After days of heavy rain, the weather finally cleared up. The planet where the White Tower was located did not have strong sunlight, and even in summer, the temperature was just right.
The small pond in the garden was filled with water, reflecting the clouds in the sky. Qi Yan sat on a bench and flipped through a paper book, but he could not turn a page for a long time.
Eliza came over and handed him the nutritional supplement: "It's time for lunch."
Qi Yan took it, and when he tore open the package, his movements paused for a few seconds, as if he remembered something.
Eliza: "How was last night? Did you fall asleep?" He
held the unwrapped nutritional supplement in his hand. The skin on the back of Qi Yan's hand showed a cold white tone in the sunlight. He shook his head slightly after a few seconds: "No, I still couldn't fall asleep." He
spoke in a low voice, a little hoarse, and without much strength.
Qi Yan sometimes felt like an inflated balloon with a tiny hole punctured somewhere, leaking air.
Eliza tried to speak in a relaxed tone: "It seems that the sleeping gas used last night was ineffective."
"Yeah."
Qi Yan's already thin figure became thinner again. He couldn't sleep every night and couldn't eat anything. If he took too much nutrition, he would vomit physiologically and could only swallow a few mouthfuls intermittently. When he had to give him nutrition injections, his body would also have a fever due to rejection. He relied on the treatment cabin to maintain his vitality.
Like a withered leaf tangle on a branch in late autumn.
Now, Qi Yan no longer thought that Lu Fenghan was by his side, but accepted the reality that had already happened, but Eliza was extremely contradictory and would rather he live in the fictional memory.
It's better than now.
Maybe it's what the saying goes, "Everything is empty when you turn around, and everything before you turn around is a dream."
The sunlight shone on his body, but Qi Yan still felt cold. He turned to Eliza: "What's going on with the alliance?"
This was the first time Qi Yan cared about the outside world in so many days.
Eliza concealed her surprise and replied, "You should know what happened on the founding day. The rebels and interstellar pirates invaded Leto. Outside Leto's atmosphere, the space army was beaten to pieces, but because the capital planet's defense system was still holding up, the rebels in space stopped fighting."
Speaking of this, Eliza still finds it hard to believe: "But there are too many enemies infiltrating Leto. I even suspect that Hodgkins concealed the truth and directly placed an entire rebel army on the capital planet. So, we lost outside the atmosphere, and the same is true inside the atmosphere.
Nie Huai Ting In order to avoid greater casualties, the general finally decided to abandon Leto, and together with the Secretary-General of the Alliance, he temporarily moved the general's command and administrative center to the Kepler region.
Crimson was imprisoned and handed over a large number of names, including the acting commander-in-chief of the Southern Cross Front Expeditionary Force, Weiss.
Hodgkin suddenly became the spokesperson for the rebels in Leto. It is not certain whether he was a rebel from the beginning or defected in the middle. "
Qi Yan heard this and came out of his brief trance: "I seem to have submitted an upgrade project for the radar detection system on the intranet. "
"Yes, you once thought of extending the detection range to the inside of the jump channel. If you can detect whether there is a high-density heat signal in the jump channel, you can prepare defenses or ambushes in advance before the enemy's starships jump out of the jump channel. But at that time you only started and then paused." Eliza asked carefully, "Do you want to restart this project?"
"Well," Qi Yan closed the paper book, looked at his reflection on the pool, his eyes still, "The alliance is what Lu Fenghan wants to protect."
Lu Fenghan.
He stopped talking, and Qi Yan placed his fingers on the rough cover. After a few breaths, his voice was as light as a cicada's wings, and he said absentmindedly: "Elisa, I always... think of him. My brain doesn't obey my instructions. He is there every moment and every second. Just like now, I am talking to you, but I am still thinking about him."
As time goes by, even the most profound memories will fade, so many people can walk out of the sadness of the past.
Qi Yan can't do it.
Because he won't forget.
He will only experience the pain he has experienced over and over again, being washed repeatedly by the waves with sharp blades, suffocating and hurting over and over again.
Elisa's eyes were pale, she reached out and grabbed Qi Yan's coat, wanting to comfort or persuade him, but she couldn't say a word.
