After the Polaris Staff Orbital Station docked, Chu Yu explained its one-of-a-kind tricks to Yekase.

With the Star Staff’s laser pinning a target like a needle through silk, the Origin Dragon Palace would launch as a ship. Once it touched any solid world, it would release Spiral Force. The whole landing pod would turn into a wear-proof drill, biting into stone to anchor and sip soil samples from the dark below.

With gravity slingshots, the farthest shot so far was Jupiter. But that storm-bruised giant was a furnace and a grave. One lone research ship there was a drop on a desert rock, waiting on a grand wave of off-world pioneers—who knew when. Better to aim for the asteroid belt and roll the dice.

Not Mars—it sits too close to Earth, a lantern in the courtyard. Any movement would draw the Sinister Organization like moths.

The belt holds the famed Ceres. You could haul glacier springwater like moonlit ice, hype it back home, and sell to those lunar beef fanatics. A river of profit would surely flow.

Chu Yu also shared a spacefaring urban legend. Sector 59, besides the Lunar Star Gate, supposedly has two more gates being built: one to a black-hole shell city called “Land’s End,” and another that touches the lingering shadow inside the Cosmic Bubble, from a planet “Nibiru” that lived in the ancient Solar System.

Another rumor says Nibiru never shattered. It was hollowed by passing aliens, turned into a colonial bridgehead. It evaded detection by wearing a coat of nano gold grains that block EM waves. That tale died when Voyager rushed past the belt—what, aliens would also paint on optical camo? They’d plan like winter generals, then never march? It made no sense.

Starlight washed over the three of them. One spoke with a straight face, two listened like it was campfire lore. The mood felt like incense smoke and cool wine.

Chu Yu finished with Voyager’s far expedition, then the story hour went quiet. Low Earth orbit fell back into hush.

For a long while, no one said a word.

Yekase and Ivaris sat shoulder to shoulder on Polaris Staff. Heat travels poorly in the void, yet they felt each other’s warmth like two coals under frost.

So even a 46.5-billion-light-year dark sea couldn’t press them down.

Ivaris tilted her head, eyes half-closed, smiling like a cat basking. “Space is vast, but there’s always a home… To honor this grand scene, how about a smooch?”

“If you’re gonna kiss, just kiss. No need to ask me.”

“Great line, adds points. But I want to hear you say ‘okay.’”

“You’ve got a lot of demands.”

“Say it.”

“Okay.”

Under starlight flung from the distant past, four soft lips met, gentle as petals joining in a breeze.

……

[So, when do you plan to head up to the Moon?] Chu Yu asked at last.

Yekase answered with easy calm. “We’ll go to the lunar front. We’ll check those rumors. But… not now.”

She gazed at Earth under her feet. The daylight had slid away. Night-side continents lit up with a crafted starfield—rivers of light, branching like leaves, flowing like watercourses.

Ivaris sounded a touch vexed. “Why? I’m itching to go. Horizon views are one thing, being there is a thunderclap.”

“Think about it. We go now, fine, we settle at the front base. Then what? We’re sealed in there with Luzhixing. Earth–Moon traffic shut, intel strangled. We’d need to route through Sector 59. That’s a swamp of trouble.”

“Ugh. Fair point.”

Ivaris shook her head, regret fluttering like a falling feather.

“And we’ve got that two-year thing to handle. If I’m not on the Ambition Divine Ship, I’m uneasy,” Yekase added.

“What thing?”

A big project? Arcadia Engineering Academy’s fortunes are rising. Flash Energy papers are popping up worldwide. Infinite Power studies hit their best peak in a decade. Yekase would surely dive in—

Unexpectedly, Yekase blushed, words tripping over themselves. “You know, that thing… the thing I said when we launched…”

……

“Ah!”

Ivaris—usually famed for a skin thick as fortress walls and for playing Yekase like a lute—went pink too. “I—I just followed the ‘daughter’ topic… and tossed a line…”

“Oh, tossed a line, huh…”

They sat crosswise on Polaris Staff, turning away at the same time, not daring to meet eyes.

Watching them, Chu Yu felt a touch like a mismatched note in a quiet song.

Ibu soothed her in a soft voice. [No need to envy them, Master. Say the word, and I’ll generate a fresh mind-backup and train her as our daughter.]

[A virtual daughter?!] Chu Yu half-laughed, half-sighed. [You two, I’m staying to run tests. No one enters the station until I’m sure it’s clean. Do as you please.]

“So we solve the problem, and you shoo us out?”

Yekase slid off the shy ledge and started to haggle. “Such a massive favor—got anything for me?”

[What do you want?]

“Give us half the line to build cardboard ships.”

[I planned on it. Tweak a bit, polish UX and MOD compatibility. It’ll spread like wildfire!]

“Good. Send the proposal on time…”

Yekase traced half a recall sigil in the air. Her mouth quirked, then she tipped backward.

