Chapter 36: Salted Fish Lying Flat, Day Thirty-Six

Lu Yuan posed a question. But it was clearly one that no one could answer for him.

Siming shrugged. “I can only guarantee that I won’t proactively say anything. But if someone actually guesses that the person who helped us leave the Desolate Planet was you, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“…Please, make sure you all discuss this thoroughly together,” Lu Yuan requested. “Come up with a better lie.”

He looked at Goudan. “You help them too. You’ve watched so many TV dramas; maybe you’ll have some unexpected ideas.”

“…” Siming fell silent in agony, looking up at the sky with a long sigh. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

To the side, Old Fourth let out a chuckle.

Goudan shouted, “How is it not necessary! Come on, let your big brother make one up for you! I’m an expert at this!”

Siming groaned. “Thank you, but no thanks. Really, no thanks.”

-God only knew what kind of ridiculous nonsense Goudan would cook up with his warped logic!

–

The first mecha was successfully built, and from there, everything else followed naturally.

Everyone was busy making arrangements before leaving the Desolate Planet: determining who would leave, finishing tasks that had to be completed on the planet, and handling some necessary communication.

There were primarily only three people leaving: Siming, Zhu Rong, and Geshu Qing.

Initially, Siming wanted to take Lao Tong with them. But in the end, he gave up on the idea.

As Zhu Rong grew older, combined with Lao Tong’s constant guidance, she wasn’t actually that dependent on her anymore. Zhu Rong could accept being separated from Lao Tong.

Furthermore, Siming truly had tasks that required Lao Tong’s help.

Siming had once belonged to an organization. Although it was currently disbanded, he hadn’t completely washed his hands of it; he still maintained a certain level of contact with his former members.

Now that they had found a way to leave the Desolate Planet, Siming needed to notify his subordinates of this development.

At the same time, he wanted to arrange for them to do other things, such as observing the frequency and periodicity of the Garbage Ships appearing in various regions, or investigating whether the “criminals” exiled to the Desolate Planet in recent years were truly guilty and if they needed help…

Siming sincerely wanted to make the Desolate Planet a better place.

So, even though he had been preoccupied with the mecha lately, he still kept these matters concerning the planet in mind.

However, the connection between Siming and his organization members was not close. They couldn’t communicate with each other directly; Siming could only track the locations of the others.

-It was through this connection that Siming had originally found Lao Tong and Zhu Rong, which eventually led him to Lu Yuan.

Lu Yuan was very familiar with the tracking device they used. In fact, it was a simplified version of a military tracking device from a long time ago. Obviously, the method for making such a thing had been taught to Siming by Zhu Rong’s biological mother.

The tracking device consisted of two parts. The sub-units were embedded within the human body, powered by bioelectricity and emitting a signal. The master unit was the signal receiver, which Siming held.

Siming proudly told Lu Yuan that they had spent a long time searching for a frequency band that could transmit signals over long distances without interference.

Lu Yuan offered his praise. The Desolate Planet was a world with a very peculiar atmospheric composition; finding a stable communication frequency in such a place was indeed no easy feat.

However, this simplified tracking device was truly very basic. All it could do was alert Siming that “one of our own is nearby” when he walked within signal range.

This meant that currently, Siming had no way to quickly spread the news that he had found a way out and was about to leave the planet.

He had to arrange for someone to travel across the Desolate Planet on his behalf to find the organization members scattered in every corner.

Siming had agonized over the choice of this person for a while.

He had originally wanted to take Lao Tong with him. But she was the only one around who was useful, trustworthy, and had enough self-preservation ability to undertake long-distance travel on the Desolate Planet.

Goudan could have managed in a pinch. But Goudan had his own things to do, and Siming didn’t want to trouble him.

So in the end, Siming arranged for Lao Tong to handle the task.

Old Fourth had volunteered to help. He had heard Siming mention that there were people in the organization who had been exiled to the Desolate Planet with him. He very much wanted to see his former colleagues.

However…

“You’re an old man with old bones, why are you trying to join the fun? Wait until Lao Tong finds them, then you can go see them, or have her bring them to you. Either way is fine.”

-Those were Siming’s exact words.

The one who had to complete certain tasks before leaving the Desolate Planet was Geshu Qing.

He wanted to leave the planet with them.

In fact, even if he didn’t want to, Siming hoped to take him along.

Lu Yuan said Geshu Qing came from a great family, and Siming trusted Lu Yuan’s judgment. Under the circumstances, having Geshu Qing with them would make their actions much more convenient.

To ensure a smooth departure, once he knew the mecha was being built and the day of departure was approaching, Geshu Qing modified his plan. He hoped to complete his organization of the Desolate Planet’s memories before everything was ready.

After all, these memories and the secrets they contained belonged to the Desolate Planet. It was necessary for them to be studied on the planet by someone from the planet.

As for the so-called necessary communication…

It referred to the analysis and discussion Goudan and Siming conducted regarding Lu Yuan.

In fact, the two of them had been doing this all along.

They had been gradually gathering new information through indirect questioning of Old Fourth, the Captain and his crew, TV dramas, and even Lu Yuan himself. Then they pieced it together, trying to gain a deeper understanding of who Lu Yuan was.

Regarding this, Lu Yuan himself…

Was aware.

It was impossible for Lu Yuan not to see what they were doing. However, after observing them for a while, he felt that their actions didn’t affect him, so he tacitly allowed it.

As for what conclusions the two of them had reached-

Well, there would be time to talk about that later.

Mainly, they hadn’t actually reached any significant conclusions.

There were many hypotheses, but none could be verified.

