Starry Rebirth: The Warden and the Outlaw’s Interstellar Revenge | Chapter 4 | The Hidden Depths of the Rose Heart | Novela.app

Chapter 4 - The Hidden Depths of the Rose Heart As the first rays of the sun crested the horizon, a new day officially dawned upon Triangle Star. The golden-red light spilled across the landscape, signaling the awakening of the planet’s dual nature. Inside his suite, the holographic walls flickered and dissolved into transparent glass. Feng Zhixi watched the dawn light bleed into the room, his expression unreadable. He picked up the invitation he had been idling with and slotted it into a black-market optical computer. Instantly, a string of encrypted code danced across the air, resolving into a set of coordinates. It was the access key for the Rose Heart auction. Unlike the digital auctions prevalent throughout the Interstellar Federation, the Rose Heart adhered to a more primal tradition. Despite the dizzying heights of modern technology—where the Star Net allowed for instantaneous transactions across galaxies—those who walked the gray edges of society remained skeptical of the digital void. Man had conquered the stars, yet in the shadows, they still craved the certainty of a face-to-face exchange. The Rose Heart was a sanctuary for such ancient rituals. Feng Zhixi left his room, navigating the hotel’s labyrinthine corridors with the practiced ease of a ghost. He rounded a final corner to find a pair of massive, obsidian-black doors barring his path. Sensing his presence, the doors slid open with a silent, heavy grace. Feng Zhixi stepped inside and pressed his rose-patterned card into a recessed slot on the interior frame. With a soft click, the doors sealed shut. On the inner surface, a gargantuan rose—crimson as fresh arterial blood—bloomed across the metal, its petals shimmering with a hypnotic, decadent luster. The man who had entered was gone, swallowed by the secret architecture of the hotel. When the doors finally cycled open again, a figure emerged, draped in a heavy black cloak. He stepped out into a world of nocturnal clamor. Enveloped within the bio-mimetic stealth cloak—a piece of micro-mecha technology that blurred his silhouette and masked his thermal signature—Feng Zhixi looked around. The sterile hotel corridors were a distant memory. Before him lay a sprawling district of neon-drenched streets and opulent decadence. This was the true face of Triangle Star, hidden beneath the waves. It was the primary reason he had chosen the Rose Hotel; it housed the most direct artery to the heart of the Lawless Zone. Above ground, the planet flirted with the boundaries of Federation law; below the surface, reality was a commodity, and truth was the only thing not for sale. Every passerby was a phantom, hidden behind elaborate masks or high-tech shrouds. Feng Zhixi tightened his cloak and slipped into the crowd, weaving through the alleyways toward his destination. Despite its formidable reputation as the premier underground auction house, the entrance to the Rose Heart was deceptively mundane. It sat tucked away in a desolate corner: a simple glass door, unguarded and unassuming. Beside it hung a single kerosene lamp, its flame flickering with a strange, steady glow. Upon closer inspection, the wick was shaped like a delicate, burning rose. This humble threshold was the gateway to the legendary Rose Heart. The lamp swayed in the subterranean draft, casting jagged, dancing shadows across the pavement. Feng Zhixi approached with singular purpose and pushed the door open. The glass was a mere facade; an embedded encryption system scanned the code on his card as he passed. The true entrance materialized before him, and a silent attendant immediately appeared to guide him toward a private, independent booth. The entire process was a symphony of unspoken understanding. Shortly after the cloaked figure vanished into the depths, another guest arrived. The attendants bowed their heads in deep respect, leading this newcomer—who wore a mask of exquisite craftsmanship—toward a different wing of the facility. Feng Zhixi, now settled within the plush confines of his booth, remained unaware that the person in the adjacent room shared his exact objective: the star maps. In the present, the Rose Heart was merely a prestigious name whispered in the dark corners of Triangle Star. However, in the near future, it would become the catalyst for a storm that would engulf the entire galaxy. The spark for that conflagration lay in the two fragmented star maps scheduled for tonight’s block. Star maps were the lifeblood of interstellar explorers. As the headquarters of the Explorers' Guild, Triangle Star frequently saw fragments of ancient charts pass through its markets. Even though humanity had claimed the stars, the true boundaries of the universe remained a riddle wrapped in a mystery. Federation law encouraged this hunger for the unknown; under the "Pioneer’s Right," the first to discover a system claimed its riches. Unlike official, verified charts, the maps sold at auction were often riddled with errors or missing crucial sectors. They were gambles—high-risk wagers that could lead to a vacuum-sealed grave or