A whole day passed quickly amidst busy work.
"Good thing there wasn't much ash to haul today… at least I get to come back and sleep..."
When Lin Lan dragged his utterly exhausted body back to the dorm after unloading the final load of ash, it was already nearing 2 AM.
Old Yang's thunderous snoring echoed throughout the dorm, but Lin Lan was long used to it.
This late at night, he was too lazy to shower—he stripped off his clothes and collapsed onto the bed.
"Let's scroll through some videos before sleeping. Speaking of which, was that at noon just a hallucination… or did I actually encounter a youkai?"
Muttering to himself, Lin Lan plugged in his phone and opened the pink video-sharing site, scrolling through the homepage suggestions.
Even now, though, he felt as if he had forgotten something. A lingering emptiness gnawed at him.
By all rights, he should be doing something he did every day at this hour.
But… What was it?
As his eyelids grew heavier, Lin Lan groggily tapped on a video.
The uploader was a user named "Chuangren Whale," and the video featured a small white-haired fox-eared girl in a blue kimono, grinning mischievously.
"Hiss… why does this character feel so familiar?"
The more Lin Lan watched, the more familiar she seemed.
By the end of the short video, the smirking white-haired fox girl began spinning in a bizarre, distorted loop, causing Lin Lan to chuckle and blurt out:
"What a perfect Great Fox Spin—this Chuangren Whale is bullying Shinano again."
"Wait, Shinano? Shinano… who's Shinano?"
The smile on Lin Lan's face froze as he kept repeating the name.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't figure out why that unfamiliar name had popped into his mind.
Just as he was falling into deep confusion, a soft, ethereal female voice whispered in his ear:
"Commander… Can you hear me?"
Lin Lan immediately dropped his phone and sat up in bed, looking around with wide eyes.
But aside from the soundly sleeping Old Yang, there was no one else.
Where did that voice come from…?
Wait, Commander?
Commander…
"I'm… the Commander?"
Suddenly, a flood of overwhelming data burst open in Lin Lan's mind. He clutched his head in pain, shutting his eyes tight.
"Commander, where are you? I can sense your presence, yet I cannot see you..."
As the gentle voice rang out again, Lin Lan's eyes flew open.
Yes—he remembered.
He was the Commander of his girls in the naval base. He should have the game Azur Lane installed on his phone!
After crossing into another world, he had met the Ironblood shipgirls from the game, and others were still waiting for him to reunite with them...
Until finally, he had been ambushed by an Observer in Yunhai City.
Lin Lan remembered everything.
The silver-haired loli who had brought him lunch at noon wasn't a hallucination—she was the high-level Siren Observer herself, just without her octopus-like ship rigging!
And this wasn't Blue Star either—because Lin Lan remembered: Old Yang, the man sleeping next to him, had died in front of him in a falling rebar accident.
He had even taken leave to attend Old Yang's funeral.
His only real colleague back on Blue Star was long gone.
He also recognized the owner of that voice by her speech—it was Shinano, the Yamato-class aircraft carrier shipgirl from the Sakura Empire.
The powerful Sakura Empire shipgirl who in the game possessed mystical abilities to travel through dreams.
Right now, Shinano should have been in Liaozhou with the other Sakura Empire girls.
If he could hear her voice, that meant he must be dreaming.
It was highly likely the Observer had constructed this dream from his memories to trap him!
"Shinano, wait for me!"
As Lin Lan quickly dressed and pushed open the door, he whispered to the air around him.
The moment he stepped outside the prefab dorm, he saw a silver-haired fox-eared beauty standing under the starlight within the project site's fence, surrounded by glowing blue butterflies.
The night breeze stirred the sleeves and hem of her blue-black shrine maiden kimono and the skirt beside her white stockings. Seven fluffy tails swayed gently behind her.
Their eyes met. After a brief moment of stillness, Shinano's voice trembled as she spoke:
"Commander? I… I've finally found you…"
A mix of surprise, joy, and emotion filled Shinano's face as she strode toward Lin Lan in her wooden clogs.
