"But right now, we have something even more important to do," Xi Yujin said mysteriously. "You're going on a date with me."

Gano carefully stored the accounting ledger inside his armor.

Dating was another new piece of Blue Planet knowledge. He was determined to master it!

Earlier, Xi Yujin had asked the tour guide Aila about good dating spots around the Starship Belt and had already meticulously planned everything. Romance was a top priority that was even more important than making money. Love was the muse of artistic creation, and stealing moments for romance amidst busy work made it twice as sweet.

Their first stop was a public restaurant in the Starship Belt.

Xi Yujin attempted to prepare a candlelit dinner for Gano using alien ingredients. Aside from accidentally carbonizing all the food, everything went perfectly.

Without changing expression, Gano ate every bite.

Xi Yujin himself also ate enthusiastically. It was all charcoal anyway. Who was he to judge?

"This one should definitely be something Gano likes!"

Xi Yujin then brought Gano to a botanical park.

Not to admire the scenery, but to play Starship arcade games.

Gano glanced at the game title: Violent Demolition Mech III.

Would he really like this?

Half an hour later, Gano set down the controller with complete satisfaction.

So this was what it felt like to enjoy something besides Yujinno. There was a strange discomfort in wasting time, yet at the same time an irresistible sense of lazy contentment.

Meanwhile, Xi Yujin secretly circled something in his itinerary notebook.

His literary instincts had paid off. Out of countless entertainment products, he had accurately found the genre that Gano would enjoy.

Xi Yujin extended a hand toward Gano.

Still somewhat confused, Gano placed his own hand into it.

Xi Yujin naturally intertwined their fingers, and the two walked hand in hand through a corridor crowded with passing aliens.

The starship citizens, whose culture had no dating customs whatsoever, stood atop their floating transport discs and stared at them in utter confusion.

Aliens who recognized Wenhuo gave them knowing smiles and meaningful nods.

Completely unfamiliar aliens, meanwhile, reacted in shock.

"Damn! They're so bold!"

Gano didn't care much about other alien species, but the reactions left a strange itch in his heart.

He thought he finally understood why Yujinno liked emphasizing this kind of thing on the StarNet so much.

Because love was a precious kind of wealth.

In a quiet corner, they kissed.

As usual, Xi Yujin only allowed the kiss to remain brief and restrained. Gano respected all of Xi Yujin's wishes, even if he himself wasn't satisfied.

Afterward, Xi Yujin happily dragged him around to visit various bizarre sightseeing spots around the Starship Belt.

"A lot of things here resemble the Zerg," Gano observed.

Then he painstakingly came up with what he believed was a romantic line, "But Yujinno is here… so I like it."

And then he kissed Xi Yujin again to relieve himself a little.

"You're being awfully proactive…" Xi Yujin said, suddenly embarrassed instead.

Gano seriously considered whether Blue Planet kissing operated on some kind of quota system.

If he saved a little every day, could he eventually accumulate a bigger one?

The two of them eventually arrived at the museum.

After being closed for many days, the museum had finally reopened, and the starship citizens flocked there eagerly.

Gano looked at one of the exhibits and suddenly froze.

Using Earth language, he quietly told Xi Yujin:

"This is Zerg writing."

Xi Yujin immediately tensed.

"So the starship belt really is hiding some terrible secret. Did they imprison the Zerg Queen? Create the Zerg? Produce some kind of electronic drug to corrupt the youth of every species…"

Gano blinked and calmly replied that no lifeform could defeat the Zerg Queen.

"This is a suffix title," he explained casually. "Nuo means someone who has received lower-level military honors. A respected individual."

Then he pointed at another part of the exhibit.

"La means the lowest class. They are disposable waste."

And every starship citizen's name ended with La.

Xi Yujin lowered his voice.

"So the starship people are descendants of low-ranking Zerg castes?"

"It seems they don't know that themselves."

Only now did Xi Yujin finally understand. The starship people didn't resemble humans.

They resembled the Zerg.

Meanwhile, many details suddenly clicked into place for Gano.

His instinctive irritation and rejection toward starship technology...

