By the time Cheng Weilu stumbled into the living room, half-awake, Li Xu was already dressed and looking refreshed. He had even prepared breakfast and was waiting for her to come over and eat. She walked over, mumbled a “Thank you,” and immediately began stuffing food into her mouth.
She could not remember what time she had fallen asleep last night, but her biological clock was extremely strict. As long as the environment was suitable, she would wake up on time no matter what.
No matter which galaxy, planet, or season they were in, the pattern of day and night aboard her spaceship remained constant. It was a system mode configured on the ship specifically to suit her lifestyle.
This ensured that she was always in a stable environment and would not have her biological rhythms disrupted by time differences between different spaces and dimensions. After all, apart from returning to Freedom City, Cheng Weilu spent most of her time aboard the spaceship.
Li Xu had gone to bed far too late, and Cheng Weilu had barely enough energy to wonder how well he had slept after hearing his bedtime story. Yet clearly, he had still woken up even earlier than her, and was completely alert.
After breakfast, Li Xu brought out the photon gun and dismantled it at an astonishing speed. The components were arranged neatly across the tabletop, creating a mechanical aesthetic that was exceptionally pleasing to the eyes of anyone with obsessive-compulsive tendencies.
Cheng Weilu realized that what he had said earlier was not simply meant to force her out of the ship. He had actually meant it.
It looked like she really had to learn how to use this gun.
But space was a problem. Cheng Weilu’s spaceship was an ordinary medium-sized vessel, without enough room for shooting lessons and practice.
Li Xu took two chips the size of fingernails out of a small box. He hesitated for a moment as he looked at the disassembled components, then raised his head and looked at her.
“You should be better at this.”
“What is it?”
“A military simulation training module. I embedded it into the chip. After connecting it to an optical-brain interface, you can use a real gun to practice shooting at targets in a virtual space.”
“I can use this? No… where did you even get it? Is Zhou Yan’s smuggling operation really this extensive? The military doesn’t even care?”
Cheng Weilu was utterly shocked.
“It’s just a small thing. And Zhou Yan didn’t get it. I did.”
Cheng Weilu suddenly remembered the sound therapy chip she had obtained at the Gray Dove Base.
“How much stuff did you actually swipe from the Gray Dove Base?”
“A lot. But I didn’t swipe it.”
Li Xu spoke calmly as he asked Robert to bring over her helmet visor. Robert glanced at Cheng Weilu, who reluctantly nodded.
Cheng Weilu fetched her tools and installed one of the chips into the gun barrel. Energy guns of this type already had built-in intelligent modules, so adding another chip was not difficult for her.
As Li Xu explained the components one by one, he reassembled the gun. There was a small clasp on the body of the gun. He removed the insert from it.
“Now it’s a practice gun.”
He then inserted the other chip into the interface on the visor and had Xiao Wei try to read it. Once the program finished initializing, Xiao Wei projected a three-dimensional hologram into the living room. It was a row of targets.
Li Xu made a few adjustments on the projection from the wristband on his right wrist, making some basic changes to the shooting range parameters. Then he handed the visor to her.
“Try it.”
Cheng Weilu put on the visor and completed the optical-brain connection. A virtual shooting range appeared before her, with a distance of 2,000 meters.
Even with the system giving her a high-magnification scope, the target was still an extremely tiny dot in her field of vision. Cheng Weilu held the gun and stared in shock.
“Commander, you’re starting me at this level?”
“This is only an introductory level for close-range shooting.”
Li Xu’s tone was calm. He had transformed into an impartial instructor.
“Fire one shot first.”
Cheng Weilu stared at that tiny dot. For some reason, she suddenly became nervous. The arm holding the gun stiffened, and the lightweight gun actually began to tremble in her one hand. She had to bring up her other hand to support it.
Li Xu did not urge her. He quietly watched the holographic image.
Finally, Cheng Weilu pulled the trigger with trembling hands.
As expected, she missed the target.
Li Xu walked over and stood behind her, his arm pressed against hers as he half-gripped her hand. Cheng Weilu could feel his faint breathing and the warmth of his skin.
She had always been extremely resistant to physical contact with other people, but at this moment, she did not feel particularly uncomfortable. Perhaps it was because this person had been aboard her spaceship for so long.
“Steady.”
His hand gently supported hers.
“First, empty your mind. Then let your hand follow the point where your mental strength is gathering.”