They had tried asking Lu Yuan himself, but every time, Lu Yuan displayed a clear “lying flat” attitude: “Don’t understand, don’t know, makes no sense at all.”

So, after several months, the greatest progress in this endeavor was perhaps Goudan successfully securing a communicator from Lu Yuan that allowed him to contact Siming privately.

The communicator’s functions were simple; it could only send text, and the records had to be cleared and the device shut down after use. It couldn’t stay connected to the network for long periods.

But regardless, the thing was very useful.

Something was better than nothing.

–

In short, the entire winter passed peacefully and busily, with everything remaining calm.

By the time winter was nearly over, everything was ready.

However, Siming and the others were in no hurry to leave.

They were still waiting.

They weren’t just waiting for the weather to improve; they were waiting for something else-

The Garbage Ship.

As usual, during the long six months of winter, no Garbage Ship appeared.

This seemed like good news.

If another starship appeared, it might mean that the news of them shooting down a Garbage Ship had been exposed, which could lead to more trouble later.

On the other hand, the fact that the Garbage Ship’s appearance was so consistently periodic also verified one of their hypotheses-

Regarding the purpose of the Garbage Ship’s existence.

When Geshu Qing spoke about the periodic changes in the Desolate Planet’s level of “liveliness,” everyone had suspicions about the relationship between that and the Garbage Ships.

The Garbage Ship that Lu Yuan had shot down was supposed to orbit the Desolate Planet for three months after its arrival, dropping “garbage” at seventeen locations.

Geshu Qing stated that in the place where he had been previously, there would be a three-month period of fluctuation following a three-month period of calm. During those three months, the planet’s activity would gradually increase and then suddenly weaken, repeating seventeen times.

After the Garbage Ship was shot down, the “activity” in Geshu Qing’s location showed a marked increase, to the point where the Desolate Planet was even able to transmit a portion of its memories to him.

Such a clear correspondence made it hard not to draw certain connections: perhaps the Garbage Ship dropping specific items at certain locations caused the activity of the Desolate Planet at a corresponding location to decrease or be masked. And when the Garbage Ship failed to drop its cargo, the Desolate Planet’s activity would manifest more strongly.

But this line of reasoning still faced some problems.

First, what kind of correspondence existed between the locations where garbage was dropped and the locations affected by it?

The seventeen locations the Garbage Ship shot down by Lu Yuan passed over spanned a massive distance, covering almost the entire planet. What was the connection between these seventeen points? Why did they all affect the single location where Geshu Qing had been? Did they affect other places as well?

Second, what exactly was it that influenced the Desolate Planet’s activity?

Third, what exactly was the concept of the Desolate Planet being “alive”? If the planet was a single entity, why did Geshu Qing perceive different levels of “aliveness” in different locations?

Fourth, who exactly was arranging these Garbage Ships? What was their purpose?

The answers to these last three questions were difficult to find while remaining on the Desolate Planet.

The second and third questions had always haunted Geshu Qing, which was why he had always hoped to leave the planet and see other worlds.

He desperately wanted to know if other planets were also “alive.”

The fourth question was one Siming was very eager to answer.

As for the first, it would likely require a long period of statistical research before any conclusion could be reached. This was one of the matters Siming had asked Lao Tong to help communicate.

However, they weren’t waiting for the Garbage Ship now to study these problems. They were waiting to see if Lu Yuan’s preparations could deceive the vessel.

At the very beginning, Lu Yuan had already planned out the two steps necessary to cover up the fact that he had shot down a Starship.

He had to forge the illusion of a Starship crash and forge the illusion that this entire sector had already been destroyed.

Simply put, he threw the Starship into a specific location, set it on fire, and modified its Black Box¹. Then, he installed an interference device to prevent any new Garbage Ship from detecting signs of life here.

Shortly after Goudan and the others returned, Lu Yuan completed these two tasks.

Lu Yuan believed his arrangement was foolproof. Siming, however, was still a bit worried. He was a responsible man, so he insisted on staying behind to see the result.

If Lu Yuan’s arrangements failed to achieve the desired effect, he would need to adjust the plan and redo the cleanup work.

“Fine, sure, whatever you want,” Lu Yuan said.

And so, Siming and the others had remained until now.

–

When the new Garbage Ship arrived, Lu Yuan was looking through the memories of the Desolate Planet that Geshu Qing had organized.

The youth had indeed read many books. His vocabulary was extensive, and while his prose was plain, it was very accurate. Lu Yuan could easily understand the content.

This left him very satisfied with Geshu Qing.

The passage he was currently reading was a description of a visual image.

(A blurry image:

On the periphery of a massive sphere, many tiny black dots move incessantly around the globe. Wherever they pass, they leave behind translucent, thread-like traces. These threads wrap around the sphere layer by layer, making the surface appear nearly white.

In some places on the sphere, the white color gradually fades, but new threads are quickly replenished, making the color darken again.

The footage is only a short clip, making it impossible to see exactly how many black dots there are, or where they appear and disappear. But their numbers are vast.

Note:

I believe this is somewhat similar to the situation between the Desolate Planet and those Garbage Ships. The sphere is the Desolate Planet, and the black dots are the Garbage Ships. The threads are composed of the things the Garbage Ships drop.

This might be how the Desolate Planet perceives its own situation: things constantly coming to wrap it up. Only at the locations and moments where the threads thin out does the vitality of the Desolate Planet manifest through the layers of restraint. This is when I feel the planet’s activity increase. When the threads are replenished, the planet’s activity weakens again.

(Speculation, pending verification))

Translator’s Notes