translator: loop
proofreader: roki
Flying in an aircraft was indeed much more convenient than walking. In no time, Chu Si crossed the entire forest and arrived where they first landed.
There were no changes to where the two fragments connected, and the stone bridge he almost fell off of was still there. The Space Prison had on its invisibility cloak, hiding itself in the blue-black starry sky, indistinguishable to the naked eye.
Fortunately it was invisible, otherwise, it would’ve been the first thing the wanderers dismantled.
Chu Si circled around above, determining the location of the Space Prison and where the fragments were connected, based on his memory.
In fact, at such times, if Chu Si called Sa’e Yang over and let him connect SkyEye, then brought the aircraft into the Space Prison’s cloaking range, he would be able to see the entrance to the Space Prison as per usual.
But considering he had just expressed the feeling of “I’m not at all happy that you stayed,” he was a little unwilling to open his mouth and call him over.
Executive Chu, who only cared about convenience and not face when conducting his business, had a groundbreaking moment of hesitation. Just as he was growing a little irritated, slapping the descent lever and preparing to pick a rough location to land, a cold object suddenly touched the corner of his mouth.
Chu Si was startled and turned his head to look, only to see Sa’e Yang had silently made his way over to stand behind him again. In his hand was a strawberry— fresh, with some water droplets on it.
What touched the corner of his mouth just now was this thing.
Chu Si: “…are the bottoms of your feet padded?”
Sa’e Yang said lazily, “Reporting, it seems not.” As he spoke, he nudged the strawberry toward Chu Si.
Chu Si stared warily at the strawberry.
“Stop staring, it’s neither a prank nor drugged.” Sa’e Yang casually retracted his hand to point. “I found a glass bowl full of them in the fridge, and casually washed two.”
As he spoke, he glanced at Chu Si’s face, and added with a smile: “Executive, I thought your face was a little greenish, so I came to feed you something red to balance it out.”
To be honest, even for those with great composure, if they had been tormented by nutrient soup for a long time and saw such fresh food again, they would be a little unable to resist.
Sa’e Yang saw that Chu Si still didn’t speak, and raised his eyebrows: “Why don’t I take a bite to prove—“
Chu Si calmly reached out, unceremoniously taking the strawberry and throwing it into his mouth.
“—it.” Sa’e Yang curved his eyes and finished his words.
Chu Si had already sat upright, his right cheek chewing.
He held down the descent lever with one hand while the index finger of his other hand pressed down on a positioning compass, fine-tuning their specific landing point.
Sa’e Yang suddenly supported himself on the seat’s armrest and leaned down to speak. “Executive, I’ve discovered a problem, but I don’t know if you’ve noticed it as well. Those little fools from the training camp sneak around with movements no quieter than mine. You could detect them even from far away, yet I managed to surprise you many times. Why is that?”
This bastard’s tone was very unpleasant, and clearly had one meaning: I know why, and you also know why. I’m very considerate, and to take care of your face, I don’t poke directly at this issue. However, I can’t hold myself back, and have no verbal filter— thus, I must give you a polite reminder. After I finish speaking, I’ll leave.
Chu Si slapped a button and the entire aircraft’s descent abruptly changed, crashing down with a momentum that could smash a hole into the ground.
The entire cockpit shook, and without looking behind him, Chu Si reached out to the side. “SkyEye.”
Sa’e Yang “tsk”ed, reaching behind his waist to remove SkyEye’s core disk. He patted it neither heavily nor lightly into Chu Si’s palm, expressing his dissatisfaction very clearly.
Chu Si closed his fingers, shot a glance at him, then turned to connect SkyEye to the cockpit’s console. He quickly turned on invisibility cloak sharing, and the Space Prison’s outline revealed itself in an instant.
He disconnected SkyEye and opened the hatch of the aircraft again. Holding the core disk, he subconsciously walked towards the hatch.
Three steps down the gangway, Chu Si glanced behind him and realized that Sa’e Yang had not followed him. He thought of the dissatisfied “tsk” he had heard before…
Chu Si: “…”
He suddenly felt a sense of… novelty.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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It was like he suddenly developed an annotation system. With every movement Sa’e made and every word he spoke, an explanation would pop up next to him—
Executive, you’ve changed the topic again, I’m a little unhappy.
Executive, you’ve left without me. If I follow you, won’t I be losing face? So, I won’t leave at all.
Executive…
Of course, Sa’e Yang would never speak such words, and Chu Si had no way to determine whether his understandings were accurate or not.
He walked down two more steps and turned his head to look, but still couldn’t see Sa’e Yang.
