After days of heavy rain, clear weather finally arrived.
The sunlight on the planet where the White Tower was located was not particularly strong. Even in summer, the temperature remained comfortably moderate, neither too hot nor too cold.
The small pond in the garden had filled completely with water, its surface reflecting the clouds drifting across the sky.
Qi Yan sat on a bench, flipping through a paper book but despite sitting there for a long time, he had not managed to turn even a single page.
Elisa approached and handed him a nutritional supplement. “It’s lunchtime.”
Qi Yan accepted it. As he began tearing open the package, his movements paused for several seconds, as though something had suddenly occurred to him.
Elisa asked, “How was it last night? Did you manage to fall asleep?”
Holding the opened nutritional supplement in his hand, the skin on the back of Qi Yan’s hand appeared cold and pale beneath the sunlight. After several seconds, he gave a small shake of his head.
“No. I still couldn’t sleep.”
His voice was low and somewhat hoarse, carrying very little strength.
Sometimes, Qi Yan felt as though he were a balloon filled with air, except that somewhere on its surface, a tiny hole had been pierced and the air was constantly leaking out.
Elisa tried her best to keep her tone light. “Then it seems the sleeping gas we used last night didn’t have any effect.”
“Mm.”
Qi Yan had already been slender and thin to begin with but his body continued to waste away without restraint.
Every night, he was unable to sleep. He could not eat anything at all. If he consumed too much nutritional supplement, his body would react by making him vomit. He could only swallow down a few mouthfuls at a time.
When they had no choice but to give him nutritional injections, his body would also develop a fever in rejection of them. His remaining vitality could only be forcibly maintained through the treatment pod.
He was like a withered leaf barely clinging to a branch in the depths of late autumn.
By now, Qi Yan no longer believed that Lu Fenghan was still beside him. He had accepted the reality of what had happened.
And yet Elisa was caught in an agonizing contradiction. She almost wished he could remain forever within those fabricated memories.
Anything would have been better than this.
Perhaps it was just as the saying went: “When all things turn to emptiness in retrospect, before that turning point, everything is but a dream.”
The sunlight fell warmly upon his body yet Qi Yan still felt cold.
He turned toward Elisa and asked, “How is the Alliance?”
This was the first time in all these days that Qi Yan had shown any concern for the outside world.
Elisa concealed her surprise and answered, “You should know what happened on Founding Day. The rebel forces joined with the interstellar pirates and invaded Leto. Outside Leto’s atmosphere, the Space Force was beaten into disarray. However, because the capital planet’s defensive system was still holding, the rebel forces in space eventually ceased fire.”
Even now, Elisa still found what happened difficult to believe.
“But there were simply too many enemies who infiltrated Leto. I even suspect that Hodgkin somehow managed to deceive everyone and secretly stationed an entire rebel army on the capital planet. So after losing the battle outside the atmosphere, they lost the battle inside the atmosphere as well.
“General Nie Huaiting ultimately decided to abandon Leto in order to avoid even greater casualties. Together with the Alliance Secretary General, he temporarily relocated the military command headquarters and the administrative center to the Kepler Administrative Region.”
“Klimo was imprisoned and gradually handed over a large number of names. Among them was Weiss, the acting commander in chief of the Expeditionary Force on the Southern Cross Administrative Region’s front line.”
“As for Hodgkin, he has completely transformed himself and become the rebel forces’ representative on Leto. For now, it is impossible to determine whether he had been a member of the rebel forces from the very beginning or whether he defected somewhere along the way.”
After listening to her, Qi Yan pulled himself out of his brief daze.
“I think I submitted a project through the internal network before. It was an upgrade to the radar detection system.”
“Yes. You had proposed extending the detection range into the interior of the jump channel. If it were possible to detect whether there were high density heat signatures inside the jump channel, then defenses or an ambush could be prepared in advance, before enemy starships emerged from the jump channel but you only got as far as the initial stage before putting the project on hold.”
Elisa asked carefully, “Do you want to restart the project?”
