March 7th grabbed the back collar of the Stellaron spirit — the one that was pining for Belobog's trash can and wanted to hurl itself into the trash can's embrace — and dragged it off toward the central grand plaza of the celebration to forage for food.
Big Seele took Little 'White' Seele by the hand and walked toward the Administrative District's Health Department, intending to take her 'little sister' to visit Nata.
Natasha was now the head of Belobog's Health Department, and along the way she described the changes in the Underworld.
The reason the original mine had devolved into the Underworld in the first place was all thanks to Cocolia cutting off communication between the surface and the depths; after Bronya's coronation she lifted the ban, and the people of the depths could hardly wait to return beneath the blue sky.
On top of that, with the outside world's ice and snow thawing, Belobog's urban districts were being expanded, and new cities were even being built — it was precisely a time when labor was needed.
The Underworld's population was growing smaller and smaller, and within a foreseeable short span of time, it would all be relocated to the surface.
Maintaining her well-behaved bearing, Caelus-Seele smiled charmingly, listening to Big Seele prattle and chat away like an older sister.
Little Duck was grouped with Rand-Duck; Silver Wing's consciousness had returned from the Honkai World, and chatted with Rand-Duck briefly about some governmental affairs.
Bronya intended to preserve everything in the Underworld — the crooked wooden huts, the rusted mining machines, the patches on the steam pipes — these were all living, breathing history, and she planned to turn the entire Underworld into one gigantic museum.
It would let Belobog's future generations know that the group of people who once carved out light in the depths of the eternal winter had engraved the road their forebears walked into the growth rings of a newborn age.
As for the ore down in the depths?
After seven hundred years of digging and boring, the earth-marrow directly beneath Bei City was like a wrung-out lamp wick, with only a faint shimmer of residual oil left.
Once the ice melted and the snow thawed, within nearly a thousand kilometers of land, there were simply more than enough new mining zones that could be freshly excavated!
Aside from the astronomical foreign debt that had suddenly cropped up, Belobog was like the morning sun slowly rising after the end of a long winter night — flourishing and thriving.
Vigorous it was indeed, but relying solely on Belobog's own resources to develop, who knew how many more winters it would have to endure before it could reconnect with the interstellar age!
To swiftly restore its former prosperity, all the various methods, when summed up, came down to just a few words: resources, money!
Regarding this, Silver Wing merely wrapped an arm around Rand-Duck's tender shoulders and teased softly in her ear:
"Then tonight I'll pay it off with my body together with you~"
With the two of them standing together, anyone who didn't know the situation would absolutely assume the two silver-gray curly-haired beauties were twins.
"Mmh..."
Rand-Duck's pretty face flushed red in an instant.
Haxxor Bunny and Caelus, eating ice cream, returned to the Express crew's settlement in Belobog — a large manor covering eight hectares.
"Pay a bit of attention and focus your mind, we're off now."
In a corner of the manor, the instant Caelus raised his hand to activate the Domain Anchor, blue light and cold light burst forth, ripples of energy invisible to the naked eye surged up, wrapping around the bodies of the two of them.
"Oh... okay..."
Haxxor Bunny's response was briefly distorted into sound waves, and the sensation of weightlessness lifted the tips of her toes slightly off the ground.
As the deep-blue radiance faded from her vision, having grasped the knack of long-distance teleportation, Miss Haxxor Bunny no longer experienced too much of a dizzy feeling.
"So this is the Herta Space Station?"
What met her eyes was a room brimming with a sci-fi feel — holographic star charts flowing across the walls, the desk piled with all sorts of documents and books.
"'Coffee Words, Food Talk,' 'Galactic Grace,' 'Fourteen Faces'..."
Haxxor Bunny casually flipped through a couple of them and asked with a tilt of her head, "And these are?"
"The first two are Himeko's magazines, that one's a novel I bought. You can think of this room as the office the space station allotted to our Express — all the Express members share it, and when you come to hang out on your own in the future, you can read whatever you like."
"Hoh~"
Haxxor Bunny chuckled softly.
With great interest she reached out and pressed the touchscreen on the wall: "The network security protocols here are way higher than the Xianzhou's."
"Of course — say what you will, it's a genius's turf; there's no comparing it with the Xianzhou's civilian network, alright."
