Recap
Shen Xing smiled, opened her wallet and put a few coins in front of him, turned and wanted to leave.
The man became anxious: “Hey, I don’t want your money, I don’t want your money. Let me introduce myself, my name is Lu Shanhao, and I have always been the most accurate fortune teller.”
His eagerness was rare. Shen Xing was patient and said with a smile: “Then tell me.”
Lu Shanhao pushed his glasses, muttered something in his mouth, kept calculating, and then said solemnly: “Your child…”
Even though she knew it was probably a lie, Shen Xing couldn’t help holding her breath.
Lu Shanhao said: “You may not believe it. Your child will be married to the king of alien beasts in the future.”
Shen Xing’s face turned pale with fright, she took back the few coins, and dragged Shen Chaomu away.
The planet’s most renowned doctor offered no solutions, only temporary relief. After weeks of fruitless attempts, he suggested seeking treatment elsewhere.
Every time she traveled from planet to planet like this, although she went to many places, she couldn’t spare the time to enjoy the scenery. For her, all journeys are full of air tickets and medical records in the terminal.
The next day, she boarded the ship with her child again.
It took three days to reach the destination this time. One night, she was sleeping in a daze on the bed when she suddenly heard something.
It was a song, vast and mysterious, like the whispers of the deep sea.
The reverberation continued, and her chest seemed to tremble with it.
The singing was very similar to the one she heard last time. She sat up, peering out the window at the vast darkness punctuated by distant stars.
The singing continued, she subconsciously put her hand on the glass, and the coldness of the void came over. She felt a strange connection, as if another heart beat in sync with hers across the vast expanse of space.
During a brief stopover, a message arrived from her family.
They were researching the throne.
Everyone in the alliance has discovered the alien beasts’ desire for the throne, and there must be power beyond their imagination in it.
“Could it be a field we’ve never explored before? Can humans master it?” The elder was extremely excited, “After all, the power possessed by the ghost whale was something we never imagined before.”
Shen Xing just said briefly: “Okay.”
“Don’t you want to know? Maybe it can cure diseases.”
Hope flickered within her. “I hope so,” she murmured. “How is the awakening project progressing?”
The throne is too attractive to everyone.
Perhaps it is another power that can be harnessed.
After all, less than a century ago, humans hadn’t possessed spiritual power. Now, a select few, primarily the dragon-hunting families, could harness this ability, allowing them to navigate the dangers of the Star Sea.
So a plan was put forward: the National Spiritual Power Awakening Plan.
Shen Xing has been away from home for a long time, so she doesn’t know much about the current situation.
“No breakthroughs yet,” the elder sighed. “We can’t identify the key factor. Perhaps it’s simply talent. If everyone had spiritual power, we wouldn’t fear the strange beasts or the vastness of space.”
Shen Xing resumed her journey, her body and spirit weary. Alone in the aircraft, her child sleeping fitfully with a fever, she spoke to the recorder, her voice a rambling monologue of fears and hopes. She would pause, disoriented, unsure of her purpose, her surroundings a blur.
When she stopped, she was stunned for a few seconds, not knowing where she was or what she was doing.
As the day passed, she could hear the singing every time she took the starship – sometimes far and sometimes near, not clear, haunting her dreams.
She dreamed of the deep sea.
Dreamed of behemoths and stars.
The 67th time she took the starship, the ship was caught in a cosmic storm. It was a sudden Category III cosmic storm, which was very dangerous for them.
The pilot was very experienced, gritted his teeth and shuttled through the storm, the ship shook violently as if the end was coming, and the sound of crying and shouting filled the whole world for a while. The things in the room were flying everywhere, Shen Xing hugged the child tightly, the singing continued in the chaos, but she had no time to pay attention.
A few seconds later, a piercing sound exploded in her ear: “What is that?!”
On the TV in every room, the scene outside the starship can be played at any time. Most of the time it was deep darkness, occasionally with starlight, but this time everyone saw the brilliance flickering in the void.
Colorful. Light, fragmented, jumping.
But it wasn’t a star, but more like…some kind of phosphorescence, or a school of fish swimming around a whale.
——Everyone knows that this is a sign that the ghost whale is approaching.
It was very fast, and the radar of the starship was seriously disturbed by the cosmic storm, and the pilot had no time to take care of it, so no one noticed this.
But even if they found out, they were powerless.
The radar couldn’t detect its entire body, and the naked eyes couldn’t tell where it was, only the shining phosphorescence floating. This time there was no crying in the spaceship, there was a desperate silence, and Shen Xing’s hands and feet were cold.
The cosmic storm is no longer a threat – it was directly cut off by the ghost whale’s body, and the turbulent flow was slapped away with a light flick of its tail.
