It's too late to marry a cat [Interstellar]

According to the news, the deep sea relic is located on a natural asteroid that has been abandoned for a long time. Scientists estimate that the original intelligent species on this natural planet should have been extinct for more than 1000 years, and this natural planet should not have been buried in the original In the "forbidden zone" where humans rarely set foot.

It wasn't born in the restricted area, born and raised there.

The researchers of the Star Alliance and the foreign alliance jointly surveyed and repeatedly calculated, and the project team took high risks to collect sample data of celestial bodies in the adjacent star area.

Finally they came to a conclusion -

At first, this asteroid just hovered outside the restricted area, and it was a purely natural and independent planet.

But unfortunately, because the size of the asteroid is really small, it is too weak compared with the huge gravitational field of the restricted area in terms of volume and mass. Therefore, a small planet that was not born in a good position is like a I tried my best to recover it, but in the end I still had to follow the gravity and irretrievably fell to the ground as a drop of water.

First, the orbit of the planet is affected, and its rotation trajectory deviates. Then, it passively approaches the restricted area step by step in the constant deviation, until it is completely attracted and pulled by the gravity of the restricted area... along with the thousands of residents living on it Together, they were completely annexed by the restricted area.

And its submersion is as silent as its existence.

It is too small, and its inhabitants are unknown.

1000 Two hundred years ago, the Star Alliance had not yet been established, and the concept of the so-called "extraterritorial" had never been mentioned. This entire universe had just entered the period of "interstellar voyage".

No one heard the sound of a planet being swallowed, and no one picked up the signals sent by the inhabitants of this remote planet.

No one even noticed that a civilization here was once wiped out and swallowed by the devil's net-like restricted area.

For more than 1000 years since then, the small planet that has become a barren star has been unknown, and almost all traces of it have been completely erased.

until……

"...Until star calendar 358, our commander, General Yahuiquan, and the foreign joint commander, Captain Woxiu, accidentally traveled to the restricted area, and both were disturbed by the gravitational field of the restricted area, and because of the sudden eruption of a circular planetary flow outside the restricted area. , out of safety considerations, the two commanders had to temporarily evade, forced by gravity and planetary flow to survive in danger, and resolutely entered the restricted area."

"This planet, which has been silent for 1000 and 358 years, finally welcomed its long-lost visitors in [-] years, and because of the two visitors, they were able to survive smoothly. The existence of the asteroid and the deep-sea ruins on it were recognized by the world I noticed that after being silent for thousands of years, it finally reappeared in this world led by the two commanders."

The newscaster continued to introduce the relics. This person had a good voice, and he read the two paragraphs of the manuscript with full emotion and moving. A piece of simple and melodious pure music was played in the background at the right time, which set off the atmosphere just right.

In the kitchen of Ya’s house, there is a cat audience, and the mood is indescribably delicate.

Li Dandan was well aware of the distance between the ruins and Monte, and the danger of the restricted area.

Of course, it knows better. As a pure cat, it is even more impossible for a cat to go deep into the restricted area with its own strength, and even climb onto the hidden natural planet in the restricted area.

This kind of thing "genius cat" can't do it.

...unless it wasn't a cat in the first place either.

This is not the first time that Li Dandan has doubted himself, and the frequency of self-doubt seems to be surprisingly high recently.

Baili is a very caring artificial intelligence. He saw that cats are very concerned about the news of the relics. The AI ​​made a calculation on its own and judged that his cat owner needed a little space to think independently due to reasons that the artificial intelligence could not understand. Instead of arguing with each other, he took over the work in the kitchen and went to quietly do the work of the electronic housekeeper.

In the news that was still playing automatically, the part about the details of the ruins gradually came to an end. The electronic manuscript in the announcer's hand quietly turned a page, and the topic smoothly slid to the next chapter, and began to introduce in detail the first chapter of the ruins. The two commanders who found the people.

At first, Li Dandan was only familiar with the deep-sea ruins. Looking at the underwater buildings and land deserts projected on the screen, he always felt that these pictures seemed familiar, as if he had reached this road in person on a certain day in the past. The remote and dangerous desolate star has seen everything mentioned in the news.

Suddenly, when the scenery of the ruins was cut away, it was replaced by the personal images of the two commanders who were reputed to "should be awarded the Outstanding Cultural Contribution Award".

Reflexively, Li Dandan looked at the half of the screen with Yahuiquan first, and felt that this photo was chosen very well. It was of a level that could be perfectly mixed into the queue of military models. If it was used as the cover of next year's conscription advertisement, it would definitely be a good choice. It is very pleasing for the cat to see a surge of 50% in the application letters of the Shining Wings.

