Zhan Jun didn't even know whose car he'd taken, but he used it to bring Liu A'dou and Ada to his home.
"You don't have ID, so you can't get admitted to the hospital. Why not just come to my place? My oldest sister's an experienced OB-GYN."
Zhan Jun's house was a traditional siheyuan courtyard, which already said a lot—his parents clearly hadn't been ordinary people.
"You two go sit inside. Zhang Yan and I will help you bring your things in." Since he'd accepted the gold bars, Zhan Jun had gotten a lot more polite. He figured the Liu couple must be super rich—those boxes had to be either full of crystal or gold.
Zhang Yan quietly told Zhan Jun that A'dou and Ada weren't from this world. Zhan Jun wasn't surprised—it made sense. But those two boxes were ridiculously heavy. They couldn't lift them at all.
Seeing Zhan Jun's stubborn look, Liu A'dou chuckled. "I'll do it myself." He raised his hand slightly, and the luggage in the car floated right up.
Definitely not from this world, huh? Zhan Jun's eyes lit up. Now that's real superpower. Compared to that, the Martian tech stuff was nothing.
There were plenty of rooms in the courtyard.
"You can stay in this room. When my sister gets off work tonight, I'll have her check on Ada-jie."
"Classmate, we don't have any of your world's currency—only gold. So we'll be troubling you for meals. Is that okay?"
"Sure," Zhan Jun said without hesitation. He usually just ordered takeout anyway.
So Liu A'dou gave him two more gold bars, and they settled in for now.
That night, Zhan Jun's big sister came home. She was nearly forty, had stayed single her whole life just to take care of her younger siblings, and had turned down many suitors. When she found out her little brother had brought home a pair of refugees, she thought he was being impulsive again. But seeing that Ada was pregnant, and the couple looked decent and not like bad people, she agreed to help. Besides, her brother had already accepted their gold—she couldn't just kick them out.
Since the couple had no ID, she figured they were refugees. Even though the Heaven's Fall had happened years ago, social systems were still unstable. Refugees were common—not necessarily poor, just without any official identity. Many people didn't want to live where the disaster struck, so they abandoned everything and wandered.
She had seen plenty of people like them at the hospital. "Fetal movement is normal. Looks like you'll have a healthy baby." Without an ultrasound, that was about as much as she could say.
Over the next few days, Liu A'dou gradually learned that this Earth was now run by a United Government. Because of the Martians, all countries had at least superficially united against a common enemy.
Most of the moon debris had fallen on the Americas, practically wiping out the United States. The Eurasian continent had stayed mostly intact. That's why the Soviet Union had ended up leading the world, and why most of the United Government's main bodies were based in Eurasia.
"Every universe really is different," Ada sighed. "Never thought a country like the U.S. would get wrecked by meteors."
The major cities on both coasts had been leveled. The rest of the country was left riddled with craters.
"But this world's still better than most," Liu A'dou said. "At least humans still run the Earth, and the Martians haven't taken over yet." He added with a grin, "Also, the healthcare's not bad. Good place to have a kid."
Technology here was on par with a world full of superheroes—comfortable enough for daily life.
From TV and the internet, Liu A'dou found out that the United Government's main weapon was those humanoid machines Zhan Jun always looked down on. On Earth, almost everyone knew about these machines. There were even lots of simulation games to help people get used to them. And piloting class was a required subject in high school—more than six classes a week, plus live-fire training.
No matter how much Zhan Jun disliked it, this class still made every high school student learn how to pilot. When the time came, they'd be able to go to the frontlines. Zhan Jun just thought these machines were totally unreliable, which was why he looked down on them.
Liu A'dou, on the other hand, felt that human tech in this world was just too far behind the Martian relics. That's why the humanoid machines felt so flimsy. In other worlds, these mechs would've been decent.
"Liu-dage, teach me how to move things without touching them!" Zhan Jun had been fascinated ever since he saw A'dou's ability. He'd been pestering him to learn it ever since.
"You brat, how do you know I'd be willing to teach you?"
Zhan Jun smirked to himself. There was a trick to asking—skip the 'can you teach me' part and go straight to 'will you teach me'. If the ability could be taught, Liu A'dou would have to consider it. And that way, Zhan Jun would know whether or not he was lying. If he said it couldn't be taught, and that was a lie, then Zhan Jun would've fallen for it.
"So, you can teach me, right?"
Liu A'dou had stayed at Zhan Jun's place for three days now. He could see that Zhan Jun was sharp and thoughtful. Smart, and with a rare sense of urgency for someone his age. In his eyes, war with the VERS Empire was inevitable—and Earth probably wouldn't win. Even though he didn't have access to classified info, just looking at how the United Government was acting showed how powerful Mars must be.
If Mars wasn't a real threat, Earth wouldn't be scrambling to expand its military. They wouldn't be dragging students into training.
And back in the 1980s, would the nations of Earth really have thrown away all their grudges, hatred, and the post-WWII global power structure just to unite against a Martian kingdom that had only been around for ten years, and only officially established one year ago? A kingdom still running on an outdated feudal system, no less. That alone meant the VERS Empire had something terrifying—something that made every world leader afraid.
Even in 1999, after the ceasefire caused by the Heaven's Fall, the United Government had never stopped training the next generation as if war was inevitable.
Anyone with half a brain could see that neither side would tolerate the other for long. War was just a matter of who fired first.
This constant sense of crisis, plus having no faith in Earth's military power, made Zhan Jun restless. No one really understood how he felt. And if he ever tried to talk about it, people just dismissed him as paranoid.
But Liu A'dou, who came from another world, gave Zhan Jun hope—hope born of something that didn't come from Earth.
"It's not that I can't teach you," Liu A'dou said. "But learning something like this takes time. Could be ten years, maybe even longer. You probably won't be able to put it to use in time. Might be better to just go back to school."
"But what the school teaches is just cannon-fodder stuff. I don't want to die without knowing why," Zhan Jun said. "It's not that I'm afraid of dying, but I've got three older sisters. If I die, what'll happen to them?"
Liu A'dou could tell he meant it. He was sincere. That made A'dou consider actually teaching him something—but what would be good?
"Alright. Come find me tomorrow morning. I'll figure out something useful for you."
"Thanks, Liu-dage!"
After Zhan Jun left, Liu A'dou started thinking. 'Should I teach him the Force?' But then he'd need lightsaber training too, and that would take months. A'dou didn't even know how long he was staying. Better to pick something that could be learned quickly.
Ripple was one option. But it wasn't enough to keep someone alive in a real war.
'Since it's this world's problem, maybe I should work from this Earth's own resources,' A'dou thought. 'Might find something worthwhile that way.'
Once Ada was asleep, Liu A'dou vanished into the night.