Chapter 16 Trade

Chapter 16: Commerce

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Aither stood in front of the cleaning machine, somewhat lost in thought. He knew nothing about these complex machines; except for essential means of transport, program-controlled large machines simply didn't exist on Chaos.

"I command you to open," he said, frowning, trying to mimic the Prime Minister's stern tone when giving orders.

Perhaps he hadn't imitated well enough, lacking authority—the cleaning machine didn't budge. Then he felt some invisible force guiding his gaze to the yellow-glowing circular button.

"Click—"

The cleaning machine started operating again, soaking the already dried clothes once more. Even worse, the same process had been repeated three times, as if trapped in a loop.

These machines should have been banned across the entire galaxy long ago!

Despite humans having unilaterally declared war on it, the cleaning machine faithfully executed its program, dutifully beginning a fourth wash cycle.

Half an hour later, Aither stood before the cleaning machine again, trying to decipher the monster's code. He placed his hand on the transparent panel on top of the machine and began meditating with his eyes closed. However, he painfully discovered that after maintaining this position for ten minutes, besides the soreness in his arm, he had detected nothing.

"It has no life..."

Only when startled by bird calls did Aither shift his attention to the window, where he saw a flock of low-flying black birds.

Colonists usually brought along docile, harmless animals to another planet, and they'd only try to fix the ecosystem once it started breaking down. This repair process usually took several centuries until a barely functioning ecological cycle formed. There weren't many animal species on Oceanus, with the exception of birds—probably because crops required birds for pollination in the early colonial period, so people tolerated the sky-blackening flocks. Even now that they were no longer needed, they couldn't be arbitrarily culled, or they'd easily wreck the fragile balance.

Suddenly, a strong wind picked up. Thick clouds moved rapidly under the wind's guidance, and more birds leaped from the wheat fields, gathering from all directions into a whirlwind.

It was about to rain—a perfectly ordinary weather event on any unsealed world. At that moment, the airlock opened.

After the airlock disinfected him, Konsu stepped back inside. He'd gotten a little rain on him, so he left his coat in the airlock where the wind would quickly dry it.

"I need your help," the Prince had evidently run into some trouble.

"Oh?" Konsu glanced at the display screen showing the filtration system still working at full capacity. This poor machine had been operating at three times its normal power for nearly an hour.

"It just washed my clothes for the fourth time," Aither accused the innocent machine of its "crime," as if he'd been gravely wronged.

Konsu stepped forward, swiped a few times on the panel, and when it opened, it let out a loud strange noise, as if expressing dissatisfaction with the overload.

Aither finally retrieved his clothes and returned to the sleeping pod to change out of the rough fabric he had been wearing. Now he looked exactly like he did when he first escaped Chaos, the only difference being that the disguise was still in effect—his pupils and hair had gone silver-gray, and his facial features appeared slightly different.

Konsu leaned against the cleaning machine, an energy bar dangling from his mouth. The energy bar was tasteless, so he chewed purely out of boredom, just for the chewing action. He had just returned from the Chamber of Commerce building, having completed all arrangements. They would soon be able to leave Oceanus.

When Aither emerged from the sleeping pod, Konsu finished the last bite of his energy bar and casually tossed the wrapper into a nearby waste recycler.

"Let's go," Aither said.

He tried to walk with more determination, but quickly realized his body felt light, but his steps were heavy—though not because he was unwilling to leave.

A brief drizzle had fallen, increasing the air's humidity and lowering the temperature. The lightweight synthetic fibers weren't nearly as warm as the rough clothes of Eros. When the hatch opened again, Aither really felt how cold it was for the first time. The cool wind poured into his lungs without anything blocking it, and he couldn't help shivering. His body was cold, but his face felt a little warm.

Konsu looked at his slightly reddened nose, and without a word, took off his freshly dried coat and draped it over Aither's shoulders. "Your Highness, your fine clothes don't seem to offer much warmth."

The weight pressing down on him made Aither feel even colder. He shivered, which could have been mistaken for flinching away.

"You'll have to learn to adapt. There's no cleaning machine on the shuttle. The journey won't be too long; Oceanus's shuttle station is near the Chamber of Commerce building."

Aither opened his mouth to explain, but perhaps because he had just left the warm cabin and his body hadn't yet adjusted to the outside temperature, he felt very tired. He just pulled the coat tighter.

The ground vehicle moved quietly, with the scenery flashing by outside. Just as Aither was half-closing his eyes, trying to shake off the lingering drowsiness, Konsu suddenly broke the silence.

"Setting off on a journey alone, people get a little nervous. But you, Your Highness, seem not the least bit afraid." Konsu gave him a subtle, curious look.

Aither looked into the distance, like he was looking straight through Oceanus's atmosphere. "I look forward to what's to come," he said, his voice soft but pulsing with determination.

A totally pure heart, untouched by the world—an undimmed enthusiasm never dulled by reality. His eyes lacked the usual guarded, cold look of Inner Ringers; instead, they were like a clear mirror, faithfully reflecting his curiosity for the unknown. Not how someone raised in the center of power would look.

If the royal family were seen as the Prime Minister's "pets," then the life base was the breeding ground. The breeders would not allow additional offspring unless it served their specific breeding goals.

An "accident during cultivation" might have been the initial catalyst, but "accident" was no coincidence; behind it must have been the quiet approval of high-ranking members of the Council.

