Above the Galaxy

Tang Fei returned to the living room, where the old man and Little Fatty each held a large bowl, sitting at the table and drinking lamb soup.

"Bro, time to eat," Little Fatty looked up and called out to Tang Fei, saying, "I've left the meat soup cooling for you."

"Okay."

Tang Fei walked over, sat down, and started eating from his big bowl. With soup and meat, salt added, and a sprinkle of chili for garnish, today was a day for living it up.

"Did you take care of that young lady?" the old man slurped his soup without looking up and asked.

"Handled it," Tang Fei replied.

"What are you planning to do with her?" the old man asked.

Tang Fei looked up at the old man and asked, "What do you mean?"

"She came from New Star, and she arrived in an escape pod... What caused her to escape? And who is trying to kill her?" the old man asked.

Chewing on a large chunk of lamb liver, he looked at Tang Fei and added, "Most importantly, are those people going to track her down?"

"We've agreed that once her wounds heal, she'll leave," Tang Fei said.

"Mm, that's one way to handle it," the old man nodded and remarked, "That's not your style."

"What?" Tang Fei looked up at the old man.

"With your fear of death, you usually wouldn't easily carry a stranger home... What's gotten into you today?" the old man questioned.

"How is that being afraid of death? I'm just being cautious," Tang Fei argued indignantly.

After a pause, he continued to explain, "I felt it wasn't right to leave someone in the wild, especially when she had severe injuries and couldn't move. She would've died out there..."

"Speak plain language."

"I was going to leave, but then she looked at me, and our eyes met..." Tang Fei began feeling embarrassed, "I thought she was pretty, so I carried her back."

"Bro, I think she's pretty too," Little Fatty chimed in, saying, "But she's too skinny, seems like she can't handle much, not fit for working the stones."

Smack!

The old man knocked Little Fatty on the head and scolded, "What's that got to do with you?"

Little Fatty looked wronged but didn't dare argue with the old man and quickly picked up his bowl to gulp down the soup.

"Don't always hit him," Tang Fei frowned and told the old man, looking at Little Fatty, "And don't hit the head, it might dumb him down."

"With his brains, hitting might actually knock some sense into him," the old man said discontentedly, defending his way of dealing with Little Fatty, "We're talking about you now. You thought she was good-looking, so you carried her home. You plan to keep her?"

"Do you think I can keep her?" Tang Fei asked.

"No."

"..."

"I'm not saying this to discourage you." Seeing Tang Fei silent, the old man thought his tender heart was hurt, "Think about her beauty, her figure, her clothes, and the way she carries herself... Do you think this barren land could keep her?"

"Is she after your long unwashed state, or your years of uncut hair? Or maybe that thrilling lifestyle of not knowing if there's a next meal? Knowing oneself is important."

"When have you ever seen her move?" Tang Fei retorted with a sneer, hating when the old man acted knowledgeable and lectured people. "She was still unconscious when you saw her."

"Imagining things, do you get that? With her looks and aura, dressed in a slit evening gown like this..." the old man, speaking, gestured a large V gesture at his chest in a rather vulgar manner. "Or in a handsome Phoenix Empire military uniform, how dazzling would that be?"

"Right, she said her name was Phoenix..." Tang Fei mentioned.

The old man's expression stiffened momentarily then relaxed, saying, "There are probably thousands named Phoenix in the Phoenix Empire... nothing special."

Tang Fei nodded, his gaze puzzled as he looked at the old man, "You seem very familiar with the Phoenix Empire? Talking like you've been to New Star before."

"Even if I haven't eaten pork, haven't I seen pigs run? Have you forgotten who I am? I'm the most famous guide in Henshan Gathering Area. Those nobles from New Star aiming for adventures and tomb explorations can't do without me. I've heard a lot about New Star from them."

"Look at how pleased you are with yourself," Tang Fei couldn't help but to throw cold water, "Listening to others mentioning it briefly, and you act like you've lived there for years."

"I wouldn't go there. What's there to see on New Star? It's no better than our Henshan," the old man crunched on the lamb shank loudly, "Here we eat whatever we want, work the stones if we want, avoid showers if we prefer... Can they compare to that?"

