<h4>Chapter 220: Sol Three Hundred and Thirty-Two, Letter</h4>


    Trantor: CKtalon Editor: CKtalon


    Tang Yue silently took the envelope and tore it open.


    Inside was a folded piece of A4 paper. Tomcat was right. It was the mostmonly seen and ordinary white paper. It was everywhere on Earth.


    But now, it had appeared outside the Mars Kunlun Station. It was the most abnormal thing in the world.


    Tang Yue unfolded the paper and used the LEDmp on the Radiant Armor to illuminate the letter. On it was neatly typed Chinese words. It was even in regr script.


    “Dear Earthling Mr. Tang Yue,


    “Hello there.


    “First and foremost, we would like to convey our sincerest apologies. Due to an operating error by a rail transport operator, the released energy had a deviation of 10?1? arcseconds, causing 78,496,322 stars, as well as seven times the number ofs in the Laniakea Supercluster to be instantly destroyed. After verification, we have determined that Earth was one of thes that suffered this disaster.


    “After the ident, the operator in question immediately reported this for emergency handling. This letter was sessfully sent out two nck seconds after Earth was vaporized. Please remain calm.


    “Due to the unclear situation in the Second Ring Road and how it happens to be peak hour, there will inevitably be traffic congestion. This letter you have received might be slightly dyed. We kindly ask for your understanding. The notice in this letter will be based on the time of receipt of this letter.


    “Dear Mr. Tang Yue, you have automatically been made the legal inheritor and sole possessor of Earth and all its anciry items. This includes (but are not limited to) all living creatures and all their derivatives, all man-made objects, and their derivatives. Towards your personal losses, you have thewful right and interest to file awsuit through the Department of Justice to request forpensation.


    “Upon receipt of this letter, you are to head to the designated location, within sixty sols, in person. We will aid you in filing thewsuit against the operator in question and ensure that all relevantpensation ording to the prevailingws will be made to you.”


    Written below was a string of numbers, clearly geographical coordinates.


    “88.2°E, 17.6°N.”


    It was finally signed off as:


    “Yours sincerely,


    “Pan-Three-Dimensional Industrial Composite Community.”


    ...


    “Impossible.” Tang Yue shook his head.


    “That’s the twelfth time you’ve said impossible.” Tomcat sat on a chair. “Don’t you have anything else to say?”


    “Impossible,” Tang Yue said.


    “Thirteenth time.”


    Tang Yue raised the letter against the light and narrowed his eyes. It was really an ordinary and unremarkable piece of paper.


    He originally imagined that he could ept anything after surviving all kinds of tribtions. Even if the one who had knocked on the door was a glowing little green man, he could calmly shake hands with it to express this historic and meaningful meeting. It was the grand beginning of two species and two civilizations entering a win-win cooperation.


    However, there wasn’t a little green man or an Avatar outside. There was only a tiny envelope.


    A mostmonly-seen and most ordinary object had appeared in the most impossible ce via the most incredulous and unimaginable manner. That letter was sitting at Kunlun Station’s doorstep as if it was only right. It appeared that openly without hiding away, almost to the brink of arrogance. All of this was to tell them that this waspletely reasonable.


    It was as though a mailman had really opened the airlock’s hatch, ced the envelope gently on the ground, patted its clothes, and left, vanishing into thin air as though it was just doing a routine job.


    But this was Mars. Heavens! My Armstrong! This darn ce is the Isidis nitia on Mars!


    Tang Yue waspletely confused. He no longer knew if the appearance of the envelope was considered normal or not.


    “Tomcat, p me. I want to see if it hurts.”


    Pa!


    “Does it hurt?”


    “Ouch—Can’t you hit me lighter?”


    This oddness of this world still exceeded his imagination.


    If this wasn’t Mars, Tang Yue would have imagined that this was some prank by some *sshole. However, when he rushed out, all he could see was a barren desert. Without the Radiant Armor’s protection, a normal person exposed to the external conditions couldn’t live for more than five minutes.


    “Impossible.”


    “Fourteenth time.”


    Tang Yue and Tomcat sat in a daze for more than an hour, their eyes staring at that letter. Its appearance was stunning. The man and cat were at a loss for words, with too many questions on their minds. They were momentarily unsure of where to start.


    “This isn’t something you cooked up, right?” Tang Yue asked softly.


    “You tell me. How did I knock on the hatch while sitting in the Hab?” Tomcat asked.


    Tang Yue and Tomcat continued their silence.


    “If this letter is real—”


    “I know you find it very difficult to believe this reality, but there’s no way you will find it more unbelievable than me...” Tomcat stared with big eyes that were filled with helplessness and perplexity. For the first time, it doubted what it knew. “But I can’t find any points of suspicion. I can’t find the proof needed to overturn the ridiculous exnation in this letter. It’s ridiculous! Just ridiculous! But I can’t disprove it.”


    Tang Yue mused that it finally understood what those people who studied quantum mechanics were thinking about.


    “Then what do we do?”


    “Burn it!” Tomcat wore a fierce look. “Burn it. Pretend that nothing happened. The Universe is still that Universe. The world is still that world. Humanity is still that humanity.’


    Tang Yue was taken aback. He grabbed the letter from the table. Having suffered a blow to its world view, it was hard to tell what kind of extreme actions Tomcat would carry out.


    It couldpletely destroy the evidence.


    Then, it would bury its head in the sand.


    That way, the Universe would still be the same Universe it knew. Everything would still adhere to its understanding of logic.


    “If what this letter says is real, we now know the reason for Earth’s sudden disappearance. A road roller identally squashed an ant’s nest while doing its job,” Tang Yue said. His eptance of the reality was far faster than Tomcat. After all, he was now alone without any connections tethering him to the world. Even if the letter told him that the Universe was to be destroyed tomorrow, he could still face it in aposed manner.


    Tomcat nodded.


    The letter had said that due to the carelessness of an operator, a deviation of 10?1? arcseconds caused 78,496,322 stars and 500 millions to vaporize instantly. The dismissive tone used was akin to saying “Oh, I’m sorry. I identally ttened a few ants.” Earth was one of the 500 million innocents that had been wiped out, just like the other 499,999,999s.


    It was no wonder Tomcat’s world view had been turned on its head.


    “The key point is...” Tang Yue enunciated each and every word in the letter. “Ensure that all relevantpensation ording to the prevailingws will be made to you. What does this mean?”


    “What it literally means. They say you are the only legal owner of Earth. If an ant’s nest is squashed, and you are thest surviving ant, they willpensate you an ant’s nest. With Earth destroyed, they willpensate you the Earth,” Tomcat replied.


    “Compensate me the Earth?”


    “Not only will theypensate you Earth...” Tomcat took the letter from Tang Yue’s hand and frowned. “They will alsopensate you seven billion people, the ecosphere, the millions of tons of trash from daily life, an Orion I spacecraft, as well as a Mars United Space Station.”