“Without a doubt. I am a Namekian,” Su Jin replied, his voice a flat, unwavering calm.
“Cousin, are you… is that human skin you are wearing?” Fu Qingdai asked, her voice trembling violently.
“We Namekians look exactly like this.”
Hearing Su Jin’s firm answer, Fu Qingdai felt a marginal sense of relief, though her mind was still full of questions.
After a moment of panicked calculation, she blurted out the most pressing one.
“Cousin… what exactly is the deal with the apocalypse in my dream?”
“It is complicated. Let me give you the short version,” Su Jin bullshitted seamlessly, his mind racing. “The universe is teeming with civilizations. We are just one of those civilizations. Our superiors have seen that your world is being targeted by space pirates known as the Trisolarans. They’re absolute scum. They kill every living thing on a planet, turn the remains into fertilizer, and plunder its resources.”
“Those Trisolaran psychopaths have just spread a virus through your atmosphere. Once most of your people are dead, they’ll circle back in a few decades for the harvest.”
All the blood drained from Fu Qingdai’s face. “Then why involve me?! You should be warning important people! I… why would something this massive fall on me?”
Her breathing hitched into hyperventilation as tears streamed down her cheeks.
It was absolutely terrifying! She was just an ordinary pretty girl. Why had something this terrible fallen on her?
Watching the girl break down sobbing yet again, Su Jin winced, a genuine twinge of sympathy warring with his annoyance.
Damn it, I’d also like to know why a fit, responsible, capable, ordinary handsome guy like me got dragged into this mess!
“Do not cry, Qingdai,” Su Jin said, suppressing his own rising panic to adopt a soothing, authoritative tone. “We chose you for a very specific reason. Your body is special. You have antibodies against the virus. As long as you stay breathing, we can develop a cure.”
“Then hurry up and study it! I will cooperate with anything you need!” Fu Qingdai cried, desperately shoving her arm toward him. “Or—or we need to call the police right now! Cousin… contact them with your spaceship, they have to believe an alien!”
“I cannot do that,” Su Jin lied with practiced ease. “I ran into the Trisolarans on my way here. My ship was shot down, and I do not know where it landed. My entire squad was wiped out. I’m the sole survivor. The disaster is coming. We will have to take things as they come. Your most important job now is to stay alive. If you die, this entire planet goes down with you.”
The sheer weight of that statement hit her like a physical blow.
Fu Qingdai went pale and stared at him in shock.
Su Jin said to her, “Try to steady yourself. None of this has happened yet, so we still have time to prepare. It may not be as bad as you think.”
Perhaps because she had borne so much pressure for so long, Fu Qingdai soon recovered enough to speak. She swallowed hard, her voice a ragged croak. “Brother… I just don’t get it. Why risk your lives to save us?” You are reading on g.com, the official source.
“It’s simple. There are good people as well as bad ones. To protect worlds from destruction, maintain peace across the universe, and uphold the justice of love and truth, we travel the cosmos protecting vulnerable civilizations.”
“Plus, the Trisolarans have launched several unprovoked strikes against Planet Namek. We cannot stand by after that. We Namekians are a peace-loving people, but hear this: anyone who offends Planet Namek, no matter how far they hide, will be executed!” Su Jin spoke boldly, though he felt more miserable by the second.
I am scared enough to piss myself, and I still have to crack jokes to calm her down.
Still, the kid has it rough. She’s carrying just as much apocalyptic dread as I am.
“That… doesn’t sound very peace-loving…”
“We Namekians hate it when people argue for the sake of arguing!”
“I’ll stop asking, brother. I’m sorry…” Fu Qingdai shrank back, wiping away her tears.
Just as Su Jin was about to go on, a decidedly frosty voice cut through the air from behind him.
“Hey… Namekian. Come with me for a second.”
Fu Qingdai stopped crying, and Su Jin turned around.
A nurse in her early twenties stood behind him, her face cold and unfriendly.
Su Jin gave Fu Qingdai a look, then turned his full attention to the nurse.
“Follow me,” she ordered coldly.
Without waiting for a reply, she spun around and marched toward an open-air balcony. Watching her retreating back, Su Jin took a deep breath and steadied himself.
Good. Talking to this nurse would give him a chance to learn how to deal with people here.
The nurse halted on the balcony and fixed him with a hard glare. “Are you a member of Fu Qingdai’s family?”
“I’m her cousin,” Su Jin replied smoothly.
“Of course. Is there a problem?”
“That is not the problem. That girl is currently suffering from serious delusions, and you’re in there feeding her sci-fi nonsense. That will not help her condition!” The nurse practically hissed. “You’re allowed visitation rights, but I expect you not to sabotage our psychiatric treatment.”
“Nurse, I believe there may be a misunderstanding here. May I ask your name?”
“Ding Jia. And what exactly am I misunderstanding?”
“I helped raise Qingdai when she was little, and we are very close. We often played make-believe together. I was only revisiting an old game with her.” Su Jin paused, feigning a sigh. “I just flew back from overseas. I intended to surprise her at school, only to hear from a classmate that she was in the hospital.”
“She seems quite clearheaded to me, just upset. What is her condition really like? Has she settled in here?”
Back from abroad? That was unusual.
Ding Jia gave Su Jin a skeptical visual sweep, her hostility dialing down just a fraction. “She is not doing very well. She keeps telling people the world is about to end and urging them to prepare.”
“Still, something about her is unusual.”
“Unusual how?”
Ding Jia sighed, her professional facade cracking slightly. “She does not seem like most patients here. Honestly, she usually seems perfectly normal. But the content of her delusions is just so hyper-specific and absurd… it’s almost as if she’s genuinely witnessing the apocalypse firsthand.”
Su Jin massaged his temples with a practiced, weary smile. “I heard from her classmates that Her grades have slipped badly lately. Maybe her mother pushed her too hard about school, and the stress made her say these things as an excuse. Miss Ding, may I ask you for a favor?”
“Which is?” Ding Jia eyed him warily.
“I do not want her to stay here any longer. Qingdai hates the ward, and frankly, this clinical environment is only going to compound her stress and disrupt her studies. My uncle dotes on his daughter. I am sure he does not want her to stay here. It is her mother who disagrees. Next time her mother visits, I need you to say a few words in her favor so her mother will take her home.”
“Absolutely out of the question!” Ding Jia snapped, her professional wall slamming back up. “We have rules. Unless her parents insist on taking her home, we cannot interfere.”
“I understand. It was only a request,” Su Jin said smoothly. “How about we exchange phone numbers?”
Without missing a beat, Su Jin casually reached into his pocket and withdrew his prized Mi 6 and lit up its 1080p screen!