Li Xu’s voice was calm and even, yet it possessed a strange, reassuring quality. Following his guidance, Cheng Weilu breathed lightly and gradually calmed herself.
Her mental projection condensed and began attaching itself to the blurry dot ahead. Her vision gradually became clearer, and she settled down.
“If you’re ready, fire.”
Li Xu withdrew his hand.
The warmth against the back of her hand disappeared. Cheng Weilu pulled the trigger. The recoil of the photon gun was minimal. She only felt a slight numbness in the web between her thumb and index finger before Xiao Wei announced the result.
“10.1 points.”
“Wow!”
Robert, who had been watching from the side, began clapping.
“A Luo, you’re amazing!”
Cheng Weilu removed the visor and stared incredulously at the projected target.
Could she really have a talent for this?
“For equipment that can connect to an optical-brain interface, your mental strength provides excellent corrective assistance.”
Li Xu’s tone was indifferent, and he was not surprised by the result in front of him at all.
“Once you become proficient, your accuracy can become as high as the strength of your firewall.”
Cheng Weilu’s confidence soared.
A few days later, her accuracy had stabilized between 10.5 and 10.9. Even when Li Xu continued increasing the distance, her score never dropped below 10.0.
But there was one problem. In actual shooting practice, she could not possibly wear the visor.
“The visor is only an aid during the early stages. After enough training, you’ll develop muscle memory,” Li Xu said.
But Cheng Weilu took it a step further. She paired the chip from the visor with an intelligent module that could read and receive its data, then sealed the whole thing inside a metal ring and wore it on her index finger. That way, she did not need to wear the visor, and it was convenient enough to carry around.
When Li Xu saw the silver ring on her finger, he paused. He looked at her with an unreadable expression.
Seeing his surprised expression, Cheng Weilu frowned.
“You’re not going to take it back, are you? Don’t tell me you’re that stingy, Commander.”
“…”
Li Xu lowered his eyes and touched the wristband Cheng Weilu had fastened around his left wrist. There was a trace of unnaturalness in his expression. He cleared his throat lightly.
“I’m not taking it back. It’s yours.”
Cheng Weilu was happy again.
“Practice disassembling and assembling firearms with me 100 times every day. Fire 1,000 rounds.”
Cheng Weilu was unhappy again!
But firearms had very little practical use in her daily life, and carrying one around could very well bring her trouble. Cheng Weilu tentatively asked, “After I return to Freedom City, if I don’t have any use for it, can I sell it at the underground market?”
Li Xu’s ears were still red, but his expression immediately darkened.
“Absolutely not.”
Cheng Weilu could only nod. “I see.”
He looked at Cheng Weilu and warned her again.
“I only gave you permission to use this. If something like this starts circulating on the market later, Zhou Yan will come looking for you.”
Zhou Yan will come looking for you was equivalent to saying Zhou Yan will hunt you down, which was equivalent to saying Commander Li is watching you.
Cheng Weilu understood. She shut her mouth and abandoned the idea.
…
On the twentieth day of their journey, they had already entered the route through the Sevi Base route, where there were no jump points.
Once the journey entered this section of the route, it became much more tedious compared with the Star Banner Route. The star systems in this area were sparse, and there were nowhere near as many well-developed spaceports and commercial facilities as along the Star Banner Route. Even ordinary supply stations were few and far between.
The journey was long and boring, but safe. After all, interstellar pirates did not have the nerve to cause trouble in an area where military vessels were concentrated.
During the days when even the Star Network was difficult to connect to, Cheng Weilu’s daily schedule became primarily devoted to studying with Li Xu.
She liked learning skills. She even understood that the physical training Li Xu had forcibly dragged her into was intended for her own good. But for her, whether she had been a mechanical engineer in her previous life or a salvager in this one, she was an absolute intellectual worker.
The skills Li Xu was currently pushing her to learn included physical fitness, firearms, defensive weapons systems, and both the theory and practical operation of such systems.
No matter how she looked at it, something about this was seriously wrong.
She could be an engineer. She could be an artisan. But she was not some hot-blooded female soldier!
Cheng Weilu could not resist complaining about it to Li Xu’s face. Li Xu was watching the robot assemble the fighter jet when he cast her a calm glance.
“That’s right. You aren’t. I don’t have soldiers that weak under my command.”
“…”
After all kinds of training over the past few days, Cheng Weilu was completely exhausted. She often fell asleep in the living room at night while reading an e-book, only to wake up in her own room the next morning.