Qiyan began to sit in the laboratory day after day.
Everyone noticed that Qiyan seemed to be getting better slowly. With something that could make him concentrate, his declining vitality was supported again.
He would update the research progress on the intranet every day, and the new tools built in the process would be open sourced on the star network as before.
It was as if nothing had happened. Qiyan had never left the Lagoon Nebula, had never been to Leto, and had never met that person. The time in between was completely folded up. He was still the beautiful, cold and taciturn genius boy, who was far away from the hustle and bustle, quietly concentrating on what he wanted to do.
August paid attention to Qiyan's progress every day, and at the same time found several research projects, ready to take over these research projects as soon as Qiyan finished the current ones.
Maybe this will divert Qiyan's attention and help him get out of the mire of memory.
Everyone was optimistic and hopeful.
Even Eliza, who had been worried about whether Qiyan was pretending to be strong to reassure them in the first few days, gradually put her mind at ease, thinking that perhaps Qiyan had a goal and wanted to protect the alliance - the alliance that Lu Fenghan had been guarding with all his heart during his lifetime.
It was not until Qiyan did not update the research progress on the intranet on time that Eliza rushed to his laboratory and saw Qiyan sitting in the corner with his knees hugged, staring at a speck of dust in the air in a trance.
With a sinking heart, Eliza subconsciously lightened her steps and approached: "Qi Yan?"
Qi Yan was wearing a white sweater, with only jade-colored fingers exposed. Hearing the voice, he slowly shifted his gaze and said hoarsely: "The season is about to change. Lu Fenghan helped me choose clothes at the custom studio. He said he would go to pick them up."
His eyelashes trembled, "No, it's spring now. Why did he pick up winter clothes for me? Besides, the place to pick up the clothes is in Leto. I'm in... I'm in "White Tower?"
He seemed to be awake, but also seemed not to be. He only murmured: "The Lagoon Nebula is so far away from Leto. It will take several leaps, leaps--" Qi Yan's pupils trembled suddenly, and his face suddenly turned pale. Like a fish out of water, he clutched his collar almost suffocatingly, and muttered to himself hoarsely: "Don't go... Lu Fenghan, don't go, don't leap! Don't get close to the leap passage... you will die!"
The last word was trembling until only the breath sounded.
After the voice disappeared, he strangely calmed down again, resting his face on his knees, not saying a word, like a lifeless puppet.
Elisa's eyes were red, and she spoke carefully: "Qi Yan, it's cold here, do you want to sit somewhere else?"
Qi Yan looked at Elisa for a long time before he finally understood what she meant: "No, I have to wait for Lu Fenghan to come back, he went to get clothes for me."
Elisa: "Then let's go to another place to wait for him, okay?"
Qi Yan frowned in confusion: "Waiting for whom?"
Elisa didn't dare to say the name, so she asked tentatively: "Then what are you doing now?"
"I'm...what am I doing? Oh, I'm waiting for the results of Project E97-Z." Qi Yan finished speaking, and then denied himself, "No, this project has been stopped by August and I."
He seemed to be in a mess of memory, and subconsciously tilted his head and asked, "Lu Fenghan, do you remember?"
No one answered, and he lowered his eyelashes again, telling himself, "Lu Fenghan went to Leto, he's not here. I'll ask him when he comes back."
Eliza closed the door, her eyes stung by the sunlight, and she felt pain.
She walked along the corridor to August's laboratory.
August saw her expression and asked, "Is Qi Yan's condition serious again?"
Eliza shook her head, "Not 'again', but he has never gotten better."
Unable to stand, Eliza leaned against the wall, "His reason and logic forced him to accept reality and Lu Fenghan's death, but his instincts and emotions refused. Therefore, he had to fight against these two contradictory thoughts.
In addition, he has always been seriously confused about reality, which makes him like a black hole inside, everything is chaotic. He
has been working hard, so he uploads his research results every day, trying to re-establish his own order and not get lost in the darkness, but he failed."
"Lu Fenghan's death is the last straw." Eliza remembered something and shuddered, "August, do you know what I thought of when I looked at him?"
August was silent, and then replied, "Lin Zhi."
