Chapter 152: Deception

Words : 1594 Updated : Sep 23rd, 2025

Xiao Yu could truly feel the girl’s pain. In the starry sky far away from Earth, trapped inside an alien spaceship, she endured endless torment—and there was no hope of relief in sight. “No wonder you protected this bedroom so tightly... perhaps this was the only place where you could feel at peace.” Xiao Yu reflected in silence. The diary continued. “I want to go home. I want to go home. I must leave here, I have to. I don’t want to be experimented on, I don’t want any more thought infusions, I don’t want to stay here, staring at this unchanging starry sky. I want to go home, to fall in love, to snuggle up in Mom and Dad’s arms, to cook delicious meals. I want to go home! Mom... I miss you...” “The big monster contacted me. It seems... it can bypass the surveillance of that damned Intelligent Program and communicate with me directly. It told me its story—how it was captured by those damned aliens and imprisoned on the white dwarf. Although it looks ugly, its heart seems to be quite good. It fought against those aliens to save a weak civilization? Even though it failed in the end... sigh, poor big monster.” At this, the image of the Mirage Beast on the white dwarf once again surfaced in Xiao Yu’s mind. “This human girl was deceived by the monster.” Xiao Yu realized this instantly. The beast’s furious roar before its death was still vivid in his memory. “This is the dark starry sky, not the sunlit Earth. My kin, you’re still too naive, far too naive. The dark universe is no place for any pure creature to survive.” Xiao Yu sighed with sorrow. “This place... seems to be called the Aquila Nebula back on Earth. It’s more than six thousand light-years from the Sun. The Sun and Earth are both far, far away. But no matter how I look, I just can’t see them.” “Hmm? There’s actually a quintuple star system over there? So beautiful. Five stars of nearly equal size orbiting one another in chaotic revolution, like a dance. Sigh, I wonder if scientists back home have grasped the Grand Unified Theory yet. If not, they should study the many-body problem in the universe more. Maybe it’ll help them a bit.” Xiao Yu’s heart tightened. “What? Many-body problem? Quintuple star system? Isn’t that the same system the Swarm Queen fled toward? And it could help in grasping the Grand Unified Theory? Could this... really be true?” Xiao Yu’s thoughts raced. “It’s very likely. After undergoing some kind of thought infusion by aliens, she possessed scientific knowledge far beyond humanity’s. And she had no reason to lie in her own diary. That means... I must go see it for myself.” Xiao Yu made up his mind on the spot. He desperately yearned for a technological breakthrough, and for that, he was willing to try anything—no matter how far-fetched it sounded. He deftly controlled the robot’s fingers to turn another page of the diary and continued reading. “I’ve made a decision. I’m going to rescue the big monster. It came up with a plan. As long as I help destroy this spaceship and get into the escape pod, then without the suppression from the ship, when the next nova eruption occurs, it’ll be able to use the dispersed matter to gain enough acceleration to escape the white dwarf’s gravity well. The escape pod won’t be destroyed by the white dwarf. Then, it’ll take me and return me to Earth—to home.” Xiao Yu remained silent. “Zhang... Shengya, was it? You were deceived.” Sure enough, the next page confirmed his suspicion. The girl wrote, “I succeeded... but I also failed. With my help, the big monster destroyed the spaceship. I transferred into the escape pod, and was caught in the monster’s grasp. But I was deceived. The monster didn’t have enough energy to escape the white dwarf. It couldn’t even withstand the next nova eruption. It told me to open the escape pod and said that with the pod’s energy, it could gain enough power to flee. It promised it would only take a little—enough not to affect the pod’s life support systems.” “Can I still trust you? I lived with you for over three years. In this loneliness, this solitude, confusion, and fear... I treated you as my only friend. But you deceived me. Do you know how awful it feels to be lied to? Don’t say anything more. I will never trust you again.” It seemed that while she wrote this entry, the voice of the Mirage Beast continued to echo in her mind. The handwriting here was a bit erratic. Some of the characters were written so forcefully