At the very beginning of the incident, Ning Yongxue huddled in the rubble-covered ruins, his eyes locked onto the only source of light in the darkness. He constantly pondered the source of this light, as well as where exactly he was.

It was a curtain of blue light suspended in mid-air, without a solid body, hanging silently like a ghost. Whenever his fingers gently swiped across it, several lines of characters of unknown meaning would flash across the light screen, like an out-of-control computer mainframe.

Ning Yongxue was convinced that this must be some sort of operating panel. As a modern man, he had been exposed to digital information technology. Even though he couldn't touch the actual screen or find the cables that supplied it with power, he still stubbornly believed that this was an operating panel.

He stared at the screen of light for hours, during which it hung steadily in mid-air, neither extinguished nor diminished in brightness.

At another time, in another place, this screen of light would have been a great object to fulfill his personal fantasies, and perhaps even an opportunity to change his life. It was worth studying carefully, worth leaving everything else behind.

However, the current situation was very different.

For Ning Yongxue, the biggest problem at hand was that he had been buried by the collapsing rubble. By the time he regained consciousness, he was already huddled in the middle of this rubble.

It was a cramped space with no water or food. There was only a sci-fi filled curtain of light looking opposite him. He wondered if he would starve to death first, or if this light screen would run out of energy first.

There was silty mud under his buttocks, a broken barrel next to his left hand, rough clothing in his right, and a seeping wooden beam against the top of his head. In the course of his contemplation, he gave these objects the names of the Heavenly King of Many Wonders, the Heavenly King of Wide Eyes, the Heavenly King of Holding the Country, and the Heavenly King of Growth, as a way of taking pleasure in his misery. He even attempted to talk to the Four Heavenly Kings that he had assigned to himself, but unfortunately received no response.

Not only did he receive no response, but the "sword" of the King of Growth, the wooden beam that seeped through the water, also pressed heavily on his head, making it impossible for him to move a single bit.

He had just experienced an unspeakable rebirth. He still remembered the pain he felt before he died, including the choking sensation of his breath ending and the sharp pain of his body tearing apart. Every moment of sentience was like sharp blades plunging into his body.

So, were the sensations he was feeling now residual pain?

No, it wasn't. It was because his current condition wasn't exactly good. He was hungry, and certainly thirsty. His muscles were weak and his body debilitated. He was wounded, and both of his legs were even deadened under a pile of rubble, and part of his limbs had lost consciousness.

He was probably dying, yet the Four Heavenly Kings could do nothing but watch him be crushed to death.

It is often said that when one is in despair, one always wants to grab something as a spiritual support. Ning Yongxue was no exception. Since he woke up trapped in the rubble, as if he was born in this pile of rubble, born between wooden beams, broken iron barrels and torn clothes, he must at least complete his own "birth" before he can do so.

Just as every baby has to come into the world from its mother's womb.

Besides, if there was an operating panel hanging in front of him that didn't belong in today's world, there had to be some unusual reason for it.

Though he had already wasted many hours, during which he had done nothing but scratch around on the light screen or talk to the Four Heavenly Kings like a fool. Not only had he wasted his physical energy, he had also only scratched out a bunch of inexplicable characters. However, he was convinced that it must contain some kind of omen.

Maybe it was the omnipotent system from the story, waiting for him to use it to upgrade and add points to himself, or to turn the rotten mud, iron barrels, clothes and wooden beams next to him into the real Four Heavenly Kings. Maybe it's a terminal device for some alien race that can control their cosmic battleships hidden underground, and something just went wrong.

But what exactly was the error?

He had nothing else to count on but to imagine that the thing was a system or terminal from the story.

He was a modern man, and hadn't believed he was all that different. But now, he needed to believe.

He tried to convince himself that he was the Chosen One in possession of some future system ...

Suddenly, the chilly morning sunlight spilled down from above his head. Ning Yongxue raised his head and was shocked to see a metallic humanoid painted dark blue standing in front of him, nearly three meters tall. This thing bent its arm, and with one hand, it lifted the oozing wooden beam that was the "sword" of the Heavenly King of Growth, tossed it to the side, and slammed it to the ground.

Then the gun was aimed at him.

Although he didn't know the reason, the black hole of the gun was indeed aimed at him. Although he couldn't tell the model of the gun, there was certainly no problem in killing him.

The fully-closed mask and angular mechanical armor in front of him had a rather non-realistic feel to it, and the unknown firearm that was pointed at his head was even a bit inexplicable.

