Chiron stood outside the door, holding a bright green vial of medicine in his hand. He had changed out of his formal daytime attire and was wearing a dark gray loungewear set, looking rather like a friendly senior student from next door.
"Come in."
Jiang Lijin didn't ask any questions; seeing Chiron's reaction during the day, she had already anticipated his visit.
She led Chiron into the small living room and flopped down onto the sofa.
Chiron handed the vial over. "I reformulated this today to act as a buffer for your mental sea. Expanding too fast isn't a good thing, and this will provide some stabilization."
Jiang Lijin unscrewed the cap, took a sniff, frowned, but tilted her head back and downed it in one gulp anyway.
Only after watching her finish did Chiron pull up a nearby chair and sit down, his legs crossed in a relaxed posture.
Jiang Lijin tossed the empty vial onto the coffee table. "It's the middle of the night. You're not just here to deliver medicine, are you?"
Chiron didn't deny it; he gave a small smile.
"What you said to Baal in the living room today was brilliant. I admire your determination to grow and become independent, but I don't agree with your methods."
Jiang Lijin narrowed her eyes. "What methods?"
"Keeping those twins around. 'Keeping them under surveillance' is just an excuse. Your true goal isn't to guard against them; it's that there's something about them that interests you."
That was the annoying thing about dealing with smart people. Before you even revealed your hand, they had already guessed everything.
Jiang Lijin didn't reply. Chiron wasn't in a hurry either, waiting for a few seconds.
"Jiang Lijin. You said before that we are a family."
"A family should discuss things together," Chiron continued. "You want to grow, want to become stronger, and that's great. The Imperial Academy of Sciences has the most cutting-edge equipment, and I can custom-make weapons for you. Baal can teach you practical combat, and Tinia... has a lot of money."
"But the prerequisite is that you cannot fight alone." He leaned forward, closing the distance between them. "You cannot exclude us from your plans and face unknown risks all by yourself."
There was no aggression in his words; they could even be called gentle, yet every single word accurately hit the crucial points.
"Chiron, it's a real waste of your talents not being a hostage negotiator," Jiang Lijin sighed.
Chiron chuckled, saying nothing, just waiting quietly.
Xiao Yi popped up in her mind: [Host! It's fine to tell him about the Blue Star. You can't investigate it all by yourself anyway. This guy has a good brain; it'd be a pity not to use it. Just don't sell me out.]
[Hmm... let me think about it.]
She had always thought that her obsession with finding out the truth about the Blue Star stemmed merely from a transmigrator's curiosity about a planet sharing the same name as her hometown. But now she understood that these buried truths were the original owner's unresolved dying regrets.
And now, she was the original owner. Therefore, uncovering all of this wasn't just curiosity; it was a necessity.
She really did need help. Relying solely on herself and Xiao Yi, two amateurs, to dig out the truth about the Blue Star from the colossal entity that was the interstellar universe, they might not even scratch the surface in a lifetime.
"Have you ever heard of the Blue Star?" Jiang Lijin finally spoke.
Chiron pondered for a moment. "It's recorded in interstellar history. A low-tier planet on the edge of the Silent Sun Galaxy, civilization level F-. Ten years ago, due to local wars, interstellar pirates, and other reasons, it completely disappeared in an interstellar storm of unknown origin."
He spoke more detailedly than an encyclopedia.
Jiang Lijin wasn't surprised; this man probably had an entire interstellar library stored in his brain.
"My file says I come from a fringe planet in the Silent Sun Galaxy," Jiang Lijin looked into his eyes. "To be precise, I am from the Blue Star."
The room went quiet for a moment.
"Continue," he said.
"But my memories of the Blue Star have completely vanished," Jiang Lijin's speaking speed unconsciously quickened a bit. "I can only prove that I really am from the Blue Star through some old photos and diaries left behind. Moreover, my diary also mentioned my parents—"
Her voice paused for a second.
"I'm not an orphan. I have parents."
It was a very complicated feeling. She had parents and a family, but she didn't remember their faces, didn't know their names, and didn't even know if they were dead or alive.
Chiron said nothing, but his gaze changed.
"Last night, Tinia gave me a bouquet of flowers." Jiang Lijin adjusted her breathing, pushing her emotions back down. "He said it was a rare species bought at a high price from the black market, called the Star Crest Flower."
She pointed at the plant in the petri dish on the bedside table.
The flower stood quietly in the nutrient solution, its petals emitting a faint blue fluorescence.
"But that isn't some rare interstellar species at all." Jiang Lijin stared at the flower with a complex look in her eyes. "That is a plant native to the Blue Star. It looks exactly the same as the ones in my photos."
"Not only that. Rex, my ex-husband, also once got his hands on a Star Crest Flower and gave it to Felwin."
Chiron quickly grasped the main point. "The family behind Rex has connections with the black market. And those twins happen to come from the black market, and their hometown is also in the Silent Sun Galaxy."
The two locked eyes for a moment.
"Right." Jiang Lijin nodded, lowering her voice a bit. "I don't know if Tianyan deliberately mentioning the Silent Sun Galaxy in the living room today was just a casual remark or if he was testing me."
Her eyes darkened. "But what they are after is definitely not a peaceful life."
"This involves too much," Chiron analyzed. "If plants from the Blue Star can still survive, it means there was something fishy about that interstellar storm back then. Perhaps... the Blue Star wasn't destroyed at all, but hidden away by some kind of power."
A layer of cold sweat seeped from Jiang Lijin's back. Chiron's speculation was even bolder than she had imagined.
"Don't tell Baal and Tinia about this for now," Chiron decided promptly. "Baal's temper is too straightforward; he might easily alert the enemy. Tinia is young and tends to act impulsively. Since those twins have moved in, leave the probing to me."
"How do you plan to probe them?"
"No rush." Chiron stood up. "The smarter the prey, the less you can use brute force. We have to make him feel that revealing information to us is profitable for him."
"Alright," she agreed readily.
The feeling of sharing half the burden. She couldn't say it was relaxing, but at least she didn't feel so suffocated anymore.
Chiron walked to the door and stopped when his hand rested on the doorknob. He didn't turn around.
"Jiang Lijin."
"Hmm?"
"In the future, when you encounter things like this, don't shoulder them all by yourself." His voice was very soft. "We are your legal partners. Utilizing us is your rightful privilege."
The door was gently pulled shut. The sound of footsteps echoing in the corridor gradually faded away.
Jiang Lijin sat on the sofa without moving.
Utilizing them? She chewed over this phrasing, the corners of her lips curling up unconsciously.
