"The kind of DIY milk tea I normally only see in videos-someone actually made it."
March 7th wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth, unable to tear her eyes away from that enormous cup of milk tea.
"March, mind your image."
Dan Heng finished taking his notes. Ever since boarding the Express, nothing he saw surprised him anymore.
A lop-eared rabbit plushie of a Conductor, whose true identity remained unknown and whose strength was unfathomable; a Navigator who repaired the Express with her bare hands and loved brewing coffee; Mr. Welt, who made black holes by hand; an amnesiac girl frozen in ice...
Now there was even a man who had tested his head against the Express. He claimed to come from the [Church of Eternity], but was actually a Pathstrider of Eternity. He seemed close to the Conductor and had some history with the Navigator.
"I'm curious. Why falsely claim you're from the Church of Eternity? Your way of doing things is completely different from theirs."
Dan Heng had encountered members of the Church of Eternity before, when he had left the Interastral Peace Corporation aboard a ship belonging to the [Mourning Actors].
There had been one particularly unusual member of the church on that ship.
Dan Heng would never forget that scene for the rest of his life.
The man had called himself the presiding head of the Church of Eternity. He kept promoting and praising the Aeon of Permanence to everyone aboard, listing the Aeon's eight great virtues, and even tried to forcibly recruit a group of Mourning Actors and convert them to Eternity.
To show his sincerity, he had even given everyone aboard a bar of soap and a towel.
Why hand out soap?!
Did their Aeon really love bathing that much?
Only later did Dan Heng learn that the Church of Eternity's headquarters was on a Car Wash Planet, which had been transformed into a capital of water and hot springs, renowned throughout the cosmos for its hot springs.
"How can you get by out there without an identity or two? I'm sure you understand that better than I do, Mr. Dan Heng."
As Ye Yan spoke, he handed March 7th the cup of milk tea, which was as big as Pom-Pom. The poor girl was practically beside herself with craving.
After briefly introducing himself to everyone and getting acquainted, Ye Yan responsibly repaired the damaged front of the Express and added protective shields to the connections between every carriage.
Now that he was getting on in years, he probably would not do anything as rotten as blowing up a carriage again. The same could not be said for someone else.
That fellow spent every day either looking for fun or looking for fun, and sometimes became the fun himself.
Several days passed, and with his superb cooking skills, Ye Yan successfully won over the members of the Astral Express Crew, especially March 7th.
He did run a milk tea shop, after all. It was perfectly reasonable for him to know how to make delicious food, right? Win over their stomachs first, then win over the people. As it happened, the Express had no chef, and Pom-Pom prepared all the food and drinks.
"After spending these past few days together... there's something I've been meaning to ask you."
Sipping her milk tea, March 7th approached Ye Yan, who was admiring the scenery in the parlor car.
"What is it, Miss March 7th?"
"Um... would you consider yourself a junior or a senior now?" March 7th cared a great deal about this question.
"That's a question well worth pondering, Miss March 7th. In terms of general rationality, I could be considered the most senior person aboard the Express. A senior among seniors."
"But as you know, the Express only returned to the public eye in recent years after Himeko repaired it."
"So we can't draw a conclusion based on that previous general rationality."
"Slow down... slow down..." March 7th's brain was struggling to keep up.
"In conclusion, when the Express started running again, everything reset to zero. I'm now the junior who joined the Astral Express most recently."
"Really?!"
March 7th exclaimed in delight. She was finally no longer the youngest member aboard!
Although Ye Yan was very old, he had now joined the Express quite a bit later than she had... so Ye Yan was her junior!
"A mere junior! Come give me a shoulder massage."
March 7th teased him. After spending these past few days together, she had discovered that Ye Yan was practically an all-rounder.
Someone actually existed who could drink Himeko's coffee without batting an eye, help Dan Heng upgrade the data bank, and discuss mechanical creations with Uncle Yang.
Most importantly, his cooking was delicious!
Why was someone like him called [The Worst Nameless]?
March 7th could not figure it out, no matter how hard she tried.
[Attention, passengers. The Express will begin its warp in one minute. Destination: [Herta] Space Station. Please remain seated and hold on tight! I repeat, I repeat...]
[Please do not run around the carriages like Passenger March 7th! I repeat, I repeat...]
Pom-Pom's voice came over the speakers.
"It's a warp!"
March 7th's eyes lit up, and she interrupted Ye Yan's massage. She loved warps most of all. She immediately stood up and began trying to keep her balance.
"I haven't actually experienced many warps."
Back in Ye Yan's day, there had been no need to warp. Akivili drove them everywhere, only occasionally using warps to flee after causing trouble.
If they could not be bothered to drive, they could always kidnap Aha and make him do the hard labor.
Watching March 7th lower herself into a horse stance with both arms held level, Ye Yan kindly reminded her:
"Miss March 7th, you'll fall over like that."
"Oh, you have no idea. I've fallen over loads of times already. Do you know what this spirit is called?" March 7th looked back at Ye Yan.
"Never! Give! Up!"
March 7th shouted the words.
[Never! Learn! Your! Lesson!]
Pom-Pom's voice came over the speakers again.
The warp ended, and the Astral Express pulled into the platform at Herta Space Station.
Unsurprisingly, March 7th had taken a tumble during the warp.
"Why were you fine?!" Looking at the completely unscathed Ye Yan, she wondered why she alone had fallen when he had been standing too.
"Miss March 7th, that's what you don't understand. The reason I didn't fall is that my state of mind was calm. As the sayings go, a mind like still water, and a calm heart keeps you cool."
Ye Yan began spouting nonsense with a perfectly straight face.
"The more you think about not falling, the more likely you are to fall."
"Why not follow my example? Keep a level state of mind. Contemplate Eternity."
Himeko and Welt were also observing Ye Yan in secret.
"He's talking nonsense again. The Emanator of [Eternity] really is strange."
An ordinary Pathstrider would not be as strong as Ye Yan. After observing him over the past few days, along with what they had pried out of Pom-Pom (by threatening to make Pom-Pom drink Himeko's coffee otherwise), they had learned this.
Ye Yan was an Emanator of [Eternity], and it seemed he had received an Aeon's gaze more than once.
Himeko and Welt began discussing him.
"For some reason, I always feel that his way of doing things resembles the [Elation] faction," Himeko said.
Welt's opinion of Ye Yan, however, had improved considerably.
Ye Yan was very serious when discussing robots with him. He had even recommended a console game called Astro Bot or something, saying it was the hottest, best game in the universe...
Unfortunately, there was no console aboard the Express. Otherwise, Welt would have loved to try this family-friendly game he had mentioned.
"He's very good with his hands. He can skillfully assemble a precision mecha model in under an hour."
With such deft hands, Ye Yan was surely another young man passionate about building models.
As the saying went, men remained boys until they died. The same applied to Aeons, and Aha of [Elation] was the perfect example.
But from Ye Yan's account, he seemed to have chosen to retire behind the scenes, settling down on the Xianzhou Luofu and opening a milk tea shop.
An Emanator of [Eternity] had a lifespan a hundred or even a thousand times longer than an ordinary person's.
Yet precisely because of their longevity, people often could not tell whether they had received a Blessing of Abundance or were followers of Eternity.
Rumor had it that a priestess of the Church of Eternity was an Emanator of Eternity, and her exact age was unknown as well.
Supposedly, she predated the birth of Nanook, the Aeon of Destruction, by quite a considerable margin, and she and the Aeon of Permanence even had a history unknown to others.
This came from a report by an unnamed Masked Fool.
Welt was half-convinced. The words of Masked Fools were half true and half false, so only half could be trusted.
The question was... which half should he trust?