Star Ocean: Starting from the Abandoned Mining Space Station.

Chapter 453 The Curse of Time

Shortly after.

The Minister of Psyker took the unconscious Tian Zhan and Chen Ming's body through the star gate to the present Origin Galaxy.

He used himself as a cover to completely conceal all news about Chen Ming.

The sentry array's accuracy isn't high enough to tell if a person's eyes are empty, but his actions are having an effect.

So far, everyone in the entire empire, except the minister, still believes that Chen Ming has really returned and defeated the Queen.

However, for unknown reasons and considerations, Chen Ming chose to return to his colony.

As for the minister, apart from the initial excitement that Chen Ming finally returned, he later learned about Chen Ming's true situation from Tian Zhanzhi.

He knew that Chen Ming's news must not be made public.
It was not good news that only Chen Ming's body came back, at least for most people.

Because the body is just a tool, there is a possibility that means can be found to restrain the tool.

By now many people have already reacted and want to learn about Chen Ming's current situation through the minister.

The minister couldn't tell the truth to anyone, so he chose the same approach as Chen Ming's colonial high-level officials.

Regardless of.

That is to say, pretending to be dead.

Completely disregarding other people's thoughts and attitudes, just to hide the situation.

This is not a good approach, but it is indeed an approach that will not have much impact in the short term.

As long as Chen Ming's men continue to try to bring Chen Ming's consciousness out of that chaotic space, the subsequent negative impact of this approach can be minimized.

If we can't bring it out, then humanity is basically doomed.

It would be the same even if Chen Ming's body was still there.

God knows whether the Queen will find a way to deal with Chen Ming's body after she returns.

If we really find it, and Chen Ming’s consciousness does not return to the body to counter it, there will be no need to worry about the subsequent problems.

So, the Minister did the same.

He has analyzed the pros and cons of the matter clearly, and he certainly knows what is the right thing to do.

He will also contribute to the search for Chen Ming's consciousness.

Like now.

Under his cover, Huihuang controlled Tian Zhan's spaceship and the shuttle after Chen Ming's body was transformed, passed through the star gate within the empire, and successfully arrived at Chen Ming's colony.

The two spacecraft landed in a newly built city on Gaia-2, which was only for the core members of the colony to settle in.

After handing over the unconscious bodies of Tian Zhan and Chen Ming to Huihuang.

The minister did not leave, but followed the rescue shuttle sent by Huihuang and arrived at Gaia-2. Huihuang has not yet opened a hospital in the area because the population on Gaia-2 is too sparse.

He wanted to wait for Tian Zhan to wake up and then talk to Tian Zhan more about Chen Ming's body.

No one and no Yuhui stopped him from doing so.

While waiting, he was constantly sorting out the current situation in his mind.

Although Chen Ming only returned physically, it still allowed the empire to breathe a sigh of relief.

The desperate situation that the empire was facing seemed like a joke in front of Chen Ming.

Not only was the Queen forced to retreat, but the mechanical race also seemed to have a plan to deal with the situation.

If Chen Ming just goes to the mechanical tribe, he will be finished.

But this is all based on the assumption that Chen Ming really comes back.

At present, the Empire has not changed its dire situation in any practical sense.

Let’s not worry about the Mechanical Empire for now as it has been able to maintain a balance of power for a long time.

But the empire still has no means to take action against the Queen. If the Queen invades again next time, they can't throw Chen Ming's body in front of the Queen, right?

The Empire must have a plan for its next step.

In fact, Tian Zhan has already laid out this plan.

He has proved that Chen Ming's consciousness did not disappear, but he encountered some accidents that caused his body to return to the normal universe earlier than him.

Since it has been made clear that Chen Ming alone is capable of forcing the Queen to retreat with his body, isn't there only one thing left to do?

Bring back Chen Ming's consciousness.

How do you get into that chaotic dimension? How do you get people out?
Also, what did it mean when Chen Ming finally raised his arm to show the tattoo-like mark on his body that seemed to have never existed before?
Perhaps he could discuss with Huihuang and conduct some research on Chen Ming's body...

Three hours later.

Tian Zhan opened his eyes.

He saw the pure white ceiling of the hospital, a nursing robot beside his bed, and the Minister of Psionics.

