On the third day after Luo Binhan left his homeworld (according to his phone’s display), the Silence encountered another ship.
When it happened, Luo Binhan had already flipped through the Mermaid Painting Albums once. He only flipped through them once, then spent half an hour in the bathroom vomiting—not counting the time the AI, ∈, spent peppering him with curious questions about his physiology while adjusting the toilet for use by Intelligent Species.
"Mermaids," Momo Luo said. "Currently, across the various Star Layers of the alliance, there are seven major categories of carbon-based species with that name. Aside from the Durand and Essen types, the rest are purely carnivorous, with the most well-known being the shark-type mermaid. They enjoy eating most humanoid creatures. They paralyze their prey through mating, then begin eating them alive, starting with the internal organs. To maintain freshness, they inject the prey with an activating enzyme. This allows the prey to survive for about ten days even after losing eighty percent of its internal organs, giving the mermaids ample time to finish their meal. During this period, they will also continue to mate to maintain the neurotoxin’s paralyzing effect. What a romantic and cruel custom, isn’t it, Mr. Luo?"
Luo Binhan continued to retch up bile. Once he recovered, he asked Momo Luo, "Were you fucking doing that on purpose?"
Momo Luo shook his head innocently, his large eyes, with their starkly defined whites and pupils, full of friendliness, sincerity, and infinite naivete.
"Who drew this stuff?" Luo Binhan said. "Perverts like that deserve a horrible death."
"The Doling."
"The Doling?"
Momo Luo nodded seriously. "Yes, Mr. Luo. They convert the calcium reactions of fluorescent substances into neuro-electric signals, then connect pseudo-nerves onto plants. This allows them to control the movements of the mimetic bodies grown from the plants."
"Uh, plant people?"
"It’s really convenient, Mr. Luo. Because the Doling as a species have a very weak sense of perception, they sometimes intentionally feed their various mimetic bodies to dangerous creatures to experience what it feels like to be on the brink of death."
"So they’re just perverts who deserve a horrible death, aren’t they?" Luo Binhan said. Just then, he felt the entire bathroom tremble slightly.
Momo Luo, who had been standing beside him handing him toilet paper, immediately lowered his head and stared intently at the floor.
"There’s an energy reading," he said.
Luo Binhan wanted to ask what an energy reading was, but Momo Luo tucked him under one arm and dashed out of the bathroom. The tall, thin young man possessed a surprising strength that belied his frame, squeezing Luo Binhan so hard his eyes rolled back into his head.
They swept onto the bridge like a whirlwind. Yaliriga was standing in the middle of the circular hall, while Jing Huang sat by a bookshelf with a look of utter despair on his face. Luo Binhan noticed the book resting on his lap was *Starlight Realm*.
Ripples of light spread through the air. The AI, ∈, with its turquoise afro, materialized out of thin air. He said, "Captain, we’ve hit a surge."
"Damn it," Jing Huang said. "Do you even know how to fly this ship? If not, let Yalei do it."
The AI, ∈, looked like he was on the verge of tears, making Luo Binhan shiver involuntarily. Immediately after, he heard ∈’s furious roar: "You cannot insult my sacred profession!"
"Since when the fuck was flying a ship your profession?" Jing Huang said.
"Oh, ohhh, right." The AI slapped his head as if suddenly enlightened. "Apologies, you are correct. Yes."
He gave a solemn salute as if nothing had happened and, under Luo Binhan’s dumbfounded gaze, continued his report. "This is not a Natural Spiritual Field Belt, Captain. I believe what we’ve hit is the remnant of an illegal tunnel originating from a Covenant Law zone."
Jing Huang grunted. "Smugglers?"
"Most likely, yes," ∈ said. "In fact, the anti-stealth detector has found a strong concealment field reaction on the planet below the ship."
Jing Huang looked displeased. He mumbled a few inaudible words, then leaned his head back in the chair and said, "Below us? You mean they can see our ship’s profile?"
"Maybe, maybe not. I’ve activated the optical illusion barrier."
The AI, ∈, floated upward. A small, translucent model of the ship materialized in his palm. He rotated the model halfway, revealing a blank, circular underside.
"This is what the Silence looks like to the naked eye right now," ∈ announced. "If they don’t have detection equipment precise enough to distinguish the 0.00327 per mille difference in reflectivity between our ship’s surface coating and its other parts, or a Covenant Law-type who can maintain supernatural vision in this area, they won’t be able to see our ship’s profile."
