Wanderer of the Zerg

Chapter 71: Song Huishan

Aboard the airship to Wood Tower Star, the journey was long and tedious.

Ellis sat next to him, wearing an eye mask, quietly lying in his seat to catch up on sleep.

Last night, just as he was about to fall asleep, the sound of car horns outside indicated that the mentor’s team had come with urgent matters. Ellis, disturbed by the noise, had been unable to sleep and had tossed and turned in bed all night. In the morning, the dark circles under his eyes surprised Xi Tian. After boarding, Ellis finally felt sleepy and took the opportunity to rest.

Xi Tian then opened his personal terminal device to organize and transcribe his notes from recent readings.

He had once been fond of paper notes, but had found them inconvenient to carry while traveling. So he began to archive and sort out the recorded materials bit by bit.

However, upon seeing these excerpts, he couldn’t help but want to refer back to the original books. As Xi Tian began browsing the titles of the third e-book, he realized that his attempt to organize the materials was ineffective.

He had to calm himself down, soothing his restless urge to read.

Bored, he idly scrolled through the file directory in his storage space.

He inadvertently clicked on a folder, and just as he was about to close it, he paused upon seeing the file name.

*“On the Impact of the Four Sages on the Status of Contemporary Male Society”*

This was a paper from his undergraduate years, a standard research piece, as the History Department had numerous papers on the Four Sages.

Xi Tian thought for a moment and remembered that he had pieced together a lot of incoherent material, and the content was rather superficial. He couldn’t recall the specifics of what he had written.

He opened the document and was greeted by a biography of the Four Sages, which seemed to be filler content. The first paragraph even contained two logical errors.

Then he came across a sentence:

“Song Huidan, written in pinyin as Hasang Song, was also known as Hasang Bodhi when he published his political views in famous reports. His birthplace is the Evans Province (formerly the old Flando State), where the ‘Hasang Memorial Hall’ was established.”

Could Hasang Song be the person referred to by the pinyin name Song Huidan?

Xi Tian continued reading:

“Song Huidan, from the old Flando State, was a leading figure among the Four Sages. During his ten-year political career, he reached the pinnacle of the male society at that time, but died young. Due to the advent of the camera during his era, the remaining visual materials are extremely scarce.

His descendants painted a portrait based on memories, which has become widely circulated in modern secondary school history textbooks.”

Xi Tian found the portrait below, a face familiar to all Zerg Planet residents. He had his arms crossed, chin slightly raised, with an expression of disdain and contempt.

To the right was a rear shot of Song Huidan taken at the time. Due to the age, the details were very blurry, but it showed that he was about the same height as his female secretary, a remarkable height for that era.

However, Song Huidan had died two hundred years ago. At that time, the Zerg Planet had not yet ventured beyond its own planet, let alone to a small place like Morisan. The strange nursery rhyme shouldn’t have been connected to him.

Xi Tian’s fingers gently brushed over the rear view of Song Huidan. Was the person in the nursery rhyme really Song Huidan, and what connection did Song Huidan have with the research institute where the mentor’s female father worked?

Everything was shrouded in mystery.

Xi Tian’s thoughts drifted back to the conversation the mentor had given him yesterday.

The mentor had shared some of his past experiences in what seemed like a monitored environment, suggesting that Xi Tian needed to know certain things.

The mentor was adopted by relatives at fifteen, around the time Dai Bo had risen to fame with the TV series “Doctor’s Story.” Xi Tian checked Dai Bo’s encyclopedia page to verify the historical events but found a discrepancy.

The events the mentor described supposedly occurred at least forty-five years ago, while “Doctor’s Story” had aired thirty-five years ago—a ten-year gap.

Xi Tian had always trusted the mentor’s words, but now he hesitated. After all, online records don’t lie.

This indicated that the mentor’s actual age this year was not sixty but about fifty.

Based on the mentor’s narrative and the photographer’s photos, it could be inferred that thirty-five years ago, an explosion occurred in a mysterious research institute in the deep forests of Tasca Mountain on Morisan, with no survivors among the researchers.

Similarly, over forty years ago, the nursery rhyme’s protagonist, Hasang Song, had encountered a young child, which became a local supernatural event story used by adults to scare children. It was later included by fairy tale authors and published, becoming a widely spread story in the region.

Why had the mentor’s age seemingly decreased by ten years?

Xi Tian shook his head in frustration, unable to make sense of the tangled details.

The clues were too numerous, fragmented, and chaotic for him to piece together a clear narrative.

Instinctively, Xi Tian grasped the brass key hanging from the chain around his neck. It was a shiny, brand-new key, typical of locks that had long been outdated.

Before parting, the mentor had asked him to pick up some items from the local storage in Wood Tower Star, as it was on the way. Xi Tian had agreed without hesitation.

The key felt cool to the touch, and holding it in his hand made him feel quite comfortable.

Cool.

Xi Tian glanced at the temperature inside the airship with some confusion. It was at a comfortable room temperature, but the key seemed unaffected, maintaining a temperature lower than the room’s.

Xi Tian pushed aside the thoughts swirling in his mind and picked up the entertainment device provided by the flight, hoping to find something to pass the time.

His mind was persistently troubled by unease and anxiety. He occupied himself with random things to avoid being controlled by his emotions—anxious to uncover the truth about his biological family while simultaneously fearing what he might find.

The screen lit up, displaying the latest updates on the political struggle between the two major factions of his home planet.

Xi Tian preferred written commentary over videos and images, so he usually followed presidential candidate updates through forum text descriptions.

The device hadn’t loaded his preferred settings and had instead jumped straight to the video section, showing excerpts from speeches given by the two candidates.

The reformist male candidate was indeed very young, appearing energetic and lively. His voice was loud, his gestures and expressions highly engaging.

The conservative female candidate, though young-looking, had fine lines at the corners of eyes, indicating the onset of aging. He fit the stereotype of “a reliable old president,” with a deep, magnetic voice and a warm, kind appearance, resembling a benign elderly neighbor who inspired goodwill.

Xi Tian replayed the video clip of the female candidate several times. Although the strong and confident speech seemed familiar, something about the face struck him as slightly off.

It was such a strange feeling, Xi Tian chuckled to himself.