“Mm.”
Qi Yan closed the paper book and looked at the reflection shimmering across the surface of the pond. His gaze was utterly still.
“The Alliance is something Lu Fenghan wanted to protect.”
Lu Fenghan.
The words stopped there.
Qi Yan’s fingers rested against the rough cover of the book. After several breaths, his voice became as light as the flutter of a cicada’s wings. He stared blankly ahead and said, “Elisa, I always… think of him. My brain doesn’t obey my commands. Every moment, every second, he is there. Just like now. I’m clearly talking to you but I’m still thinking about him.”
As time passed, even the most profound memories would gradually fade and lose their color. That was why so many people were eventually able to emerge from the sorrow of their past.
Qi Yan could not.
Because he would never forget.
He could only experience the pain he had once suffered over and over again, being repeatedly battered by waves carrying razor sharp blades, drowning, suffocating, hurting, again and again, with no end.
Elisa’s eyes stung. She reached out and gently gathered Qi Yan’s coat around him, wanting to comfort him or persuade him somehow yet she could not bring herself to say a single word.
Qi Yan began spending day after day sitting in the laboratory.
Everyone noticed that Qi Yan seemed to be slowly getting better. Now that he had something he could devote his attention to, the vitality that had been withering away inside him seemed to find something to support it once more.
Every day, he would update his research progress on the internal network. Any new tools he developed along the way were also uploaded to the Star Network and made open source, just as he had done before.
It was as though nothing had ever happened.
Qi Yan had never left the Reef Nebula. He had never gone to Leto. He had never met that person. The stretch of time in between had been folded away completely, leaving him still the same beautiful, cold, taciturn genius, quietly concentrating on the things he wanted to do in a place far removed from the noise and bustle of the world.
August monitored Qi Yan’s progress every day. At the same time, he found several more research projects and prepared to immediately hand them over to Qi Yan as soon as he finished his current one.
Perhaps this could divert Qi Yan’s attention. Perhaps it could help him slowly climb out of the mire of his memories, little by little.
Everyone held onto optimism and hope.
Even Elisa, who during those first few days had constantly worried that Qi Yan might merely be forcing himself to appear strong in order to reassure them, gradually began to let her guard down. She thought that perhaps Qi Yan had finally found a goal for himself, perhaps he wanted to protect the Alliance, the Alliance that Lu Fenghan had devoted his life to defending.
Until the day Qi Yan failed to update his research progress on the internal network at the usual time.
Elisa hurried to his laboratory and found Qi Yan sitting in the corner with his knees drawn up against his chest, staring blankly at a speck of dust floating in the air.
Her heart sank heavily.
Almost instinctively, Elisa lightened her footsteps as she approached him. “Qi Yan?”
Qi Yan was wearing a white sweater, with only his jade colored fingers exposed from the sleeves. Hearing her voice, he slowly shifted his gaze toward her and said hoarsely, “The seasons are about to change. Lu Fenghan already picked out some clothes for me at the custom workshop. He said he was going to pick them up.”
His eyelashes trembled. “No, that’s not right. It’s spring now. Why would he have picked out winter clothes for me? And the place where the clothes are being collected is in Leto. I am… I am at the White Tower?”
It was as though he had suddenly become lucid yet at the same time, he seemed not to be. He merely murmured to himself, “The Reef Nebula is so far from Leto. It would take several jumps to get there. A jump- ”
Qi Yan’s pupils suddenly contracted.
His face turned deathly pale in an instant. Like a fish dragged out of water, he clutched desperately at the collar of his clothes, struggling for breath as he hoarsely muttered to himself, “Don’t go… Lu Fenghan, don’t go. Don’t jump! Don’t get close to the jump channel… You’ll die!”
The final words trembled so violently that they were barely more than a breath of sound.
After his voice disappeared, he strangely fell silent again. Resting his cheek against his knees, he said nothing at all, looking like a lifeless wooden puppet.
