Chapter Eighteen: An Earth-Shattering Event Sparked by a Single Slap

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Just as Liu Shaoyu stepped out of Master Wang’s house, he saw someone standing in front of his own door. In broad daylight, the figure was dressed head to toe in black—not just the clothes, but also a black hat. The outfit itself wasn’t strange, but that hat in the middle of the day was an immediate sign of trouble. Liu Shaoyu couldn’t help but think, “This isn’t the look of an honest man.”

At the sound of footsteps, the man in black turned around, revealing a youthful face, sharply defined, with faint traces of pockmarks. The instant Liu Shaoyu saw his features, a broad smile broke across his own. This was none other than his old friend Wang Weifu, whom he hadn’t seen in eight years.

After their exam all those years ago, Wang Weifu hadn’t joined the interstellar fleet with him as planned. Instead, he had vanished without a trace. When Liu Shaoyu visited his friend’s home, he found the entire household had disappeared overnight.

In a militarily-managed underground city, kidnapping seemed impossible. Yet, when Liu Shaoyu tried to use his credentials to search for information on the central computer, he was met with a simple message: “Insufficient authority.”

The summons to the Command Academy had left Liu Shaoyu no time to investigate further, and he’d had to report in by shuttle. That was the beginning of their eight-year separation. Now, seeing his childhood friend again, Liu Shaoyu was filled with joy.

“What have you been up to these years, you rascal?” Liu Shaoyu hurried over in three quick strides and clapped his friend heartily on the shoulder.

The slap was too much—Wang Weifu collapsed on the spot. Only then did Liu Shaoyu notice how pale his friend’s complexion was.

Wang Weifu’s sudden fainting gave Liu Shaoyu a fright. He quickly hoisted his friend onto his back, carried him inside, laid him on a spare bed, and summoned a medical robot.

Fortunately, the diagnosis was simple: severe physical exhaustion. A good night’s sleep would suffice. Watching his friend sleep, Liu Shaoyu’s mood grew heavy; he couldn’t help but wonder what had happened all these years. But, anxious as he was, he knew better than to wake him. All would have to wait until Wang Weifu woke on his own.

Waiting was a slow torture. As Liu Shaoyu kept vigil for Wang Weifu to awaken, elsewhere in the solar system, events were unfolding.

“Useless! All of you are worthless! So many ships and you still let a single shuttle get away! Worthless!” Before a holographic screen, a figure shrouded in shadow raged at the image before him. If not for the remote link, he looked ready to drag the person through the screen for a beating.

“So… what do we do now?” came a timid voice from the other end, accustomed to such tirades.

“What do we do? You have the nerve to ask me that? The target escaped—go after him! What else?” The question only fueled the shadowed figure’s fury.

“But he’s hidden on Earth now. If we make a move, our people will be exposed.”

“Find him first. I don’t believe he’ll stay hidden on Earth forever. And don’t forget, we still have his superior in our hands—keep a close watch. If he escapes again, you can explain yourselves to the Emissary. They’re a lot less forgiving than I am. Heh.” A chilling laugh echoed from the shadows as the transmission was cut.

A woman’s voice sounded from the darkness. “Don’t be angry, sir. As long as we hold the boy’s superior, he’ll have to come out.” She spoke a language of the cosmos, not of Earth.

“These underlings are useless—they can never get anything right. They’ll be the death of me,” the shadowed figure muttered, reaching for the woman’s waist. Only then did her face become visible—unnaturally white, not of Earth, with a lithe figure and, instead of hair, countless soft tendrils sprouting from beneath her skin. In all other respects, she resembled a human woman.

“Don’t be cross, sir,” her voice faded with her into darkness. Whatever those two intended, it was lost to the night…

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At the same time, elsewhere in the solar system, in a sealed metal room with no windows, only a single tightly shut door, a middle-aged man sat on a chair at the center. He wore a white research uniform—an uncommon design, clearly belonging to the Earth Federation’s Huaxia Republic Scientific Corps.

To maintain secrecy, details of the researchers’ work were stored only on computers.

“Don’t bother wasting your energy,” the man said suddenly, his tone slow and deliberate. “All my research has already been uploaded to the Federation’s central database. Even if you break into my personal computer, you’ll never access the receiving port from me.”

