Zhang Xiao nodded silently.

Waiting in place versus searching while moving—though the odds might be similar—the two choices held an essential difference. Waiting was passive; the slow march of time would drive a person mad with suffocating despair. Searching was active; while still desperate, Zhong Yun would rather die actively seeking hope than passively waiting for death.

As if having accepted his fate, Zhong Yun broke his previous silence and began speaking more freely. He asked Zhang Xiao, "Are you a virgin?"

Zhang Xiao froze for a second, then understood. "Long past that."

"Who was your first..."

In the vastness of the universe, a life pod, negligible in size, drifted in solitude. To conserve energy, the pod cleverly utilized the gravitational pulls between planets, engaging its engines only when it strayed from its trajectory.

One month passed, then two...

The hope of rescue grew increasingly faint, yet Zhong Yun and Zhang Xiao had not given up. They would not surrender hope until the very last moment.

Five months evaporated. The life pod’s energy reserves were nearly depleted. Zhong Yun estimated they had ten days left at most. Simultaneously, their food supplies were almost gone.

They were utterly trapped in a desperate situation.

"You shouldn't have saved me," Zhang Xiao suddenly sighed after finishing the last ration of high-energy compressed food.

"Finally, I don't have to eat that awful stuff," Zhong Yun managed a smile.

"If it were just you, perhaps you could have held out until rescue arrived," Zhang Xiao looked at him seriously.

Zhong Yun glanced at the energy gauge, its reading flickering in the low hundreds, and offered a faint smile. "If you hadn't been here, I might not have lasted this long."

Zhang Xiao fell silent. In the endless void of space, the most terrifying thing wasn't despair, but the profound loneliness of realizing the entire universe contained only yourself. You could hear nothing but the beat of your own heart.

In that entire world, there was only silence—a silence so deep it choked you, a silence that could drive you insane.

Undeniably, the presence of the other was the primary reason they had endured five months. If he had been alone, Zhang Xiao didn't believe he could have lasted this long.

Eight more days passed. Hunger and thirst had become their greatest adversaries. Though they had undergone training at the base to endure such privations, they were now nearing their absolute limits.

To minimize energy drain, Zhong Yun entered a state of induced hibernation. Zhang Xiao, however, lost consciousness.

Suddenly, the life pod emitted a series of beeping sounds, and the indicator light for the engine dimmed. The remaining energy was just enough to maintain the air and temperature inside the pod.

The life pod coasted along its trajectory for half a day before a sudden gravitational field pulled it off its original path. After circling a few times, a combination of forces guided the pod toward a brilliant blue planet.

As they entered the atmosphere, violent shaking jolted Zhong Yun awake. His heartbeat and body temperature slowly returned to normal.

"Entering atmosphere. Prepare for landing..." the system announced again.

From the seat, several straps suddenly extended, locking their bodies firmly into place.

Rumble.

Through the intense shaking, Zhong Yun opened his eyes. The hatch hissed open slowly. Seeing this, the heart that had just stabilized nearly stopped beating again. This time, they were truly finished.

After a moment, the expected sensation of suffocation did not arrive. Zhong Yun couldn't quite believe it—could they actually have been saved?

It took him a while to process the reality. His hands trembled, and it took several fumbling attempts before he managed to undo the restraints. Finally free, he stood up, lost his balance immediately, stumbled, and had to lean against the pod wall to avoid falling. His body was terribly weak.

Leaning on the access arm, Zhong Yun shuffled, each step a drag, toward the hatch. A wave of heat washed over him, followed by the familiar, dry scent of dust.

Where was this...?

Zhong Yun poked his head out. A blinding light struck him, forcing him to shut his eyes instantly. Although his eyes stung and burned, he felt strangely numb. He stood there, stunned.

His heart felt ready to explode. The sheer joy of rebirth surged through his limbs, refusing to dissipate.

Zhong Yun remained rooted to the spot, unmoving, for an indeterminate time. Finally, a burning sensation on his face startled him into opening his eyes. The sunlight was now slanting through the open hatch.

Zhong Yun stuck his head out of the canopy and looked toward the exterior. Everything before him was a vast expanse of gold, stretching unbroken to the horizon—a shimmering expanse that looked as if the ground were paved with an endless, oceanic treasure of gold.

Looking further, the air shimmered and distorted from the intense heat, causing the distant landscape to seem alive, shifting and changing.

A desert? Zhong Yun’s spirits instantly plummeted. God, you’re not seriously playing games with me, are you!

Just when they had reached the end of their tether, they had stumbled upon a planet seemingly habitable by humans. He had barely tasted the relief of escaping death before being thrown directly before the gates of the underworld again.

Even if his body were in peak condition, surviving without water and food in a desert was impossible for long. How much harder now, when he was so depleted?

Unless... unless this life pod could still fly.

Zhong Yun crawled out of the cockpit. A fierce, oppressive heat immediately engulfed him. Standing inside the insulated pod hadn't felt so bad, but stepping outside revealed an extraordinary furnace of warmth. Simply moving from the interior to the exterior caused fine beads of sweat to instantly prickle his forehead.

His feet sank slightly into the soft sand, then sank again when he tried to stabilize his weight. The scorching sand climbed halfway up his boots.

Taking a few uneven steps forward, the rolling heat wave became unbearable. The air he inhaled felt like fire, scorching his trachea raw.

