she knew—one of the few in this camp—the doctor. She had gone to him every day these past days to have him check her recovery progress, and they had come to know each other. The doctor, 25 years old, was a bit sharp-tongued but very kind at heart.
The empty seat next to the doctor was occupied when the swallow came in.
Across from these people sat two white males, similar in appearance, likely brothers.
The older one looked about the same age as the doctor, slender, with short brownish hair and dark green eyes. His features were as deep-set as most Caucasians'.
His younger brother was about twenty, slightly darker-skinned, but with lighter hair and eye color, and a larger build than his brother.
"Alright, now everyone's here," the leader said, gesturing for her to sit next to the older brother. "First, let's all introduce ourselves. I'm the leader of this camp. Welcome to all of you."
"I'm the Merchant," said the middle-aged man to the leader's left. "I'm the quartermaster here, responsible for allocating supplies."
"I'm Hawkeye," said the man to the leader's right, flashing that smile that made Lou Xinrui uneasy. "I'm currently in charge of the foraging team—collecting food and other useful supplies."
"You should all know me already. I'm the Doctor, responsible for everyone's health."
"I'm Swallow," said the swallow in her gentle voice. "I handle daily living matters, like your clothes and laundry, and I also manage the women in this camp."
"I'm the Prophet—though that's just a title. I'm actually responsible for observing the weather. I used to be a meteorologist," said the middle-aged man next to the Merchant.
"There's actually one more person we should introduce you to. His name is Big Bear, our hunting team leader. But he's out with the hunting team right now and hasn't returned yet. We'll introduce him when he gets back," the leader said, then looked at the three newcomers, signaling with his eyes that it was their turn.
Lou Xinrui was hesitating about whether to speak first when the foreign man beside her spoke, his deliberately low, husky voice using surprisingly pure Chinese: "Pleased to meet you all. I'm Joker. This is my younger brother, Ace. He doesn't understand Chinese. We're both from Country D."
Ace seemed to trust his brother completely. Though he didn't understand, he showed no impatience, simply listening.
Finally, everyone's eyes turned to Lou Xinrui, who hadn't introduced herself yet. She steadied her nerves and said, "Hello, everyone. I'm… uh, Little Rui." She remembered the swallow mentioning that they all used pseudonyms—just a name was enough; the real name could be kept in one's heart.
The leader nodded. "Alright, I understand. I'm sure you've had many questions over the past few days. The Prophet will explain the current situation."
"Ahem," the middle-aged man cleared his throat to draw attention, then raised one finger. "First, this is still Earth, and you haven't gone back to prehistoric times."
"And second… this is not the familiar Earth of the 22nd century AD," the Prophet said, raising a second finger.
"…What do you mean by that?" Joker frowned, tapping his forehead with his finger.
"Do you remember your last memories before waking up? …It should have been an ordinary day, then you entered a health pod for deep sleep, right? Same for me," the Prophet said, not directly answering but starting from what seemed like an unrelated angle. "You know what? Most of the people here… we and you—when first discovered, were mostly frozen in health pod solution."
Lou Xinrui shuddered at the familiar term.
Health pod: filled with health solution, it simulated the liquid environment of a mother's womb, allowing breathing through the skin without drowning. In Lou Xinrui's time, as society's pace accelerated, many mid- to high-level white-collar workers suffered from insomnia. Health pods provided natural deep sleep and thus became popular among the upper-middle class.
Health pods not only provided deep sleep but also, with long-term use, allowed the nutrients in the solution to bond with the body, improving the constitution of people who rarely had time to exercise (such as white-collar workers and tech professionals).
Given all these benefits, health pods were naturally not cheap. Depending on the model and features, they typically cost between 100,000 and 1,000,000 RMB. Ordinary families rarely bought them, but wealthier people could afford them.
"…I hypothesize that while we were sleeping that day, something happened that triggered a new ice age on Earth. The person in our camp who went to sleep last entered their health pod at 1 a.m.—meaning that after that, in the early morning, when almost everyone in our time zone was asleep, those who owned health pods naturally went to sleep in them, and then they were frozen by the suddenly plummeting temperatures."
The Prophet continued, "In fact, according to the general consensus among professionals in our field, the next ice age wouldn't have arrived so early—at least not until after 2300 AD. We don't know why it was brought forward, but it did happen."
—The next ice age. Lou Xinrui was no stranger to that term.
Since the last century, Earth's ecology, though gradually recovering thanks to high-tech repairs—at least no longer experiencing the global catastrophic weather of the early days—had recently seemed to worsen again. Though it didn't significantly affect daily life, alarmist scholars had once again painted increasingly dire scenarios. Among them, many supported the so-called next ice age hypothesis.