Elisa’s eyes reddened. She spoke carefully, “Qi Yan, it’s very cold here. Do you want to move somewhere else to sit?”
Qi Yan looked at Elisa. It took a long time before he finally understood what she meant. “No. I have to wait for Lu Fenghan to come back. He went to pick up my clothes for me.”
Elisa said, “Then shall we go somewhere else and wait for him?”
Qi Yan frowned in confusion. “Wait for who?”
Elisa did not dare to say that name. Instead, she cautiously tested him. “Then what are you doing right now?”
“I am… What am I doing? Oh, I’m waiting for the results of Project E97 Z.” After saying that, Qi Yan immediately contradicted himself. “No, that project has already been terminated by August and me.”
He seemed to have fallen into a chaos of memories. Almost instinctively, he turned his head and asked, “Lu Fenghan, do you remember?”
No one answered him.
He lowered his eyelashes again and told himself, “Lu Fenghan went to Leto. He’s not here. I’ll ask him when he comes back.”
……..
Elisa closed the door. The sunlight stung her eyes, leaving them aching.
She followed the corridor to August’s laboratory.
The moment August saw her expression, he asked, “Has Qi Yan’s condition deteriorated again?”
Elisa shook her head. “Not ‘again.’ He never got better in the first place.”
Her legs felt too weak to support her. Elisa leaned against the wall, completely drained of strength. “His rationality and logic force him to accept reality, to accept Lu Fenghan’s death but his instincts and emotions are rejecting it with everything they have. As a result, he has no choice but to fight against these two contradictory ways of thinking.
“On top of that, he has always suffered from severe confusion between reality and memory. That makes his inner world like a black hole, with everything thrown into chaos.
“He has been trying all this time. That’s why he uploads his research results every day, desperately trying to rebuild some kind of order within himself so that he won’t lose himself in the darkness but he failed.”
“Lu Fenghan’s death was the final straw.” Elisa shuddered as something came back to her. “August, do you know what I thought of when I looked at him?”
August was silent for a moment before answering, “Lin Zhi.”
“Yes.” Elisa wrapped her arms tightly around herself and began to cry. “Yes. When I look at Qi Yan now, I’m so afraid… I’m afraid that in the end, he’ll become like his mother, too, August.”
After a long silence, August took two steps back and sat down in his chair.
He remained deep in thought for a long time. Then his deep blue eyes fixed directly on Elisa.
“There is another way. The only way.”
….
“Pojun, is there any way to improve this design any further?”
Lu Fenghan stood before a pile of battered scrap metal, his gaze fixed on a metal strip as he asked the question.
“This is already the optimal design,” Pojun replied without haste. “We have gone through the wreckage of the crashed escape pod and the remains of that spaceship from more than two hundred years ago seventeen times.”
Lu Fenghan gave a quiet “Mm.”
He had never been the type to sit around and wait for death.
Someone was waiting for him.
So he had never considered simply waiting to die on this planet.
After thoroughly surveying the surrounding area, he recovered several pieces of ore. He then spent several days completely dismantling the wreckage of the crashed spacecraft, taking it apart piece by piece until there was practically nothing left to dismantle. After that, he dismantled the escape pod as well.
Finally, from the mountain of battered scrap metal, he picked out whatever pieces could still be used and barely managed to put together a signal amplifier.
Although Pojun had used data and theoretical calculations to tell him that the tiny amount by which the signal had been strengthened was practically no different from having no amplification at all, Lu Fenghan did not think so.
A little was still better than nothing. He refused to believe that his luck could be that terrible.
Even during the great defeat on the front lines, he had somehow managed to hitch a ride on a transport ship back to Leto, only to be picked up by Qi Yan and brought home, where a Type VI treatment pod had saved his life.
Perhaps he could have that kind of luck again this time.
If one month wasn’t enough, then ten months.
If one year wasn’t enough, then ten years.
He was like a beast trapped inside a cage, suppressing his instincts and patiently, stubbornly waiting for that faint, almost illusory thread of hope.
