Silently reminding herself that curiosity kills the cat, Cheng Weilu fought down the strange feeling and did not continue forward. Li Xu pulled her toward the central area. Beneath the holographic screen was a main control console. The scene looked somewhat familiar, reminding Cheng Weilu of the defense system at Gray Dove Base.
They had only managed to escape Gray Dove Base back then largely because of sheer luck. Sevi Base was hundreds of times larger than Gray Dove Base. If the two of them touched even the slightest thing here and were discovered, they could be blasted into dust at any moment.
Cheng Weilu quietly tugged at his arm, trying to persuade him to be more cautious. Li Xu paused, released her wrist, and gave it a reassuring pat.
Under synchronized-frequency stealth mode, companions remained visible. Cheng Weilu watched as Li Xu opened the main control screen, entered a command, connected it to his wristband, and began rapidly copying the information files.
She had no idea how he had obtained access to the information, how he could copy the data without being detected, or what he intended to do with it. He had probably done the same thing at Gray Dove Base. But how exactly had this man managed it?
While they waited, Cheng Weilu looked around again. The temperature, humidity, and pressure here were all kept constant, yet she felt extremely uncomfortable. The discomfort came from her instincts.
The copying progress bar continued to advance. Carrying her confusion with her, Cheng Weilu attempted an optical-brain link.
In an instant, an enormous tide of emotion swept over her like a tsunami. She felt her mental projection being dragged into a raging torrent. The sea was filled with pain, struggle, resentment, fear…
By comparing the spaces of reality and consciousness, Cheng Weilu could clearly identify the source of these mental consciousnesses: the thirty thousand boxes on the shelves.
The struggles of countless people tore at her. Her mental projection was swept downward. Cheng Weilu clutched her head, feeling as though it were splitting apart. She breathed rapidly, her entire body beginning to lose its balance.
“A Luo! A Luo!”
Someone was calling her from beside her. Cheng Weilu opened her eyes. All she could see was the warehouse before her and the quiet white boxes lining its shelves. When she closed her eyes, the chaotic sea of consciousness churned inside her mind, tens of thousands of voices calling out and pulling her downward.
Li Xu came over to pull her up. Cheng Weilu recoiled in terror, trying to shake off his hand, and staggered, nearly falling.
Li Xu forcibly steadied her. After establishing an optical-brain link, he pressed his mental projection tightly against hers. His voice trembled, as though he, too, was enduring tremendous pain.
“Don’t look. Don’t listen. Don’t sense them. Sync with me.”
Cheng Weilu was holding his hand, her mental projection pressed tightly against his. He invaded and shared her sensory consciousness. All she could hear was his breathing and voice.
“A Luo, disconnect the optical-brain link!”
Cheng Weilu suddenly opened her eyes. The warehouse before her was illuminated by the cold white light, and the surroundings had returned to complete silence.
Based on Cheng Weilu’s current understanding, only humans possessed something called mental strength. That was also why, no matter how advanced artificial intelligence and robots became, humans still had to establish optical-brain links themselves.
If there were humans inside all those boxes, then this enormous underground storage facility was a graveyard for the living. Judging from the warehouse numbering, there were more than a hundred such graveyards.
A chill ran down Cheng Weilu’s back. Her breathing quickened, and her stomach began to churn. She fought hard to suppress the urge to vomit.
“We agreed we’d be back before bedtime. I want to go back.”
Li Xu supported her and looked at the data, which had finished copying. He put away his wristband and took a deep breath.
“Let’s go.”
Although Li Xu had half-forced her to undergo fairly intense physical training during this period, years of poor physical fitness could not be remedied overnight. Its disadvantages were once again apparent now. She could barely stand and had to be half-carried forward by Li Xu.
At the warehouse entrance, Li Xu glanced at Cheng Weilu, who was still in poor condition. He raised his right hand, operated his wristband several times, and injected a string of information into the access-control identification system.
For a moment, the holographic screen in the central area flashed bright red, accompanied by a sharp alarm. A minute later, the access door opened. Several robots rushed inside, dragging a piece of equipment behind them. Li Xu wrapped an arm around Cheng Weilu and quickly slipped out along the side of the door, leaving the cryogenic storage facility.
The air circulation in the corridor was much better. Cheng Weilu breathed in the air filtered through her helmet, gradually calming down. Li Xu pulled her by the wrist as they hurried along, avoiding the robots gathering around the warehouse in small groups, and returned to the corridor where they had started.