After pausing on the gangway for two seconds, Chu Si coughed once, then turned back to the hatch, glancing inside.
Sa’e Yang wasn’t sitting on the perfectly fine pilot’s seat, but leaned lazily against the cockpit’s console. With drooping eyelids and not much expression, he watched the console’s screen, looking a bit cold and also a little bored.
Chu Si: “…”
It seemed like that really was the case.
He stood by the entrance. Just as he was about to say something, Sa’e Yang lifted his eyelids and glanced over his way.
He rarely opened his eyes completely. When looking at others, his gaze was nearly never straight-on, and he always half-narrowed his lidded eyes with a slightly downward angle. Combined with his unpredictable personality, it always gave a feeling of impatience, or that he had some dangerous and crazy thoughts.
If they were in the past, even Chu Si would be tense, and his mind would be considering various possible situations and strategies to prevent Sa’e Yang from suddenly going crazy.
But right now, he felt Sa’e Yang was simply expressing his dissatisfaction.
And between these two was only a gap of less than a half hour apart.
What a strange change…
Just as Chu Si was thinking about what kind of lies he could use to justify why he went down and came back up again, he saw Sa’e Yang curl up the corner of his mouth and drawl: “I only stayed behind for a second, yet my Executive is so reluctant to part with me?”
Fuck you!
Chu Si turned around and left.
He strode to the entrance of the Space Prison, and glanced over while he was being scanned.
That rogue was lazily descending down the gangway with his hands in his pockets.
Most of the Space Prison remained the same as when Chu Si had left, except that the fuel compartment door, which had previously been closed, was now open. Chu Si walked over and swept a rough look around. From the outer compartment, something had been taken, but the inner compartment was still tightly sealed. It probably wouldn’t affect their propulsion and navigation.
As he came out and was walking to the surveillance room, he happened to bump into Sa’e Yang, who had just entered. Hence, he pointed at the fuel compartment and said unkindly, “Why didn’t you just bundle up the entire fuel compartment and carry it away?”
Sa’e Yang shrugged. “My dear, don’t you seem to have some misconception about my physical strength?”
Chu Si: “…”
If the fuel bunker only suffered a small drizzle, the surveillance center probably passed through a typhoon.
As soon as Chu Si entered, he paused by the door and stood silent for a while. He didn’t know if he should’ve sympathized with SkyEye, or should’ve directly paid his respects at its grave.
He barely managed to find where SkyEye’s brain was originally placed on the disfigured console and inserted its core disk.
Ding—
SkyEye: “After returning, my heart is completely shattered.”
Sa’e Yang followed them in and leaned against the console, rapping his index finger on the core disk: “Why don’t I help your memory?”
Ding—
SkyEye: “It’s been engraved in my bones and inscribed in my heart, I’ll never do it again…”
Sa’e Yang didn’t speak for a moment, then suddenly turned his head and said to Chu Si, “Has this thing been upgraded?”
Chu Si raised his eyebrows: “I felt the same way, but I haven’t found anything to prove so yet.”
Sa’e Yang rapped on the core disk again and said, “What’s wrong with you?”
Ding—
SkyEye: “Sorry, your command was too vague for me to answer.”
Sa’e Yang: “Did you secretly do something to improve your intelligence?”
Ding—
SkyEye: “No, I’ve always been this smart.”
Chu Si laughed mockingly: “…do you think we’re stupid?”
SkyEye didn’t ding anymore.
Chu Si: “…” This thing was probably about to turn the tables on them.
However, right now, he was too lazy to argue with an intelligent system. After all, he still had to rely on it for a few things.
He connected to the group channel on Tang’s side, tested the sound, and said, “Are you all under the Central Fort? Adjust the star map over there, and help me locate a channel number.”
Just like the method they used before to locate Fort Barney, every channel number from Aquila Gamma could be searched for its location. But this was limited to channels from Aquila Gamma, under the effects of the dragon pillar.
For others, it was completely invisible, so Carlos Black and his wanderers had no way of searching.
But not all channel numbers could freely be used like this. Generally speaking, civilian channels could, external public channels could, and even abandoned places like Fort Barney could, though it would be a lot more troublesome. For channels of the Military Department, General Government, and Security Building, each channel number involved high authority and confidentiality, so they could not be used in this way.
Even if you knew the channel number, there was no way to easily locate it.
Otherwise, the first thing Chu Si would’ve done after he woke up would be to locate the current locations of those three places.
“Ready, Executive. What channel number?” Tang asked.