With Ning Yongxue's shallow insights, he could tell that the probability was correct that this machinery was power armor.

What about his light screen system? What about the alien race's terminal equipment?

Following the corner of his eye, Ning Yongxue glanced at the Wide-Eyed Heavenly King buried in the earth to his left-actually a deflated, broken iron bucket. Then, he glanced at the light screen that kept flashing with unknown text.

He immediately figured out what the hell it was.

The light screen system was the operating panel of a rice cooker. If he had to add a high-end prefix, it would be "Future World High-Tech Rice Cooker", and it might even be able to play large-scale games.

The alien warship it was connected to was this deflated iron bucket.

As for those so-called unknown text, is only the operating system error when the display of computer garbled code, with "Tun hot hot hot hot" and "锟斤拷锟斤拷锟斤拷锟斤拷 "similar.

The Chosen One is not possible, the son of the rice cooker is more in line with the actual situation.

Of course, as a twenty-first-century old man, he may have seen all the technology in the first half of his life is not as high as this rice cooker technology content.

Seeing that the muzzle of the gun was still pressed against his own head, Ning Yongxue, the son of the rice cooker, neither dared to nor could he move the slightest bit. He can only fall into meaningless imagination.

For the time being, let's throw the further death crisis aside and not think about it. Since this was the future world, inserting a tube in the back of the head must have been rare.

Although the life-saving straw that he had just grasped had turned into a broken rice cooker, he might still be able to feel the so-called virtual world and live the extreme spiritual life that he had imagined back then.

Even if he was a twenty-first century old man, it was difficult to live a good life in the future on the level of reality, but he could at least still seek spiritual paralysis in the illusion created by the digital space.

As the saying goes, the sky is the limit. Before thinking about how he would be shot, it would be better to look ahead to the future ...

As Ning Yongxue fell into empty speculation, a beam of light swept past him, then swept further away, looking like an abattoir quarantining pigs and dogs.

The muzzle moved away. He looked up with difficulty to see the power armor tapping its fingers against the floating silver metal orb with a clanging sound. Was this metal orb a scanning drone?

The blinding green beam swept across the ruins in a straight line, suddenly turning blood-red.

When Ning Yongxue heard the shrill alarm ringing out from the orb-shaped drone, he thought that something had gone wrong with the scanning results and was so shocked that his hairs stood on end. Luckily, in an instant, a burly male leapt out of the rubble as if to announce that he was the target of the alarm.

The man's athletic posture reminded him of a cheetah.

In a flash of mud, Ning Yongxue saw that there were a number of translucent metal rhombuses spread across the man's back, with a sense of extremely beautiful mechanical construction. They were embedded in his brawny back muscles, resembling his romantic imagination of human body modification in sci-fi stories.

Prosthetic body modifiers?

Honestly, however, he felt something strange about the scene, and he already had a premonition of what was to come.

The power armor instantly raised the barrel of its gun, and the ear-piercing sound of steel whistling reached his ears. In the next moment, the large-caliber slug ripped through the faraway cyborg, disemboweling his neck, forehead, and skull into a large, blinding mist of blood.

The man was shot down, dead without notice or warning.

Shots rang out and the man was sent flying like a rag, the huge, miserable hole in its upper body facing the gray morning sun. The gaping hole in the dead body had exposed threads, red and green, looking like a pile of rusted scrap iron parasitized deep in flesh and blood, with colorful earthworms growing inside, dancing in the wind.

Ning Yongxue felt a wave of nausea, but his stomach was empty and he couldn't vomit anything.

Then, the cold and mechanical voice of the power armor rang in his ears, without a trace of emotion, "Unregistered illegal reformer has been killed, sir. Implant module scan results unknown, possibly related to asteroid belt terrorist activity."

"Uploading data records." The other man commanded, then added, "All actions here are for the purpose of maintaining the safety of space orbit."

Ning Yongxue muttered in his heart: this was simply ridiculous. If electronic modules that accessed digital space from the back of the neck were considered illegal modifications, and once discovered they would be shot on the spot, then what exactly was considered legal? Was it the humble shack, the tattered clothes, the mud all over the floor, or the crushed high-tech rice cooker?

Still, it was good to know that the cold muzzle of that gun wasn't pointing at him after all, no matter what.

"Also, this brat's iris scan is unknown, and the Citizen ID database has no results, sir."

Before the words left his mouth, the searing muzzle instantly reversed its direction, brushing past his forehead and resting against his brain.