His shared aesthetic preferences with the starship people…

The fact that the starship people had moved into abandoned Zerg warships and used Zerg technology to broadcast messages, yet the Intelligent Machines had ignored them completely…

That was because the Intelligent Machines already knew these starship people were insignificant.

The newer generations of starship citizens had increasingly violent tempers because their isolated bloodlines had finally begun expressing dormant Zerg genes.

No matter how far they drifted from their homeland, traces of their origins remained buried within their flesh and blood.

Xi Yujin's cautious personality immediately resurfaced.

He hurriedly urged Gano to hide himself again.

"If these starship people discover the truth and do something irrational, we'll end up having to run away again."

"I'm already used to running," he muttered gloomily, "but I really don't want to run right after spending all our money."

"Alright. Let me think about what Planet Six should become…"

After their date, Xi Yujin dragged Gano back to the Tidal Peace.

Romance was over.

Time to continue working hard.

Meanwhile, back at the starship belt museum, Wengla continued deciphering ancient texts one by one.

The script wasn't elegant at all. In fact, it looked more like chaotic scribbling.

Wengla came up with a new idea to use comparisons between different languages to help decode the ancient script.

The project progressed smoothly.

By studying and comparing over six thousand writing systems submitted during the Planetary Art Exhibition, their archaeological research advanced tremendously.

Once again, Wengla became convinced that the Planetary Art Exhibition had greatly benefited their civilization.

But the final result struck like a bolt from the blue.

"So my people were only supposed to live to fifty years old… and the reason I survived to sixty-three is that I accidentally compensated for a genetic defect…"

"So our memories are all comprised of moving from small starships to larger starships. We never returned home."

"Mother… why did you abandon us?!"

The oldest elder in the entire history of the starship belt collapsed over a desk, sobbing uncontrollably.

The lost homeland tugged at its heart so painfully that even breathing felt like being cut apart.

Using reconstructed images and murals, it pieced together the earliest history.

After the war ended, the Zerg Queen endured unbearable mental torment while using her bloodline connection to call her children home.

Before the wormhole, the Queen personally counted each of her offspring.

She lifted open one nest, and inside were only La-class defective hatchlings.

The children were so weak that they required external equipment just to breathe. The moment the Queen opened the nest cover, many of the La instantly froze to death.

With a casual push of her forelimb, the Queen shoved the incubation nest far away and said indifferently, "Weak warriors… bring peace to the universe with your powerless hands."

Then she opened the next nest.

Inside, rows of pale white eggs were neatly arranged, pulsing with resilient vitality.

This time, the Queen carefully sealed the nest with the small scissor-like appendages near her mouth before gently pushing it into the wormhole.

"Good children. We're going home."

And so the tiny nest of La Zerg hatchlings drifted alone through the cold universe.

Their intelligence did not allow them to think deeply. Only two iron laws were branded into their minds:

Survive.

Obey the Queen's will.

They were forced to focus on survival. The nest was rapidly losing heat, and many companions silently froze to death.

Fortunately, they eventually encountered a massive starship.

The ship possessed abundant resources, storing food from hundreds of millions of species. It contained incubation chambers, livestock farms, botanical rest areas, food-processing facilities, and warrior training grounds.

Something instinctive awakened within them.

Without instruction, they divided themselves into caretakers, growers, cleaners, and transporters.

Later, as the La population gradually expanded, new roles emerged: food processors, thinkers, and technological researchers.

And finally, they remembered the words they had heard at birth.

Suddenly enlightened, they realized:

"We should create a new profession, the artists, to bring peace to the universe!"

A species born for war had ultimately left behind defective remnants who were dedicated to peace.

One careless mistake had created the bizarre social structure of the starship belt.

But history itself is built from accidents and errors.

Living beings call it fate.

Wengla walked slowly through the corridors, head lowered, while contemplating the meaning of life.

It encountered Tula.

Wengla had once been troubled by the younger generation's sharp, abrasive temperament, which was so different from the peaceful atmosphere of the starship belt. It had never imagined that the cause was genetic.