"Yes," Eliza hugged her arms and cried, "Yes, I look at Qiyan now, I'm so scared... I'm afraid he will end up like his mother, August."
After a long silence, August took two steps back and sat on the chair. After thinking for a long time, he looked directly at Eliza with his blue eyes: "There is another way, the only way."
"Pojun, is there any way to improve this design again?"
Lu Fenghan stood in front of a pile of broken copper and iron, his eyes fixed on a metal bar, and asked.
"This is already the best design." Pojun spoke slowly, "We have turned over the destroyed escape capsule and the wreckage of the spaceship more than two hundred years ago seventeen times."
Lu Fenghan said "hmm".
He was not the type to sit and wait for death, and since someone was waiting for him, he had never thought of waiting to die on this planet.
After exploring the area, he found a few pieces of ore, and then spent a few days dismantling the wreckage of the crashed spacecraft, and then dismantling the escape capsule. Finally, he found something slightly usable among a pile of scrap copper and iron, and barely built a signal amplifier.
Although Pojun used data and theory to tell him that the difference between the enhanced signal and the unenhanced signal was not much, Lu Fenghan didn't think so.
A little more is a little more, and he didn't believe that his luck would be so bad.
Even after the defeat at the front, he was able to return to Leto on a transport ship, and was picked up by Qi Yan and saved in a Type VI treatment cabin. Maybe he will be so lucky this time.
If one month doesn't work, then ten months will do. If one year doesn't work, then ten years will do.
He was like a beast trapped in a cage, suppressing his nature and stubbornly waiting for a glimmer of illusory hope.
Because the other end of this glimmer of hope was connected to Qi Yan.
In addition to the necessary daily activities, Lu Fenghan began to stay by the signal amplifier day after day. It was very boring. He thought about everything he could think about over and over in his mind, and there was nothing to do.
Lu Fenghan simply lay on the grass, and took apart and broke down everything that had happened since he met Qi Yan, and recalled it all.
But even so, time didn't pass very long.
After Lu Fenghan had Po Jun tell more than a hundred cold jokes, seventy or eighty short stories, and sing two and a half songs, he finally found something to kill time - playing a simulated war game with Po Jun.
Draw a space battle sandbox, and the two armies face off, back and forth, to see who can win.
At first, Lu Fenghan always lost more than he won in five games, but later he mastered Po Jun's habits and lost less and won more. After more than a hundred games, Po Jun rarely won.
Po Jun commented: "Terrible human beings."
Lu Fenghan was happy to accept this description: "Old ginger is still spicy, don't be sad, you are still too young, according to human age, you are still a child under one year old."
Po Jun asked back: "So, you are already an 'old ginger' among humans?"
Lu Fenghan answered bluntly: "If you can't speak, you can shut up."
He has heard this sentence countless times. Po Jun shut up honestly, and before shutting up, he said one more sentence: "My designer clearly told me with a piece of data that you have a good temper."
After that, he pretended to freeze.
Instead, Lu Fenghan was left alone for a long time.
Lu Fenghan never thought that he was well-mannered and had a good temper. When he was on the front line, he lacked sleep for a long time, and his temper was even worse. It was not uncommon for him to make a recruit cry with a glare.
But in Qi Yan's eyes, he is a person with a good temper.
No.
The corners of Lu Fenghan's tense mouth relaxed and he smiled.
In those confused eyes, he was good in every way.
Pojun suddenly said: "Your heart rate suddenly accelerated. Are you sick? I have to remind you that there is no medicine on this planet."
Lu Fenghan was in a very subtle good mood. He didn't let Pojun shut up, but chatted with him instead.
"Do you know what kind of person your designer is?"
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 smart, but also very confused, and often mixes up many things. He is delicate and afraid of pain. If he uses a little more force, the bruises will not go away for several days, and mosquito bites must be bandaged. He is also very, very, very good at acting like a spoiled child. There was a time when he either wanted to be hugged or sleep with you, forcing people to coax and depend on him.
But these are all secrets that Lu Fenghan alone possesses and enjoys.
So Lu Fenghan replied, "I won't tell you."
Pojun: "..."
The signal amplifier waits for the flow of information from the universe day after day, like the judgment of an unknown finale. On the gambling table, there is only mysterious luck.
