Barren Star – Chapter 36
by Little PandaNot too much.
The heavy metal door emitted a teeth-grinding hum as it opened. Dust scattered everywhere, as if the structure might collapse at any moment. Amidst this brain-numbing hum, a sudden gunshot rang out. Zhao Lan kept staring at the doorway until the thin crack completely opened into a gaping maw. She froze for a moment, looking down at the old-style gun in her hand—she hadn’t pulled the trigger.
The moment the bullet flew out, Beidou made its counter-move. It reached out with its right hand and caught the bullet, its movement as graceful as plucking a flower. When it opened its right palm, the deformed bullet fell to the ground with a thud, and simultaneously, it fired a shot at the “attacker.”
This strange turn of events happened in an instant. By the time Wei Qu and Zhao Lan’s group came to their senses, one of their gun-wielding companions had fallen backward, his fate unknown. Wei Qu and Zhao Lan became tense immediately, and after their nerves were stretched taut, their consciousness, rather than becoming clearer, grew more confused.
“Surrender your weapons.”
The gentle voice wasn’t as cold and emotionless as an electronic one. It penetrated the leaden silence and seeped into the auditory organs of Wei Qu, Zhao Lan, and their companions.
“Freedom and light,” Zhao Lan murmured, seemingly close at hand yet as distant as several galaxies away. She was the first to regain her senses, loosening her grip and dropping her weapon. As long as there were humans, even space pirates, there was room for negotiation. They had stayed too long in this dark, cold space, and needed to escape this prison. “I surrender!” Zhao Lan raised her voice, completely pulling back her soul-lost companions’ consciousness from the distant beyond.
“Zhao Lan, you—” Before Wei Qu could finish speaking, Zhao Lan gave him a hard kick.
Although Ning Buyi had spoken, she hadn’t entered Zhao Lan and the others’ field of vision, instead staying in the corridor leaning against the cold wall. Only after Beidou entered the control room and “successfully disarmed” them did she raise her eyebrows, throwing a glance at Hua Zhuoyu.
The boots left a series of echoing sounds as they struck the ground, reverberating endlessly in the silent corridor.
The group in the control room was herded by Beidou into a corner, crouching with their heads down. As the approaching footsteps drew near, Zhao Lan couldn’t resist glancing up. That single glance made her heart skip a beat, and she blurted out: “Chief Judge?!” At her exclamation, others who still had strength also raised their heads.
Hua Zhuoyu looked down at Zhao Lan and asked unhurriedly: “You recognize me?”
Zhao Lan’s heart settled back in her chest as she replied hoarsely: “I’ve seen photos.” In her speculation about who might reach Barren Star No. 1, she had considered space pirates, adventurers, the Ning family members, reinforcements… but she hadn’t expected to see the Chief Judge in person. As citizens of Da Xia, they would follow Da Xia’s laws, and they… were safe! Realizing this, her tense nerves relaxed, and a relieved smile appeared on her face. “We are explorers from the Civilization Alliance.”
“Civilization Alliance?” Ning Buyi asked in confusion.
Hua Zhuoyu turned to look at her, her features softening like flowing spring water.
“It’s a civilian free organization, similar to rangers. They fight against pirate groups while exploring civilization ruins,” Hua Zhuoyu explained, then suddenly changed her tone, “That’s how we can describe it for now.”
“For now?” Ning Buyi caught the key point.
“It depends on what position their leader ultimately takes,” Hua Zhuoyu said with a gentle smile.
The confusion in Ning Buyi’s expression deepened, but Hua Zhuoyu didn’t answer further, instead turning her attention to the self-proclaimed Civilization Alliance members.
“Was it Xia Sang who showed you the photos?” Hua Zhuoyu’s question seemed rhetorical, filled with certainty.
The relieved smile disappeared from Zhao Lan’s face as she looked up at Hua Zhuoyu’s ambiguous expression, feeling panic rise from deep within. The identity of the Civilization Alliance’s leader was a secret, one that even alliance members might not know. Complex emotions swirled in her heart like a hurricane, threatening to tear it to pieces. She wanted to lie, but in her panic, she wasn’t sure if the Chief Judge would see through her, so she could only choose silence.
Ning Buyi didn’t know about the Civilization Alliance, but she had heard of Xia Sang—the Imperial Princess. In novels, Xia Sang was portrayed as delicate and timid, a yes-woman behind her two older brothers, ultimately used as a bargaining chip to court powers that Xia Tu needed. Now it seemed that this characterization was also false. Calling the plot an “outdated manual” wasn’t quite right; it should be called a “life outline in the hands of elders”—the compliant would follow along, while the rebellious would flee for freedom.
