Bryce took off the necklace he always wore around his neck and then opened the small pendant on it.
The silhouette of a young man was projected from an old-fashioned WeChat projector at the bottom of the pendant.
The pale man stood quietly in Bryce's palm, smiling silently at him.
“I wish you were here with us, Savile, you always knew what to do—”
Bryce lowered his eyes, looking at the figure of the man named Savile, and muttered to himself.
"And you promised that you would take good care of Lin Xi."
Unfortunately, Saville did not keep his promise.
...
Achoo!
Lin Xi sneezed.
Perhaps someone is thinking of him.
He thought to himself, rubbing his nose.
The hatch to his room slowly slid open in front of him. Inside the dimly lit room, only the life support device for the Star Butterfly Egg Sheath on his bedside table emitted a faint blue light, which tinged the furniture and other items near the device with a hazy, ethereal blue hue.
A creature resembling a long-bearded jellyfish gently and slowly rotated and floated inside the cramped life support device. Perhaps it was a coincidence, or perhaps it truly sensed something, but as soon as Lin Xi walked in from outside, the direction of the egg case shifted accordingly.
The tentacles, which had been swaying slowly and unconsciously in the viscous culture medium, gradually adhered to the transparent glass inner wall of the device, and from its position, it was moving towards Lin Xi's direction.
The scene looked somewhat eerie, but Lin Xi had gotten used to it by now.
He pulled the switch to turn on the power, and the lights quickly came on, filling the room with a soft white light.
Then Lin Xi threw all his belongings on the ground and collapsed onto his bed. The hard bed on the Sun God made his bones ache, making Lin Xi miss the thick, comfortable Simmons mattress in his teacher's apartment on Earth more than ever before.
"So tired..."
He buried his face in the sheets and murmured wearily.
The water lily orchid that Lin Xi had carefully cultivated was of course without any problems.
But the plants he cared for still took up a lot of his time.
Lin Xi had tried every method she could think of, but the insect plague still showed no signs of abating.
He was truly exhausted, both mentally and physically. If things continued like this, he would probably have to swallow his pride and go to the exploration team to ask them for some insecticide specifically for the spaceship's external environment...
"Squeak—"
Just as Lin Xi was racking his brains over work, a wet and sticky sound came from beside his ear... as if belatedly echoing his earlier words.
Lin Xi turned his head to the side, resting his face on his arm, and stared in the direction from which the sound came.
This position allows him to see the egg case on the bedside table in a comfortable and relaxed state.
The oothecae have undergone significant changes.
When it was first delivered to Lin Xi, the thin, transparent tentacles that were dragging under its egg sheath had grown to a diameter of nearly two millimeters, and their color had changed from completely transparent to semi-transparent white.
The egg case itself had also grown larger, and the shell covering the row of slender eggs had become thinner and more transparent, making it easy to see the inside of the eggs.
Closest to Lin Xi, one of the insect eggs was more fully developed—although the difference wasn't very obvious, a closer look revealed that the egg was larger, and some of the tightly curled structures inside were clearer.
Lin Xi could even see two tiny red dots attached to the inside of the insect eggs. Even in the absence of light, they still emitted a faint, almost imperceptible red glow.
Those must be the eyes of the Star Butterfly.
Lin Xi guessed with interest.
He gave the best-developed egg a nickname: "the one".
When he was extremely bored, he would occasionally call out to "Number One" and then talk to it about things he could never tell any human.
Witnessing a tiny life develop from chaos to this stage was a rare and interesting experience in the otherwise monotonous life on the spaceship. Lin Xi even went so far as to search the ship's database to find more information about the Star Butterflies. Unfortunately, these sacred artifacts left behind by the Sunu people were shrouded in mystery in the past, with very little information available even for the adult insects, let alone the even rarer eggs.
Only someone like Shizuo Ando, who has a wife of mixed Sunu descent, could recognize that this was the egg case of the Star Butterfly...
Moreover, Lin Xi can now somewhat understand Ando's dedication and passion for this little thing.
"...After all, you are quite fun, aren't you, Number One?"
Lin Xi muttered to herself.
How much longer until you hatch?
He unconsciously reached out his finger and tapped lightly on the transparent casing of the life support device.
As Ando requested, this was to provide the insect eggs with slight external stimulation to help them develop—Lin Xi thought to himself with satisfaction.
The tentacles that sprouted from the egg case were stimulated and visibly attached themselves to the other side of the glass.
The two red dots on "Number One" that Lin Xi thought were eyes also trembled slowly.
The two red lights flickered for a moment to a degree imperceptible to humans.
As Lin Xi watched the tentacles gradually approach his fingers, he raised an eyebrow and playfully tapped the other side of the device with his finger.