Though no one else was in the room, he knew the bandits outside would hear him.

A voice echoed from all directions, the room evidently equipped with communication devices. “Heh. Once we control your computer, we can simulate a signal to connect to your central network. We’ll see if your precious system can save you then.”

“Childish. Do you really think I wouldn’t have set up self-protection for something this important? The moment my terminal detects an attack, it locks all ports. You’ll get nothing,” he replied, his voice now tinged with mockery.

Of course, the translator relayed his words with no inflection, so the outsiders heard only flat defiance. In fact, their language had no words for sarcasm at all.

“Damn computer!” Not far from the makeshift cell, in a monitoring room, a figure slammed its tentacle on the console in frustration.

This creature also wore a white research suit, but otherwise looked nothing like a human. For one, it had four tentacles for a torso, and then there was the enormous head, covered in pronounced ridges. It looked like nothing so much as a floating, upright octopus.

Yet, arrayed around its body were metallic mechanical arms, simulating human limbs, with faint energy shields covering the exposed flesh.

Its appearance was unmistakable—it was a native of the Esmotan system in the Galaxy Nebula, a species renowned for near-supernatural intelligence. Esmotans were the gold standard of technological progress in the galaxy. Their enormous cranial capacity meant that even their newborns tested at IQ 200 or higher. They were the first species in the Milky Way to venture into space. Perhaps, because of this intellect, their interests were limited almost exclusively to science.

Their intense racial character made them indifferent to anything unrelated to research, but anyone who mistook them for easy targets was sorely mistaken. With such intelligence, even a casual invention could wipe out a starship without a second thought. They were, in a word, formidable.

The best way to deal with such a high-IQ species was to make them feel foolish.

It sounded impossible, but in fact, all it took was to present them with something they could not comprehend. The Earth Federation spent a millennium and the labor of billions of scientists to create the central computer—the most advanced artificial intelligence in the universe.

Earthlings affectionately called it “**”.

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It was thanks to the ruthless, unyielding coverage of this system that humanity secured a foothold among the galaxy’s many powers. This was a resounding slap in the face for the Esmotans, who had thought little of Earth’s “puny” computer. They sent their own “Light of Science” supercomputer to attack “**”.

The result was a shock: not only did the Light of Science fail to breach the Federation’s defenses, but it was hacked and seized in return. The Esmotan homeworld was plunged into chaos, with a deluge of research data uploaded to the Federation’s central system.

In the aftermath, the Esmotans had no choice but to cut all power to the Light of Science. When it became clear they couldn’t regain control, they destroyed it outright. Their attempt to steal secrets had backfired spectacularly. The Esmotans filed a formal complaint with the Galactic United Nations, demanding that Earth return the stolen data.

Earth replied, “Stolen? What do you mean? We were minding our own business when you attacked us. If your system failed and our computer seized your data, how is that our fault? Besides, your so-called secrets couldn’t even crack our system. Still, we’re not petty; we’ll return everything.”

And so, Earth returned all the uploaded data—after, of course, making their own copy. The Esmotans, knowing full well what had happened, could only swallow their bitterness. The defeat of their prized Light of Science shattered their confidence.

Armed with this vast trove of new data, Earth quickly advanced its technology, gaining new means to protect itself in the cosmic wilderness.

Yet, the humiliation stung. While the Esmotans improved their own technology, their gaze shifted to the Federation’s central computer—the one that had so soundly defeated them. Years of research finally yielded a method for intercepting small amounts of lightly encrypted data.

It was a testament to their intelligence: from the chaos of countless trivial logs, they pieced together events, reconstructing entire sequences from seemingly unrelated fragments. These methods soon brought trouble for the Republic as well.

This time, their surveillance revealed that a senior researcher would be passing through one of their colonial systems. The high command quickly set a plan in motion, leveraging their colonial influence to ambush and abduct the researcher.

On the surface, it was just another pirate attack.

How ironic that an artificial intelligence once hailed as the universe’s finest was now reduced to monitoring Federation transmissions. Whether this was a cause for celebration or regret was anyone’s guess.

Earth—formerly Yanjing, at the Liu residence.

Night had fallen almost unnoticed. After the long vigil, Wang Weifu, still unconscious, finally showed faint signs of waking.