"Captain, I received the message from the other party."

"Don't answer, just move forward full speed."

At this point, no matter what the other party is doing, Zhou Heng cannot stop.

In order to stay away from each other, the price humans have paid has been too high.

So even if the other party knelt down to pray for them, Zhou Heng would not pay them any attention.

Seeing that Natural Selection did not reply to their message, the other party's spacecraft sent three more messages in succession.

Then, after discovering that there was really no sign of reply from the Natural Selection account, he changed his tone and sent a threatening message.

In this message, the identity of the other party has changed again.

"This is the Doman Empire Business Federation. The unknown civilization ahead, hand over your civilization information and accept the blessing of the Doman Empire. The Doman Empire will ensure your safety, otherwise you will be listed as a hostile civilization by the Doman Empire."

Zhou Heng simply ignored the other party's threatening information.

He didn't care what kind of civilization the other party said the Doman Empire was, or how powerful it was.

In terms of conventional power, those who can't even catch up with their natural selection number probably won't have a very high civilization level.

Seeing that the other party could use cosmic strings to accelerate, Zhou Heng judged that the other party only had the technology of the peak of a second-level civilization at most.

As long as it is not a third-level civilization, Zhou Heng is not worried.

Under Zhou Heng's deliberate silence, the distance between Natural Selection and the other party became farther and farther.

Under the monitoring of gravitational wave detectors, the distance between the two sides continues to increase.

Under this situation, the Natural Selection sailed cautiously for another year. After making many turns, it was found that there was indeed no problem.

Only then did Zhou Heng announce that the entire ship had lifted the state of emergency and returned to normal.

At the same time, work began to wake up the next batch of crew members.

Counting the time, this group of crew members has been holding on for four years and has completed two awakenings.

Zhou Heng knew that this group of crew members had reached their inner limits and needed to leave their posts to rest as soon as possible.

The wake-up procedure was quickly initiated, and the next batch of crew members was quickly awakened.

Although tired, this group of crew members still carefully took care of the emotions of the newly awakened crew members.

What they have experienced in the past four years has been too tense and exciting. For the sake of the new crew members, everyone is careful.

Zhou Heng's replacement was Zhang Yuan, whom Zhou Heng had met before.

This was specially arranged by Zhou Heng.

Zhang Yuan is one of the few scholar-type captains in the entire ship.

He is not only the captain, but also the person with the highest academic level on the ship besides Zhou Heng.

Zhou Heng only inherited part of the scientific and technological information of the Trisolaran world.

Zhou Heng himself is not a scientific researcher.

But Zhang Yuan was different. All his knowledge was learned by himself relying on the teaching materials left by Zhou Heng.

He is a true scientific research talent.

Although this encounter was thrilling, Zhou Heng was still determined to record all the gravity data of the opponent's fleet and all other detectable information during his embarrassing escape.

Zhou Heng hopes that Zhang Yuan can use these data to derive some basic theoretical models of the gravity propulsion engine.

With these data, Zhou Heng believes that Zhang Yuan can calculate some information and lay a good foundation for the development of the gravity propulsion engine, because he is a true genius.

At the same time, Zhou Heng also stipulated that until the gravitational propulsion engine is developed, the spacecraft is prohibited from approaching the cosmic strings.

This time was a profound lesson.

Natural Selection paid a heavy price for this.

The loss of dozens of tons of material and multiple diversions resulted in an extra nine months of sailing time.

"Captain Zhou."

As the captain, Zhang Yuan woke up immediately and informed him of the information.

In the command room, Zhou Heng looked at Zhang Yuan who was floating over and showed an apologetic look.

"Sorry for waking you up at this time."

Zhang Yuan shook his head. He already knew Zhou Heng's purpose of waking him up: "This is my responsibility. For the continuation of human civilization, I have no shirking responsibility."

Zhou Heng nodded, and then asked Zhang Yuan sincerely: "You are the most talented person here. Please do it for our future."

"Don't worry, leave it to me." Zhang Yuan nodded solemnly.

Zhou Heng was reassured by Zhang Yuan's guarantee.

After explaining this matter, Zhou Hengyou explained other aspects.

The first is the problem of the No. 3 steering engine.

In order to have a more intuitive concept, Zhou Heng took Zhang Yuan directly to the scene.

The damaged area has been repaired, but due to the lack of support from the No. 3 steering engine, this is still a high-risk area.

So Zhou Heng transformed this area.

Transform this place into a small hatch.

Access from here makes it easier to repair extravehicular equipment in this area.

After putting on their spacesuits, Zhou Heng and Zhang Yuan walked out of the hatch one after another and came to the original steering engine space No. 3.

This is a huge hole.

Behind the two people, several security personnel stood ready, staring at them nervously, ready to rescue them at any time if there was any trouble.

"This is where the No. 3 engine is located. Because of my negligence, dozens of tons of material were lost." Zhou Heng's voice was a little low.

"It's not your fault."

Zhang Yuan tried to comfort Zhou Heng.

Zhou Heng shook his head: "I didn't bring you here just for you to comfort me."

"Look."

Zhou Heng reached out and touched the aging bulkhead.

"The Natural Selection has been sailing for thousands of years. It is old and its body will have problems at any time. This is normal."

"You can rest assured that during my tenure, I will conduct an in-depth investigation of the entire ship."

Zhou Heng nodded with satisfaction: "With your words, I feel relieved."

"Starting from you, every round in the future will require an all-round inspection of the polarity of the entire ship."

"Don't be afraid of the consumption of materials."

"Compared with the losses caused by the accident, these consumptions are not of the same magnitude at all."

Afterwards, Zhou Heng took Zhang Yuan outside the cabin to take a look at the direction of the culprit that caused their heavy losses.

They couldn't see each other in the endless deep sky, but both Zhou Heng and Zhang Yuan knew that there was the biggest enemy in the history of human civilization.

Although it was just a meeting, not even a meeting, just a pursuit for several years, Zhou Heng and Zhang Yuan both understood.

They have already become enemies with the Doman Empire.

Through these years of observation, Zhou Heng understood that this universe is different from the Trisolaran world. It is not so dark and does not have such a deep chain of suspicion. Various civilizations can coexist peacefully.

Even interstellar trade should be common in the galaxy.

Zhou Heng deduced that behind everything, there should be a super civilization to maintain this basically peaceful scene.

There must be some kind of area that is relatively safe.

He speculated that the interstellar trading market should be a safe zone established by super civilization.

But even a super civilization cannot monitor everything in the galaxy all the time, so if it goes outside the scope of the trading market, it should be considered as leaving the safe zone.

So based on this, a limited chain of suspicion was born.

The limited chain of suspicion is the chain of suspicion that arises under the background that super civilization cannot monitor everything in the galaxy at all times.

Just like them, even though it was just a meeting, after the two sides became enemies, they were afraid of the technological explosion of human civilization.

Therefore, the Doman Empire will definitely try its best to find human civilization and then destroy it to protect itself.

So they were only temporarily free from danger. Danger will be everywhere in the future voyage.

"The gravitational wave detector is a top priority and must be kept on at all times."

"Before we reach Kepler 22b and carry out civilizational leap development, we must ensure our stealth and must not expose our coordinates."
Chapter completed!