“So the Imperial Princess is the leader of the Civilization Alliance?” Ning Buyi clicked her tongue, speaking what Hua Zhuoyu had left unsaid. Given the connection to the Imperial government, she didn’t know their stance or priorities, and didn’t want to take that risk. She looked at Hua Zhuoyu and said firmly, “These people cannot leave.”
Hua Zhuoyu easily understood Ning Buyi’s attitude, as those words left no room for negotiation. She smiled and said, “They are invaders of the Barren Star, and their fate naturally lies with you, the Planet Master.”
Zhao Lan’s heart nearly jumped to her throat! She almost blurted out “What?” Her blood ran cold, and she felt as if she were in an ice cave. She sat there trembling, unable to read Hua Zhuoyu’s true emotions behind her smiling face, but she could sense the other person—the Planet Master’s—rejection of them. Wasn’t Barren Star No. 1’s Planet Master supposed to be from the Ning family? How did it become this unfamiliar young woman? Was she also trained by the Ning family? What had happened during their months trapped underground?
“Don’t worry, I won’t be as cruel as space pirates and dig out your personal chips, but for the planet’s sake, we need to inject you with chip black locks.” Ning Buyi raised her eyebrows and added, “You’re only temporarily trapped here. Judging by your attacks on the central control system, you’ve been here for four months—you should be used to it.”
“Used to hell!” Zhao Lan barely held back her curse. Her gaze moved from Ning Buyi to Hua Zhuoyu’s face, her desperate and panicked eyes carrying a slight hint of hope.
Unfortunately, when that smiling face turned toward them, it transformed into a coldness that emanated from her very bones.
The Chief Judge… wouldn’t help them!
Ning Buyi had come prepared this time, with no plans to accept these people as “residents” yet. For a group of exhausted, barely breathing people, Beidou could still handle them easily. If they wouldn’t accept the black locks while conscious, they’d have to be knocked out first.
Ning Buyi stepped out of the central control room and let out a long breath.
“What do you plan to do with them? Keep them alive on nutrient solutions?” Hua Zhuoyu followed Ning Buyi’s steps, asking gently.
Ning Buyi frowned, thinking for a moment before saying, “The city will be revived sooner or later. Once the storm outside subsides, let them plant trees here.” Since they couldn’t contact the outside world, it didn’t matter if they knew secrets—she didn’t need to worry about information that couldn’t be transmitted.
“Do you think I’m being too harsh?” Ning Buyi asked seriously. Before entering this world, while she wasn’t exactly a “saint,” she had never been associated with being “bad.”
Seeing the panic deep in Ning Buyi’s eyes, Hua Zhuoyu raised her hand to pat Ning Buyi’s head, smiling: “Not at all.” If one couldn’t put their own safety first, anything could end up being sacrificed.
“Don’t pat my head.” Ning Buyi pulled Hua Zhuoyu’s hand away, giving her a sidelong glance. Regardless of whether Hua Zhuoyu was trying to comfort her, she took those words as approval. Her life hung in the balance on Barren Star—she didn’t need to be a saint, what was wrong with being a little selfish?
After confiscating the Civilization Alliance group’s equipment and injecting them with black locks, Ning Buyi left them with some nutrient solutions, medicine, and a map showing the accessible areas of the city. The storm outside hadn’t subsided yet, so it wasn’t a good time for planting trees. She would leave this group cold in Aurora City for now. She didn’t want to kill them, but if they insisted on seeking death, she wouldn’t be responsible.
“What do they mean by this?” Wei Qu gloomily watched their figures disappear into the yellow sand. He had once desperately wanted to leave that iron cage and stand under the blue sky again. Now he had returned to the surface as wished and stood in the city he longed to explore, but his heart was overwhelmed by negative emotions.
Zhao Lan wasn’t as agitated as Wei Qu. She bit into a nutrient solution, waiting until the energy flow reached all her muscles and veins before giving an indirect answer.
“Barren Star No. 1 has only one last chance left, and the Judgment Month is approaching. Since they’re not taking our lives now, they probably won’t in the future either. After this planet is abandoned, we’ll be taken back.”
“Come on, I think they have ill intentions. Who knows what they’re planning?” A young man sneered, “This Barren Star belongs to the Ning family, and the Chief Judge is from the Hua family. They have intricate connections with the Supervisory Department. What if they’re using us to bargain for His Highness’s compromise?”
Zhao Lan frowned: “His Highness has no ill will toward the Supervisory Department.”
The young man sneered: “But the imperial family is different. The current imperial family isn’t under His Highness’s control.”
Zhao Lan said expressionlessly: “But it’s still an opportunity, as long as the Supervisory Department is willing to support His Highness. If this Barren Star is truly connected to the Supervisory Department, we might be able to solve His Highness’s troubles.”
Wei Qu suddenly spoke up: “Isn’t the Judge’s wedding to the Crown Prince approaching? If that’s the case, this place might not be related to the Supervisory Department.”
