Until the very last moment, you never truly know who will have the last laugh.

Following Zhong Yun's guidance, Yu Daoqing opened a door beside the main control room, which served as a dedicated escape passage for the crew of the main control room.

Supporting Zhong Yun, Yu Daoqing entered the passage. After walking about twenty meters, they reached a small chamber. The moment they stepped inside, the hatch behind them closed automatically.

Taking a spacesuit from the wall recess, she helped Zhong Yun put it on first, followed by her own.

"Open the airlock," Zhong Yun's weak voice came through the suit's communicator.

Yu Daoqing did as told and opened the outer hatch. A sudden, powerful suction rushed outward, instantly evacuating all remaining air from the compartment. Once the suction subsided, Yu Daoqing unfastened the safety tethers around their waists.

Looking outward, a small spacecraft was visible not far away. Gritting her teeth, Yu Daoqing held Zhong Yun tightly in her arms and leaped out of the airlock. Propelled by momentum, the two floated forward, maintaining the exact same speed as the ship.

Kicking off the exterior hull of the vessel, the reaction force propelled them directly toward the waiting craft.

Although the vehicle appeared minuscule from a distance, it was actually as tall as a ten-story building. As they drew near, two mechanical arms extended from its hull and pulled them safely inside.

Once the hatch sealed and the landing module repressurized with air, Yu Daoqing hurriedly stripped off her spacesuit and opened Zhong Yun's helmet, only to find his face flushed with an unnatural, burning red.

"What's wrong with you? Don't scare me. Wake up..." After shaking him a few times with no response, a boundless wave of grief instantly drowned her. Her heart felt as though it were being tightly clenched and squeezed by an invisible hand, the gripping pain rendering her almost unable to breathe.

No longer able to contain herself, Yu Daoqing clutched Zhong Yun's body and wept bitterly.

"Stop crying..." Zhong Yun's faint voice sounded like a thunderclap to Yu Daoqing. She raised her head in disbelief and saw Zhong Yun blinking at her.

"Zhong Yun..." Yu Daoqing covered her mouth with her hands as large tears streamed down onto his clothing. Snatched instantly from the depths of hell back to paradise, she was utterly powerless to control her emotions.

"How old are you? Still such a crybaby?" Zhong Yun's hand twitched, as if he wanted to lift it to wipe away her tears, but he lacked the strength and could not raise his arm.

Understanding his intent, Yu Daoqing picked up his hand, clasped it tightly, and pressed it against her own face. His fingers were still as calloused as ever, still... as warm as ever, matching the warmth in her heart.

"Carry me to the control room," Zhong Yun's voice was devoid of strength. Although he remained conscious, the mysterious drug was burning away the primordial energy within him, inflicting unimaginable torment.

Lifting Zhong Yun with the utmost care, as if cradling the most precious treasure in the universe, Yu Daoqing's expression was one of absolute, unwavering focus.

Upon reaching the main control room, Zhong Yun immediately issued an order: "Establish a connection with Xiao Ling right now."

"Your condition is extremely critical," Xiao Ling's voice echoed in the room. Sensing the presence of an outsider perhaps, it did not activate the video feed. "It's a long story... my primordial energy has suffered a backlash. Hurry over and save me," Zhong Yun felt as though he was losing even the strength to speak.

"Understood." Xiao Ling cut the communication with crisp efficiency.

Having received Xiao Ling's response, Zhong Yun finally let out a sigh of relief. Although his condition seemed to be worsening by the second, he felt not a shred of panic. As long as Xiao Ling arrived, his life would be spared. He firmly believed that there was nothing in this world that Xiao Ling could not accomplish.

***

"It's a pity I didn't manage to kill Wang Jingze," Yu Daoqing sighed suddenly. Her hatred for Wang Jingze had reached her very bones. If he were standing before her right now, she would undoubtedly grind his bones to dust and scatter the ashes to the winds.

Zhong Yun suddenly chuckled. "The ways of the world are wondrous indeed. When you believe you are in absolute control of everything, you will find that events rarely unfold as you imagine. Just when you think you are the one who will have the last laugh... *cough*..." At this point, Zhong Yun was seized by a fit of coughing.

***

"Have we established contact with our people?" the second mate asked inside the escape pod.

"Not yet. The pod's communication array seems to have malfunctioned and cannot be initialized," a crew member tinkering with the console replied.

"The navigation system is down too. It won't boot up," the crew member added a moment later.

A sudden sense of foreboding gripped the second mate's heart. He hurried forward, shoving the crew member aside, and frantically punched the controls. Cold sweat poured down his forehead in torrents. He collapsed heavily into a seat, his face drained of all color.