Then a faint soft white light appeared in front of people. It was much bigger than the starship I didn’t know, and there was a faint brilliance flowing in it, quietly facing everyone on the starship.
It turns very slowly.
Someone murmured: “Is this… is this its eye?”
[Can you hear me? ]
Shen Xing was in a trance for a moment, thinking that it was a hallucination talking to her.
[Can you hear me? ]
The vast and deep voice like the ocean asked again, very much like the singing she had heard.
Shen Xing’s eyes widened slightly, and she walked to the window to look at the light – it was still looking at the starship.
[Can you hear me? ] it asked again.
Shen Xing hesitated for a moment, and tentatively replied: “…Are you?”
She didn’t even realize that the words she uttered turned into some kind of very obscure language.
In the next second, as if finally catching the target, a huge spiritual force surged in from the universe, shattering the window of her room. Shen Xing subconsciously turned around and hugged the child, using her spiritual power to protect them, even though her spiritual power was nothing compared to the ghost whale.
But that spiritual power gently protected them.
They were brought into the void, and some kind of strange connection was established, so that the darkness was no longer deep.
So, as if by a miracle, Shen Xing saw the ghost whale.
It has dark blue skin, with countless ferocious scars on it, three dorsal fins and pectoral fins are strong and powerful, and its abdomen is white.
At this time, those huge eyes were staring at her intently.
[I don’t have a name or title,] it said, [but I’ve been waiting for you. Can you really hear my voice? ]
“…Yes, I can hear.”
Then the ghost whale laughed – Shen Xing didn’t know how she knew it was laughing, maybe it was the joy that erupted from the connected spiritual power. It sprayed water from its head, and the water that came from nowhere did not condense, but swayed like a drizzle, as if it was really in the sea.
With it comes a rainbow.
It sounds unbelievable that there can be water and rainbows in the universe.
This is a gift from the ghost whale to her. The rainbow spans the star field, blending the brilliance of thousands of stars.
[Then from today onwards, we will know each other. ] It said, [Only you can hear my voice in this universe. So, do you have a name? Are there any species like you in this world? Can they understand me too? ]
“My name is Shen Xing. The people on the spaceship behind me are all from my family.” Shen Xing replied.
The people on the spaceship didn’t realize that someone had been taken away by the ghost whale. The engine reached its maximum power, and they were escaping at the fastest speed. Shen Xing could hardly see the spaceship now. Although this distance is almost non-existent for ghost whales.
Shen Xing hadn’t recovered from her astonishment yet, when she suddenly realized that the ghost whale hadn’t noticed their existence at all.
After all, for it, the spaceship is no different from the garbage floating in the universe, and it is not even worth stopping to observe.
[Are there any of your kind in these nasty metals? ]
“Yes, we have been traveling in space. I don’t think they can understand you… We have also tried to communicate with you, but it has had no effect at all.”
This time the ghost whale panicked.
Shen Xing felt its emotions again, it was messy, as if she couldn’t figure out what happened at all.
… It became lively for no reason, it no longer looked like a terrifying and emotionless existence.
Shen Xing said again: “Can you… let us go?” She hugged the child in her arms, “Or just him.”
[Which planet do you live on? ]
“It’s far away.” It seemed that he wanted them to leave. Shen Xing breathed a sigh of relief, and said the names of many planets in succession, “Do you know these places?”
As expected, the ghost whale didn’t know the name of the planet at all.
It said: [I’ll take you to have a look. ]
Then the surrounding stars flowed.
It took Shen Xing a few seconds to realize that they were actually traveling through the starry sky. Tidal blue and purple gray, olive green and ivory white, the coral red and antler brown intertwined to create a magnificent brilliance.
Almost in the blink of an eye, they came to a planet several light-years away.
[Is this it?]
Shen Xing identified it: “No, no one lives here, but there is a planet nearby.”
She clearly misjudged the ghost whale’s understanding of “nearby.”
Next, they jumped through countless light-years of travel. Shen Xing knew the planets very well, but there were many planets that the ghost whale took her to see that she had never even heard of. Their atmospheres had strange patterns, and she couldn’t even tell what kind of planets they were.
It took some time for the ghost whale to find the planet Shen Xing mentioned.
Before the spiritual power sent them back, it said: [When will you come again next time? ]
“I don’t know either.” Shen Xing said, “I’m going to take him to heal.”
[Okay, but I will definitely be able to find you next time, I remember your voice. ] When this topic was mentioned, the ghost whale’s spiritual power was once again filled with intense joy, and there was some reluctance, [We will meet again. Don’t be angry, I will never eat your iron box again. ]
Being told such words by such a terrifying monster should have been terrifying.