Because at the other end of that thread of hope was Qi Yan.
Aside from the daily activities that were absolutely necessary, Lu Fenghan began spending day after day guarding the signal amplifier.
It was incredibly boring. Every matter he could possibly think about had already been turned over and over again in his mind several times, leaving him with practically nothing else to do.
In the end, Lu Fenghan simply lay down on the grass and began taking apart and piecing together every event that had happened since the day he met Qi Yan, recalling everything from beginning to end.
But even then, not much time passed.
After Lu Fenghan had made Pojun tell him more than a hundred terrible jokes, recount seventy or eighty little stories and sing two and a half songs, he finally found something with which to kill time, playing simulated war games with Pojun.
They would set up a battlefield simulation of a space war, with two armies facing each other and fighting back and forth, waiting to see which side would ultimately win.
At first, Lu Fenghan lost far more often than he won, usually losing three or four out of every five games.
Later, after figuring out Pojun’s habits, he began losing less and winning more.
Once they had played more than a hundred rounds, Pojun could rarely win anymore.
Pojun evaluated him solemnly. “A terrifying human.”
Lu Fenghan was quite happy to accept the description. “Ginger gets spicier with age. Don’t be sad. You’re still too young. By human standards, you’re still a child who hasn’t even reached one year old.”
Pojun retorted, “Then, does that mean you are already an ‘old ginger’ among humans?”
Lu Fenghan answered without the slightest courtesy, “If you don’t know how to talk, you can shut up.”
Pojun had heard that sentence countless times by now. He obediently shut his mouth, though before doing so, he added, “My designer clearly used a piece of data to tell me that your temper is very good.”
After saying that, he promptly pretended to shut down.
Instead, he left Lu Fenghan alone to stare into space for a long time.
Lu Fenghan had never considered himself to have particularly good self restraint or a particularly good temper.
Back on the front lines, he had been chronically sleep deprived for long periods, which naturally hadn’t done anything to improve his temper. It wasn’t as though there hadn’t been occasions when he had glared at a new recruit so fiercely that the poor soldier had burst into tears.
Yet, in Qi Yan’s eyes, he was someone with a very good temper.
No.
The tension in Lu Fenghan’s lips slowly eased, the corners of his mouth curling into the faintest hint of a smile.
In the eyes of that little scatterbrain, everything about him was good.
Pojun suddenly spoke again. “Your heart rate has suddenly increased. Are you ill? I have to remind you that there is no medicine on this planet.”
Lu Fenghan’s mood had become strangely good. For once, he did not tell Pojun to shut up. Instead, he actually began chatting with him.
“Do you know what your designer was like?”
Pojun answered honestly, “I don’t know. He didn’t leave any relevant data in my data core but I’m curious. Do you know?”
Lu Fenghan wanted to say, Of course I know.
Your designer is very intelligent but he’s also incredibly scatterbrained. He often mixes up all kinds of things in his memory. He’s delicate and afraid of pain; if someone uses just a little too much force, the bruises won’t fade for several days and even a mosquito bite is enough for him to want a bandage wrapped around it. He’s also very, very, very good at acting spoiled. For a period of time, he either wanted to be held or wanted someone to sleep with him, making it impossible not to coax him and indulge him.
But all of those things were secrets that Lu Fenghan alone had possessed and enjoyed.
So Lu Fenghan simply replied, “I’m not telling you.”
Pojun: “…”
Day after day, the signal amplifier continued waiting for an information stream from the universe, like the verdict of an unknown final outcome.
On the gambling table, there was only something as mysterious and unfathomable as luck.
Another sunrise arrived.
After completing ten sets of physical training, Lu Fenghan washed himself with water from the mountain spring, then walked over to the signal amplifier and asked Pojun, “How many days has it been since we entered the jump channel?”
“According to Leto time, or according to the local planetary time?”
“Leto time.”
“As of the moment you asked, a total of five months, six days, nine hours, eight minutes and one second.”
Lu Fenghan fell silent.