Zhao Lan: “…Where did you hear this news?”
Wei Qu: “It’s all over the StarNet. There are lots of people shipping them.”
“Don’t believe in hearsay.”
“Oh? You mean like the stories about the Chief Judge being elegant and modest?”
The storm surrounding Aurora City took a week to disperse, and the sky shrouded in endless yellow dust finally revealed its clear face. Although the protective shield prevented the outside storm from affecting them, there was still a persistent sense of psychological oppression.
“How long are we going to be kept like zoo animals?”
“I hate these days of isolation from the world.”
“Without weapons, we’re just lambs waiting for slaughter.”
“Hey, when we took the Alliance oath, we said we weren’t afraid of any difficulties.”
…
Zhao Lan, Wei Qu, and their group sat on the ground chatting. They held a map given by Ning Buyi, showing their permitted movement area centered around the central building, smaller than a single estate on the Imperial Star. Beyond lay the mysteries they longed to explore, but after experiencing enough hardship, they no longer had the courage to venture into forbidden zones.
Zhao Lan didn’t join their conversation, keeping her eyes lowered while constantly monitoring their surroundings. After the yellow sand dispersed, the clear sky looked as if it had been washed with clean water, even more pristine than the skies of some construction stars. Looking up, she saw floating white clouds and a spaceship, making her pupils suddenly contract!
The spaceship passed through the shield and hovered outside the building.
By this time, not just Zhao Lan but others also noticed this change. The spaceship looked ordinary, coated in silver light, without any identifying marks of origin. If they could control their mechas, they could easily destroy this ship, but now, stripped of their defenses, they could only watch as the ship’s hatch opened and square-headed robots emerged, pulling out a compartment loaded with mysterious green objects.
“Your task is to plant trees along the outer edge of the base’s shield,” the robot’s voice was flat and emotionless.
“Plant trees?” Wei Qu was shocked—this was such an ancient term, rarely heard in an ordinary person’s lifetime.
Zhao Lan remained silent, ignoring what Wei Qu and others were saying. She walked toward the compartment, staring unblinkingly at the green plants inside, and murmured: “Multi-claw Tree.” This was a wind-breaking tree species recorded in Da Xia civilization’s history, with roots as thick as coiled dragons and branches grotesquely resembling a monster’s claws. While many artificial tree species were sold online, the bizarrely ugly Multi-claw Tree was unpopular.
The robots ignored their reactions and carried out all the tree seedlings soaking in nutrient solution.
“Is this for real?” Wei Qu felt his worldview severely shaken. He stepped forward and bit a branch, resulting in a bang as the robot grabbed and threw him out. After lying on the ground for a while to clear his head, he rubbed his dizzy skull, sat up, and looked at Zhao Lan, “We’re going to plant these things? And go outside the shield?”
“I won’t do it.” A defiant-looking young man snorted coldly. As soon as he finished speaking, a dark gun barrel extended from behind the robot, its electronic eyes completely cold.
The young man trembled and immediately changed his tune: “I’ll go.”
Each robot was equipped with monitoring devices that could clearly transmit images from Aurora City back to the base.
Ning Buyi was very wary of these self-proclaimed Civilization Alliance members, so when the robots transported the plants, she made time to watch the projected footage. While she found Wei Qu’s bite amusing, when she saw someone treating the plants extremely roughly and deliberately damaging branches, her expression immediately darkened. This was a time when almost no plants could grow, and if they were dissatisfied with being prisoners, they could resist completely rather than outwardly submitting while venting their anger on the plants.
She could have simply watched these people die in Aurora City.
Simple utilization didn’t count as saving their lives, but the nutrient solutions and medicines weren’t free.
Ning Buyi opened the Mountain Sea Atlas panel. After looking at the dark pollution reserves, she contemplated for a moment before directly activating the “Prison Module.” Where there were rewards, there must also be punishments.
Outside Aurora City.
Peng Yu was carrying tree seedlings with his companions. In what he thought was a blind spot in the robots’ monitoring, his right hand swept down, making another branch snap with a crack.
“Be careful! Don’t be so rough.” The person working with him saw the broken branch on the ground, his heart twitching continuously, his expression full of distress. These were real trees, cultivated from some experimental base, with each leaf worth a fortune.
Peng Yu twisted his mouth and said: “I didn’t mean to. Besides, if it dies from losing a few leaves, it definitely won’t survive out here.” He paused, then sneered, “What idiot would plant trees on Barren Star? We’re just wasting our effort. We’d be better off selling them.”
“…Stop talking nonsense.”
“Nobody heard, and even if they did, what could they do?”
Just as Peng Yu finished speaking, two robots strode toward them. One took the Multi-claw Tree, while the other pressed its gun barrel against Peng Yu and said coldly, “Crime of plant destruction, transferring to Aurora Prison.”