they nearly tore through the paper. On the page were traces of dried water stains. “These... must be her tears.” This girl and the Mirage Beast both shared the same suffering. They were trapped here by a powerful, unknown civilization. Under such circumstances, they should’ve gotten along well. Based on the girl’s innocent personality, after spending several years together, she had likely come to see the Mirage Beast as her only hope, her only lifeline. But she was deceived. Xiao Yu fully empathized with her despair and pain. He continued reading. “Going home is now impossible. I want to kill myself, but under the Intelligent Program’s obstruction, I can’t even die. Fine then. I agreed to its proposal—to let it extract my soul. It told me that after my soul is removed, there will be no more pain. It said it would preserve my soul... maybe it’s another lie. But I don’t care anymore. At worst, it’s just death. What meaning is there to living like this?” “So be it. This is the final diary entry. It said that in a pure soul state, there’s no sense of time or perception. I hope my body will be preserved properly. I hope... someone can bring me back to life...” “Dad, Mom, Little Gray... goodbye.” This was the final entry. Having read all the diary entries, Xiao Yu felt as if he had accompanied this Earth girl named Zhang Shengya through all of it—experiencing her confusion, fear, pain, and despair. “You were deceived again,” Xiao Yu thought sadly. “Even in soul form, I still retain a sense of time. I still feel pain. Was your soul truly taken out? Where was it stored? In that spaceship?” “If your soul is still inside that escape pod... I’ll find a way to open it. I’ll return your soul to your body.” “But... Earth no longer exists. Your parents are gone. There’s no going back. Everything is gone.” She was an optimistic, cheerful girl from Earth, without much worldly experience. This was evident in every line of her diary. Xiao Yu knew she must have endured unimaginable pain during those “experiments.” Yet she never gave up hope of survival. But that hope—first used by the Mirage Beast, then again by the Intelligent Program—was toyed with and ultimately crushed. “They played with her hope... and led her to finally choose despair.” “If... this was all orchestrated by the Taihao Civilization, I will choose to wipe them out completely. Believe me—I will. Earth humans are not your lab rats.” Xiao Yu placed the diary back on the desk and once again surveyed the furnishings of the bedroom. He glanced at the poster on the wall. The star in the poster was singing into a microphone, lost in the moment. The room was neat and tidy. In the ten thousand years that had passed, nothing had changed. It was as if the pink single bed still carried the warmth of her body, and the teddy bear plush was still clutched tightly in her arms. Xiao Yu didn’t touch anything else. He had the robot step out of the room and gently close the door behind him. As if the door had never been opened—as if the optimistic, cheerful, yet repeatedly deceived Earth girl still lived inside. From this diary, Xiao Yu obtained many pieces of information—including how to break through to a Level 4 Civilization, clues about his own origin, and some new theories about Earth humans. “Maybe... I’m just another lab rat in their experiment. Maybe some eye is watching me in the dark.” “Maybe her story wasn’t unique. Maybe many Earth humans have been abducted by alien civilizations. Somewhere out there in the universe, maybe there are many Earth humans enduring unimaginable suffering. On Earth, so many supposed alien abduction cases happen every year... even if only one percent of them were true...” “Are my kin still surviving somewhere out in this dark universe?” Xiao Yu let out a sigh and pulled his thoughts back. On Planet One. “I must leave here and head for Aquila Four, to that quintuple star system. Of course, before I leave, I’ll take care of the threat behind you. Look—the Swarm Queen has returned.” At the Arrow Beast settlement, Xiao Yu’s projected form smiled as he spoke to the tens of thousands of Arrow Beasts before him. He pointed into the distant void. Beyond the overlapping mountains, beyond the azure sky, past the two moons of Planet One, past Planet Two and Planet Three—deep in space, billions of kilometers away, a bizarre creature the size of half a moon was rapidly approaching.

Chapter 152: Deception

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