Chapter 3

After the initial cleanup was completed, a massive amount of data surged in, containing countless chaotic yet complete memories. Scenes flashed by rapidly, filling the blank spaces that had long been reserved in his consciousness. Without these memories, he wouldn't have known he possessed such a vast memory capacity.

This was the complete life of a person, more precisely, a young man. The final scene of the scroll was frozen in a white room, with the operating light gradually blurring in his field of vision.

He suddenly felt a strange sensation, as if he was resonating with these memories. Gradually, he and the memories merged, becoming one, as if this was how it was supposed to be from the beginning.

He opened his eyes and looked at Dr. Chu, suddenly feeling a certain emotion.

It was deep and complex, like a mix of many things, making it hard to identify. Amid the chaos, there was a faint hint of hatred, along with other things. This emotion seemed to be an inherent part of him.

Dr. Chu looked at him, with a faint glimmer in his eyes. However, the doctor's face, etched with the marks of time, remained stern, without a hint of a smile or any other expression.

"I have already downloaded the escape route, your new identity, name, and subsequent action plan."

"Name..." he repeated the word.

A hint of gentleness flashed in Dr. Chu's eyes as he said, "Yes, from now on, you will have your own name... Chu Jun Gui."

He searched through the data he had just received and found a new mission package, code-named 44. However, the package couldn't be opened, indicating that the prerequisite escape steps had not been completed.

"After completing the 44th action plan, what should I do?"

"We'll see when the time comes."

"Alright," he indicated his compliance.

Dr. Chu disconnected the chamber from him, pointed to the side door, and said, "Leave from here!"

He leaped up and ran towards the side door.

"Wait!" the doctor called out to him.

He stopped and turned back.

The doctor's eyes showed more emotion, and he understood some of it, but not all. However, the doctor quickly suppressed his feelings, handed him something, and then resumed his stern and rigid expression, saying, "This is for you. Look at it after you leave. Remember, after you leave here, you are no longer an experimental subject. You have your own name and personality, and you can live as you wish, without following anyone's orders."

Something seemed to well up inside him, but he couldn't express it, and he only bowed silently to the doctor.

The doctor waved him off, urging him to leave quickly, and then returned to the passage he had come from, his tall figure quickly disappearing in the smoke and fire.

"Chu Jun Gui..." he silently repeated his name twice in his mind, then quickly followed the route diagram.

This seemed to be an emergency maintenance passage, with thick metal walls reinforced with special support structures, and the edges painted with prominent yellow diagonal stripes.

He increased his speed and reached the end of the passage. There was a heavy gate here, and the power supply had been cut off, so it seemed he would have to manually turn the wheel on the gate.

He grabbed the wheel and, with a slight effort, turned it, then pushed open the heavy isolation door. Outside was a large hall, which seemed to be divided into several areas, each with different purposes. The hall was now lit only by emergency lights, which flickered on and off. In the corners, several detached cables floated in the air, occasionally bursting into large plumes of sparks.

At this moment, the hall was empty, with research materials scattered everywhere, and many valuable instruments lying on the ground, ignored. Clearly, the researchers had left in a hurry.

Following the escape route, he crossed the hall and came to a separately partitioned area. There was a one-way transparent screen separating it, and the power supply was unstable, causing the screen to alternate between one-way transparency and opacity. Only when the power was on did the screen function in one-way observation mode.

He looked through the screen and was suddenly stunned.

Behind the screen was an apartment, with furnishings and decorations that were all too familiar, even the automatic meal machine was still in the state of needing raw materials.

This was the apartment where he had lived for an unknown period of time.

It turned out that every move he made was under the watchful eyes of the researchers, and all his actions were recorded, organized, and analyzed.

He felt a strange emotion, but quickly suppressed it. As an experimental subject, he should be used to such things.

Chu Jun Gui bypassed the screen and opened a hidden door. The other side of the door was disguised as a piece of equipment cover. Passing through the hidden door, he found himself in the corridor outside his apartment. He rushed into his room, quickly glanced around, and found nothing worth taking.

The view outside the window was still the beautiful bay, showing no signs of conflict. It was noon, and under the strong sunlight, there were fewer yachts and sailboats on the sea. The beach was filled with tourists resting and playing in the water, and a few young people were playing a beach volleyball match.

According to the escape route, the only exit was on the balcony.

He strode to the sliding glass door and pulled it open, only to be stunned!

Behind the door was not the bay, but a huge metal framework, with large, neatly arranged glass portholes. If the frames were ignored, it was like a hundred-meter-high floor-to-ceiling window.

Outside the window, there was nothing but endless space!

Even with his mechanical, cold, and programmed thinking, the initial shock of having his own consciousness and personality made him stand there for a moment before he could recover from the overwhelming impact.

It turned out there was no bay, no city, and he had been living in a space base all along.