Chu Si thought for a moment, then reported the channel number of Jiang Qi’s apartment: “Search for 817-8651379.”
Sa’e Yang let out an “oh,” and tilted his head. “I know what you want to do, Executive.”
Chu Si glanced at him and continued to speak to Tang: “Have you found it?”
At the same time, the large screen remotely synchronized with the Central Fort’s star map, and under Tang’s command, it shifted frames.
“You don’t want to lose Fort Barney, but also want something else,” Sa’e Yang said. “My dear, you’re a bit greedy.”
Chu Si looked at him: “You have a problem with it?”
Sa’e Yang raised his two hands and said, “Unanimously passed.” After speaking, he made a “please” gesture towards Chu Si and then made a cross over his lips with two fingers.
Chu Si: “…” Psycho.
But Sa’e Yang was indeed right. Throwing away Fort Barney would be a great pity, so the idea of “taking the aircraft to another fragment to take a look” was smothered in its cradle. He wanted to both firmly control Fort Barney and visit that apartment, so there was only one method left—
To treat the entire fragment where Fort Barney was located as a natural spacecraft, as part of the Space Prison; then, to use the propulsion and navigation systems of the Space Prison to drag the entire planetary fragment to merge with the one he was looking for.
“Executive, positioning is ready.” Tang’s voice came from the channel, and the surveillance center’s screen was completely synchronized with that of the Central Fort. Their target was finally locked on a point.
Chu Si walked to the screen and propped both his hands on the console for a while. Several more commands were entered, and he turned his head and said to SkyEye, “We’ll need to leap twice, expand the range of the leap protection cover a little.”
Ding—
SkyEye: “To what extent?”
Chu Si: “Wrap everything you’re dragging right now.”
SkyEye: “…”
Two seconds later, a bright blue field extended from the Space Prison, like an instantaneous ripple that quickly covered the primitive forest, Fort Barney, and the distant hills.
Ding—
SkyEye: “The protective cover has been fully opened, the leap will begin in five seconds. Please hold on tight, and close your eyes. Countdown— 5— 4— 3— 2— 1—”
The enormous silver disk hauled along the two mutually restraining dragon pillars, the brightly lit fort, and a range of barren land, shuttling through the vast sea of stars.
The two consecutive leaps made everyone feel a bit uncomfortable, but fortunately, with the strong protective cloak, this discomfort did not last long and did not have many aftereffects.
The dot of light representing the target fragment on the screen became larger and larger, gradually showing its shape, its outline, and some blurry images.
Sa’e Yang suddenly walked over and extended his hand to quickly tap a series of instructions, so fast that Chu Si couldn’t even see clearly.
A brief second later, he pressed a button and the entire planetary fragment suddenly lit up.
Only when Chu Si got closer did he realize it wasn’t the image that was lit up, but a thin layer of light spread over it, like dust— scattered yet everywhere at once.
“What is this?”
Sa’e Yang replied, “Simply put, all the running machinery on this fragment has been identified.”
Chu Si was stunned: “Machinery?”
In this situation, what kind of machinery could still operate?
The people on the other end of the communicator channel also heard Sa’e Yang’s words and fell into shock one after another. In the end, Le Pen reacted first and exclaimed, “Cyro-capsules!”
Chu Si looked at the screen, and for the first time, realized that the fragment they were about to land on was different from the others. It wasn’t a recuperation site like the black cedar forest, or a patch of wilderness like where Fort Barney was located. It was a city.
Once it was full of people, and crowded with vehicles.
His past, Jiang Qi’s past, and countless people’s pasts made a human world on that land.
He had once thought the human world was filled with filth, not beautiful at all. But when it suddenly fell silent, devoid of sound and light, and when it became unreachable, an island of nothingness and neverland, he suddenly missed it…
Ding—
SkyEye: “The connection is about to be completed. Wanderers, the city welcomes you.”
The author has something to say:
End of Volume 1~
t/n
Sa’e Yang definitely has feelings for our Executive!! I wonder how sweet they’ll be when they’re together!!
I dont know if anyone else has said this already but seeing as how little mop is kinda attached to Chu Si and earlier we heard of his accident where he held onto a (little girl?)for how long maybe it’s the same person?
One arc has ended and so much more mysteries are yet to be revealed, fighting!
The author gave many hints and not even one was explained… I love the long, detailed, and steady buildup on Chu Si’s (and maybe Sa’e Yang’s too) pasts. Usually pasts are revealed on the latter half of the book, especially in mystery trope, haha. It felt refreshing to read. Not to mention their tension that is my all-time favorite…
Can’t wait to see how this one ends!