The Qingyu Civilization, the Probe Robot Purple Rat

After hearing ground commander Sun Longyu's words, Zhao Yunlei furrowed his brow and thought hard, trying to recall the sound he had just heard.

He tried, bit by bit, to describe the sound he had heard.

"Thump... thump-thump... clang-clang. No, it should be thump-thump, ding-ding..."

After the ground command center recreated the sound he described, Zhao Yunlei listened and realized it was still somewhat different from what he had heard.

They then made countless fine adjustments to the sound based on Zhao Yunlei's description, but no matter how they tinkered with it, they couldn't recreate the sound he had just heard.

In the end, everyone had no choice but to give up.

The command center's director, Sun Longyu, organized the details of the incident into a report and submitted it to his superiors.

As a high-ranking member of the empire, Sun Longyu knew a few secrets: aliens really did exist.

There were even some aliens on Yanhuang Star, but with his rank, that was all he was allowed to know.

As for what aliens actually looked like, he had no idea.

Now that they had discovered something in space that might be an alien civilization, the matter had to be submitted to the higher-ups for a decision, even if they couldn't confirm it.

After receiving Sun Longyu's report and seeing that it was related to an alien civilization, his superior didn't dare delay and immediately forwarded it to the Imperial Secretariat.

Before long, Secretary-General Yuan Lan received the report.

After reading its contents, Yuan Lan couldn't help frowning. "An astronaut heard a mysterious entity knocking on the outside of a spacecraft in space. A suspected alien civilization incident?"

As the empire's Secretary-General, she stood second only to one person and above countless others. Over the years, she had learned far too many secrets.

For example, the people around Dukao, the alien corpse in the Imperial Academy of Sciences, the fact that the empress was a female Angel, and information about various civilizations in the universe.

Star Hall.

"Your Majesty, a report just came in from Yan Chen Space Command Center. It says they may have encountered an alien civilization in space."

After coming to Ye Chen's side, Yuan Lan spoke softly.

At that, Ye Chen raised his brows. "An alien civilization?!"

He took the report from Yuan Lan and quickly skimmed through it.

After reading it, Ye Chen fell into thought. "Could this really be some civilization from the universe? That shouldn't be possible. Could it be that I've caused a butterfly effect?!"

The thought gave Ye Chen a headache. The plot had already gone completely off the rails, so it wouldn't be surprising if anything happened in the future.

Ye Chen then instructed the space center to keep following up on the matter.

At the same time, he appeared in space and used the planet's gravity to wrap himself up.

Then he vanished, leaving behind only a tiny fragment of a meteorite.

This was one of the ways he had developed over the years to use the planet's gravity.

The ability to control the planet's gravity came from the Star Core inside him, and the Star Core was the essence left behind when a planet shattered.

In essence, Ye Chen was practically a half-human celestial body.

After flying to a spot far from the Tenglong-1 spacecraft, Ye Chen watched in silence.

He planned to stay here for the next few days. He wanted to see whether this incident really had anything to do with an alien civilization.

Over the course of the mission, day and night alternated, and the sound would suddenly ring in Zhao Yunlei's ears from time to time, regardless of whether it was day or night.

Whenever he heard it, Zhao Yunlei would immediately go to the porthole and look outside, hoping to find the unknown entity that was knocking on the spacecraft.

But the unknown entity seemed exceptionally mischievous. It kept playing hide-and-seek with him, never letting him find it.

However, just as Zhao Yunlei finished the last lap of his mission and was preparing to return, he suddenly caught a glimpse of a dark shape flashing past the porthole. He reflexively looked out, but there was nothing there.

Zhao Yunlei quickly accessed the spacecraft's internal recorder and found the footage from just then. A dark object really had flashed past the porthole.

The spacecraft was currently on the side facing away from the light, so it would have been very easy to miss if he hadn't checked the recording.

Even so, the object had moved too fast, vanishing in the blink of an eye, so the image on the recording was blurry.

The dark shape had almost blended into the night. Seeing this, Zhao Yunlei couldn't help frowning.

With footage like this, he had no way to tell what the thing actually was.

"What is that thing? Was it a meteorite drifting past?

"Or is there really some kind of alien life-form out there? But if it's alive, how does it survive?

"We're in space, after all. There's not a trace of air, and the environment is a harsh minus 270 degrees."

As he stared at the object on the screen, Zhao Yunlei's thoughts raced through every possible explanation.

Of course, he believed the object was probably the alien life-form that had been knocking on his spacecraft.

Alien fever had been all the rage in society over the past few years, and Zhao Yunlei had wondered whether there might really be alien life in space.

But whenever he remembered that he was in outer space, he couldn't bring himself to believe it.

The theory was just too far-fetched. Aliens only existed in movies, after all.

Still unwilling to give up, Zhao Yunlei leaned against the porthole and watched for a while longer. After waiting for more than ten minutes, he still saw no sign of any life-form.

He laughed at himself and shook his head. He'd become so obsessed that he was actually starting to believe in aliens.

Then he prepared to head back.

As the spacecraft departed and plunged toward Yanhuang Star,

A while later, a battered mechanical creature resembling a mouse suddenly appeared where the spacecraft had been.

It stared down at the fireball falling toward Yanhuang Star, its eyes glowing red.

"Bzzzt!!"

"Qingyu Year 5201 of the Qingyu Civilization. ZS3846, probe robot Purple Rat, has discovered a low-level civilization in the T87335 Star System. The civilization is named the Yanhuang Civilization. Recording."

As the red eyes of robot ZS3846 flickered faintly, streams of information were stored in its internal database.

Then the probe robot Purple Rat circled Yanhuang Star and flew off into the distance.

At the same time, its outer casing constantly absorbed sunlight.

Purple Rat had adjusted itself to low-power cruising mode to suit the situation.

The next moment, a huge hand abruptly appeared in its path and seized its body.

Looking at the struggling Purple Rat in his hand, Ye Chen was at a loss for words.

"Well, I'll be damned. There really is an alien civilization. Looks like this is a probe robot. I just don't know whether it's already sent out Yanhuang Star's coordinates."

"Warning! Warning!!"

"High-intensity gravitational restraint detected. Antimatter engine starting. Energy supply in progress."

"High-energy biological entity detected. Assessing danger level. Danger level: 100%. Evasion mode activated."

"Warning! Warning!! Evasion failed. System self-destruct mode activated."

Ye Chen: "..."

Feeling the deadly threat coming from his hand, Ye Chen's hair stood on end.

"Damn it, is this little thing going to blow itself up? Is that really necessary?!"

He had held the little thing for less than a second, but the little mouse already felt like a super bomb.

He was speechless. He'd never imagined that this alien civilization would act so decisively, without even giving him a chance to communicate.

Ye Chen immediately hurled the little mouse away with all his strength.

"Boom!!"

A few seconds later, people on the night side of Yanhuang Star saw a sun appear in the sky.

Yanhuang Star, outer space.

After throwing the thing, Ye Chen had tried to run, but he soon felt a powerful shock wave rushing toward him.

In the next instant, the shock wave hurled him toward Yanhuang Star's satellite, the "Moon."