Dan Heng silently withdrew his hand.
He wanted to say something but hesitated.
After a long moment, he squeezed out two words: “Sorry.”
“Stop talking.
Wake Mr.
Yang up!”
Ye Cang couldn’t be bothered to argue with this taciturn guy.
From Welt Yang’s condition since contacting the meme contamination, the initial infection of this meme didn’t seem fatal to Pathstriders.
At least…
before the infection deepened to a certain degree, Mr.
Yang’s life wasn’t in danger.
This gave the upcoming space station trip a certain baseline of safety.
Ye Cang himself didn’t care.
His life was cheap anyway.
He could loop through death, so he wasn’t afraid of sudden death.
The main concern was the train crew.
Every one lost was one too few…
Any one of them dying suddenly would be a massive loss, even causing irreversible effects on the subsequent “plot,” forcing Ye Cang to kill himself and restart.
It was like a horror-themed high-difficulty galgame.
To achieve the perfect ending where everyone is saved, one had to go through countless cycles of life and death, saving and loading.
Fortunately, Ye Cang was already prepared for this.
March grabbed Mr.
Yang’s shoulders and shook him.
“Wake up, Mr.
Yang!
Wake up!”
Clearly, perhaps because Dan Heng’s chop was too deep, Mr.
Yang showed no sign of waking.
He even rolled his eyes back, looking like he was about to pass out completely.
“No good.
We need something stronger!” Ye Cang steeled himself and deployed his ultimate weapon: his unfinished cup of Himeko’s freshly ground extra-strength coffee.
He poured it all down Mr.
Yang’s throat.
Glug glug
Visibly, Mr.
Yang’s pale face suddenly flushed red, followed by violent coughing and coffee spraying everywhere like a fountain.
Cough cough cough
March’s eyes lit up.
“It worked!
Miracle doctor!”
She rolled up her sleeves, about to pour more coffee into Mr.
Yang.
“…” Himeko’s expression was not looking good.
Ye Cang was quick.
He timely stopped the overenthusiastic March and said with a mix of laughter and tears, “Enough!
If you keep pouring, Mr.
Yang will completely lose his chance of revival!”
Consciousness returned to his body.
This time, Welt Yang instinctively did not speak.
He only habitually pushed up his glasses, wiped the yellow-brown liquid from the corner of his mouth, and turned to give Ye Cang a grateful look.
It was unclear whether he was thanking Ye Cang for “saving his life” or for “not killing him.”
Ye Cang silently ignored Mr.
Yang’s “eye flirtation” and said seriously, “Mr.
Yang, don’t say anything.
Let me finish first…”
Then, he slightly organized his wording, confirmed that everything about to come out of his mouth was indeed declarative sentences, and only then relaxed a bit.
He slowly spoke: “It’s like this…”
“…”
“In other words, questions and answers are the medium for the meme contamination’s spread.
To avoid expanding the disaster, before the crisis is completely over, we can only communicate in declarative sentences.” Mr.
Yang was worthy of being a reliable adult man who had weathered great storms.
Under Ye Cang’s explanation, he quickly grasped the situation.
He adjusted his glasses, his gaze calmly meeting the handsome youth before him.
“In that case, the meme contamination on the space station no longer poses a fatal threat to us…
Thank you for the intelligence, Ye Cang.”
Ye Cang shook his head.
“We should be thanking you, Mr.
Welt.
If you hadn’t taken the initiative to contact the meme contamination, we wouldn’t have gathered this intelligence.”
Himeko smiled slightly, parting her lips: “You two shouldn’t be so modest with each other.
Everyone has seen your contributions.”
She paused, her gaze turning to the departing Conductor Pom-Pom.
She continued, “The Astral Express has been disconnected from the interstellar network.
The meme contamination will not spread further.
In about two system hours, we will arrive at Herta Space Station!”
“Fellow Nameless, even though we now understand the nature of the meme contamination’s spread, please do not let your guard down.
After all…”
Dan Heng completed Himeko’s unfinished sentence: “After all, in Herta Space Station, there are still the claws of the Antimatter Legion.”
“It seems a fierce battle is unavoidable.” Mr.
Yang’s gaze was sharp.
The lenses of his black-framed glasses reflected a chilling light.
In an unnoticed corner, Ye Cang silently took out the Death Diary and recorded:
–+–
If you don’t ask and don’t answer, the meme contamination won’t spread further?
Then in the previous loop, what did I die from?
–+–
The starry sky was silent.
All was quiet.
The pitch-black metal space station floated silently in orbit around the central star.
Surrounding it was a vast ring of countless meteor fragments, as if a planet had been shattered by supreme power.
The scattered debris gradually cooled in the vacuum, paving into a yellow-brown disk.
Obviously, before the Astral Express arrived in this star system, a “planet-destroying” level battle had occurred near Herta Space Station.
The original planet in orbit was destroyed by the flames of war, shattered into a star ring.
Herta Space Station had fallen into complete silence, like a lonely graveyard in the dark universe.
As for the two sides of the battle, it wasn’t hard to guess.
Herta Space Station’s Security Department, the Antimatter Legion.
This was a war between [Erudition] and [Destruction].
The cost was the destruction of a planet, and the imminent extinguishing of the star in this star system.
The Astral Express slowly approached the space station’s dry dock.
The light from the car windows became the only light source in this dark world, save for one other.
As for the first light source, it was naturally the dim star at the center of the distant star system, almost on the verge of extinguishing at any moment.
Rumble
A dull metallic impact sounded.
The Astral Express steadily stopped on the platform.
The observation car’s sliding door slowly opened.
A middle-aged man in a gray suit, holding a metal cane, slowly stepped out of the car.
The man pushed up his glasses, his gaze warily scanning the empty, unmanned spaceport around him.
After confirming there was no danger, he quietly raised his other hand and beckoned behind him.
Soon, a black-haired youth, also in a gray suit, poked his head out of the car furtively.
He held a small black pistol that clearly looked non-lethal, jumped to the middle-aged man’s side, raised the pistol in a ready-to-aim stance, the muzzle sweeping across the surroundings.
“Seems…
no danger for now.”
“If the space station only suffered meme contamination, then the physical-level dangers we anticipated may be few.”
Himeko was the third to leave the car.
Her amber eyes looked around with slight regret.
She said softly, “I’m somewhat acquainted with that Station Master Asta.
I hope she’s okay…”
“She’ll definitely be fine!
Himeko, don’t worry!” March hopped out with her compound bow, followed by a silent, cold-faced azure dragon.
With this, the entire Astral Express crew arrived at Herta Space Station.