Gano's bone wings snapped open in an instant. It produced a crisp metallic sound like swords clashing, revealing their incredible hardness. Upon closer inspection, one could see transparent yet uneven veins, which resembled a beautiful piece of art.

Xi Yujin was momentarily lost in thought as he clearly realized just how vast the difference was between the Zerg and humans.

Under Xi Yujin's gaze, Gano's bone wings trembled involuntarily. The Zerg rarely used their bone wings for flight, nor did they use them to fight. Their wings were extremely sensitive, and they were almost never shown openly in front of others.

Gano belatedly realized his actions were somewhat out of line, but the bone wings were a crucial component for driving the armor; sharing the armor necessarily meant doing this. He stole a glance at Xi Yujin's expression, and his bone wings began flapping uncontrollably in the air again.

Gano had a strange thought: since Yujinno had already shown him the asteroid, showing off his own bone wings shouldn't be a problem.

After finishing his mental preparation, a small component from the back of the armor floated over and adhered to the bone wings like a magnet.

Then, the armor's gauntlets drifted toward Xi Yujin and reassembled on his hands within a few breaths. Moreover, his radiant appearance made the black armor look even more fierce and imposing.

Looking at the armor on his hands, Xi Yujin held his breath while his hair floated upward as if stirred by a breeze. His heart raced, and fireworks went off in his brain: he was wearing an interstellar mecha!

A few seconds later, the black gauntlets automatically detached due to genetic incompatibility and returned to Gano's side.

Xi Yujin's gaze followed the armor with lingering reluctance, then turned to Gano, his eyes seemingly brimming with a brilliant galaxy of stars. He asked earnestly, "Gano, can I touch it?"

Gano couldn't bring himself to refuse Xi Yujin like this. In fact, a nameless flutter of excitement rose within him, so he stretched his bone wings out a little further.

Xi Yujin excitedly leaned in to examine Gano's armor, admiring the patterns to his heart's content, and letting out occasional exclamations of praise.

Gano listened from the side, his bone wings slowly folding behind his back.

After a while, he spread his wings wide again, and the motion pushed the armor behind him to retreat slightly. Xi Yujin looked at him in confusion. Gano averted his gaze and said, "It's also a very important part of our Zerg armor…"

It?

Xi Yujin looked at the transparent bone wings, his curiosity equally piqued, and leaned over to touch them. The bone wings reacted violently, instantly hardening like iron and humming at high speed. Gano had no idea he would have this kind of reaction and forced them to stop. He wanted to apologize to Xi Yujin, but Xi Yujin didn't care at all; that level of hardness was nothing to him.

He simply tapped them a few more times with even greater curiosity. His fingertips met a cold surface and slightly ridged veins. This time, the bone wings only trembled once, because Gano was already exerting every effort to control them.

A strange, tingling numbness spread from wherever Yujin had touched, and the light, fleeting contact intensified a certain reaction. An overwhelming flood of incomprehensible information surged through his brain, threatening to overload it.

Meanwhile, Xi Yujin remained completely oblivious. His eyes intently traced the patterns on the bone wings, thoroughly satisfying his curiosity.

"So amazing… they’re very beautiful." He noticed Gano's reddened earlobes and asked with concern, "Did I hurt you?"

"Mm, no." Gano shook his head, as if trying to shake the strange sensation out of his mind. He slowly retracted his bone wings, but a lingering trace of the touch still remained on a certain spot, stimulating his brain into an imbalanced, feverish state.

Xi Yujin became even more worried. He reached out and touched his forehead, but instead of helping, it just made things worse.

Gano's mind was in a tangled mess that he could only bid a hasty goodbye as he hid in his room, waiting for the unfamiliar feeling to fully subside.

Half a day later, he washed his face, and his expression finally returned to normal. With a grave look, he searched the database built into his armor.

The Zerg's knowledge control was extremely strict, and the database even required genetic permissions. He searched through numerous keywords but found nothing, and he simply couldn’t understand why that tingling sensation made his whole body feel strange.

It wasn't until he queried a certain term that the database's answer changed:

"Your query falls within the scope of Archive: Reproduction, Heat Period.

Insufficient genetic permissions.

Access denied."

Gano froze in front of his armor.

After that, Gano dressed even more meticulously. He switched his inner layer to a tactical outfit that left almost no skin exposed. And yet, intentionally or not, he kept drifting closer to Xi Yujin.

He observed Xi Yujin's reactions and judged that this closeness hadn't caused any aversion, so he stayed by Xi Yujin's side with a clear conscience.