"Tian Zhan, there is something I want to discuss with you."

Tian Zhan propped himself up, leaned against the back of the bed, and rubbed his face with his hands, trying to suppress his fatigue, but the effect was obviously not very good.

He shook his head and asked, "What's the matter?"

"I want to study Chen Ming's body."

Tian Zhan's first reaction was to refuse: "No, we can't do anything we shouldn't do to his body."

"Not an over-research, I just want to see if there are some clues on his body that can lead to his consciousness."

"You also saw that Chen Ming showed us the mark on his body at the end. There must be some clues on him, right?"

What the minister said was indeed true. The special pattern on Chen Ming's body was not only something no one had ever seen before, it also helped his body fully recover during the battle with the Queen.

Finally, Chen Ming regained consciousness and raised his consciousness on his own initiative, which meant that there must be something wrong.

But Tian Zhan always felt that he seemed to have overlooked something. He always felt that doing this was not a good thing for either Chen Ming or them.

He tried hard to think about the plan the minister had mentioned, but the pain in his brain that seemed to be tearing him apart kept affecting his thinking.

In the end, Tian Zhan gave up thinking and refused, "No, the Queen will definitely not come again in a short time after being defeated this time. Can't the Empire think of a way to solve the problem itself?"

Although Tian Zhan had been lying down for three hours, the exhaustion of entering other dimensions through his consciousness twice in a short period of time had left his mental state in a very bad state, and there was no way he could recover in such a short time.

The minister did not continue to disturb Tian Zhan's rest and left the ward.

After leaving.

A brilliant voice rang out from the terminal in the minister's hand: "I've told you that Tian Zhan will most likely not agree."

"And he is an important member of our team. It was his desperate efforts that brought back Chen Ming's body. We must respect his thoughts."

The minister also had some understanding of the internal situation of Chen Ming's management, but he had to give it a try.

"He will probably understand later. Is there a place to stay? I don't plan to go back for the time being."

"You can just find a place to live in the city."

Huihuang had no intention of driving anyone away.

Obviously, its ideas are different from Tian Zhan's, but are more similar to the president's.

He was not very concerned about Chen Ming's body and thought it was totally fine to use it for some research.

Because he had really seen Chen Ming do all kinds of inhumane things to the various clones created using his own genes.

In Chen Ming’s own words, it has no effect on what I do, and these things are not even clones, they are all transformed from bugs.

Huihuang once worried that Chen Ming would lower his bottom line because of these things.

Fortunately, Chen Ming has never done anything out of line to anyone or anything other than his own clone.

But this has little to do with the present. But in short, it is because Chen Ming has done similar things before, so Huihuang doesn't mind when conducting various studies on Chen Ming's body.

Just now when Tian Zhan was unconscious and the minister came to ask, it agreed immediately.

As long as Chen Ming's consciousness can be restored, it doesn't matter if this body is damaged.

Chaofan, who was also very interested in Chen Ming's body, was even more excited.

It had also seen Chen Ming doing all sorts of things with his clone, so its idea about using Chen Ming's body for experiments was basically the same as Huihuang's, and even more radical.

However, Chaofan was sent away by Huihuang, and Huihuang himself had to deal with Chen Ming's matter personally.

Just as it just said, it needs to respect Tian Zhan's ideas.

So even if it agreed, it couldn't start the experiment directly. It needed to consider how to persuade Tian Zhan and how to study Chen Ming's body afterwards.

but……

If you want to do any research, you really have to convince Tian Zhan first.

But if it's just basic observation and research on Chen Ming's body, it won't have any impact at all, so just do it.

Only by observing and clarifying the general situation first can we have better reasons to persuade Tian Zhan.

Two days later.

Tian Zhan wakes up from his coma.

Being in Gaia and sharing the same power with him allowed him to recover quickly.

Then, he was called by Huihuang to a research institute in an unopened area on Gaia-2.

Tian Zhan arrived at the place very quickly.

After entering the institute and reaching the experimental area, they found that Chen Ming's body was placed safely on a laboratory table, with many equipment surrounding it.

Tian Zhan was not angry about this situation.

Because of his increased level of understanding of various life states through Gaia.

Chen Ming's body had indeed not been subjected to any experiments, the equipment was only for observation.