This hypothesis argued that Earth would eventually be overwhelmed by human destruction, and natural regulation would trigger a new ice age, causing global cooling and the extinction of over 85% of species. Undoubtedly, in a sudden, sharp temperature drop, fragile humans would not fall within the 15% that survived.
—Thanks to these meteorologists who appeared on TV year after year presenting their research, even Lou Xinrui was no stranger to this term.
"…Are you talking about cryopreservation?" Joker focused on another key point.
Cryopreservation: a technology that appeared in the 20th century. Scientists discovered that organisms frozen by a rapid temperature drop could remain active after thawing. This technology was soon applied to wealthy individuals suffering from incurable diseases at the time, allowing them to be frozen and preserved until medical technology matured enough to cure them. It was also used to preserve valuable biological samples. By the 22nd century, the technology had become even more sophisticated.
"Somewhat similar," the Prophet confirmed. "But… you know, although everyone worldwide was instantly frozen, ordinary cryopreservation still requires external care, which we lacked. Moreover, no one knows exactly how long we were frozen—certainly not just decades, but thousands, tens of thousands… no, even hundreds of millions of years isn't impossible. Those of us who were sleeping in health pods had a better chance of surviving than ordinary people, but that's all. In the end, only those with good physical constitutions survived. Then, when the Earth warmed again, we woke up…"
"So that's why most people in this camp are young?"
This time the leader answered: "Yes, that's right. Our survival also involved a fair amount of luck. First, when the ice age came, it was nighttime—the time when people were sleeping. Quite a few people had entered health pods. People in countries that were in daylight might have had a harder time surviving. Even if some night-owls survived, they couldn't form communities like we did, and they would have died out soon enough."
"Survival of the fittest," the Prophet said. "And those of us frozen in health pods had to go through another series of filters. The elderly and children who hadn't grown up mostly died. Only young people in their prime survived. Moreover, during the time we were frozen, there were many tectonic movements. Some unlucky ones might have been buried underground, never to see the sun again."
"And women," Joker said provocatively, looking at the leader. "Am I wrong? Women are naturally physically weaker than men, so far fewer survived. With so few women in this camp, within a few generations, we'll likely go extinct because there won't be any women to bear children."
Faced with such a sharp question, the leader massaged his temples wearily and finally sighed. "…Yes, you're right."
Lou Xinrui had been listening carefully. She didn't consider herself a very smart person; her only strength was that she was willing to spend a lot of time thinking.
Compared to Joker, who could quickly accept reality and analyze it, she could barely get a word in. In the end, she made only one request.
"…I'd like to go and see the people who were rescued along with me. Whether any of my family members are among them."
Lou Xinrui's parents were very busy with work. Since childhood, they had sent her to live with her grandparents. She had grown up there as an ordinary girl, accompanied by her grandmother and grandfather.
She also had a brother five years older. But that brother got to live with their parents. Perhaps it was because her father wanted him to carry on the family legacy. She wasn't very close to him.
Before she fell unconscious, it had been a short holiday. Her parents and brother had taken time off, and she had rarely stayed at her parents' home.
Though they didn't see each other often, blood ties transcended everything. Lou Xinrui loved her parents and brother dearly, as well as her grandparents.
If what they said was true, her grandparents were likely already gone, as they were nearly seventy. But her parents and brother might have been discovered along with her.
The request wasn't unreasonable, but the leader still denied it, because the others found along with her had already been reburied underground.
Due to the countless tectonic movements over the tens of millions of years of the ice age, many frozen people had been buried somewhere—maybe under the seabed, maybe deep underground—where they couldn't be dug out before the Earth warmed again.
It was hard enough to see even one familiar face among the survivors. For a family to be together, or even for two people who knew each other to survive—like the brothers from Country D, who happened to live together, were unfrozen together, and survived—that was incredibly rare.
Most people, after waking up, never saw anyone they knew again.
Lou Xinrui's group had been washed together by water currents and discovered in a sunless river valley. This meant they hadn't originally lived together but had been displaced from their original homes.
—Apart from Lou Xinrui and the other two, no one else survived.
That meant that even if her family had been found with her, they were now just corpses in the ground.
Because it had already been confirmed that only the three of them had survived from this batch, they had been summoned and told everything.
"Do you still want to check?" the leader asked her finally.
Lou Xinrui silently shook her head.
Even if she dug up those corpses and identified them one by one, it would only confirm that they were dead. So, she would rather hold onto the possibility that they hadn't been discovered in the same batch as her, and believe that they were still alive somewhere in this world.