Looking into Feng Zhixi’s eyes, which sparkled like a sea of stars, Ji Yeran couldn’t help but smile. He let out a helpless sigh, silently hoping the Executive Officer’s heart was strong enough to handle what was coming.
The Executive Officer, whom Ji Yeran held in such high regard, was currently nursing a massive headache—all thanks to Emir.
He never would have imagined that this cadet, who looked every bit the disciplined soldier, was actually a master of low-key troublemaking. She had used her own strengths to suggest a layout for the bait, and then used that very opportunity to quietly secure herself a spot among the combat personnel. This Omega cadet was far too clever for her own good!
Emir, who was inexplicably taking the fall for everything, looked on with a dazed expression.
Believing he had been played by Emir, the Executive Officer gave her a long, meaningful look and realized he had to change his plans. Pirates were pirates—dead or alive didn't matter as long as they were caught—but these cadets absolutely could not come to harm.
The Executive Officer rapidly simulated plans in his mind. Excluding the three cadets, the decoy ship’s current boarding combat force was slightly thin, especially since they had to ensure the safety of the two Omegas. He estimated that the large pirate vessel held at least forty men. To be safe, they couldn't opt for a direct boarding confrontation.
If he hadn't dispersed so many personnel into the small external escort craft, they could have proceeded with the boarding operation. After all, pirates with the strength and audacity to conduct deep-space raids were usually high-level criminals.
The high-point, live pirates were about to slip through his fingers.
As the Executive Officer lamented his luck and prepared to contact the rear fleet to order the small escort craft to drop their disguises and counterattack, a voice interrupted him.
"Reporting, sir." Having finished deconstructing the energy strings, Feng Zhixi looked toward the Executive Officer. Under the man’s wary, "what-are-you-up-to-now" gaze, Feng Zhixi calmly opened his portable light-brain and projected a holographic image before everyone.
The hologram displayed the surrounding space. The decoy ship, disguised as a merchant vessel, sat motionless in the vast void. Slightly behind it, the seven or eight small escort craft were also frozen in place.
Beyond this paralyzed convoy, a bizarrely shaped pirate ship was approaching. Its hatches were open, and dozens of mechanical arms were extending toward the merchant ship like grasping talons, ready to seize their prey.
However, the space around the hunter and the prey was not a vacuum. In the hologram, the universe was filled with more than just ships; it was crisscrossed by a multitude of twisted, tangled filaments.
These distorted threads shimmered with a dangerous light, a dense thicket of red and green lines weaving through the stars, enveloping both the hunter and the prey.
The merchant ship, the intended prey, was deathly entangled in ominous red threads. Meanwhile, the pirate ship was surrounded by a green barrier, allowing it to move freely through this hunting ground without being restricted.
The hologram depicted exactly what was happening in the stars outside at that very moment.
The Executive Officer froze upon seeing the projection, but he quickly realized something was wrong. Wait—this was information that only the ship’s main AI should be able to fully grasp. How did a cadet get access to this? What exactly had he done?
The Executive Officer’s brow furrowed deeply. He realized that not a single one of these cadets was the type to follow orders blindly.
At that moment, Feng Zhixi—the cadet the officer deemed "disobedient"—lightly tapped the red threads entangling the ship in the air. He spoke in a persuasive, guiding tone. "Sir, I’ve just decrypted the code for these energy strings. If we use the ship’s simulation signal to alter them, we can capture those pirates alive."
As he spoke, the Omega’s slender fingers flicked a thread. Upon his touch, the red line instantly turned into a clear, unobstructed green, as if he were performing magic.
The Executive Officer was stunned. Then, as Feng Zhixi explained further, he finally understood what the cadet intended to do.
Simply put, the cadet wanted to use the ship’s own simulation device to mimic a specific signal. This boosted signal would confuse the "Spiderweb’s" energy strings, causing them to temporarily lose their ability to distinguish targets. At that point, whoever had the stronger signal would hold the power.
Watching Feng Zhixi’s fluid operations, the Executive Officer was certain this audacious cadet had "secretly" tapped into the ship’s external monitoring system.
These kids were getting bolder by the second, but they certainly had the technical skills to back it up.
Though he grumbled inwardly, the Executive Officer was ultimately swayed by the technical prowess Feng Zhixi displayed. He wasn't a man bound strictly by convention. After a brief calculation of the risks and rewards, he chose to trust the confident cadet for the moment and allowed Feng Zhixi to operate the ship’s simulation and camouflage system.
Of course, even with permission, the Executive Officer remained at his side, keeping a firm grip on the ship’s primary control authority.
Thus, having gained overt control over the simulation system, Feng Zhixi began his "student performance" with grand flair.
The Omega, dressed in his white military uniform with a matching belt cinched tight around his waist, stood before the console. He raised his hand, his slender fingers passing through the massive floating hologram like a magician casting a spell. His fingertips brushed over the energy strings visualized by the light-brain, and in an instant, the reds and greens were inverted.
