CH 125

Dondon immediately stopped moving upon hearing the sound outside the window. Everyone looked outside and saw that a spaceship with an unusual design had appeared above us. The spaceship had an odd appearance, looking like a giant rock instead of a ship. However, there were clearly some propulsion installations on the rear end of it. Additionally, there seemed to be many entrances on various parts of the rock.

"What freak is this? Is this some sort of space creature like Jupiter II?" asked Zhang Bao'er in astonishment.

"Doesn't look like one. The propulsion installations do not look natural. They are most likely installed manually," said Old Du calmly.

"They don't seem friendly, especially if they're appearing at a place like this. Get ready for combat, everyone," commanded Kelly.

Nobody reacted to her words.

"Little girl, since when did you become our leader?" said Zhang Bao'er.

"Soldier, apart from my father, I am the highest ranked here," said Kelly, once again arguing with Zhang Bao'er.

"Stop arguing. To prevent any mishaps, get ready for combat," commanded General Edward.

The general had a presence that made his words unquestionable. Everyone immediately entered combat-ready mode, awaiting enemy attack. At this point, the ship's temperature regulator was at its final three minutes. The massive rock ship slowly approached us. Suddenly, its bottom parted into a big opening. Three strange, tadpole-like life forms flew out of the opening.

"Good heavens, what freak is this?" said Domo in astonishment.

We held our breath and tightened our grip on our guns. The atmosphere turned nervous.

The three monsters flew onto our ship, allowing me to see clearly that they did not seem to have any eyes. They were also constantly dripping some viscous liquid out of their bodies. Suddenly, four tentacles stretched out below them. Each tentacle was filled with circular suction pads, looking like an octopus's tentacle.

A total of 12 tentacles wrapped around Fearless's hull, bounding the ship firmly with the help of their suction pads. Then, the three tadpoles descended again, dragging us into the dark opening below the rock ship.

"They're not about to eat us, right?" muttered Zhang Bao'er anxiously.

"Well, it should be at least warmer inside its belly than outside," I joked.

Before long, we were dragged into the rock ship. The door closed below us the moment we entered. In the darkness, Old Du turned on his searchlight.

"Where is this? It's not the digestive system of some giant monster, right?" asked Zhang Bao'er nervously.

The tadpoles continued dragging Fearless forward. A few minutes later, I felt the ship being placed down somewhere flat, and I heard a thud. A radiant light shone over. Through the light, I saw a heavy-looking stone door slowly sliding open. Behind the stone door was a brightly lit cockpit. Standing right between the two parts of the stone door was a rather short life form.

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"Monkey King Sun Wukong," Zhang Bao'er exclaimed involuntarily.

That was understandable as the life form before us simply looked too much like a monkey. He was roughly 1.4 meters tall and basically looked the same as a regular monkey from Blue. However, he had a pair of eyes that made him seem to be in deep thought. The monkey also looked alert, holding an object that looked like a firearm in his hand while carrying a blade on his back.

"A gun-wielding Monkey King," added Kelly.

"General, do we open the door and attack?" asked Old Du.

"My intuition tells me that this little fellow does not harbor any malice. I suggest we open the door and attempt communication," said General Edward.

"Roger. Canyue, let's go," said Old Du.

"No. Those two have similar builds as that fellow, so they will look less threatening. I suggest that they be the ones to initiate first contact," said General Edward as he pointed at Domo and Dondon.

"Sounds good. Domo, Dondon, open the door and initiate first contact," said Old Du.

"Why should I go?" Domo was about to continue complaining when he recalled that the order had been given by the general himself. He immediately shut his mouth.

Meanwhile, I passed the calm Bulu to Dondon.

"Take Bulu with you. As a precaution, you know," I said to Dondon.

Dondon hugged Bulu with one of his tiny limbs. He nodded at me and opened the door with his other limb. A gust of a cold breeze entered the ship as Dondon exited the ship with the trembling Domo in tow.

"This dwarf is very loud usually, but he is actually such a coward when it matters. A single monkey is enough to scare him so much?" sneered Zhang Bao'er.

The two quickly came before the alien. The general was right. The Monkey King put his gun away after seeing life forms that were even smaller than him. What happened next made it clear that the Eternal translation system we had obtained previously was not working on this alien. They were unable to understand each other.

The three little fellows started talking and gesturing at each other. Their movements became more and more exaggerated, and after more than 10 minutes, Domo and Dondon returned.

"What stupid language is that? Who would understand it? Also, that fellow is so slow. The fatty would be the perfect person to communicate with someone like that," Domo's voice came before he reached the group.

"This is most likely a place where food can be found," said Dondon.

"After more than 10 minutes, the only gesture you understood was one related to food?" said Domo in exasperation.

Everyone was left speechless. At that time, I noticed that the alien had disappeared.

"We should look around. What do you think, Canyue?" asked Zhang Bao'er.

"I have the same thought. Everyone, let's look around. Bao'er and I will take the lead."

And thus, Zhang Bao'er and I left for the rock ship's cockpit with everyone else in tow. The cockpit wasn't big. On the control desk, we could see several idiot-proof operating systems. To the side of the cockpit were two different rooms. Old Du and I lowered our heads and entered one of the rooms.

