Chapter 120 - Epilogue (2/2)

Tang Yue thought for a moment. “I agree. After all, most of the work will be left to Tomcat for completion eventually.”

“Actually, it doesn’t matter whether you record this history or not. In this world, information itself is forever indestructible. From the first basic particle created during the Big Bang, until the Universe reaches a heat death or Big Crunch, there has been a pair of eyes silently observing everything,” Tomcat quipped.

“Whose eyes?”

“The Universe itself.” Tomcat pointed above. “This Universe is the most loyal spectator and recorder. The Earth may have vanished, but if an observer ten light-years away were to observe Earth, Earth would still exist for them. If someone were to observe the Earth from 4.6 billion light-years away, they would find that Earth was just born.

“Light carries information into far and unreachable places. As long as you stand within the light cone, you will see its birth, growth, destruction, and its ultimate fate.” Tomcat’s voice was heavy. It was talking about a reality that was grand and exceeded human imagination, leaving Mai Dong and Tang Yue astounded.

The girl fell silent for a moment. “Then, we can do it for ourselves, not for anyone else… This is the only thing I can do now. I don’t wish to waste my time.”

“Then, what do you prepare to use to record this information?” Tomcat asked.

“We discussed this before. The drafts will be recorded on hard disks,” Tang Yue suggested. “We will then transmit them in the form of electromagnetic waves, turning them into numbers. Then, we will accompany it with a Rosetta Stone that allows for interpretation and translation. How about that?”

“But electromagnetic waves would slowly attenuate with distance.”

“Didn’t you say that information itself is indestructible?” Tang Yue said. “From the moment we had such a thought, from the moment we start writing, and from the moment we send out the information, all the history we recorded would be firmly engraved into the Universe’s massive hard disk, right?”

Tomcat nodded.

“That’s why we don’t have to care about attenuation.” Tang Yue sat down beside Tomcat as he exchanged looks with Mai Dong. “What we are recording, is to view Earth and human civilization from a person’s point of view, from the point of view of a human being.”

Tomcat leaned against the chair and thought for a long while.

Finally, it nodded and shrugged. “Alright then.”

On 6 January 2053—the 179th sol since Earth disappeared—the only two surviving humans in the Universe began their recount and recording of the history of the Earth and human civilization.

Tang Yue sat at a desk and prepared a pen and some paper. He planned on writing a prologue.

Sunlight shone in through the windows.

Kunlun Station was silent, apart from the rustling sounds produced by the pen on paper.

“While I’m penning these words, I’m on a planet located more than a hundred million kilometers from my home. The sun here is a little smaller. There are clear skies once again. But with the change in seasons, the atmosphere’s tidal motions will once again stir up gales.

“I might be one of the few humans in human history who has completely transcended territory, nation, country, and even race, to view humans. In the words of a cat, this is a watchman.

“I’m different from the ISS astronauts. In their eyes, Earth is a blue planet they call home. I’m different from the astronauts on Apollo. In their eyes, Earth is a weak but beautiful marble. When I stand on these desert plains, Earth is just a tiny point of light to me. I was shocked by my first realization of the vastness of the Universe because there are thousands of tiny specks of light just like Earth.

“I’m the last man in this Universe.

“This probably imbues in me a power equivalent to God. I will give a verdict to certain people and certain matters, without giving any chance for an appeal in the future.

“I hope I can be fair and objective, at the very least, be fair and objective against my standards. After all, there is no standard of measurement on this uninhabited planet.

“To the Universe, fairness and objectivity probably don’t matter. But to a human, fairness, and objectivity is a form of morals. Such morals are as important as the cosmos.

“A human just needs an instant to recognize history, but history needs a thousand years to recognize a human.”