The years of sailing were uneventful. In the blink of an eye, the spaceship had flown for two thousand years.

During the two thousand years, Zhou Heng woke up several times.

The overall condition of the spacecraft is generally good. Apart from the gradual replacement of some old equipment, there have been no major problems.

All parts of the weapon system were also completed during the 1,320th year of the voyage.

It was assembled during a prosperous period of fourteen hundred years.

Since then, the crew of the Natural Selection has had a glimmer of safety.

It's just that this guarantee only existed for six hundred years before it was ruthlessly broken.

During the boom of the second millennium, an alien spacecraft passed by Natural Selection.

The closest distance between the two sides is an astonishing 0.1 light-years.

In the vast universe, this distance is equivalent to the Natural Selection hitting the opponent's face directly.

Fortunately, the captain at the time was calm in the face of danger and immediately ordered to turn off the active detection equipment of the deep space detector, and the entire ship remained silent.

Just like that, in the eyes of everyone on the ship, the opponent sailed past the left side of the Natural Selection at a speed of 75% of the speed of light.

Just when everyone on the Natural Selection just breathed a sigh of relief, after the two sides crossed paths, the other party sent a message to the Natural Selection.

Since then, deciphering this information has become the most important task of the entire ship.

It's just that the deciphering work is more difficult than imagined, and the algorithms used are far beyond human cognition.

The only thing that is certain now is that what the other party sent may be a dictionary and a paragraph.

The slow progress of deciphering continued for hundreds of years before it was finally deciphered.

During this period, Natural Selection encountered several alien spacecraft one after another.

Their sailing speed is generally more than fifty percent of the speed of light.

This made the crew members who were awake at the time live in anxiety every day, fearing that they would be targeted that day.

Fortunately, this didn't happen.

In the 2320th year, this is the seventh time Zhou Heng wakes up.

After reading the latest captain's log, Zhou Heng frowned.

In just a few hundred years, they encountered four spacecraft. The most recent one even reached an astonishing distance of 0.075 light-years.

This is very abnormal. The universe is so big. Logically speaking, it is impossible for them to encounter so many alien spacecraft so frequently.

But the fact is that they not only encountered them, but also encountered many of them.

"Are we at a crossroads in the galaxy?"

"We have no way of knowing this issue yet." Captain Liu, who handed over to Zhou Heng, shook his head.

"But it may be different for you. Judging from the progress of the deciphering work, the deciphering work will be completed in a few months."

"That's why it's important to wake you up during this period."

"It's the first time I've received information from an alien civilization. I'm really looking forward to what it says. It's a pity that I couldn't see it right away. This thing has been bothering me for two years. I hope it's not bad news."

With some regret, Captain Liu handed over to Zhou Heng.

The handover process went smoothly, and this was Zhou Heng's seventh time performing the captain's mission.

Everything was running smoothly until three months later.

"Information deciphering has been completed and is being output. The output is completed."

"Brush~"

The screen in front of Zhou Heng was instantly filled with a large amount of text.

Zhou Heng secretly thought, it is indeed a dictionary, a dictionary of the universal language of the Galaxy.

Throwing out the dictionary part, the real message sent by the alien civilization is very short, only one sentence.

"This is the Abby Civilization Galaxy Fast Track construction ship. You have entered the fast channel. Please be careful to avoid incoming and outgoing ships. The fee for using this channel is 1 Kerbal Point per year."

(System prompt, translation reason, time uses human civilization unit time.)

After reading this sentence, Zhou Heng was slightly disappointed but also relieved.

The information I had been waiting for for hundreds of years turned out to be just a safety reminder. Although it was hard to accept, it was not bad news after all.

Zhou Heng could also relax a little bit.

At this point Zhou Heng finally figured out one thing.

That's why so many alien spacecraft have been encountered over hundreds of years.

It turns out that they broke into a galactic highway.

After uploading this information to the spacecraft's internal network for everyone to view, Zhou Heng fell into a new problem.

That's where the "pavement" of this highway is.

Since it is a fast track, it will definitely be different compared to other places.

But in hundreds of years of navigation, Natural Selection has not detected any abnormal conditions in this space.

This shows that the fast lane built by the other party must be based on the conventional cognition of human beings.

This made Zhou Heng think of something, that is gravity.

Zhou Heng once fantasized about using the pull of gravity to achieve fast navigation.

But it is a pity that the research on gravitational waves by humans in the Trisolaran Universe is only detection, and there is no relevant propulsion system technology.

So this is just Zhou Heng's fantasy.

Thinking of this, Zhou Heng immediately called the crew responsible for maintaining the gravitational wave detector.

"Start the gravitational wave detector immediately."

In order to extend the service life of the equipment, the gravitational wave detector is usually turned off.

"Received Captain, the gravitational wave detector has been activated."

"Scan all areas within a 50 AU radius."

"Scanning begins."

Zhou Zheng crossed his arms and stood in front of the screen, waiting for the scanning results of the gravitational wave detector.

Zhou Heng was not kept waiting for too long, and the scan results came out quickly.

"This is…"

Under the observation of the detector, numerous cosmic strings are distributed around Natural Selection.

Zhou Heng looked at the cosmic strings on the screen in shock.

On the screen in the command room, with the universe as the background, intermittent cosmic strings were distributed in the space around Natural Selection, forming an unusually wide line with no end in sight.

"This is the true face of the Galaxy Express."

What a generous move~

Zhou Heng sighed.

The difficulties involved in making cosmic strings and placing them at designated locations are beyond the imagination of humans.

Not to mention other things, Zhou Heng couldn't figure out the principle of creating cosmic strings.

But the strange thing is that a civilization that can build such a high-speed channel must have a very high level of civilization, and this civilization must have mastered the curvature engine technology.

And with a civilization with this kind of technology, why would it waste massive resources to build a fast lane that it doesn’t need?

This point puzzled Zhou Heng.

The only thing that can answer Zhou Heng's doubts should be the Kerbal points.

That is definitely a point that even advanced civilizations need.

Zhou Heng guessed that it should be a common currency in the galaxy.

It seems that in addition to reaching Kepler 22b, the voyage log will also be on the agenda to find a trading market in the Milky Way.

Only by finding the trading market in the galaxy can we have a deeper understanding of the current situation in the galaxy and plan for the future of mankind.

But these are things for the future. The most important thing now is to keep Natural Selection away from this fast track.

Being on this fast track, it is too easy to encounter various alien civilizations.

Fortunately, their destination, Kepler 22b, is not within the scope of this fast lane.

And after hundreds of years of sailing, they have gradually begun to deviate from this channel.

It is expected that in five years, with the current deflection angle, we will be able to move away from this channel.

It can also be seen from this that the scope of this fast lane is far wider than human imagination.
Chapter completed!