The small vessel was at the edge of the planetary ring, and Cheng Weilu retrieved it without much effort. However, the hibernation pod inside the planetary ring was somewhat troublesome. The complicated environment inside required manual micro-control.
Cheng Weilu took out her optical-brain helmet, a specially designed half-face mask. She put it on, and the optical-brain link was established almost instantly. She blinked, adjusting to the surge of brainwaves as the spaceship’s panoramic view unfolded in her mind.
With her mind highly focused, Cheng Weilu controlled the spaceship with extreme precision, avoiding the densely scattered ice fragments and planetary debris as she slowly approached the hibernation pod floating alone within the planetary ring.
Once she entered the retrieval range, she opened the metal mesh of the salvage device and cast it over the hibernation pod. She reeled the pod in, completing the entire process in one smooth motion, then controlled the spaceship back along its original route.
After leaving the planetary ring, Cheng Weilu severed the optical-brain link and removed her helmet. She took a breath and slowly cleared her head, activated autopilot, then had Xiao Wei start the spaceship’s self-inspection program.
There were two areas of impact damage on the vessel’s outer hull, and the anti-magnetic-field shield was running hot, but neither problem was serious. After activating the thrusters and leaving the high-radiation zone around U2033 at full speed, Xiao Wei shut down the shield.
Cheng Weilu carefully inspected the two items she had salvaged in the rear cargo hold.
Just as she had guessed, one was a hibernation pod and the other was a reconnaissance vessel. Both had encountered the periodic gravitational fluctuations of the U2033 planet and Shepherd Satellite 25, whose cycles occurred once every several interstellar years, and had consequently been pulled into the planetary ring.
Fortunately, neither had been smashed to pieces by the debris floating within the planetary ring. Although both had sustained some damage to their outer shells, their main bodies remained intact and were still capable of sending distress signals.
Unfortunately, all those signals had been overwhelmed by the high-frequency magnetic field generated by U2033 itself. As a result, for decades, the salvagers who came to retrieve things had never been able to detect the two faint signals.
She had no authority to access the internal information of the military reconnaissance vessel. After confirming from its basic equipment information that it was the UMSA119, Cheng Weilu organized its basic details. Once communications were restored, she contacted the Alliance military personnel who had posted the bounty and confirmed the time and location of the handover.
Seven days later, she would hand over the vessel to a military facility near the G103 jump point on Baicheng Star, the Alliance’s home planet.
That left only the hibernation pod.
Spaceships and combat armor equipped with hibernation pods were generally something only people who were well-off and extremely concerned about preserving their lives would consider. Cheng Weilu, a salvager who had drifted through space for ten years, had never equipped her spaceship with a hibernation pod.
Of course, with her savings, she could afford one. She simply felt that too many things were beyond her control while in hibernation. If things really reached the point where the spaceship was destroyed, she would rather be blown up directly.
It wasn’t as if she had never died before.
Standard hibernation pods consisted of a primary program and a backup program. Generally, the maximum hibernation period for the primary program was 50 interstellar years, while the backup program lasted 25 interstellar years.
Cheng Weilu had Xiao Wei perform a basic inspection and discovered that the hibernation pod she had salvaged was an exceptionally high-end model. Its primary program had a maximum duration of 100 interstellar years, while the backup program could last 50 interstellar years, twice the standard duration.
Unfortunately, when the pod had been dragged into the planetary ring by the strong gravitational force, its primary program had been damaged. The backup program currently in operation was already nearing the end of its operating period. The red warning light dimly flashed several times before going out. Its energy had been completely depleted.
This was also why the signal emitted by the hibernation pod had been so weak. If Cheng Weilu had arrived even a few days later, the person inside would have remained asleep forever, in this remote corner at the edge of a star system where even light struggled to reach, keeping company with shattered ice and meteorites and becoming part of the planetary ring of U2033.
Cheng Weilu said, “Xiao Wei, connect to the pod immediately and perform a basic inspection.”
“The hibernating occupant is male. Hibernation period: 50 interstellar years. Hibernation pod number: UMDA001. The built-in awakening program is functioning normally. If the pod is opened and the awakening procedure initiated, he should regain consciousness in approximately three hours. Other information is inaccessible.”
Xiao Wei completed the basic inspection.
“Inaccessible?”
“Advanced key authorization is required. The general decryption command is ineffective.”
