Before entering the vast, undeveloped, uninhabited wasteland star zone, there were still several chances to dock and replenish daily supplies. Wang Luan also disembarked and bought some things she needed.
The other items the crew members could understand, but soil… why bring so much soil onto the ship?
“Sister Luan, soil—is it used to repair the spaceship?” asked Gray Bird, who blindly admired and trusted her.
Wang Luan: “No, soil is for growing vegetables.”
After only a few days on the ship, Wang Luan discovered that long-distance flight days were truly too boring, and it was no wonder the crew spent most of their time playing cards every day.
She didn’t like playing cards. On a spaceship she always had to find something to do. Seeing that one crew member had brought a potted plant that was said to be a gift from her boyfriend, she thought—why not just grow some vegetables on the spaceship? It would also be a good way to enrich the ship’s meals.
Using foam boxes filled with soil to grow vegetables was a basic skill. Wang Luan arranged these soil-filled boxes in several places on the spaceship: in the dining hall they served as landscape partitions stacked in two tiers, in the rest area she built a flowerbed, and along the corridor walls she arranged an entire row.
After placing all the soil-filled boxes in orderly fashion, she planted different vegetables according to their locations—first raising seedlings in trays before transplanting them, setting up an irrigation system. For this, she even expanded the ship’s water storage tanks and modified the old circulating water purification unit.
“If it’s still not enough, we can only use the ship’s detectors to go add water on a wasteland star when the time comes,” Wang Luan said.
To ensure the seedlings had sufficient sunlight, she also installed supplemental lighting.
Her careful tending of these vegetables made everyone on the ship feel envious. They had all grown up haphazardly in the chaotic zones and had never experienced such meticulous care.
Loosening the soil, fertilizing, irrigating, catching pests—every day, aside from inspecting the ship, all of Wang Luan’s time was spent on these vegetables.
Of course, vegetables tended with care would give feedback. They quickly grew into a lush green expanse, neat and densely filling the boxes.
This wasn’t an expensive spaceship to begin with. There were few entertainment facilities and no decorations at all. Now the bare corridors, dining hall, and rest area all had vegetable gardens, which the crew found especially novel. Every day when they passed by, they couldn’t help but take a look.
Watching these vegetables grow with their own eyes, they also gained a sense of satisfaction they had never felt before.
When the first batch of vegetables matured, Wang Luan announced they could be picked and eaten, which prompted several crew members to repeatedly urge her not to harvest them—they had finally grown so big.
Wang Luan waved her hand decisively: “Aren’t vegetables grown to be eaten? Pick them and add a dish!”
She twisted off one vegetable in each hand, filled a basket, and carried it into the kitchen.
Occasionally she would also go into the kitchen to cook something for everyone to change up the flavors; otherwise, being watched by a whole group of people while eating every day was more than she could stand.
That day, everyone received blanched greens with garlic sauce. Although very simple, the freshly picked tender greens bitten into released clear, sweet vegetable juice that flowed down the throat, making people feel healed.
Those who had earlier shouted not to pick the vegetables ate the happiest.
Wang Luan poured the prepared nutrient solution into the soil, replaced it with new seedlings that had sprouted in the past two days, not letting the bare patch affect the overall appearance, allowing them to develop sustainably.
The fast-growing large leafy greens in the corridor were harvested once, and the large flowerbed vegetable garden in the rest area also began to bloom one after another. Early in the morning, Wang Luan’s roommate, Captain Shanma, woke her up and told her in an extremely excited tone that they had bloomed.
“What bloomed?” Wang Luan hadn’t fully woken up yet and looked blankly at Captain Shanma’s joyful face.
“The flowers you planted in the rest area— they bloomed, and a whole lot of them too. They’re really beautiful. I’ve never seen this kind of flower before.”
Before she had even brushed her teeth, Wang Luan was dragged into the rest area. She discovered that the crew members who usually got up very late had already gathered there, sitting or standing around the flowerbed vegetable garden, laughing and talking loudly.
“I’ve been waiting for them to bloom for two days already. I saw the buds the day before yesterday and kept holding it in without saying anything.”
“I was the first to notice, right? I saw the buds three days ago.”
“You little brat, you still have the nerve to say that—didn’t you pick the very first flower that bloomed and take it back to your room!”
“What? Don’t talk nonsense, I didn’t!”
“I saw it too, and you still want to deny it!”
“Then you picked one too! I saw that as well!”
A group of people, beaming with joy, cursed at each other loudly. Wang Luan really couldn’t figure out what this New Year–like festive atmosphere was about. Wasn’t it just that the vegetables they planted had bloomed?
She went over to take a look, yawning as she said, “Later we’ll just pick these flowers and fry them to eat.”
