Superstars of Tomorrow

On the first Memorial Day after Baiji military district had been established, the entire military district was in upheaval.

On the night of Memorial Day, well-informed people more or less received the news, but the majority were still in the dark. Only on the second day, when the news was spread, did they find out that the military district had arrested a gang of ore thieves last night and that the ore the thieves had nearly made away with was worth 10 billion!

For most people, this was already a very large quantity and extremely costly.

"Were they caught last night? I didn’t hear any activity."

"I didn’t hear anything either. They were probably prepared so it didn’t disrupt everyone’s celebrations."

"Nonsense. If they made a lot of noise, how would they have caught the perpetrators? They are still catching others right now!"

"I heard that even the mecha-troops were deployed!"

"What? What background do these perpetrators have? Terrorists? To think that mecha-troops were deployed!"

"I heard that a number of people were caught."

"Let’s wait and see. They still have to catch some more people. To steal that much ore, only a few people can accomplish that. With a rigorous investigation, some people are going to get really unlucky."

"Our military district’s prison will have a use this time."

At dawn, when Fang Zhao returned to the family district, he heard a number of people discussing this matter.

Originally, he had been scheduled to end his shift at noon, but because of the mining area’s strict investigation, Shanta and his subordinates had acted and implemented other actions, allowing Fang Zhao to return early.

As the person in charge of the mining area, ever since Major General Edmund had appeared last night, nobody had returned home and had instead investigated through the night, simply not giving those people any chance to forge data or cover their traces.

Even now, the investigative inquiry was continuing, and Edmund and a few other important personnel of the mining areas had gone over to give Shanta a report. As before, they were met with a round of Shanta’s spittle on their faces.

Inside the prison.

The mine thieves that were detained inside looked extremely exhausted. They didn’t feel like saying anything. They had already been interrogated numerous times, and now their leader had not yet returned, so the others were wondering if their boss was undergoing some cruel punishment.

The thought of torture made them tremble uncontrollably.

At the moment, one of the perpetrators sitting on the floor was pondering. They had planned and made preparations for half a year, had taken advantage of Memorial Day when many people were in festive moods to make their move, and had found everything was going smoothly. What exactly had gone wrong?

He made an effort to calm himself down and carefully recalled every step of their plan and realized that the part where they were most likely to have screwed up was the part where they were getting the third stamp, when they were at the guard post.

Now he recalled the person at the guard post wishing them a "Happy Memorial Day."

Simply venomous!

The guard had even wished them a happy Memorial Day. On Memorial Day next year, it would be the one-year anniversary of their time in prison!

Yes, it had definitely gone wrong there!

The more he thought about it, the more he reckoned this was the case.

But who was the person who had helped them stamp their passes? Was it Lu Yan?

When he tried remembering the guard’s voice, it sounded a little different.

If it was not Lu Yan, then who was it that had substituted for Lu Yan?

As he thought about it, their boss, who had been dragged out for interrogations, returned. He did not seem to be in good shape, but there were no visible wounds or injuries on him.

"How was it? Did they use violence?" a few people asked.

Following this question, the man who had just entered flew into a rage and sent a fist flying into an asker’s face, dislodging a few of his teeth.

"Are you a f*cking moron!? Why didn’t you properly check who was manning the guard post before we went to get our passes stamped? For the third stamp, the person there wasn’t Lu Yan, it was Fang Zhao, that Fang Zhao! The Fang Zhao with the rumored godlike hearing ability! He clearly could hear that there was something wrong with you guys! Just a bit more, and we were actually foiled at that step!"

In the small cell, the loud roaring was earsplitting, but the other seven weren’t bothered by this. Rather, they were shocked by the bit of information their boss had brought back.

Fang Zhao?

That Fang Zhao who had many rumors about him?

Why would he have appeared at that place?

They had surveyed and made careful plans before the operation. They had investigated Lu Yan and had caused some trouble for Lu Yan so that he would be distracted. Never had they expected that Lu Yan would actually get Fang Zhao to replace him!

For the three stamps, the process of obtaining them was in decreasing difficulty, with the first having the most stringent checks. It could even be said that the third stamp was nothing more than a straightforward process that would have no problems. They had never expected that a problem would occur at the easiest part of their plan!

Was that Fang Zhao just like how the rumors had described him, being able to detect truths and lies and everything else just from his hearing?