The personnel in the other three escape pods had likewise discovered that their craft were entirely unresponsive. The control crews aboard shared the second mate's expression of utter despair.

Having eliminated a major threat, Wang Jingze sat in the command chair of his escape pod, a sense of supreme satisfaction washing over him as he played with the control console. Though his initial plan had failed, he felt not a trace of discouragement. A man who could endure and bide his time for fifteen years naturally possessed a reservoir of patience beyond ordinary comparison.

Today's events further reinforced his belief that those who triumphed early did not necessarily have the final victory. First, he had been systematically stripped of his overwhelming advantage until he was left with virtually no ability to fight back, becoming mere fish on a chopping board.

And then there was Zhong Yun, who had assumed absolute mastery of the situation, holding everyone's life and death in the palm of his hand—yet he had still fallen victim to a surprise attack, losing his very life in the process.

Wang Jingze did not believe that, under such dire circumstances, Zhong Yun could possibly make it back to Dawu in time to receive medical treatment.

"Huh?" Wang Jingze noticed something peculiar about the console. No matter what commands he punched in, the system refused to register them.

"What is going on here?" A profound sense of bafflement crept over him. To accommodate ordinary passengers, the escape pod operating system was designed to be completely foolproof, operable by anyone.

A shadow of unease fell across Wang Jingze's mind, accompanied by a lingering puzzle that had troubled him: why had Zhong Yun chosen to let all the crew members go under those circumstances? Did he not realize that this was tantamount to releasing tigers back into the mountains?

He did not believe Zhong Yun to be a soft-hearted individual. Although he had not known Zhong Yun for long, their half-day life-or-death struggle had given him a clear insight into Zhong Yun's true nature.

While not outright vicious, he was certain Zhong Yun would never spare anyone who posed a genuine threat to him.

At this thought, a tremor of pure terror rippled through Wang Jingze. He frantically hammered commands into the console once more, but received not the slightest flicker of a response.

After a long while, he slumped powerlessly to the floor, his face reflecting a withered, ash-gray despair. Suddenly, his throat convulsed twice, and a thin, shrill laugh squeezed past his lips. The laughter grew louder and louder until it filled the entire escape pod.

"Warning: Asteroid ahead. Evasive action required. Evasive action required..." The alarm klaxons blared suddenly.

Evasive action?

Wang Jingze looked as though he had just heard the funniest joke in the universe, laughing so hard that tears and mucus streamed down his face.

The escape pod operating systems had been locked down.

This grim reality plunged all the surviving crew members across the four escape pods into an icy abyss, freezing them from head to toe, straight down to their souls.

"What is our destination?" the second mate asked with a chilling apathy.

The crew member seated closest to the control panel with trembling fingers entered a sequence of commands. Although the controls were locked, accessing basic trajectory logs was still possible.

A single glance was all it took to shatter that crew member's face into absolute despair.

"A distance of twelve billion kilometers from here..." the crew member's voice seemed to drift up from the netherworld, "...into a star."

"Zhong Yun, you win."

Amidst the escalating wail of the sirens, Wang Jingze abruptly sat upright and loosed a roar born from the depths of his soul, "I'll be waiting for you on the other side—"

Out in the cold expanse of space, an inconspicuous flash of fire erupted against the surface of a small asteroid, carrying with it a man's fifteen years of lingering affection and ambition, of possession and desire. Everything was incinerated into absolute nothingness within that single burst of flame.

"Zhong Yun, how utterly ruthless of you—" the second mate roared in despair.

Like modern-day Kuafus chasing the sun, the four escape pods hurtled forward without a shred of hesitation toward a massive, blazing star, carrying within their hulls more than sixty people consumed by hopeless terror.

"Until the very last moment, you can never truly know who will have the last laugh," Zhong Yun's weak voice echoed softly within the control room of the *Insect Bee III*.

*(Note: The following word count is free of charge)*

*Upon checking the review section, I was stunned. I never expected that the review section, usually as calm as still water with nothing floating in it save for the occasional advertisement, would suddenly become so turbulent.*

*My second reaction was speechlessness. When has Zhong Yun ever let go of an enemy he shouldn't have? Rest assured, dear readers, the protagonist will not suffer any real losses. Even if he does, it amounts to nothing—as the saying goes, a loss is a gain. Well, I suppose that isn't really a spoiler.*

*Keep reading, everyone; the most exciting parts are yet to come.*

*Finally, rolling around on the ground begging for monthly votes! There are only five days left, so let's all rise up and show our strength! Rise up!*