Helan Yuan stood on the warship of the First Legion, the holographic star map slowly rotating in front of him, the route between the main star and the affiliated academy marked in a dazzling scarlet red.

"Ai Qingyan has boarded the civilian spaceship and is expected to arrive at the affiliated college in 4 hours."

The voice of his subordinate came from behind him.

He Lanyuan's gaze fell on the surveillance screen. Ai Qingyan was standing at the boarding gate, next to a tall, slender young man with black hair and cold eyes. His demeanor was distant yet deliberately intimate.

Yuan Mao's name has a clean record in the database: a fallen noble family, his mother had a genetic disease, and he applied to transfer schools for personal reasons.

Being too clean is a huge problem.

He Lanyuan tapped the light screen with his fingertip, bringing up Yuan Mao's complete file.

According to the college's records, he has excellent grades and no disciplinary violations.

Social relationship: He broke up with his ex-girlfriend due to personality clashes, and there were no subsequent disputes.

Family background: The mother is bedridden for a long time and requires high medical expenses.

The subordinate added, "They...it seems they transferred schools together."

"This Yuan Mao is simply the worst of the worst."

He Lanyuan stood in front of the light screen, his gray-blue eyes reflecting the constantly scrolling data chain.

The first record is a bill of expenses, showing that Wang Yuan, the youngest daughter of the Wang family, has been transferring millions of Star Coins to the Starry Night Sanatorium every month for the past six months.

During the same period, Yuan Mao's private account showed that he spent 80,000 to 100,000 Star Coins per week at the Galaxy Virtual Casino, regularly purchased limited edition hovercar accessories, gifted expensive artificial flowers to three women with different IDs, and gifted the latest flying skateboards to two different women.

The second record is a collection of intercepted communications, including chat and transfer records of Yuan Mao coaxing Wang Yuan for money, as well as ambiguous chat records with several other women.

The third record is surveillance footage, in which Yuan Mao is seen walking into a mecha shop with a red-haired girl in his arms, using the money transferred from Wang Yuan to buy the red-haired girl a mecha model.

That evening, he appeared again downstairs at Wang Yuan's dormitory building, carrying a box of strawberry-flavored nutritional supplements.

“I have never seen such a disgusting person. He even brainwashed Wang Yuan, making her spend money to transfer his mother to the best medical center on the main planet. This is a recording.”

When his subordinates pulled up the last document, they were all speechless.

“Yuanyuan, true love means mutual sacrifice. Look how sick my mother is, can you bear to see her suffer? Once you marry into our family, we'll be one family…”

In the recording, Yuan Mao's voice was so gentle it was nauseating.

"Continue to monitor them, and once they make contact with the space pirates, kill them immediately."

Helan Yuan listened patiently to his subordinate's report, his voice colder than absolute zero.

He didn't care about the private lives of these two people; what he cared about was whether this kind of thing would ever appear around Zi Xi again.

*

Zi Xi stood in the registration hall of the Department of Interstellar Archaeology. It was so quiet that she could hear her own breathing. She looked around blankly, puzzled.

The dome of the hall was ridiculously high, and the cold white light shone on the empty metal benches, where there wasn't a single ghost in sight.

At the end of the corridor, an AI-guided robot, which should have been enthusiastic, lay slumped next to a charging station, its eyes flashing a faint sleep indicator light, displaying "Fully charged, in standby mode."

Did she arrive too early?

Am I too late?

Or did the program go out of business as soon as she joined?

She looked down and checked the admission notice on her computer again: "Interstellar Archaeology Department, Class of 8825, Zi Xi".

That's right?

"Is this Luo Zixi?"

A deep, steady male voice suddenly came from behind her, startling her so much that she almost jumped up.