Tula was currently playing games while harshly criticizing works from other civilizations online. But the moment it noticed Wengla, it blushed and awkwardly fell silent.

At least Tula still possessed some sense of shame.

Wengla next encountered Aila, an enthusiastic tour guide introducing the wonders of the starship belt to visiting aliens, constantly drawing gasps of amazement.

Aila took great pride in the starship belt.

Then Wengla arrived at the exhibition center.

More than six million planets.

More than six million works of art.

It was the brilliant glory of the starship belt.

A surge of unwillingness suddenly rose within it, like a child reaching adolescence and deciding to rebel against its mother for the mistakes she had made.

"I will… call out to our mother… We can return home too!"

By all rights, Wengla should have discussed the matter with its people according to established procedures.

But it didn't.

Perhaps it was a delayed rebellion finally surfacing.

In the end, it walked into the broadcasting station, raised the transmission power to maximum, and aimed it toward the three thousand wormholes.

For countless years, the Starship Belt had continuously anchored those wormholes in place.

The starship people never knew where they came from, where they led, or how to traverse them.

But Wengla guessed that if those wormholes hadn't drifted off course over time, then they still led to the Zerg homeland.

It wanted the mother of that homeland to know that the La scattered throughout the universe had already gained the ability to prove themselves.

The long signal transmission refracted into the wormholes.

For one second, the starship belt remained unchanged.

The next second, the universe shook violently.

It was as though a supernova had exploded nearby. Torrential high-energy radiation storms swept across the entire starship belt.

Some beings who hadn't fully secured protective suits felt a sudden burning pain across their skin. Seconds later, they screamed in agony.

An alien spacecraft was smashed flat against the outer hull of a starship by the radiation storm. Escape pods burst out in panic before the ship itself split apart, with their steel walls crumpling like paper.

In the Deep Space Prison, a member of the Intelligent Machines had been idly hosting a card tournament in the Machine Town district.

The place was lively and noisy.

Then a signal arrived from far away.

Every machine body on the ground froze simultaneously and spoke in unison: "Critical signal detected… No Queen response. Safe. Continue the card game."

Besides the starship belt, the three thousand wormholes twisted like grotesque ghostly faces.

Only after a dark figure fell into them did they gradually calm down, and the high-energy radiation storm slowly dispersed.

Xi Yujin felt a headache forming.

He and Gano were only separated for a little while.

Gano had gone to the polar region of Planet Two to survey resources, while Xi Yujin had been at the opposite pole.

But this event caused anxiety to surge within him, so he immediately piloted a flyer around Planet Two.

Huge sections of the botanical gardens had withered and died. At the far end stood the small grass hut, but there was no sign of Gano.

"Gano!"

Xi Yujin activated his communicator.

They rarely used it. After all, they were almost never apart.

He flew to Planet Three.

The Rust Clan said they hadn't seen Gano.

He flew to Planet Five.

The alien engineers all said no one else had come there.

"Gano!"

Xi Yujin rushed through the starship belt's botanical park, public restaurants, and actor center.

He nearly searched through the trash bins.

His expression remained outwardly calm, but his movements grew increasingly frantic.

"Gano!"

Xi Yujin knocked against the floating armor core beside him.

Gano had once told him, "As long as you call for me, I will always answer."

But why was there no response now?

Inside Xi Yujin's chest, emotions churned like a shaken bottle of soda, dense bubbles of grievance rising constantly, occasionally pierced by cold flashes of fear.

"Gano…"

Xi Yujin opened the hatch to Tidal Peace, and a manuscript page drifted down from the desk.

Gentle sunlight streamed through the viewing window into the cabin.

Silence reigned everywhere, as if death itself had struck.

He tried contacting Gano once more through the communicator, but no reply came even after waiting for a long time.

Finally, Xi Yujin lowered the communicator.

His mind went blank as he looked around at the suddenly unfamiliar and unbearably heavy air.

Their peaceful daily life had been like a sandcastle on the shore, and now a single wave had finally smashed it apart, leaving behind only scattered ruins.

In this universe, where separation often meant permanent farewell, Gano had disappeared without a sound.