He sat down beside the signal amplifier, which was bathed in a layer of golden light by the rising sun.
Only after a long while did he speak, his tone carrying an indescribable quality.
“Five months already.”
More than a hundred days.
Almost half a year.
Leto should have already passed from winter into early summer.
There was a strange, hazy emptiness in his heart.
The outside world was continuing to spin without pause. Countless things were happening every moment.
Only he was trapped on a single planet, as though his life itself had been frozen in place.
The turning point came half a month later.
The moment he heard Pojun’s voice, Lu Fenghan opened his eyes. There wasn’t the slightest trace of sleepiness in them.
“What is it?”
Pojun’s voice still carried its characteristic flatness. “I’ve captured a signal. There is a very high probability that a starship is nearby.”
Lu Fenghan immediately got to his feet and strode out of the rocky cave, raising his head toward the pitch black night sky.
“Are you sure?”
“Confirmed.” Pojun asked, “Awaiting further instructions.”
Lu Fenghan did not hesitate for even a moment.
“Take control of the starship.”
Pojun replied, “Yes.”
The wait was extraordinarily long.
Every second seemed to stretch several times its normal length.
Lu Fenghan rubbed his fingers together, then suddenly clenched his hand tightly.
“I’ve obtained control,” Pojun’s voice finally sounded. “There are five people aboard the starship. All are injured. The starship model is G 173z. There are signs of modification and its energy reserves are sufficient.”
“The Alliance phased out this model forty years ago. If it’s been modified, they should be a group of stranded interstellar pirates.”
Lu Fenghan wasn’t picky.
Having something was already good enough.
As long as it could fly, he wouldn’t care whether it was from forty years ago or even a hundred and forty years ago.
Before long, Pojun spoke again.
“Three people are dead.”
“How did they die?”
“I don’t understand. Humans speak too complicatedly.”
Pojun simply took on several voices at once, reproducing the sounds he had heard and relaying them to Lu Fenghan.
It only took Lu Fenghan a few sentences to understand.
These people really were interstellar pirates.
They had received orders to travel from the Central Administrative District to the Southern Cross Major District. Along the way, however, they couldn’t resist their inherited skill of robbing and plundering, so they gave chase after a transport ship.
They had never expected that the transport ship was actually a military vessel disguised as a civilian transport and that it was loaded entirely with supplies bound for the front lines.
As a result, the pirates had been caught in a counter pursuit.
No one knew how many hundreds of star miles they had been chased through. By sheer luck, the group discovered an unstable small scale wormhole and, desperate to escape with their lives, entered it without the slightest hesitation.
Unexpectedly, when they emerged on the other side, they happened to run straight into a cosmic storm. By the time they came back to their senses, they were already outside the range covered by the Alliance’s star maps. The system aboard their starship was practically half wrecked and its functions were nowhere near sufficient to locate the route they had originally taken.
The five of them had already been drifting through space for a long time. With their hopes of returning to the Alliance growing increasingly bleak, they began shifting blame onto one another, barely managing to maintain a superficial sense of harmony.
After Pojun seized control of the starship, the five initially assumed that the ship’s control system had malfunctioned. The tensions they had suppressed for so long erupted all at once and after several gunshots, three of them were already dead.
Pojun reported again, “Another one is dead. The remaining person is seriously injured.”
Three minutes later, Pojun reported once more, “The last person has also lost all vital signs.”
Lu Fenghan raised an eyebrow.
He had originally already been planning how to deal with these interstellar pirates after taking this starship from them.
Pojun said, “The starship will land in five minutes.”
Lu Fenghan nodded and gave a quiet “Mm.” He returned to the depths of the rocky cave and, before the rock wall covered with lines of messages, picked up four stones.
He did not particularly believe that ghosts existed in this world.
Nevertheless, when the deceased left behind a final wish to return to their homeland, he would see it fulfilled.
When he emerged again, an expanding shadow was already visible in the night sky. Before long, a starship appeared before Lu Fenghan, its hull covered in bright yellow and vivid green paint, its entire exterior bearing the unmistakable traces of countless repairs and makeshift modifications.
