Chapter 59

At that moment, the entire fleet seemed to be immersed in dialing and the brief yet endless waiting.

Seeing the signal contact in a good state for an instant, Fu Luo understood what it meant by "a letter from home is worth ten thousand gold".

She held her breath, listening to the sound of waiting for an answer, her heart filled with an indescribable anticipation.

More nervous than waiting for the admission letter.

However, her heart went from burning hot to icy cold. There was still no one answering on the other end. Fu Luo thought wishfully, "Could it be that I misdialed just now in the address book?"

She began to feel uneasy. Just as she was about to carefully check, the call was transferred to the voicemail box, and Fu Xiaoxin's familiar and concise recorded prompt sounded: "Hey, I'm not here. Leave a message."

It shattered her last bit of illusion.

Fu Luo's palms were covered in sweat, which seemed to evaporate all the heat from her body, leaving her hands and feet icy cold.

The intermittent static on the line, caused by the unstable signal, was like layers of waves, while the voicemail system’s timer, indifferent to human feelings, emitted a long, cold, and impersonal beep at intervals.

Fu Luo stared at the pale corner of the warship corridor wall, feeling as if she'd been cast adrift in a vast sea, her entire being hollowed out.

With a "click", the intermittent signal hung up her call.

Fu Luo instinctively wanted to dial again, but her hands were shaking too badly. The phone slipped from her fingertips and fell to the ground. She seemed to have suddenly frozen, unable to pick it up no matter what.

The warship's floor was so shiny that she could see her own reflection. She saw her own pale face.

After an unknown amount of time, the door behind her suddenly made a sound, and footsteps slowly approached. Fu Luo raised her head with a blank gaze. Yang Ning bent down, picked up the phone and handed it to her: "Call a few more times."

Seeing Fu Luo not reacting, Yang Ning slightly lifted his pant leg and squatted down, saying softly, "Call a few more times, okay?"

His voice was low and gentle, like a piece of lightly brushed velvet. It was the voice that had come from the communicator countless times during frontline battles, a steadying presence like a kite string, constantly reminding the people on the warship what they were risking their lives for.

Fu Luo came back to her senses and woodenly took her phone from Yang Ning's hand.

Her face was ashen. Yang Ning, not knowing what he was thinking, suddenly reached out and touched Fu Luo's head. He originally wanted to ruffle it hard a couple times - that's how rough everyone is when expressing comfort. However, it felt exceptionally soft to the touch, like the fur of a newborn animal. Yang Ning's fingertips trembled abruptly, realizing his presumptuousness.

In the end, he only lightly patted Fu Luo's head, then coughed lightly in embarrassment, turned around and walked towards the main control room, intending to temporarily relieve the crew on duty.

Fu Luo finally followed his words and falteringly dialed a second time, a third time... In the end, her movements were almost reduced to mechanical repetition.

Another hour of this, and she probably would have given up.

Unable to remember how many calls she had made, Fu Luo's gaze wandered to a large screen in the warship corridor.

Suddenly, a light "beep" sound unexpectedly came from the phone. Fu Luo came back to her senses slightly and sighed softly, thinking it was disconnected again, but then heard a person's voice.

"Hello?"

Fu Luo thought she had misheard.

The other party's voice became clear: "Who is this? You sent a dozen empty voice messages, are you sick! Didn't your mom teach you to say what you have to say and not take up people's memory?"

Fu Luo was stunned. It was... this voice!

With her silence, the other end became rude and impatient: "Hello hello? Speak up!"

Fu Luo's tears suddenly surged up like a rising tide. She felt that wiping tears in public was really embarrassing and tried hard to hold back, but couldn't no matter what.

"My mom just didn't teach me..." She managed to say this sentence in a changed voice. "Why are you yelling, don't you have eyes to look at the caller ID?"

Fu Xiaoxin's loud voice that always seemed to be grandstanding came to an abrupt halt. After a long time, she asked in a low voice like a thief: "...Is it Fu Luo?"

Fu Luo sat down against the wall corner. She had never thought that one day she would throw a childish tantrum over the phone, but at that moment, she couldn't help but roar: "You're the one who's sick!"

Fu Xiaoxin explained in a soft voice: "My phone broke. The SIM card was bound at the time. I originally wanted to change to a new one, but was afraid you wouldn't be able to find me, so I glued it back together and am using it for now. I can't even hold it while talking to you..."

Fu Luo wouldn't listen to a single word and argued unreasonably, "Why did you take so long to answer my call?"

Fu Xiaoxin: "Didn't I say already, the ringtone has a problem, I can't hear it..."

Ms. Fu Xiaoxin was a person like a recklessly charging firecracker, and almost all her motherly affection in her life was contained in these few sentences of the call. She patiently explained twice, her tone nearly gentle, but the unruly child didn't appreciate it - Fu Luo, who had legendarily muddled her way to becoming half a pirate in the General Staff Office, didn't react much when the Allied Forces were annihilated, nor when Ye Wenlin threw her under the enemy's gun, but at this moment, her emotions suddenly collapsed.

She instantly turned into a child who wantonly threw tantrums for candy.

Fu Xiaoxin's limited patience was exhausted and she finally became furious: "Are you done! You're just going in circles! So what if I didn't hear it? I'm not a telephone answering machine!"

Her loud roar made Fu Luo freeze for a moment, and then the two started a long argument.

Fu Luo: "I've been away from home for over a year, did you look for me? I sent you so many text messages and you didn't even acknowledge them!"

Fu Xiaoxin: "Get this straight, miss, you ran away from home on your own! On your own!"

Fu Luo: "I must have been picked up!"

