Jiang Senlin returned to his room to sleep.
Cen Yemeng shed silent tears, wiping her face with a tissue.
Jiang Ye called Li Nannan, "Your godson wants to become younger. I want to inquire, which planet has the best surgical standards?"
"Zhigao Star. The best medical resources. Even Qin Shi Huang could be resurrected if dug up. This kind of surgery is completely child's play," Li Nannan replied decisively. "When can Senlin get there? I'll make arrangements."
"Okay, then you arrange it. I'll cover the expenses," Jiang Ye said. "Since Meteorite Star is settled, Mengmeng and I will go to Zhigao Star for a vacation, and let Senlin have surgery then."
"Perfect, I'll arrange it for your whole family in one go," Li Nannan said. "Wait for my news. I'll ask my contacts on Zhigao Star. Within three days. Prepare two hundred billion."
"Do I still need to prepare for this?" Jiang Ye chuckled.
The call ended. Jiang Ye nodded to his wife, and Cen Yemeng's tears instantly turned into a smile.
Li Nannan's reply came sooner than expected. The next morning, when Jiang Ye woke up, the message was waiting quietly.
"The surgery will be performed at the Second Military Hospital on Zhigao Star. Several authorities have been assigned to be in charge. Payment will be collected after the surgery; it's a small sum for you."
"In 72 hours, berth C633 at Zhigao Star's First Space Station will be vacant. Your ship can dock there. The maximum docking capacity is Stellar-class. Don't bring a Nebula-class ship and scare people. Calculate the time yourself, don't arrive too early and be unable to land. Zhigao Star's berths are impossible to buy even with money. I had to go through a lot of trouble to get this for you."
"For your vacation accommodation, it's on the top floor of Unit 1 in Yunzheng Residential Area, outside the Twelfth Ring of Zhigao Star's Capital City. The price per square meter for this house is 2.8 million. It's a total of 300 square meters with no common area. I'll send you a link. Once you click on it and pay, you can buy it. Houses in Zhigao Star's Capital City are hard to snatch up. I also got this through connections. You can stay there first, and you can keep it or sell it later. If you don't want this house, you can also stay in a hotel; there are plenty of hotels, just book a room online."
"When you get there, don't worry about getting lost or anything. There will be plenty of people to serve you. Transportation, dining, and entertainment are all very convenient."
Li Nannan also sent a few travel guides for Zhigao Star.
After reading the messages, Jiang Ye and Cen Yemeng quickly got busy.
Ordinary people can go on a spontaneous trip, but Jiang Ye and his wife are planet leaders. Even leaving for a day requires arranging a lot of work.
Jiang Ye spent the entire day on the phone, his mouth tired from talking. He communicated with his subordinates, explained future work directions for various matters, and temporarily transferred a small portion of his power. Managing several planets was bound to be troublesome.
Cen Yemeng had it easier. Her scope of authority was smaller, and the system of the exile planet was more self-sustaining. She finished delegating all matters in three hours and then began reading the travel guides, preparing for the family's travel plans.
Two days later, a Stellar-class spaceship landed on the lawn of the General's Mansion.
Jiang Ye and Cen Yemeng, one on each side, held Jiang Senlin's small hands and walked onto the spaceship.
Before boarding, the family took a group photo. This was because Jiang Senlin, the little old man, would cease to exist after this trip.
...
The journey was very smooth. A day later, the spaceship entered Zhigao Star's orbit.
Jiang Ye leaned by the window, overlooking the planet's day and night hemispheres.
The land on the day hemisphere was a verdant green, like moss growing on rocks. The oceans were a translucent jade color, remarkably beautiful. On the night hemisphere, there were lights from some cities, but they were unevenly distributed; some areas were particularly glaring, while others were completely dark. White clouds swirled across the entire planet's sky, and several cyclones were forming.
What also caught Jiang Ye's attention were the satellites. The density of Zhigao Star's satellites was astonishing. Strings of bright, flashing satellites whizzed by, like metallic debris on the planet's surface, or like migrating flocks of birds. There were also large objects called space scavengers, drifting darkly near the satellite orbits, occasionally consuming a malfunctioning satellite; they were quite ferocious.
It was said that some citizens of Zhigao Star still held power and needed stable signals to contact their home planet, hence the vast number of satellites. Many streets in Zhigao Star's cities had satellite shops, like convenience stores. Inside, the walls were covered with satellite models, with prices that had countless zeros.
The spaceship began to descend.
It descended to the critical point and stopped.
A Zhigao Star interstellar police spaceship approached and docked with the cabin door.
Then a group of officers boarded for inspection. They were very thorough, even scanning Jiang Ye and Cen Yemeng's luggage. Finally, they confiscated a long knife from the kitchen and a spare high-capacity battery, issued an electronic permit number, and left with a salute.
Jiang Ye noticed a change in his mindset. When he was a child, riding his electric bike to school, he felt an inexplicable nervousness seeing auxiliary police at intersections. Now, no matter how high the rank of the approaching police officer, he felt no ripple in his heart. After all, he had presided over some meetings where the applause came from a sea of white shirts.
The spaceship continued to descend, and soon two aerospace fighters escorted it, flying at the limit of visual range. Jiang Ye could see a small black dot stationary on his left, like a sesame seed.
"Zhigao Star isn't at war, why the escort?" Jiang Senlin asked.
Jiang Ye and Cen Yemeng reacted the same way, smiling and ruffling their son's head, neither explaining.
The space station grew larger and larger, its scale far exceeding any space station Jiang Ye had ever seen. Its layout resembled a chessboard, a super-large space station formed by dozens of standard large space stations connected together. Countless spaceships were docked, a very small number of Nebula-class, and the rest were almost exclusively Stellar-class. Billions of spaceships were as common as minivans here. It was likely that even a regular spaceship manufacturer's warehouse wouldn't have such a scale.
The visible spaceships alone had a total value exceeding the GDP of an ordinary planet, and there were dozens of similarly sized space stations on Zhigao Star. Such a massive concentration of wealth on this planet deeply shocked Jiang Ye.
He completely understood the reason for the existence of such large-scale space stations. It was like a parking lot; the more people who owned cars, the larger the parking lot in that area would be. Ordinary planets had only one spaceship per tens of thousands of people, while Zhigao Star had almost everyone owning more than one, naturally requiring incredibly large docking bays.
The spaceship landed slowly.
The broadcast announced.
"Today's local temperature is from minus ten degrees to zero degrees Celsius. Please keep warm."
Jiang Ye and Cen Yemeng had already stood up and changed into thick windbreakers, and they also put down down jackets for Jiang Senlin. The family, bundled up tightly, disembarked with their luggage.
A guide was already waiting. She was a white woman with chestnut hair, wearing a uniform skirt and exuding an air similar to a flight attendant. She stated that a car was ready and the destination was the hospital, but flying vehicles were not allowed in the space station area, so they had to walk.