“Prison? Wait—”
Before the person could intervene, they were targeted by the robot’s weapons, forcing them to swallow their words. They had been everywhere in the accessible areas—how did they not know about a prison? Was it in the unopened zones?
“What about Peng Yu?” Wei Qu turned at the commotion, his heart still pounding wildly over the Multi-claw Tree, his boiling emotions refusing to settle. Seeing Peng Yu being taken away, it took him a moment to process what happened.
Zhao Lan lifted her eyelids slightly and said quietly: “That kid! He needs to suffer a bit to understand our current situation.” He was still youthfully defiant, blindly “keeping his spine straight,” but wasn’t that just seeking death at the wrong time?
With “Peng Yu” serving as a cautionary tale, those planting trees in Aurora City became notably more compliant. After observing for a while, Ning Buyi stopped watching so intently. Her focus remained on the base’s construction—before the entire city system awakened, the base was her foundation.
Hua Zhuoyu sat lazily on the sofa. She knew what was happening in Aurora City but didn’t interfere. Her gaze caught a fleeting “food advertisement,” and she suddenly said: “As the clearing area expands outward, the number of edible wild beasts has decreased. Perhaps we should consider buying meat from StarNet?”
Ning Buyi was long used to Hua Zhuoyu’s visits, and hearing her mention “food,” she gave a mild “mm.” Actually, Shen Li had mentioned this too. While plants were scarce in the Greedy Wolf Star System, previously domesticated poultry and livestock still existed. However, according to Hua Zhuoyu, dark pollution made their meat quality subpar, only slightly better than wild beasts. If that was the case, buying from StarNet would still require processing. That would waste too much time—it would be better to raise unpolluted genetic livestock from the Atlas.
“We could buy some for breeding first,” Ning Buyi said thoughtfully, adding that later they could bring out those produced in the Mountain Sea Atlas for raising, so it wouldn’t be too conspicuous.
“The best option would be to buy processed frozen products,” Hua Zhuoyu turned to Ning Buyi, but seeing her slightly furrowed brows, she smiled and added, “Raising them ourselves is fine too. Feeding them vegetables grown in the base might help purify the pollution in their bodies.”
Ning Buyi’s eyes brightened, having to admit it was a good idea.
Hua Zhuoyu suddenly said: “I will return to the Imperial Star in November.”
Ning Buyi hadn’t expected Hua Zhuoyu to bring this up. She lowered her brows and said: “Beidou will remove the black locks in your body. You should have returned long ago.”
Hua Zhuoyu asked: “Do you want me to leave?”
Ning Buyi sat straight, her hands pressed tightly against her legs, feigning casualness: “That’s not for me to decide.”
Hua Zhuoyu tilted her head with a slight smile: “True, the base has become much livelier now.” She moved to sit closer until their shoulders touched, fixing her gaze on Ning Buyi. “I can feel this planet reviving. When the Judgment Month comes, passing the trial might not be impossible. However, this means the news about Barren Star can’t be kept secret anymore. The upgraded weapons system can repel ordinary attackers, and as for pressure from the Imperial government, I’ll find a way to handle it.”
“Are you just…” Ning Buyi hesitated for a moment, but her words remained vague, “…this nice?”
Hua Zhuoyu blinked, her eyes carrying a light smile: “I won’t let anyone’s selfish interests interfere with the revival of the ‘Lost Kingdom’.”
Ning Buyi felt happy hearing her words. She tried to suppress her rising smile corners and sincerely said: “Thank you.”
“No need for formalities, it makes us seem too distant.” Hua Zhuoyu paused briefly, then continued, “Not much time remains. Are you ready for mecha training?”
“Eh?” Ning Buyi looked confused.
Hua Zhuoyu: “There are simulation training rooms on StarNet, but they require going through various complicated application procedures to get usage permission. However, I can give you access to my private training room.”
“What do I need to do?” Ning Buyi’s eyes gleamed frighteningly—the words “becoming stronger” held enormous appeal for her.
“First, memorize ten books and work through several sets of problems. I’ll package and send them to you later.”
Ning Buyi: “…” She couldn’t understand how Hua Zhuoyu could say such cold, frightening things so casually.
Hua Zhuoyu explained: “Manual operation is fundamental. You need to understand the operating modes when the psychic connection with the mecha is broken.”
“But—”
“Hmm?”
Under Hua Zhuoyu’s puzzled gaze, Ning Buyi swallowed back her complaint about “having to memorize books.”
Hua Zhuoyu said seriously: “Oh right, physical training needs to be intensified too.”
Ning Buyi nodded tearfully.
For a moment, she began to miss the previous “flirtatious” Hua Zhuoyu. Even if that mouth only told lies, at least the words were sweet.
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