a fortune that could reshape destiny. Tonight’s maps were the ultimate gamble. In the original timeline, these two fragments were purchased by two different individuals. When the first buyer finally resurfaced years later, he brought with him wealth that paralyzed the Federation with shock. Of his entire expedition, he was the sole survivor, but his ship’s hold was gorged with Xi Ore. Xi Ore—a legendary mineral valued at ten million Federal Credits per kilogram. It was the fabled legacy of the Xi Race, a Level 10 civilization that had supposedly ascended beyond this dimension. It was the "Holy Grail" of energy sources, capable of powering a starship’s core or a combat mecha with peerless efficiency. The survivor’s return ignited a galactic frenzy. It wasn't just the immediate wealth of the ore; it was the realization that the source of such a bounty likely housed the ruins of the Xi civilization itself. Whoever controlled that site would possess technology eons ahead of the Federation. They wouldn't just be rich; they would be the architects of a new interstellar empire. Greed drove men mad, but the lure of absolute power drove them to extinction. The great powers of the Federation mobilized. The original explorer was the first to be "liquidated," and his death sparked a decade of shadow wars and bloody skirmishes over the map’s ownership. Yet, for eight years, no one who held the map ever found the destination. Every fleet sent into the void vanished without a trace, swallowed by the silent stars. Eventually, people began to whisper that it was all a lie—a grand deception orchestrated by the first explorer. They suspected the map was a fake, or perhaps that the true key had been destroyed. Few considered the second map. The second fragment, auctioned on the same night at the Rose Heart, had vanished the moment it was sold. The buyer had been a ghost, leaving no trail, as if they had never existed at all. In his past life, Feng Zhixi hadn't obtained the first map until nearly ten years later. By then, the "Genius Polymath" Hill had supposedly developed a synthetic energy source to rival Xi Ore, and the map’s perceived value had plummeted. It was then that Meng Jia, having acquired it through a stroke of luck, gifted it to Feng Zhixi. Only when he held the map did Feng Zhixi realize why everyone else had failed. The map was a riddle written in cipher; the first fragment was merely the question, while the second fragment held the answer. Without that "key," the path indicated by the first map was a one-way trip to oblivion. How the first explorer had survived was nothing short of a cosmic miracle. But where was the missing answer? No one could have guessed that it was hidden in the one place no one ever returned from: the Interstellar Heavy Security Prison. The original buyer of the second map had been a desperate criminal with a mountain of blood on his hands. He had bought the map as a ticket to a new life beyond the Federation’s reach, but he was captured before he could even set sail. He was cast into the depths of the high-security sector, carrying a secret that could have bought his freedom, yet he died never knowing its true worth. Years later, Ji Yeran—the future Warden of that very prison—would discover the map among the effects of a deceased inmate. That discovery had occurred nearly a decade into the future. Ji Yeran had realized then that the "通关密码" (clearance code) for the galaxy’s greatest treasure had been sitting under his nose the whole time. But before he could act on it, disaster struck. While stationed at his secret base within a fragmented asteroid belt, a cloaked Federation warship had somehow bypassed his sensors. Even worse, it was being pursued by a Nebula-class anti-curvature super-nuclear bomb. Ji Yeran, who had spent years cultivating the persona of a refined gentleman, had forgotten how to curse. But as he faced the black hole blooming from the heart of the anti-curvature blast, and watched the desperate warship attempt a blind jump, he let out a string of profanities that would have made a space pirate blush. In the microsecond before the high-dimensional light warped his reality into nothingness, his mind flashed back to his academy days—specifically to the "spoiled brat" who had shared his dorm and delighted in stabbing him in the back. *What was that pampered little ingrate’s name again?* Ji Yeran lost consciousness before the name could surface. When he awoke, he found that the black hole had spat him back ten years into the past. The insufferable "poison gas bomb" known as Hill had not yet infested his life. Driven by a profound sense of self-preservation and a literal allergy to Hill’s presence, Ji Yeran had immediately fled the Capital Planet. He knew his departure was exactly what his cousin—the future Marshal Ji Wei—wanted. *I’ll say it a thousand times,* Ji Yeran thought, rubbing his nose in irritation. *I have zero interest in my cousin’s partner. None. Zilch. Can those two just stay the hell away from me?* To Ji Yeran, the combination of Hill and Ji Wei was like pairing rotten eggs with ammonia—a toxic blend he had no intention of breathing ever again. *** **GLOSSARY OF NEW TERMS**