Dimensional Hotel-Chapter 670 - 669: The Fish Is Hooked
Two deep space probes detached from the shuttle's cargo bay, the "Star Marker" engine released force field fluctuations in the vacuum that cannot be observed by conventional means. In an instant, they disappeared from their original location, and the next second, they had already crossed this vast expanse of stellar debris, jumping into the glowing excitation gas cloud on the edge of the Morona Fault.
The probes will continue to traverse gravitational faults, and find a relatively safe "route" within.
Within the gravity rift spanning several light years, there could be hundreds or even thousands of such invisible routes, but not all "channels" are stable enough to allow a spacecraft to pass through. Some were only a few meters wide, others maintained stability for mere seconds—according to the information Old Qiao had given, the meeting point with the Hidden Monastery contact was located within a Gravity Collapse Point in the Morona Fault, with several stable rifts allowing passage through the gravitational fault safely to reach the collapse point.
Luo gently squinted her eyes, as the distant starlight shone upon her she slowly "released" her consciousness.
The two deep space probes were directly linked to her thoughts, the data from the sensors was precise and cold, the whispers of the stars and deep space became numerous characters and charts flickering in her mind. This information was quickly processed by her electronic brain and then output into coordinates recognizable by the navigational computer.
...But it wasn't always like this.
She once could directly listen to the "voices" of the stars, not precise, cold data, but like the gentle sound of the wind or the pleasing crystal resonance. At that time, the entire universe whispered to her, the stars would tell the stories they witnessed and remembered as they slowly twinkled—she remembers staring at the sky in her hometown's old observatory, laying between the huge lens arrays to sleep when tired, being lulled to sleep by the starlight, with every dream gentle and kind.
Back then, she thought she would become a Star Scholar, or serve as a Star Reader navigator on some long-range ship—just like most of the talented Algredians, traveling to one distant place after another under the guidance of the stars.
A slight stinging pain came from near her spine, jolting Luo awake from her blurry memories, the electronic brain completed the processing of the probe data, her gaze landed on the console's holographic projection.
A large face appeared on the panel near the porthole: "How's the situation? Any discoveries?"
Luo jumped slightly in her seat: "…Boss, you always do this, it's going to scare someone to death! I'm telling you, you can't do this..."
Actually, she wasn't really scared, at least not that much.
"Alright then, I'll knock next time," Yu Sheng's face slowly transferred to the porthole opposite the driver's seat, "Did you find that collapse point or whatever?"
"…It's the Gravity Collapse Point," Luo released a sigh belonging to late-stage sapien, but her mouth slowly curved up, "The probe scanned a safe rift leading deep into the Morona Fault, matching the navigational information recorded by the shuttle. Inside should be the 'meeting point' according to Old Qiao, but I haven't detected anything else near the collapse point for now... the Hidden Monastery likely hasn't set any long-term spatial facilities here, nor does it seem like anyone's tailing."
"Looks like Old Qiao didn't lie about this matter," Yu Sheng mused thoughtfully, "Alright then, once the situation at the collapse point is confirmed, come back quickly, wouldn't want an idle Hidden Monastery contact to wander over and expose you—it's time for the next step."
"Understood," Luo said as she swiftly input a few commands on the control console, "I'll retrieve the probes first."
… 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞
At the same time, high orbit of Shuji, inside the "Deep Rock Fortress".
In the communication room housing large communication equipment, several temporary devices connected to the communication instrument were buzzing, technicians dressed in research uniforms were adjusting device parameters. A tall and burly iron body was "standing" on the platform in front of the communication equipment.
This iron shell's appearance was Old Qiao—but it only had an upper body, while the lower half was fixed onto an engineering trolley equipped with wheels, a multitude of cables extended from the back of the iron body, connecting to the trolley's server interface.
"Last time, test movement flexibility and speech synthesizer."
A technician holding a data terminal stood beside the platform and spoke.
The base of the engineering trolley lit up with many flickering lights on both sides, a deep hum emanated from the iron shell of "Old Qiao", then its arms began moving, the upper body performed smooth actions, reaching forward to support the communication platform railing, issuing a hoarse and frightening sound: "Testing, testing, 111111..."
Momo, who was standing not far away debugging device, instinctively trembled, her ears instantly pressed tightly against her head, the fluff on her tail went bristling.
But suddenly a hand reached over, pressing her head, followed by a peppermint stick being handed to her.
Momo looked up and saw Yu Sheng smiling watching her.
"Th-thank you, boss..." The Jipulo girl said with some nervousness, but as she accepted the peppermint stick, she relaxed slightly, her tail no longer tense.
