155: Sleep with me tonight!

The night, like thick, undiluted ink, gently enveloped the ravaged land.

In the sky, the dark red sun had long since set.

In its place were two moons, one large and one small, emitting a cool, clear glow.

The silver moonlight spilled onto the Natural Selection’s obsidian-smooth hull, reflecting a cold and mysterious luster.

The restaurant’s holographic portholes had long been closed.

The entire warship, save for the indicator lights maintaining basic operations, was plunged into a tranquil silence.

Gu Nianqiu had fallen asleep early.

Today had been filled with combat, scavenging, and preparing dinner; the Little Girl was exhausted and was now sleeping soundly, clutching her carrot pillow, a satisfied smile still gracing her lips.

Lin Mo, however, was wide awake.

He went alone to the open-air observation deck on the topmost level of the bow.

The force field shield here was adjusted to its thinnest state, able to block out the sparse external air and radiation while allowing every ray of starlight to penetrate.

He didn't turn on any lights, simply lay casually on the cold deck, hands clasped behind his head, quietly gazing up at the unfamiliar yet incredibly brilliant starry sky above.

Without the obscuring industrial exhaust and light pollution, the true face of the universe was revealed to him with unprecedented clarity.

A magnificent silver band of light, formed by billions of stars, stretched across the heavens.

Countless stars, some bright, some dim, twinkled silently like diamonds embedded in black velvet.

This starry sky was utterly different from any he remembered on Earth.

It was vaster, more beautiful, and also… colder.

Behind every twinkling star could be an unknown civilization, a brutal battlefield, or eternal silence.

He wasn't admiring the scenery.

He was examining the true chessboard he was about to step onto.

A very light, almost imperceptible sound of footsteps came from behind him.

Lin Mo didn't turn around, nor did he change his posture.

“So late, and you’re still not sleeping?”

Gu Zhixia’s voice, clear and cool like moonlight, sounded beside him.

She had come up at some point, draped in a thin jacket to ward off the chill on the deck.

She stopped a few steps away from Lin Mo and, mimicking his posture, looked up at the magnificent river of stars.

“You’re not sleeping either.”

Lin Mo’s voice was a little low in the quiet night.

“Can’t sleep.”

Gu Zhixia admitted frankly.

“Just thinking about going to a completely unfamiliar place tomorrow and dealing with a bunch of guys who could be human or ghosts… my blood gets a little restless.”

Her body was naturally born for battle.

Ease, on the contrary, made her uncomfortable.

Lin Mo fell silent.

Gu Zhixia slowly sat down beside him, hugging her knees and resting her chin on them.

The two sat side by side, speechless for a time.

Only the cool moonlight and distant starlight were their sole communication.

After a long while, Gu Zhixia turned her head to look at Lin Mo’s profile.

Outlined by the starlight, his usually calm and unruffled face seemed to carry a hint of deep weariness, unseen in his usual days.

“What’s bothering you?” she asked.

Lin Mo’s gaze remained fixed on the edge of the starry sky, his voice devoid of emotion.

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

Gu Zhixia’s tone was certain.

“You talked more than usual today, especially when explaining the ship’s performance. You only do that when you want to convince others, or yourself.”

Her understanding of him was far deeper than she was willing to admit.

Lin Mo finally withdrew his gaze and turned to look at her.

His eyes, still bright in the darkness, were like two bottomless lakes, reflecting the myriad stars and her beautiful face.

“We are not strong enough yet.”

He finally said it.

These words made Gu Zhixia’s heart sink sharply.

Not strong enough?

They had just annihilated a century-old military fortress and slaughtered an elite star fleet in a manner almost like divine punishment.

Now, they possessed “Yan Luo,” a law-level war god.

To anyone, they were already powerful enough to make any force tremble.

But coming from Lin Mo’s mouth, it carried a cold and cruel sense of reality.

“Whether it’s zhurong, or ‘World Tree,’ or even that ‘Yan Luo’…”

Lin Mo’s voice was soft, yet every word was incisive.

“They are just tools. They are keys, crowbars, chips that allow us to overturn the chessboard.”

“But the chairman of Leviathan, those ‘gods’ Lan Yue spoke of, they themselves are the rule-makers.”

“We were able to wipe out Purgatory Furnace today because they underestimated us, because they didn’t expect the pawns to actively attack the players.”

“But what about next time?”

“When they truly take us seriously, when that chairman descends with the true power of ‘gods,’ will these chips in our hands still be enough?”

His words were like a sharp knife, slicing open the splendid cloak of Victory, revealing the bloody, cruel truth beneath.

Everything they were doing now was just secretly dismantling the gods’ toys while the gods napped.

Once the gods awoke, what they would face was a true, incomprehensible thunderous wrath.

“We have the qualification to slay gods, but qualification does not mean outcome.”

Lin Mo’s gaze unconsciously fell in the direction of the Bridge, where Gu Nianqiu’s room was.

