Chapter 145: The blooming period of Stardust Flower is much longer than expected |
The flowering period of the Stardust Flowers lasted much longer than anticipated. The slopes outside the mine tunnels were gradually covered by a golden sea of blossoms, with layers of light waves rippling through them when the wind passed, even dusting the energy shields of the starships with fine glittering powder. Lin Mo placed a mining lamp in a newly carved groove in the rock wall—the very same cracked one that Xiao Yuan had left behind. With its wick replaced by new star crystal energy, when it lit up at night, the light passed through the cracks to cast scattered starlight patterns on the ground, reminiscent of the star maps the youth always loved to draw.
That morning, the robot's alarm sounded again, but this time it wasn't due to unusual activity in the mineral veins—it had detected unfamiliar life signals. Lin Mo grabbed his badge and rushed out of the mine tunnel, where he saw a girl in Alliance uniform standing deep within the flower sea, crouching in the flower field as she searched for something, golden pollen dusting her boot tops from her fingertips.
"My name is A Xing, from the Star Trail Survey Team," the girl said as she turned around. Lin Mo noticed that the edges of the badge on her chest were also worn shiny. "Three months ago, we received a strange stellar wave signal, intermittent, as if someone was repeating the words 'Harmony Dust Star'." She pulled a recorder from her backpack, the waveforms dancing on the screen strikingly similar to the energy traces Xiao Yuan had left in the purification fluid.
Lin Mo suddenly remembered what Xiao Yuan had said—that star crystals would replicate the life signals they came into contact with. He led A Xing to the deepest part of the rock wall, where the carvings were freshest, depicting a small starship passing through a star gate, with a line of crooked characters beside it: "Leave a light for lost stars." As A Xing's fingertips brushed over the carvings, the recorder suddenly emitted a buzzing sound, the waveforms on the screen resonating with the golden light seeping from the markings, actually forming half of a star map.
"The other half is in the roots of the Stardust Flowers." Lin Mo crouched down, parting the flower clusters to reveal the interwoven root networks beneath. Those silver-blue roots were gently trembling in rhythm with the starship's course. He thought of Xiao Yuan's three years following these roots—perhaps the youth had long been using the language of star crystals to weave a network spanning galaxies beneath the ground.
The two followed the direction of the root extensions outward from the mountain. The deeper they went, the thicker the roots became, even forming semi-transparent light bridges above the ground. When they reached the canyon, A Xing suddenly pointed at the cliff wall and gasped—embedded in the rock were countless star crystal fragments, forming the exact pattern of the missing half of the star map on her recorder, with the endpoint of the star map being a green planet never marked on Alliance charts.
"It's 'Echo Star'," A Xing called up the database, the screen showing that this planet had been abandoned a century ago due to depleted energy resources. "Legend says the ore there can store sounds, like cosmic recording tapes." No sooner had she spoken than the star crystals in the cliff wall suddenly glowed, emitting a faint, blurry laughter that sounded like the out-of-tune songs Xiao Yuan used to hum in the mine tunnels.
On the return journey, A Xing's starship cabin now contained a pot of Stardust Flowers that Lin Mo had transplanted from the flower field. "The roots will guide the way," he said, watching as the spreading root networks in the flower pot entwined around the control console. "When the star map is complete, we'll go see Echo Star." A Xing nodded with a smile, her fingertips tapping a small arrow on the star map pointing from Harmony Dust Star into the distance, as if continuing the path Xiao Yuan hadn't finished walking.
The mine tunnels were unusually lively at night, with Alliance scientists installing energy converters on the rock walls to transform the star crystal resonance into starship fuel. Lin Mo sat within the web woven by light trails, watching the robot water the newly cultivated Stardust Flowers, when he suddenly noticed familiar golden pollen on the petals of the youngest plant—exactly like what used to cling to the torn holes in Xiao Yuan's work pants.
On the day A Xing's starship departed, Lin Mo stuffed a can of Stardust spring water into her backpack. "The water of Harmony Dust Star remembers everyone who's been here." He stood waving in the sea of flowers, watching as the starship passed through the light gate, its exhaust flames intertwining with the light waves of the Stardust Flowers to form a rainbow. The robot handed him a new detection report showing that within the star gate's energy fluctuations, there was now a new set of life signals—with a frequency so lively it resembled a bouncing youth.