Chapter 37
Qi Yan realized that he seemed to be in a curved spacetime.
He walked in a dimly lit corridor with mirrors on both sides. On the left mirror, he saw his younger self sitting alone in the courtyard of the Qi family, with building blocks scattered aside, while he focused on disassembling the power engine of a toy hovercar.
A nanny robot stood a few steps away, emitting electronic sounds of “No, this behavior is not acceptable!”
On the right mirror, he saw himself sitting in his mother’s laboratory, flipping through a thick paper book. His mother, Lin Zhi, dressed in a white lab coat, was rapidly recording something on a reader with a focused expression.
At that time, he was not yet six years old. Separated from the Qi family by Lin Zhi for nearly three years, he enjoyed that period of life because when he displayed traits different from his peers or even ordinary people, no one reacted with surprise or fear like Qi Wenshao did. Instead, more people would say:
“This is normal. I was like this when I was a child, or I was even more extraordinary than you. When I was your age, I was studying the Joseph equation.”
“You want to modify the input of this function? No problem, let’s take a closer look. Let’s see if your idea can become a reality…”
Further ahead, the boy seemed to have grown a bit older, searching for papers and materials. After reading some, he began arguing with the person next to him.
Qi Yan automatically filled in this part of the picture — it was when he was nine years and six months old, and the person he was arguing with was August, who was thirty-nine at the time.
Another scene appeared, where his mother finally completed her eight-year project, and everyone was cheering. Elisa raised a glass, even shedding tears.
At the age of eleven, he sat in the corner, feeling a faint sense of dread.
Qi Yan instinctively dared not proceed any further.
He could almost guess what kind of scene awaited him if he continued.
However, this curved spacetime remained impervious to his will. He found himself unable to resist stepping forward, and soon the image on his right materialized—the residential district where Lu Fenghan was saved.
Eight years ago, this residential area had not yet fallen into complete abandonment. He remembered the day when Lin Zhi sneaked back to Leto. Almost by sixth sense alone, he stealthily followed, accompanying Lin Zhi through several jump points aboard a starship.
After Lin Zhi vanished behind closed doors, Qi Yan waited for a while before forcibly altering the lock system and opening the door.
What assaulted his senses was a heavy scent of blood.
His mother, Lin Zhi, one of the Alliance’s most brilliant researchers, had taken her own life.
Qi Yan felt a chill coursing through him as the continuous patter of rain filled his ears. Simultaneously, the corridor of the curved spacetime grew increasingly distorted. Every image—his younger self, his adolescent self, the cheering crowds, bookshelves, walls, buildings—everything fragmented like scattered puzzle pieces.
Amidst the resounding thunder, Qi Yan abruptly opened his eyes.
Before him danced flames, above him loomed a conical formation of jagged stones, and he found himself lying beneath it on a slab of rock. A few steps away, raindrops the size of beans pelted the ground, saturating the air with moisture.
He was draped in a coat, his head resting on Lu Fenghan’s thigh.
“Awake?”
A pair of hands pressed against his ears, seemingly shielding him from the thunderous clamor.
“Mm, awake.” Qi Yan’s voice was hoarse, his throat parched. Images of the starship explosion flashed before his eyes as he turned to Lu Fenghan. “Are you injured?”
Lu Fenghan’s lips curved. “More concerned about me than yourself?” He rolled up his sleeve, revealing his arm. “Does this count? Got nicked by something when the escape pod crashed. It’s already scabbed over.”
Seeing Qi Yan fixating on the wound, Lu Fenghan sighed. “Doesn’t hurt. Do you think everyone is as afraid of pain as you are?” He gestured for Qi Yan to look. “The escape pods on civilian starships are pretty solid. This carried us out of the wormhole, broke through the planet’s atmosphere, and crash-landed, yet it still looks mostly intact.”
Qi Yan glanced over. A roughly oval-shaped object lay inverted on the ground, its shell charred, metal skin curled. It was on the brink of complete destruction.
“Is the positioning system still intact?”
“It is. Can’t connect to the Starnet with my personal terminal though. No inhabitants on this planet, not a single living creature in sight. Luckily, this thing’s quality is top-notch. Rescue teams should be able to pinpoint our location using the escape pod’s coordinates.”
