...

"Lin...Lin...wake up...Lin!"

"Hmm..."

"Lin Xi!"

Lin Xi finally broke free from the dark and heavy coma. He opened his eyes, his vision was blurry, but even amidst the double images and the constant buzzing in his brain, he could still see that the man next to the sleep pod was in a particularly bad condition.

"Bryce?"

Lin Xi uttered a mumbled question.

It wasn't until he spoke that he realized that besides his mind being completely blank, his voice was also hoarse, as if it had just been rubbed with sandpaper—as his vocal cords vibrated, a strong metallic taste rose from Lin Xi's throat.

The area under my nose felt sticky and wet.

Lin Xi wiped her nose and, unsurprisingly, saw bright red blood on her fingers.

To make matters worse, when Lin Xi tried to recall when it had happened, his mind was completely blank.

No, perhaps it's not a blank space.

Lin Xi still remembers the countless noisy buzzing and warnings, which finally coalesced into a roar, followed by... an impact...

Immediately following was intense pain throughout my body.

"Damn it... what... happened...?"

In addition to the pain, there was an indescribable feeling of nausea and dizziness. Lin Xi unconsciously gripped the edge of the sleep pod to prevent herself from being dragged back into unconsciousness by that terrible discomfort once again.

The edge of the shattered sleep pod cut his palm, but the numbness in his body made it difficult for him to even feel the stinging pain in his palm.

“Take it easy, buddy,” Bryce noticed Lin Xi’s movements and waved his hand in front of Lin Xi’s eyes. “...The jump went wrong, remember?”

“Move...Leap…”

Lin Xi climbed out of the sleep pod with Bryce's help.

His body was sore and weak. No matter what happened, he was lying in the sleep pod when it happened, and the aftereffects of his hypothermic sleep being abruptly interrupted were now lashing him like an invisible whip.

"The Sith haven't given us any more feedback yet. All we know right now is that our Mr. Sun God hasn't arrived at the correct position."

Bryce whispered in Lin Xi's ear, while the latter could only lean weakly against the obviously damaged sleep pod, half-sitting on the ground.

Bryce's voice sounded almost like an echo.

Lin Xi looked around. The pale green glow of the emergency lights cast an ominous shadow over the cabin, and the metallic floor and walls testified to the age of the spaceship's facilities. Ten sleeping pods were arranged side by side inside the cabin; their transparent outer shells were either open or broken.

There was bloodstains next to several sleeping pods.

The lighting system was out of order, and the air was filled with the unpleasant smell of something burning. The anti-vibration gel had solidified on the ground, turning an unpleasant yellowish-brown.

The beeping alarm worsened Lin Xi's headache and dizziness.

Warning—Coordinates—Coordinates invalid—Transition process terminated—Warning—Process cannot be terminated—

In a daze, he seemed to hear a series of steady and indifferent mechanical voices again.

"Hmm..."

Lin Mao suddenly covered his head and took a few deep breaths before realizing that it was just an auditory hallucination.

Bryce knelt beside Lin Xi with a worried expression and injected him with a vial of medicine.

Lin Xi groaned, feeling the cold medicine gradually spreading through his veins.

After a few dozen seconds, his condition finally stabilized, and the previously hazy memories and thinking abilities slowly returned to his brain.

However, once Lin Xi finally realized what had happened, he couldn't say whether it was better to wake up or simply stay in a daze.

The Helios he was aboard was a Zeus-class space exploration research vessel, 1.8 kilometers long, equipped with an outer wall five meters thick made of more than 300 different materials, and powered by two ion engines provided by the Anya. This research vessel was a product of the Great Exploration Era, its appearance and size bearing the strong marks of that time. Yes, the Helios would be considered a behemoth on Earth… However, compared to the vast universe, this enormous spaceship was as small as a speck of dust.

Failed jumps often mean the loss and confusion of coordinates, and heaven knows how much effort it will take them to find their way back to Earth.

Thinking about this, Lin Xi could easily understand why Bryce's expression was so terrible.

On the way to the emergency room to meet up with the other crew members, Bryce kept nagging uncontrollably.