Another sunrise. After Lu Fenghan finished ten sets of physical training, he took a bath with mountain spring water, walked to the signal amplifier, and asked Pojun: "How many days have passed since the entry into the migration channel?"
"Is it calculated according to Leto time or the time of this planet?"
"Leto time."
"As of the time when you asked, it has been five months, six days, nine hours, eight minutes and one second."
Lu Fenghan was silent, and sat down next to the signal amplifier that was coated with a layer of sunlight. After a long time, he said in an inexplicable tone: "Five months."
More than a hundred days, almost half a year.
Leto should have crossed from winter to early summer.
There was a sense of trance and emptiness in my heart.
The outside world was spinning non-stop, and countless things were happening.
Only he was trapped on a planet, and his life seemed to be frozen.
The turning point came half a month later.
When he heard Po Jun's voice, Lu Fenghan opened his eyes without any trace of sleepiness: "What's wrong?"
Po Jun's voice still had a unique sense of straightness: "I captured a signal, there is a high probability that there is a starship nearby."
Lu Fenghan stood up and walked out of the cave quickly, looking up at the dark night sky: "Are you sure?"
"OK." Po Jun asked, "Waiting for the next order."
Lu Fenghan did not hesitate: "Take control of the starship."
Po Jun: "Yes."
The waiting time was extremely long, one second was stretched several times, Lu Fenghan twirled his fingers and suddenly tightened them.
"We have taken control." Po Jun's voice finally rang out, "There are five people on the starship, all of them are injured. The starship model is G-173z, there are traces of modification, and the energy is sufficient."
"This model was eliminated by the Alliance forty years ago. It has been modified, so it should be a lone interstellar pirate." Lu Fenghan is not picky, it's good to have it, as long as it can be driven, not to mention forty years ago, one hundred and forty years ago will do.
After a while, Po Jun spoke again: "Three people died."
"How did they die?"
"I don't understand, humans speak too complicated." Po Jun simply played multiple roles and relayed the voices he heard to Lu Fenghan.
Lu Fenghan understood it in just a few sentences.
These people are indeed interstellar pirates. They received an order to go from the Central Administrative District to the Southern Cross District. On the way, they couldn't let go of their ancestral skills of looting and robbing, so they chased a transport ship.
Unexpectedly, this transport ship was a civilian ship disguised as a military ship, and it was full of frontline supplies, so they were chased back.
They were chased for hundreds of stars. Some people were lucky enough to find an unstable small wormhole. In order to escape, they drove into it without hesitation. Unexpectedly
, they encountered a cosmic storm when they came out. When they came to their senses, they were no longer within the range of the alliance's star map. The system on the starship was in a semi-disabled state, and the function did not support finding the way back.
The five people have been floating in space for a long time. With little hope of returning to the alliance, they began to blame each other and barely maintained harmony. After Po Jun took control of the starship, several people thought that the starship control system had failed. The suppressed contradictions broke out in one day. After a few shots, three people died.
Po Jun reported again: "Another one died, and the remaining person was seriously injured."
Three minutes later, Po Jun reported again: "The last person also lost vital signs."
Lu Fenghan raised his eyebrows.
He had already planned how to deal with these interstellar pirates and seize the starship.
Pojun: "In five minutes, the starship will land."
Lu Fenghan nodded, said "hmm", and returned to the depths of the cave. In front of the rock wall with the message engraved on it, he picked up four stones.
He didn't really believe in ghosts in the world.
However, he should fulfill the wish of his ancestors to return to their hometown.
When he came out again, he could see a gradually expanding shadow in the night sky. Not long after, a starship with a hull painted in bright yellow and bright green and full of traces of dismantling and repairing appeared in front of Lu Fenghan.
Lu Fenghan felt that his aesthetic level was not high, but he was still almost blinded by this mysterious appearance.
The ship's door opened in front of Lu Fenghan, and the gangway also reached the ground.
Lu Fenghan boarded the ship and found that Pojun had cleaned up the interior and sprayed the entire ship with air freshener very carefully.
It smelled good, but it was too strong and too low quality. Lu Fenghan sneezed several times when he boarded.
