In the kitchen, Orion Ember found a bag of flour.
Not synthetic protein powder, but genuine, Earth-origin wheat flour. The packaging was stamped "Earth Native · Premium," with only three months left until its expiration. In the Interstellar Era, such a luxury was absurdly expensive; a single kilogram could be traded for the energy core of a small scout ship.
He checked the balance on Peregrine's secondary account: Unlimited.
Orion fell silent for three seconds before deciding to make a bowl of plain Yangchun noodles. In his past life, during those late nights of overtime, he would often eat this at a small shop downstairs from his office. Hot soup, hot noodles—five minutes to serve, and it could carry him through another three hours of work.
As the water came to a boil, he replayed the previous night in his mind.
Peregrine had eaten the noodles. He hadn't said a word, but he'd finished every drop of the broth. Afterward, he didn't send Orion back to the outer room. Instead, he made Orion sit on the carpet by the bedroom door while he handled official business. Every thirty minutes, Peregrine would look up, as if confirming Orion was still there.
That look wasn't how one looked at a person. It was how one looked at a newly acquired, exotic object—scrutinizing, evaluating, and tinged with an undetectable possessiveness.
At 3:00 AM, Peregrine finally allowed him to leave. Orion collapsed onto the sofa in the outer room and fell asleep instantly. When he opened his eyes again, it was already 10:00 AM.
"Orion."
Lumen Sage's voice came through the comms, sounding a bit mischievous. "Master Peregrine has headed to tactics class. You're free today. However—" She paused. "Sheer Midas is waiting for you downstairs. He says he wants to 'chat.'"
Sheer Midas. The youngest son of the Midas clan, the billionaire playboy among the Five Great Families. In the game's lore, he was one of the few survivors of the Falling Star Battle and the only one who eventually bothered to recover Peregrine's remains.
Orion turned off the stove and packed the noodles into a thermal container, leaving them as lunch for Peregrine. Then, he washed his hands and headed downstairs.
Sheer was leaning against a hover-bike. His short silver-gray hair was streaked with a few tufts of purple, and three data-rings hung from his earlobe. He was looking down at a holographic game. Hearing footsteps, he looked up, revealing a face completely different from Peregrine's. While Peregrine possessed a sharp, oppressive beauty, Sheer was soft and non-threatening—pretty in a pampered way, like a well-kept cat.
"So, you're the Defective from the Jordan family?" He got straight to the point, his gaze lingering for a moment on Orion's gray-blue eyes. "You look better than your photos."
Orion stopped three meters away. "Master Sheer, is there something you need?"
"Can't I just visit?" Sheer shut off his game and pulled something from the back of the bike, tossing it toward Orion. "Catch."
Orion caught it instinctively, feeling a sudden weight in his palm. It was a keychain with a micro-chip engraved with crossed mechs and a star chart: Starfall · Prototype.
His fingers went stiff.
In the game settings, Starfall was the crowning achievement of the Shen family's Mech R&D—an unreleased experimental model with performance specs three times higher than any active-duty mech. Three months from now, it would sell for 300 million credits at a black-market auction to an anonymous noble.
And now, Sheer had tossed it to him like trash.
"A Defective should drive a defective mech," Sheer smiled harmlessly. "Shen Cetus gave me this thing last year. I thought it was ugly, so I never even unboxed it. It's yours now. It's not like you deserve anything better."
A classic Sheer Midas insult. Orion had written these very lines in the game's script, adding a note at the time: [Sheer's criteria for 'gift recipients' is extremely strict. Only those he deems 'interesting' receive this kind of 'trash'.]
Interesting. Sheer thought he was interesting.
"Master Sheer," Orion gripped the keychain, lowering his head. "This is too valuable. I cannot accept it."
"If I tell you to take it, you take it. Why so much talk?" Sheer climbed onto his bike, the engine letting out a low, predatory growl. "3:00 PM, Training Ground Three. Show me what a 'Defective' can do with a machine like this. If you don't show up, I'll tell Peregrine you stole my property."
He made a throat-slitting gesture, laughed, and twisted the throttle, disappearing down the corridor.
Orion stood there, staring at the Starfall key.
300 million credits. In his past life, he had written a tagline for this mech: [Where the stars fall, only this remains eternal.]
And now, a star lay in his hand, light as a feather.