These were the thoughts of the eight people locked up in the prison and everyone else who knew about this matter. In their hearts, Fang Zhao’s ears had already achieved divine status.

Shanta had said it himself: Fang Zhao’s godlike ears had rendered a great service in this incident.

Shanta was being rueful. He had not expected that his subordinates would take his words and overly visualize it. However, Shanta did not pay much attention to how his subordinates evaluated Fang Zhao’s ears. Following the interrogation results of these eight and their investigation results, another bunch of people were caught.

Shanta was very pleased with the arrests. After strict investigations, those that deserved to be imprisoned should be thrown in jail!

Because of Shanta’s attitude here, parties trying to secretly pull tricks in the mining areas curbed themselves.

Fang Zhao had no idea his ears were the topic of discussion. After returning to the family district for a bit, he went to the hospital to visit Lu Yan and Lu Yan’s wife as well as their new daughter who had been born on Memorial Day.

Lu Yan was very grateful. "Thank you, Fang Zhao! This time, I really cannot thank you enough!"

Today, after hearing about the incident at the mining district, Lu Yan felt extremely glad. Fortunately, he had managed to find Fang Zhao to relieve him. If he had been the one manning the post yesterday, perhaps as those perpetrators had predicted, because of him being preoccupied with his wife’s impending birth, he might have hurriedly checked through their papers and given them the stamp.

If that had really been the case and the matter of the theft of five tons of grade A power ore were revealed, the progression in his military career might have come to a halt then and there.

Lu Yan even suspected that his wife’s mishaps had been purposely done by those ore thieves. Whether that was really the case, he would investigate it personally!

When he thought about that possibility, a hint of anger flashed across his eyes. However, when he heard Fang Zhao asking about his newborn daughter, warm tenderness returned to his eyes.

"Hahaha, my little baby is healthy and very beautiful. She is named An Ke 1 . Hopefully she has a safe and peaceful future! Come take a look, isn’t she cute?"

Fang Zhao looked at the baby wrapped up in infant clothes, and a smile unconsciously appeared on his face. "Really cute."

Lu Yan appeared a little stiff hugging his child. He was about to hand it over to the nurse beside him when he pause and pondered for a moment. He faced Fang Zhao and made a gesture to hand his child over.

"Hey, benefactor, come and hold her."

Fang Zhao: "..."

"Like this, like this. place your hands here to support her. Hey, don’t learn from me. I’m also a newbie. Look! You see that nurse over there? Just hold her the way the nurse does."

Lu Yan corrected Fang Zhao’s posture from the side as he jokingly said to his wife beside him, "Look at all these little youngsters. They are just so nervous. Look at how tensed up he is, just like a rock. He is even more nervous than me."

Fang Zhao was completely rigid from head to toe. Looking at the little thing in his hands, he could not help but feel all tense.

He had used guns and fought battles, he could compose just by picking up a pen. He could play games well and could drift while driving, but when he held a baby in his arms, this was simply an S-ranked task!

It was rare for the Fang Zhao that was always calm and collected to actually be nervous.

Fang Zhao really had no idea how to handle this sort of frail little creature. In his previous life, he had seen many newborns but had not had much contact with them. He always felt that these newborn lives were too frail. He was used to fighting beasts, but handling little beings like these, he was really not accustomed to it.

Fang Zhao held the little life in his arms as it was bathed with warm light. With his hearing ability, he could hear the soft breathing of the infant circulating around his ears.

Watching her sleep peacefully in his arms, Fang Zhao did not feel calm at all inside. It was as though the sounds of a violin’s strings being drawn and the striking of piano keys were resounding in his head like a flowing stream.

This was a child born on planet Baiji. She would start her life on planet Baiji.

Perhaps she would be different from children growing up on Earth. She might be bolder and have to face even more challenges, but her pace would get more steadfast as she grew older, and the paths she took would get wider and wider. Her parents hoped that she would have a safe and peaceful life, and Fang Zhao also hoped that her future would be warm and radiant.

Luckily, Lu Yun was uneasy letting Fang Zhao hold his child for too long and took her and handed his daughter over to the nurse.

At this point, Fang Zhao exhaled a large breath of air.

