Why Has Everything Changed?

Clap clap clap—

"Alright, the report from our flight control development team was excellent. Your applause has already proven your recognition of their work."

"The flight control team's success proves one thing."

"Our company's policy of valuing and promoting young people is absolutely correct!"

"When I first proposed this policy, there were quite a few opposing voices among management."

"Everyone believed that young people lacked experience and sufficient knowledge reserves, and might struggle to take on core roles in major projects."

"But the facts have proven that young people can unleash tremendous energy as well!"

"Talent emerges with every generation; the waves behind drive the waves ahead."

"Our organization has already produced a number of outstanding young people like Jiang Xingye and Lin Xu."

"I hope that in the work ahead, everyone will take them as examples, keep striving, and press forward with high spirits."

"The company will never shortchange anyone who works hard!"

"Let's give them another round of applause!"

Clap clap clap—

In the conference room, Lin Xu followed everyone else in applauding, somewhat mechanically.

Many eyes were focused on him. Just as the boss had said in his speech, he seemed to have become a rising star.

But compared with such empty fame, what Lin Xu cared about most was how much the bonus would actually be.

Seeing that the meeting had moved on to the next agenda item, he quietly opened the internal chat app and sent Jiang Xingye a message.

Lin Xu 004267:

[Team Lead, how much will we get for this project bonus?]

A moment later, Jiang Xingye replied.

Jiang Xingye 003876:

[It's confidential. Can you just talk about that whenever you want?]

Lin Xu 004267:

[It's being divided among us anyway. We can't even say the number?]

Jiang Xingye 003876:

[Of course not. You'll find out when it's officially announced.]

[But don't worry, your share won't be small. You'll definitely get a big cut.]

Lin Xu 004267:

[How big is "big"? If you won't tell me the percentage, just give me a number.]

Jiang Xingye 003876:

[Sixty to seventy thousand, probably... Don't tell anyone in advance, got it?]

Lin Xu 004267:

[Got it, got it... That's all? I thought it'd be at least a hundred thousand.]

Jiang Xingye 003876:

[What are you thinking? The company hasn't been doing that well lately either. I heard Test One's fundraising hasn't been going smoothly. They got their valuation hammered in the Series B round and only raised a little over two hundred million.]

[The Series B plan still hasn't been finalized. Qianhai is demanding that we come up with a more ambitious development plan.]

[Get ready. Once the preliminary development of Test One is wrapped up, the warm-up for the new project will begin immediately.]

[You'll have to charge ahead then. Young people need to seize their opportunities.]

Lin Xu 004267:

[Can I just slack off?]

Jiang Xingye 003876:

[If you come out for late-night food with me tonight, you can.]

Lin Xu 004267:

[...You really need to rein yourself in. Do you talk like this to everyone?]

After sending the message, Lin Xu received no reply from Jiang Xingye for a long while.

When he looked up, the administrative staff member responsible for keeping the meeting under control was somehow already standing beside him.

He coughed, closed the chat window, and put on an expression of "listening attentively."

However, the remaining agenda items were nearly all pointless filler. He really had no interest in them.

His thoughts drifted back to the world inside the wristband.

So were women like Jiang Xingye the same type as Skullhead's wife?

They seemed completely different.

Although Jiang Xingye had no filter and made dirty jokes at lightning speed every day, she was usually quite serious around everyone else.

It was only because she was closer to him that she especially loved teasing him as her Xiao Chunan.

And Skullhead's wife?

From what Lin Xu had gathered, everyone in the mercenary squad that attacked the aerospace base knew about her promiscuity. She was the sort who could run downstairs to buy a pack of cigarettes and run into more than a dozen men who had slept with her.

He had no idea whether Skullhead had been kept in the dark or was simply lying to himself.

The man was pretty miserable too.

—But then again, his hard days were over.

The apocalypse had come. Dying while immersed in the illusion of being loved didn't seem all that miserable, did it?

In the face of life and death, truth and lies did not seem so important.

But what exactly was the apocalypse that had destroyed the world?

A super nuclear weapon?

A gamma-ray burst?

Vacuum annihilation?

An antimatter collision?

Lin Xu's thoughts gradually drifted farther away. Then, amid a round of applause, the long meeting finally came to an end.

Lin Xu stood up. Jiang Xingye, who had been seated in front of him, turned around and blinked at him.

"Come on. To my office. Let's talk."

"...That impatient?"

Lin Xu teased deliberately. Jiang Xingye rolled her eyes.

"Bring your laptop. I want to talk to you about the next project!"

"Oh..."

Lin Xu obediently followed Jiang Xingye into her office. Once she shut the door, she collapsed gracelessly onto the sofa and said,

"What a damn meeting. A fifteen-minute meeting got dragged out for two hours..."

