352: Chapter 352 Why is life so hostile towards me?

Lu Jianchuan stood there for two seconds and then nodded.

"Alright, I won't disturb you any longer then."

He took two steps toward the door, stopped, and looked back.

"Professor, I believe your research application will be approved soon. You will definitely find the cause."

The old Researcher looked up from the pages of his book, gazing at him through his old metal-framed glasses. His lips twitched, finally curling into a very faint arc that could hardly be called a smile.

"Hmph," he said. "Fine, fine."

Meanwhile, the farce in the hospital ward was reaching its climax.

"Who on earth stole and ate my cake?"

Little Pink stood at the door, the rabbit ears on her creamy-yellow hoodie trembling slightly with anger. Her round, pitch-black eyes swept across the room before finally fixing on Shen Mingyuan.

Shen Mingyuan's expression was calm and his gaze profound, as if nothing had happened. However, the moment Wei Ziqing opened his mouth to speak, he raised his hand and pointed at the hospital bed with a speed so fast it was almost a blur.

"Wei Ziqing ate it," he said with a certain tone. "Look at the trash can next to him; the remains of your cake are still in there."

Little Pink's gaze shifted to the trash can by the bedside table. A crumpled, light-pink paper box was lying quietly on top.

"Is that how it is?" Little Pink's voice was full of disbelief. She turned to look at Wei Ziqing on the hospital bed, her round eyes filled with disappointment. "How mean! How could you be so bad, Brother Wei Ziqing!"

Wei Ziqing was completely stunned.

"It wasn't me," he said, pushing himself up, ignoring the stinging pain from the tugging bandages on his left arm. "Brother Shen ate it. Look at his mouth—"

He raised his hand and pointed at Shen Mingyuan.

Shen Mingyuan was blowing his nose.

He covered the lower half of his face tightly with a tissue, sniffled hard, and then unhurriedly crumpled the tissue into a ball and threw it into the trash can. The corners of his mouth were perfectly clean, without a trace of anything.

"What's wrong?" He lowered his hand, looking confused. "Is there something on my mouth?"

Little Pink looked closely and shook her head.

"No."

She looked back at Wei Ziqing, her gaze starting to fill with suspicion. Wei Ziqing felt half of his body go numb.

"How could I have eaten it?" he said, his voice rising. "I'm still lying in bed. Look at my bandages—"

Shen Mingyuan sighed softly.

"You must have really wanted to eat it but were too embarrassed to say so. Thus, you transformed, snuck out of bed, and after finishing it, returned to bed to continue faking your illness." He looked at Wei Ziqing with the kind of tolerance and regret a lawyer shows a quibbling defendant. "That's your excuse for trying to deflect suspicion."

"Are you kidding me, Lawyer Shen?" Wei Ziqing almost sat up in bed. "I watched you eat it! From start to finish!"

"How could that be?" Shen Mingyuan lowered his head, his gaze falling gently on Little Pink. "I like Little Pink the most, don't I?"

Little Pink blinked.

"Yeah," she said, her voice softening. "Brother Shen Mingyuan is very good to me."

Shen Mingyuan smiled and patted her head.

"It's okay. Even though Wei Ziqing ate your cake, I'll buy you another one. Let's go right now, okay?"

Little Pink's eyes lit up instantly.

"Yay!"

She gave a happy hop and then turned toward the hospital bed, looking at Wei Ziqing with a fresh, accusatory gaze.

"Brother Wei Ziqing," she said, enunciating every word, "I despise you."

With that, she took Shen Mingyuan's hand, and the two of them left the ward one after the other. The door closed softly behind them.

The ward fell silent.

Wei Ziqing leaned against the headboard, staring at the closed door and then at the empty pink paper box in the bedside trash can, remaining silent for a long time.

"...Whose cake did I mess with this time?"

He muttered to himself, a hint of confusion in his voice.

The sunlight from outside the window slanted onto the quilt. He tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling.

"Why does life speak so harshly to me?"

Holding Little Pink's hand, Shen Mingyuan walked through the long corridor of the Headquarters Base's East Wing and turned into a small cafeteria specifically for special personnel.

There were few people in the cafeteria at this hour, only two Researchers sitting in a corner eating while looking at light screens. Shen Mingyuan walked to the pastry window and pointed to the largest strawberry cream cake in the freezer. The baker packed it in a paper box and handed it over. He took it and looked down at Little Pink.

"Let's take it back to the dormitory to eat, okay?"

Little Pink nodded vigorously.

Five minutes later, Shen Mingyuan pushed open the door to his dormitory room.

The room wasn't large, with a bed, a desk, a wardrobe, and a glass tank in the corner that originally housed the Little Green Snake—but the tank was now empty, containing only a thin layer of bedding and a shallow water dish.

The Little Green Snake wasn't in the tank.

It was coiled next to Shen Mingyuan's pillow.