In addition to Chen Ming's body and equipment, the Minister of Psychic Energy was also here and greeted Tian Zhan: "You're here."

Tian Zhan nodded, walked to the side of the lab table and asked, "Is there anything you want to tell me?"

"Have."

This time it was not the minister's words, but a brilliant voice that rang out in the laboratory.

"I want to persuade you to agree to conduct experiments on Chen Ming's body."

"What's the reason?"

"You'll know soon. Just wait."

"How long?"

"Three seconds."

Brilliant words fell.

Tian Zhan saw the spiral mark on the right hand of Chen Ming lying on the experimental table suddenly light up.

Just like when his body was torn apart by the Queen's power.

But... when the mark turned dim again, Tian Zhan did not find any changes in Chen Ming's body.

The surrounding observation equipment was activated again to examine Chen Ming's body after what had just happened.

Huihuang did not keep the secret any longer and handed Tian Zhan several documents, which contained observation reports on Chen Ming's body.

It explained: "This has happened four times in the two days you've been resting."

"Although it may seem that there is no change every time the mark lights up, his physical condition will actually recover."

Tian Zhan could understand the word "restore", but he was a little confused when he heard the words "the mark will be restored when it lights up" put together.

"What do you mean?"

"We observed that his cells recovered to a better state after the imprint was turned on."

"In the simplest terms, his life was running backwards."

The minister also spoke up at this time: "We found traces of time travel. Chen Ming's body seems to be trapped in a time loop."

"Judging from what we are seeing now, approximately every twelve hours is a cycle. At the end of each cycle, Chen Ming's body will return to twelve hours ago."

Tian Zhan glanced at Chen Ming's body, which had just recovered to the state it was twelve hours ago, and said, "This sounds pretty good. This should be considered a form of immortality in disguise."

The minister said again: "Brain cells will also return to what they were twelve hours ago."

Tian Zhan's expression suddenly changed.

This doesn't sound like a good thing.

Although Chen Ming does not rely on his body to survive, his consciousness already exists independently, but God knows whether the effect of time reversal will affect his consciousness.

If so... could this be the reason why Chen Ming didn't come back?

The minister also expressed his thoughts again at this time: "We need to conduct in-depth research on this phenomenon, so that we can find out what happened to him."

Tian Zhan sighed and said, "Actually, my previous refusal was not due to research issues. I also knew that if I didn't do research, I would have no chance."

"I'm worried about the researcher."

Who should conduct the research on Chen Ming's body?

Currently, Chen Ming's colony has sufficient equipment but insufficient personnel.

Even though Chen Ming has been trying hard to recruit people, and even after he lost contact, Huihuang has been trying hard to recruit people, there are still not enough people.

The strongest psychic in the entire colony before was Wu An. After Wu An's death, he became Tian Zhan.

They lacked manpower in the psychic field, and even more so, manpower to study psychic power.

People who understand psychic powers must be transferred from other places.

"So you can do research if you want, but you have to bring the person to us for research. It has to be done in our colony. We can't hand Chen Ming's body over to anyone."

"And confidentiality must be maintained. If the news is leaked, the consequences will be disastrous."

After getting Tian Zhan's reply, the minister immediately said, "I can assure you that the news will never be leaked from me or any other channels related to me. I also know the consequences of leaking the news."

To prove his attitude, he even contacted the Archon directly on the spot using his private number.

The Grand Consul was also very curious about what the minister was doing by going to Chen Ming these two days, and he also wanted to confirm Chen Ming's attitude.

After all, Chen Ming had clearly returned but had not been seen for several days. Apart from anything else, he should at least go back to the Empire to see Bai Quan and Cheng Xinghai after he came back.

But he didn't, so the Grand Archon was always worried about this.

However, the minister did not mention anything in this regard, but simply requested the authority to dispatch personnel from Fan Chao.

In addition, a newly drafted contract document was prepared based on the template, which required the signing of a confidentiality agreement after the assignment and an agreement on closed management for at least two months.

He said that it would be signed by the personnel who were transferred later.

This strange request was of course questioned by the Archon: "What do you want to do?"

“Do what I think is the most important thing.”

"most important?"

“Most important.”

"Then do as you say."

(End of this chapter)