The tentacles immediately began to slowly move towards the other side of the shell. However, there were so many tentacles that when they changed direction, they looked clumsy and flustered.
Lin Xi almost burst out laughing.
However, after chuckling, he focused his attention on the life support device and looked at it a few more times.
The device seems a bit too small for the egg case, which has now developed and expanded considerably.
Lin Xi was a little unsure if this was the right volume. Perhaps he should indeed do as Bryce suggested and go find Ando Shizuo?
At this moment, Lin Xi had no idea that going to find Ando Shizuo would be such a troublesome matter.
Shizuo Ando was not in his office, nor was he in his laboratory.
When Lin Xi visited his lab, all he saw were his two students and assistants frantically working around. From what Lin Xi could observe, these two students were completely unprepared to care for the alien life forms in Ando Shizuo's lab, even though the latter were almost all in cryogenic hibernation.
And how could Professor Ando allow such a thing to happen?
Lin Xi was extremely shocked.
But faced with his confusion, the two young students appeared unusually helpless and aggrieved.
“We never asked to take control of the laboratory.”
One of the students, perhaps named Oni or something, stared at Lin Xi with bloodshot eyes.
"...Mrs. Ando's health has deteriorated significantly. I think the professor just told us to look after the lab temporarily, but he hasn't come here since." Oni looked like he hadn't cleaned himself for several days. The smell emanating from him forced Lin Xi to silently take several steps back as he approached.
"That sounds terrible."
Lin Xi said stiffly but with sympathy.
“Actually, things weren’t this bad at first,” Oni said wearily, rubbing his greasy hair. “However, we don’t know what happened. Everything was operating according to the procedures… Maybe it’s a problem with this asteroid? The subjects’ physiological data are getting more and more abnormal…”
He seemed to want to complain a few more times, but soon, at the other end of the laboratory, an anesthetic capsule containing some kind of Sunu creature resembling a shrimp and a parrot emitted a sharp alarm.
The thing should have been as still as an animal carcass preserved in formalin, but at this moment it suddenly opened its eyes wide and its powerful claws began to scratch the inside of the container.
"Unnie?!"
Another assistant yelled at Unnie in an annoyed tone.
"Stop chatting, go check on that bird dragon, damn it—"
He then turned to Lin Xi: "I'm sorry, Dr. Lin, there are just too many troubles here."
After a pause, the assistant seemed to realize that his tone had been too harsh, and he tried to smooth things over, saying, "I think perhaps you could go directly to the professor's room? He should be there; he's been staying in his room with Mrs. Ando lately. We can occasionally contact him through the internal communicator, but he rarely responds. In fact, we're a little worried about the professor's condition."
"Okay, sorry to bother you."
Almost at the same time that the other assistant was talking to Lin Xi, the alarm started beeping again.
Not far from them, a mud rat trapped in a metal cage suddenly began frantically pounding against the cage walls. Its eyes bulged, and its body turned a dazzling fluorescent green from congestion. Despite being only the size of a fist, its impact was so powerful that the metal cage, bolted to the test bench, trembled incessantly.
"Oh fucking, here we go again—"
The assistant let out a curse and, no longer caring about Lin Xi, rushed towards the mud rat.
Seeing the terrifying scene in Ando's laboratory that resembled a battlefield, Lin Xi quickly retreated to avoid getting in the way.
Even after leaving the laboratory, his furrowed brows showed no sign of relaxing.
This can't go on.
Lin Xi thought to herself.
Anyone with eyes to see can see that Ando's laboratory is now a huge hidden danger. Although there are still two assistants who can barely keep things in order, Lin Xi is certain that it is only a matter of time before the situation is completely ruined.
There are some students in the research group, but those who participate in long-distance voyages like the Apollo are usually students at the Earth-Moon Union University who are on the verge of failing their courses for various reasons. They can only rely on this kind of thankless and extremely difficult activity to get credits. Their professional competence is simply appalling.
In fact, Lin Xi himself had considered asking his students for help when faced with the troublesome insects in his greenhouse, but he was worried that those people would only make the situation worse...
With a heavy heart, Lin Xi went directly to Ando Shizuo's door.
Indeed, as soon as Lin Xi left Ando's lab, he went straight to find him without delay. He didn't make an appointment or communicate with Ando beforehand (he did try to contact Ando's personal terminal, but the other party completely ignored his connection request). This behavior could be considered very impolite, but Lin Xi didn't care about that.
He pointed the terminal directly at the monitor at the door and pressed the visit request button.
After a long time (so long that Lin Xi almost thought there was no one in the room), the metal hatch trembled slightly and then slid to the side.
A wave of humid heat mixed with a strong, sweet, fishy smell rushed towards Lin Xi.
Lin Xi almost suffocated from the smell.
The room was completely dark; the lights were not on.
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