Chapter 247: Chapter 246: Reversing the Future

As she stepped into the elevator, Elorie took a deep breath.

"What’s the matter, are you nervous?" Chen Xuan pressed the button for the branch store.

"Well... a little." The Angel nodded. Although they couldn’t protect the core Lucy, she still held a glimmer of hope in her heart—what if the Angel Alliance truly repented? There were still thirty years before the crystal fell, and if they fully committed to preparing for it, at least they could build a few more underground cities to help more people survive.

She didn’t dare trust the Alliance too much, yet she hoped she could believe in them. This conflicting mindset left her anxious and apprehensive.

Chen Xuan didn’t have that many concerns.

This place was ultimately someone else’s world. As the manager, he had done his utmost for the guests; if it didn’t work out, it was fate.

The elevator only operated for about five seconds before it stopped.

With a ding, the elevator door slowly slid open.

What appeared before the three of them was still the same small high-rise apartment, just as it was when they left. The building across the street was so close, with several clotheslines strung in between. Freshly washed T-shirts fluttered in the wind; on the other side, a tenant leaned by the window, smoking lazily.

"Seems like nothing’s changed." As Chen Xuan spoke, he glanced at Elorie, noticing a clear look of disappointment on her face.

Their efforts ultimately hadn’t borne fruit.

"What on earth is the Alliance doing!" the Little Angel said in exasperation.

"It’s too early to conclude," Lin Qing remarked noncommittally, "We should take a look at the repair shop to see for ourselves."

"Okay, I’ll book a car. Amy, Amy?" Chen Xuan called out a few times in the empty house, but there was no enthusiastic response from the guide robot.

Before they left last time, they had left Amy in the branch store; it had only been on standby for a few days, so it shouldn’t have run out of power.

Chen Xuan searched every room but still found no trace of the robot.

"Did it run away on its own?"

"That’s impossible... I swept its programming. It should only be serving us now," Lin Qing asserted.

Could someone have entered and stolen it? That seemed unlikely. Once the branch store closed, it became a completely sealed space. Even if the rental room was illegally breached, anyone who entered would just be accessing the room in reality.

Both Chen Xuan and Lin Qing thought of the same possibility.

"Let’s get downstairs!"

"Huh?" Elorie hadn’t yet reacted when Lin Qing grabbed her hand, hurrying her towards the elevator entrance.

The three of them reached the first floor, and just as they ran out of the apartment building, the dazzling sunlight made them instinctively close their eyes.

It was the late afternoon sun, around four or five o’clock—warm, golden, and streaming through the gaps in the concrete jungle. You could genuinely feel the heat of the light on your skin.

They couldn’t help but be stunned.

The simulated sunlight in Second New Paris City had always only provided illumination; it never changed in angle or color, because powering the crops in the aerial farms was its main purpose; creating a setting sun was pure extravagance.

Elorie was the first to look up at the sky.

Residents of the civilian district didn’t enjoy holographic projections; above the residential buildings were always lights that never extinguished.

However, she couldn’t find the lighting matrices embedded in the rock layers.

After getting used to the glaring sunlight, she saw nothing but clouds in the sky.

"No way..." she murmured.

Chen Xuan laughed, casually gripping the shoulder of a passerby, "Ask him where we are."

The man was initially furious, cursing and trying to pry off Chen Xuan’s hand, but when he realized that the grip was as strong as iron, his expression instantly turned friendly.

Lin Qing translated for them.

"Where else... It’s the Nineteen District!"

"I meant the city."

The other person showed a puzzled expression, "Uh... Paris."

"Not Second New Paris City?"

The man was displeased but afraid to speak out, "I have no idea what you’re talking about. This place has never changed its name! Please don’t hurt me; I don’t have any money on me!"

After Chen Xuan released him, he ran off like the wind, cursing as he went, "Damn, lunatic!"

"History has changed..." Elorie said in a daze, looking at Chen Xuan, "History has truly changed!"

"Yeah, and it seems like it’s more than just a little change." Chen Xuan replied with a smile.

This was not the underground refuge city they knew.

The city of Paris was still intact above ground!

If this place hadn’t been hit with cataclysmic disasters, it was likely that other cities were safe too... This meant that the billions lost worldwide hadn’t occurred, and doomsday hadn’t arrived!

It wasn’t until now that Elorie snapped out of her shock. She pointed to her face, "Am I dreaming? Why don’t you pinch me?"

Lin Qing was a step ahead, pinching her ear and giving it a twist.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch! I’m awake; enough, I get it!" Elorie cried out in pain.

However, the moment Lin Qing released her, she immediately burst out laughing, hugging Lin Qing tightly, and kept repeating, "This is amazing, it’s amazing! We really did it!"

"Yes, indeed..." Lin Qing couldn’t help but feel empathetic, "We did it, and the future can truly be different."

Now and then, people passed by, casting odd glances at them.

After a while, Elorie finally calmed down. Though she still looked quite excited, she managed to control her emotions. She had smiled so intensely that her eyes were slightly red.

"Paris and Second New Paris City are fundamentally two different cities. Why is the house you rented in the new city exactly the same as what’s in the old city?" Lin Qing was the first to raise a question.

"I’m curious about that too, but this isn’t the right place for a discussion." Chen Xuan said, "Why don’t we head back upstairs?"

After all, the city itself had changed, so whether or not the repair shop still existed was no longer important.

"Mr. Manager, I want to go somewhere else..." Elorie suddenly chimed in.

"Where to?"

"My home. If it’s still there, it’s not far from here." She said cautiously, "Of course... it’s been a century, so it might not belong to me anymore."

Seeing her face filled with both hope and the fear of disappointment, Chen Xuan couldn’t help but smile, "Alright, then we’ll go visit your place."

...

As it turned out, Elorie’s home was gone.

In its place was a grand and luxurious commercial plaza, with shiny skyscrapers towering into the clouds. There were many aerial vehicles shuttling back and forth between the buildings, their numbers plentiful but staggered in height, moving in an orderly manner, clearly guided by a massive intelligent system.

In contrast, there were hardly any cars on the streets; instead, the streets were filled with well-dressed pedestrians and lush green landscape belts. Along the street, every dozen meters or so, there was a parasol tree, its trunk embedded with various electronic screens, maintaining the convenience of modernity while also embracing the natural beauty of the city.

Seeing this scene, Chen Xuan truly realized that this was an era a hundred years ahead.

But one couldn’t blame him for the slow reaction.

Because the Nineteen District, just seven or eight kilometers from the center of Paris, still remained consistent with the era he was familiar with, showing hardly any change.

"It seems your house has been requisitioned and redeveloped."

"Looks like that’s the case..." Elorie gave a wry smile, "In fact, I feel relieved. It shows that my homeland continued to progress, and mankind didn’t stagnate because of the core Lucy’s disappearance."

"Strange." Lin Qing quickly noticed an oddity, "Most of the people here seem to be natural humans; I can’t see any traces of cybernetic modifications."

"What’s wrong with that?" Chen Xuan said indifferently, "Not everyone can accept having synthetic implants in their bodies, right?"

"Of course it’s not right," Lin Qing emphasized. "It’s not a matter of acceptance. When technology reaches a certain level, cybernetics becomes essential for pursuing efficiency, much like using a payment code. Without it, you get eliminated by society. Their city seems well-developed, so the cybernetics technology should follow suit... After all, you can see quite a few modification devices on the residents of Second New Paris City."