"An astronaut who could only be brought back at an exorbitant cost."
Liu Di stared at the enormous head before him, his eyes flickering as he sketched out a vague truth in his mind within an instant.
Yet it was utterly inconceivable.
The enormous head's lips slowly curled into a strange smile.
Then its expression froze, its eyes went vacant, and it began laughing silently, its smile growing more and more absurd.
The flesh-colored ground ahead churned.
Suddenly, an object condensed from it. It was a space capsule, and the Russian lettering on its nameplate read—Mir Space Station.
Inside the space capsule, it was cramped and stifling.
The atomic clock displayed: June 16, 1991.
A blond young man in a spacesuit floated in midair, gripping a communicator tightly with both hands.
"Ground control!"
"Ground control!"
"Can anyone hear me?"
"This is Krikalev!"
"Your astronaut, Krikalev!"
"It seems you've forgotten I exist!"
But the communicator was completely silent. Even the signal needle did not twitch in the slightest.
The blond young man's face filled with terror.
He panicked for a moment, then clenched his teeth slightly. Determination flashed in his eyes. "There must be something wrong with the communicator. Earth... the people on the ground... they won't forget me. I'm a spaceflight hero. They must be worried sick right now."
The atomic clock ticked.
The mechanical calendar flipped.
In the blink of an eye, fifty days passed.
The young astronaut remained disciplined, completing his work on time every day. He performed routine maintenance on the space station three times a day and even dealt with a malfunction that had nearly paralyzed the entire station.
He kept his face clean and his hair immaculate, refusing to allow even the slightest stubble to grow.
After all, Earth might establish contact with him at