Fu Xiaoxin: "You better fucking be polite to me! If it wasn't so hard to give birth to you, I would have thrown you away long ago! Why don't you take a good look in the mirror, I'm not blind, you think I would choose to pick up a piece of trash like you?"

Fu Luo: "Let's be honest, I've always known, you never wanted me, I knew it since I was little!"

Fu Xiaoxin: "Well well, at least you have some self-awareness now, I regret not flushing you down the toilet!"

Fu Luo yelled into the phone: "I should have hugged the judge's leg and had him give me to Wang Yizheng!"

Fu Xiaoxin immediately yelled back: "You can still go find him now!"

After shouting, Fu Xiaoxin paused for a moment, and after a while, she added in a low voice: "...No, it seems to be too late."

Fu Luo's heart skipped a beat.

She sobered up from her extremely childish state, and after being dazed for a long time, she asked hoarsely: "What did you say?"

Fu Xiaoxin took a deep breath and said softly: "The Space Science Academy was blown up right at the start of the conflict. I don't know who did it, and none of the people inside have been seen, but... there are also rumors that they blew it up themselves to ensure top-secret information wouldn't leak out. If that's the case, there might still be... a chance. I don't have any definite news right now."

Fu Luo blinked, a teardrop fell to the corner of her mouth, she hastily wiped her face: "What about that bastard Wang Ergou?"

"Don't know either." Fu Xiaoxin's voice sounded a bit tired, "Ran away from home, I'm looking for him now, haven't found him yet."

The two fell into a long silence, Fu Luo raised her head, leaning against the side wall of the ship's corridor, tapping her knee with her fingers from time to time.

"Mom, I..." Fu Luo was at a loss for words.

She couldn't think of what to say about herself. Thousands of words flashed through her mind like a carousel, but in the end, it seemed there were only two words left—'pretty good'—to succinctly sum it all up.

She couldn't help but chuckle, feeling that she was really stupid.

Just then, Yang Ning's voice suddenly sounded in the built-in communicator.

"Regroup!"

Fu Luo was startled.

"I repeat, all departments regroup immediately," Yang Ning said, "all personnel be alert, raise the alert level."

Hearing Fu Luo's voice subtly pause, Fu Xiaoxin immediately asked sensitively: "What's wrong?"

"...I have to go, the cafeteria notified it's time for dinner." Fu Luo blurted out, and immediately wanted to slap herself - forget about whether this sounded true or not, did this even sound human?

But Fu Xiaoxin was silent for a moment, then laughed.

"Go ahead." She said.

Inexplicably, Fu Luo heard a hint of relief in it.

She hung up the phone, moved her slightly numb hands and feet, and walked quickly towards the main control room.

On the ground, in a hidden underground rental house, Fu Xiaoxin put down the phone and let out a long sigh, staggering a bit.

A simple crutch was tucked under her arm, one pant leg was cut in half, the trouser leg underneath was empty, and the corner of the gauze could be seen.

Fu Xiaoxin squatted down with difficulty using her remaining leg, trying to lift up the coat rack that she had knocked over when she rushed over.

"Master Fu!" A young man hurriedly walked over, "Let me do it, leave it."

Fu Xiaoxin stood to the side holding the crutch with one leg: "Sorry about that."

"It's okay," the young man lifted the coat rack, "Did you get in touch with the kid?"

"Mm." Fu Xiaoxin lowered her head, "I found out earlier, heard she's in the Second Department."

"Oh, that's the one that lost contact because communications were cut off, I heard the Second Department is the best, no wonder you're so relieved." The young man had a sweet mouth and knew how to talk, sighing for a long time, "The improved propulsion system blueprints are on your desk, shall I help you over?"

Everyone had their part to play, even those on the ground.

When Fu Luo arrived at the main control room, the tear stains at the corner of her eyes had not yet dried, she rubbed her eyes hard, feeling very embarrassed.

"Reporting."

Yang Ning pretended not to see, only pointing to a radar feedback screen and said, "Come look at this."

The screen showed all kinds of messy curves: some were radiation waves, some were small obstacles, and some represented other ships in the fleet. There were no high-energy reactions; it looked ordinary.

Hearing the solemnity in his tone, Fu Luo leaned in to observe carefully for a moment, suddenly, she spotted a line in the data feed that looked like a scribble. Her combat experience in life-and-death situations over the past few days had honed a kind of strange sixth sense in her, Fu Luo immediately felt something was amiss.

And when she looked again, in the blink of an eye, that signal line disappeared again.

Yang Ning: "Filter out close-range information within thirty times the range unit, shield irregular cosmic rays."

The command was received, and more than half of the information on the radar feedback screen immediately disappeared. This time, Fu Luo saw the strange signal line clearly.

Very weak, weak to the point of absolutely not triggering any alarms, it would disappear among the many signal lines in a slightly more chaotic environment.

At this time, it appeared extremely flat and regular on the screen, like the long breathing of a giant beast.

"We usually call this kind of information line a 'dragon's breath line', when I was an orderly for old General Zhao in my early years, I saw it once when I followed him on an ambush," Yang Ning said softly, "It's a very time-consuming and laborious concealment method, using countless small stealth warships to create interference that can cancel each other out, thereby concealing the large or giant ships among them."

Fu Luo: "So the conclusion is that there are heavy troops in ambush nearby, possibly a complete fleet, with giant ships among them... then it's likely not scattered pirates."

"It's an enemy fleet from another system," Yang Ning said without hesitation. "Space pirate groups don't have this level of organization or financial resources."

Fu Luo instantly broke free from the crazy state she was in when she called home just now, a switch seemed to flip in her brain, and she became clear and objective again.

The ambush was for them?

Then the information they received was fabricated?

Does that mean the enemy may have cracked their encryption method?

What about Ye Wenlin, is he still alive?