Xi Yujin, of course, sensed the change in Gano. Drawing on his somewhat hazy Earth common sense, this distance was a bit much for ordinary friends. As a result, they often had minor but frequent physical contact.

But this was the interstellar era, and Gano was an alien, so everything was perfectly normal. Occasionally, he would reflect on whether he was relying too much on Gano, but the thought lasted only a second or two.

Xi Yujin continued to cheerfully unpack his deliveries and unearthed a large batch of interstellar ingredients. Thinking about it, he realized that he hadn't cooked Earth-style food in a long time. Lately, he had been eating nothing but wriggling interstellar ingredients.

Theoretically, everything he ate would be instantly burned and broken down, so the food was essentially the same. Still, he missed dishes that appealed to his own aesthetic, so he eagerly began cooking.

Just then, the Navigator Colossus's staff came knocking again. They showed up almost every day, more punctual than clocking in for work.

"Our Black Market Paradise still has many goods awaiting your visit," the staff member promoted enthusiastically. "Besides the lower-class black market you love, our mid-level black market also has many eager sellers."

Xi Yujin knew that the mid-tier black market was full of things relating to the civilizational cores of other races, but he had no need to annex or enslave other civilizations. Buying such things would only leave them sitting in a warehouse, so why waste ship coins? It would be better to wait for other races to put new styles of lightsabers up for sale in the lower-tier black market.

He waved his hand dismissively, only asking the staff to keep an eye on the lower-tier black market.

"Of course, how could I forget that the Blue Planet civilization is so advanced? Why would it ever be interested in the remains of other civilizations?" The staff members departed, their enthusiastic smiles firmly in place.

The black market was an open secret on the Navigator Colossus. Passengers often chatted privately about the gossip circulating there.

News had already spread that Blue Planet had bought out the entire lower-tier black market, but hadn't touched any of the other tiers.

Some aliens believed it was because Blue Planet was simply too powerful to be interested in other civilizations' core data. While others quietly admired Blue Planet's peaceful nature, noting that it never coveted other races' civilizations.

The only place in the black market that Xi Yujin had never visited was the casino, which bore a striking resemblance to human casinos.

Gamblers lost their minds, went bankrupt, and were forced to mortgage their own race's core civilizational data to pay off debts. Advanced civilizations, in turn, exploited this to plunder information from other races, stockpiling it for the day another cosmic war broke out.

Blue Planet, however, had proven through its actions that even when data could be obtained with ease, it could still say no.

The aliens debated their views endlessly, but eventually reached a consensus: Blue Planet's strength gave it the confidence to treat others with peace.

Blue Planet's image was elevated another notch in the eyes of the creatures, naturally attracting many admirers.

As for the passengers on the ship, they were most familiar with the Blue Planet Official Novelists, and their admiration for Blue Planet naturally transferred to these novelists as well. If you happened to encounter an unfamiliar passenger on the way to the entertainment ships but wanted to strike up a conversation, discussing your favorite Blue Planet Official Novelist was definitely the safest topic.

"Of course, I love Ms. Jung the most! Who hasn't played Investigator Files, which she planned and directed? Who hasn't seen her lectures? But I'm even luckier: I've seen her from behind, and I've already collected many of the Gothic items Ms. Jung described… I only wish I could see more of her work."

"Really? I like Fuling. Although she never speaks, she's probably a quiet, gentle soul. People who love poetry can't be bad people… I used to hate poetry, actually, but now all I want is to read Blue Planet's poems aloud before bed every night. They're so beautiful; the feeling of resonating with the sounds is like dancing on a tightrope!"

Passengers with connections would say they liked Qiongtian, the one who studied classical Chinese literature. Although they still hadn't understood the first chapter of Dream of the Red Chamber that the Blue Planet had sent over, that didn't diminish their affection in the slightest. Qiongtian had even included a booklet specifically explaining the vocabulary from Chapter One, like rain from heaven, leaving the aliens deeply grateful.

Few passengers brought up Mingxin voluntarily, probably because the aliens who liked Mingxin, much like Mingxin himself, simply didn't care for socializing.

Some aliens even fancied themselves as Blue Planet research experts. From scattered fragments of conversation, they had pieced together the scale of the office: four civil servants and one leader. The research directions of the four civil servants were clear enough, so what exactly did the leader do?

In a temporary chatroom, the creatures took advantage of the anonymous system and boldly raised the topic.

"Who is Yujin?"

"What's his research area?"

"Believe me, Yujin is really amazing. If the ship could connect to the StarNet, you'd have a completely different attitude."

"We've always held Blue Planet in high regard. We're just curious."