Gravity caught her like a fisherman’s net. She fell on her back, dropping toward Earth like a starlet fish.

“Hey, where are you going now?!”

“—Nowhere. I’m going home!”

……

……

On the deck of the Ambition Divine Ship.

The Goddess of Victory had vanished from her pedestal. In the nursery beds grew one row of chilies, one row of scallions.

XiaoLei cradled Rice Rice and stepped out, waving a cat-teaser wand like a reed over water.

Rice Rice, an actual alien, had a mind-copy from Yekase in that small head. A toy like a teaser wand shouldn’t even twitch her interest…

“Play. Why aren’t you playing?” XiaoLei frowned.

“...meow.”

Seeing XiaoLei’s bare arm, the muscles like braided rope under skin, Rice Rice made a clumsy human-imitation meow. She pounced at the dangling cloth mouse.

Liu RuoYuan stuck her head out of the kitchen window. “Mom, I’ve got two veggie dishes left. Call YiYi and Bailu, tell them it’s almost time.”

“Oh!” XiaoLei pulled out the smart phone she still hadn’t tamed. “...By the way, Bailu lives alone in a rental, right? Why not ask her to move in?”

“I asked. She said she’d feel bad. I don’t get what’s ‘bad’ about it.” Liu RuoYuan pursed her lips and ducked back in.

After Labyrinth City’s artisans installed the super-sized portal upgrade for the Ambition Divine Ship, Ling Yi now jumps in from Europe after class every day to mooch dinner, saving her meal money like a squirrel. Jiang Bailu says she rents a place, but she actually lives in Yekase’s faculty apartment, covering lectures and running the lab while Yekase vacations. She really has become a teacher, so moving in isn’t odd.

Speaking of Jiang Bailu, twenty-three like Liu RuoYuan, she’s a puzzle. She was the first to chase Yekase, bold enough that anyone else would’ve called the cops. After rejection, you’d expect her to cling like ivy. Instead, she cut clean, self-disciplined to a worrying degree.

Yekase and Ivaris are already together. So what are Ling Yi and Jiang Bailu in this house? There’s no rom-com “stock market,” not even real “competition.” Watch how Yekase treats Ivaris and you realize the track never existed.

Unlike Lu Yao—truly just a comrade and tenant—the two of them slowly digested their affection into something half-like, half-not, and still chose to stay.

...They’ll get used to it, eventually. A family of seven is a forest that grows its own paths.

Liu RuoYuan finished the parts that needed a watchful eye. She set the lid on to simmer, wiped her hands on her apron, and went upstairs to call Lu Yao.

“Dinner’s ready—”

She tapped the door. It hadn’t latched; it swung open with a soft push.

The room, as always, was unlit. The computer screen threw a pale glow like a lake at dusk, enough to see shapes.

The whole wall behind the desk was covered in velvet boards, crowded with photos, pins, and crisscrossing strings. It was her “mind map,” styled after a certain Kamen Rider. Like that bunk bed, she hid pockets of boyishness under steel.

Since Europe, Lu Yao hadn’t used the vampire’s regeneration to grow hands. She kept the silver-black mechanical arms, saying they could detach and fly off to work—handy as swallows on command.

She’d paused the bombing runs on Yekase’s advice. Instead, she went to ground, gathering everything about the Official Hero Association, so one day she could take the Huaxia Branch in a single stroke.

Usually, she’d stand before the velvet board, sorting photos and notes. When Liu RuoYuan called dinner, she’d answer politely, then come down. Aside from ageless bundle-of-sunshine Ling Yi, she was the most normal person in Yekase’s circle.

But Lu Yao wasn’t at the board now. She wasn’t in the chair either… Where did she go?

The window was shut. Besides, she hates climbing through windows.

Liu RuoYuan stilled, held her breath, and listened to the room like a hunter in reeds…

…There.

Breathing. Muffled, but there.

Under the covers? But the bunk below was neat as a drill yard—no one sleeping there.

…Which leaves one place.

The upper bunk on the “double children’s bed.”

Lu Yao usually curls up on the lower bunk. Most single sleepers stash stuff on the second level. Not Lu Yao. The top mattress is made up, sheets and duvet perfect, as if someone actually shared the room.

From Yekase’s scraps, Liu RuoYuan pieced together that Lu Yao likely has an older sister. They were tight once, then split hard, even to hate. It’s eased, but not back to normal.

She made a second bed for a sister who wouldn’t be here. Yet now she’d climbed into the “sister’s” upper bunk, hiding under the covers.

Liu RuoYuan stepped in, and caught a faint scent of hormones, like rain warmed by stone.

Then came a soft rustle.

“...Sis, mm, sister, ...”

…Hmm?

Liu RuoYuan understood at once. She backed out as if rewinding film, and closed the door with a gentle click.