Despite the unknown circumstances, Lu Fenghan remained remarkably nonchalant.
Qi Yan sat up and only then noticed that the fire pit was composed of several russet-colored stones, with flames flickering in a faint azure hue. He surveyed his surroundings. The fierce rain limited visibility, but he noticed scattered stones of this kind strewn across the ground.
“This place… somewhat resembles a mining planet.”
Planets with scarce biological resources but abundant mineral deposits were dubbed mining planets by the Alliance. Typically, once exploration teams confirmed their findings, a certain number of mining robots would be deployed for extraction operations.
“It seems so.” Lu Fenghan casually adjusted the coat slipping off Qi Yan’s shoulder. “But who knows if we’re still within Alliance territory. Also, there are nutritional supplements in the escape pod. If we conserve it, the two of us can survive for a week.”
He joked again, “It’s just that the two-day trip to Woz Star has turned into a multi-day trip to an unknown planet.”
Qi Yan recollected carefully, “When you instructed everyone to press the escape pod button, I saw that Ye Pei and the others followed your instructions.”
“Hmm, then it should be fine. If they end up drifting in space for a few days, the most that would happen is that they would land on an uninhabited planet like us. Death is certainly not on the agenda.” Lu Fenghan had been forced to land on uninhabited planets more than once, and after getting a rough idea of the general situation, he was not afraid at all.
With his worries alleviated, Qi Yan noticed their location resembled a plain. Except for a few jagged stones, the area was barren. Rainwater pooled on the ground, quickly seeping into the earth.
As the next thunderclap sounded, Qi Yan pulled the loose coat around him tighter.
Lu Fenghan leaned against the stone wall, one leg bent and his arm casually resting on his knee. Noticing Qi Yan’s small movements, he asked, “Scared of thunder?”
Qi Yan nodded. “Yeah.”
Perhaps due to the recent accident or the possibility that they might be the only two individuals on this planet, Lu Fenghan, rarely relinquishing his restraint, pressed on, “Why afraid of thunder?”
Silence.
Amidst the torrential downpour, Qi Yan responded softly, “The day my mother ended her own life, it was also thundering like this.”
Lu Fenghan’s breath caught.
He had silently speculated on the cause of Qi Yan’s mother’s death. With the current medical technology of the Alliance, many ailments could be cured, so he thought it might have been an accident, or perhaps a genetic disease.
But he never expected it to be suicide.
He remembered how Qi Yan used to clutch a soft pillow, knocking on his room door. Every time thunder rumbled, he would nervously crumple the bedsheets.
He was likely still influenced by the images he saw before waking up. Qi Yan stared at a point in the air and continued, “Actually… I had a premonition long ago. She had been ill for a while, her mental state was very poor. But because she was constantly engrossed in a project, she seemed… calm and rational. However, she was like a taut bowstring. When stretched to the limit, it would snap.
“Everyone was shocked. They never thought she would commit suicide. How could she possibly commit suicide?”
Lu Fenghan looked at Qi Yan, seeing him huddled in his coat, holding his knees.
Too pitiful.
“My mother use to say that she existed in a delicate balance between madness and clarity. She said that once her project reached its conclusion, the darkness would engulf her.” The azure flames reflected in Qi Yan’s eyes. He paused for a moment, his mind elsewhere. “Elisa was always helping my mother develop medicines, but it was futile. Her condition fluctuated unpredictably.
“I understand somewhat now. She… lived a difficult, exhausting life.”
As he spoke, Qi Yan’s narrative grew somewhat disjointed. “When I walked through that door, the smell of blood was so overpowering I could barely breathe. I knew what had happened. When she left without telling anyone, I knew what she was planning.
“I was eleven then, capable of independent thought. I was safe and secure under protection, so she was at ease…
“I should have pretended not to be so clever, right? Less competent, more timid, always in need of her care—but…”
Qi Yan murmured softly to himself, “She’s still gone.”
No one would stay with him forever.
Lu Fenghan had encountered countless rainy days, on Leto, on uninhabited planets, at school, on the front lines, yet none had left him so unsettled and gloomy.
With a remarkable memory, scenes from past thunderstorms would replay in full detail each time.
Could he even distinguish between reality and memory?
What did it feel like to witness his mother’s death over and over again, repeatedly feeling helpless, and constantly being reminded that she would leave again?