When the starship took off, Lu Fenghan looked at the gradually shrinking land and said, "Pojun, record the position of this planet."
"After recording, may I ask what name it will be?"
"Chenxi." Lu Fenghan remembered the lines of words on the rock wall, "It's called 'Chenxi'."
When the tattered starship sailed back into space, Lu Fenghan sat in front of the control panel, looking at the familiar scenery outside the porthole, and finally relaxed his tension and leaned back in his chair.
Pojun's voice no longer came from the personal terminal, but appeared in the starship's broadcast: "Please issue the navigation order."
Lu Fenghan ordered: "Find the navigation record of this starship."
Soon, a virtual screen unfolded in front of Lu Fenghan, and a zigzag line appeared on it, like the traces left by aimless ants on the sand. After
determining the location of the wormhole exit, Lu Fenghan pointed with his fingertips: "Let's go here first. If we are lucky, we can go through the wormhole again and return directly to the Southern Cross Region."
The starship traveled through the silent universe. Every time it moved forward, starting from the Dawn Star, the new star map would be improved.
Lu Fenghan looked at the monotonous scenery outside the window. The excitement he had felt since he heard the discovery signal had subsided, while another emotion called longing began to grow like weeds.
It was like a gust of wind, and in the blink of an eye, it spread to the sky.
Lu Fenghan couldn't help but wonder, when they met, would Qi Yan blame him?
Yes, he would, making the decision without any discussion. Thinking of Qi Yan's tears, Lu Fenghan felt that he deserved to be scolded.
However, Qi Yan should think that he was dead,
right? Would he cry?
When he sees him again, will he think that he is pretending, or an illusion?
The sharp dull pain came up again, and Lu Fenghan took a breath of cold air, not daring to think about it anymore.
After a long time, Po Jun's voice rang out from the ship: "Approaching the jump point, are you ready to jump?"
Lu Fenghan opened his eyes, his eyes still sharp: "Yes, prepare to jump."
Southern Cross Region.
"Now I feel a little sympathetic towards that old guy Crimson. He always thought that Weiss was his man, and he tried hard to place him in the expeditionary force. After the first major defeat, he put him in the position of acting commander-in-chief. Unexpectedly, Weiss was actually Hodgkin's man!"
Vincent sighed, "Crimson's brain seems to be still unconscious. He is being played around by Hodgkin and instigated by the rebels to compete with General Nie for power. When a person is too stupid, it is inevitable that people will think of what the commander once said, 'His brain should have failed to be taken out of the jump channel during the interstellar jump!'" After
the last word was uttered, he seemed to react to what he said, and the smile on his face faded.
Eric seemed not to notice the expression on Vincent's face and asked, "How's the situation?"
"The people who were going to pick up Weiss have arrived. It's incredible that he has been hiding for several months and yet he managed to turn things around and contact the rebels to pick him up."
"The connection is mixed up. He only dared to show up after he contacted the rebels." Eric was wearing a white military uniform and a military cap. His pair of gray eyes looked calm under the brim of the hat. He did not have a murderous temperament. He looked more like a civilian in the army than the deputy commander of the expeditionary force.
Vincent said carelessly: "No matter what happens, if he shows up, he must be killed. Otherwise, we will not be able to rest in peace for our brothers who died in the two defeats. But in terms of military strength, we have a lot of people, and the rebels are not bad either. If we really want to count, there are more on the other side. Can we fight this battle?"
Eric: "The leader of the rebels this time is Donald. He is suspicious and cautious. We just detained Weiss and will not fight. Life has been difficult for us recently. Donald will not catch up with us rashly."
As Eric judged, halfway through the fight, the rebels sent a signal, obviously wanting to suspend the discussion. The operator asked Erich for his opinion, and Erich nodded: "This time our target is only Weiss."
In the silent night sky, the two armies faced each other, their guns were preheated, and they were just waiting for the order.
Vincent said, "I guess Donald is also settling the score. He's going to settle it with us for a fight over Weiss. Will he?"
Eric replied, "We've been friends for many years. We can wait for him to finish settling the score."
At this moment, the inspector reported, "Deputy Commander, we've spotted a starship approaching. It looks like... interstellar pirates!"