"There are no wild beasts on New Star, no acid rain, and they don't work the stones daily. I heard they use machines..." Little Fatty interjected.

"You don't know shit!" the old man glared at Little Fatty and said, "There are people above us, swarms of them. Human hearts are much more terrifying than the fangs of wild beasts."

"You've never fought a wild beast, what do you know?" Tang Fei chimed in from the side.

Ever since he could remember, he had to grab a shovel to dig for mountain earthworms and moles.

From a young age, he had shouldered the burden of supporting his family.

"Bullshit. When you two were little, wasn't I the one who raised you from diapers to toilets? Were you able to hunt the moment you crawled out of your mother's womb? What would you two have eaten or drunk if I hadn't gone hunting?" The old man cursed, fuming.

Tang Fei and Little Fatty fell silent.

The old man was stating facts they couldn't refute.

The old man looked at Tang Fei and said, "Don't be sad. People who don't belong here are just passersby in life... just like the prey you bring back every day, today it's a two-headed sheep, tomorrow a wild mountain pig... the end result is, it's good as long as it's eaten."

Tang Fei was shocked and said, "Didn't we agree not to eat people?"

Slap!

The old man slapped Tang Fei on the head, saying with frustration, "I'm not talking about that kind of eating."

"Then how should we eat?"

"Sleep. I'm talking about sleeping."

"Why should I sleep with her? Isn't it better to sleep on my own bed? It's big and wide, I can sleep however I want, roll however I want....."

"..."

The old man looked at Tang Fei, then at Little Fatty, who had buried his head into a big bowl, and thought that he really needed to start paying attention to these two rascals' adolescent issues.

But how was he supposed to teach them about this subject?

He couldn't just find a woman to demonstrate for them on the spot.

Besides, where would he find a woman....

Of course, there were plenty of women in the human gathering areas, and with his burly physique and excellent masonry skill, many would likely want to sleep with him.

He just wasn't interested....

"Anyway, the kind of eating I'm talking about is not the same as the eating you're thinking of, and the sleeping I'm talking about is not the same as the sleeping you usually do," the old man, clearly frustrated, said, "Just don't start crying and wiping your tears when this little lady leaves."

"How could that be? I can't wait for her to leave!" Tang Fei spoke up.

The old man looked at Tang Fei skeptically and asked, "Why?"

"The two of us arranged that after she returns to New Star, to thank me for saving her life, she would give me a Flying Car, three Pulse Guns, and a ton of supplies..."

"Think about it, if I had all that, I could go out hunting in a Flying Car with a Pulse Gun in hand, killing gods if they block me, slaying Buddhas if they oppose me, even if I encounter a mutated Vajra Tiger, I could even chop off its hind legs to make you skewers..."

"Are you stupid?" The old man looked at Tang Fei in astonishment, feeling that all his years of teaching had been utterly wasted. "You believe a woman's words?"

"..."

"Didn't I tell you the story of 'Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber'? What did Zhang Wuji's mother say to him? Never trust the words of a woman, the prettier she is, the more deceitful..."

Tang Fei looked at the old man, smilingly said, "Even without those things, I would still have brought her back, right?"

"That's true," the old man nodded and said, "You're all mouth but a soft heart after all. If you weren't always helping those orphans and widows outside, our life would not have been this hard...."

"People have also helped us a lot, constantly mending and sewing for us three big men, it's only right to reciprocate. Since we're going to save her... if she wishes to repay and gives us things we need, then that's great. If not... we'll just consider it as doing a good deed, like saving a stray cat or a stray dog. Isn't that right?"

The old man looked at Tang Fei and asked, "Did she really agree to give these things?"

"Yes," Tang Fei nodded. "At least that's what she said."

"Go get a bowl and serve some meat soup," the old man urged aloud.

"Why?"

"We can't let our distinguished guest from afar go hungry. She is weak now, can't eat solid food, so serve her some soup... Lamb is nourishing and will help her recover faster, let her leave sooner. If such a lovely girl were to go missing, who knows how worried her family would be."

"Alright," Tang Fei agreed.

Little Fatty raised his head to look at the old man, then at Tang Fei who was busily serving the soup, and he sighed softly.