When Lin Xi returned to the upper floor, she was already quite exhausted.
Lin Xi thought that being scared half to death by a Sunu fossil sculpture in the warehouse area was bad enough, but when he finally managed to climb back to the F area where the crew worked and lived, he found that the situation there was no better than in the warehouse.
For a moment, Lin Xi was unsure whether the strange fossil sculpture in the B-sector warehouse or the frantic Bryce was more frightening.
When Lin Xi peeked out of the passage, what she saw was Bryce trying to squeeze himself into another lightweight mining robot.
He hadn't expected to see Bryce; given the current situation, Bryce should be busy and dizzy in the medical room right now.
Meanwhile, another familiar man was standing next to Bryce, trying to persuade him.
The man had curly brown hair and heavy dark circles under his eyes. Lin Xi recognized him at a glance as their technician, Sith Lem.
Incidentally, Sith Lem was also a senior member of the "Daily Curses and Humiliations of Taran" organization on the Sun God, and he had a fairly good relationship with the Bryce brothers.
At this moment, he should have been desperately comparing star charts in front of the electronic screen, instead of trying to pull Bryce out of the mining robot with a tired and futile expression.
The scene of the two men pulling and tugging at each other was hardly a pleasant sight.
Fortunately, Lin Xi made a loud enough noise when he came up, and the two of them immediately noticed him when they heard the sound coming from the entrance of the passage.
Bryce's legs were still inside that ridiculous orange jumpsuit, but his body had already turned around. He looked at Lin Xi, his eyes suddenly widening.
Then the big guy immediately started yelling at Lin Xi.
"God, is it you? It's you!"
"Damn it, I told you you shouldn't have gone alone! God, are you hurt? What's down there—"
"Well, apart from being a bit dark, the warehouse area isn't a big problem... I... that's what I think..."
Lin Xi was terrified by Bryce's frightening expression, which looked as if he was about to collapse at any moment.
He jumped out of the Slavic light armor in a panic, took off his helmet and tucked it under his arm, and answered Bryce's question somewhat blankly.
"Those cries and screams—"
The next second, Bryce rushed over while shouting things that left Lin Xi completely baffled.
He almost tripped over the bodysuit, but he didn't seem to care.
Before Lin Xi could react, Bryce gripped his shoulders tightly. The man trembled slightly, like a single mother having a nervous breakdown, scrutinizing Lin Xi from head to toe.
"Hey, buddy, calm down, what's going on?"
Lin Xi took a step back and then asked with a frown.
He was certain that if he were a cat, he would have already started raising his tail and grinning like Habrys at this point.
“For God’s sake, Bryce, control yourself, you’ve scared him…”
Thank goodness, Sith caught up with Bryce and reached Lin Xi's side.
And it was he who rescued Lin Xi from Bryce's clutches.
Sis pulled Lin Xi aside and made him stay behind him, using his body to shield Lin Xi and Bryce.
“Bryce, come back to reality and see your brother. He's much older than three. There's no need to make such a fuss.”
Sith said helplessly to Bryce.
"If you were a woman, I swear I would propose to you!"
Lin Xi hid behind Sis's thin, bean sprout-like body and whispered something to him with immense gratitude.
Sith Lem tilted his head slightly, and from Lin Xi's angle, he could just see the wry smile on his face.
“Oh, please don’t. Do you think your reputation isn’t bad enough? By the way, your good brother is just a little scared. I can understand his nervousness in this damn situation…” He paused, then turned around and held out his hand to Lin Xi. “Can I see your helmet? I want to check your communicator—”
"Huh? A helmet?"
Lin Xi blinked and immediately handed the heavy, worn-out, and scratched helmet of the Slavic light mech to Sith.
"Is your communicator turned off?"
Sith asked.
Lin Xi paused for a moment, then nodded. "Ah, right, this damn communication broke down not long after, so I turned it off—oh my god, I'm so stupid, I should have turned it back on after the system rebooted." As she spoke, Lin Xi noticed the expressions on Sith and Bryce's faces. "Wait, what happened?"
"Well..."
Sith rubbed his nose and then drawled out the sound.
If it weren't for Sith's explanation, Lin Xi suspected that he might have needed to fight Bryce to figure out the whole story.
For Lin Xi, it was simply a matter of suddenly losing communication with Bryce and the others, but he didn't really care about it. Just like he had complained before, these Slavic light mechs were old things left over from the Great Exploration Era, and it was perfectly normal for such dilapidated equipment to experience communication failures.
