“Chef Certificate,” Quan Hai paused, noticing Qi Huan’s confused expression, and remembered his amnesia. “I guess you don’t remember it now.”

Qi Huan clicked his tongue, a bit unconvinced, “Do you have to get a chef certificate to improve your rating?”

“It probably helps,” Quan Hai wasn’t too sure, as he was into mechanical repairs and didn’t know much about this field.

“I’m really talented at cooking.”

“I’ve tasted your cooking before…” Quan Hai patted Qi Huan’s shoulder, with a look that said, ‘Even if you’ve lost your memory, I haven’t.’ Clearly, the taste of that meal was unforgettable for him.

“That was in the past. I’ve secretly learned a lot recently,” Qi Huan tried to salvage his image. As a chef, he didn’t want to be stuck with a bad reputation.

Quan Hai nodded perfunctorily, deliberately changing the subject, “Still can’t remember anything?”

“Yeah.” Seeing that Quan Hai didn’t believe him, Qi Huan didn’t argue further. Anyway, once he cooked a few dishes, it would be clear. If it didn’t work out, he could always repay the favor with gifts once he had money.

The sky grew darker, and a few sparse lights flickered on the street. The base was half-empty, and because their street was near the west gate and far from the center, the occupancy rate was even lower.

Above them, a faint silver-blue glow appeared, the barely noticeable dome-shaped transparent shield of the base. Only at this time could its outline be vaguely seen.

Quan Hai patted his forehead, breaking the silence, “If it doesn’t work out, you can ask Lundo about upgrading the store’s rating. He got his chef certificate.”

Lundo was Uncle Lin Sen’s apprentice, who opened a restaurant in East City two years ago. Quan Hai had mentioned him on the way back yesterday. Although there was an age gap between the original owner, Quan Hai, and Lundo, they grew up as playmates.

“Yeah.”

Qi Huan tilted his head back and drank the remaining half bottle of nutritional agent in one go, idly twirling the empty tube in his hand.

In a remote location, with a dilapidated storefront, poor consumer power, low foot traffic, inconvenient transportation, unfamiliar surroundings, a ruined reputation, and debts piling up, everything was the worst arrangement. With all the negative buffs stacked, maybe… closing the store was the right choice.

“By the way, you can log into your personal terminal and check your conversation records with others. It might help you remember something, or you could go to the Command Hall and check the star network. You might find records of your chef certificate application.” Quan Hai nudged his shoulder, reminding him.

“Personal terminal?” Is that a phone? Qi Huan’s eyes lit up. Could the star network be the interstellar version of the internet? Maybe he could consider his old profession, start a live stream, and use the power of the internet to make up for the restaurant’s current shortcomings.

“It’s this,” Quan Hai extended his index finger and pressed the red Z mark on his wrist. A projection screen the size of a ten-inch tablet appeared above his wrist, and with another press, it retracted.

Qi Huan mimicked his actions, pressing his wrist, but nothing appeared.

He hesitated, and under Quan Hai’s expectant gaze, he pressed each of his remaining fingers in turn, but still, nothing happened.

Qi Huan: …

Looks like he didn’t have one?

Just as he was about to speak, a flash of lightning-like silver light streaked overhead.

Qi Huan looked up in confusion, seeing bright silver funnel-shaped light clusters falling from the sky, crashing into the shield and shattering into fragments of light, quickly disappearing.

“Ah, it’s another light magnetic storm. No wonder you can’t open your personal terminal. When this thing comes, all signals in the base are cut off.” Quan Hai seemed used to it, stretching lazily.

Countless silver-white light clusters seemed to be in fast-forward mode, pounding down like raindrops. Although there was no sound, the terrifying frequency gave the illusion that the base was being bombarded by artillery or something.

“Will the shield be affected?” Qi Huan wasn’t clear on the technical principles of the transparent barrier and couldn’t help but worry. The flickering light cast a pale hue on his face.

Gem mines usually came with fierce stone beasts. When the miners were around, they would hire people to clear them regularly. After they left, the desert became a paradise for stone beasts, often gathering in groups to attack humans at night. The base’s shield was mainly to guard against stone beasts and beast tides.

Before leaving the medical area, he happened to see two beast tide survivors from other bases, their bodies incomplete and bloody, looking extremely horrifying. If the shield failed and they encountered a beast tide, with his current frail state, it would be hard to protect himself.

