Yan Qiongyu would appear at her home from time to time, without any pattern and without warning.
Wang Luan never asked when he would come, nor did she ask when he would leave. When he came, she would stew soup to nourish him, and the two of them seemed to have reached some kind of tacit understanding.
Whenever Wang Luan returned home and saw fresh flowers placed in the pink crystal vase, she knew Yan Qiongyu had come. And on the days when he did not come, the vase was always empty.
With two people around, the days seemed a bit livelier, but she had already grown used to being alone as well.
It was just that, after knowing he would come, Wang Luan realized that she seemed to be unconsciously waiting for him.
Once the thought of waiting took root in her heart, every day began to feel much longer.
Yan Qiongyu had not appeared for quite a long time, and Wang Luan could not help wondering whether something had happened to him.
This wouldn’t do, Wang Luan thought. She should go earn some extra money. Staying at home every day made it too easy to get distracted and think about unnecessary things.
It so happened that when she went to buy parts, the shop owner brought her a piece of news. That wealthy second-generation heir from Daqian District, Qi Liao, had sent her another invitation, wanting to ask her to repair mecha for him.
Wang Luan recalled how generous this employer had been last time, then calculated her rapidly dwindling savings, and felt that this job was worth taking.
Because she wanted to build a spaceship herself, she needed an especially large amount of materials, and she had already overturned her previous first plan of assembling a spaceship from scratch, changing it to buying a basic spaceship and then modifying it herself. With the money she currently had on hand, it was still far from enough to modify a spaceship to her satisfaction—she needed to make money.
She had the shop owner, who often went to Daqian District to stock up, send a reply over there. Wang Luan packed up and went to Daqian District the next day.
This trip would take several days. She left a note under the vase, telling Yan Qiongyu where she had gone, and also telling him that the stewed soup was in the preservation cabinet, and if he came, he could heat it up himself and drink it.
For notes like this, whenever she went out for more than two days, she would leave one. They were written in Chinese, probably a language that only she and Yan Qiongyu in this world could recognize.
Sometimes the note would be taken away; more often, it would remain there as it was, and then be put away by her again.
As long as she left Little Wu District, Wang Luan would put on a dust mask. She arrived at the Qi family’s mansion, and Qi Liao was already waiting for her.
This self-familiar rich second-generation heir was still as enthusiastic as last time, leading her into his mecha warehouse. This warehouse had been expanded again after not seeing it for a few months. As soon as Wang Luan walked in, she saw several damaged mecha piled up inside.
“Ah, I bought three more mecha during this period, but these mecha are always prone to problems and still aren’t enough to use. It’s really great that you could come. My mom told me that if I buy any more mecha, she’ll stop my card, so I can only make do with these old mecha.”
Wang Luan did not like to talk much while working. She kept her head down and worked seriously, doing everything decisively, as if nothing could stump her. Qi Liao admired people like her. Watching his mecha get repaired one by one, he increasingly wanted to befriend her and could not help bringing up the same old topic again.
“I’m telling you, you really don’t want to be my mecha engineer? The salary is much higher than doing single repairs at several shops!”
Although Qi Liao was rich, truly capable mecha engineers were not that easy to find. Those who could become mecha engineers usually came from families with some money; otherwise, they wouldn’t even be able to touch mecha, so how could they become mecha engineers. These mecha engineers from wealthy families all went to serve even more powerful heirs—who would look at a rookie like him, who only treated low-level mecha like luxury cars to play with.
He had previously found a few mecha engineers as well, but their abilities were lacking. Many mecha problems they simply couldn’t solve, unlike this one—young and talented. Whatever the problem was, she could understand it at a glance, and even more complex ones, she could figure out after dismantling them. Qi Liao felt that she was definitely not an ordinary person.
Wang Luan closed the front cover of the mecha. She did not refuse outright, only saying, “I won’t be an exclusive mecha engineer, but I can come more often.”
As soon as she loosened her stance, Qi Liao hurriedly said, “Alright, I’ll give you an out-of-district communicator. It’ll make contacting you more convenient, so we don’t have to relay messages every time and fail to reach you.”
On edge planets, most people only used communicators in their daily lives, and such communicators could only make contact within a single district—often becoming useless once you left that district.
Cross-district communicators were expensive, and only wealthy people whose family businesses extended into other districts would use them.
What made cross-district, and even cross–star-ring, communicators expensive was that they required the dedicated installation of signal transmitters between planets, with separate communication routes.
The communicator Qi Liao gave Wang Luan used the Qi family’s own communication routes. It was usable in several nearby districts, but once outside this star ring, it could no longer be used.
Although this was already an interstellar world, the feudal imperial system and the vast expanse of star domains made the gap between rich and poor exceptionally large. Everything high-end and precious was enjoyed by nobles and the wealthy.
Thus, the young masters and young ladies of the Imperial Capital star ring could casually buy large travel starships, while ordinary people might never be able to afford even a small spaceship in their lifetime. The rich could buy dozens of mecha, but in the edge districts many people had never even touched or seen a mecha in their entire lives—this kind of situation was very common.
The same was true of intelligent terminals. In Little Wu District, very few people could afford to use an intelligent terminal; there were only some public intelligent-terminal pods rented by time. In Wang Luan’s view, they were just like the internet cafés of her previous life.
While waiting for Wang Luan to repair the mecha, Qi Liao logged onto an intelligent terminal out of boredom. After reading through all kinds of local news and gossip, he crossed star rings to watch more excitement, and in the end simply started playing a mecha game.
High-level intelligent terminals could directly connect the mind to the virtual world. Qi Liao was now logging into the virtual world in a semi-immersive mode.
After exiting the immersive game, he saw Wang Luan looking at his custom rainbow-colored intelligent terminal. Qi Liao said generously, “I just bought this new model intelligent terminal not long ago. If you don’t have one, I can give you one?”
Wang Luan refused. “No need.” She had only taken an extra look because his sense of aesthetics was rather dazzling.
The reason she didn’t use a private intelligent terminal wasn’t because she couldn’t afford one. Strictly speaking, she even had an intelligent terminal she had brought out from the Wang family, and that one was far more expensive than this market model in Qi Liao’s hands.
The main reason was that logging into this kind of private intelligent terminal required collecting biological genetic information. Once logged in, it would be easy for the Wang family to discover her—she hadn’t forgotten that the Wang family was still looking for her.
When necessary, she would use a public intelligent-terminal pod as a visitor. Although many functions were unavailable with a visitor identity, browsing only within this star ring was relatively safe.
Qi Liao thought she was extremely individualistic. He said to Wang Luan, “Don’t be polite with me. You’re a friend I’m determined to make. If you need any help, just tell me!”
Wang Luan didn’t feel much about making friends with people, but she did indeed have something she needed Qi Liao’s help with.
“I want to buy a spaceship. Do you have any connections?”
Spaceships were expensive goods that ordinary people couldn’t afford, and ordinary shops really didn’t have them. But a young master like Qi Liao definitely had channels to order them. Sure enough, although he was a bit surprised that Wang Luan wanted to buy a spaceship, he agreed very readily.
“No problem. My family has relatives who do this. I’ll have them give you the best price.” As Qi Liao spoke, he tapped his intelligent terminal. “How about we go take a look now? I just bought a new mecha too, and it’s arrived—let’s pick it up together!”
Wang Luan: “……” Hadn’t he just said that if he bought any more mecha his mother would cut him off?
Qi Liao drove his flashy red mecha toward the mechanical mall. That place used membership-based shopping—non-members couldn’t even get through the door. Qi Liao was an old regular; seeing his ostentatious mecha, they let him through directly.