A wave of dizziness washed over Zhong Yun, forcing him to activate his environmental suit. The suit didn't deploy; it looked no different from regular clothing. When activated, it would become slightly bulky. The suit had radiation shielding and an internal micro-circulation system, capable of sustaining him for half an hour in deep space.

The insulation was excellent; inside, he didn't feel suffocated. Zhong Yun scanned left and right but could see no end to the desert.

He turned back, and his eyes froze.

Behind the life pod was a long trench carved into the sand, hundreds of meters long—the scar left by the pod's landing. Not far from the end of that trench lay what looked like a "forest."

Yes, a "forest." Zhong Yun stared several times before he dared to believe it.

His legs went weak, and Zhong Yun sank onto the sand. Fate had not abandoned him after all.

Suddenly, something struck Zhong Yun, and he scrambled up in a panic, rushing back toward the life pod. Because the deployed suit was cumbersome, he tripped twice. He simply retracted it.

He quickly climbed back into the life pod and saw the unconscious Zhang Xiao. He quickly checked his breathing—thankfully, he was still alive. Zhong Yun hastily untied the restraints securing him, laid him flat on the floor, and opened his eyelids. Zhang Xiao’s pupils were beginning to dilate.

I need to help him now. Zhong Yun knew there was no time to waste. He lifted Zhang Xiao with effort, turned around awkwardly, and then every hair on his body stood on end. A profound sense of extreme danger rose in his chest.

At the threshold of the hatch, a spike, glowing with a faint, bluish phosphorescence, had silently extended inward.

Half an hour after arriving on this unknown planet, the weakened Zhong Yun and the unconscious Zhang Xiao had become captives of a group of savages.

Savages they were—tall figures clad only in green loincloths to cover their vital areas.

From their appearance, they were human, but their hair was pale green, and their facial features were deeply set. Long green hair grew on their arms, giving them a somewhat terrifying look.

Zhong Yun was held fast by two natives, each significantly taller than him, while Zhang Xiao was slung over the shoulder of another savage, looking small as a child.

Just moments before, Zhong Yun had assumed they were doomed. Driven by the conviction that killing one was a wash and killing two was a bonus, he had attacked the natives first. Unfortunately, his body was too weak; he was restrained immediately after knocking down the first one.

What astonished Zhong Yun was that these natives hadn't killed him; they had simply taken him prisoner. He couldn't quite understand it. These people looked completely uncivilized. Why take prisoners? To make slaves?

Even more astonishingly, more than a dozen natives worked together to lift the life pod—a structure nearly a hundred square meters in area and the height of a building (he corrected a previous error from the last chapter; it wasn't ten cubic meters, but over three hundred)—carrying it away like a trophy, each one cheering excitedly.

Regardless, being alive was the greatest fortune. After surviving several near-death escapes in quick succession, Zhong Yun felt a strange numbness, which only solidified his belief that he wouldn't die easily.

Perhaps finding Zhong Yun too slow, a few minutes later, two of the natives grabbed him by an arm each, lifting his feet clear of the ground. The two savages, carrying one man between them, moved swiftly across the fine-grained sand as if it were flat ground.

Zhong Yun took the opportunity to rest, though his fatigue was less from exertion and more from hunger; he still possessed very little strength. Even his internal Yuan was nearly empty.

The procession marched steadily for half an hour, and the "forest" began to resolve into focus. Zhong Yun wasn't sure if they were trees or some other form of flora.

He had never seen this kind of plant before. His first impression was their height. From a distance, they looked like clusters of inverted umbrellas stacked together, the smallest canopy at the top, with progressively larger ones beneath.

These "Umbrella Trees" were sparse near the edge of the desert, growing denser toward the interior—a green ocean as far as the eye could see.

Zhong Yun glanced back. Behind them lay the endless golden desert. It was as if an invisible dividing line separated the golden ocean from the green ocean, creating two worlds: the desert, representing death, and the forest, teeming with life.

And they were standing right on that boundary line. The creations of nature were truly mysterious and unpredictable; such a spectacle existed on this planet.

After walking for another dozen minutes, the group neared the "Umbrella Tree Grove," and Zhong Yun finally saw the true form of the "Umbrella Trees." Height was his most immediate observation. Every tree visible was nearly twenty meters tall, and the lowest layer of canopy was ten meters above the ground.

Entering the grove, Zhong Yun felt a refreshing coolness envelop him. These Umbrella Trees provided the ultimate shade, their layers of "umbrellas" blocking the scorching sun and granting coolness to the world.

The trees within the grove were not densely packed; there was a gap of about ten meters between each one. The massive, umbrella-shaped foliage could cover a radius of about ten meters. Walking among them felt strangely spacious.

He walked for an unknown time in the grove, deeply worried about Zhang Xiao's condition. Zhang Xiao’s stamina wasn't as good as his, and he didn't know how long he could hold on.

However, due to the angle, he couldn't see the native carrying Zhang Xiao, leaving him agonizingly anxious. Finally, he couldn't stand it anymore and shouted, "Hey! How is my friend? I’m talking to you! If anything happens to him, I won’t let you go..."

A sharp rap on his head quieted him instantly. Circumstances dictated actions; his life and death rested in others' hands—cooperation was the only path.

Zhong Yun looked into the deep woods, his heart uneasy. After battling through repeated brushes with death, what fate awaited him and Zhang Xiao?

P.S. Today's update is finished. If you have monthly tickets, please give them to me! I’m not greedy; I just need to crack the top ten in New Releases.