Caelus sauntered over to Haxxor Bunny's side. The hacker girl had already conjured up a virtual projected keyboard, her slender, fair index finger moving rapidly, her fingertips sketching out a firewall-cracking model in the void.
A few seconds later.
[Where'd this little brat crawl out from this time?]
After this line popped up, the holographic interface shattered into blue particles.
"Phew~"
Haxxor Bunny was briefly stunned, then promptly let out a breath and tugged at her bunny-ear hood:
"As expected, there are people beyond people, and heavens beyond the heavens."
"This tone seems like it's Herta. How does she have the spare time to pay attention to something as trivial as a firewall intrusion?"
Caelus blinked, patted Haxxor Bunny's shoulder, but tilted his head to look toward the interior of the room: "Don't be discouraged. Even Silver Wolf, if she didn't prepare in advance, couldn't possibly succeed in an aboveboard intrusion from inside the Herta Space Station."
Before hacking into a heavily-defended large facility, hackers usually make preparations ahead of time.
"I know — that's exactly what makes it fun~!"
Haxxor Bunny, undefeated in the network world of Arc City, had come to the networks up in the heavens.
She'd finally run into opponents who could play with her, and more than one at that — she was overjoyed, couldn't be happier!
That said, Haxxor Bunny watched in astonishment as Caelus pulled out a yo-yo; following his line of sight, her delicate willow brows knit slightly.
"What manner of demon or monster art thou — taste a ball from thine Lord Caelus!"
Caelus flicked his arm backhanded and hurled the yo-yo out.
"Leylah, use Stepmother Bind!"
The orb wreathed in dark-gold dazzling light — Leylah's phantom flashed and vanished, after which the orb, as though possessed of self-awareness, towed a pale-blue cord and charged into the shadows.
"Manbo~ Manbo?"
Caelus raised his hand and gave a tug, and accompanied by a peculiar, childish, panicked cry, a little thing was hauled over.
"MAN!"
It looked like an adorable little creature — a cat embedded inside a piece of pastry — and to the touch it was as soft as a fluffy cake body, its purple cake-shell resembling the balloon flowers of the Herta puppet.
At this moment the little thing was straining with all its might, twisting its body and wagging its tail, trying to break free of the ball's cord that bound it.
"Hey, what is this little thing? It's kind of cute!"
Haxxor Bunny's eyes lit up — say what you will, she was still a girl, and even with a rebellious, dashing personality, her natural immunity to cute things was very low.
If March 7th or Dummy Sushang had seen such a cute little animal, they'd have long since pounced straight over and inhaled it like a storm!
"I remember it's called a Cat Cake, I think?"
Caelus had a fairly deep impression of this little thingy — it really was cute — he'd just forgotten the related plot.
"Cat Cake? Very fitting!"
Poking with her finger at that strange life-form which looked as soft, glutinous, and bouncy as a pastry yet also possessed feline characteristics, Haxxor Bunny's face was both surprised and curious.
"Living things are truly marvelous."
Arc City definitely didn't have this kind of bizarre, peculiar thing!
"This isn't a naturally-born creature — it's a creature artificially created."
Caelus put away the yo-yo, and the instant the ball's cord loosened, the Cat Cake tried to leap out and escape, only to be grabbed back by Caelus with a Five-Finger Mountain.
"An artificially created creature!?"
Haxxor Bunny's voice rose slightly, her eyes widening in astonishment.
That was creation, after all!
Not cloning or culturing a cell-body or anything like that, but directly creating an entirely new species!
"The 81st Seat of the Genius Society — do you know it?"
Kneading the soft, glutinous Cat Cake, Caelus pushed open the door and gestured for Haxxor Bunny to follow him.
"An expert in the field of life sciences, the reclusive genius — Ruan Mei?"
When Miss Haxxor Bunny was learning about the background of the Galaxy Universe on the Xianzhou, she'd paid focused attention to the members of the Genius Society — after all, those folks were really awesome!
The kind where even the slightest move would draw the attention of half the galaxy.
"Right, she should also be at the Herta Space Station right now."
After dealing with Phantylia, Caelus had contacted Ruan Mei via his phone, inquiring about Tingyun's condition.
