“He hid it from me, and I hated him because of that. He kept me alive, but I have been living with guilt. I have been blaming myself for over sixty years.” Professor Yin Yue’s aged voice brought me into her memories of sixty years ago, to the day when she and a group of survivors were sent to Hagrid Island.

“I really wish that I had died with the others...” Professor Yin Yue closed her eyes in pain and weariness. Tears rolled down from the corners of her eyes, and she took a deep breath to calm herself down before she continued, “Hagrid Island can stay in contact with Silver Moon City.”

Hagrid Island — Hagrid Jones.

Silver Moon City — Professor Yin Yue.

He had built a secluded island for her out of love. He had let everyone else in the world die at the end of the world, but kept her alone alive...

...and yet that had made her hate him forever.

“I refused to talk to him. He wanted to keep me immortal, but I refused that as well.”

I believed that Professor Yin Yue could be granted immortality for a time with the technology in Silver Moon City. Not just the technology; perhaps some of the metahumans actually had that kind of superpower. And yet Professor Yin Yue refused it.

Everyone wished to be immortal, but she had chosen the natural cycle of life - birth, age, illness, and death.

“I wanted him to see me age gradually. I wanted him to know that time is the true dictator, and no one can infringe on its power. Later, he created Su Yang and Yu Xi. I knew that he missed his family and I was actually touched. Then came Xiao Chuan and Elena. I thought he might have changed and that he needed a family. However, I never thought that he would actually take advantage of them! He exploited their superpowers for war! I was furious and chose to cut off all communication with him. I blocked all communications and moved Hagrid Island to an entirely different place to start a new life. I didn’t want him to find us again...” Professor Yin Yue’s aged face was filled with disappointment and anger. In those wrinkles that hadn’t been smoothed out with technology, I could see her pain.

“Elena... died.”

“I know. That is part of the reason why I am telling you this secret. I hope that you can do something for me.” She turned and looked at me seriously. Her gaze was cast with a layer of frost under the moonlight.

“What is it?” I stood with profound respect under her grim expression.

She squinted her eyes and said, “Kill Hagrid Jones!”

I looked at her, surprised.

“You are the only one who can do it in this world. You must kill him! You must kill him!” Professor Yin Yue was agitated. She became dizzy and clutched her forehead.

“Professor Yin Yue!” I quickly held her scrawny body up. Her thin, fragile form was heartbreaking.

Humans would always care for newborn babies. Their delicate bodies were concerning. But it was too easy to forget that an elderly person could also be as fragile as a crisp instant noodle. Her body could be deeply hurt by the slightest knock.

Professor Yin Yue leaned against the head of the bed and panted. She exhaled more than she was inhaling. I was worried, and my intuition told me that it was a bad situation.

“But I have no idea who Professor Hagrid Jones is.” I had never met him during my time in Silver Moon City.

Professor Yin Yue replied softly, “Heh, old people do become useless... memories can be erased bit by bit, and disappear in your head.... but lately, my memories have been clearer than ever. My life has played clearly before my eyes.”

“I even saw memories of my parents when I was young. They bought me my first doll… ah, I know that my time is almost up.”

“Professor Yin Yue...”

“I met him when we were in university. Both of us were majoring in temporal studies. He enjoyed researching the origin of time, while I enjoyed studying the future... In his perspective, after studying time in a general sense and on an individual scale, he concluded that humans can lengthen their lifespans indefinitely as long as they continue to evolve.”

“Human evolution... the Genetic Evolution Project?” I asked as I looked at Professor Yin Yue.

Professor Yin Yue nodded and said, “Yes, there was an issue with the human population at that time. I had already joined the interplanetary migration program then, while he was in another secret department. We were scientists, and we could understand that some programs were to be kept secret because there might be inhumane conditions involved. We were married then, but I didn’t have the authority to know about his research. It was understandable.”

“At that time, the biggest problem for our interplanetary migration program was energy. We only had enough to send humans to the moon. We needed to find a stronger energy source to undergo a long interstellar jump. But then, something happened in Hagrid’s lab.” Professor Yin Yue looked ahead. Her expression was filled with horror as though she were experiencing those events again.

I had experienced the loss of a loved one. I could see the deep affection she still had for Professor Hagrid Jones through her expression.

“Everyone in the lab died except for Hagrid. He went into a coma, and there was an unknown radiation emanating from his body. I only found out about the existence of blue crystal energy, a kind of energy from a different planet, then...”

I remembered Raffles telling me that it had all begun with a small fragment from a meteorite that fell on Kansas Star. Hagrid Jones had extracted the blue crystal energy from the piece of meteorite, and it was formally named after him.

“Hagrid did not speak for a very long time after he woke up. He was the only survivor. I had hoped that I could do research on the blue crystal energy, so that I can use it for interplanetary migration, but he said that blue crystal energy had been destroyed in that incident. In fact, he lied. He had actually discovered the true secret of blue crystal energy. He has always placed his research first, after all... he wanted to use the blue crystal energy for human evolution.”

I exclaimed in surprise, “Human evolution… so, the end of the world was actually man-made? How is that possible?!”

“How is it not possible?” She looked at me wearily. “Even if a meteorite fell, it wouldn’t hit the entire world. How could it possibly strike all the important cities of the world so accurately? It was a weapon! A weapon, Luo Bing!”

I was surprised and dumbfounded, my mind blown by the revelation.

“Survival of the fittest… the law of nature… those who can evolve will become gods… those who can’t will turn to ash... the world is once again ruled by gods and devils...”

Professor Yin Yue’s aged voice sounded like a message transmitted from the ancient past, and also like a seer’s prophecy.

The arrival of the metahumans had indeed been like the arrival of gods and devils.

The true secret of blue crystal energy!

Hagrid Jones has been looking for the ultimate meaning of human evolution!

Research is above everything else!

Blue crystal energy…

Human evolution…

Research…

The law of nature, the survival of the fittest!

Blue crystal energy can be the catalyst for human evolution!

It was blue crystal energy that gave Hagrid Jones his breakthrough!