“Don’t worry, our No. 3 base is the largest on No. 7 Waste Star. The shield is very sturdy. If they want to get in, attacking the base gate would be easier than attacking the shield.” Quan Hai picked up a decayed metal branch and jokingly tapped Qi Huan’s calf.

Seeing Quan Hai unconcerned, Qi Huan felt a bit more at ease, thinking he might be worrying unnecessarily. He brought the topic back to the star network, “What does the star network mainly do?”

“A lot, checking base announcements, browsing various messages, participating in virtual economic competitions on the star network, watching movies, live streams, and so on. I love watching live streams of competitive matches. My idol, the great ‘Zhi Hu Zhe Ye,’ is so cool in every match.

Not just from our alliance, you can watch those from the empire too. Lundo often follows a game live stream from the empire, something called ‘Library.’

The Command Hall also has game pods where you can enjoy five-dimensional live streams or play holographic games, unlike our crappy terminal, which lags even when watching announcement videos.” Talking about the star network, Quan Hai rambled on endlessly.

Qi Huan nodded, feeling a bit excited. It seemed his judgment was correct. If everything went smoothly, this might be the opportunity to improve the restaurant’s business.

And going online to catch up on ‘common knowledge’ would be much more convenient than grabbing people everywhere to ask questions.

“Why don’t we go to the Command Hall now and check out the star network?” Qi Huan was eager to try.

“No way,” Quan Hai pointed to the silver-white light clusters still pounding on the shield above, “You can’t connect now, there’s no signal, at least until tomorrow afternoon.”

Qi Huan: …

The dirt-yellow window of the house diagonally opposite opened a crack, and a girl who looked about seventy percent like Quan Hai shyly poked her head out.

“Quan Hai!” she called softly, her waterfall-like long hair gently swaying in the night, gentle and beautiful.

“Coming, sis.” Quan Hai stood up in response, grabbing the remaining nutritional agent and water from the basket and stuffing them into Qi Huan’s arms, “Stop thinking about it, go back and get a good night’s sleep. If you want to go, I’ll go with you when we’re free.”

As he entered, Qi Huan casually pulled down the stack of dunning notices, with various charges like water fees, shared energy fees, machine adjustment fees, management service fees, and so on. Roughly calculating, the miscellaneous debts totaled over three hundred silver coins.

This broken building might not even be worth three hundred silver coins. After all, empty houses were everywhere on the Waste Star, and they probably weren’t worth much. He shook his head, looking at his arm. With no money, he needed to find a way to earn a living quickly.

The first floor of the stone building was used for the restaurant, and the second floor was where the original owner and Uncle Lin Sen used to live.

Going upstairs, Qi Huan fumbled through a bunch of switches, finally lighting up the two dim hanging lamps overhead. The lights didn’t use electricity but energy stones. He had curiously opened them last night, and the so-called energy stones were only the size of button batteries, black and coal-like.

The second floor was more like an attic in Qi Huan’s understanding. The walls were lower than the first floor, and the slanted roof compressed the space, making it seem even narrower and more cramped under the dim light.

There were three single beds here, two against the walls, with a few half-human-high cabinets in front, barely creating a bit of private space for each bed. The one near the back window was piled with clutter, probably where Lundo stayed when he was an apprentice.

As he was about to step forward, something hit his calf, almost making him cry from the pain. Looking down, he found it was a small handle protruding from the base of the stair railing.

It was so ergonomically unfriendly, at such a low position, it was hard to notice. Qi Huan rubbed his calf speechlessly and sat on the bed.

Most of the furniture in the room was pieced together from various metal mechanical parts, with obvious welding marks and all sorts of strange ‘extras,’ turning into unexpected ‘traps’ in every corner, like the small handle just now, or the useless round turntable at the foot of the bed.

Qi Huan sighed at the industrial assembly style filling the room. This situation wasn’t much better than having nothing at all.

A button rolled out from the mattress’s indentation, which he had stuffed under the pillow last night when he was too tired.

The button was made of a metal similar to 18K gold, surrounded by intricate patterns, with a hemispherical green gemstone in the center, clear and refreshing. But Qi Huan’s knowledge of gemstones was limited, unable to tell if it was jade, emerald, or something else.

