Chapter 171: What Are You Doing?

The air in the carriage seemed to be sucked out in an instant, and the temperature dropped sharply.

All that remained was the Yinlang's gloating cackle on the comm channel as background noise.

San Yue Qi also keenly sensed the eerie shift in the atmosphere.

Seeing the purple‑haired beauty opposite her freeze her smile and her eyes grow a bit solemn, she felt a sudden thump in her chest.

(Could it be… I guessed wrong?)

She scratched her head and again tried to fire up the "Jizi‑brand brain" to search the Memory bank.

Not Sam… who is that? Who else are the Star Core Hunters?

Blade? No, that's a man.

Yinlang? Seems like a short girl…

She hesitated, probing again: "Um… could it be… Ailiou?"

"Puh—hahaha—Ailiou! She thought you were that cat! Cat, Kafuka!!" Yinlang's laughter was nearly out of breath.

Kafuka felt her blood pressure soaring rapidly.

She watched the other open their mouth, apparently ready to keep guessing names from the Star Core Hunter list, and finally, unable to bear it, she cut in with a slightly faster pace than usual, expressionless:

"Kafuka."

"Oh! Right, right, Kafuka!" San Yue Qi suddenly understood, nodded immediately, and a completely confident, relieved expression appeared on her face.

Then the carriage fell silent again.

The two—one of the universe's dreaded Star Core Hunters, and the Navigator housing San Yue Qi—stared each other down across a short distance, big eyes meeting small eyes.

Kafuka looked at the other's bewildered eyes and, for the first time while carrying out Ailiou's Script, felt a deep sense of helplessness.

(What on earth… is happening?)

At that almost‑freezing moment of awkwardness, San Yue Qi finally, albeit belatedly, realized another crucial issue and sharply inhaled cold air, exclaiming in Jizi's voice:

"What!! Kafuka?! You're that Star Core Hunter's Kafuka?!"

That shout finally shattered the carriage's eerie silence and echoed outward.

"What sound?!"

"San Yue? What's wrong?"

"Unauthorized projection detected! Pa!"

Chaotic footsteps and queries rushed from afar toward them.

Star was the first to appear at the doorway, followed by Jizi perched on San Yue Qi's face, then the train captain Pam sprinting with short legs, and Dan Heng, who had suddenly shown up on the other side with arms crossed.

Everyone's gaze instantly fixed on the uninvited purple‑haired figure in the carriage's center and the Jizi opposite her, pointing and just now reacting.

Kafuka instantly regained composure, as if the earlier awkwardness never occurred.

She faced the varied stares, elegantly adjusted her collar, yet harbored a complex Cognition of this 'small change' to Ailiou's Script.

(Looks like this 'notification' won't go smoothly.)

Xi Lian followed the little girl Mei Bi Wu Si into a room whose style starkly differed from the rest of Letu.

The air was icy.

The walls were cold‑gray alloy, embedded with countless screens and conduits she couldn't decipher.

In the center stood a massive console bearing various precise, cold instruments, some containers still soaking indescribable samples.

In a corner, several cylindrical transparent culture chambers stood silently, empty inside, adding to the eeriness.

"Is this… where you, Mei Bi Wu Si, live?"

Xi Lian looked around uneasily, curiosity mixed with instinctive discomfort.

The gloom made tiny bumps rise on her arm.

"Yes, this is my 'little home'."

Mei Bi Wu Si, walking ahead, didn't look back, her voice still soft and sweet.

She walked straight to the console and leaned against it as if casually.

At that moment—

"Bang!"

A muffled metallic clang rang behind, startling Xi Lian.

She whirled, seeing the heavy lab door sealed shut, the automatic lock's sound clear.

When she turned again, the sight made her blue eyes widen suddenly.

Beside the console, Mei Bi Wu Si's innocent, delicate expression vanished like receding tide.

She reached out, smoothly taking a pristine white lab coat from a nearby rack and draping it over herself.

The coat, slightly oversized on her petite frame, accentuated an otherworldly aura.

She tilted her head slightly, her light‑green snake eyes locking onto Xi Lian, a sweet smile at odds with her appearance curling at the corner of her mouth.

"Well then, cute little Fen Mao,"

Mei Bi Wu Si spoke, her voice still sugary yet dripping with unabashed interest, "Shall we begin? Tell me everything you know—about where you came from, about the 'outside', about 'destiny'… all of it…"

Xi Lian instantly felt a chill crawl up her spine.

She instinctively stepped back, her back pressed against the cold wall, with nowhere to retreat.

"Mei Bi Wu Si… what do you want to do?"

"Do what?"