"...It's my fault. If it weren't for me, you should still be peacefully teaching on Earth. You're not me, you really shouldn't have followed me to that hellhole full of lunatics and wasted your life." The situation in the spaceship corridor was better than in the cabin; at least the lighting was still working. Lin Xi turned around and glanced at Bryce, noticing that the latter's pupils trembled slightly due to extreme tension.

"Look what these people have done! Damn it, now you're trapped just like me—"

“Calm down, man,” Lin Xi sighed, giving Bryce’s shoulder a hard squeeze. “You’re talking like you can control all of this.”

Lin Xi's adoptive brother was exceptionally tall and muscular, but few knew he had a soft heart and a tendency to worry excessively. These traits made Bryce a perfect older brother, and Lin Xi encountered almost no obstacles when she entered Bryce's family. However, when problems arose, Lin Xi also had to spare some energy to comfort him.

And, to some extent, what Bryce said wasn't entirely without reason. Lin Xi was indeed staying inside the Apollo spaceship at this time because of Bryce (and enduring the nausea and headache caused by the concussion and sleep disruption).

He was not a crew member of the Sun God (thankfully, otherwise Lin Xi was certain that Captain Taran would have tried every means to throw him off the ship through the waste disposal chute).

If it weren't for that accident, he would probably still be a leisurely botany teaching assistant at the Earth-Moon Union University, only having to worry about his receding hairline.

However, just two years ago, because Bryce participated in a private research project related to Sunu, and this research project needed a reliable "scholar" with a background in botany, Lin Xi was packaged up and sent onto the Sun God by the department head who had disliked him for a long time, to participate in this so-called "Earth-Sunu cultural and material exchange project".

Of course, everyone knows that this is not some kind of private project at all; it is just a form of plundering by the government for some reason—in layman's terms, smuggling.

Sunu, located on the edge of Orion, was once a rather rich and peaceful planet.

Sunu is rich in a special substance called "Earth Milk," which can greatly improve and stimulate the vitality of intelligent life, as well as some other handicrafts. Because of this, the Sunu people live a relatively comfortable and peaceful life due to their abundant resources. They resemble humans in appearance, and their technological development is only slightly behind that of Earth.

For various reasons, the relationship between Earth and Sunu has always been quite good... until a few decades ago, for some completely inexplicable reason, the innocent and carefree Sunu people suddenly went mad.

It is difficult to understand the behavior of the Sunu people using human thinking patterns, even for the most authoritative Sunu culture experts recognized at the Earth-Moon Union University.

The Sunu people descended into madness in inexplicable ways, including inexplicable suicides and horrific acts of fratricide. In just a few decades, these crazed aliens utterly devastated the entire planet. Resources that were previously firmly controlled by the Sunu government and would never have fallen into the hands of the outside world—including their most precious Earth Milk, as well as other rare plants, animals, and precious metals—had all entered Earth's possessions through semi-official means.

Yes, Earthlings expressed regret for the few remaining sane Sunu people, but that doesn't mean they would hesitate to plunder the meager resources of those poor souls.

...

"Besides, rather than struggling to teach a bunch of brainless idiots on Earth while worrying about the missing spaceship, I'd rather stay in the same place as you and face all of this," Lin Xi said sincerely. "On the bright side, at least our old man didn't just turn into fragments in the jump fault but ended up in... um... some damn weird place..."

As Lin Xi passed by the panoramic window, she glanced out instinctively and then, unusually, stammered at what she saw.

Contrary to the imagined desolation and silence, this unfamiliar place was teeming with lush life on its surface. From an Earthling's perspective, those things looked like tropical plants.

However, tropical plants on Earth do not have such a large size and such a colorful appearance.

Between those "things" floated a hazy, milky-white mist, like water vapor.

“This should be an unnumbered asteroid. Thank goodness, our old man is reliable sometimes. I heard there was an explosion in the warehouse area, but anyway, we managed to make an emergency landing.” Bryce followed Lin Xi’s gaze to the scenery outside, then carefully considered his words. “When I came to find you, Sith was still comparing star charts to try and figure out our current location. God bless us that we haven’t strayed too far.”