Everyone, including Captain Shanma, silently looked at her: “…………”
Wang Luan was baffled. “This kind of vegetable grows fruit in the soil. If you pick the flowers, the fruit underground can grow a bit bigger.” So that flowering wouldn’t consume nutrients.
Seeing everyone’s reluctant expressions, Wang Luan yawned again. “I’ll go back and sleep for a bit, then come back to pick them.”
Sure enough, when she returned after sleeping a while, at least half of that layer of flowers was gone. The nearby crew members were all watching her reaction. Whenever their eyes met hers, they would guiltily avert their gaze at once.
Most likely everyone had picked quite a few flowers to take back and decorate their rooms.
That they liked the flowers blooming on vegetables this much was something Wang Luan hadn’t expected. She didn’t ask further, picked the remaining vegetable flowers, and made a meal of fried vegetable blossoms.
A certain kind of climbing bean planted in the dining hall began to bloom, producing yellow-and-white mixed flowers. They weren’t quite the same as the ones grown back home, but there were similarities.
Once the flowers bloomed here, the crew members who originally liked staying in the rest area shifted to the dining hall for group activities, showing extraordinary enthusiasm for these vegetables and flowers.
Perhaps long-distance interstellar travel was just too boring. Every day, aside from patrolling and cleaning the cargo hold and taking turns piloting the ship to scout the route, there really wasn’t anything else to do.
Sitting in the dining hall, Wang Luan looked at the vine bean flowers and thought of Yan Qiongyu.
She would occasionally be like this, suddenly thinking of Yan Qiongyu for no reason, thinking that she had left so abruptly and he didn’t know where she was.
But then she thought again—this situation was rather fair. Neither of them knew where the other was.
Wang Luan cut two sprigs of yellow-and-white vine bean flowers and took them back to her room, placing them in a long-necked beverage bottle that served as a vase.
Flowers also bloomed one after another in the dining hall. When everyone ate, they no longer stared at Wang Luan alone. Instead, they heatedly discussed whether today’s flowers had been stolen by someone, and looked ahead to what the dishes would taste like once the flowers bore fruit.
Of course, during the voyage there weren’t only such ordinary, tedious matters. There were also some more troublesome situations—for example, encountering a moving asteroid belt.
Captain Shanma was the captain of this spaceship. She had over thirty years of sailing experience. According to her, she had started fumbling around piloting ships from the time she was barely ten, once she could reach the control console. Whether that was true or not was anyone’s guess.
But she really was formidable at flying a ship. That vast asteroid belt that made the younger crew members turn pale with fear—once she took the helm, she piloted with a silky smooth feel, dodging those irregular asteroids as if she were showing off.
This middle-aged female alpha who usually liked to lounge around with her legs crossed, drinking alcohol and chatting about gossip, faintly revealed a sharp, resolute air when she was flying the ship.
That night, Wang Luan didn’t return to her room to rest. She sat beside Captain Shanma’s pilot seat, watching as she threaded through those obstacles, steering the ship out of the dangerous zone at sharp angles.
For more than ten hours, aside from her eyeballs and hands, she hardly moved at all. After leaving the danger zone, she released the controls and immediately collapsed to the side, shouting that she was exhausted to death.
Seeing Wang Luan’s impressed expression, Captain Shanma said mysteriously, “Impressive, right? Actually, I used to pilot heavy bombing airships in the Imperial military, and I even made it to deputy regiment commander!”
Wang Luan also said, “Impressive. Actually, I used to be the heir of a great noble family, the kind who could chat and laugh with imperial princes and princesses in the capital.”
“You’re even better at boasting than I am!” Captain Shanma laughed loudly.
Wang Luan laughed along, and asked her to teach her how to fly a ship.
Captain Shanma said lazily, “What’s there to teach about flying a ship? You just fly more and you naturally get good at it.”
Wang Luan said, “When I cook, I’ll make you a portion too.”
Captain Shanma immediately sat down in the pilot’s seat and said solemnly, “Actually, there really are some techniques. I wouldn’t normally tell just anyone, but what kind of relationship do we have? If you want to learn, I’ll definitely teach you everything, not hiding anything at all!”
On the spaceship, Wang Luan gained another way to pass the time—flying the ship.
Her piloting skills grew more and more proficient, and she gradually came to like piloting the spaceship alone.
Space travel always gave people a feeling of loneliness yet grandeur, especially when it entered the ship’s night cycle, the crew all went to rest, and aside from one person in the observation room monitoring the route, over here in the control console and cockpit there was only her alone.
The broad viewport in front of her was like an opened eye. From here on, the universe’s myriad stars poured into her line of sight, threatening to drown a person.
