001 Game_2

After playing the game for half a year, Bai Zhongqi had established the Iridium Star United Empire in the game, which now occupied 171 stellar systems, had 205 administrative planets, and possessed a massive fleet that was second to none in the Galaxy, along with extremely impressive technological capabilities. It was at this point that the game truly started to reveal its charm. Despite having so many planets and units, the game still ran quite fast, and Bai Zhongqi was still able to occasionally find interesting things within the game, including exploration of outer space, novel and fascinating universe civilizations, and some events within the Empire.

Bai Zhongqi, who was quite patient, kept playing. The vast Galaxy had hundreds of billions of stars, and it was perhaps unlikely that Bai Zhongqi could dominate the Galaxy entirely like the name of the game suggested in his lifetime. However, Bai Zhongqi was curious and wanted to know when he would get tired of playing this game.

After defeating the Spiral Mosquito civilization, the people of Iridium Star had no rivals left in their star region. Bai Zhongqi, who preferred a farming style, continuously expanded the territories of the United Empire, establishing Iridium Star colonies on one habitable planet after another. He dispatched numerous exploration fleets to search for new stellar systems that were worthy of colonization or development. This was a very exciting activity for him because nobody knew where these exploration fleets would go, what civilizations they would encounter, and what stories would occur.

Even though the exploration missions had been conducted hundreds of times, surprises kept appearing, which made Bai Zhongqi look forward to the next surprise being even bigger.

"Ding, Chancellor, I regret to inform you that the R19 exploration fleet dispatched by the Empire lost contact with the mother star after traversing an unfamiliar wormhole. We pay silent tribute to the brave soldiers and pioneers of the Empire."

Seeing this system prompt, Bai Zhongqi felt a bit intrigued. He opened the fleet panel, and sure enough, one fleet was missing from the exploration fleet lineup. Of course, this was just a minor part of the Iridium Star United Empire's massive interstellar fleet. Although it included a main battle ship made with the Empire's latest technology, for Bai Zhongqi, even main battle ships were just expendable items. In the previous major battle with Spiral Mosquito, the Iridium Star United Empire had lost more than three hundred main battle ships over two hundred planetary years and even lost a Titan-class ship. Of course, the Spiral Mosquito suffered greater losses, as their entire civilization was destroyed, over two thousand main battle ships were annihilated, and hundreds eventually became Iridium Star's spoils of war, most of which were dismantled.

Bai Zhongqi had seen ships being sunk by enemy fleets, encountering space astronomical disasters, and even being looted by interstellar pirates, but he had never encountered a case where contact with the mother star was simply lost. It should be noted that before the early stages of the Spiral Mosquito war, Bai Zhongqi had already unlocked the quantum communication technology tree for the United Empire. Massive amounts of information and intelligence were transmitted in the state of quantum entanglement across the universe. Regardless of the distance in light years, there was synchronous transmission of information between sender and receiver, with no time delay or situations where communication could not be established. It was because of this technology that the Iridium Star United Empire could govern hundreds of stellar systems and tens of thousands of different colonies more stably.

Bai Zhongqi curiously made some inquiries, but he had no leads, and no further events were triggered, so he gradually lost interest.

Just then, the doorbell at Bai Zhongqi's home rang.

Bai Zhongqi frowned, feeling uneasy. As someone who preferred staying inside, he didn't like strangers coming to his door. The loud sound of the doorbell could startle him while he was deeply engaged in gaming or writing papers. In this neighborhood, people who usually rang the doorbell were either missionaries from the "God and Science" Church Salvation Army, politicians asking for votes during elections, or salespeople selling all sorts of junk.

Of course, it could also be the delivery guy.

Bai Zhongqi jumped up from his swivel chair and walked to the living room to open the door. The moment he opened the door, he somewhat regretted how slovenly he was dressed. Bai Zhongqi was not exactly thin, belonging to the slightly overweight category. Although he didn't have a big belly, his broad and even figure made him look rather soft. His overly casual, semi-long hair had no particular style. He wore an old t-shirt that had a stain he couldn't wash out on his stomach, along with equally baggy shorts with a Batman pattern, and a pair of flip-flops...

If it weren't for Bai Zhongqi's fair skin and somewhat delicate facial features, there was nothing else about his appearance that was noteworthy.

Had he been facing just any delivery guy or a Democratic candidate, Bai Zhongqi wouldn't have cared much about his looks. But standing before him was his goddess, the younger female student living next door whom he had been secretly in love with for a year.

Bai Zhongqi felt ashamed of himself for good reason. The girl next door, even though dressed very casually, could not hide her beauty. Her height was around 1.68 meters — not too tall, not too short — but her body proportions were exceptionally good. Wearing fairly short sports shorts, her straight, pale legs were right before his eyes. She wore an oversized t-shirt, which looked very fitting on her and even a bit lazy. The loose shirt tightened slightly at her chest, revealing an indescribable curve, and Bai Zhongqi couldn't help but notice. Her pretty face made Bai Zhongqi, a man not too young and with a bit of romantic experience, have his heart beat faster.