Ruan Mei had already found ancient-beast genes that matched Tingyun, but that ancient beast's remains were located in the deep region of the Ginnungagap Star Region; an ordinary starship would take a while to make the round trip, so Tingyun was still soaking in a recuperation pod, slumbering.
"Truly worthy of being called a genius!"
Scanning and observing the space station's interior environment and facilities, Haxxor Bunny nodded thoughtfully; toward these geniuses, even with her pride, she was thoroughly convinced.
Except in the field of hacking, of course.
As the two chatted and walked, Haxxor Bunny overheard the chatter of the surrounding staff while passing through the corridor.
"The moment Ruan Mei arrived at the space station she took over the place like a turtledove occupying a magpie's nest, and Madam Herta doesn't bother to do anything about it either..."
"She's practically treating the space station as her own home — her research notes are everywhere, tossed all over the floor!"
"I found one of Ruan Mei's manuscripts!"
"Give it to me, give it to me! I wanna see!"
"When Madam Ruan Mei is doing research she likes to use the space station's radio to listen to some stuff. Last time I spent 12 hours tuning her radio's stations, and I still didn't find out what Madam Ruan Mei's into. Bro, keep searching on your next shift!"
A brown-haired male staffer was saying this with his arm slung around his buddy's shoulder.
"Hoh, all fanatical fans."
Haxxor Bunny took the Cat Cake from Caelus's arms and started kneading it!
"Do you think I should sell them the intel that Ruan Mei likes to eat — er, listen to — new-style opera and storytelling?"
Caelus gazed at the receding backs of the two staffers and propped his chin on his hand.
"Forget it, there's no oil to be squeezed out of ordinary staffers."
"How do you know that?"
Haxxor Bunny's Cat-Cake-stroking motion came to a stop.
"How do I know?"
Caelus, smiling, kneaded Haxxor Bunny's little head: "When you meet Ruan Mei in a bit, you can try calling her 'Master's wife.'"
"Hah?"
Haxxor Bunny's pupils suddenly contracted and dilated, one corner of her eye twitching as it drooped, turning into an incredulous mismatched-eye look.
Holy shit!
Is it for real!?
Having gradually grown used to Caelus's nonstop tall tales and his troll personality, Haxxor Bunny maintained a certain degree of skepticism toward his words.
But based on her understanding of Caelus, his saying so meant he definitely knew Ruan Mei.
"Tsss, so this is Sensei's network of connections?"
His connections were just way too broad!
"Where are we going, anyway? Introducing a rich madam for me to get acquainted with?"
Haxxor Bunny raised her elbow and nudged Caelus, her tone carrying a couple parts of buddy-ish flattery.
She already knew: Asta, the universe-class rich madam who'd posted a little commission to Caelus with 500 million, was the very director of the Herta Space Station!
"Now this you don't get. When you go to see a good friend you haven't seen in a day yet it feels like three autumns apart, how can you go empty-handed? You've gotta bring a gift."
"So, did you buy a present at the celebration's stalls?"
"Nope, I'm going to go ask Herta for a gift."
"???"
A row of question marks popped up above Haxxor Bunny's head.
Isn't Herta a genius?
The true master of this space station?
You're visiting an employee and you end up going to ask the boss for a gift?
Before long, Haxxor Bunny witnessed a scene that made the corner of her eye twitch even harder.
"What's going on today, no one came to greet me? Herta, Herta!"
As Haxxor Bunny didn't know what kind of expression she ought to make, Caelus walked up to one of the puppets Herta had placed all around the space station, and 'thump, thump' rapped on the cute girl's chest as if knocking forcefully on a door, while griping to Haxxor Bunny on the side:
"I've suggested to her several times to make the puppet's oppai a bit bigger, but a pity, Herta never adopted the idea."
"As the saying goes, 'If I'd never seen the light, I could have endured the darkness forever' — she doesn't even dare give herself fake big ones, from which you can see that Herta's true body is most likely pitiable to the utmost extreme!"
"By the way, is this puppet broken? It's actually not responding?"
Haxxor Bunny: "..."
Can that line even be interpreted that way?
And just as she was about to crack a little quip, Haxxor Bunny saw the puppet girl wearing the black beret pull out a large hammer inlaid with crystal diamonds from behind her back.
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