Back home, his mother had often dried and roasted pumpkin seeds for snacks. Han Qingyu hadn't eaten any in a long time and rather missed the taste.
Besides, he was supposed to be having dinner right about now, but before he could get a bite, he had been summoned here. He was starving, in desperate need of something to fill his stomach.
Without realizing it, he had become the impatient sort he had just been thinking about—the kind who chewed shells and all.
And so, while Tu Zi carefully cracked them open one by one, he watched Han Qingyu scoop up five, seven, or eight seeds at a time and toss them straight into his mouth.
Before long, the pile in front of Han Qingyu was almost gone, eaten like a proper meal.
Tu Zi looked at him with a slightly pitiful expression, quietly pushed his own pile over to Han Qingyu, and then fished around in his jacket pocket for quite a while before finally pinching out another small handful.
Only then did Han Qingyu notice. He looked down at the table, then up at Tu Zi, feeling slightly embarrassed. "Sorry about that, Baldy. I'm just starved."
"It's fine, but um... my name is Tu Zi."
"Ah, hometown accent issue. Sorry about that," Han Qingyu explained, laughing awkwardly. "Why don't we just treat it as a friendly reminder? Conveniently, you brainy people are different from us blade-wielders. If we're careless, we lose our heads; if you're careless, you lose your hair."
Tu Zi let out a shy yet stifled chuckle and nodded. "Mm."
Meanwhile, the slightly chubby old man beside him—who had a genuinely severe hair loss problem—tried hard to tell himself to endure, reminding himself that this was very likely a deliberate attempt to casually disrupt the inquiry.
"By the way, do the elders in your family have that problem? Any hair loss?"
Han Qingyu was already chatting away with Tu Zi. Even though Tu Zi claimed to be only slightly younger, both visually and intuitively, Han Qingyu felt like he was dealing with a little brother.
"I... I don't know," Tu Zi said. "I've never met my grandfather..."
Evidently the old man had passed away, and early at that. A word of apology was already on the tip of Han Qingyu's tongue.
Tu Zi added, "He went to prison when he was fourteen."
Han Qingyu blinked, stunned. "Then where did you come from?"
"Oh, my grandfather fell in love and got married in prison, and later had my dad." Tu Zi explained without any grief or sadness, sounding rather lighthearted instead. "Later, my dad went to prison at thirteen too, and then..."
"Understood. And then he fell in love, got married, and had you in prison."
Tu Zi nodded. "Mm."
At this point, Han Qingyu could roughly guess what that so-called prison was like. It was probably some kind of "Carefree Living and Breeding Base for Dangerous Geniuses."
Reflecting on it, he felt a bit of emotion and said to Tu Zi, "Then you haven't had it easy. You're already nineteen and haven't ended up inside yet."
Tu Zi smiled happily and nodded. "Yeah! And soon, once I turn twenty, if I still haven't strayed onto the wrong path, I can visit my granddad, grandma, dad, and mom in prison every now and then for a few days to hang out, without worrying about being led astray."
And so, the two young men—both belonging to the Sub-Sequence, yet neither aware that the other was in the same sequence—began chatting merrily.
"By the way, what did you just write down?"
After chatting for a bit, Han Qingyu leaned over awkwardly to peek at the inquiry log.
Tu Zi simply pushed the entire notebook over, showing him the only sentence written on it: *A man wearing a silver bracelet.*
"You even wrote that down?! Isn't that a bad idea? If word gets out, won't it make me look sissified?" Han Qingyu fretted naively.
"It won't. Even if other people would, Brother Qingzi, you... you're someone who flew up and slashed a Great Spike while still a recruit! You even wrecked that device and led the blue-sheened Great Spike on a chase the whole way."
Tu Zi spoke with visible excitement, addressing him as "Brother Qingzi" entirely naturally.
Han Qingyu could tell that this little scientist either idolized combat heroes or simply didn't have many friends. After a moment's thought, Han Qingyu asked, "By the way, didn't the Rejecters lack a bit of rigor by sending an inexperienced young comrade like you to interrogate me?"
Tu Zi said anxiously, "No, this can't be considered an interrogation. We didn't receive authorization to interrogate you."
"Oh." Han Qingyu leaned back against his chair. "Understood."
"He just came out for some fun and tagged along with me," the slightly chubby old man finally cut in.