Lu Fenghan considered his aesthetic standards to be nothing exceptional yet even he was almost blinded by the bewildering appearance of the ship.
The hatch opened directly in front of Lu Fenghan and the boarding ramp extended all the way to the ground.
Lu Fenghan boarded the ship and discovered that Pojun had already cleaned the interior thoroughly. He had even been considerate enough to spray air freshener throughout the entire vessel.
It smelled fragrant, all right.
Unfortunately, it was far too strong and obviously cheap.
The moment Lu Fenghan stepped aboard, he sneezed several times in succession.
Once the starship rose into the air, Lu Fenghan looked at the land below as it gradually grew smaller in the distance. “Pojun, record the location of this planet.”
“Location recorded. What name would you like to assign to it?”
“Dawn.”
Lu Fenghan remembered the lines of writing carved into the rock wall.
“Call it ‘Dawn.’”
Once the battered and patched up starship entered space again, Lu Fenghan sat before the controls and looked at the familiar scenery beyond the observation window.
Only then did the taut string inside him finally loosen.
He leaned back against the seat.
Pojun’s voice no longer came from Lu Fenghan’s personal terminal. Instead, it now sounded through the starship’s communications system.
“Please issue the navigation instructions.”
Lu Fenghan instructed, “Find the navigation records of this starship.”
Very quickly, a virtual screen unfolded before him.
A winding, crooked line appeared across it, resembling the trail left behind by an aimless ant dragging itself across a stretch of sand.
After determining the location of the wormhole’s exit, Lu Fenghan tapped the virtual display with his fingertip. “We’ll go here first. If we’re lucky, we can pass through the wormhole one more time and return directly to the Southern Cross Major District.”
The starship traveled through the silent expanse of the universe.
With every stretch of distance it crossed, the new star map became a little more complete, with Dawn as its starting point.
Lu Fenghan gazed at the monotonous scenery outside the window. The excitement that had surged through him from the moment he discovered the signal had gradually settled down and another emotion, one called longing, began to grow wildly inside him like weeds.
It was like encountering a gust of wind. One blink and it had already spread all the way to the horizon.
Lu Fenghan couldn’t help wondering: When they met, would Qi Yan blame him?
He probably would.
He had made the decision on his own without discussing it with anyone. Thinking of Qi Yan’s tears, Lu Fenghan felt that he really was asking to be scolded.
But Qi Yan should believe that he was already dead, right?
Would he cry?
When Qi Yan saw him, would he think that he was an impostor?
Or perhaps a hallucination?
A sharp, dull ache surged through him again.
Lu Fenghan sucked in a breath of cold air and did not dare to think any further.
After a long while, Pojun’s voice sounded inside the ship. “Approaching the jump point. Shall we prepare for the jump?”
Lu Fenghan opened his eyes. His gaze remained as sharp as ever.
“Mm. Prepare for the jump.”
Southern Cross Major District.
“I actually feel a little sorry for that old bastard Klimo now. He always thought Weiss was one of his own people. He worked so hard to plant him in the Expeditionary Force and after the first great defeat, he even put him in the position of acting commander in chief. Who would have thought that Weiss was actually Hodgkin’s man!”
Vincent sighed. “Klimo’s brain seems like it never properly woke up. Hodgkin played him around in circles and then the rebel army egged him on to fight General Nie for power. When someone is that stupid, it’s impossible not to remember something the commander once said: ‘His brain must have failed to make it out of the jump channel when he went through an interstellar jump!’”
The moment he finished the final word, it was as though he suddenly realized what he had just said.
The smile on his face gradually faded.
Erich seemed not to notice the change in Vincent’s expression. He asked, “How are things?”
“The people who came to pick up Weiss have arrived. It’s quite something that, after hiding himself for several months, he managed to turn things around in one stroke and contact the rebel army to come get him.”