Looking at the UMDA001 designation, Cheng Weilu added, “Switch to the Alliance military’s general decryption command.”
She had salvaged several fighter craft that had been involved in accidents before, as well as Alliance soldiers whose hibernation pods had drifted through space. The system still had the military’s general command codes stored in it.
“Decrypting… Unable to obtain. Advanced key authorization required.”
The hibernation pod’s built-in system stored the occupant’s complete identity and physiological information. Being unable to fully access it meant that she had no way of knowing who the person lying inside was, what he did, where he came from, or where he was supposed to be going.
At the same time, the unknown also meant a safety risk.
Although she had salvaged hibernation pods containing living humans before, there had been no need to open them. She only had to hand them over to the management facility responsible for hibernation pods, where professional personnel would handle the awakening.
But even the nearest management facility would take at least a week to reach them, and this energy-depleted hibernation pod couldn’t wait that long.
If something had already gone wrong with the person in hibernation, or if the awakening failed due to improper operation… the worst-case scenario was that Cheng Weilu would have to follow the standard procedures required by salvage regulations and properly handle a human corpse.
Cheng Weilu clicked her tongue softly. Troublesome things made her irritable. She generally chose to deal with something before it had a chance to become troublesome. “Xiao Wei, connect the equipment. Prepare to open the pod.”
Once the hatch opened, the preservation fluid inside the hibernation pod was gradually drained away, revealing the occupant’s entire body.
He was a young man with a tall, slender build. People in this era lived for so long that Cheng Weilu could not estimate his age from his appearance. He wore a fitted black combat suit, which was damaged in several places. Several healed wounds could be seen on the exposed skin.
Because of the prolonged hibernation, the body’s slow consumption of its own reserves had left him somewhat gaunt. His wet, straight black hair fell slightly past his shoulders, with several strands clinging to the pale skin of his cheeks, creating a striking contrast of black and white.
So… so beautiful.
Even with his eyes closed, his excessively handsome features immediately caught Cheng Weilu’s attention. His was the kind of beauty with sharp, striking features that made a powerful impression.
Judging from his hair color and facial features, this beautiful man, like her, had Eastern ancestry. His highly defined brows, eyes, and nose suggested that he might also have ancestry from another ethnic group.
Most importantly, the four indicator lights displaying the hibernation pod’s vital signs were still lit, proving that he was alive and well. The effort she had spent salvaging him had not been wasted.
“Wahla wahla.” Robert’s mechanical head leaned over the edge of the hibernation pod, the lace crocheting in its hands coming to a stop. Looking at the person lying quietly inside, it lowered its voice. “He’s so handsome. He’s like Sleeping Beauty from a fairy tale.”
Cheng Weilu stared intently at the person lying inside the hibernation pod and casually ruffled the housework robot’s head twice.
“You know about Sleeping Beauty?”
“I saw that romantic love story from the Ancient Earth era. Sleeping Beauty is a beautiful person who is asleep!” Robert raised a metal finger and pointed at the person lying inside. “Sleeping Beauty hasn’t woken up yet. He needs a true love’s kiss! A Luo, do you want to kiss him?”
With a clang, the housework robot’s head was struck, producing a crisp sound.
“You should watch some stories about robots conquering the universe and wiping out humanity instead.” Cheng Weilu shoved the troublesome robot, whose head was full of soap-opera stories, aside with her leg. She had more or less seen enough and finally tore her gaze away from the man. After confirming the basic condition of the cargo hold, she turned and left.
She had always been fond of beautiful things. She treated beautiful people with an extra three points of consideration, as a reward for pleasing her eyes.
But appreciating beauty was one thing. Whether in her previous life or this one, Cheng Weilu was someone who kept her distance from most people and had an exceptionally strong sense of boundaries. A friend had once said that she was like a “lone wolf,” and very few people could step into her territory.
The interior of the spaceship maintained constant temperature, pressure, and humidity. The artificial gravity was comfortable, and the intelligent system, Xiao Wei, controlled every aspect of the spaceship. It would take good care of this person who was about to wake up.
Robert planned to stay there and witness Sleeping Beauty’s awakening with its own eyes. Cheng Weilu let it do as it pleased, leaving it there to watch for three hours. A robot wouldn’t get dry eyes anyway, and she had things of her own to take care of.
Cheng Weilu opened her communicator and changed the status of the bounty for the UMSA119 spacecraft in the system pool to “Pending Completion,” attaching the salvager ID “Angler.”