Cheng Weilu figured that kindhearted Robert must have carried her back to bed, so she was deeply moved and gave it a 300 star coin bonus, leaving Robert both surprised and delighted.
The engineering robot Adela had assigned to the fighter jet was very useful. It did not take long for it to assemble the basic shape of the entire fuselage. The tail and wings, which took up considerable space, were dragged outside by Cheng Weilu using the salvage device, and the engineering robot completed the overall assembly inside the salvage net.
Cheng Weilu pulled the robot back into the cabin, only to be dragged onto the fighter jet by Li Xu.
Both of them were wearing black spacesuits. Cheng Weilu sat in the co-pilot’s seat and asked listlessly, “Commander, what are we doing today?”
A low laugh came through Li Xu’s voice over the communication channel in her ear.
“Nothing. We’re going for a drive.”
With the spaceship remaining stationary in autopilot mode, Xiao Wei released the salvage net, and the fighter jet shot toward the vast sea of stars like an agile leopard.
Her field of vision was filled with large, pale nebulae and stars of various colors shining here and there. The place gave Cheng Weilu the same feeling as the vast, uninhabited regions she had driven through in her previous life. She drove at full speed along a road that seemed to stretch straight into the sky, the rushing wind of the wilderness roaring beside her ears, rock music echoing through the car. When night fell, a clear river of stars stretched overhead, and she felt an infinite sense of freedom.
The only difference was that this time, Li Xu was beside her.
In the past, she had always been alone in scenes like this. Cheng Weilu looked at the person in the pilot’s seat and, for the first time, felt that perhaps it was not so bad to have someone beside her.
As the fighter jet swooped, spun, rolled, and generally ran wild through the sky, Cheng Weilu and Li Xu shouted, screamed, and laughed together.
But the next day, another item was added to her study schedule: fighter piloting.
Cheng Weilu: “…”
…
The bedtime-story plan, which took place once every two days, had already been carried out seven times. Cheng Weilu had told him about the Vanished Forest Planet, the Living Moon, a gas giant as beautiful as a sea of milk, and a fluid planet covered in liquid metal…
Whenever she finished telling one of these adventure stories, Li Xu would ask Xiao Wei for the star map coordinates of those places the following day. Cheng Weilu allowed it. She felt that Li Xu was like someone who had never traveled before, making a collection of places with a label that read, “Places to Visit in My Lifetime.”
As for the hypnotic effect of these stories, it seemed to be minimal. At least according to the physical health data reported by Xiao Wei, there had been no noticeable improvement.
As the days of the journey grew longer, Cheng Weilu noticed that Li Xu’s expression became increasingly solemn. Even during the very relaxed bedtime-story sessions, he merely sat quietly and listened to her.
“Are the things you’re making me learn annoying?” Li Xu suddenly asked. “You originally didn’t have to do any of this.”
“Then why are you making me learn them?”
Li Xu did not answer her.
“Is it because of those interstellar pirates you mentioned?” Cheng Weilu asked. “There won’t be any interstellar pirates along this route, will there?”
“I don’t mind learning skills, but everything you’re making me learn seems to be related to war,” Cheng Weilu muttered.
“Do you hate war?” he asked.
“No one likes war. Throwing yourself into a war means either killing someone or being killed.”
Cheng Weilu turned over on the reclining chair.
“But I don’t want to kill anyone. And of course, I don’t want to end up in a situation where I have to kill someone just to protect myself.”
“And besides, didn’t you say you’d be my bodyguard?”
Li Xu watched as the light and shadows in the audiovisual room gradually dimmed and remained silent.
…
On the thirtieth day of the journey, they were already close to the Sevi Base area.
As a large military aircraft docking port, the Sevi Base had high-energy signals around the nearby planets warning ordinary spaceships not to approach.
In reality, because the departure of large warships caused a certain degree of spatial disturbance, spaceships that were concerned about being affected generally kept their distance from the base of their own accord. No one had nothing better to do than deliberately approach it.
Of course, Li Xu was the exception.
Cheng Weilu watched as he adjusted Xiao Wei’s flight route using the star map. Five days later, the spaceship would pass the near point of SW07, the outermost numbered planet of Sevi Base.
Cheng Weilu did not stop him. She was thinking that perhaps this person had already planned to go there from the very beginning.
The peaceful routine of these days was probably just the calm before the storm.
…
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