"You assembled this iron shell with your own hands, still afraid?" Yu Sheng curiously asked.
"When it's not moving, it's alright," Momo's ears slowly returned to stand erect, she muttered while biting on the peppermint stick, "Suddenly moving and then speaking, that's a bit scary."
Yu Sheng didn't speak, just reached out to press her head again—that's something he learned from Lingdang, it's said to quickly relieve the tension of Jipulo people, though the prerequisite is having a good enough relationship, doing this with someone not close would earn hissing and scratching.
Then came the low sounds of subdued growling from the side.
Yu Sheng turned his head and saw Hu Li standing nearby, her eyes fixed on his hand, with her tail puffed up like a Sword Tomb.
In the moment he was stunned, the fox girl quickly leaned over and nudged her head forward.
"Savior, pet me."
Yu Sheng: "..."
He held back a smile for a long time before finally patting the fox girl a few times on her head and scratched the fur behind her ears, which contentedly made her squint her eyes.
Erin was sitting on a machine not far away, glancing between Yu Sheng and Hu Li, then whispered to Luna nearby, "It's no wonder people say raising cats and dogs together is easy chaos, this silly fox doesn't have much ambition…"
Luna silently glanced at the little puppet, then after a while slowly spoke, "You're sitting, on the exhaust vent, again."
Erin: "...Wow!"
Yu Sheng didn't know why Erin suddenly jumped off the machine and started running around, but he was used to her occasional neurotic behavior. After Erin had made her third lap, he casually picked her up and tossed her into Hu Li's arms. Before long, Luo returned from the reconnaissance.
Even with the fastest shuttle and a direct route through the Star Gate, returning from the Dark Meteor Domain to the High Orbit of Shuji shouldn't have been that quick. But her shuttle had been "modified" by Yu Sheng, and like the Otherworld Inn, getting back was just a matter of opening a door — the only delay was in retrieving probes.
"...No matter how many times I see it, this face is still disgusting."
Luo leaned against the wall as he entered the room, crossing her arms as she looked at the "Old Qiao" cobbled together from machine shells and an engineering cart, frowning tightly.
Yu Sheng waved his hand: "But now you've fried his brain, taken over his base, and messed with his business. You can even use his corpse to fool those Hidden Monastery cultists — thinking about it that way, doesn't it feel a bit better?"
Luo raised an eyebrow: "Now that you mention it, I do feel quite satisfied."
Then she thought for a moment before asking: "How's the 'support work' with that ironclad face going?"
"The Special Service Bureau released the information a couple of days ago," Yu Sheng nodded, "She's prepared several versions of the narrative, but the core part is the mysterious whereabouts of some debris after the World Bridge collapsed. They believe it may have been smuggled out of the territory — the Special Service Bureau has even staged a big show of searching and capturing people everywhere."
Luo frowned slightly: "She does this so effortlessly… I feel like it's not the first time she's done something like this."
Yu Sheng neither confirmed nor denied and glanced at the communications equipment in the room and the various strange devices installed around.
"Is this setup reliable?"
"Trust my skills," Luo confidently said, crossing her arms, "I once smuggled a set of Star Port components right under that ironclad face's nose using this kind of protocol — this gear can mask outbound communication signals as the illegal broadcasts that are everywhere in the Dark Meteor Domain; it can also simulate the encrypted channels Old Qiao used. Don't worry, I've cracked the data on that part, it won't be detected."
Looking at the second-hand scientist's confident demeanor, Yu Sheng nodded slightly and chose not to say more.
At this moment, Momo came over: "Boss, the equipment is ready."
Yu Sheng and Luo instinctively exchanged a glance, then both nodded lightly.
"Everyone, please leave the communication platform and move behind the marked line," Luo said quickly while heading toward a control terminal, "Momo, activate the sound field shielding and jammers and transfer the control of 'Old Qiao' to operation console number two."
"Okay!"
The technical staff in the room quickly moved to designated positions, the lights on both sides of the communication equipment dimmed, and a mechanical limb behind Luo clicked into place at her control console. Meanwhile, at the communications platform, the "Old Qiao" made from recycled robot shells seemed to suddenly come alive, turning to face the holographic display in the center of the room.
"Calling in progress, deploying camouflage code… Signal simulation successful, Dark Meteor Domain superluminal communication array response, ports ES-17, ES-266, ES-105…"
"Listening antenna is receiving feedback, streaming to analysis server."
"Remote signal is enhancing."
"The fish took the bait!"