It was a green snake that could no longer be described as "little." Its body was azure, shimmering with a warm, jade-like luster under the fluorescent lights. It was nearly three meters long, and its thickest part was sturdier than Shen Mingyuan's forearm. Hearing the door open, it raised its head, its amber vertical pupils turning toward the doorway. After seeing it was Shen Mingyuan, it rested its head back on its body and continued to lie coiled lazily.

Shen Mingyuan placed the cake box on the desk, opened it, cut off a small piece, and walked to the bedside, holding it with his fingers.

"Want some?"

He held the piece of cake in front of the green snake. The snake lowered its head to sniff it, opened its mouth, and took the cake along with Shen Mingyuan's fingertips in one bite before letting go—the cake was gone, and his fingers were unharmed. It swallowed, turned its head the other way, and stopped looking at him.

Shen Mingyuan withdrew his hand, wiped it on his pants, and smiled.

He turned on the television.

Shen Mingyuan casually pressed the remote, skipping through news, documentaries, and variety shows, none of which interested him. Little Pink sat on the edge of the bed, her legs dangling and swinging, holding the box of strawberry cake. She scooped out a piece with her fork and popped it into her mouth, her cheeks bulging.

The TV screen flashed, switching to a live broadcast channel.

In the center of the screen was a young man in a blue spacesuit, set against the familiar interior of a space station cabin where various instruments, equipment, and pipelines were neatly arranged. He was smiling at the camera, with a small silver-white robot floating beside him.

"Eh?" Little Pink stopped her fork, her eyes fixed on the screen. "What's this?"

Shen Mingyuan glanced at the scrolling subtitles at the bottom of the screen: "China Space Station Live Broadcast—Astronaut Interactive Science Popularization Special."

"Astronauts, I guess," he said, leaning back against the headboard. "There seems to be a series of live broadcasts recently, streaming directly from the space station to the ground."

On the TV, the astronaut raised his hand and waved at the camera.

"Hello everyone, I am astronaut Chen Yuan, currently on a mission at the China Space Station. Today, my assistant and I will bring you a special science session about the Universe."

The small silver-white robot beside him spun around and spoke in a synthesized but somewhat lively electronic voice, "Hello everyone, I am the space station AI assistant, number 07. You can call me Xiao Qi. Today, we will talk with everyone about—where we come from and where we are going."

The astronaut laughed. "That's quite a grand opening."

Xiao Qi spun again. "Not grand at all, just right."

Little Pink stared at the screen, her fork suspended in mid-air, forgetting to eat her cake.

The astronaut adjusted his posture to "stand" more comfortably in front of the camera in zero gravity. The round porthole behind him revealed a profound darkness, with several stars embedded in the blackness.

"When I was a child, I especially loved looking at the stars," he said. "Every night, I would lean on the windowsill and count them, though I could never finish. Back then, I thought how wonderful it would be if I could fly up and take a look."

Xiao Qi chimed in from the side, "Now he has flown up here and can see them every day, but he still can't count them all."

The astronaut shook his head with a smile, and then his gaze became a bit more serious.

"Actually, during these few months on the space station, I often stare out the window in a daze. Looking at that blue Earth, looking at the endless darkness, looking at those distant starlights—sometimes a certain passage comes to mind."

He paused, as if reminiscing.

"A planet like Earth cannot produce heavy elements. The iron in your body comes from brilliant supernova explosions. The zinc in your blood originates from the dust ejected into the Universe after the collision of two neutron stars. That trace amount of copper required witnessing the death of a white dwarf. Even the most insignificant cobalt originates from nebulae billions of light-years away."

Xiao Qi floated quietly beside him without interrupting.

"In a sense, it's normal for humans to be curious about the starry sky. We long to witness the limits of the sea of stars because we are, essentially, children of the stars."

The astronaut raised his hand, pointing at the camera and then at himself.

"The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, and the carbon in the food we eat—all are composed of the remnants of thousands of stars scattered during the Big Bang. Therefore, every one of us is a star. You and I are both children of the stars; every cell writes the history of the entire Universe. When you gaze at yourself, you also see the silhouette of the Universe."

He paused, his lips curling upward.

"All life is a child of the star sea. We shall return to the starry sky."

Xiao Qi swayed gently beside him. "So don't ask 'why explore the Universe.' Because the Universe has lived inside our bodies for a long time."

The astronaut nodded. "We are here in this 'Tiangong,' conducting various experiments, observing Earth, and studying the effects of microgravity on life. But ultimately, everything we do is to answer one question: where did we come from, and can we go back."

He turned sideways, allowing the camera to better capture the view outside the porthole.

"That way is the direction of the Milky Way. Every star you see is our hometown."

Little Pink's fork finally dropped into the paper box.

She stared at the screen, her eyes wide, the light from the TV reflected in her pitch-black pupils. After a long while, she whispered, "Brother Shen Mingyuan... is what he said true? Are we all made of stars?"

Shen Mingyuan leaned against the headboard, watching the astronaut on TV continue to introduce the space station's experimental projects, and remained silent for a few seconds.

"Yeah," he said, "it should be true."