At one o'clock in the afternoon, Jiang Ye was sound asleep under the covers.
Cen Yemeng sat on the windowsill with her legs bare, the window glass illuminated, displaying various websites. She stared intently, her fingers swiping across the glass, flipping through the pages.
Jiang Ye rolled over, opened his eyes, glanced at her, and then closed them again, a look of speechless exasperation on his face.
He didn't understand his wife's behavior. Cen Yemeng claimed she was searching for planets they could acquire, but how could such opportunities be found online? Jiang Ye had only heard of websites selling houses and cars, never planets. Although the Galactic Empire's territory was boundless, it wasn't to the extent of listing planets for sale on the internet.
The phone on the bedside table suddenly vibrated.
"Yours," Cen Yemeng glanced over.
Jiang Ye groggily picked up the phone and looked at it. It was as if he'd been doused with ice water, and he instantly sat bolt upright.
"Hello, Commander?" Jiang Ye's face lit up with a smile.
"Your wife passed the exam, right?" Li Nannan's voice was urgent.
"She did, she's qualified to serve on the third planet," Jiang Ye quickly straightened up.
Cen Yemeng, who had been lounging on the windowsill, suddenly turned her head, jumped onto the bed, and crawled to Jiang Ye's ear to listen.
Jiang Ye directly pressed the speakerphone, and Li Nannan's voice immediately filled the entire bedroom.
"There's a planet called Exile Planet, rebelling against the Galactic Empire. This planet should be able to help you acquire it," Li Nannan said. "It's not clear over the phone, should I come to you or should you come to me?"
"We'll come to you," Cen Yemeng immediately replied.
"Okay, then hurry up," Li Nannan said. "I'll send the location to Jiang Ye's phone."
The call ended.
The couple immediately began preparing to leave.
Jiang Ye called to inform the troops to prepare the spaceship, while Cen Yemeng started looking for clothes for the two of them to wear.
There was no need to pack luggage. In the adjacent room, sixty black and white suitcases were stored, divided into small, medium, and large sizes, corresponding to short, medium, and long-distance travel. Everything they needed was packed inside, and the contents of each suitcase were identical. When they left, Jiang Ye would carry the black suitcase, and Cen Yemeng the white one.
Li Nannan's message arrived again, an address for a space city.
Jiang Ye searched for it and was startled. The location of this space city was at the edge of the Milky Way, almost detached from it. If there were boundary markers in interstellar space, the space city's location was right next to them, quite far from Jiang Ye's planet.
He had expected it to take a long time to get there, but after Jiang Ye entered the address into the navigation system, he found it would only take three days.
They only needed to jump to the nearest jump gate and then they could reach the edge of the Milky Way directly, followed by a few more small jumps.
The couple hurried out. The military vehicle had already arrived to take them to the space station. The space station had a jump spaceship ready after maintenance and inspection. Jiang Ye and Cen Yemeng quickly boarded. The entire process was seamless, as all relevant personnel had been thoroughly prepared.
Ten hours later, the spaceship arrived near the jump gate.
The jump gate looked like a black hole, appearing as a massive black circle suspended in space from a distance.
The pure blackness seemed like nothingness. As the spaceship approached, the sense of spatial distance vanished. Jiang Ye looked out the window and could only see the blackness slowly consuming the universe, stars extinguishing in clusters.
Immediately after, the spaceship jolted, and the entire universe suddenly changed from pitch black to filled with points of light. The density of stars compressed dramatically, as if all the stars were squeezed together, or as if the Big Bang was replaying. The light outside was so intense that the window automatically darkened, activating its anti-glare mode.
"Warp gate transit in progress, estimated arrival in 33 minutes. Please do not touch the window with your hands."
Jiang Ye was puzzled, "Why can't I touch it?"
Cen Yemeng glanced at him, "If they tell you not to touch it, then don't. Don't be like a child."
Jiang Ye suddenly felt a strong urge of curiosity.
Why exactly couldn't he touch the window?
What would happen if he just touched it once?
He was eager to try.
Cen Yemeng held down his hand, picked up a glass of water from the table, and splashed it onto the window!
With a sizzling sound, the water seemed to hit a furnace. The window glass showed no change, but it had become extremely hot!
Jiang Ye behaved himself, obediently retracting his hand and staying far away from the window.
He pondered the principle of the jump gate in his mind. It was likely similar to a wormhole. Looking at the densely packed stars outside, resembling grains of rice in porridge, it was evident that space had been folded. The path that originally led to the edge of the Milky Way was like a mountain road, long and requiring constant course corrections. Now, it was like a plane flying directly to the mountaintop, saving countless detours.
As for why the window glass became scorching hot, it was naturally due to the starlight shining through. The light from each star was negligible, but when they were as dense as mosquitoes by a pond in summer, the heat would be considerable.
The warp transit concluded successfully.
Jiang Ye and Cen Yemeng's phones vibrated simultaneously.
[You have arrived at the edge of the Milky Way's frontier.]
[Some interstellar services are unavailable here, and the probability of spatial and temporal turbulence is high. You are also likely to encounter unfriendly alien species. Please be cautious.]
Jiang Ye raised an eyebrow.
Translating it into ancient language, it meant they had reached the border. Their phones would likely have poor signal, deliveries would be impossible, the terrain would be uneven and prone to pitfalls, and there would be hostile aliens from beyond the border.
The spaceship continued forward, and after a few short jumps, they finally saw the space city.
Calling it a space city, its scale was so grand it was almost like a star. Tens of thousands of silvery-white large rings nested within each other, rotating slowly, emitting a diamond-like luster. Countless spaceships were coming and going, like dust motes in the sunlight blowing through an old house. But each faint dust mote was a colossal spaceship kilometers, or even tens of kilometers, in diameter.
Jiang Ye and Cen Yemeng stared out the window, stunned by the magnificent sight.
The spaceship's speed noticeably decreased. Just like airplanes needing air traffic control for landing at an airport, the crowded traffic here required the spaceships to wait for instructions.
The door was suddenly knocked.
"Please come in," Jiang Ye said.
The captain opened the door and entered, saluting, "Reporting, Commander. We are scheduled to dock at berth b663 in the left arm spiral of the space city. We just received a message from space city control saying the spaceship at berth b664 exploded, and there's chaos. We might have to wait a long time to get a backup berth."
"Is there no other way? We just have to wait?" Jiang Ye asked.
The captain's expression was awkward, clearly at a loss.
Jiang Ye waved his hand, and the captain saluted and left.
Cen Yemeng had already taken out her phone and was messaging Li Nannan.
"Nannan said she's coming over, about half an hour," Cen Yemeng said.
Jiang Ye blinked, then suddenly stood up and began changing into formal attire.
Cen Yemeng also ran into the bedroom to change her clothes.
Half an hour later, Li Nannan arrived and opened the door precisely on time.
She was also wearing a rare military dress uniform, looking heroic and stern.
"Do you have the holographic projector?" Li Nannan tossed something over.
Jiang Ye deftly caught it. It was a standalone offline storage device, resembling a power bank.
He plugged the storage device into the room's holographic projector, and the room's network was immediately disconnected, entering a confidential and secure state.