The alarm inside the cave was still sounding. The passage at the entrance, which had originally been quiet and dark, was now flashing with rows of warning red lights.
As they rapidly approached the cave entrance, Li Xu was about to inject another illegal command using the same method when Cheng Weilu stopped him.
“I can still do it.”
She established an optical-brain link again, and the two of them successfully flew out amid the fluctuations caused by the impact on the defense network.
Outside was the familiar darkness of night on SW07. When the two finally returned to the fighter jet, the main control screen showed a ring of flickering unidentified objects approaching them.
“Have Xiao Wei disengage the hover mode. Get as far away from SW07 as possible.”
As Li Xu issued the command, he quickly started the fighter jet and shot into the sky at tremendous speed. Cheng Weilu fought against the dizziness brought on by the rapid acceleration and sent a command to Xiao Wei.
Adela’s fastest cheetah did not disappoint, but this was a military heavy-equipment base.
The two successfully broke through the atmosphere. After leaving the defense network, Cheng Weilu had just breathed a sigh of relief when she suddenly felt a tremor. The vibrations grew increasingly intense, like the waves generated by a massive ship leaving port, but on the fighter jet’s main control screen, only the vibration intensity was visible. There was no physical source in sight.
She established an optical-brain link again. Within the space of her mental consciousness, a colossal object was approaching.
She finally understood where that excessively quiet, strange feeling had come from. The warships had been in the base’s star region all along. They were simply invisible, enormous beasts lying in wait in the darkness. Earlier, they had simply been extraordinarily lucky not to collide with them directly.
Now, because of a little disturbance caused by ants, a beast was beginning to awaken.
“Faster!”
The moment Cheng Weilu finished speaking, another wave of violent spatial vibrations swept over them. The fighter jet, which had been speeding away from Sevi Base, was flipped over by the shockwave. The craft spun uncontrollably, while alarms and red lights flashed inside the cockpit.
The wave flipped the fighter jet over, but it also propelled them farther away. Li Xu kept his hands on the controls and, once the turbulence weakened, stabilized the craft and flipped it back over. He accelerated in the direction Xiao Wei had left and pursued it.
She did not know how much time had passed when Li Xu’s voice came through beside her.
“A Luo, are you all right?”
Cheng Weilu did not hear him. The strain of excessive brain activity over such a short period, combined with the tremendous impact, had left her mind in a state of chaos.
The spaceship and fighter jet docked successfully. After Li Xu carried her into the medical bay, she completely lost consciousness.
─────── ✦ · ˚ ✧ · ˚ ✦ ───────
“Xiao Wei, do you know about the suspension bridge effect?”
Cheng Weilu was curled up in a chair in the main control room, wrapped in a new blanket Robert had made for her. Wearing a mask, she connected with Xiao Wei through her mind.
It was already the fifth day since they had left Sevi Base.
Cheng Weilu had spent two days lying in the medical bay. After she had mostly recovered, she remained listless for the next three days. Aside from the times when Li Xu came to assist her with brain sound-therapy rehabilitation, meals, and basic exercise, she avoided seeing him whenever possible.
“A psychological phenomenon in which emotions affect cognition. When two people are in a tense, frightening, or exciting situation together, they may mistake their physiological responses for emotional attraction toward each other.”
Xiao Wei gave a general explanation. After considering the reason Cheng Weilu might have asked the question, it added, “Do you think that because you experienced a dangerous situation together, you mistakenly thought you had developed romantic attraction toward Li Xu?”
“No, I don’t think it’s romantic attraction.” Cheng Weilu lowered her eyes. “It feels more like a kind of emotional dependence and closeness, as well as a degree of excessive trust.”
After all, few people had ever entered her territory. He had simply clung to her and refused to leave, while making very good use of her weakness when it came to refusing others.
“You used the word ‘excessive.’ Do you feel that you shouldn’t have trusted him that much?”
Cheng Weilu was silent for a moment.
“If there hadn’t been any unexpected events, after salvaging that reconnaissance vessel and completing the handover, we would already be in Freedom City. We wouldn’t be traveling along this route for dozens of days.”
“But the reconnaissance vessel was missing its core. The handover probably wouldn’t have gone smoothly. As for how things would have developed afterward, I can’t deduce the outcome because I have limited information about Gray Dove Base.”
Cheng Weilu fell silent. She knew that much.
“You rarely use ‘if’ when discussing things that have already happened. A Luo, have you developed feelings of regret? Do you feel that you shouldn’t have agreed to go with Li Xu?”