After seeing enough of Yahuiquan, Li Dandan turned his eyes aside again, and took a look at what another "Captain Woxiu" who was also inexplicably familiar looked like.

"Hey." Li Dandan thought to the photo, "I'm pretty too."

Then the cat pondered for ten seconds, feeling that something was not quite right.

"What are you looking for?" Baili asked politely, looking strangely at the cat that was sitting quietly and meditating, suddenly jumped up, and the whole cat seemed to be in a tense state, moving the round cat's head from side to side quickly , The irises shrank, as if they were looking for something urgently.

"Mirror." Li Dandan replied.

"There is no mirror in the kitchen." Baili said matter-of-factly, "However, you can consider the mirror storage cabinet over there. It can be used as a colored mirror with acceptable clarity."

"Thank you brother!" Li Dandan said quickly, and immediately jumped to the row of mirror cabinets.

The cabinet door on the mirror is clear, only a cat is reflected.

Looking at it horizontally and vertically, at most it is bigger than cats of the same age, with rounder ears, stronger limbs and faster speed.

Li Dandan took a selfie in the mirror, then looked up at the floating screen again.

It was still introducing the personal great achievements of the two commanders, and the cat focused on Woxiu's video data.

When he didn't look up at Wo Xiu, Li Dandan found that he could think rationally: "He is a human, and I am a cat. Even though I am a good-looking cat, I can't just point to a person's face. The face is also mine."

But looking up and seeing the screen, it just thought again: "Oh, it's me."

Li Dandan: "..."

The cat bowed its head again——

A good cat can't usurp someone else's face.

look up--

Isn't this my face?

Li Dandan: "..."

After repeating this several times, the weird sense of confusion still persists, and after the slightest intention of dispelling it, the cat is finally convinced that something is wrong, a big problem.

It suspects that it might be Wo Xiu, the commander of the extraterritorial alliance.

However, Commander Woxiu has long been turned into fly ash in the universe. In the flames and explosions, he has become countless particles floating in the ruins of the core of the natural disaster. Peaceful civilians, even his enemies and opponents, finally hoped for peace on both sides.

People respect him because he died in the line of duty to save the safety of the entire universe, and his personal standpoint is no longer important in the face of righteousness.

On the day he ushered in the ending, Ya Huiquan had seen it with his own eyes.

Surpassing the close distance between everyone in this world and Woxiu at that moment, Yahuiquan knew every step that this person took to go deep into the core, heard his last words before the end, and witnessed how the surrounding space began to tremble and blaze How the bright light suddenly appeared, how the high temperature and heat wave spread from the depths to the periphery in an instant, how it was still menacing after engulfing Woxiu - and hit the layer of protective shield that this man insisted on giving to the enemy before he left.

After the war, the observation and recuperation ended. Because of a momentary soft-heartedness, he thought of the phrase "experience something different" that someone once said. Ya Huiquan picked up a cat, but at the same time he picked up a cat that he had witnessed. Fallen people.

Is this possible?

Is it too full of fantasy, like a comedy fairy tale in the interstellar era?

Li Dandan had a bold idea, but for a while he didn't think about where to check it out.

When Ya Huiquan returned home that day, in order not to worry people too much, and also intuitively felt that this matter had not been found out, people must not let people know hastily, so as not to add unnecessary troubles to people, Li Dandan rushed to Yahuiquan tidied himself up before arriving home, and greeted him with the same attitude as usual.

The moment Yahuiquan entered the door, the floating screen was still on, and it was still on the previous channel.

It seemed to be a special column for the deep sea relics, and the news about the relics was broadcast 24 hours a day, making people who had heard the news as soon as they stepped into their homes paused.

"The Academy of Arts and Sciences released the latest progress of the relics cooperative development project three working days ago." Baili explained in a timely manner, "This is a special column that is launched simultaneously with the progress of the project. It is dedicated to disclosing newly discovered content and will also Do some remote interstellar broadcasting."

In the past, Ya Huiquan would at least ask why he thought of watching this, or casually wonder whether it is an AI or a cat channel.

But like Li Dandan who first noticed the news content, he just stared at the screen for a while, remained silent, and then simply nodded to show that he had heard Baili's words.

Without saying anything, he turned and went to the restaurant.

Baili asked: "Do you need to turn off the news for you, or turn down the volume?"

"No need." Ya Huiquan said, and he paused again, "Just...let it go."

"Okay." Baili wrote down the owner's choice, and the AI ​​attached to the home appliance and followed the person to watch it for a while, and then reviewed the reaction of another member of the family, the cat, when he watched the news in the database.

Baili believes that humans and cats have reached a certain kind of wonderful coincidence, which is a very interesting piece of data in the eyes of the electronic housekeeper, and it is worth including the comparative analysis in the database.