"The official website says Yujin is the diplomatic representative and also the editor-in-chief of Reader's Digest. I've read two issues of Reader's Digest, and the style isn't particularly special. It's not as stunning as the other Blue Planet Official Novelists."

"I've said this many times, he voluntarily set down his pen. He can only write that kind of article as a small consolation. When you think of it that way, it's actually a little heartbreaking… How painful must it be for a novelist who can't write what he loves?"

"Haven't you all read the comments section?"

"There are way too many comments to go through. How come users from the previous Galaxy are all looking for someone called Xunming?"

"And some are looking for Yongye."

"You've brought up my sad memories, boohoo…"

"Hehehe, those two are famous Blue Planet comedy masters! One specializes in sweet romance novels with excellent pit quality, and the other pioneered the detective novel flow. The character interactions are super heartwarming, and the endings will have you laughing out loud. I recommend everyone to read their novels!"

"Great! I'll check them out at the next stop. I'm really interested in Blue Planet's freelance novelists too!"

"For sure! Xunming has five novels; there's bound to be one that suits you."

The passenger from the Pangshi Galaxy, harboring ulterior motives, insidiously dragged others into the pit. Hoping that the grief of sitting at the bottom would somewhat lessen with more fellow sufferers.

This precisely proved a timeless truth: never trust online recommendations easily.

Just as everyone was chatting happily, a piece of news was shared: the third issue of Reader's Digest was now available! Reportedly, Blue Planet's people liked to travel with their servers, so updates could be viewed even on the intranet.

The third issue was a Dream of the Red Chamber Redology special.

Xi Yujin, under the pretext of Yujin soliciting contributions, used the pen names Qiongtian and Canghai to introduce Earth's research on Dream of the Red Chamber.

Starting from the mystery surrounding the authorship, then moving on to whether the background contained hidden allusions. He compiled relationship diagrams connecting multiple characters and wrote a sprawling dozen-plus pages. However, there was no interaction between Qiongtian and Canghai.

Jung dedicated a small page to introducing what was happening in the West during the period when Dream of the Red Chamber was written, which gave the aliens a holistic understanding of that era's history.

On the other hand, Mingxin studied the aesthetics of the objects within the novel; after all, even the paintings on the tables in Dream of the Red Chamber contained metaphors.

Yongye naturally tackled the character riddles, while also introducing the evolution of Chinese characters, prompting the aliens to exclaim that calligraphy was a form of temporal aesthetics.

As for the ancient poems, the translation difficulty was too high, so Fuling did not appear.

Other novelists also showed up in the comments section:

[

Qiongtian: Blue Planet readers are welcome to write and discuss.

Xunming: I envy people who don't have pits to fill.

Mingxin: I envy people who don't have to go to work.

Fuling: I envy people who can work…

Yongye: Perhaps the next case could use character riddles as clues.

Jung: Looking forward to Mr. Yongye's new work.

Canghai: Opening a new pit already?! Am I the only one writing this slowly? Weren't we all supposed to be slacking off together?

]

These introductions were all written in plain, straightforward language, and the aliens read them with great relish, as though they had read Dream of the Red Chamber themselves. The articles also rekindled their curiosity about the novel, prompting them to send requests to the race that had won the viewing rights.

That auction-winning race was immediately reinvigorated. They had nearly been defeated by the daunting first chapter, but now, every one of them rallied. They continued their research with the goal of producing a translation in their own language.

"The more we study, the more we appreciate the charm of the culture in this book…"

"Learning Chinese should be put on the agenda too."

The creatures reluctantly turned the last page of the Redology special, only to discover that there was another section written by Xi Yujin himself. After finishing the Redology feature, Xi Yujin felt it was a bit monotonous, so he had added a few articles of his own.

The first article was titled After Emptying My Shopping Cart, I Fell into the Void.

What the heck was this?

The creatures read on with furrowed brows. Inside was a piece of inspirational chicken soup about money, but since the protagonist had just bought everything in his shopping cart, the message was spectacularly unconvincing.

The second article was A Bitter Journey and Delicious Food, which was a new food essay written by Xi Yujin. He was somewhat lacking in culinary talent, so when he tried to cook in Tidal Peace, he could only produce dark cuisine that was even more horrifying than alien food. To save face, he decided to at least describe the food in vivid, mouthwatering prose, painting every dish as a feast for the eyes, nose, and tongue.

The creatures' expressions grew solemn.

At a glance, it seemed to be about gourmet food: traditional sauces, the balance of sweet, sour, bitter, and spicy flavors, and the perfect harmony of meat and vegetables. The oils and aromas were practically seeping out of the text.

But if you carefully read between the lines, every word screamed cannibalism!

Blue Planet is terrifying!