Following Feng Zhixi’s movements, the red "spider silk" that had been entangling the military ship and its escorts silently turned into a shimmering green. Meanwhile, the green barriers that had allowed the pirate ship to move freely through the ominous red silk transformed into a red cocoon, firmly binding the grotesque, predatory vessel.
At that moment, the pirate ship, still slowly closing in with an oppressive posture, had no idea that their greatest asset had become a trap. They were still savoring the final, dying struggles of their prey.
This "Spiderweb" didn't just use a special magnetic field to stick to "prey"; it could bind, exhaust, and drain them until they lost all ability to resist.
Seeing the energy readings on the merchant ship drop lower and lower until they were nearly depleted, the pirate leader gave the excited command: "Move in!"
At the exact moment the pirate leader gave the order, the "magic trick" Feng Zhixi had been slowly unfolding finally reached its conclusion.
After quietly rewriting the energy string formulas with his "small toolbox," Feng Zhixi had stealthily snatched the invisible spiderweb trap from the enemy’s hands and turned it into his own weapon.
In that heartbeat, the roles of hunter and prey were reversed.
The Executive Officer, who had been watching Feng Zhixi’s every move, saw the "Spiderweb" full of ominous red suddenly shift. The decoy ship was now protected by a green barrier, while the pirate ship was frozen in place just a short distance away. It was now completely shrouded in red filaments, looking like a trapped, multi-limbed monster.
The pirate ship’s mechanical arms hung suspended in the void, unable to get any closer to the merchant ship, as if blocked by an invisible wall.
Now, the pirate ship was exactly like the merchant ship had been moments before—entangled in ominous red "silk." No matter how hard it struggled, it was a prey fallen into a swamp, unable to break free, only able to sink passively into the abyss.
The "Spiderweb" didn't just bind; it drained energy.
Because the pirate ship had been moving at a very low speed to wait for the web to drain the merchant ship’s power, the pirates didn't even notice at first. They didn't realize their ship hadn't slowed down on purpose; rather, it was being weighed down by more and more silk, forcing it to consume massive amounts of energy just to maintain forward momentum.
However, the more a prey in the "Spiderweb" struggles, the more passive it becomes.
By the time the pirate ship finally ground to a halt, its hull was completely covered in dense "silk," looking like a struggling living cocoon. At this point, the pirate ship’s energy had been drained to the point where it could no longer resist the web’s interference. it could only stop, defeated.
Feng Zhixi had calculated the timing perfectly.
Mere access to the ship’s simulation system wouldn't have been enough to rewrite the energy strings of the entire web. To turn the tables so completely, one had to rely on the military ship’s own massive, superior AI analysis system and its enormous power source.
This "Spiderweb" could handle the energy core of an ordinary merchant ship, but it was far from enough to contend with a military vessel powered by Xi Ore.
This was why Xi Ore was so highly sought after: it possessed extreme purity, interference resistance, stable core energy, and powerful drive capabilities. It was something ordinary commercial ships simply couldn't compete with.
The Executive Officer didn't realize what Feng Zhixi had done in the shadows. He assumed this was simply the result of the ship’s powerful simulation system. After all, this was a decoy ship specifically designated by the First Legion’s Fleet Commander—a well-equipped vanguard reconnaissance vessel.
The chosen decoy ship didn't just have a powerful camouflage system and high speed; most importantly, it was equipped with Xi Ore as its core energy source.
Feng Zhixi’s wild creativity, combined with the decoy ship’s naturally superior military AI and the properties of the Xi Ore, made everything fall into place seamlessly.
*Might makes right; strength is the ultimate truth!* The naive Executive Officer thought to himself, taking it all as a matter of course.
Meanwhile, having finished his work and hidden his contributions, Feng Zhixi glanced at Ji Yeran as if to say: *See? I wasn't that excessive. The Executive Officer doesn't even know I hijacked the ship’s main AI long ago.*
Looking into Feng Zhixi’s clear eyes, Ji Yeran chuckled. He shook his head helplessly, ultimately choosing to keep the secret from the Executive Officer.
After all, sometimes it’s better to know less.
It wasn't doing any real harm, right?
The Interstellar Warden felt instantly at peace with this thought, feeling not a shred of guilt for his dereliction of duty.
As for the little criminal being shielded by the Warden—Feng Zhixi—after taking one last quiet stroll through the ship’s main AI, he couldn't help but steal an extra glance at the Xi Ore powering the system.
*Hmm... I’m a little tempted...*
***
Glossary
Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation
---|---|---
溪矿石 | Xi Ore | A high-purity, stable, and powerful energy source used in top-tier military vessels.
星际典狱长 | Interstellar Warden | Ji Yeran's official title/role.
蛛网 | Spiderweb | The name of the energy-string trap used by the pirates.
能量弦 | Energy Strings | The filaments of energy that make up the trap; they mimic black hole physics.
第一军团 | First Legion | The military organization the decoy ship belongs to.
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Starry Rebirth: The Warden and the Outlaw’s Interstellar Revenge | Chapter 46 | Reversing the Web | Novela.app | Novela.app