Lu Fenghan closed his eyes briefly.
He forcibly suppressed his emotions.
However, Qi Yan didn’t allow himself to indulge in these emotions. He pinched the bridge of his nose, his face turning slightly pale. “Elisa said that dwelling on this matter would worsen my condition.”
Before Lu Fenghan could ask, Qi Yan volunteered, “Elisa was my mother’s doctor and also mine.”
After uttering this sentence, his voice still hoarse, but he had regained composure. He changed the subject, “Is the situation between the Alliance and the rebels deteriorating?”
Lu Fenghan went along with his lead. “Why do you think that?”
“Space pirates have been hiding for twenty years, yet now they dare to act near Leto without fear.”
“There will be a war soon,” Lu Fenghan stated bluntly. “The hawks are weak, and the doves believe they are orchestrating matters cleverly, but they’ll only embolden the rebels and pirates, nurturing their ambitions to swallow Leto whole.”
But he couldn’t do anything about it.
Since the ambush on the front lines, he could foresee the outcome with a single glance. It would take more than one person’s efforts to reverse it.
The thoughts and schemes of the Alliance military leaders were but a narrow gap, woven together with the choices and fates of countless individuals, creating an abyss that could not be easily filled with mere sand.
The Alliance was bound to undergo an inevitable war.
Qi Yan: “Will the war reach Leto?”
“There’s a high probability.”
Leaning on his chin, Qi Yan gazed at the azure flames, pondering. If war truly broke out on Leto, he would undoubtedly be evacuated for safety reasons. Then, Lu Fenghan—
Lu Fenghan probably wouldn’t accompany him.
So he asked again, “Will the war happen within two years?”
Lu Fenghan locked eyes with Qi Yan for two seconds, then averted his gaze involuntarily. “The rebels won’t wait that long.”
That meant the war would start before the contract expired.
Lu Fenghan would leave.
Qi Yan simply responded with an “Oh,” lowering his gaze to the raindrops falling on the ground.
The two fell silent again, each lost in their own thoughts, with only the relentless patter of rain washing over them.
There was no data available for the climate and day-night cycle of this planet. Using Leto time as a reference, the rain had been falling for nearly two hours. After the clouds dispersed, the “sun” appeared in the sky, but the heat was not intense. Despite being exposed for a while, the ground remained damp.
The two emerged from beneath the jagged stones and wandered around the vicinity. As far as their eyes could see, it was nothing but rocks upon rocks. Yet, this also meant that as long as their provisions lasted, they were safe until rescue arrived.
Lu Fenghan recalled a course he took at the First Military Academy called “Space Psychology Training.” At the time, they all felt the course was redundant. What was there to train for?
It wasn’t until their instructor threw them all into a simulated capsule, where the entire cosmos appeared before them in holographic form, that they realized their arrogance.
As mere carbon-based life forms, even a single ray or speck of dust in the universe could be deadly.
In special circumstances, such as prolonged flight without contact with the ground or forced landing on a lifeless planet, it could trigger humanity’s latent “space phobia” encoded in their genes.
However, Lu Fenghan didn’t dwell on it further because the rain started pouring again, just as heavily as before. It made Lu Fenghan wonder where such vast rain clouds had come from. Did they think they were a sprinkler system? It rained in bursts, one after another.
The two sought shelter beneath the jagged stone spire as the sky darkened, with lightning flashing across the horizon.
Hearing the thunder, Lu Fenghan tapped his thigh silently, seeking confirmation.
Following his inner thoughts, Qi Yan shifted over and rested his head on Lu Fenghan’s thigh.
Covering Qi Yan’s ears with his hands, Lu Fenghan leaned down and asked softly, “Want to take a nap? Maybe when you wake up, the rain will have stopped, and the rescue team might have arrived.”
Qi Yan looked up at him. “You don’t need to comfort me. I’m already an adult.”
Lu Fenghan: “Then why did you comfort me that night?”
Qi Yan closed his eyes, turned away from Lu Fenghan, pretending not to hear.
Lu Fenghan chuckled and pinched Qi Yan’s delicate earlobe, “Some questions are off-limits now, hmm?”
Qi Yan ignored him.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t ask, but… he seemed to not know the answer either.
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