Time: Summer, C.E. 57
Seven years and three months old, Nangong Wentian crouched in a corner of the back kitchen, his three months of painstaking labor laid out before him.
A hand-soldered motherboard, densely packed with various chips—CPU, memory, controller, interface chips. A second-hand screen salvaged from a flea market, its frame cracked but the display panel still intact. A storage device cobbled together from a scrapped hard drive, containing all the data he had accumulated over the past six months. And a tangled mess of wires connecting it all together.
Today was the day for the first boot-up of the "Star Core" system.
Xiao Guang crouched beside him, holding his breath nervously. At twelve years old, he had witnessed the origin of every single component over these three months—which ones were scavenged from the junkyard, which were bought from the flea market, which ones Wentian had soldered himself. He knew how much effort had gone into these things, and he knew what today meant.
"Wentian," he whispered, "will it work?"
Nangong Wentian didn't answer. He looked at the pathetically crude "system" before him, unsure himself.
Every component was dug out of the trash; each chip could be faulty, every solder joint could be problematic. In theory, it should work. But between theory and reality lay a chasm of countless failures.
But he had to try.
"Power," he said softly.
Xiao Guang immediately plugged the old power supply into the socket.
Nangong Wentian pressed the power switch.
The screen lit up.
Not with a normal display, but with a chaotic scattering of light points—unstable signal. Nangong Wentian frowned and began adjusting the trimmer capacitors on the circuit board.
The light points flickered a few times, gradually stabilizing into lines of scrolling characters.
BOOT LOADER V0.1
DETECTING HARDWARE..
CPU: Z80 @ 4MHz - OK
RAM: 32KB - OK
STORAGE: 512KB - OK
DISPLAY: 128x64 - OK
LOADING OS..
Xiao Guang couldn't understand the English, but he understood what appeared on the screen—"There are words! Wentian, look, there are words!"
Nangong Wentian didn't answer, his entire focus fixed on the screen.
LOADING COMPLETE.
SYSTEM READY.
_
A cursor blinked in the upper left corner of the screen, awaiting input.
It worked.
The system he built with his own hands, worked.
Nangong Wentian stared at that blinking cursor, his eyes growing slightly warm. Seven years of waiting, three years of preparation, half a year of soldering and debugging—all of it was worth it.
"Wentian?" Xiao Guang asked worriedly, seeing him lost in thought, "What's wrong? Is there a problem?"
"No," Nangong Wentian took a deep breath, his voice slightly hoarse, "No problem. It succeeded."
Xiao Guang was stunned for a moment, then broke into a wide grin. "It worked? It really worked?!"
"Really."
"Great!" Xiao Guang nearly jumped up, then quickly covered his mouth, lowering his voice in excitement. "It worked, it worked! Wentian, you're amazing!"
Nangong Wentian stared at the blinking cursor on the screen and suddenly remembered something.
There was one more thing he needed to test.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small object wrapped in paper—a memory chip containing the first batch of technical data he had transcribed from his mind: the basic theory of Minovsky Particles from the UC Era.
This was his most important achievement over the past six months. Using the brainwave interface of the "Star Core" prototype—a crude headset made from old headphones—he had slowly "read" the information from his mind and stored it on the chip.
If this step succeeded, he would truly possess an "external brain."
He inserted the chip into a reserved port on the motherboard and typed a command on the keyboard:
LOAD MEMORY_BANK_01
The cursor on the screen blinked a few times, then began scrolling text:
LOADING..
FILE: MF_THEORY_BASIC
SIZE: 128KB
VERIFYING..
VERIFICATION COMPLETE.
CONTENT: Basic Theory of Minovsky Physics from the UC Era
Principles of Particle Generation
Mechanism of I-Field Formation
Theory of Minovsky Craft
Fundamentals of Beam Weapons
LOAD SUCCESSFUL.
Nangong Wentian stared at the lines of English text, his heart pounding like a drum.
It worked.