The graceful, sacred shrine maiden of the Sakura Empire ignored the dust on Lin Lan's clothes and wrapped him in a gentle embrace, nuzzling him softly.
"The divine child said you had grown young again, yet in this dream you still seem so worn and weary…"
In Shinano's warm embrace, Lin Lan felt dampness on his forehead.
Shinano was crying.
Feeling her soft, warm chest pressed to his cheek, Lin Lan opened his mouth to say something, but ultimately said nothing.
Instead, he quietly returned the hug, holding the big fox girl tight.
How could he have forgotten his girls? It was unforgivable.
After a long while, the two finally separated. Lin Lan looked at the tear tracks on Shinano's face and gently wiped them away with his fingers.
"Shinano, how did you come here? I remember your Sakura Empire group was all still in Liaozhou…"
"As for what happened to me—it's because I fell into the Observer's trap. This place is most likely a dream constructed by the Observer to imprison me."
Hearing this, Shinano—now calm and composed—realized this wasn't the time for catching up.
She looked around, then said softly after a pause:
"No wonder this doesn't feel like a normal dream. Commander, please close your eyes. I shall reveal the truth to you."
Lin Lan trusted Shinano completely, so he closed his eyes without hesitation.
In the next moment, he felt as though the world was spinning, with immense pressure pulling at his body.
"Commander, you may open your eyes now. I'll come to find you again soon."
"Thank you for saving me in the dream, Shinano. Please tell everyone in the Sakura Empire—I will bring you all back to the base."
"Mm. Please take care, Commander. Be cautious when you awaken…"
As Shinano's voice faded away, Lin Lan opened his eyes—and found himself in a completely different place.
He was now submerged, naked, in a transparent cylindrical glass tank filled with pale blue liquid.
Through the glass, he saw a sealed laboratory room.
High-tech black equipment blinked with screens, and seven or eight black tubes were connected to the glass cylinder.
His clothes were neatly folded on a table next to the tank, and there was no one—no Sirens—in sight.
After surveying the surroundings, Lin Lan looked at the hero's emblem on the back of his right hand, then touched his face, confirming he had returned to his youthful form from the other world.
It had truly been a dream. He had indeed crossed over from Blue Star into this other world—returning was impossible.
Or rather, even if he could go back, he no longer wanted to.
Right now, he had to escape the Sirens' grasp and find his shipgirls.
The Ironblood girls were probably worried sick about him. He needed to get back and ease their minds.
"This must be a Siren base. I have to get out before the Observer returns."
The cold, sterile architecture and black equipment told him immediately: this lab was built by the Sirens.
Though Shinano had vanished with the dream, Lin Lan wasn't worried about her.
He knew her ability to traverse dreams was profound, and everything within the dream realm was under her control.
Since the Observer had entered his dream at noon, Lin Lan had to escape before she returned.
As for what that cunning high-level Siren wanted to do with him—he'd figure that out later. Right now wasn't the time.
He swam to the edge of the tank and pounded the glass. It looked thin, but was incredibly strong—he couldn't break it with his strength alone.
"So that's how it is… then how about this?"
Focusing his mind, Lin Lan activated his hero ability, using the water element inside the tank to temporarily boost his strength several times over.
He rarely used this simple elemental amplification skill, but now it was perfect.
He punched the glass again.
Crack!
With a crisp sound, the tank shattered—his punch had blown open a large hole.
A flood of pale blue liquid surged out, carrying him to the floor outside.
"Ha… ha… ha…"
As the blaring alarm sounded and red lights began to flash, Lin Lan gasped for air. He didn't care what the liquid was—he'd just been breathing inside it, incredibly.
He scrambled to his feet, grabbed his white Navy Command uniform from the nearby table, and hastily threw it on.
Just as he was about to rush out the door, something on the equipment screens caught the corner of his eye.
He slowed down, drawn by the data now flashing across the screens.
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SHINANO MY BELOVED!!!!!!!!!!!
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50 advanced chapters on p@t re on (.) com/SenatusTheta
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