"Who knows..."

Lin Xi withdrew her gaze and muttered something absentmindedly.

This is a living planet—from the perspective of the passengers on the forced landing spaceship, this should have been a good thing, since many elements of life are somewhat common across the universe.

But from Lin Xi's perspective, the moment he saw those things, he felt goosebumps rise all over his body.

For no reason at all, he just didn't like this damn place, and he realized it immediately.

Similarly, the captain of the Sun God, Taran Ida, clearly shared the same thoughts as Lin Xi. Of course, Taran disliked not only this strange planet, but also all the humans on the Sun God, even if they were his crew.

When they arrived at the emergency survival room, Taran was yelling and screaming in a fit of rage.

"I don't care about anything else—someone has to go check the warehouse! Damn it, do you even know how important that sculpture is?!"

"It's just a strange fossil..."

"Oh, in your eyes, a fossil that remains active after hundreds of millions of years and can produce 'earth milk' is just 'strange'? I really hope you remember that we spent two years traveling all the way to that damned mad planet for this thing! And now, it's sitting in a warehouse, all information cut off! Now is not the time for you bunch of useless cowards to hide in the safe zone, crying and slacking off! I need to know its status! Now! Immediately!"

The moment the metal door swung open smoothly, Lin Xi frowned unhappily upon hearing Taran's hoarse scream.

If he hadn't boarded the Apollo, Lin Xi would have found it hard to imagine that someone like Taran could become the captain of a space exploration ship.

When faced with such a bizarre problem as a failed jump, he should have remained calm and composed, reassured everyone, and organized the crew on board as quickly as possible for repairs and self-rescue.

But the man standing in the middle of the room was now as agitated and frantic as a wild gorilla whose banana had been stolen.

Lin Xi even thought that wild gorillas would be better than Taran, since gorillas wouldn't be as neurotic, crazy, or mentally deranged as Taran.

"After forcibly interrupting cryogenic sleep, humans need at least two hours to recover from the aftereffects, not to mention the secondary resonance caused by the failed jump itself and the direct impact of the forced landing! The bridge leading to the warehouse has broken off, and it's very dangerous there now. We can only let the others disembark after they've recovered from the aftereffects..."

First mate Elisa, petite and mild-mannered, had served as a mediator between Taran and the other crew members throughout the two-year voyage. However, at this moment, her gentle demeanor had vanished. She stood before the surviving crew members, her face ashen, and spoke coldly to Taran.

The arrival of Lin Xi and Bryce interrupted this heated argument.

But similarly, the moment they stepped inside, both Taran and Elisa's eyes fell on them.

However, Taran was looking at Lin Xi, while Elisa was looking at Bryce. The gazes of the two behind them were intertwined, tender and affectionate, while Taran's gaze towards Lin Xi was as sharp as a poisoned knife.

Lin Xi: "...Ahem."

I always felt that I had come at the wrong time.

"Wow, it's so good to see you're still alive, Captain Taran."

Lin Xi raised her eyebrows and greeted Taran.

Everyone could tell that the "I'm so happy" sounded completely insincere.

His tone even sounded regretful.

Taran's eyes darted around, and he stared intently at Lin Xi without saying a word.

He was a very thin man, so thin that Lin Xi even wondered how he had passed the health check when boarding the ship. His pale, bloodless skin stretched taut over his skull, making his bones almost visible. This made Taran look like some kind of mummified corpse, and the two eyes embedded in his eye sockets occasionally revealed a strange and crazy aura.

It has to be said that even Lin Xi couldn't help but feel a little uneasy when he looked at someone like that.

Lin Xi subconsciously exchanged a glance with her brother.

Actually, when they first boarded the ship, Taran wasn't as strange as he is now. However, whether it was because the batch of things they brought back to Earth for scientific research purposes was too precious, or because of the rumored diluted Sunu blood in Taran's body, in any case, ever since the Sun God's ion engine started and the ship left Sunu, Taran has become increasingly strange and neurotic.