He had truly stored the knowledge from his mind into this machine pieced together from scrap.
"Wentian," Xiao Guang leaned in, staring at the characters on the screen that he couldn't understand at all. "What is this?"
Nangong Wentian fell silent for a moment, then turned to look at him seriously. "The future."
Xiao Guang was stunned.
He looked at Nangong Wentian, at the glimmer in the seven-year-old's eyes, and suddenly felt that this person was even more remarkable than he had imagined.
"The future..." he murmured, repeating the word.
"Yes." Nangong Wentian pointed at the screen. "This is what will change the world someday."
Xiao Guang didn't fully understand, but he believed every word Nangong Wentian said. He nodded firmly. "Then let's change the world together!"
Nangong Wentian smiled.
Just then, the screen flickered.
The once-stable cursor began to jump, and the characters grew blurry. Nangong Wentian's heart tightened—was it a power fluctuation?
He was about to check when the screen suddenly changed.
All the characters vanished, leaving only a deep, dark black. Then, in the center of the screen, a soft green dot slowly lit up.
The green was gentle, like a distant star or the glow of deep-sea bioluminescence.
Nangong Wentian froze.
He had seen this green light before.
On the night of his transmigration, when his consciousness was fading, the depths of the universe he saw had glowed with this same green light.
"Wentian..." Xiao Guang's voice trembled slightly. "What is that?"
Nangong Wentian didn't answer. He stared at the green light, his heart pounding fiercely.
The green light flickered a few times, then the screen returned to its normal interface, the cursor continuing to blink as if nothing had happened.
But Nangong Wentian knew it wasn't an illusion.
The green light that flashed when the "Star Core" system activated was the same as the green light he saw when he crossed over.
What did that mean?
He didn't know. But he had a vague feeling that the secret behind his arrival in this world might be more complicated than he had imagined.
"Wentian?" Xiao Guang tugged at his sleeve worriedly, seeing him lost in thought. "Are you okay?"
Nangong Wentian snapped back to reality and shook his head. "I'm fine."
He took a deep breath, pushing aside those chaotic thoughts for now. This wasn't the time to dwell on them. The most important thing right now was—
He looked at the screen and typed another command:
SAVE SYSTEM LOG
The screen displayed:
LOG SAVED.
SYSTEM RUNNING.
"Done." He stood up, looking at the crude system before him. "From today on, it's our partner."
Xiao Guang blinked. "Does it have a name?"
Nangong Wentian thought for a moment and said softly, "Star Core."
"Star Core..." Xiao Guang repeated it a few times, then grinned. "Sounds nice! Star Core! From now on, I'll call it Little Star!"
Nangong Wentian smiled too.
Outside the window, the chirping of summer night insects rose and fell. Moonlight streamed through the window into the back kitchen, falling on the crude machine piled with parts.
The cursor on the screen was still blinking, like a tiny star.
It was the first star of "Star Core," and the first step toward changing their world.
Xiao Guang suddenly remembered something. "Wentian, that green light just now... has it appeared before?"
Nangong Wentian's heart stirred as he looked at him. "You remember?"
"Yeah," Xiao Guang nodded. "Once, you woke up in the middle of the night, saying you saw a green light. Another time, you said there was a green light on the screen... Was it the same as the one just now?"
Nangong Wentian fell silent for a moment, then nodded. "The same."
"What is it?"
"I don't know," Nangong Wentian admitted honestly. "But we'll find out eventually."
Xiao Guang thought for a moment, then said earnestly, "Whatever it is, we'll face it together."
Nangong Wentian looked at him, warmth swelling in his heart.
In this world, he wasn't alone.
He had a brother, a partner, and "Star Core."
That was enough.
"Alright," he said softly. "We'll face it together."
Outside the window, the moon slowly rose, its silver light spreading across the land.
In the back kitchen, two children stood guard over a crude machine, watching the blinking cursor on the screen as if gazing into an infinite future.