In the blink of an eye, half a month had passed since Ye Yun arrived in this world called the Cosmic Star Gods.
Every day, he worked with machinery in the airplane graveyard Lily had taken over.
"Whew."
He let out a breath and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He was finally done.
He had to dismantle an entire plane by himself every day.
And he had to make sure the usable parts didn't get hit or suffer the slightest damage.
It really was asking a lot of him.
Less than ten minutes after he returned to the Lingdong, Lily walked into the dining room with a transparent card in her hand and held it out to him. "Here."
"What's this?"
Ye Yun took the card, which was made of a special transparent material, and asked curiously.
What was this thing?
"Starting today, you're no longer an unregistered resident."
Lily looked at him and said, "I pulled some strings and got you a Citizen Card. You're a legal citizen now, understand?"
"Oh, thanks."
Ye Yun thanked Lily, then said nothing more.
After all,
having legal status wasn't much use to him.
From the looks of it, the story would start in the next few days.
So,
having legal status really wasn't much use to him.
"It's fine. You've been a great help with the planes you've dismantled for me these past few days." Lily smiled and waved it off.
It usually took her almost a week to dismantle a single plane.
But Ye Yun had worked for her under the blazing sun, dismantling planes while making sure all the parts stayed intact. He'd already been a tremendous help.
"No, we both got what we needed."
Ye Yun grinned, slipped the card proving his legal identity into his pocket, and sat down to eat.
He'd worked hard all day. It was time to enjoy himself.
"By the way, what kind of sunscreen do you use? You haven't gotten any darker, even under that scorching sun. It's incredible."
Suddenly, Lily voiced the question she'd been holding inside for days, staring straight at him.
She was genuinely curious. How could he work under the sun like that and not get roasted dark as charcoal? It was impossible not to wonder.
"It's just my complexion."
Ye Yun thought for a moment and gave her a perfunctory answer.
He hadn't even told Feiran. How could he tell an outsider like Lily?
"Fine, keep your secrets."
Lily could hear the evasion in Ye Yun's answer, so she didn't press the subject.
"Judging by how skilled you are with planes, are you some kind of engineer? Is that why you don't have any legal ID?"
All at once,
Lily remembered something. She'd known Ye Yun for this long and still hadn't asked about his background.
He had no legal identification, yet he knew a great deal about machinery. He'd gone from being unskilled to proficient in just a day.
That really made her wonder who he was.
Without legal identification and with such advanced skills, he had to be a highly important engineer whose identity had been revoked so he could serve the Earth Federation.
"An engineer? No."
Ye Yun was taken aback, then shook his head.
There was no way he could tell her he had a photographic memory.
"I get it. I get it."
Seeing him freeze up and then immediately deny it, Lily's eyes flashed with understanding. So she really had found herself an engineer.
Wow, she'd gotten lucky this time.
"Um, can you repair spaceships?" Lily asked tentatively. But when she realized how that sounded, she quickly added, "I mean, if you have time, could you check over the Lingdong? Just maintenance and upkeep."
Ye Yun: "..."
Why wouldn't she believe him?
This was ridiculous.
He'd finally witnessed firsthand just how good women were at jumping to conclusions.
He'd told her the truth.
And she still didn't believe him.
Well, if she wouldn't believe him, so be it.
"Is something wrong?"
Lily frowned slightly when Ye Yun didn't answer. Why wasn't he saying anything?
Had she accidentally exposed his secret, and was he planning to kill her to keep her quiet?
Or was he going to refuse to work?
"Sure. I'll take a look when I have time."
Ye Yun still agreed to Lily's request. He was staying at her place, after all, so it was only natural for her to ask.
It was just spaceship repairs, right?
He'd brush up on the subject and see if he could fix it for her.
Suddenly,
a mechanical voice sounded in the dining room.
"Distress signal detected. Crash site: 30°2′15″ east longitude, 20°55′70″ north latitude."
Hearing the familiar voice, Lily shook her head slightly. "I wonder what poor soul ran into trouble this time."
"Play the distress signal."
Although she called them poor souls, she still diligently ordered the ship's artificial intelligence to play the distress signal.
This artificial intelligence didn't belong to the Lingdong.
It belonged to the spaceship that had once brought Ye Yun back.
"Mayday, mayday! Our plane is going down! Our plane is going down! Our plane is going... down."
The distress signal played.
It was filled with shrill cries and pleas for help, mixed with the plane's beeping alarm. A look of surprise came over Lily's face.
Why did the voices sound so much like children?
Ye Yun, meanwhile, thought, Just as I expected.
