110: Set sail, towards the abyss

Ashen Earth Star, Hanhai Trade Headquarters, Command Center.

Outside the massive viewport, the "wanderer" resembled an inconspicuous gray minnow, slowly gliding towards the launch track leading into space.

Su Li stood before the window, her hands clasped in front of her, her face regaining its usual emotionless calm. Yet, her knuckles, slightly white from the force of her grip, betrayed the tension within.

She did not go to see them off; her battlefield was here.

Meanwhile, aboard the "wanderer's" bridge, the atmosphere was equally tense.

"Boss, all preparations are complete."

"Reno, weapons system self-check complete."

"Lao Mo, what about your end?" Chen Feng's gaze shifted to the busy technical supervisor at the console.

"A minor issue," Lao Mo's voice came through the communicator, tinged with static. "Boss, the energy resonance frequency of our signal camouflage module has a 0.03% deviation from the preset value. It's still within safety margins, but..."

Chen Feng's brow immediately furrowed. At a moment like this, on the verge of entering the lion's den, even the slightest deviation could become a fatal flaw.

"Can it be corrected?" he asked gravely.

"Yes," Lao Mo replied. "But it requires restarting the entire camouflage module and then performing a manual recalibration. The whole process will take about twenty minutes."

Reno glanced at the countdown: "The departure window the port command center gave us only has five minutes left."

A not-insignificant dilemma was suddenly placed before everyone.

Should they depart on time with a minor flaw, or strive for perfection and miss the window, drawing unnecessary attention from the port?

A brief silence fell over the bridge, broken only by the ticking of the countdown, grating on everyone's nerves.

"Maintain status quo," Chen Feng's voice was decisive and clear, cutting through the tension. "Depart on schedule."

Seeing the questioning looks from Reno and Lao Mo, he explained, "We're a beat-up scavenger ship, not a ceremonial fleet of the Alliance. It's reasonable for our signals to have some deviation, for our equipment to have some issues. Being too perfect would actually arouse suspicion."

His decision acted like a sedative, calming everyone's nerves.

"Received!"

"Understood!"

As the final countdown reached zero, the "wanderer's" engines spewed blue flames. The ship jolted violently, then surged upward at an astonishing speed, effortlessly breaking free from Ashen Earth Star's gravity.

Chen Feng sat in the Commander's seat, watching on his personal screen as the planet—once his prison, later the starting point of his empire—grew smaller and smaller in his view, eventually shrinking to a dim, yellowish speck.

He turned to look at Reno and Lao Mo, already busy at their stations, their faces etched with a mix of tension and anticipation for the unknown journey ahead.

Chen Feng took a deep breath and said solemnly, "Everyone, our journey to the stars and seas has begun."

The ship soon entered the preset sub-light speed course, switching to steady auto-pilot mode.

The bridge quieted down, leaving only the low hum of operating equipment.

Chen Feng took out the data chip Su Li had given him from his chest; it was still cool to the touch. He connected it to his personal terminal. After passing the authorization check, its contents slowly unfolded.

Besides the theoretical models and risk contingency plans mentioned earlier, in the deepest encrypted folder, there was a separate file.

Its name made Chen Feng's pupils contract slightly.

"The Damascus Plan."

He opened the file.

Inside were no complex formulas, only a brief, chillingly cold textual description. The plan aimed for an extreme scenario—when Law Contamination became irreversible—to forcibly impact and format the contaminated soul through a special program Su Li had named the "Soul Logic Bomb."

The consequence was a 99.9% probability that the subject would be completely annihilated, becoming a vegetative state with no consciousness or memory.

The remaining 0.1% was the slim possibility of rebirth upon a field of pure white ruins.

This was no contingency plan.

This was the most cruel mercy, calculated with absolute rationality at the brink of despair.

Chen Feng's finger hovered over the screen, unmoving for a long time. This weighty concern was heavier and more... heart-wrenching than any simple "take care."

He silently closed the file, sinking into a prolonged silence.

Just then.

[Beep—]

An extremely faint alarm, audible only to him, sounded directly on his retinal screen.

It was a high-level "Market Anomaly" alert from the Interstellar Exchange System, automatically popping up.

Chen Feng frowned and clicked on the flashing red message.

[Alert: Core associated commodity "High-Entropy Sequence Information Sample (alias: undead crystal)" has seen massive sell-offs in the anonymous trading zone "Abyss 777."]

[Seller ID: Nether.]

[Sell-off Price: 15% below current market average.]

[Quality Assessment: A+ grade, higher than your current main supply of A- grade.]

[Market Impact: Has caused some buyers to adopt a wait-and-see approach. Your long-term client "Sequence Zero" has sent a preliminary inquiry to this seller.]

In an instant, Chen Feng's pupils contracted sharply, as if pierced by an invisible needle.

The monopolistic commodity he had relied on to build his fortune, the foundation of their Hanhai Trade... now had a second seller.

And their goods were better than his.

And their price was lower than his.

Chen Feng abruptly closed the alert interface and looked out the viewport at the unchanging, deep and silent cosmos.

On the star chart, the distant destination—Tartarus Free Port—was marked as a dangerous red vortex.

Wolves ahead, tigers behind.

His path to a commercial empire was fraught with unexpected competition and danger from the very first step out the door.