“The order of events is reversed. He only dared to show himself after he contacted the rebel army.” Erich was dressed in a white military uniform and wore a military cap. Beneath the brim, his gray eyes appeared calm and composed. There was no trace of a soldier’s killing intent about him. Compared with a deputy commander of the Expeditionary Force, he looked more like a military administrative officer.
Vincent spoke bluntly, “Who cares about the order? The moment he shows himself, we have to crush him. Otherwise, how are we supposed to appease the spirits of the brothers who died in the two defeats? As for troop strength, we have plenty but the rebel army isn’t weak either. If we really do the math, they actually have slightly more men than we do. Can we win this battle?”
Erich said, “The one leading the rebel army this time is Donald. He’s suspicious by nature and extremely cautious. We’re only holding Weiss captive and we’re not interested in fighting to the death. Everyone has had a difficult time lately. Donald won’t recklessly pursue us.”
Just as Erich had predicted, halfway through the battle, the rebel army sent out a signal, clearly indicating that they wanted to suspend the fighting and negotiate.
The communications officer asked Erich for his opinion.
Erich nodded. “Our only objective this time is Weiss.”
In the silent darkness of space, the two armies faced one another.
One after another, the muzzles of their weapons finished charging and heating up, waiting only for a single command before unleashing their firepower.
Vincent said, “Donald is probably doing the calculations too, wondering whether it’s really worth exhausting himself against us over a single Weiss.”
Erich picked up Vincent’s words. “After all these years of friendship, we can afford to wait until he’s finished calculating.”
Just then, the monitoring officer reported, “Deputy Commander, an unidentified starship is approaching. It seems to be… an interstellar pirate ship!”
Vincent looked puzzled. “Interstellar pirates? Didn’t that whole bunch of interstellar pirates fall out with the rebels in the Central District and stage some kind of mass departure? How many are coming from that side? What kind of weapons are they equipped with? Are they suddenly joining the fight to help the other side, or are they here to attack the other side?”
Erich looked over as well.
There was a trace of confusion in the monitoring officer’s voice. “Report. There is only one starship and its weaponry is minimal!”
Vincent stood up and went over to look for himself. On the screen, he saw an extremely battered starship covered in gaudy colors. It looked as though it might fall apart at any moment.
“This thing can even be called a starship? Did it get lost?”
At the same time, Donald also spotted that starship.
Just then, the communication channels of both the Expeditionary Force and the rebel army were forcibly connected at the same time.
A careless, unhurried voice suddenly rang out across the frequency.
“Donald? An old acquaintance. Long time no see.”
Donald shot to his feet, staring in disbelief at the voice frequency displayed on the communications channel, still unable to recover from the shock.
On the other side, Vincent accidentally knocked over the water cup beside him. He stared wide eyed at Erich and the two of them looked at each other in stunned silence. After a long moment, Vincent finally stammered out, “Just now… that voice, ”
Erich’s hand clenched into a fist before slowly relaxing again. Then he suddenly strode several steps toward the control console, braced one hand against its edge and asked in a deep voice, “Who are you?”
He was practically holding his breath as he waited for the answer from the other side.
Aboard the starship, Lu Fenghan heard the question and could almost imagine the expression on Erich’s face at that moment.
There was a smile in his voice. “You’ve worked hard, Erich.”
Erich’s eyes suddenly reddened.
Another voice sounded through the communications channel.
Donald spoke each word slowly and distinctly. “Lu Fenghan.”
He questioned, “Back from the dead?”
Lu Fenghan’s voice remained languid. “What, people are allowed to die but not allowed to rise from the dead?”
He continued with an instruction. “Connect the visual feed.”
The next second, a video communication was forcibly connected to the starship where Donald was.
Lu Fenghan appeared before everyone’s eyes.
He raised an eyebrow when he saw Weiss standing beside Donald. Across the distance of the vacuum, he asked Erich, “You came to arrest someone?”
Erich answered through the communications channel, “Yes. It only depends on whether Donald is willing to let him go.”