But for Bryce and his group in Sector F, the situation is not so simple.
“…Our communications have been running the whole time, but suddenly your voice disappeared, and then another voice appeared,” Sith explained calmly. “And the voice sounded a bit strange.”
He paused, glanced at Lin Xi's expression, and then continued, "...it's like someone is hiding inside your helmet, whimpering, screaming, and panting."
Lin Xi made an exaggerated funny face.
“Hmm, that sounds terrifying.” But there was no trace of seriousness on his face. “It’s probably still a problem with that damn communicator. The message was sent out but was blocked by the barrier, and ended up as an electronic pulse—what you heard was probably just the noise caused by those pulses.”
Sith, with that half-asleep look on his face, shrugged: "Yeah, that's what I think too."
After he finished speaking, Sith looked at Bryce, who was standing to the side with a livid face.
“I told you long ago, those strange noises are just noise.”
He yawned.
Of course, Sith didn't describe the sounds they heard in much detail—even from a technician's perspective, Sith had to admit that the sounds were indeed eerie and disgusting.
It was precisely for this reason that when Bryce, in a fit of rage, dragged him from the star chart room to this place to check the data of the mecha Lin Xi was in, he refrained from losing his temper with his longtime friend.
"No--"
Bryce muttered something, still sizing up Lin Xi.
"...I can swear to you that apart from the communication problems, everything went smoothly for me down there. I wasn't infected by any strange alien virus, nor was I bitten by any monsters that crawled out of the darkness. I'm perfectly fine and alive and kicking, I'm pretty sure of that."
After listening to Sith's account, Lin Xi rubbed the bridge of his nose and then said to Bryce with a headache.
After his repeated emphasis, Bryce finally calmed down.
"Sorry, I was just a little startled, after all, that voice sounded really... not quite normal."
Bryce wiped his face somewhat embarrassedly, then forced a smile and explained to Lin Xi and Sith.
"I've flown on so many ships over the years, and I've never heard such a chilling noise."
He said.
Lin Xi shrugged.
“This accident has put you under a lot of psychological pressure,” Lin Xi said, trying to smooth things over for his brother. Then, he smiled wryly and waved to Bryce. “If you don’t mind, I think I need to change my clothes. Damn it, operating these Slavic-style light mechs is practically inhuman… And then I have to report to Taran. That guy won’t like what I see down there…”
The more Lin Xi talked, the worse her headache became.
"If I could, I really wish you could squeeze out a painkiller for me before I go to find Taran, my dear Bryce."
He said it offhand.
However, before Bryce could answer him, Sith spoke first.
"If I were you, I wouldn't go looking for that bastard right now, especially if things go wrong..."
He gave Lin Xi a look.
"You can go and rest for a while. I think you must be very tired too."
Bryce then continued.
"Wow...it sounds like our Captain is causing trouble again."
Lin Xi immediately understood what the two meant.
His guess was absolutely correct.
As he inspected the goods in the warehouse alone, a temporary emergency meeting was held to deal with the jump accident.
However, the central control room is now in complete chaos.
Taran's situation had deteriorated to the point where it was completely out of control; insults, arguments, and mutual accusations turned the entire meeting into a disaster.
I think Taran has completely lost his mind. Damn it, everything is so terrible. I really want to blow up this damn conference room. —Message sent by: Elisa
As the vice-captain, Elisa, who was forced to participate in the meeting, even began to complain in her private communications.
As a reserved person, she rarely showed such strong emotions, which was enough to show how terrible Taran and everything in that room were.
My deepest sympathies to you. —Message sent by: Lin Xi
Following Bryce and Sith's suggestion, Lin Xi returned to her room. Looking at Elisa's complaints on the communicator and thinking about her upcoming meeting with Taran, she felt particularly bad.
"Poor Elisa...poor me..."
Lin Xi muttered in pain, then opened the bathroom door and struggled to move inside.
The most urgent task is to change his clothes.
His body felt heavy, and his head ached. The bodysuit, soaked with sweat and worn from hours inside the Slavic light armor, was starting to stink.
However, when Lin Xi took off the bodysuit, her movements paused slightly.
He pulled his hands out of his gloves and examined them carefully.
...Some wet and sticky milky white liquid that shouldn't have been there was stuck to his fingers.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