"No overtime today. Go home early and get some rest later."

"But before you leave..."

Jiang Xingye sat up and adjusted her expression slightly before asking,

"That 'more ambitious plan' I mentioned earlier—do you have any thoughts?"

"Me?"

Lin Xu froze for a moment.

"Isn't that something management should decide? Why ask me?"

"Didn't you hear the boss? The waves behind drive the waves ahead. So I'm looking to the younger generation for inspiration."

Jiang Xingye spread her hands.

"Just say whatever comes to mind. It's only for reference anyway. It's fine even if you're wrong."

"Like this..."

Lin Xu frowned slightly.

He thought of the project he had seen inside the wristband.

Star Traveler One.

If, in the future, Skyvault Technology really became an aerospace service provider focused on space tourism, did that mean this direction was actually the right one?

After hesitating for a moment, he spoke.

"If you really want my opinion, I don't think commercial launch vehicles are a particularly good direction."

"The barrier to entry looks high, but it actually isn't high at all."

"Think about it. Ten years ago, low-altitude flight services were also a high-barrier industry. But what about now, ten years later?"

"So if we truly want sustainable development, simply providing transportation and launch services won't be enough."

"We should consider providing more value-added services."

"Not bad."

Jiang Xingye looked at Lin Xu with satisfaction, her gaze carrying a hint of appreciation.

"You do have a pretty coherent argument. Come on, tell me specifically. What kind of value-added services?"

"Space tourism."

Lin Xu spoke with a straight face.

"Space tourism?"

Jiang Xingye asked in surprise.

"Isn't that concept a little too far ahead of its time? No, I should say it sounds a little too vague, doesn't it?"

Lin Xu shook his head and continued.

"It's not vague at all... The vision the boss proposed was to reduce the transportation cost per kilogram of payload to below ten thousand, preferably five thousand."

"By that calculation, the total cost of sending an adult into outer space would only be several hundred thousand."

"Think about it. How much does it cost to visit Antarctica these days? How much do wealthy people spend on a trip to Hawaii?"

"At the rates charged by ultra-luxury hotels, can those people take a trip without spending over a million?"

"Well, now it's different. Going to space once wouldn't even cost a million. If you had to choose, which would you pick?"

"That makes sense."

Jiang Xingye nodded thoughtfully, while Lin Xu pressed on.

"This plan actually has another very practical advantage."

"What advantage?"

Jiang Xingye asked.

"Simple. It's a story capital likes."

"If you were rich, would you rather hear the story of 'for five hundred thousand, we can send a one-ton nuclear warhead into space,' or 'for five hundred thousand, we can take you on a tour through space'?"

"Perfect!"

Jiang Xingye sprang to her feet excitedly and clapped.

"Then that's exactly how I'll pitch it!"

"I have a feeling the boss will definitely like your idea too!"

"Damn... Lin Xu, you're really about to make it big."

"Who knows? In another two years, you might get promoted even faster than me."

At that, Jiang Xingye's eyes suddenly became somewhat seductive.

She leaned closer to Lin Xu and continued,

"Looks like I have no choice but to eat that late-night meal tonight..."

At eight that evening, Lin Xu returned to the apartment he rented.

In the end, he did not go for late-night food with Jiang Xingye.

They did have dinner, but nothing happened between them.

In Lin Xu's own words, Jiang Xingye was basically a banana—yellow on the outside, white on the inside.

Once the meal was over, before Lin Xu could even bring it up himself, Jiang Xingye used overtime as an excuse and fled.

As if, if she did not leave, he would take that late-night food joke seriously and drag her home to watch his cat do backflips.

Thinking of it, Lin Xu could not help but laugh.

She was already twenty-five or twenty-six, but aside from work, the way she spoke and acted really did have a childish quality.

He wondered what kind of man someone like her would end up marrying.

—Though it probably had nothing to do with him, right?

Lin Xu shook his head and raised his hand to look at the wristband on his wrist.

After two days of rest, the number on the wristband had returned to "5."

That meant he could enter that world again and begin suffering intensely.

This time, Lin Xu did not plan to steal the spacecraft.

He had already seen Star Traveler One's documentation in the main control room.

He intended to use all five chances to memorize as much of the information as possible.

Maybe it would really come in handy in reality someday.

After making his bed, Lin Xu put on an eye mask.

Then he lay down on the bed and lightly tapped the wristband.

In an instant, his consciousness was emptied once more.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw that familiar aerospace base...

—No!

It wasn't familiar!

Lin Xu shot to his feet, smacking his head against the roof of the vehicle with a loud bang.

Skullhead looked at him in astonishment, but Lin Xu only pressed himself against the window and stared at the space base outside.

Fuck.

Everything had changed.

The entire layout of the space base was completely different from what he had seen in the dozens of previous attempts!