Then, he placed the silver bracelet on the table and slid it back to Han Qingyu.
He had studied the thing for quite a while, and his conclusion was indeed that it was just an ordinary family heirloom silver bracelet from a rural household. It was old, with obvious friction marks from years of farm work, simple and unadorned without any carvings or decorations, lacking even a hint of luster.
In short, even if it weren't carefully hidden and just tossed aside, a thief ransacking the place would probably overlook it.
Han Qingyu carefully put the silver bracelet away. "So that means originally you were going to question me alone... doesn't that violate protocol?"
"Isn't Little Tu here?"
"Didn't he just tag along?"
"Tagging along still makes two people, doesn't it?"
"..."
Having won the verbal spar, the chubby old man felt quite pleased. He continued, "How about this: walk me through what happened that day one more time."
Han Qingyu smiled at him. "I refuse."
Refusing the Rejecters felt downright wonderful, especially after learning they hadn't received "interrogation" clearance.
The old man sputtered, "You..."
"Don't you have the report in your hands? Just read the report yourself," Han Qingyu said. "I've already repeated it several times to several different groups of people over the past two days."
The room fell into an awkward silence.
"Actually, what we mainly want to know about is the device installed on that blue-sheened Great Spike—the specifics of that object," Tu Zi stepped in carefully to smooth things over, explaining, "Regarding that thing, I've only ever seen a blurry old photograph. I've never seen the real object, let alone observed it up close like you did."
"Oh." Han Qingyu considered it. It was hard to refuse that, so he said, "The main body of that thing consists of two parts. The outer part is the shuttle craft in an unfolded state, like an open clam shell. In the center is a metal pyramid-like object..."
His fragmented, objective description was complete.
"What about your subjective impression? Can you tell us?" Tu Zi pressed, his eyes filled with anticipation.
"Subjectively, I think that thing might not be a signal transmitter like they claim," Han Qingyu paused, then said, "In my view, it looks more like a receiver..."
"Right?! That's great! I actually suspected that long ago!" Tu Zi sprang up, still small in stature, his expression intensely excited. "I even wondered if it might essentially be some kind of tractor device, a beacon used to open a warp channel..."
With Han Qingyu's high school level of education, he could hardly follow any of this.
After Tu Zi finished his lengthy scientific discourse, he explained, "I deduced this based on the flight craft's historical movement patterns and their acoustic transmission methods. Brother Qingzi, how did you..."
"Because it looked a bit like the dish we use to pick up TV signals in my village." Feeling his education insulted, Han Qingyu cut him off ruthlessly.
"Ah... is that so." Tu Zi completely deflated and slumped back into his seat.
The atmosphere turned awkward once again, though they had already recorded all the information Han Qingyu could provide.
After a moment, Tu Zi looked up with an embarrassed smile.
"Brother Qingzi, would you mind having your degree of fusion tested again when the source energy field opens next year? To be honest, after reviewing the incident report, we find your level of strength somewhat difficult to understand."
Han Qingyu was momentarily blank and didn't give a direct answer.
"Of course, this isn't mandatory. You can refuse, Brother Qingzi... This is purely out of curiosity on the Rejecters' part," Tu Zi hastily added.
Even the fat old man beside him showed no intention of forcing the issue.
After all, who wasn't afraid of the Sole Witness Legion's commander, Chen Buer?!
Going behind his back to investigate someone he had personally looked into and overturning a decision he had made was already asking for trouble. If anyone dared take it a step further and enforce it... that would be courting outright catastrophe.
"Aside from rejecting Great Spikes, you people oversee this sort of thing too?" Han Qingyu countered.
"Mm, it's a duty that inexplicably branched out over the past thirty or forty years. Probably because the moniker 'Rejecters' was misinterpreted—we're also responsible for rejecting internal enemies." Tu Zi gestured toward the fat old man beside him. "This is Supervisor Ji from our Rejecters' Internal Investigation Section."
Tu Zi paused here, offered a timid smile, and reached out to pluck a tiny object—the exact color of a pumpkin seed—off Han Qingyu's sleeve with slight effort. He explained:
"I'm naturally sensitive to frequencies and fluctuations, and I used equipment to assist. Yet throughout this entire exchange, Brother Qingzi, your heartbeat remained as steady... as that of a living dead man."
Chapter 70