Chapter 133: Earth Prison Theory

Chapter 133: The Prison Planet Theory

Even Gu Jinsheng's usually expressionless face could no longer maintain its composure. He abruptly turned to Ji An, his eyes widening.

"You can understand him?"

Ji An nodded—this was why he'd sent everyone away. He didn’t know why he could comprehend the alien’s language, but he knew no one else could. The fact that he alone understood was definitely strange.

People were unpredictable—better not to test them. With tensions running high, it was best to avoid further complications. The safest course was to ensure no one else found out.

"Do you think I’m... weird?" Ji An gazed at Gu Jinsheng, his eyes fixed solely on him, scrutinizing every subtle shift in his expression.

Yet, after the initial shock, Gu Jinsheng reverted to his usual stoic demeanor, unfazed even if the sky fell.

He stepped closer to Ji An and yanked him into a hug.

"Xiao An, I’m not Chen Chen. You don’t need to test me." Pain flashed in Gu Jinsheng’s eyes. "Even if all you can do is understand an alien’s speech—even if one day you were to become an alien yourself—I would still love you."

Something in Ji An’s chest cracked open, while something else quietly emerged, bursting free. Sunlight poured in, warm and golden, breathing life into the room.

Gu Jinsheng held Ji An tightly, his arms tight enough to bruise.

"Xiao An, I’ll always be by your side. Whatever you turn into, I’ll still love you."

Ji An’s eyes crinkled with a smile, the low light making his face glow.

"Zzzzt—zzzt..." The alien suddenly emitted a strange noise, shattering the intimate atmosphere.

Reluctantly, Gu Jinsheng released Ji An, glaring at the alien for terrible timing.

"What is it saying?" Gu Jinsheng asked.

"It’s saying it’s in pain," Ji An replied.

"Pain? Is it injured?" But they had already examined the alien earlier and found no wounds.

Ji An was equally puzzled. He shook his head and turned to the alien. "We checked you earlier but didn’t find any injuries."

The alien croaked, "With your current technology, you can’t fix the issues with this body. Or perhaps, in your terms, 'treat' would be more accurate."

Ji An translated for Gu Jinsheng, which only confused them more.

Ji An asked, "In your world, is healing not called 'treatment,' but 'repairing the body'?"

The alien shook its head. "We are different from you. We do not exist in physical forms but as mental entities."

"Like... minds?" Ji An repeated.

"Yes. In your language, you might call it a 'soul.'"

"So souls truly exist? Death doesn’t mean nothingness?" This was the age-old question, tied up in religion and faith—one Ji An was deeply curious about.

"Spirits never die."

"Is there reincarnation?" Ji An translated each question for Gu Jinsheng, who couldn’t help but cut in upon hearing this.

The alien ignored Gu Jinsheng, its murky eyes fixed solely on Ji An.

Ji An repeated the question, and only then did the alien respond, "What you humans call 'reincarnation' is, in our view, just another kind of death."

"Why do you say that?"

"After you humans die, your consciousness is reset by some force, erasing all memories, and then it is reborn into a new body."

"Don’t you aliens experience the same?"

"No," the alien replied. "In fact, on our planet, we exist purely as consciousness. This form of existence has many advantages. The most basic one is that we are not bound by physical bodies, free from disease, and unbound by mortality."

"So you’re immortal?" Gu Jinsheng questioned skeptically.

Once again, the alien ignored Gu Jinsheng’s question, and Ji An realized the alien was deliberately giving him the cold shoulder.

Ji An repeated Gu Jinsheng’s question, but the alien remained silent, choosing not to address it.

Gu Jinsheng scoffed. "So, you actually do die, don’t you?"

Ji An turned to the alien, but it still refused to answer.

Seeing the alien’s unwillingness, Ji An knew pushing harder might just get a dodgy answer, if any.

He dropped the subject and moved on to another question that intrigued him. "Earlier, you said that after Earthlings die, their memories are erased by some mysterious force before they reincarnate. What exactly is this force?"

The alien didn’t refuse this question, but it didn’t know the answer either.

"We are still investigating the specifics of this force. But broadly speaking, it should be some kind of governing law, or perhaps Earth’s own magnetic field—a natural law of life’s cycle on this planet."

This explanation left Ji An baffled—he grasped it, yet didn’t. He asked for further clarification, but the alien only repeated the same words.

Ji An wondered if there was a communication barrier or if, to the alien, this explanation was already as plain as one plus one—something that needed no further elaboration.

He chalked his confusion up to the limitations of his current civilization’s knowledge, believing that as humanity advanced, this concept would become clearer.