The terrifying scene I saw in the room caused me to break out in cold sweat. I had entered an immense room filled with countless monkey corpses. It seemed like some had been here for a very long time with the dust on them, while some seemed relatively new.

The two corpses nearest to the door were clad in similar outfits to the alien we had seen. From their outer appearances, these two had clearly not been dead for long. Some offerings could even be seen around their bodies.

"Looks like this is their cemetery. Successive generations of their dead are all here. Weirdly, the corpses did not rot at all," I said.

"These two are likely the parents of the monkey we met. Look at these offerings. They look new," said Old Du.

"In that case, that monkey shouldn't be the only life form here. We need to be careful," I said.

While we were talking, General Edward and the others entered the room as well. Everyone sank into silence upon seeing the shocking cemetery. After standing around for a bit, we retreated from the room.

There was a second room connected to the cockpit, and Old Du was about to enter when he saw the Monkey King coming out with a big pot of food. He placed the pot down before us. Within the pot was some sort of steamy hot gruel. The alien then ran back into the room and came out shortly after with a bunch of semi-circular fruit shells.

"Looks like he is really preparing food for us. This seems like a friendly monkey," said Zhang Bao'er.

The alien then gestured at us to eat. The thick gruel reminded us of the tadpoles that had dragged our ship into the rock ship. I shivered at that thought. Perhaps everyone else thought the same as nobody started eating. An awkward silence descended.

At that moment, a thought suddenly came to me. This was probably a meal the alien had painstakingly prepared with precious food ingredients. After all, food was most definitely a valuable resource for a wandering spaceship.

At that thought, I stopped hesitating and filled a fruit shell with the gruel before partaking in it with big mouthfuls. In truth, despite the appearance, the gruel actually tasted wonderful. After entering my belly, I could feel my entire body being energized.

After finishing the first bowl, I unhesitatingly filled a second bowl and continued gorging myself. Seemingly infected by my actions, the others also tried the gruel with some hesitation.

The ones who tasted the gruel immediately imitated my actions and started gorging themselves, ignoring whether the food would be poisoned or not. It did not take me long to finish the second bowl. As I was about to take the third bowl, a pair of hands descended to stop me. I looked back and was met with Kelly's pretty face.

"Even this young lady hasn't eaten anything. What are the others supposed to eat if you have three bowls all for yourself?" complained Kelly.

I magnanimously emptied my spot after hearing her words. Everyone started wolfing down the food. We finished the warm gruel in a short period of time. Everyone had a satisfied expression, especially Dondon who had done something embarrassing—he had lain down on his belly in front of the pot to lick it clean of any gruel. The alien seemed glad to see us enjoying the food.

"Let's name this monkey," Kelly suddenly suggested.

"That's easy. Call him Wukong from now on," said Zhang Bao'er.

"That's someone else's name. Not him. I want to give him his very own name," said Kelly.

"He brought us a meal of gruel (yu). Let's name him Wuyu," I said after some thought.

"That's a terrible name. It sounds like the name of a beggar or something. Why don't we call him Wuzhou," said Kelly.

"Sure, sure, you're the boss," everyone agreed, seemingly tired of her forceful attitude.

And thus, an alien was randomly named Wuzhou after giving us a meal out of kindness. I noticed that Wuzhou had wrapped his arms around Bulu before sinking into deep thought. Bulu had remained relatively calm after the battle, but after it was hugged by Wuzhou, the light in its body brightened again. Meanwhile, Wuzhou turned completely still.

"Hehe, that's what he gets from running around randomly. He will have a taste of mind control," said Domo.

A few minutes later, Bulu's red light dimmed, and Wuzhou woke up.

"Perhaps Bulu is able to communicate with Wuzhou through thoughts and learn more about him," said Zhang Bao'er.

"So we only need to communicate with Bulu to learn about this place. Canyue, you should do it," said Domo.

"No, no, no. Back then, Old Du had gotten better results when communicating with Bulu. I recommend Old Du for the task," I refused the task because I was feeling lazy and tired after the meal.

Old Du scratched his head, but he did not refuse. He directly hugged Bulu. Bulu started shining with its red light again. More than 10 minutes later, Old Du placed Bulu down.

"So? Did you learn anything?" Zhang Bao'er hurriedly asked.

"This is a very peculiar species. They might not have originated from a single planet. They are a bunch of planetless people," said Old Du.

"Planetless people? What do you mean?" asked Domo.

"A group of true life forms with no origin or foundations. They are forever living in drifting rock ships, relying on the substance secreted by the rocks to survive. Perhaps that was what we had just eaten," said Old Du.

"What? Are you telling me that we had just eaten rock excrement? That is too disgusting," exclaimed Zhang Bao'er loudly.

"If it was disgusting, why did you eat four whole bowls of it? Why don't you vomit everything you swallowed?" said Domo.

"That's not the issue. The main issue here is—" Old Du suddenly paused.

Everyone sank into silence, waiting for Old Du to reveal more of Wuzhou's secrets.