Chapter 144 - Death Trio Star Region
Old Porter had especially left him a golden ball, which was this very signal receiver, and the fiery-red glow of it was presently flickering, going bright and dimming periodically.
In the past year, this signal receiver had remained dormant, yet now that he was back in the Alliance territory, it suddenly kept flashing. Could Old Porter have sent a message to him?
Xia Fei anxiously picked up the receiver. In his eyes, Old Porter was a very mysterious person. From his outward appearance, he was merely a highly skilled mechanic when it came to maintenance and retrofitting, but this very mechanic gave Xia Fei a long-range signal receiver, as well as an overclocking chip from the ancient civilization. Just how could a normal mechanic have come to possess such things?
Even stranger was how he could actually use the meteor script, which only the major families in the Alliance would come to know after decades of studying. Clearly, this was an indication that Porter’s background was far from ordinary.
Xia Fei was holding that golden ball when, all of a sudden, a display screen shot out to display several words.
“‘Head to the Black Abyss Star Region, D1C3. Locate Windchime,’” Xia Fei read to himself aloud.
“The Black Abyss!” Phantom exclaimed in surprise, his two eyes wide as if very afraid of something at the mention of that place.
It seemed that it was a habit of Xia Fei’s to disappear for a time every so often, but it was because of just how sudden his disappearance had been this time around and the fact that he had been gone for a longer duration than usual.
Xia Fei closed the emails and patiently waited, knowing that the mischievous sprite Avril would come contacting him. As long as he was somewhere with an interplanetary internet connection, that girl would always appear sooner or later. It was as if she were omnipresent and as if no rules of the interplanetary internet bound her.
Alas, after waiting for a whole ten minutes, Avril still did not contact him.
That was when Xia Fei began to wonder, which slowly turned into a feeling of unease. Could something have happened to Avril?
Xia Fei pretty much knew nothing about the mysterious Avril. He did not even know her contact number or her address, much less confirm if her name was real.
Opening his email, Xia Fei composed a message addressed to Avril, informing her of his return and, at the same time, asking about what she had been up to recently.
This email was the only method of contact he had with Avril, and Xia Fei had no other means to locate her aside from this.
In the past, the lady could always reach him whenever she wanted, and he had not been able to shake her off even after changing to an anonymous account. Conversely, if Xia Fei wished to contact Avril, he needed to send out an email. If she was free, she would very quickly send a video-call to him; in fact, even if she was ill-disposed, she would still send him a reply, arranging for a time that they could meet and chat.
However, this time, this email of his was like a stone dropped in the middle of a boundless sea; there was no reply at all. Avril not only did not connect with him but also did not reply to his message.
Xia Fei felt very melancholic. The two of them were like old friends. Even though they seldom saw each other, he did miss her somewhat. Now that this person he had been missing was no more, he could not help but feel sad.
He tapped the screen and was about to send another email when Xia Fei stopped in the middle of composing it.
The facts were very apparent; given how Avril had such amazing means on her fingertips that she could reach him whenever she wanted, what use would there be in composing a million emails if she simply did not wish to chat?
What Xia Fei was most worried about was whether something had happened to Avril or not, and he did not really care about all the other things.
“There’s no telling if Old Porter is alive in the Dark Abyss, and I haven’t gotten any word back from Avril, either. Just what is going on here?” Xia Fei mumbled to himself in bed.
The soft mattress made it easy to lull people to sleep, and as Xia Fei contemplated these worrisome matters, he slowly began to drift into dreamland and was soon fast asleep.
Phantom, standing all alone in that cabin, stared at the star map of the Death Trio Star Region for a very long time, seemingly muttering something under his breath. His expression looked somewhat lost, which the dreaming Xia Fei was completely unaware of.