146: The cost of returning home

The "lucky dice" sailed quietly at sub-light speeds, gliding silently through the boundless darkness like an injured deep-sea fish.

The clamor on the bridge had long since dissipated, leaving only the monotonous hum of the instruments and the life-sign alarms coming from the medical bay, sounding like death knells.

"Boss..." Fili's voice was filled with a sense of helplessness as he pointed to the almost flat line on the medical monitoring screen. "His vital signs are continuing to drop. Extensive internal organ rupture, and energy overload has caused structural damage at the cellular level... This second-hand medical device on the ship can only give him some nutrient solution. This is... this is basically just waiting for death."

Chen Feng stood at the door of the medical bay without saying a word, looking at Reno lying on the life-support bed.

This man, built like an iron tower, now had a sallow face and a chest that rose and fell weakly, with tubes and wires connected all over his body. Every time the piercing alarm sounded, it felt like a hammer striking hard against Chen Feng's heart.

He turned back to the bridge and expressionlessly opened the Interstellar Exchange interface.

The light screen lit up, displaying his startlingly low personal account balance—after paying Fili's final installment, less than ten thousand credit points remained.

He didn't look at the dazzling array of conventional goods, but instead directly entered a special section between the black market and the high-end market, accessible only to users with high credit ratings.

He filtered out all options, leaving only two tags: "Life Support" and "Law Damage."

Dozens of solutions popped up on the screen, each marked with an astronomical price sufficient to buy a small fleet.

Chen Feng's gaze swept across them rapidly, finally stopping on one item.

[Type III Military-Grade Emergency Stasis Gel]

[Description: Standard configuration for high-dimensional battlefields. It can forcibly 'freeze' a target lifeform in its current state, temporarily curbing structural collapse caused by Law Contamination or dimensional strikes. Note: This product is not a cure; it is merely an expensive 'pause button' to buy time for rescue.]

[Price: 2,580,000 interstellar credit points.]

An astronomical figure. It was almost the entirety of that huge loan that had just arrived in his account not long ago.

Fili leaned over to take a look, his four eyes instantly bulging. "Two... over two and a half million?! Boss, this... this will drain us dry! For a single Guard... is it worth it?"

Chen Feng did not answer him.

He just looked at the price, then glanced back toward the medical bay. In those eyes that were always as cold as ice, a fatigue that transcended all calculations of profit surfaced for the first time.

Then, he reached out his finger and, without any hesitation, clicked the "Purchase" button firmly.

"Are you sure you want to pay 2,580,000 credit points?"

"Confirmed."

The credit points were instantly zeroed out.

Chen Feng looked at the glaring balance of "734" on his account and remained silent for a moment.

Just then, a weak voice sounded beside him.

"I'm sorry..."

Chen Feng turned his head and saw that Eve had woken up at some point. She was leaning against the wall, her face as pale as a sheet of paper. Her eyes no longer held emptiness and confusion, but were filled with deep guilt and pain.

She watched everything silently—the account that had been instantly zeroed out, and the unprecedented fatigue on Chen Feng's face.

"I'm sorry..." she repeated, lowering her head. Her voice was as faint as a mosquito's hum, but every word was exceptionally clear. "All of this... is because of me. Reno... those who died... and this money..."

She took a deep breath, raised her head, and looked at Chen Feng with a gaze of determination he had never seen before.

"I will use everything I have to repay you. My skills, my life... everything."

This was the first time since her rescue that she had proactively and fully expressed her thoughts to Chen Feng.

Chen Feng just gave her a quiet look, then shook his head, still saying nothing.

The notification sound for [Transfer Complete] rang out.

He took a gel injector glowing with a faint blue light from the matter transfer port and turned to walk back to the medical bay.

He inserted the needle into Reno's life-support line and slowly injected the cold liquid worth over two million into Reno's body.

The piercing alarm stopped abruptly.

Reno's vital signs curve finally stabilized miraculously on the red line representing "critical," no longer worsening. He fell into a deeper sleep, like a frozen volcano.

The crisis was temporarily averted.

Chen Feng finally had the time to pull out the blood-stained, encrypted data pad he had pried from Reno's hand.

He tried to crack it using his personal terminal, but only received a series of "Insufficient Permissions" warnings.

"This is... [Alliance Military Grade · Ouroboros Encryption Algorithm]," Eve, who had been following behind him, said softly as she looked at the data pad.

Chen Feng raised an eyebrow and handed the data pad to her.

"Can you unlock it?"

"I..." Eve took the data pad, her fingertips brushing over the cold patterns on it. A flash of complex emotion crossed her eyes. "I can. The underlying logic of this algorithm is... of the same origin as the 'lock' in my head. But... I need massive computing power and an undamaged quantum computer."

Chen Feng nodded and took back the data pad.

He said nothing more and walked alone toward the ship's cargo hold.

The cargo hold was empty, except for two bodies wrapped in Hanhai Trade flags, lying quietly on the cold deck.

Chen Feng stood before them for a very long time, motionless.

Finally, he pulled out his personal dagger, walked to the nearby ship hull, and with all his strength, carved out two names, stroke by stroke.

—Heishan.

—A Yong.

The price of victory was etched into the steel.

He returned to the bridge and reset the final destination for the autopilot.

—Ashen Earth Star.

They had won. They had brought Eve back from hell, brought back the technical spark that would determine the future of Hanhai Trade, and brought back military intelligence that might turn the tide of the war.

But they had also lost almost everything.

The money was gone. Their most loyal warriors were dead. Their most reliable partner's life hung in the balance.

The ship sailed lonely through the silent universe.

The medical AI's cold electronic voice suddenly rang out: "Warning, the effect of the stasis gel is slowly decaying. It is expected to fail completely in 71 hours and 59 minutes."

The return journey was also another race against the Grim Reaper.