Vincent was puzzled, "Interstellar pirates? Didn't that bunch of pirates have a dispute with the rebels in the central area and staged a runaway drama? How many of them are there? What about their weapons and equipment? Are they suddenly joining in to help or fight the enemy?"
Eric also looked over.
The monitor said with doubt: "Report, there is only one starship, and the weapons are poor!"
Vincent stood up to see for himself, and saw a flashy starship in the screen that was extremely dilapidated and seemed to fall apart in the next second: "Can this thing be called a starship? Is it lost?"
At the same time, Donald also saw the starship.
At this time, the communication channels of the expeditionary force and the rebels were forcibly connected at the same time.
A careless voice suddenly rang in the frequency band: "Donald? Old acquaintance, long time no see."
Donald stood up suddenly, staring at the sound frequency displayed on the communication channel in shock.
On the other side, Vincent accidentally knocked over the water cup beside him. He stared at Eric with wide eyes, and stuttered for a long time: "Just now...just now that sound--"
Eric clenched his fist, then loosened it, suddenly walked a few steps to the control table, put his hands on the edge of the table, and asked in a deep voice: "Who are you?"
He almost held his breath waiting for the answer from the other side.
On the starship, Lu Fenghan heard this question and could almost imagine Eric's expression at this time.
He said with a smile: "Thank you for your hard work, Eric."
Eric's eyes suddenly turned red.
Another voice rang in the communication channel.
Tang Na paused for a moment, "Lu Fenghan."
He questioned, "Resurrected from the dead?"
Lu Fenghan said in a sloppy voice, "Why, you only let people die, but not let people steal corpses?"
He then ordered, "Connect to the video."
The next second, the starship where Tang Na was was forcibly connected to the video communication.
Lu Fenghan appeared in front of everyone.
Raising his eyebrows, Lu Fenghan saw Weiss standing next to Donald. Across the vacuum of space, he asked Eric: "Are you here to capture someone?"
In the communication channel, Eric replied: "Yes, it depends on whether Donald is willing to release him."
Lu Fenghan looked at Donald, leaned back, without the military demeanor of an alliance soldier, and just raised his chin: "What do you think?"
Weiss looked at Lu Fenghan who suddenly came back to life, and then looked at Donald, and had a bad premonition.
He had been in the expeditionary army for so many years, and he knew that Lu Fenghan was a fierce and fierce person on the front line. Donald might not fight Lu Fenghan for himself.
He subconsciously took a small step back.
As expected.
After a brief thought, Donald said generously: "If this person is qualified, how about taking him as a gift for your resurrection?"
Lu Fenghan raised his finger: "I will accept your kindness without hesitation."
After Weiss was taken away to hand over to the expeditionary army, Lu Fenghan instructed Eric, "Eric, it's my first day back, so it's not appropriate to see blood. Once you capture the person, lead the team to withdraw." After
saying that, he glanced at the message interface - there was no reply to the message sent to Qi Yan.
Inexplicably, Lu Fenghan felt anxious.
Eric responded without hesitation: "Yes!"
Donald looked at the image of Lu Fenghan in the video and suspected that he had been hiding for a long time. He appeared near Leto half a year ago and then quickly disappeared. Now, he suddenly appeared here calmly.
There must be some conspiracy or plot.
Moreover, he was driving a starship that obviously belonged to an interstellar pirate.
Donald did not show his many emotions, he just smiled and said: "Congratulations, Commander Lu. It's just that we haven't seen each other for more than a year. When Commander Lu comes back, he may not be the same person as before," he paused delicately, "maybe he will be a little different."
This blatant attempt to sow discord, just short of saying that you, Lu Fenghan, have been away for so long, it is still unknown whether you can command well when you come back .
At the same time, the expeditionary formation was in full swing.
All the starships turned their bodies, facing the same direction, and released the emblem composed of shields and swords, the light was dazzling.
With darkness as the curtain.
The leader of the expeditionary force is back.
"I'll teach you a lesson today."
Lu Fenghan smiled and looked straight at Tang Na, his eyes sharp.
"Wherever I am, the expeditionary command ship is there."
The author has something to say:
"Everything is empty when you turn around, and everything is a dream before you turn around." - Su Shi