Mei Bi Wu Si let out a light laugh, took a small step forward, and an intangible pressure spread, "Of course it's a friendly exchange. You're the first genuine 'outsider' I've met here, a perfect sample that walks the Memory of destiny…"

Heimu, seated on the sofa, brushed his fingertips across the floating Light Screen, simultaneously watching two scenes: on one side, in the Letu Hall, Hua was somewhat stiffly introducing Qianjie to Li Su Shang; on the other, in Mei Bi Wu Si's laboratory, the pink‑haired girl was being stared at by the 'Snake', retreating step by step in a tense tableau.

"Tsk."

Heimu watches Mei Bi Wu Si's almost materializing gaze, and the corner of his mouth twitches.

Her eyes drift between the two screens, finally stopping on Ailixiya's face, which bears a startling resemblance to Xi Lian's.

"You have to have the bell‑tyer to untie it…"

She murmurs to herself, with a hint of playful sarcasm.

A fingertip tap captures a photo—the image shows Xi Lian, bewildered and looking around, a side profile caught on camera, pink hair slightly disheveled, eyes clear yet flustered, truly "delicately pitiful."

Below is a brief caption:

【Letu Express: A lost pink guest, currently visiting Mei Bi Wu Si Bo Shi's laboratory. (Location coordinates)】

Click, send.

Target: Ailixiya.

At that moment, right in the center of Ailixiya's field of view, a holographic image pops up without warning.

"—!"

All of Ailixiya's words abruptly stop.

Her expression freezes instantly; through her sunglasses, she stares fixedly at Xi Lian's face in the image.

That face, extremely similar yet more youthful and clueless, now showing helplessness, struck her like a supernova flash—direct, unbuffered—hitting the softest, hottest corner of her heart: her unreserved love for all "beautiful" things.

"Sss—!"

She even involuntarily draws a slight gasp of cool air.

This isn't from fear or Rage, but from an overload of an extreme cute shockwave causing a physiological

reaction.

Yidian, sitting beside, was the first to notice her close friend's abnormality; she set down her wine cup and, with a hint of doubt, called softly.

Yidian, sitting nearby, first notices her close friend's oddity, puts down her cup and calls softly, slightly puzzled.

However, Yidian's words have not fully fallen—

A faint sound was the chair Ailixiya had been sitting on being pushed backward.

Immediately, before anyone fully registers what happened, the spot where Ailixiya had been leaves only a quickly fading pink afterimage, and the air reverberates with her unusually urgent trailing words:

"I'm off, I'll be right back—!"

The sound still lingered in the hall, and her figure had already become like a pink lightning that slashed through space, shooting toward the direction marked in the information, moving so fast that it left only a fleeting streak of light on everyone's retinas.

like a pink lightning bolt cutting through space, shooting toward the direction indicated in the message, so fast that it leaves only a fleeting streak of light on everyone's retinas.

A few seconds of silence fall over the hall.

Li Su Shang blinks bewilderedly: "That pink... senior fairy, did she... vanish into light

Hua watched the direction where Ailixiya vanished, stayed silent for two seconds, then slowly raised a hand and helplessly pressed their forehead.

Yidian rubs her slightly sore temple, seeming a bit helpless at the scene before her, yet not particularly surprised.

Hua watches the direction where Ailixiya vanished, stays silent for two seconds, then slowly raises a hand, helplessly supporting his own forehead.

She glances at the equally stunned Su and Kevin, then at the reverent Li Su Shang, takes a deep breath, and decides to ignore this sudden little incident.

She hadn't finished speaking when Kevin, sitting in the corner, nudged the star‑studded sunglasses on his nose bridge and, in his flat voice, addressed Su with the conclusion of the interrupted discussion: "So, that penguin dyes its back black, allowing it to camouflage the sky from above and the sea floor from below. Survival efficiency, theoretically, increases by a hundred percent."

Hua, in his usual steady tone, says, trying to draw everyone's attention back, "Let's continue. Li Su Shang, this is Kevin, he is..."

Her words aren't finished when Kevin, sitting in the corner, pushes the star‑sky sunglasses on his nose

and, in his flat voice, addresses Su, adding the conclusion of the interrupted topic: "So, that penguin dyes its back black, allowing it to camouflage the sky from above and the seabed from below. Survival efficiency, theoretically, doubles."

Li Su Shang's eyes lit up as she listened, silently pondering:

Hua: "..."

【99】 (The hand supporting the forehead presses a bit harder.)

【100】 Li Su Shang's eyes sparkle as she listens, thinking to herself:

【101】 (Could Senior Kevin's words be an advanced enemy‑defeating

【102】 shape‑changing

【103】 immortal technique? Indeed

【104】 profound

【105】 and marvelous!)