The solar system, the asteroid belt.
The Expedition II shut down its engines and coasted through the void solely on inertia.
Onboard, Ou Zhanpeng crawled into his sleeping bag, closed his eyes, writhed a few times, and sighed in contentment.
Unlike the Expedition I, the Expedition II’s sleeping arrangements were more humane. Everyone not on duty went to the cryo-pods to sleep and would not be arbitrarily awakened or disturbed under normal circumstances; personnel who had to be on call could choose to rest normally.
Ou and Xu had just boarded and had many things to familiarize themselves with, so they naturally chose the latter.
Before long, Young Master Ou had fallen into a happy dreamland.
After an unknown period, Ou Zhanpeng, half-awake and half-asleep, suddenly found his consciousness clear, but his body was disconnected from his mind, and he couldn't even control a single finger.
This feeling was very strange. Disbelieving, he counted from one to a hundred and recited a passage from the Analects to prove he wasn't dreaming, but the situation did not improve at all.
Could I be dead?
A terrifying thought flashed through his mind. Ou Zhanpeng immediately panicked. He struggled desperately, trying to re-establish contact with his body in this way, but all his efforts were in vain. After only two or three tries, he suddenly found himself floating out of his body, and was instantly terrified.
Could I really be dead?
Upon closer inspection, his original body in the sleeping bag showed no abnormalities; his breathing was steady and his expression serene.
Beside him, Xu Qing slept with a delicate, feminine charm.
Even the patterns on the cabin wall opposite him were clearly visible.
The situation grew increasingly bizarre, but his heart gradually calmed, like a machine observing from the sidelines, without the slightest ripple.
Strange, what was this situation? Soul leaving the body, or a curse planted by aliens?
As he was lost in these wild thoughts, an irresistible suction force pulled him out of his body, then out of the cabin, and out of the ship!
The entire warship came into view. He saw Liu Wenwen on duty on the bridge, he saw the internal and external structure of the warship, and he even saw a small asteroid drifting leisurely in the distance!
Was this the legendary God's eye view?
Before this thought could dissipate, Ou Zhanpeng’s consciousness accelerated. First, he saw asteroids whiz past him, even passing through his body.
Then he saw the Expedition I, and the escape pods of the alien species.
Afterward, his gaze swept across Jupiter's Great Red Spot, passed Saturn's rings, then Uranus and Neptune, finally entering the Kuiper Belt, freely roaming among numerous dirty snowballs.
In a mere moment, he had flown from the asteroid belt to the edge of the sun!
Ou Zhanpeng didn't know how to complain. His speed was fast, but the problem was that it wasn't a planetary alignment, so how could he fly in a straight line and encounter all the planets?
Soon, an asteroid hidden at the edge of the galaxy appeared directly in front of him.
Ou Zhanpeng thought it would pass through his consciousness like the celestial bodies before it, but unexpectedly, his vision slowed as he approached the asteroid. Finally, his consciousness entered the asteroid, and the world turned dark.
However, a deep voice echoed in his ear: "You've arrived!"
At that very instant, Ou Zhanpeng suddenly woke up, his unfocused eyes wide open, staring blankly at the cabin wall opposite him.
There were some patterns on it whose purpose was unknown, exactly the same as he had seen in his dream.
He turned his head, and Xu Qing's sleeping face came into view, no different from what he had seen in his dream.
Ou Zhanpeng's mind was in a muddle. After staring blankly for a while, he thought of a possibility: perhaps sleeping too much in the cryo-pod had left him with sleepwalking sequelae.
The more he thought about it, the more reasonable it seemed, but another voice in his heart kept reminding him not to deceive himself.
Now, Ou Zhanpeng couldn't sleep at all.
He quietly climbed out of his sleeping bag, turned on the display mounted on the wall, and Mars immediately appeared on the screen.
Although he hadn't left Mars long ago, the Mars on the screen was now just an inconspicuous tiny dot of light. In a few more days at most, it would disappear into the stars, just like Earth at this moment.
Recalling carefully, every detail of the dream was exceptionally clear, as if it were not a dream but a real personal experience.
Ou Zhanpeng fell into deep doubt. He had always speculated that his special ability was related to aliens, so was everything in his dream also closely related to aliens?
Xu Qing mumbled groggily, "Why aren't you sleeping yet? Is something on your mind?"
"Nothing," Ou Zhanpeng smiled, reached out to turn off the screen, and got back into his sleeping bag.
As soon as he closed his eyes, Xu Qing snuggled closer, tightly gripping his arm.
Ou Zhanpeng let out a deep sigh, and after a while, he managed to fall asleep.
This time, he did not dream of anything else and slept soundly until the next morning.
However, on the night of the next day, the same situation occurred.
This time, after his consciousness detached from his body, it did not travel towards the edge of the solar system. Instead, the stars and moon suddenly reversed, space shifted, and his consciousness blurred.
When he regained consciousness, he was in an unknown place.
The sky here was a faint purple, and as far as the eye could see, there were technologically advanced equipment all around.
A group of bald-headed, hard-to-describe aliens hurried about.
The first thing Ou Zhanpeng thought of when he saw them was shrimp.
Several shrimp-like aliens stopped within Ou Zhanpeng's line of sight. They worked separately, operating various incomprehensible devices. A probe the size of a small car was suspended in the air, suddenly extruding some toothpaste-like substance. These soft, paste-like materials quickly solidified, forming thick, smooth curved surfaces.
At first, Ou Zhanpeng was puzzled about what they were trying to do, but he soon discovered the trick—those strange devices were actually the heads of ultra-large 3D printers!
And those paste-like materials were the printing raw materials. At first glance, they seemed indistinguishable, but the finished products varied greatly; some were metal, some were composite materials, and some were even stone and wood.
Ou Zhanpeng watched as the shrimp people manipulated the devices, and a warship emerged from nothing. Without any redundant connecting structures, the entire vessel was completed through printing!
Humanity's 3D printing technology had developed quite well, but it was still a long way from directly printing large warships. At best, they could only print small vessels.
It should be noted that humans could completely print the hull of large warships, as well as internal decks and bulkheads, and some onboard equipment that did not require high precision.
However, for essential precision equipment like reactors, propulsion systems, and high-precision optical targeting devices, they were powerless.
The shrimp people, on the other hand, did it all in one go, solving everything through printing, regardless of its nature.