Lin Xiaohe didn’t get any useful information out of Gaia, so she decided to leave.
Gaia grabbed onto Lin Xiaohe’s leg, tilting her little face up with a pitiful look. “Great Honored One, didn’t you promise to help me find my contractor?”
Lin Xiaohe immediately felt the planet’s gravity intensify several times over. She coaxed, “Alright, alright. But first, you need to tell me who your contractor is—what they look like, where they are. The more details, the better.”
“Okay! Thank you, Honored One!” Gaia flashed two dimples and looked up at Lin Xiaohe with absolute trust. “He’s a little boy with a bad temper—always flying into a rage.”
“That’s it?”
“Uh… that’s it!”
The two stared at each other. Lin Xiaohe nearly laughed in frustration.
There was no way she could help with that!
“Do I look like some kind of sucker to you? You haven’t given me anything of value, and you want me to find someone based on that? Are you playing games with me? Don’t think I won’t hit you just because you’re an alien.”
Gaia muttered softly, “You’re the alien.”
Lin Xiaohe glared at her.
Gaia shrank back and weakly defended herself, “It’s true, though. I don’t understand why so many carbon-based life forms suddenly showed up—especially those fragile humans—but the fact is, we were the ones living in this star sector first. It’s just that my people love sleeping too much, so you all got the wrong idea.”
Lin Xiaohe had a vague guess about where Gaia came from, so she mustered a bit more patience. “Tell me about your race.”
Gaia explained: “Planets have spirits. Some planetary spirits never awaken. Others take root in mountain ranges, in lakes, or deep within the planet’s core. When a planetary spirit awakens and grows, it can take full control of the entire planet—just like me!”
She puffed out her little chest. Though her face was still pale, she was clearly proud of herself.
“And what’s this about a contractor?”
“The universe doesn’t belong to just our race alone. Other life forms are always born on our surfaces. From those life forms, we pick the one we like the most and form a contract with them. We’re willing to share our power and lifespan with our contractors, but in return, they have to take care of our bodies.”
In other words, they hired a butler.
Just mentioning her contractor made Gaia’s face light up. “My contractor is so cute! That little temper of his—so fierce, so full of energy! Back when there were all those humans running around in animal skins, I spotted him right away! He was super responsible—any human who tried to cause trouble got beaten down by him. And he was especially filial, and kind to his sisters—especially his little sister.”
Lin Xiaohe paused, her gaze softening. She asked quietly, “Have you heard of the Great Extinction Crisis? How did your people deal with it?”
“The Great Extinction Crisis? I think I’ve heard of it… but I don’t really remember.”
How could you not remember something so important?!
Are you people even reliable?
Gaia blinked her innocent big eyes, genuinely confused. Why should anyone be afraid of a mere extinction crisis?
“No matter what time it is—unless the universe turns into absolute nothingness—there will always be celestial bodies. As long as there are planets and nebulae, there will be planetary spirits. Our civilization will never truly end.”
So they were completely laissez-faire about it.
If a planet gets destroyed, so be it. Out with the old, in with the new.
The universe is vast—new planets are always being born, and old ones are always exploding.
Whether they lived or died didn’t really matter. After all, wherever there was a planet, their civilization would exist.
Lin Xiaohe: “So… you did nothing?”
Faced with Lin Xiaohe’s incredulous stare, Gaia racked her brain for a way to save face. “Lying flat is also a form of effort, you know.”
Unbelievable!
Lin Xiaohe: “So how many of your people are still alive?”
“A lot, definitely.” Gaia was bursting with confidence.
At Lin Xiaohe’s insistence, Gaia used their special consciousness network to reach out to her kin.
The speed of signals was far greater than that of spaceships, and the speed of consciousness was far greater still.
Lin Xiaohe could faintly sense the transmission of this consciousness in the fourth dimension, but she couldn’t intercept it.
No one knew how much time passed. Gaia’s lips slowly drooped, and the innocence and carefreeness on her face were replaced by a thick layer of gloom.
Her voice was low and muffled, as if it came from the planet’s very core. “No response. None of them responded!”
Lin Xiaohe swallowed the sigh in her throat. This really wasn’t unexpected.
Given how utterly passive Gaia and her people had been, it was a miracle that Gaia had survived at all.
Lin Xiaohe’s gaze fell on the crystal in her palm.
Could it have something to do with this crystal?
“Gaia, what is this?”
Gaia was feeling down, her whole body drooping. “I don’t know. When I woke up, it was just there in my belly. Maybe it’s the last gift my people left me. Oh, right—there was a strange ship that once landed on my body. Hmm… I’m not entirely sure, but my gut tells me the people on that ship were after this crystal.”
“Do they know you have it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they wanted this crystal, or maybe they wanted to make one themselves.”
Lin Xiaohe pressed her lips tightly together and said in a hoarse voice, “Gaia, once I’m done with my business, I’ll take you to find your contractor.”
…
Back on Kyushu Star, everyone was busy modifying the ark.
“Why do we have to call it the ‘Myriad Nirvana Universe Ark’? That’s not cool at all!” Lin Chiyang complained as he hauled materials from Kyushu Star into orbit.
Lin Jingqiu replied, “You can come up with a better name now. Maybe next time we upgrade it, we can use your name.”
“Pfft! As if I care about that!” But even as he said it, Lin Chiyang was already mulling over names in his head.
Lin Jingqiu shot him a glance and kept working in silence.
“Second sister, why don’t you head back to the Life Safety Center? The work there is important too.”
“Mm, I’ll wait a little longer.” Her eldest brother’s condition was getting worse by the day—he was probably about to awaken.
Lin Jingqiu didn’t feel at ease leaving him, which was why she had put her work at the Life Safety Center on hold to stay by his side.
And then there were those shadows inside many people on Kyushu Star…
Earlier, their little sister and Old Black had speculated it might have something to do with the Zerg.
But even after her sister’s upgrade, they still couldn’t figure out what those shadows were.
With the Great Extinction Crisis looming, those shadows were like ticking time bombs—no one knew when they might go off.
Just as Lin Jingqiu was lost in worry, Lin Chiyang, who had been full of energy and working at top speed, suddenly collapsed without warning.
Lin Jingqiu quickly caught him and rushed him back to the Life Safety Center.
This time, the awakening didn’t take long. After his two personalities fully merged, Lin Chiyang opened his eyes.
At the exact same moment, six Grain Star envoys arrived at the most important Grain Pulse node.
The third envoy said, “If something goes wrong here, it means the collapse of the time laws has worsened.”
Another person wiped away imaginary cold sweat. “Thankfully, the readings are normal.”
No sooner had he spoken than all six Grain Star envoys froze like ducks with their necks squeezed—their eyes nearly popping out of their heads.
The frequency began to jitter wildly, like it had Parkinson’s, swinging between the lowest and highest values—and then, with a pop, it shot past the maximum, leaving everything else in the dust!
