Chapter 28: Twenty-eighth Day of Being a Salted Fish

The wind was biting.

In this kind of weather, no one was willing to leave their home.

As expected, the streets were deserted.

As Goudan and his group walked along the road, the only sound in their ears was the howling of the gale, and the only thing before their eyes was the pale, lonely snow.

When Goudan watched television dramas, he had seen characters use terms like goose feathers or willow catkins¹ to describe snow. He had seen scenes where the snow drifted down in a dreamy, ethereal dance.

But that was not the snow of the Desolate Planet.

That was too soft. On the Desolate Planet, even something as light as a snowflake could never be described with such gentle words.

The wind drove it. The wind blowing from the ice plains of the far north carried an invincible momentum and the dark frost of the land of eternal night. It swept across more than half the continent to reach this place, turning the filling snow into blades of pale white.

Fortunately, Lu Yuan’s Mental Power acted as a protective barrier around them.

Goudan looked back toward the distance, glancing at the Starship parked in the junkyard.

In just a few short minutes, the Starship had already been buried by the snow. A thick layer of white covered its steel hull, blending it into the surroundings until it was almost invisible.

“This scene feels a bit familiar,” Goudan suddenly chuckled twice, feeling sentimental. “It’s a bit like when I first met you. Looking at it now, this image is actually quite artistic.”

“…”

Amidst the sound of the wind, there was no reply in his ear.

Goudan didn’t mind. He knew Lu Yuan could hear him.

–

Lu Yuan did indeed hear him. He was simply too lazy to waste Mental Power on nonsense with Goudan.

He had done quite a lot of work these past few days, and the physical energy he had saved up over the last year had been completely spent. In fact, over the last two days, he hadn’t even bothered to play games or read novels. He spent every day lying on the sofa, staring at the ceiling and rotting away.

Hearing Goudan’s obvious teasing, he only mumbled listlessly.

“When I fell, it wasn’t nearly this peaceful.”

–

When Lu Yuan’s Command Ship crashed onto the Desolate Planet, it wasn’t actually snowing nearby.

But in a sense, Goudan wasn’t wrong to say the scene back then was similar to the image before his eyes now.

Although it hadn’t been snowing, Lu Yuan’s Command Ship had slammed heavily into the ground, kicking up the thick accumulation of snow which then fell back down. It really was no different from a fresh snowfall.

The weather in this region was very rhythmic. Every year at the start of winter, it would snow heavily for three or four consecutive days, followed by about half a month of clear skies. During that time, the weather would moderate slightly, returning to a temperature range more suitable for survival.

At such times, the nearby residents would usually head into the mountains to gather firewood for winter heating.

Lu Yuan had fallen onto the Desolate Planet during one of these periods.

It was the third day after the first heavy snowfall of early winter.

Like a sun falling from the sky, the burning Command Ship streaked across the firmament. Everyone instinctively looked up, only to be forced to close their eyes by the piercing glare of the flames.

Then the flames gradually died out, and the out-of-control Starship plummeted straight down, smashing into the earth with a thunderous boom. The flying snow momentarily blotted out the sun.

At that time, Goudan was leading his subordinates to “supervise” everyone gathering wood.

Yes, “supervise.”

Before Lu Yuan arrived, Goudan was the manager of this place. Or rather, the boss, the leader… the village bully.

As the strongest man for miles around, under the law of the jungle, he didn’t need to work himself, nor was it possible he would. He only needed to watch others work.

Anyone who couldn’t beat him was his slave or laborer. His daily job consisted of patrolling with a club; anyone who didn’t put enough effort into their work would receive a brutal beating from him.

Under these circumstances, after Lu Yuan’s Starship hit the ground and people’s vision cleared, the first thing they heard was Goudan’s roar: “Don’t any of you slack off! Keep working!”

No one dared to complain, even if they hadn’t been slacking off on purpose.

Meanwhile, the same Goudan who was shouting at others not to slack off had already tossed his club aside and was sprinting toward the crash site.

He didn’t allow anyone else to follow. He had it figured out: if whatever fell was some kind of treasure, he was going to keep it for himself.

The naive frog at the bottom of the well never considered that what fell might not be a treasure, but something lethal.

The place where Lu Yuan landed wasn’t too far from Goudan. It was about a few kilometers away. With Goudan’s physical fitness, he reached it in about ten minutes.

Thus, he saw the sky full of flying snow, and the shattered Starship at the center of it all.

The Starship had already disintegrated mid-air. Because the various components had different densities and shapes, they took different amounts of time to hit the ground. The main body landed first, of course, but the parts that fell successively afterward kept blasting up the snow, creating a small-scale storm.

No one knew what Lu Yuan had experienced on the way from the battlefield to this place, but the riddled hull of the Starship indicated the journey had not been smooth. The fireproof and explosion-proof coating on the Starship’s surface had long since vanished, so the vessel had undergone almost uncontrollable, violent combustion as it passed through the atmosphere.

Fortunately, the weather was cold and the ground was covered in snow. The heat was rapidly dissipated, preventing the sparse trees from being ignited into a forest fire.

But after the burning, the once-massive Command Ship had turned into a charred, ugly mass. It lay huddled in the valley like a dead lone goose, rapidly being buried by falling chunks of snow.

Goudan was nearly stunned. At that time, his impoverished brain didn’t have many words to describe the scene before him or the emotions in his heart.

He stared blankly ahead. The Starship was constantly being covered by snow, yet it constantly released heat that melted the snow around it. The meltwater turned into a virtual river, snaking its way to his feet before slowly freezing into ice.

It took a long time for the surroundings to gradually fall silent.

Goudan slowly regained his senses. He walked forward along the ice river and climbed onto the edge of the Starship to look inside.

Inside the empty Starship, a single person sat quietly before the command console.

Some unknown power seemed to be protecting him. The crash, the burning, the snow and ice… nothing that happened around him had touched him. Long silver hair draped over his shoulders, and his white military uniform was neat and orderly. He sat upright, his expression calm.

He looked like an ice sculpture.

Goudan instinctively reached out, wanting to check if he was still breathing.

The person in front of him suddenly opened his eyes.

His dark gray eyes were filled with an indifference that was even more piercing than the surrounding wind. It made Goudan shudder, and he instinctively pulled his hand back.

…

–

As the images of the past flashed through his mind, for a fleeting moment, Goudan almost felt that bone-deep chill again.

However, when he pushed open the door to Lu Yuan’s little shop, the interior was filled with warmth. Lu Yuan was slumped on the sofa, surrounded by a huddle of people leaning this way and that. Siming, Zhu Rong, Old Fourth… many people were here keeping warm.

Goudan couldn’t help but smile again.

“You know,” he said nostalgically, “Lu Yuan, when you first landed, your style was really top-tier.”

Lu Yuan gave him a speechless look.

Goudan cheerfully greeted everyone and shouted for the people who had returned with him to find a place to sit. The small shop, which wasn’t large to begin with, now held over twenty people, and the room became crowded instantly.

Lu Yuan covered his face. “It’s cramped as hell!”

Siming laughed. “Close the door first, the cold wind is coming in.”

“Right!” Goudan responded. He turned and squeezed through the crowd, carefully avoiding everyone’s feet until he reached the door.

As he went to close the door, he froze.

A person was lying in the corner by the door.

“Who’s this?” Goudan asked in surprise. “I’ve only been gone a few days, how is there someone here I don’t recognize?”

Translator’s Notes