Chapter 1 When Hao Ren Emerged from the Crack in the Elevator Shaft

When Hao Ren emerged from the crack in the elevator shaft, he saw the spectacle within this hundred-kilometer-long interstellar behemoth, and the sight was astonishing.

He saw an enormous interior space, far beyond the reach of sight, within which existed a starship city. Countless buildings spread across the ground, which gradually rose and curved in the distance, eventually merging at the other end of the sky. The entire city was built within a closed, eggshell-like oval container, with all the artificial land and buildings adhering to the inner wall of this shell.

He looked in all directions, a strange sense of dizziness making his eyes blur: there was no sky here, no strict distinction between up and down. The closed earth formed a spherical shell, and no matter which direction he looked, he could see rows of buildings and huge, bizarre mechanical devices. Hao Ren glanced back at the elevator shaft he had come down through, and only then did he realize that it was a metal pipe running through the entire spherical space. A dozen such metal pipes were arranged parallel behind him, extending from a large building in the ship's city and eventually disappearing into another inverted large building on the opposite side. And in the middle of these parallel metal pipes, he could see many platforms and horizontal pipes suspended in the center of the space, obviously acting as thoroughfares.

And such "parallel metal pipe clusters" were not unique. When he looked into the distance, Hao Ren saw other metal pipes standing in the dim silhouettes, crisscrossing through this giant ship like the bones in a monster's body, maintaining the traffic routes between the ship's city and the outside world.

Vivian was the last to come out. She looked curiously at the city in the shell and murmured, "No air, silence… but there's light."

The city was not completely dark, but it was not bright either. Among the silent buildings, the remaining lighting systems could be seen still operating, with countless stars of light twinkling in every corner of the closed earth, placing the entire city in a dim light. And at one end of this oval spherical space, he could see an exceptionally large object, a cylindrical "mountain" that looked like a huge machine with a complex structure. The outer edge of the machine was a circle of structures emitting orange-red light, like heat sinks, and this layer of light was like the sunlight at dusk, bringing some light to this dim city.

However, all these lights were far from bright—the ship's internal systems must have had problems. Whether it was the remaining lighting in the city or the huge machine at the end of the spherical space, it was obviously not operating at full capacity, but rather in some kind of standby state.

"No life signs," Hao Ren glanced at the readings sent by the data terminal. Although the terminal, as a portable personal data assistant, did not have strong scanning capabilities, looking at this cold and dead place in front of him, he did not think that using a larger radar would find any survivors in the city. "No atmosphere, no moisture, almost as cold as the space outside, and there's excessive radiation… looks like everyone's dead."

Nangong Wuyue suddenly floated over and poked Hao Ren's arm with the tip of her tail. She pointed in a certain direction: "People are indeed dead."

Hao Ren looked in the direction Nangong Wuyue was pointing and saw a human-shaped creature floating in the distance—a corpse.

And when he looked closely, he found more remains. These remains floated in the gaps between the city's buildings, and some had floated to the higher reaches of this spherical space—in this place without a distinction between up and down, the strict "higher reaches" were the center of this closed space, far from every outer wall. Countless corpses floated in the air like this, and most were incomplete. The ultra-low temperature made them fragile, and slight collisions would shatter the corpses like breaking ice. The remains that survived now should still be the relatively lucky ones; more had probably turned into dust in countless collisions over the long years.

Hao Ren turned and floated towards a group of buildings closer to him, and "landed" on the roof of a tall building. When he didn't look up at the inverted buildings, the strange illusion of being upside down was not so obvious. He found that there were also several remains floating near this building, so he went to them to check the situation.

"Facial features close to standard i-type humans, light skin, long ears, slender bones, all very tall, not excluding the possibility of long-term space survival," Hao Ren examined the biological characteristics of the remains like a professional coroner, and compared them with the biological genealogy on the data network. "Well preserved."

"There's no air here, and it's ultra-low temperature, the corpses won't rot or dry out. After becoming ice sculptures, they can almost maintain their appearance at the time of death forever," Nangong Sanba said, taking out several exquisite knives and metal needles from his tool kit, and cutting and examining the remains. "Let me see if there's any residual information."

Hao Ren looked up at this silent, dim city and speculated about the cause of the tragic death of all the crew members on this ark: "Did an air leak lead to the death of the crew? Or did something else cause the life support system to shut down?"

"The airlock we found earlier was faulty, but the outermost gate of the airlock is still closed, and the control system is still operating normally," the data terminal said. "This ship is too big, perhaps a detailed scan of the entire hull is needed to determine the cause of the accident. And there are more than a dozen other ships outside, this unit thinks their situation is probably no better than here."

Hao Ren nodded and turned on the communicator: "Nolan, release the probes and conduct a hull damage inspection of the giant ship we're on, see if there are any leaks or other fatal injuries."

"Nolan understands."

At this time, Nangong Sanba had finished examining the first corpse. He seemed to have found something, so he floated to several other corpses to examine them. Nangong Wuyue curiously asked, "Brother, what did you find?"

"The cause of death for these people is neither suffocation nor low temperature," Nangong Sanba put away his tools. "Their deaths were very peaceful, and there are some residual chemical substances in their frozen blood vessels, which are very similar to…"

Lili asked anxiously, "Very similar to what?"

"Very similar to inhaling a large amount of hallucinogens… or something else," Nangong Sanba pointed around. "Every corpse is like this."

"Hallucinogens?" Hao Ren looked surprised. "These people died from drugs?"

"Although that's roughly the meaning, I think your choice of words is a bit problematic," Nangong Sanba's mouth twitched twice. "I've only examined a few corpses here so far, which probably can't be used as evidence. Let's go find a place a little further away."

Hao Ren gave a hmm and turned to float towards the distant street.

Although this ship's city was deep inside the spaceship, due to the spaceship's enormous size, the scale of the city was naturally unparalleled. There were numerous buildings and complete facilities here, the streets were wide, and the buildings were tall. If it weren't for the fact that you could see the closed artificial earth when you looked up, people inside would probably even forget the true face of this city.

The group came to the depths of the city and soon discovered more remains, and… even stranger things.

They found a building with a beautiful circular glass dome and a spacious interior. Based on the decoration style, this should be a special venue for holding gatherings. Since the outer wall of the building had a large hole, Hao Ren and the others went straight in through the hole and saw an astonishing scene:

There seemed to be a banquet being held here. In the huge hall, countless neatly arranged dining tables could be seen, with sumptuous food placed on the tables. Although everything was covered with a layer of frost, it could still be seen that this was a grand banquet. A large number of corpses filled this place, and they still maintained the appearance of the moment of death: sitting at the dining table, the men were wearing neat and appropriate tuxedos, and the women were wearing bright and beautiful brand-new dresses, as if they were attending the banquet in full dress even though they were frozen into ice corpses. In a corner of the hall, Hao Ren also saw several male remains wearing long black dresses lying on the small stage over there. They had frozen together with the surrounding things, and were holding things that looked like musical instruments in their hands: this seemed to be a small band.

Sumptuous dining tables, a band playing music, men and women in formal wear, there had been a grand banquet here—before everyone's death.

"I feel goosebumps." Nangong Wuyue rubbed her hands.

"I feel furry." Lili wagged her tail.