Luo felt she hadn't been this happy or relaxed in a long, long time.
She took a very long vacation, something that hadn't happened in nearly a hundred years. While she temporarily set aside her research project, she also let go of the headache-inducing management tasks, the mountain of troubles in commercial routes, those difficult clients, and the ever-tense nerves.
In a daze, she felt as if she had distanced herself from those life-threatening "border relics" and forbidden knowledge, as if she had never even encountered them. She felt she had returned to her childhood days of studying, watching stars next to the old, dilapidated astronomical observatory on her remote home planet. She remembered a Terra scholar passing by and giving her a seed collected from Meira-IX's mountains. She planted it in the open space beside the observatory, and during the flowing cloud season, the exotic flower seeds would bloom brightly, shining like stars at night...
