The chair declared the hearing adjourned. Jonathan stood up and switched off the holographic image, switching off Luo Ji’s two-century-long nightmare in the process.
“Dr. Luo, as far as I am aware, this is the outcome you were hoping for,” Jonathan said to him with a smile.
“Yes. It’s just what I wanted. Thank you, Mr. Commissioner. And I thank the SFJC for restoring my ordinary status,” Luo Ji said, from the depths of his heart.
“The hearing was simple. Just a vote on a proposition. I’ve been empowered to discuss matters with you in more detail. You may start with your biggest concern.”
“What about my wife and child?” Luo Ji asked, unable to hold back the question that had been tormenting him since reawakening. It was a question he had wanted to ask when he first met Jonathan, before the start of the meeting.
“Don’t worry. They’re both fine. They’re still in hibernation. I can give you their files, and you can apply to reawaken them whenever you’d like.”
“Thank you. Thank you.” Luo Ji’s eyes grew moist, and once again he had that feeling of arriving in heaven.
“However, Dr. Luo, I have a small piece of advice,” Jonathan said as he slid closer to Luo Ji on the couch. “It’s not easy for a hibernator to get used to life in this age. I advise you to stabilize your own life first before you wake them up. The UN funds are enough to keep them in hibernation for another two hundred thirty years.”
“Well, how am I supposed to live out there?”
The commissioner laughed off his question. “Don’t worry about that. You might not be used to the times, but living won’t be an issue. In this age, social welfare is excellent, and a person can enjoy a comfortable life even if they don’t do anything at all. The university you used to work at is still there, right in this city. They said they would consider the question of your work, and they’ll contact you later on.”
A thought suddenly occurred to Luo Ji, and it nearly made him shudder. “What about my security when I go out? The ETO wants to kill me!”
“The ETO?!” Jonathan burst into laughter. “The Earth-Trisolaris Organization was completely wiped out a century ago. There’s no social foundation for them to exist in the world anymore. Of course, there are still people who have those ideological tendencies, but they aren’t able to organize. You’ll be absolutely safe outside.”
As he was about to leave, Jonathan dropped his official attitude, and his suit started shining with an exaggerated, distorted image of the sky. He smiled and said to Luo Ji, “Doctor, out of all the historical figures I’ve seen, you’ve got the greatest sense of humor. A spell. A spell on a star. Ha ha ha…”
Luo Ji stood alone in the reception room, ruminating in silence over the reality before him. After two centuries as a messiah, he was once again an ordinary person. A new life was waiting before him.
“You’re a commoner, my boy,” a gruff voice loudly intruded on Luo Ji’s thoughts. When he looked back toward the door, he saw Shi Qiang coming in. “Heh. I heard it from the guy who just left.”
It was a happy reunion. They traded experiences, and Luo Ji learned that Shi Qiang had reawakened two months before. His leukemia had been cured. The doctors had also discovered that he was at high risk of liver disease, probably due to drinking, so they had taken care of that, too. To the two of them, it didn’t really feel like they had been apart for very long. No more than four or five years, since there was no sense of time in hibernation. But meeting in a new era two centuries in the future added a deeper level to their friendship.
“I’ve come to pick you up when you’re discharged. There’s no reason to stay here,” Shi Qiang said as he took a set of clothes out of his backpack and had Luo Ji put them on.
“Isn’t it… a little big?” Luo Ji asked, opening up the jacket.
“Look at you. Two months late waking up, and you’re a yahoo next to me. Try it on.”
Shi Qiang pointed out an object on the front of the shirt and told him that he could use it to adjust the sizing. When Luo Ji put on the clothes, he heard a hissing sound, and the clothing slowly shrank to fit the dimensions of his body. It was the same with the trousers.
“Hey, you’re not wearing that same set of clothes you wore two centuries ago, are you?” Luo Ji asked, looking at Shi Qiang. He remembered quite clearly that the leather jacket Shi Qiang was wearing now was the same one he had on the last time he saw him.
“Most of my belongings got lost in the Great Ravine, but my family did keep that set of clothes for me. But it wasn’t wearable. You’ve got some things left over from that era too, and when you’re settled down you can go pick them up. I tell you, my boy, when you see how that stuff has changed, that’s when you’ll really know that nearly two hundred years isn’t a short length of time.” As he spoke, Shi Qiang pressed something somewhere on his jacket and his outfit turned entirely white. The leather texture had just been an image. “I like it like the past.”
“Can mine do that too? Can it put up images like theirs?” Luo Ji asked, looking at his own clothes.
“They can, but it’s a little hard to get it set up. Let’s go.”
Luo Ji and Shi Qiang took the elevator in the trunk down to the ground floor, passed through the tree’s large foyer, and out into the new world.
When the commissioner shut off the holographic image of the hearing, the meeting had not actually concluded. Luo Ji had in fact noticed that when the chair declared the meeting adjourned, a sudden voice had rung out. It was a woman’s voice, and while he hadn’t been able to make it out clearly, everyone in the assembly had turned in a particular direction. Then Jonathan had turned off the image. He must have noticed it, too, but once the chair had adjourned the meeting, Luo Ji, now an ordinary citizen without Wallfacer status, was not eligible to participate even if it was still in progress.
The speaker was Keiko Yamasuki. She said, “Mr. Chair, I have something to say.”
The chair said, “Dr. Yamasuki, you are not a Wallfacer. You are allowed to attend today’s meeting due to your special status, but you do not have the right to speak.”
None of the representatives seemed interested in her. They were getting up to leave. For them, the entire Wallfacer Project was nothing but a footnote in history that they had to spend energy dealing with. But what she said next stopped them in their tracks. She turned to Hines and said, “Wallfacer Bill Hines, I am your Wallbreaker.”
Hines, who was getting up to leave, felt his legs buckle at Yamasuki’s words, and he sat down in his chair again. The people in the auditorium glanced at each other, and then began to whisper, as the blood gradually drained from Hines’s face.
“I hope you have not all forgotten the significance of that title,” Yamasuki said imperiously to the assembly.
The chair said, “Yes, we know what a Wallbreaker is. But your organization does not exist anymore.”
“I know.” She appeared totally calm. “But as the last member of the ETO, I will fulfill my duty for the Lord.”