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Chapter 185
Jackson’s pen scratched across the holopad again, tracing the last stroke of 龙 with exaggerated care. He sat back with a satisfied huff. “There. Perfect. I think I’m officially bilingual now.”Jack glanced over the character. “One character does not make you bilingual.”“Fine,” Jackson said, picking the pen back up. “Then I’ll learn the rest of the Chinese alphabet.”Lena snorted from across the table. “There’s no alphabet in Chinese.”Jackson froze. “Wait… what?”Jack chuckled. “She’s right. Mandarin doesn’t use an alphabet the way English or Spanish does. But there’s pinyin, which uses Roman letters to represent pronunciation. It’s not the same thing.”Jackson leaned back in mock despair. “Great. So I have to learn… what, thousands of characters?”“About eight thousand to be fluent,” Jack said. “But you can get by with three thousand.”Sarah gave him a sympathetic smile. “That’s… a lot of homework.”“Yeah,” Jackson said, but his grin returned. “Good thing I’m a fast learner. I alrea
Chapter 184
Jackson leaned forward again, ignoring the groans from Ryan and Lena.“So… about dragons,” he began, “you told me the Chinese see them as water symbols. But what about other countries in Asia? Do they have their own dragon stories?”Jack’s mouth curved into the faintest smile. “Yes. And each is different. China is still my favorite, though—because that’s where the symbol truly took root. The earliest dragon myths we know, some carved into jade thousands of years ago, come from there. But dragons ripple across the entire region—Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia… even the Philippines.”Matilda tilted her head. “Do their dragons look the same?”Jack shook his head. “Not exactly. In Japan, the ryū is also tied to water, but they often have three claws instead of five. Vietnam’s dragons—called rồng—are tied to the rain that feeds rice fields. Thai and Lao dragons, called nāga, are more like giant serpents that guard rivers and temples.”Sarah rested her chin on her hand, watching hi
Chapter 183
Jackson’s finger hovered over The Red Planet in the holoscreen menu for a long moment, the glint of temptation in his eyes. Then, with a sudden smirk, he scrolled past it.“Change of plan,” he announced.Lena arched a brow. “You mean you’re not going to watch the thing you’ve been talking about for days?”“Nope.” Jackson flicked through the titles with exaggerated deliberation until a bold poster filled the screen — a roaring golden dragon arched over a mist-covered fortress, its wings curling into clouds. Dragon Gate.Sarah leaned on the back of the couch. “Didn’t you just watch The Red Planet yesterday?”Jackson shrugged. “Yes. And now I’m watching this. Expanding my cultural horizons.”Matilda plopped down beside him, crossing her legs. “Translation: you just want to watch sword fights.”“Not just sword fights,” Jackson said, hitting play. “Dragon fights.”The opening sequence unfolded in a blaze of crimson and gold — sweeping camera shots over tiled rooftops, paper lanterns swayin
Chapter 182
Jackson’s eyes didn’t waver. “So… what was it really like? The world, back in the Stone Age?”Jack leaned back into the couch, rubbing his thumb along the rim of his coffee mug as if arranging his thoughts. “Different in ways that are hard to picture. No cities, no roads, no ships like this one. Most of the planet was wilderness—forests, plains, deserts, ice. The air was cleaner, skies darker at night. You could see the Milky Way stretching clear across the heavens.”“That actually sounds… amazing,” Lena murmured from her perch on the armrest.“It was beautiful,” Jack said, “but it was dangerous. Predators everywhere, weather that could kill you in hours, and no medicine beyond herbs and skill passed down through generations.”Sarah’s voice drifted in from the doorway. She stepped inside, hair pulled back, still in her warm ship-robe. “So what did people do all day?”Jack smiled faintly. “Survive. Hunt, gather food, make tools, repair shelters, care for children. Social life revolved
Chapter 181
Jackson barely noticed when the credits of The Lost World faded into black. His thumb moved almost instinctively, scrolling to the next option.“You’re not… actually starting the third one, are you?” Lena asked from her armrest perch, eyebrows raised.Jackson smirked. “Nope. Not yet.”“Yet,” Matilda muttered, leaning back into the couch with a yawn.Instead, Jackson switched over to the search bar. “You know what? Let’s take a detour.” He typed a few letters, and soon the familiar animated acorn rolled across the screen.ICE AGE“Oh no,” Lena groaned. “We’re going from space to dinosaurs to… talking prehistoric animals?”“Exactly,” Jackson said, hitting play. “It’s called range.”Jack had just returned with a mug of coffee, and the sight of the screen made one corner of his mouth lift. “Well, at least it’s vaguely educational.”“I’ll take it,” Jackson said, already leaning forward as the movie’s first snowstorm swept across the screen.It didn’t take long before the questions began ag
Chapter 180
Jackson lingered on the frozen image of the strange, static structure in the nebula. The flicker of the holo seemed almost alive, like the object itself was pulsing in time with the DragonJet’s systems.Then he leaned back, tore his eyes away, and forced himself to focus on the lounge screen.“Alright,” he said, patting the armrest of his seat as though declaring a fresh start. “The Red Planet awaits.”Jack stayed near the entryway, arms folded, still looking like his thoughts were fifty light-years away.Jackson clicked play. The opening credits washed the lounge in a soft red glow, the music swelling.Five minutes in, Jackson turned his head toward Jack. “Dad… so, in the show they’re using a kind of reflective orbital mirror to warm the Martian atmosphere. Could that actually work? I mean, for real?”Jack blinked, then crossed the room and sat down at the far end of the couch. “In theory, yes. If you have the resources and the engineering to keep it in orbit without drift, you could
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