This manner of his was joked about for a while by Lu Yan. However, it was all in the name of fun. Just before Fang Zhao left, Lu Yun and his wife once again sincerely thanked Fang Zhao from the bottom of their hearts, thanking Fang Zhao for substituting for Lu Yun and helping them foil a disaster and for all he had done for Baiji military district.

After bidding the couple farewell, Fang Zhao went downstairs but did not leave right away. Instead, he went behind the hospital to the garden and sat down. This little garden was where patients and family members could stroll around. Fang Zhao sat on a bench at the corner, took out the notebook he always kept with him, and started writing at a tremendous speed.

A nurse who was wheeling a patient on a wheelchair passed by and noticed the strange person seated there and made a mental note.

The person’s head was hanging down, so his appearance could not be seen clearly. However, the nurse could see that the page his paper notebook was flipped to was filled with many scribbles, but she could not understand a single one.

She had not meant to pry into another’s secrets and only had given a passing glance to clear her doubts.

Today, the hospital had received news. The head nurse had informed everyone to maintain a high vigilance and take precautions against any abnormal situations. This nurse felt her heart beating faster as she quickened her pace, and after wheeling away the patient, she immediately contacted the hospital’s security team.

"I just spotted a suspicious person, and he was writing in some strange language or perhaps a secret code!"

The moment the security team heard this situation, they went on high alert.

Today, the entire base was in upheaval. Last night, the security chief had been called over for a meeting regarding the situation and had brought his team to guard the hospital for the entire night. Shanta wanted to catch the thieves, so the security team needed to maintain guard in case certain people tried anything funny. As such, the security chief had not managed to rest one bit. Now that the perpetrators had mostly been caught, the chief could relax a little and had intended to take a nap.

He had barely shut his eyes when he heard that a suspicious person had appeared at the hospital. All hints of sleepiness were gone and he sprang up, overflowing with killing intent.

"Where is the suspicious person? These sorts of people deserve to be taught a lesson. If we don’t beat them up and throw them in jail, they won’t learn! Look, I’m not..."

"Chief!" A security team member had a strange expression on his face.

Having been interrupted, the security chief was not happy. "Speak!" This was definitely not him being grouchy from being woken up.

The security team member used his fingers to bring up a screen. "From the nurse’s information of the person’s position, I have already adjusted the surveillance cameras to target that area. However, Chief, the person captured on camera seems a little familiar. Is there some sort of misunderstanding here?"

"Misunderstanding?"

The security chief took large strides over and glanced at the image displayed on the screen.

"Isn’t this, this, this... This is Fang Zhao!"

"I thought so too," the security team member agreed.

Just at that moment, Fang Zhao seemed to sense something and looked up toward the camera, letting the entire security team see his face.

"It really is him!" The security chief’s inner rage was completely extinguished.

After looking straight at the surveillance camera, Fang Zhao dropped his head back down and continued writing at a tremendous speed.

"Cough, inform that nurse not to go and disturb Fang Zhao. I reckon that little fella is composing tunes." The security chief scratched his head and decided to return to his nap.

They all knew that Fang Zhao could spread out his notebook and write song scores in a weird code that nobody understood anytime and anywhere. When they saw this behavior, they found it odd but understandable. After all, he dabbled in art.

All of them knew about Fang Zhao’s quirks and had been informed by the top that should they encounter this sort of situation, unless it was an urgent matter, they should not disturb Fang Zhao. After all, Fang Zhao could also be considered a benefactor to all the stationed troops on Baiji base and they should not disrupt this composer’s flow of inspiration.

Over at the hospital, that nurse who had kept watching vigilantly from a distance did not see any security team coming over to catch the suspect, but she did receive a call from the security team asking her and her colleagues not to disturb that person.

What the hell?

Normally, the security team were efficient. Why were they terrified this time?

The young security team member patiently explained, "You are new and might not know him, so it’s fine."

The nurse was curious. "Who is he?"

"That is Fang Zhao."

"...Which Fang Zhao?’

"Which other Fang Zhao is there in our military district—no, I should say ’on planet Baiji’."

"Oh, oh, oh... oh it’s him, huh... Sorry, I didn’t see his face. I didn’t know that was Fang Zhao." The rookie nurse was red in the face and felt ashamed. "But why is he seated there, and what is he writing?"

"You wouldn’t believe me, but he is composing."

Nurse: "..."