Chapter 137: Stardust of Shared Hearts |
"Let's call it 'Harmony Dust Star'," Lin Mo's voice was as light as falling stardust. When his fingertip traced these three characters on the star crystal slab, the AI assistant immediately pulled up Lin Chen's handwriting from the logs—turns out three years ago, Lin Chen had sketched this dwarf planet in the margins of a survey report, with crooked handwriting beside it reading "a place that shines alongside the dust."
When the news reached the desolate star system, the old man with leg wraps was teaching children to fertilize seedlings at Stardust Whispers Station. The children raised little spaceships pieced together from star crystal fragments, cheering as they ran toward Harmony Dust Star, their coarse cloth clothes stained with Stardust Flower juice that smeared across each other's faces like glowing freckles. The old man squatted before the star crystal monument, wiping Lin Chen's name with his sleeve before touching his own son's name—the same characters he'd carved countless times on mine walls, now carefully preserved by craftsmen and embedded in star crystal, glowing softly alongside all the builders' names.
On the day Harmony Dust Star's first mining station was completed, Lin Mo boarded a passenger airship with his robots. The murals on the cabin walls had gained new additions: children's hand-drawn figures reached out from Chenxing's auroras, their fingertips touching the star crystal veins on Harmony Dust Star's surface, the mineral patterns hiding countless tiny smiling faces identical to the one at the edge of the star crystal slab a robot held out.
As the airship traversed subspace, Stardust Flower pollen once again wove into luminous ribbons within the energy currents. Lin Mo pressed against the viewport, watching as Lin Chen's star crystal powder marks on the protective suit seemed to grow clearer among those glowing trails, floating ahead like a guide toward Harmony Dust Star. Suddenly a robot pressed its optical lens against the viewport, mechanical arm pointing deep into the luminous band—there floated a tiny Stardust Flower seed, cradled by pollen, swaying gently in the current, its shell imprinted with the energy block pattern Lin Chen and Lin Mo had buried in sand as children.
At dawn upon reaching Harmony Dust Star, Lin Mo discovered strange patterns in the star crystal veins. The semi-transparent crystals naturally formed countless tiny light tracks, as if someone had pre-carved route maps. When crystal craftsmen arrived, their fingertips barely touched the surface before the light tracks suddenly brightened, stretching from the mineral depths to the horizon, connecting with Stardust Whispers Station's energy ribbons. "The Stardust Flower roots have pierced the minerals," the head craftsman marveled, "They're building paths for the light."
When the leg-wrapped old man brought children to visit, a crisp cracking sound echoed from the mine's depths. Everyone rushed over to find a massive star crystal split open—not revealing ore, but a bundle of dried Stardust Flowers. Though faded, the petals maintained their blooming curvature, perfectly matching the drawings in Lin Chen's logs and the airship murals. "This is..." the old man's eyes reddened, "my son planted these in the mines years ago. He said when flowers grew from star crystals, the light would find this place."
A robot suddenly produced an old notebook from its tin box—Lin Chen's final log left at the outpost before disappearing. Lin Mo turned the yellowed pages to the last entry: a crude star map circled Harmony Dust Star's position, with a note: "Brother, stardust remembers all shining things—the energy blocks we buried in sand, the flowers in the mines, and... words left unspoken."
At the writing's end was a dark stain, perhaps water or congealed star crystal powder. When Lin Mo touched it, the mark suddenly glowed faintly, resonating in unison with his chest medal, the robot's tin box relics, and the Stardust Flowers deep in the mine.
The AI assistant spoke with unprecedented softness: "Detected complete reconstruction of Lin Chen's energy signature, forming closed-loop resonance with Harmony Dust Star's crystal veins, Stardust Flower roots, and Stardust Starway."
A robot suddenly picked up a star crystal fragment with its mechanical arm, offering it to Lin Mo. The shard reflected countless tiny lights—children's smiles, the old man's star crystals, craftsmen's crystals, their childhood energy blocks, and those long-hidden Stardust Flowers.
Clenching the fragment, Lin Mo turned toward the mining station's control panel. As Harmony Dust Star's energy core activated, the entire star system's map illuminated on the holographic screen, all starway ribbons converging here like rivers rushing to the sea. He whispered to the display: "Lin Chen, the light has come home."
The AI assistant tagged Harmony Dust Star on the star map with a small smiling icon. Staring at it, Lin Mo suddenly remembered childhood when Lin Chen always stuffed Stardust Flower seeds in his pockets, saying: "When they bloom, they'll pave a path in the sky—no matter how far we go, we can follow the light back."
Now that path truly existed—from desolate star systems to Chenxing, from Stardust Whispers Station to Harmony Dust Star—Stardust Flower light entwining all names, whispering softly across the cosmos.