The edge of the universe.
A ring-shaped flying saucer is wandering in space, with many black square plates extending from its surface, like a bunch of small umbrellas. This is its tool for amplifying signals, and the radio station relies on this for its livelihood.
There is a fancy graffiti on the outer wall of the flying saucer: "Daily Gold Rush Radio Headquarters".
"Have you received the confirmation reply from the newcomer?" A slime man said while blowing bubbles. "We have searched this area thoroughly, but we didn't expect that there would be a newcomer who can write? Hehe, if we present him to the boss, he will definitely be happy. Then I will be close to getting a promotion and a raise!"
"Stop talking nonsense." Another slime man wearing goggles said, "If the Dreamers snatch the new guy away, we will be in trouble. Their boss and our boss have an old grudge... Why don't we pay more to the new guy?"
"That's right! Pay more!"
Another letter requesting more money was delivered to Xi Yujin's mailbox.
"We are willing to purchase the reading rights of your book for 2,000 points!"
"Daegu Radio's commitment to you will last forever, and we can add another 1,000 points."
"Good Dream Radio is willing to add 3,000 points to the original price!"
"Dear Master Ember, hello, we made a mistake in the last letter. We at Good Dream Radio are willing to add 5,000 points to the original price, which means a total price of 8,000 points to buy out the reading rights of your new work "Spiritual Reader Short Story Collection"."
Xi Yujin was very confused.
His short stories weren’t that good? And he only sent a few hundred words for trial reading. Apart from the coherence of the text and the smoothness of the words, what else can we learn from it?
In fact, it is because the novel resources here are too scarce, and mental confusion has become a huge mountain weighing on the vagrants. The radio station is the lifeline of the vagrants. And the owners of most radio stations are space pirates.
The edge of the universe is just a general term, and there is no real visible boundary. There are always many young, unstable stars or planets popping out here. After exploration, cosmic creatures have discovered that blasting baby stars can yield rich mineral resources, including the rarest "primordial dust."
"Primitive dust" is a special mineral for making physical books, and is the hard currency of this universe. Therefore, many cosmic creatures flock to the edge of the universe to become "star hunters". As long as they find a newly born star, they will make a fortune.
Over time, some creatures found another business, they gathered together and became a powerful force: the Star Stealers!
The pirates were numerous and powerful, and they seized resources that already belonged to someone else, and sold them at second-hand auctions after development. Individual entrepreneurs who came to search for stars could not defeat them, and those big forces soon colluded with the pirates. The pirates quickly took over many dust mines and blew up new stars one after another.
At the edge of the universe, there is no law and order, and even live auctions often occur. No one cares about them at all. The pirates are even more arrogant, and even start to enslave the vagrants who don't obey them. The most common phrase on the lips of the pirates is:
"The edge of the universe is the freest place, and we are the kings of freedom!"
There are also different factions among the pirates, each controlling different radio stations, and they usually compete with each other secretly. Whoever's radio station has new novels, the vagrants will rely more on that one, and that one's power will expand. Isn't this bidding?
The second reason is that the cosmic creatures at the radio station all saw the potential of Xi Yujin's work.
Even with just a short trial reading, their barren spiritual seas could feel a refreshing breeze blowing on their faces, and the heaviness that had been pent up for many days was finally slightly alleviated.
"He must be a tourist who has just arrived at the edge of the universe. His nomadic language is too unfamiliar."
"Why don't you say that you have poor reading ability? He can at least write a Level 2 article." A radio station staff member couldn't help but say, "I think this novelist writes very... well, very elegantly."
In this universe, "reading cognitive ability" is an important dimension for evaluating articles and readers. Level 0 is the babbling of babies, Level 1 is the normal communication of ordinary creatures, Level 2 is the ability to understand the characters, plots and thoughts, and so on.
If the reader's reading ability is only level 1, it means that he is very confused, and he cannot read level 2 articles. The Star Pirates are located in a remote area, and many creatures have not read new books for a long time, and subconsciously think that their reading ability has declined.
Xi Yujin learned the nomadic language from the texts in the garbage dump, so he naturally used written language when writing. He checked the grammar several times for fear of being exposed, so the whole article looks "literary".
A combination of many factors led to the character setting of the pen name "Ember" on the radio being: an elegant and dignified writer who came to travel to the edge of the universe for unknown reasons.
But Xi Yujin didn't know that. He was still puzzled by the increasing number of letters.
At this moment, somewhere at the edge of the universe.
A dilapidated conical spaceship floats in the vast space.
"I'm afraid we won't be able to win the bid..." A flute player said with eight mouths at the same time, "According to the informant, the pirates are already bidding. The probability of our Xinti Radio Station obtaining the reading rights is very small..."
"Damn pirates!" another flute player cursed, and the other seven mouths curled down at the same time, "We finally built a new radio station, and many creatures insisted on not giving the pirates radio a listening rate just to support us. In the end, we have no new articles in hand?"
After hearing this, the atmosphere among the flute players became a little lonely.
They came from the distant Jinsu 106 galaxy. They heard that the minerals at the edge of the universe were the richest, so they wanted to be gold diggers.
Unexpectedly, they were robbed by the star pirates as soon as they arrived, and one of their own was abducted on the spot. They, the flute people, have eight vocal organs, rich melodies, and a wide range of voices, which are very suitable for being radio reciters. Whenever they hear the voices of their own people from the radio station under the command of the star pirates, they feel heartbroken.
Heavy sighs echoed in the spacecraft.
Only 3,875 universe hours have passed since they went from being resentful at the beginning and vowing to save the edge of the universe to now feeling powerless.
