In the final instant before the system data was completely wiped and all skills were stripped away, in the final moment before Bai Mu’s channel dissolved from losing its data support—
They successfully deleted the data and completed the teleport.
BOOM—!!!
Behind them, the entire central plaza’s virtual space, having lost its underlying data support, instantly collapsed inward, transforming into a bottomless black hole.
The violent data turbulence devoured the spot where they’d just stood, erasing every trace of their existence.
And accompanied by a violent dizziness and weightlessness—
When Si Yi opened his eyes again, the glaring sunlight made him shed involuntary physiological tears.
He lay dazed on the rough asphalt road, feeling the real temperature of the Blue Star earth against his back.
“En… Engineer Fu…”
Si Yi’s voice trembled beyond recognition. He looked at his own intact hands, then at the comrades around him—bedraggled, but all present.
Chen Ke glared viciously at Fu Songcheng. “You couldn’t have said so earlier!”
Bai Mu simply collapsed to the ground, covering her face and wailing.
Fu Songcheng tilted his head, looking at the still-dazed Si Yi, and smiled through his panting. “The risk was too high. If I’d said it, I’d have been the first to veto it myself.”
“I wouldn’t have agreed to let you do it either.”
Yu Huaiting couldn’t help checking Fu Songcheng all over for injuries. When Fu Songcheng had reached for Si Yi, his heart had nearly leaped out of his chest.
But this was his decision.
Yu Huaiting would unconditionally support Fu Songcheng’s every decision, because he believed Fu Songcheng would win.
The rescued Si Yi looked at the sky. Blue Star’s sky wasn’t perfect—even a little gray.
But he felt it was the most beautiful scenery he’d seen in his entire life.
…
A month later.
Blue Star Provisional Joint Command Center.
What had once been an international conference room was now filled with holographic projection screens densely flashing post-disaster reconstruction data gathered from around the globe. Every red negative number was like a knife sawing at everyone’s nerves.
“No! Absolutely not!”
Chen Ke slammed the table. “How can sixty thousand Source Star captives live alongside humans?”
The several provisional members seated across the long table exchanged glances. One of them, a bespectacled supply official, wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and said quietly, “If we cut off their supplies and let them starve in the shelters, would we face retaliation?”
“We can’t just release them either!”
Chen Ke frowned. “Keep them locked up together for now, give them some instant noodles and other fast food. Living among humans is too dangerous—if these people could reconnect with Source Star, they wouldn’t treat us as humans.”
Everyone had no solution for these captives and could only maintain the status quo.
Fu Songcheng and Yu Huaiting sat beside Chen Ke. Fu Songcheng casually twirled a tactical pen in his hand.
He was thinking—now that he was back on Blue Star, with the global population drastically reduced, he didn’t need to be a beast of burden anymore. So why was he still attending this crappy meeting?
Was this job absolutely mandatory?
What to eat after work?
Yu Huaiting had said he wanted to show off his cooking skills.
Their neighborhood should have a fire extinguisher, right…
“Mr. Fu, what do you think?”
Seeing Fu Songcheng spacing out, Chen Ke deliberately called on him. In the instance, Fu Songcheng had been the client and Chen Ke had to humor him; outside the instance, Chen Ke wanted revenge for Fu Songcheng and Yu Huaiting’s “cold violence” of replying only “Received” to him.
The wheel of fortune turns.
Fu Songcheng stopped the pen in his hand. The metal tip tapped lightly on the table, producing a crisp sound.
“Labor reform, I suppose.”
Fu Songcheng lifted his eyes to the red zone specially circled on the holographic projection—the temporary prison converted for holding Source Star captives. “Use them as free labor.”
Raising the banner of capitalism high, with utter matter-of-factness.
Chen Ke approved of Fu Songcheng’s decision too, but fearing it might make him seem too cold, he was about to put on a show of reluctance when something changed abruptly.
“Fu Songcheng!”
Yu Huaiting’s reaction was extremely fast. Almost the instant the light lit up, he lunged over, both hands like iron clamps grabbing at Fu Songcheng’s shoulders.
Yet he grabbed empty air.
Fu Songcheng vanished into thin air before everyone’s eyes.
Leaving only a pen still rolling slightly on the tabletop.
Clatter.
The pen fell to the floor.
What followed was Yu Huaiting’s national essence curse.
“You sons of—Source Star!!”
“The captives?” Yu Huaiting had lost his mind, killing intent radiating thickly from him. “I’ll kill them one by one and see if they give Fu Songcheng back!”
Just as Yu Huaiting was about to charge out of the conference room and go on a killing spree at the temporary prison, Chen Ke clamped dead onto his leg.
“Calm down! Before Mr. Fu left, there was no sign of an attack—this probably isn’t aimed at killing.”
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