Ning Yongxue felt that he was about to lose his life here, the muzzle of the gun was already aimed at his head, so what could he do even if he turned from an adult into a child? He was ultimately a twenty-first century old man of unknown origin, how could he have a citizen ID record?

At that moment, he almost wanted to bury his face in the dirt, at least then he wouldn't have to stare at that gun. Perhaps an ostrich would think like this when faced with danger. Thinking of his marvelous bond with that Guangmu Tianwang brand rice cooker, perhaps it would be more appropriate to bury himself in the cooker. That way, even if his head was smashed to pieces, he would still be able to feast on it afterward, and not turn into a cloud of blood and mist that would splatter all over the place.

However, he still captured quite a bit of information from the conversation between these two.

Humanity had penetrated deep into the universe, escaping the end-producer doom of sci-fi stories where humans were trapped on Earth by giant corporations. Not only had they realized those grandiose imaginations and visions of humans on Earth in the past, they had also established new colonies in various parts of the solar system.

Is this what is meant by the so-called Star Ocean?

But the "sea of stars" was only a grand narrative, and the "small reality" before him was that the asteroids of the solar system were inhabited by terrorists of unknown proportions. For reasons unknown to him, these terrorists are attacking the planet of origin of the human race, and he is the victim of one of these attacks.

Ning Yongxue wasn't sure of the scale and intensity of such attacks, nor did he understand exactly what deep hatred they had with the human planet of origin. However, this matter mostly had nothing to do with alien life, and as for humanity itself, it wasn't facing any life-and-death issues of racial survival. The biggest possibility is that the narrative of the starry sea does not convince the inhabitants of outer space who are building colonies in a hostile environment, and that hundreds of years of technological advancement will not allow a twenty-first-century earthbound old man like him to evolve into a perfect new human being who understands each other.

People, after all, were still the same people, and wouldn't be easily changed by advances in technology.

"Could he be the pup of a sick pig in the asteroid belt?" The officer suddenly asked.

Immediately, a statement that corroborated his guess came from within the power armor.

Ning Yongxue could think of the insulting nature of the term "asteroid belt sick pig" with his toes, and he could clearly hear the racist bias in the other party's words. Although it was a strange statement, it relieved him of a lot of psychological pressure. At least he felt that he was no longer a twenty-first-century old fart here.

Since everyone was a human being full of prejudice, how much difference could there be between being in a power armor and being in clothes like rags? How different can it be to be born in the twenty-first century or in the century of human space colonization?

"Not necessarily, sir." The other man replied, "Distribution of supplies has been getting tighter over the years, and where I was born, some people would hold onto their children for an extra share of the aid and then turn around and throw them away, and some would hand them over to the local gangs."

"Are you trying to say this is an uneducated scavenging brat?"

"I think so, and, even if he really is a little terrorist brought in by asteroid belt terrorists, I can't shoot him."

"What's your point?"

"Humanitarian responders are in place and reporters are approaching."

"You think we should be afraid of them?" The officer questioned, "Or do you think underage terrorists are not terrorists?"

"No, I'm just afraid that when public opinion festers, I'll be pushed out as a victim by my superiors, sir. The one in my family applied for the local doctor position seventeen years ago, but almost twenty years have passed without her turn. To this day, she's stuck as a stay-at-home mom on basic government assistance. I don't want to be too impulsive considering she has to compete with hundreds of other people for the same position."

"I thought you were going to say you have kids too."

"No, I'm a lot more realistic than you think I am, sir, and that's to my advantage."

Before Ning Yongxue could comment on the unemployment rate in this part of the world, he was being lifted onto a stretcher, the dizziness from the loss of blood sending him into a trance. He saw his bloodied legs, and he also saw many medics hurrying in. Those white uniforms seemed especially kind in this moment.

In a sense, they were the ones who had saved his life.

Between half asleep and half awake, Ning Yongxue was glad that he was still on Earth, at least he knew the language here, and at least there was the word "humanitarian". He could feel the healing spray that the medics were applying to his wounds, and was somewhat grateful. At least they had the heart to send medics to rescue people from the slums, and they would even give out aid.

Then, Ning Yongxue saw the sign behind the medical staff, "Spindle Humanitarian Rescue, from Earth to deep space!"

This sign was simply too marvelous, and the medical personnel who had come to aid the scene of the terrorist attack were actually employees of a private company. It's almost hard to describe how he felt in this moment. As the saying goes - one can imagine a sea of stars, but not the end of capitalism.