“I cannot gamble, and I cannot afford to gamble.”

Gu Zhixia understood instantly.

He wasn't worried about himself.

He was worried about her and her sister, about this small, fragile “home.”

This man, who always remained silent and bore everything on his shoulders, for the first time, revealed a trace of his innermost vulnerability to her.

Gu Zhixia’s heart felt as if it had been fiercely clutched by something, stirring a strange, sharp pang of sorrow.

She didn’t say any useless words like “Don’t worry, we will definitely win.”

She just stared intently at Lin Mo, her phoenix eyes, which always burned with fire, now gleaming with an unprecedented, dazzling light.

“I understand.”

She stood up, looking down at Lin Mo, who was still lying on the ground, her voice resolute.

“I will become stronger.”

“Strong enough to become the most unstable, incalculable variable in your plan.”

Her gaze also turned towards the deep starry sky, as if she could already see the planet shrouded in a thunderstorm.

“The Eye of the Storm, that thunderstorm core, I will obtain it with my own hands.”

“If ‘Yan Luo’ is your trump card to overturn the table, then my ‘Thunder Dragon’ will be the venomous barb that pierces the heart of the gods.”

“I will become your aid.”

“Not a burden to be protected by you, but a companion who can stand shoulder to shoulder with you on the corpses of gods.”

Her declaration was powerful and resonant, like a drawn blade, shattering the night’s tranquility and also dispelling the last trace of confusion in Lin Mo’s heart.

Lin Mo looked at her, at her proud and resolute demeanor, as if she wanted to trample the entire universe underfoot.

After a long while, he slowly sat up from the ground.

He smiled.

A genuine smile, carrying a hint of relief and warmth.

“Good.”

One word, yet it was worth a thousand.

The atmosphere, at this moment, became somewhat subtle.

Gu Zhixia looked at the starry sky, silent for a moment.

Suddenly, she turned her head, looked at Lin Mo, and in a voice almost a whisper, so light it seemed it could be blown away by the night wind, said something that completely stunned Lin Mo.

“Tonight… sleep with me.”

Lin Mo’s brain seemed to crash for a moment.

He instinctively looked at Gu Zhixia.

Her exquisitely beautiful face, always carrying a hint of aloofness, was unreadable in the starlight, but her bright eyes looked directly at him, without the slightest evasion.

“You…”

Lin Mo’s throat felt dry.

“You didn’t drink too much today, did you?”

That instinctive tease slipped out.

He remembered the last time, the girl who had been drunk and curled up in his arms like a kitten.

“No.”

Gu Zhixia’s answer was crisp and direct.

Her voice wasn’t loud, but it was like a pebble dropped into Lin Mo’s heart, stirring ripples.

She wasn’t drunk.

She was sober.

Lin Mo looked at her, at her eyes that showed no trace of drunkenness, only a hint of nervousness, a touch of stubbornness, and an emotion he had never seen before, named “dependence.”

He understood.

On the eve of embarking on this unknown, all-in expedition, this girl who always encased herself in a hard shell felt lonely.

What she needed was not a lover, but a companion who could make her feel safe through the long night.

Lin Mo’s heart slowly softened.

He stood up and extended his hand to her.

“Good.”

One word, yet it weighed a thousand pounds.

Gu Zhixia looked up at his outstretched hand, at his eyes that seemed especially deep in the starlight.

She also reached out, placing her cool fingertips into his warm palm.

Lin Mo gently pulled, and she stood up with the momentum.

This time, he didn't let go.

They didn’t speak again, just held hands and walked silently down the observation deck, through the quiet corridor, finally stopping at Gu Zhixia’s door.

Gu Zhixia’s room was completely different from Gu Nianqiu’s.

There was no lace, no cute dolls, and no superfluous decorations.

The entire room’s color scheme was a calm black, white, and gray.

A meticulously clean single bed, a bookshelf filled with various professional books and tactical drawings, and in the corner, a metal workbench specifically for maintaining and tuning weapons.

The entire room, like her, was filled with order, precision, and calmness.

But when the door closed, completely shutting out the corridor light, this calmness was replaced by a silent, slightly awkward stillness.

Only a dim bedside lamp was on in the room, casting long shadows of the two, intertwined.

This was Lin Mo’s first time entering her private space.

The air was filled with a faint, cool scent.

It wasn’t perfume; it was more like the scent of her body after bathing, mixed with the aroma of books and metal oil, forming a unique, peculiar scent that belonged only to her.

The two stood in the center of the room, both a little at a loss for a moment.

The grand atmosphere created by their shared goal and the starry sky on the deck earlier instantly dissipated upon entering this small, private space.

It was replaced by a close, unavoidable, subtle tension between two independent individuals.

Gu Zhixia moved first.

She released Lin Mo’s hand, walked to the bed, lifted a corner of the quilt, and then sat down.

She didn’t look at Lin Mo, just kept her head down, looking at her toes, as if there was something worth studying there.

“You… go take a shower first.”