What can they save? Those cosmic creatures who are in the same dire situation as them? But they can't even save their own kind. Soon, when the next round of mental confusion breaks out, they can only choose between "escaping from the edge of the universe and abandoning their own kind" and "obeying the pirates".
Ding Ding
Suddenly, a prompt signal came from the spacecraft. A dozen flute players hurriedly crowded in front of the receiver, thinking that good luck had come and the new novelist had chosen to authorize them! Their long-tubed bodies piled up in a pile without regard for etiquette.
"It's just the notification sound for the show to start..."
The flute player left with a pout on his face, looking disappointed.
The older flute player came out to take charge of the situation: "Even if we don't have any new articles, we have to do a good job on the new broadcast! Don't forget that we still have a group of loyal listeners. We can't let them down."
"Then what should we read?" The flutist on duty today sat in front of the recording instrument and adjusted the equipment. "If we read the old articles, what's the difference between that and telling the audience that we have run out of ammunition and food?"
"Actually..." the older flute player trembled his vocal organ, "I have written a novel!"
He knocked on the cabinet next to him, took out a stack of manuscripts, and placed them on the table as if they were holding gold. The other flute players opened their mouths into an O shape.
"You, you wrote an article?" The flute player whistled with six mouths to express his shock, and read out loud with two mouths in panic, "Why didn't you tell us about such an important thing?"
"I'm not sure how well I write either." The older flutist showed a hint of shyness.
"Ahem, let me read your masterpiece - my name is Xiao Ming. Today I decided to go to school, but I don't want to go to school. I want to sleep and dream. I'd better dream about tonight's animation of the Zerg Queen fighting the Mechanical Brain. Although I haven't seen the war, I hope that the universe will be peaceful..." The flute player who finished reading the article in one breath suddenly stopped, "Uh, that's it?"
The other flute players looked at each other.
The older flute had an expectant look on his face.
The other flutists whistled awkwardly and walked away with their heads down, doing their own things.
The older flute player knocked hard on the inner wall of the spacecraft, his old face flushed as he explained, "Writing novels is too difficult for us mentally confused creatures." Under the effect of simulated gravity, the manuscript floated gently at the flute player's feet.
Ding Ding
The warning signal sounded again in the spacecraft, but this time no one paid attention.
The signal sound continued, and the flute player in charge of today's broadcast became a little annoyed and pushed his chair to the receiver.
“Bang.”
The combo microphone in the flute player's hand fell to the floor.
The flute people don't have special visual organs, their eight mouths can sense everything. At this moment, the eight mouths of the flute people expanded from a small O-shaped mouth to a size that can swallow a Big Mac in one bite, and then expanded to eight abyssal giant mouths. Multi-layered sound waves resounded throughout the spacecraft.
"Oh my god!! The new novelist agreed to authorize us!!!"
"What!!!"
Countless huge mouths of the abyss opened up in surprise at the same time.
…
"I won't give permission to pirates."
Xi Yujin finally figured out the essential differences between the radio stations and was spinning unhappily in the garbage dump.
"If there wasn't a kind-hearted person who came to mess things up, I would have become their commodity."
Xi Yujin recalled the scene when a hero descended from the sky.
At that time, he was not good at using mental power, and was unable to move in the dark matter gravity beam. He couldn't even understand the language of this strange universe. He could only watch the changes anxiously.
Suddenly, a small red firework exploded in the distance.
Sound waves at the edge of the universe travel very slowly, so it was just a small flower quietly blooming in space. But not long after, a second, larger flower opened. A third, a fourth. The flowers grew bigger and bigger. A space pirate rushed into the auction site in a panic, shouting:
"Run, run! It's the Zerg... the Zerg are coming!"
It turns out that it wasn't a flower, but the space torn apart by the Zerg while jumping in space!
The auctioneers who were talking loudly before started to run away in panic. The restrained Xi Yujin could not empathize with them, he just quietly watched the direction where the "flower" gradually bloomed.
Finally, at the auction site, a red lotus with ninety-nine petals exploded from the air!
In the center of the pistil is a fully armored Zerg.
The petals gradually faded away, and the uninvited guest in space seemed insignificant and silent. The Zerg's armor was like the full body armor of a medieval knight on Earth, majestic and simple, more like bone than metal, rarely reflecting light, like a walking black hole. Two beams of light wings stretched out from behind him, which were extremely dazzling.
The full body armor covered the appearance of the Zerg completely, so Xi Yujin, a foreigner, naturally thought that the Zerg looked like they were wearing armor.
This moving armor is pretty cool... Even though he was in danger, Xi Yujin couldn't help but let his thoughts wander.
The auctioneers ran away, and the spaceships took off. The Zerg ignored them and searched for something among the auction items.
The Zerg saw the huddled live auction items and did not react in any special way, but simply cut off the chains. The unfortunate auction items thanked the Zerg, but the Zerg ignored them.
In the end, only the Zerg and Xi Yujin were left at the auction.
The Zerg first saw the dark matter generator, then followed the chain to see the small star in the middle, and tilted his head in confusion. He probably didn't know why there was a star here.
Xi Yujin felt nervous and secretly hoped that the armored man would help him unlock the chains, but he could not tell whether the other party was hostile or not.
The Zerg thought for a while, destroyed the dark matter generator neatly, and continued to look for other auction items. He quickly browsed the items, confirmed that there was nothing he was looking for, and immediately jumped out of space.
Only the remnants of Xi who had regained his freedom were left.
Before he could say anything, the Zerg disappeared from his perception range. Xi Yujin could only look at the direction where the Zerg left, spinning while thinking: This armor is really a kind and good person!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