She remained silent again. After a while, she answered, “I don’t know. But it’s not regret. Thinking about it now, what you said about me often being overly optimistic in my understanding of people… maybe you were right.”
Xiao Wei’s understanding came from analyzing massive amounts of information and data, unlike Cheng Weilu’s intuition- and perception-based approach. It did not pass judgment. It simply said, “Then what is it that has caused your current… confusion… Sorry, I haven’t found a more suitable word yet. Do you need to talk to Li Xu about it?”
Someone knocked on the door of the main control room.
Cheng Weilu took off her mask and silently looked at the starfield flickering across the main control screen. The stars were becoming increasingly dense. They had already approached the final stretch of their journey, Nianchuan Fortress.
According to their route, they would enter the fortress’s docking port in two days to complete their rest and resupply.
The legal route was to pass through the official interstellar checkpoint, leave Alliance territory, and head toward the Freedom Corridor. The illegal route was to bypass the fortress checkpoint and travel through the edge star systems. This method was only suitable for small aircraft.
Li Xu walked into the main control room and saw Cheng Weilu slowly studying an image of a nebula displayed on the screen. It was a transparent blue nebula shaped like a gigantic bubble. It was said to be a shell of luminous gas left behind in the universe after the death of a star.
The beautiful, profound, unknown starry sky was what truly interested her. Li Xu was silent for a while before speaking.
“I’m sorry.”
The scene brought Cheng Weilu back to several dozen days earlier in a daze. She stared at the blue bubble and slowly said, “I checked my private account. You transferred fifty million star coins to me.”
Generous with money, through a legal and discreet channel.
“That’s too much, Commander Li. So much that you don’t need to apologize.”
“You’re angry.”
Li Xu looked at her.
In Cheng Weilu’s past understanding, she felt this was the best era. Technology was advanced, lifespans were longer, and human footprints extended to every corner of the universe.
Her plan was to explore the universe while making money. Because people lived longer, she could take her time and live at a leisurely pace. But she could not afford to stop working hard, because living longer also meant needing more money.
Finding that balance was somewhat difficult. Cheng Weilu’s goal was simply to earn enough money to spend for the rest of her life.
She had been dragged into some trouble because of Li Xu, but she had also received a large sum of money. Enough money that even if the trouble affected her and she temporarily lost her work, she could still live comfortably. At her previous income level, it would have taken her many years of diligently taking on jobs to earn that much.
The risks involved in these troubles were somewhat high, but high risks came with high returns. She had received so much money. Why should she be angry?
Why were former Alliance soldiers secretly manufacturing weapons? Why did the fortress commander tacitly allow smuggling along the route? Why had Li Xu come here? Why was the military manufacturing those things…?
It actually was not difficult to understand. Unequal distribution of wealth and resources, exploitation and those being exploited, wars and the casualties they produced… None of these things seemed to have changed much since ancient times. It was no one’s fault. No era could ever be nothing but a utopia.
It was simply that she had been forced to confront these issues directly.
After a long silence, Cheng Weilu finally spoke.
“What’s inside the boxes?”
Li Xu turned her chair around, sat down across from her, and looked directly into her eyes.
“Are you sure you want to know?”
Cheng Weilu nodded.
“The Alliance civil war ended fifty years ago. The Alliance military defeated the rebels. But in truth, both sides originally came from the same source. Because of political disagreements and conflicts, the rebels broke away from the military and joined forces with other factions to establish an independent regime. The two sides knew each other well, and their military strength was fairly evenly matched. During the first few years after the war began, the fighting remained extremely intense, with neither side gaining a decisive advantage. Until…”
Li Xu paused.
“Until the rebels suddenly produced an elite force. Every member had extremely high mental strength and high aggression. Almost every spaceship or fighter jet that approached them would be ‘captured.’ The pilots would suffer brain damage and lose their combat capabilities.”
“The Alliance military suffered heavy losses. After expending tremendous effort, they finally captured a live specimen, only to discover that the pilot was actually a box.”
Li Xu continued, “When they opened the box, they discovered that there was a person inside.”
Cheng Weilu’s breath caught.
“It was a person, but not a human.”
Li Xu frowned.
“Before the rebels broke away from the military, I had heard that some departments were secretly conducting biological projects. They were modifying human brains to create exceptional pilots with high mental strength values. Those projects were halted because they raised ethical concerns. Later, they bypassed humans and chose to modify bionics instead.”
“The cryogenic boxes in that warehouse contained modified bionics created during the civil war.”
…
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