"Are you thirsty? Would you like some water?" Ji An asked, noticing the alien still seemed uncomfortable and hoping to make it feel better.

"No, thank you," the alien replied. "We are different from you. Even if we wear these physical shells, Earth food is off-limits for us. Human food is highly destructive to our shells. Even the smallest amount would damage them, forcing us to ditch the shell and leave."

"Once you leave the shell, can you return to your planet? And can you get a new shell?"

"Yes. Once we shed a shell, we can return to our home planet. Shells are disposable—no big deal. Damage to the shell doesn’t affect our consciousness, but while we inhabit one, any harm to it causes us corresponding pain. The moment we leave, the pain ceases."

Ji An stroked his chin, mulling it over, finding the alien’s words enlightening.

"You mentioned humans also have consciousness. Could I interpret the human body as a shell? Human consciousness is placed inside this shell, which is why they experience illness and pain—because the shell is damaged, affecting the consciousness. And human lifespan is simply the shell’s durability. Long or short life depends on how fast the shell wears out."

"From this perspective, humans are bound by their bodies. Without them, existing purely as consciousness, humans would be unstoppable."

The alien fell silent before finally saying, "Still as sharp as ever!"

Gu Jinsheng caught the wording. "'Still'? Did you know Ji An before?"

"You know me?" Ji An also frowned at the word choice. Why did the alien say "still," as if they went way back?

Dodging the question, the alien began telling Ji An a story.

"On our planet, there’s a legend, much like the myths about human origins on Earth."

The alien continued slowly, "An ancient myth tells of a backwater planet with no resources in the vast universe, a dead zone for our kind. Worse, this planet chains us down. Once we arrive, our consciousness is severely suppressed—our abilities nerfed, our boundless thoughts boxed in. No-brainers turn into insurmountable problems, as if we’ve been dumbed down, stuck on puzzles that go nowhere."

"And without external assistance, we are unable to leave that planet on our own."

Ji An almost immediately realized which planet the alien was referring to.

"Is the planet in your myth Earth?"

The alien nodded.

"In our world, there is no death penalty, because death means the complete annihilation of the spirit, which is an inhumane act. Later, our leadership decided to use Earth as a planet for imprisoning criminals. Each criminal is given a shell with a duration matching their sentence.

Once the sentence is served, the prisoner can shed the shell, and our escort team will bring the released individuals back."

Ji An listened, finding the logic of this myth barely coherent, but with gaping holes.

"If Earth truly is your planet's prison, and according to your account, prisoners could return after serving their sentences, what happened later that caused the two planets to lose contact, turning the Earth prison into a myth?"

The alien looked at Ji An meaningfully, his smile carrying both pride and sorrow.

"You really are clever. The reason criminals with long sentences received such lengthy terms is that they committed extremely heinous and terrifying acts—their spirits were inherently malevolent.

They were imprisoned alongside those with shorter sentences. At first, the long-term prisoners behaved, but as one short-term prisoner after another was released, while their own sentences seemed endless, coupled with the torment of bodily illnesses, these inherently vicious individuals could not endure such suffering. They rebelled, killed their overseers, established a new order, and crowned themselves kings."

"This incident was tightly concealed. For a long time, they disguised themselves as overseers, maintaining contact with our Home Planet and releasing prisoners as usual. Later, the truth came to light, and our Home Planet discovered the reality. By then, Earth had become a lawless planet. The Home Planet found that none of the exiled criminals were innocent—all had turned violent, aggressive, and spiritually contaminated, beyond redemption. So, they abandoned Earth, even deleting its coordinates from the Home Planet's records."

"This story has some logic to it," Ji An said, neither dismissing the myth nor swallowing it whole.

"I won’t question the truth of this myth for now. I just want to ask: after all this time, why have you chosen to reconnect with Earth? What compelled you to return to what you see as a den of evil, enduring the shackling of your spirits and the dulling of your minds and special abilities? What is your purpose?"

"You really are sharp," the alien said. "I knew you’d think of this."

"Thank you for the compliment. Can you give me an answer?"

"Let’s call it a personal courtesy—I can tell you." The alien spoke plainly. "As a cost of our development, our world has gone millennia without new life being born."

"You also need new life, which suggests you're mortal too." Without the specter of death, new life would lose its meaning, becoming trivial.

The alien fell silent again, perhaps regretting his admission.

After a while, he spoke once more. "Our lives are near-immortal—so long that we almost forget we can die. But there are always accidents—wars, planetary cataclysms—that cruelly take lives. So, we still need new life."

"No matter how vastly different our two planets' civilizations may be, we sprang from the same seed. Perhaps in you, we can find the answers we seek—to rekindle creation, to herald new dawns again."