Jing Huang closed his eyes, picked up *Starlight Realm*, and began tapping it intermittently against his knee. "There’s no Covenant Law-type on their ship," he said, his face devoid of expression.
"I will take your judgment as an important reference and downgrade their threat level by six percentage points."
"Stop your damn chirping. When I say there isn’t one, there isn’t one."
The AI looked at him with particular benevolence. "The last time you said that, we ran into twenty-six Bloodthirsters on an enemy ship."
"Sucking a little blood makes them a Covenant Law-type?" Jing Huang said. "Does riding a fucking bicycle make you an astronaut?"
"That depends on where you’re riding it," ∈ replied instantly.
Luo Binhan was completely lost. He tugged on Momo Luo’s sleeve and asked, "Are we in trouble?"
"Not at all, Mr. Luo," Momo Luo said, blinking.
"But didn’t you mention an enemy ship?"
"Oh, that was last time, Mr. Luo," Momo Luo said cheerfully. "This one might not even be an enemy ship. And even if it is, it’s no trouble. No problem, I’m sure I’ll succeed this time."
His words struck Luo Binhan as very odd.
"So you’re saying you didn’t succeed last time? You were defeated by the enemy?"
"Not at all," Momo Luo said. "Last time, I tried to convince Mr. Xuanhong to renounce his violent ways, but he still seriously injured everyone on the ship. This time is different, though. I believe that after all my sincere and heartfelt counsel, I can finally get Mr. Xuanhong to open his guarded heart and treat others more gently."
Luo Binhan was struck with reverence and couldn’t help but cup his fists. "Your goal is...?"
"To get him to beat up ten fewer people," Momo Luo said.
The Silence began to turn. The maneuver was almost imperceptible to Luo Binhan; he only felt a brief, extremely slight floating sensation before he heard ∈ say, "We are now heading toward the concealment field."
Jing Huang remained sprawled boredly in his chair, too lazy to offer even a single word in response. Yaliriga, however, walked gracefully over to stand beneath ∈’s virtual image.
"Entering planetary gravity field... The hull has been captured by the planetary magnetic field. Alert: hull polarization will be partially ineffective. Resetting protective magnetic sphere." ∈ looked down at her.
"Reset the protective layer. Activate environmental visuals," Yaliriga said.
The circular hall vanished in the blink of an eye. Luo Binhan found himself standing in the Void. He was surrounded by the dark, deep silence of space, which was filled with countless tiny, dazzling points of starlight. The lights—red, yellow, blue, purple, green, and white—wove together into a strange, brilliant band like a curtain to paradise.
Luo Binhan was lost in a daze for a few seconds. Then, he began to plummet.
Below his feet was a colossal, blood-red planet. Its cloud layer was thin, allowing Luo Binhan to see clearly that it had no oceans at all. The land was dry and barren, with rugged mountain ranges and lowlands dotted with countless meteorite craters of all sizes. The boundless, blood-red earth was rushing up to meet him. He was falling at a speed that should have set him ablaze in the atmosphere, yet Luo Binhan felt no pain. He didn’t even feel weightless.
Only his vision continued to display the terrifying scene.
He thought he would scream, but he didn’t. Momo Luo still stood before him with a perfectly innocent expression on his face, while Jing Huang was sprawled in an awkward posture, lying sideways in the Void.
"Target acquired," ∈ said.
They passed through a small, thin patch of cloud without any resistance and suddenly stopped falling. Luo Binhan looked ahead and to the side. A spaceship was hovering between the blood-red earth and the yellowish-brown sky, through which the blackness of space was half-visible. Its overall shape resembled a barracuda, with thruster-like devices at its tail and pectoral fins, inside which a fiery light faintly flickered.
Jing Huang sat up straight and cast a cold glance at the ship.
"What a piece of junk," he said with contempt. "Who still uses heavy-nucleus fusion these days?"
The AI, ∈, bobbed up and down in the Void, his expression glum.
"That’s obviously just the propulsion method they use inside the atmosphere, Captain." He listlessly raised his palm, which now held a small, barracuda-shaped ship. "I have data on this vessel. It’s called the Fishbone, and it belongs to the interstellar crime syndicate Liweidaya. It’s suspected of illegally transferring restricted materials, conducting illicit trade, and unlawfully depriving individuals of their freedom of movement. It’s a wanted target in seven Star Layers."
"Ram it," Jing Huang said without a moment’s hesitation.