He'd guessed right. These were the three protagonists.
"Why do they sound like kids?"
Lily furrowed her brows and said to Ye Yun, bewildered.
The voices really did sound like children.
"There's no need to guess. Just listening to their voices, you can tell how old they are. They can't be more than fifteen."
Ye Yun shook his head.
You could hear from their youthful voices that they were definitely under fifteen.
"Ugh, honestly. I'll go rescue them. You eat and rest, then remember to wash the dishes."
Lily rubbed her forehead and headed out of the Lingdong.
She boarded her small spaceship and flew toward the source of the distress signal.
Ye Yun shrugged, finished his lunch, then started studying the Lingdong's performance parameters and specifications.
"Time is now 12:35 p.m. You should go to sleep."
Suddenly,
a clear voice rang in Ye Yun's ear, startling him.
He saw the holographic 3D projection of the intelligent assistant Zhuoya in front of him and said, "If you have nothing to do, you can go back and rest. Please don't interrupt my work. Thank you."
"Understood, Mr. Ye."
The spaceship's intelligent assistant Zhuoya smiled faintly and disappeared from in front of him.
He sighed and continued studying the designs for this world's spaceships.
He found that
the scientific principles and propulsion systems weren't all that different.
If that was the case, it would be easy.
He began learning how this world handled repairs.
Lily flew toward the location from which the distress signal had been sent.
When she arrived, she began searching for the poor souls.
Fortunately,
after a few minutes of searching, she found them.
She looked closely.
Well,
they really were a group of kids. It was hard not to feel helpless.
Kids.
Whose children were they, anyway? They weren't even adults yet, and they'd been allowed to fly planes. Hadn't anyone told them not to bite off more than they could chew? Were they deliberately trying to control the population?
The spaceship found a wide, flat clearing and landed.
The energy waves from its antigravity system kicked up the barren yellow earth, sending clouds of sand and dust billowing everywhere.
"Dilu, this is all your fault! We've made complete fools of ourselves, and you messed up my hair!"
Yaoyao glared at Dilu, who was leaning against a rock, her voice full of reproach.
"I'm never getting on a plane you're flying again."
Xiao An was dizzy and nauseous, his legs trembling. He was even covered in his own vomit.
"It was a mistake. Just a mistake."
Dilu held a deep-blue orb in his hand, turning it over. A galaxy seemed to shimmer inside it, making it look extraordinary.
"Hey, look! A spaceship's come to rescue us!"
Yaoyao spotted the spaceship slowly descending from the sky. She jumped up from the ground, snapped her compact shut, and excitedly ran toward the spot where it was landing.
They could finally go home.
She didn't want to spend another second in this wretched place. The sun had already darkened her skin.
"Come on, let's go home!"
Xiao An hurried after Yaoyao, excitedly jogging toward the spaceship as it slowly came to a stop.
He couldn't wait to get home.
"Let's go."
Dilu slipped the deep-blue orb into his pocket and followed Yaoyao and Xiao An toward the spaceship.
It looked far more impressive than his single-wing plane.
Or rather,
the two weren't even in the same league.
"Vrrr, vrrr."
The landing gear whirred as the cabin door slowly lowered. A gust of wind stirred up the sand, filling the air with dust and haze.
Lily stepped down from the spaceship, her long legs striding forward.
Xiao An and Dilu were less than twenty meters away. When they saw Lily, their mouths fell open in surprise. "Wow! A beautiful pilot!"
"She's prettier than you."
Dilu whispered to Yaoyao, courting disaster.
Yaoyao snorted and folded her arms, turning her head away.
Anyone would be upset to hear someone praise another girl as prettier than her. You were lucky if she didn't hit you, and you still expected her to be nice to you?
"I'll definitely be prettier than her when I grow up."
Yaoyao looked down at her own chest, then at Lily's, and felt a wave of insecurity. But she refused to back down, declaring proudly,
"Were you the ones who sent the distress signal?"
Lily came up to the three and looked at them uncertainly, wanting to make sure.
"What distress signal? We landed safely, didn't we?"
Hearing the beautiful pilot say that, Dilu felt embarrassed and stubbornly stuck out his chin.
Nobody wanted to be called a helpless victim.
Especially not by a beautiful woman like this.
"And you call that a safe landing? Your plane exploded!"
Lily couldn't help laughing when she heard him.
The kid was just too funny.
"Come on, let's go home. I don't want to spend another second in this awful place."
Yaoyao waved dismissively, glanced at Lily, and started toward the spaceship.
But
Lily held out an arm to stop her. "That's my spaceship."
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