Beneath his feet was a steel passage leading to another room. At that moment, an attack aircraft suddenly flew past the window, its underwing cannons spewing fire. Several beams missed their target and hit the glass wall, causing violent explosions.

Fortunately, the base's outer wall was exceptionally sturdy, and the glass, though cracked, did not shatter. However, a few cracks began to leak air, and it was clear that it wouldn't hold for long.

Chu Jun Gui ran along the passage, spiraling upwards, and burst into another hall. A shuttlecraft was parked here, the one he would take to the experimental base. The hall's floor could descend, leading to the area where he underwent daily experiments.

The shuttlecraft couldn't actually fly; it was fixed to the floor and could only simulate various shaking and vibration movements.

Chu Jun Gui ran past the shuttlecraft and out through a door on the other side of the hall. According to the route map, the next destination was the airfield, where a special escape spacecraft was waiting. Dr. Chu had already given him the password to start the spacecraft and the flight route.

The airfield was filled with flames and explosions, with scattered bodies on the ground and no one in sight. A working screen showed that all the escape pods had been launched and the berths were empty.

Chu Jun Gui easily found the inconspicuous hidden door and entered the highest-security secret area after inputting a 32-digit password.

A small spacecraft was parked at the berth, capable of seating only three or four people. He wanted to check the surroundings, but another explosion in the airfield area made him hesitate no longer. He opened the hatch, sat in the pilot's seat, and placed his hand on the start area.

The new flight route was input into the spacecraft through a data interface. The spacecraft started, and after a seemingly endless fifteen seconds of engine preheating, it finally slowly slid out of the berth and quickly accelerated, shooting out of the exit like a bullet.

Behind the spacecraft, the airfield finally exploded completely, a dragon of fire spewing from the port track, and countless debris and remnants following the spacecraft. They would eventually become space junk.

The spacecraft had already started accelerating according to the predetermined route. Chu Jun Gui turned back, wanting to see what the place he had lived in looked like.

He was leaving a huge space base, roughly rectangular, resembling a space city. It was clear that it had been expanded over a long period to reach its current scale.

At that moment, hundreds of fighter jets were circling and dancing around the space base, like a group of bloodthirsty raptors, attacking the large but increasingly defenseless prey. The dazzling flight trajectories of the jets showed that they were the most experienced pilots.

The base was engulfed in flames, with only a few turrets still firing back. However, this firepower was no match for the numerous elite fighters.

In the distance, some escape pods were trying to leave with their weak engines. A dozen fighters were weaving through the air, attacking these escape pods and blowing them up mid-air. Other escape pods had surrendered, shutting down their engines and being towed away by the fighters.

A fighter jet spotted Chu Jun Gui's spacecraft, turned, and quickly approached. Its gun barrels glowed with a dark red light, locking onto the target.

Chu Jun Gui gripped the control stick, preparing to turn and engage. In his memory, there was a complete set of basic space combat training materials. Although the spacecraft was for temporary escape, its basic performance should not be too bad. Even if it couldn't match the elite fighters, it should still have some fighting power.

However, when he moved the control stick, the spacecraft remained unresponsive, still accelerating slowly along the predetermined route. The acceleration was far below that of a normal escape spacecraft.

"Spacecraft entering space jump preparation phase, controls locked."

The prompt made him want to curse. At this moment, the slow acceleration would mean he would be turned into space junk before the space jump.

The enemy fighter's acceleration performance was clearly far superior to Chu Jun Gui's small spacecraft, quickly closing in and entering range. Just as it was about to fire, another fighter jet suddenly appeared like a ghost, unleashing a series of intense cannon fire, instantly tearing the enemy jet to shreds.

The unusual activity in this airspace caught the attention of a nearby group of fighter jets, and six or seven of them broke off their attack on the base and flew towards this area.

The mysterious fighter jet showed no fear, diving into the enemy formation and displaying unparalleled aerial combat skills, destroying four enemy jets in quick succession. The remaining two, seeing the situation, fled in panic.

However, their escape was only temporary. In the distance, the fighter jet formation was in turmoil, and more jets were breaking off their attack on the base and forming up.

The mysterious fighter jet did not flee but circled around Chu Jun Gui's spacecraft and sent a signal.

On the control panel in front of him, Dr. Chu's image appeared.

The pilot of the fighter jet was actually Dr. Chu? He was genuinely surprised; the combat skills Dr. Chu had just displayed were at the level of a master of aerial combat.

Dr. Chu looked somewhat haggard, still as cold and stern as steel, with a few faint wrinkles etched like knife marks. He looked deeply at Chu Jun Gui, finally waving his hand as a greeting, without saying a word.

In the distance, dozens of fighter jets had formed a large combat formation and were roaring towards them.

Dr. Chu cut off the communication and flew away in an instant.

Chu Jun Gui rushed to the porthole and looked out. He saw Dr. Chu's solitary fighter jet accelerating towards the massive formation of enemy jets.

Like an ancient knight, charging against the tide.