Waiting lounge.
As Lu Zhou sat in his seat waiting to board, he suddenly felt a piercing pain.
His vision blurred, and the moving figures in the hall split into countless overlapping images.
He gritted his teeth and endured it. Just as a bead of cold sweat slid down his forehead and fell onto the armrest, an icy mechanical hand suddenly rested on the back of his hand.
Though the flexible polyethylene material had no warmth,
it unexpectedly gave him a sense of reassurance.
The pain that had seeped into his bones gradually receded. Lu Zhou took a deep breath and forced the discomfort away through sheer willpower, then looked at the android sitting beside him.
"...Thank you."
The android nodded without saying anything. It merely gave him a smile that was not particularly expressive and used simple body language to convey, "I'm here."
For an old, crudely made, budget-model android, this was already the limit of what it could do.
Just then, Professor Leonard, dressed in a plaid T-shirt and leather jacket, strode over.
Not noticing Lu Zhou's earlier discomfort, he got straight to the point.
"...I contacted a museum willing to take the artifact. It's in the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration, where you're headed. Once they heard it was an artifact found near Hell's Gate, they showed considerable interest. They've already contacted the Tiangong City authorities and obtained a special electronic customs clearance certificate for it. I just finished the paperwork, so we can take it through customs and bring it aboard the spacecraft without any trouble... though it has to be kept in a special case."
Firearms were prohibited throughout Pan-Asian Cooperation territory.
Even if it was an artifact, it still had to comply with the Basic Law.
Lu Zhou said sincerely,
"Thank you."
"Don't mention