Of course, there was another possibility: the prince and princess might have been two entirely different "experiments" from the start.

Konsu suddenly realized that he might have stepped into a far more complex and dangerous vortex than he had imagined. This journey might prove more interesting than expected.

If his guess was right—that behind the scenes there was one or more "caretakers"—then he wasn't afraid to play that game.

Aither turned his head, puzzled. "What are you thinking?"

Konsu took a cube from a compartment on the side of the airship. The cube emitted a blue light, unfolded from eight dimensions, and projected countless points of light. These points of light converged and coalesced in the air, eventually entering Aither's retina like precise laser beams.

This was a heavily encrypted terminal, independent of the main communication network, with its own power source and storage system, capable of direct communication with preset contacts via special encrypted channels.

"If you encounter any difficulties, you can use this backup terminal to contact me," Konsu said, handing the cube to him. "I have a few trustworthy friends on Eros; they might be able to help."

He did want to lure out the caretaker, but he couldn't deny the obvious fact: the Prince was a lifeform raised under excessive protection—fragile, naive, and to some extent, even a bit delicate.

Aither gazed at the distant sunset, his gray pupils tinged with a faint purple. His heart pounded with a lonely intensity.

As the central hub of the entire Inner Ring, Oceanus's shuttle station was the largest in the Inner Ring, with hundreds of suspended tracks crisscrossing, alongside ever-burning navigation lights and the roar of engines.

The light passenger ship numbered "EX-271" had already landed. Konsu then synced the shuttle ticket to the backup terminal.

"The ticket is booked."

The ship was leaving for Procyon in an hour, passing through two secondary space stations.

Konsu waved at him, smiling. "Your Highness, good luck."

Aither tried to wave back in the same manner, but his movements were stiff and clumsy, as if someone had slowed him down to half speed.

Under the setting sun, the stray hairs behind Konsu's ears caught the light, and his face was lit with a smile.

For some reason, Aither felt as if Konsu had blended into the sunset. Even though he had never harmed him, and had even been quite helpful, Aither still felt that Konsu, like this sunset, gave off light but no warmth.

Konsu did not immediately return. He drove away from the noisy main road, turning onto a secluded side path. A few minutes later, another voice rang out in the cabin.

"Long time no see." The tone was steady, without much fluctuation.

The speaker was the ship's artificial intelligence—Hu Shi, a relic from the pre-Imperial era. There was probably no more human-like intelligent system in the Empire now.

During the Imperial era, people had a natural fear of artificial intelligences, and the production of AI lifeforms with self-awareness and emotional perception had long been halted.

Konsu gave a command: "Establish a communication link with the home planet."

"After being forcibly awakened, my core usually takes a while to return to optimal operation. Why don't you greet me first? For example, say, 'Long time no see, I've missed you.'"

After a brief silence, it autonomously analyzed Konsu's reaction and summarized in a slightly regretful tone: "Indeed, you're still so boring."

Konsu: "..."

After being scolded by an AI, Konsu couldn't take it anymore and immediately kicked in emergency mode: "This'll speed up your system recovery. Reboot now."

Hu Shi: "This is the ninth time this year you've activated emergency mode when there's no emergency. I have to say, this behavior has seriously hurt stability; it's straight-up exploitation."

Even though Hu Shi was quite unwilling, the program kept running without mercy. Soon, a heavily encrypted comm link was established, and Konsu once again heard the voice from "Shang."

The sound from deep hyperspace was as faint as a whisper, like it was embedding straight into his nerves, but the instant it hit his mind, some defense inside Konsu kicked in.

"Long time no see." The voice, vibrating from vocal cords, sounded somewhat hoarse.

Although she spoke Galactic Standard, it carried a peculiar accent.

Konsu did not use that tone of voice; he still spoke in standard Galactic Standard: "My greetings to you."

"You still refuse to share," the priest's voice was very slow, with long pauses between words. "You were raised in Shang. No matter where you are, our fates are already bound like star orbits, inseparable."

"I have never denied that," Konsu straightened up, hiding the discomfort welling up inside.

If not for the homeworld taking us in, he and his parents would have become ghosts drifting in space, and objectively speaking, the people of the homeworld had given him shelter and care. He was not ungrateful, but he naturally resented the constant attempts to probe into his mind.

"All data from the detector says everything's normal. You did a great job."

"I must explain to you," Konsu chose his words carefully, "some unexpected stuff happened a while back. To avoid exposing our coordinates, I had to temporarily block Hu Shi."

"We never intended to use it to monitor your every move, nor is that something we are capable of," the priest said.

"Let me finish, Your Eminence. I can't communicate as efficiently as you guys can. The current situation is far more important than my personal freedom."

He paused for a moment to make sure his next words would grab the other's attention: "The Empire's prince just showed up on my ship."

"Dangerous," the priest said flatly.

"I'm sure I didn't expose our position, and I also found something you might find interesting. This prince seems to possess abilities very similar to yours."

The other side immediately said: "Continue observing him."

With an air of cocky confidence, Konsu's tone was defiant and bold, "Don't worry, I'm not letting this hidden gem fall back into Prime Minister's hands or that bunch."

"But before that..." Before he could finish, the alarm from his personal terminal shot through his veins like lightning, and his wrist skin felt like it was ripping apart.

Konsu took a deep breath and quickly cut off the communication network.