Chapter 171: The Media Explosion
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: Karai
That day, someone came to ask Curator Zhao for help authenticating an oil painting. The visitor claimed they had bought the painting for three hundred million at an auction. The auction house had told them it was one of the ancient paintings brought from Old Earth by the Ark Fleet, a piece called Mona Lisa. Curator Zhao studied the painting with a troubled expression. He didn’t think it was genuine.
According to historical records, Mona Lisa was a classical oil painting. Its painter should —absolutely should— not have done something as bizarre and avant-garde as giving the woman in the portrait a mustache. But no one else believed him.
The painting’s owner was a man of great influence. He hadn’t spent that kind of money just to let people laugh at him for being a fool. The auction house had even provided an isotopic dating report, confirming that the painting was over three thousand years old. Still, skeptics remained. That was why the owner had brought the painting to the Ancient Earth Natural Science Museum, hoping Curator Zhao’s reputation as an expert would silence the doubters. But the look on Curator Zhao’s face was now making the man uneasy. “Curator Zhao, is there a problem with the painting?”
There was. Curator Zhao couldn’t say it outright, so he softened his words. “Count Weilt, I’d like to run a detailed test on it in the museum’s lab. While artistic style and technique can give us some indication of a painting’s age, scientific data is far more convincing.”
From the painting’s style alone, there was no way this was the Mona Lisa from Old Earth’s Renaissance.
“You may accompany me into the lab,” Curator Zhao added. Otherwise, he feared the count might refuse to accept the results. Count Weilt agreed. Together, they carried the painting into the underground laboratory of the museum. Curator Zhao unlocked an unused lab.
This had once been Lin Xu’s workspace, equipped with the best instruments in the museum. But ever since Lin Xu had left, no one had used it.
After getting the count’s permission, Curator Zhao carefully scraped off a tiny sample of paint for testing—running isotopic dating, component analysis, radiation checks…
While Count Weilt grew bored waiting, Curator Zhao stared at the data, growing more and more uneasy.
After some time, the tests finished. The lights on the instruments dimmed, and lines of data scrolled across the display.
Count Weilt stepped forward. “Curator Zhao, what’s the verdict? It’s real, isn’t it?”
“This… Count Weilt, I’m afraid the situation isn’t good.”
“What?! Did they fake the dating report to scam me?”
“Not exactly.” Curator Zhao hesitated. “The isotopic dating confirms that this painting is indeed over three thousand years old. But the composition of the paint doesn’t match. I believe the auction house simply overlooked it.”
“Doesn’t match how?”
“The binding oil and pigments used in this painting aren’t from Earth,” Curator Zhao explained. “The oil comes from H7658, a high-polymer oil. The pigments are mixed with powdered starstone from Lehmur. Those materials could only be obtained in the interstellar era.
“Three thousand years ago, on Old Earth, humans used oils like castor oil for painting, and their pigments were mineral-based or synthetic. The museum has full records on this.”
Count Weilt’s face darkened. He stormed over to the painting. The longer he stared at the mustached Mona Lisa, the angrier he became. Snatching up a pair of lab tongs, he swung them down at the canvas.
“Count, calm down! Please, calm down!” Curator Zhao rushed to stop him. “Even a six-hundred-year-old painting is still an antique!”
“What’s this?” Count Weilt pointed to a small spot where his blow had knocked the paint loose.
Curator Zhao leaned closer and saw a string of letters hidden beneath the paint—apparently the creator’s signature.
“Haraklaire Dorad,” Curator Zhao read aloud. After a moment’s thought, he remembered. “Ah. He was one of the Poetic School artists from the Old World. Lived about five centuries ago. Most likely the creator of this painting.”
Count Weilt’s vision went black.
– –
Even after the incident with Lin Xu, the Empire’s fascination with Old Earth hadn’t diminished. If anything, it had only grown stronger. To Imperial citizens, the scandal had been little more than high-society gossip, and because of it, more people than ever had become curious about Old Earth.
Count Weilt, who had purchased a counterfeit Old Earth artifact, quickly became a trending topic on StarNet. The online crowd mocked him for being rich and gullible, while others questioned why a fake artifact could have been tested as three thousand years old.
A few science-education accounts emerged to explain the dating methods used in archaeology. They clarified that with current technology, it was possible to alter the molecular properties of an object to fool dating instruments—but the equipment required was prohibitively expensive, with only a handful of labs in the entire Empire capable of doing it.
This led StarNet users to speculate about who had pocketed Count Weilt’s three hundred million star coins.
But then, someone pointed out that Haraklaire Dorad’s previous painting had also sold for three hundred million. In that light, Count Weilt hadn’t really lost any money—if anything, it was the forgers who had overspent.
Before the debate could settle, however, the public’s attention was pulled toward a new piece of news.
The Capital Star Police had busted a smuggling ring in the X District, seizing contraband from the Alliance. Smuggling cases involving Alliance goods were nothing new—but this one was so absurd that the story went viral.
Here was what happened: the smugglers sold an item from the Alliance to a customer in X District. According to the smugglers, the object dated all the way back to the Ark Fleet era.
The buyer, convinced by the claim, made the purchase. The item in question? A box of condoms that the Ark Fleet had allegedly taken with them when they left Old Earth.
Believing that Old Earth condoms would provide him with a “unique experience,” the buyer wasted no time in trying one out. Unfortunately for him, the police raided the place before he could remove it. Because the item was now evidence, the police had to remove it from him—on the spot.
