The conversation with Captain Boken went smoothly and was quite pleasant—at least on the surface.
After the talkative captain left, Hao Ren and Vivian began sorting through the intelligence they had just gathered.
"That old captain is no ordinary man." Although Vivian had been impoverished for ten thousand years, she had still accumulated some experience in dealing with people. She could immediately see the many problems Boken had unconsciously revealed. "He performed very well—talkative, enthusiastic, and sincere. But precisely because he was too talkative, too enthusiastic, and too sincere, he seemed unnatural. At the very least, he went beyond the identity he described for himself."
"A regular civilian ship captain who has been running passenger services above the World Rift for years." Hao Ren recalled the old captain's self-introduction. "Unless this world gets visited by spaceships as bizarre as ours every few days, an 'ordinary captain' like him wouldn't have been so calm after boarding a starship. He kept all his curiosity to a minimum. He seemed enthusiastic and sincere, but many things he said were vague. And his enthusiasm and sincerity were themselves a major problem—he had no need to ingratiate himself with strangers he had just met, even if we had saved his life. Grateful enthusiasm and ingratiating enthusiasm aren't the same thing."
Lia shook her head from the side. "But that doesn't matter."
Hao Ren smiled. "That's true. It doesn't matter."
They were merely travelers passing through, staying briefly on La Rian to investigate certain matters. Whatever grievances, entanglements, conspiracies, or schemes the people here had were unrelated to them. Even if the captain named Boken was hiding something, it was probably only for self-preservation or a similar reason, and likely wouldn't affect their operation itself.
"Still, we can learn some basic information about this world from