This thing was given to him by a nurse. It was said that when he was brought to the base, he clung to his savior’s clothes and wouldn’t let go. The person was in a hurry to leave and had to cut off that piece of clothing, which had this button on it.

He should keep it well, as it might be a clue to find his savior in the future. Looking around, he finally placed the button in the highest drawer of the opposite cabinet.

Having woken up late, he wasn’t sleepy at all now. His mind was too chaotic to think about anything, so Qi Huan decided to do some work, dusting and organizing the second floor.

He tried it out; the injured spot was his elbow, so his left hand could move. The range and posture of his arm were limited by the splint, and he couldn’t exert too much force. In short, small auxiliary movements were not too problematic, just a bit awkward in posture.

Taking down the sheets, duvet cover, and pillowcase, Qi Huan carried the pile downstairs.

The building was actually a two-entry layout. The back door led to a second gate with a flower wall, now with a corner collapsed, directly revealing the yard behind. There was another small building in the yard, half-collapsed from years of disrepair, with rubble and debris everywhere, making it hard to walk.

The washing machine was placed in the narrow courtyard between the back door and the flower wall, about four meters wide, and it was a drum type.

The machine had no power cord, using energy stones instead. The original owner probably couldn’t afford an expensive one, as it only had three simple modes: normal wash, air wash, and sterilization wash.

Stuffing the pile of things inside and closing the door, Qi Huan unhesitatingly chose sterilization, not knowing how long it hadn’t been washed, might as well make it clean.

The drum turned a couple of times, suddenly flashing red and bursting into flames, the machine instantly catching fire inside.

Take it easy, he wanted to kill bacteria, not the clothes!!!

Qi Huan frantically pulled the handle, trying to open the door to ‘rescue’ the clothes, but couldn’t figure it out for a while. After several attempts, the door remained tightly shut.

Well, there goes another set of three-piece bedding. Qi Huan looked speechlessly at the sheets in the flames, planning to send them off on their last journey, then froze.

The turning drum was on fire everywhere, making the glass on the outside of the window hot to the touch, yet the sheets and duvet cover were intact, without a single spark or scorch mark.

This fabric seemed fireproof.

The blazing flames, like rushing waves, reflected on Qi Huan’s face through the window. He instinctively glanced at his coarse cloth outfit, then at the machine, belatedly realizing that besides having no power cord, the washing machine also had no water inlet.

This so-called sterilization wash, could it be using fire for high-temperature sterilization?

A false alarm, Qi Huan returned upstairs, exhausted, wiping and tidying, unexpectedly finding two beast skin notebooks in a drawer.

Opening the light green one on top, the title page had the words ‘Qi Huan,’ crooked and out of proportion, full of youthful naivety. Flipping further, it seemed to be the original owner’s childhood diary.

Sorry, I need to know more about you to live in your place. Qi Huan silently ‘reported’ to the original owner, just about to continue reading when a sharp alarm sounded outside.

“Block it, block it!”

“We mustn’t let them in!”

Qi Huan rushed downstairs with his arm in a splint, finding chaos outside. A red light beam appeared near the base gate, with many people shouting and running towards it.

“What’s going on?” Seeing Quan Hai also out the door, he quickly asked.

“A stone beast got into the base, over by the west gate.” Quan Hai pointed to the red light beam not far away, rolling up his sleeves, ready to help. If the gate was breached, the base would face a direct beast tide impact, a very dangerous situation.

“Wait.” Going against stone beasts barehanded? At least take an iron pipe or something, right?

Quan Hai’s small frame was even skinnier than his own. Worried he’d suffer, Qi Huan quickly stopped him, single-handedly dragging a chair from the restaurant, kicking it hard at the rusty spots, breaking off two chair legs, and handing one to Quan Hai as a weapon.

Quan Hai shook his head, “One isn’t enough.”

So you’re a dual-wielder? Qi Huan chuckled, about to break off another chair leg when his vision blurred, and Quan Hai’s arm suddenly turned into six tentacles, waving menacingly in the air, looking like a humanoid octopus.

Can carbon-based life forms do this?

Qi Huan choked, silently making a ‘six’ gesture with his right hand.

Too cool! It can even transform!

The world had finally turned into something he couldn’t understand.