She then sent a message to a friend, informing her that she had completed the salvage job ahead of schedule and that everything was safe. She had no idea which planet or time zone her friend was currently in, so she did not wait for an immediate reply.
Thinking of the man’s worn-out combat suit inside the hibernation pod, she then searched for information related to the Alliance’s interstellar war. Fifty years had already passed, so all she could find was publicly released information that had been officially processed. It was broad and generalized, and much of it was vague.
Cheng Weilu patiently browsed the star map, directing Xiao Wei to gradually expand the search range and cross-reference the information. Finally, she discovered that the nearest star system to U2033 had once been home to an important Alliance military fortress. Its codename was “Dawn’s Light,” and it had been destroyed toward the end of the war.
The cause was unknown.
Cheng Weilu frowned and closed the search interface. For someone like her, an outsider who had only been here for ten years, these historical events still felt too unreal.
Thinking about having to face a stranger who would be awakened in three hours… Cheng Weilu picked at her fingers as she considered the matter for a while. Then she went to the tool room, found some biological reagents and small components, and decided to make something.
─────── ✦ · ˚ ✧ · ˚ ✦ ───────
The man felt as though he had been sleeping in the depths of the sea for a very long time. The seabed was silent and lightless, utterly still. After too much time had passed, he felt his consciousness slowly dissipating like bubbles.
Those bubbles were fragments of memories. He wanted them to disappear, yet he did not want to simply let them go.
They were countless fragments of fighter craft falling from the sky like rain, the sounds of various shells whistling past his ears, the wreckage of enormous warships exploding in space, the desperate cries for help over the communicator, and the voices that ultimately vanished into the universe…
He seemed to be trapped in an eternal war from which there was no escape.
These fragments of images and sounds played over and over in his mind, again and again, each time ending with a miniature nuclear missile flying toward him. A flash of white light, and everything fell silent. He sank into the deep sea.
He felt as though his heart was filled with anger, yet he had nowhere to find its cause.
He did not know how much time had passed when a sudden force pulled him upward from the seabed. His consciousness and body gradually began to surface.
It was as though he were struggling to escape from a sealed space where he could neither see nor hear and had no sensation at all. In an instant, light, sound, and touch surged toward him from all directions, overwhelming him with a force that left no room to resist, along with those memories that were on the verge of fading away.
A sharp pain invaded his head. Blindingly bright light surrounded him. He could not open his eyes and struggled to move his sluggish, heavy limbs.
“A Luo… his hand just moved… He’s really waking up.”
There were voices beside his ear. At first, his blank mind could not understand what they meant. After a while, his consciousness began processing the information, and he realized that someone was speaking nearby, talking about him.
So he tried moving his eyes again. After a moment, he heard that cheerful voice say, “Wow, his eyes moved too.”
“Xiao Wei, dim the lights inside,” said another calm voice.
When he finally managed to open his eyes and adjusted somewhat to the dim light inside the room, he finally understood that he was still alive. He had awakened from the dream.
But the pain and anger in the dream had been far too real. By the time he awoke, gasping for breath, his hands were clenched so tightly that his knuckles had turned white, and his eyes were filled with pain and anger.
As though frightened by him, the cheerful voice suddenly became very quiet.
“What… what happened to him?”
The man slowly turned his face and met a pair of eyes.
They were light amber eyes with smooth, flowing contours and a piercing gaze that reminded him of a certain bird of prey on Baicheng Star.
The owner of those eyes was a woman of average height. Her black hair was tied behind her head, and her features were refined and delicate. Yet because of those unusual eyes, she also gave off a contradictory and distinctive sense of coldness.
She looked at him without any emotion, and he quietly gazed back into those eyes.
That sense of coldness gently enveloped him, as though he were standing on a wilderness covered in snow. His mind became calm in an instant. For no apparent reason, his anger and pain dissipated like wisps of smoke across the wilderness.
She looked at him calmly for a while before casually shifting her gaze away.
The man’s eyes followed her face, but she merely lowered her eyes and bent her head to operate the projected data in her hands, no longer looking at him.
A silver metal head poked over the edge of the hibernation pod and leaned close to him, cheerfully saying, “Wahla wahla, you’re awake! Sure enough, your eyes are really beautiful too! Hello, Sleeping Beauty!”
…
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