Lu Fenghan looked toward Donald and leaned back. There was not the slightest trace of a proper Alliance soldier’s military bearing in his posture. He merely lifted his chin slightly.
“What do you think?”
Weiss glanced at Lu Fenghan, who had suddenly come back from the dead, then looked toward Donald, a bad feeling rising in his heart.
He had spent so many years in the Expeditionary Force that he knew all too well the fearsome reputation Lu Fenghan had built throughout the front lines. Donald might not be willing to go head to head with Lu Fenghan just for his sake.
Almost instinctively, he took half a step backward.
Sure enough.
After a brief moment of consideration, Donald spoke generously, “If this person is worthy enough, why don’t you take him as my congratulatory gift for your return from the dead?”
Lu Fenghan lifted his fingers slightly. “Since you’ve gone to the trouble of offering him, I won’t stand on ceremony. I’ll accept.”
After Weiss was taken away and handed over to the Expeditionary Force, Lu Fenghan instructed Erich again, “Erich, it’s not appropriate for me to shed blood on my first day back. Once you’ve taken the man, withdraw with your forces.”
After saying that, he glanced at the message interface.
The message he had sent to Qi Yan still had no reply.
For some inexplicable reason, a wave of restlessness surged through Lu Fenghan’s heart.
Erich agreed without the slightest hesitation. “Yes!”
Donald watched Lu Fenghan’s image on the video feed.
He suspected that after disappearing from sight for so long, the man had suddenly appeared near Leto half a year ago, only to vanish again just as quickly and now, he had appeared here so casually, as though none of it were unusual,
There had to be some hidden scheme or plan behind it.
Moreover, he was piloting a starship that was unmistakably one belonging to interstellar pirates.
Donald kept all the complicated thoughts hidden and merely smiled as he spoke. “Congratulations, Commander Lu. It’s just that you’ve been gone for more than a year. Now that you’ve returned, the people may not necessarily be the same people anymore and compared with before…” He paused deliberately, the hesitation carrying a subtle meaning. “Things may not necessarily be quite the same either.”
It was such an obvious attempt to sow discord that he might as well have said it outright:
Lu Fenghan, you’ve been gone for so long. Now that you’ve come back, whether these people will still obey your command is already an open question.
At the same time, the Expeditionary Force formation stood solemn and perfectly ordered.
Every starship turned its hull toward the same direction and together they released an insignia formed by a shield and sword.
Its radiance was dazzling.
Darkness served as the backdrop.
The Expeditionary Force’s alpha wolf had returned.
“Then I’ll take the opportunity to teach you a lesson today.”
A smile lingered at the corners of Lu Fenghan’s lips as he looked directly at Donald, the sharpness of a frosted blade impossible to conceal from his eyes and features.
“Wherever I am, the command ship of the Expeditionary Force is there.”
…..
The author has something to say:
“When all things turn to dust once one looks back; before one turns back, everything is but a dream.” – Su Shi
✦ ✧ ✦
Vynellia
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
The translator humbly requests tribute in coffee form. (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ ☕
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
← PreviousNext →
ChaptersChapter 50 · I am Pojun.Chapter 51 · Unable to deceive oneselfChapter 52 · Resurrected from the deadChapter 53 · Hello, General!Chapter 54 · My hand is injured.Chapter 55 · Come to my place.Chapter 56 · First VictoryChapter 57 · Self-introductionChapter 58 · Never changedChapter 59 · One reasonChapter 60 · Gentle and restrainedChapter 61 · Only you are allowed.Chapter 62 · To the Souls of the FallenChapter 63 · His reliefChapter 64 · His ambitionChapter 65 · Date TimeChapter 66 Part 1 · Abducting PlanetsChapter 66 Part 2 · Abducting PlanetsChapter 67 · Did not leaveChapter 68 · Perceiving EmotionsChapter 69 · My own effortsChapter 70 · Bright FlameChapter 71 · Dress codeChapter 72 · Take me with you!Chapter 73 · MirageChapter 74 · I’m used to it.