And since all Old Earth artifacts were required to be submitted to the Ancient Earth Natural Science Museum, the police, after running their tests, cleaned the object thoroughly and then sent it to the museum.
The handoff made headlines. A photo of Curator Zhao Chengwen and the police officers circulated on StarNet: the curator and the officers stood there, holding the transparent display case together, wearing awkward but polite smiles for the cameras.
StarNet erupted with laughter. The bizarre and embarrassing story spread like wildfire across the network. Because the case needed to be formally prosecuted, the police asked Curator Zhao to authenticate the artifact. And that was when things got strange again.
The isotopic dating report indicated the object was only six hundred years old. But its material was natural rubber—a substance no longer found anywhere in the Empire.
Zhao compared the condom’s material with samples of natural rubber brought back from Old Earth by the archaeological expeditions. The match was perfect. There was no way it was fake.
But when he sent the artifact to several other labs for testing, the results were the same: six hundred years. The numbers simply didn’t add up. StarNet exploded. People began speculating that the item’s “age” must have been altered somehow.
Science bloggers quickly jumped in to explain. They pointed out that dating technology relied on the half-life of elements, and existing technology could only make an item appear older, not younger. There was no way to shorten history. No one could explain why the natural-rubber condom was only testing as six hundred years old.
Then, a user posted a new thread. He claimed to have found several Old Earth artifacts from the Alliance among his grandfather’s belongings. These items, he explained, had been purchased back when trade between the Alliance and the Empire was still relatively open, before the Battle of Marquee. He had taken them in for dating. All of them came back as six hundred years old.
StarNet: ???
Was time flowing differently in the Red Moon System because of its high gravity?!
Then, a sharp-eyed user noticed something in the pictures the poster had uploaded: among the Alliance artifacts was a history textbook. They immediately asked the poster to upload its contents.
The first page read:
“Three thousand years ago, humanity’s Ark Fleet departed from Earth in search of a new home. After more than seventy years of travel, they began using jump technology. But because the technology was unstable, the Ark Fleet was trapped in the jump corridor for over a century. By the time they emerged, two thousand years had passed in the outside world.
“Five hundred years ago, the Ark Fleet split apart. One faction founded the Marion Empire in the Einstein Galaxy, while the other established the Exiled Alliance Fleet in the Red Moon System.
“From there, the story of humanity as an interstellar civilization began.”
Three minutes later, the post was deleted—and the science blogger’s account was banned.
Still, many users had already downloaded the post’s content. In shock, they contacted the banned blogger and re-uploaded the material onto StarNet, only to have it deleted again—usually within an hour.
The forum exploded with outrage. Users bombarded the moderators with questions: Why were posts being deleted constantly? Was someone higher up giving orders? Was any of this even real?
The moderators were overwhelmed, surviving on little sleep and sporting dark circles under their eyes from the constant flood of messages.
“The first post definitely wasn’t deleted by us! Neither were the others.”
Only after the posts kept disappearing, and the situation escalated, did those higher up finally notice the uproar on StarNet and order the moderators to control the narrative. But even then, the posts the moderators deleted were just a fraction of the vanished content—as if someone else had been deleting them before the moderators could.
Forced silence wasn’t true silence; on the contrary, it became evidence in itself. Besides, by the time the posts were gone, people had already absorbed the information. StarNet’s admins were in utter chaos.
However, for now, the online uproar was still confined to niche circles. Though intense, it hadn’t yet attracted the attention of law enforcement or judicial authorities. That changed when the questions from Slime Star forced most of the public to confront the gravity of the situation.
At an interstellar press conference, the Slime Star diplomatic spokesperson accused the Imperial government of murdering over a hundred Slime Star citizens.
On camera, two slime beings—Lu’a and Lu’la—now grown to a meter tall—sobbed as they recounted their ordeal. On planet G398, they had encountered the Marion Empire’s First Legion fleet. They were abandoned. Their companions, taken away, were declared dead with falsified records. After a harrowing escape to Capital Star, they now faced a manhunt by humans.
Following their heartbreaking cries, the spokesperson sternly condemned the Marion Empire’s disregard for life and its dirty tactics. When a human reporter challenged this, arguing humans and slimes harbored no hatred and that Imperial forces had no reason to kill a shipload of slime miners—that it might be a personal dispute, not an ethnic issue—the spokesperson snorted. They held up a rubbing of a red leather diary for the entire interstellar audience to see.
“Humans and slimes may have no hatred. But the Marion Empire’s leadership uses violence to kill anyone who touches their secrets! Human, slime, or any other extraterrestrial.”
“The Marion Empire owes the universe an explanation. Otherwise, no one can say whether they’ll stop persecuting the next extraterrestrials without limits!”
The press conference was broadcast live across the galaxy. Every Imperial citizen could watch. Many had already cursed the Imperial leadership hundreds of times; seeing them do something like this no longer shocked them. Still, the shame and embarrassment lingered.
The slime spokesperson had clearly separated humans from the Empire’s leaders. Humans felt free to loudly condemn the leadership without fear.
Some even connected the diary’s contents with the science posts deleted earlier on the forums, realizing the Alliance history textbook’s censored content was entirely true.
Meanwhile, the Empire’s official three-thousand-year history was now riddled with doubt.
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