AI happily added a collection to itself, and after another 10 minutes, it witnessed another thing worth collecting.

Li Dandan, who is full of thoughts, made a rare mistake when taking care of people today. The cat's thinking seems to be still disturbed by the "I seem to be Woxiu", so it makes it very natural to place the dinner plate for people. When the little food delivery robot saw that there was food on the table in front of the cat, it was sure that the cat had "finished serving the meal". The target who hasn't eaten yet - put the cat meal in front of the person.

The bad thing about this is that the cat is absent-minded, and so are the people.

Yahuiquan didn't notice that his meal had changed. He didn't look at the plate in front of him at all. When he heard the little robot holding the mechanical cavity and said "please use it slowly", he didn't glance down and just pressed the button. I am used to touch the tableware, pick it up and stretch it into the meal. When I swallow the food, I think that the food tastes very bland because I don’t know the taste when I am eating.

Li Dandan's reaction was a bit faster than humans, and when he lowered his head, he realized that the meal was not right, and urgently stopped his mouth, which was rushing towards the human meal, and preserved the "whole beard and tail" of Yahuiquan's original dinner.

With a huge sense of guilt, the cat quickly sent back the real food for people, and at the same time stretched out its paws to pick up the cat food that people had touched several times.

Yahuiquan continued to be absent-minded. The last bite was still tasteless, but the next bite suddenly felt the seasoning stimulated the taste buds. He held the tableware for a moment, and finally realized that the meal he just had was wrong.

"...You give me cat food?" Ya Huiquan reached out and pinched the back of the cat's neck, grabbing Li Dandan's "destiny's nape of the neck".

He couldn't laugh or cry, his movements seemed steady and precise, and his strength was light.

Once the oolong caused by the cat was interrupted, the complex emotions deposited in people's hearts just now disappeared a lot, and the corners of Ya Huiquan's mouth that had been tense unconsciously since entering the door began to relax.

He let go of the hand that rested on the back of the cat's neck, and curled his fingers to flick the cat's forehead: "Next time you make this kind of mistake again, I will fire you for 24 hours on behalf of this family's kitchen."

If there is no later time limit, this threat still has a lot of deterrent effect on the cat, enough to surprise the cat who likes to worry about people.

What does a 24 hour time limit count?

With the recent busyness of Yahuiquan, the cat will only lose one chance to take care of people for dinner.

There is really nothing to be afraid of.

"Okay." Li Dandan said happily.

The special column of deep sea relics is still broadcasting, adding a background sound to this family.

But in the restaurant, the slightly depressing atmosphere before and Yahuiquan's already soothing mouth also gradually relaxed, and soon almost returned to normal.

Li Dandan originally thought that after finding out that he might be Wo Xiu, finding new evidence for it—or at least retrieving some memories of being Wo Xiu—would be a difficult and time-consuming task.

Because so far, although it has a thinking close to that of a human, "human thinking" is like a fixed function built into the brain to a cat.

It can use it, but it has never thought about whether it has a human identity, and it has never felt a clear identity when using human thinking.

If you can think of anything when you were Woxiu, and look at or think about something from a thorough "Woxiu perspective", then there is an 80% chance that you can directly answer the question "Are you really Woxiu?" Li Dandan was very sure about the solution.

It's just that retrieving memories isn't like throwing a hibernating snake in the winter snow.

Catching the flash of consciousness is not like a rabbit or a bird that can be caught just by running with an ambush belt on all fours.

They are all about chance.

Li Dandan is not sure when her next opportunity will come.

Cat’s experience in life is to keep expectations to the minimum in advance, and then try to keep a positive attitude no matter what kind of process feedback you receive.

Li Dandan is prepared to wait for this opportunity for a long time, maybe it will grow a few dozen catties, and it may not be able to come.

But when Yahuiquan suddenly checked the electronic letter of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and decided to accept the other party's invitation to participate in a themed event as one of the discoverers of the ruins, that night, an opportunity came unexpectedly.

Li Dandan spread out on top of the person's head in the posture of a cat as usual, squeezing herself between the upper part of the pillow and the backboard of the headboard.

It closed its eyes, and when it opened again, it found itself in a dark environment that obviously did not belong to a bedroom at night.

His nose was also very sharp when he was a human being, he could smell the unique smell of sea water in the air, and he could also smell dampness. His ears had a very long hearing range, and he could hear the undercurrents of the deep sea beyond the barrier, and he could vaguely hear something The marine life was swimming nearby, cutting the sound of the water with its big body.

The darkness never affected his vision, he withdrew his attention from the seawater area far away, and heard another breath close to his ear.

"What are you looking at?" The sound of breathing was regular and steady, but its owner had a bad temper.