But Shen Xing didn’t feel that way.
Perhaps that joy was too pure and intense.
Back on familiar land again, everything just now seemed like a dream.
Shen Xing truthfully told her family everything.
The shock of this news was no less than a nuclear explosion, and it almost made her family boil – they were still cautious and did not let everyone in the clan and the high-level members of the alliance know. To be precise, this news was in the hands of a very small number of people.
Since then, even if they got closer, the ghost whale never attacked the fleet again. For a while, she became a man of the hour, and countless people rushed to get in touch with her. Originally, not many people cared about the child’s condition, but now they used all their connections to rush to cure him.
With it comes a storm of words:
“You can keep it from attacking the fleet, can you just ask about the throne?”
“What exactly is the existence of the throne? What does its power have to do with the throne?”
“Where did the ghost whale come from? Is it from another galaxy? Are there any other strange beasts like it?”
“There is a frenzy of space beasts in that galaxy, please let it deal with the frenzy quickly. See if it can always listen to you.”
“Oh, don’t rush for quick success, gain its trust first, and everything will be easy to talk about later. Shen Xing, don’t worry, take your time, we have time to wait.”
Shen Xing was worried, there was no doctor who could cure the disease, and now she was entangled in this kind of thing – in fact, she hadn’t seen the ghost whale many times.
After a long time of running around, her body became worse and worse.
Once, she finally escaped the entanglement of those people, and she came to a wasteland to prepare medicine according to a folk prescription.
It is not far from the town, there are no strange beasts appearing at ordinary times, only the sky full of stars.
She slept in the tent.
She slept very deeply this time, her chest was stuffy, her heart was beating fast, as if something was falling. This was an abnormal sleep. When she woke up, she was covered in sweat, her face as pale as a dead person.
Looking around again, the child is gone.
Her heart tightened, she forced herself out of the tent with dizziness, and then her heart almost stopped——
Outside the tent, under the dazzling starlight, the dragon had golden eyes.
Its whole body is covered with shining silver scales, and the edges are colorful polarized light. After the light purple passes, it is light green, and then dark blue and moon white are intertwined, like the Milky Way melting, and the stars are colorful.
A young dragon, not even half the height of an adult.
The training from the family made Shen Xing instantly judge: This is definitely a dragon above the first generation!
Its dragon horn is now being… held in Shen Chaomu’s hand.
Although he was in a lethargy caused by high fever for a long time, he was born with strong spiritual power and learned everything quickly. At this time, he grabbed the dragon’s horn and started shaking it while laughing, with an unprecedentedly happy expression.
Although the child’s strength is very small, the silver dragon is still extremely frightened. When Shen Xing rushed over, the child finally let go of his hand, and then the silver dragon brushed away in front of Shen Xing.
He let out a whimpering cry while escaping.
Shen Xing was so frightened that she quickly hugged the child back into her arms, left the tent alone, and drove the aircraft back to the town overnight.
After finally calming down a bit, she asked, “Where did that dragon come from?”
The child described it in faltering language.
——It appeared from the starlight.
From the distant starry sky.
Of course Shen Xing didn’t believe this, she just thought it was a child talking nonsense.
This incident caused her serious sequelae. She was awakened by nightmares several times, and she was restless. It took more than half a year to recover.
She met the ghost whale several more times during her continuing journey.
It has been a long time since she was shocked by the big whale at the beginning to being calm now. Every time she would stay quietly in the cold void, listening to the vast and deep singing like the sea.
Lonely, empty, vast for thousands of years.
Finally found an audience.
[There are many more, such as what you taught me, ‘Dear, this order does not include shipping’, although I don’t quite understand what it means. ]
Shen Xing laughed.
[However, I don’t know what’s going on with this disease you mentioned, maybe there is a cure in other galaxies. ]
“Okay, I’ll look for it again.”
[You have some strange obsessions, I don’t quite understand. You have been to many places, it seems that this matter should not be successful. ]
“Yes.” Shen Xing paused, “Didn’t I explain to you what a movie is before?”
[Well, it’s something with pictures. ]
“I like a line in it very much,” she said.
This was also what Cheng Yi said to her in the hospital a long time ago.
The memory surfaced, a scene from long ago in a sterile hospital room. Cheng Yi, slumped in a chair, exhausted. Shen Xing, her energy seemingly boundless, studying the complex medical report, her fingers deftly arranging their itinerary. Her resilience, even then, had been remarkable.
“God can’t be everywhere at once,” Cheng Yi had said, quoting a movie, a hint of awe in his voice, “so he created mothers.”
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