Wang Luan had a thought: she wanted a spaceship of her own. It didn’t need to be too big—just like this, able to travel slowly through the universe, with some vegetables planted on the ship.
When she was still with the Wang family, she had owned many spaceships and airships under her name, but she had never felt that they were hers. Thus she gave them up with particular decisiveness, and never felt it was a pity.
What she owned now was what truly belonged to her.
So, why not gather materials herself and build a spaceship of her own?
In her spare time, Wang Luan began holding a notebook, sketching and writing, little by little perfecting the prototype of her spaceship. Even while piloting, she was thinking about it.
That day, as usual, she took the initiative to pilot the ship and pondered its design, when she suddenly saw an unfamiliar spaceship approaching.
“Damn! The signal we sent got no response—this has to be a star pirate ship from this area!” the crew member in the monitoring room cursed and hurriedly slapped the alarm.
Before long, everyone grabbed their weapons and scrambled up. When Captain Shanma ran over, she was still fastening her pants.
She fastened her pants while standing beside Wang Luan, her tone serious. “It should indeed be a star pirate ship. Look at the emblem printed on that ship—that’s a relatively famous star pirate group called ‘Yanlan.’ Don’t be fooled by the soft-sounding name; they’re extremely tough. That ship isn’t very large, so it should be a scout ship. There must be several more ships following behind it.”
“I’ve heard of them too—the ‘Yanlan’ star pirate group. I heard that if you’re an omega they’ll let you go, but alphas get taken away and sold. No one knows where they’re sold to, but anyway, no one who’s been captured by them has ever been seen again.” The other crew members discussed it among themselves.
“I heard the one in charge of that pirate group is an omega.”
“So what if she’s an omega? When they get ruthless, they’re even more heartless!”
In just a few words’ time, several larger ships indeed appeared behind that one. It looked like they had used spatial jumps to arrive nearby—it was just their bad luck to run straight into them.
“They wouldn’t be interested in a little broken cargo ship like ours, right?” someone had just finished speaking when the newly arrived pirate ships fired an energy cannon this way once, as if casually smashing them apart like a small stone blocking the road.
“That way—we’ll enter that asteroid zone. They’ll definitely be too lazy to chase us in.” Captain Shanma pointed and commanded.
Wang Luan was startled. “The asteroid zone is very dangerous. If you’re not careful, the ship will crash. You want me to fly?”
Captain Shanma said, “What, are you scared? You’re not up to it even though I taught you—”
The ship suddenly lost gravity. Wang Luan controlled the ship to dodge another bombardment, then sharply rushed into the asteroid zone.
She wasn’t as practiced as Captain Shanma, but she didn’t hit a single asteroid. Her expression was focused as she entered a state of complete absorption, leaving the asteroids and the ‘Yanlan’ star pirate ships far behind.
On the pirate ship that had just fired two energy cannons, the beta piloting it cautiously said to the person seated behind him, “Boss, that little cargo ship crashed into the asteroid zone.”
The female omega sitting there with her legs crossed, fiddling with an energy gun, cursed irritably, “Useless trash! You can’t even hit a broken cargo ship!”
No one present dared speak, all lowering their heads to let her scold them.
After cursing a couple of times, a male omega carrying a communicator walked in. He glanced at her. “What are you angry about this time?”
Yan Yan snorted unhappily, but didn’t speak. Yan Lan immediately understood—she was still angry over what had happened not long ago.
The two were twin sister and brother. Although their personalities were different, their hearts were more or less connected. Knowing exactly what his sister was angry about, Yan Lan stepped forward to comfort her. “Once we find the deserter Fu Qi and hand him over to Yan Qiongyu, we’ll come back.”
Their Yanlan star pirate group had always been active near the Yangu River Desert Sea, Jingu Township. This time, they were competing for territory with another long-standing enemy. Just as they were clearly gaining the upper hand, news suddenly came from the Godmother’s side that Fu Qi had defected, requiring them to cooperate with the Godson Yan Qiongyu to capture him and bring him back.
Just to catch one person, they had no choice but to abandon a favorable situation and leave. Yan Yan would of course not be angry at the Godmother, so she vented her anger on a small cargo ship by the roadside.
Yan Lan didn’t care what fate awaited that broken cargo ship crashing into the asteroid zone. He was thinking about another matter.
“Now, the Godmother has handed many affairs over to Yan Qiongyu. This Godson of hers really does seem like he’s going to become the new ‘king’ of our Utopia.”
Yan Yan’s expression was disdainful. “Ha, an omega raised by the Empire. The only one I acknowledge is the Godmother—what does he count as?”
Yan Lan smiled at his sister with tacit understanding. His thoughts were, of course, the same as hers.
