My portable grandfather refreshes every week

The house was bustling with activity in the early morning. Smoke and heat from the kitchen, the sound of flushing water from the bathroom, and the barking of the big yellow dog next door echoed throughout the small village.

Not far away, the streets were completely blocked by vehicles during the morning rush hour, and the sounds of horns and all sorts of noises were deafening.

Xue Dinglu silently checked the time; it was past seven. He casually turned on the TV in the living room, listened to the news, and started washing up and waiting for breakfast.

"According to our reporter, astronomers have discovered that the Milky Way is located at the very center of a huge cosmic void, which is about 20 billion light-years in diameter. Astronomers have tentatively named it the KBC Void."

"We've invited an astronomy professor from the University of Science and Technology of China to explain to us why the Milky Way is located in the center of such a strange void. This huge void contains only the Milky Way, so why is its galaxy density so different from that of other regions?"

"Crash..."

The sounds of running water and brushing teeth filled the bathroom. Xue Daolu, his mouth full of toothpaste, looked up at the news in the living room.

"The so-called KBC Great Void is actually quite easy to understand. The entire universe can be understood as a vast desert, with each galaxy being an oasis in the desert. The Milky Way is inconspicuous in it, like an ancient city of Loulan that is isolated from the world on the edge. Do you understand this analogy?"

"Furthermore, this KBC Great Void doesn't mean that there are no other planets besides the Milky Way in the entire void. Rather, compared to other regions, this region has more than 50% fewer smaller galaxies and matter besides the Milky Way, which is a large galaxy."

"It's very much like some event happened in this huge void that cleared out the surrounding star systems, so that all the star systems that are close to this place now are those that were gradually migrated in later..."

……

Xue Daolu wiped the water off his face and earnestly went to the television to watch the local news station's interview with the USTC astronomy professor.

In fact, Xue Dinglu took a look and found that the professor was very young. He did not use very professional jargon, but explained what this so-called "big void" was in plain language that even elementary school students could understand, and that this thing was not as mysterious as the marketing accounts claimed.

Xue Luding watched silently, especially when he saw the professor take out a simulated star map. It seemed, it appeared, that this thing was real. In the KBC system outside the Milky Way, the density of stars in the entire KBC region was much lower than in other regions.

Xue's thinking began to diverge. No wonder even the interstellar column said that the Milky Way is a peripheral galaxy. Looking at it this way, it really is peripheral. There are no other large galaxies around the Milky Way as stepping stones.

Within 20 billion light-years, there is only one large galaxy, the Milky Way.

It's quite interesting that the surrounding galaxies seem to isolate the Milky Way here.

The professor's viewpoint is also quite interesting. He suggested that there might not have been any galaxies here at all. The Milky Way and other sparse small galaxies may have slowly arrived at this place as the universe expanded, which is why the KBC region appears so empty.

"Dinner's ready," came my aunt's voice.

“Okay!” Xue Dinglu immediately went to the table in the living room.

The television interviews and various speculations continued. The professor put forward a series of theories, such as the universe expansion hypothesis and the galaxy drift hypothesis. Now the explanations have become more and more professional, and the professor has to use technical terms to explain in many cases.

At the end of the approximately ten-minute interview, the host asked, "So it seems that the Milky Way is really like Australia in the Pacific Ocean, an isolated island in the center of a great void. Professor, assuming that in the future humanity develops to the point of being able to travel through the Milky Way, will we be trapped in the KBC Void, completely locked on this isolated island?"

The professor, seemingly sweating profusely, replied, "That's thinking too far ahead, and I believe that when humans are able to travel through the Milky Way, the 20 billion light-year-old void may no longer be an insurmountable barrier for us at that time."

Finally, the professor joked: "What we should really worry about are the aliens in those small galaxies also located in the KBC void. They might despairingly discover that they are the only star system around them, within tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of light-years."

"Perhaps when they reached their peak, they realized they were on an isolated island, completely locked into their own star system..."

With the professor's joke, the interview came to an end. Xue Dinglu silently looked at the topic of the interview, took out his phone, and silently began to search for the KBC Great Hollow.

As expected, a bunch of news articles popped up. This hypothesis, proposed by astronomers some time ago, has now become a hot topic on the internet.

"I'm going to school." Xue Dinglu checked the time; it was 7:30, time to leave.

"Teacher, wait for me!" Although it was the start of the next semester, Fafnir was already used to going to the USTC library every day. She immediately picked up her small bag and followed Xue Luding.

The two actually set off in a bit of a hurry, mainly because Xue Daolu was so engrossed in watching the news that he spent a long time searching on his phone while still on the spot. In the end, they still rushed to the school before 8 o'clock.

The semester seems to be almost over, and teachers of all subjects have been giving a lot of important notes lately. Xue Dinglu also feels that he has hardly attended any classes this semester. He basically only attended classes for less than two days a week, and spent the rest of the time on leave.

In some cases, they didn't even come to school for an entire month...

In the space of consciousness, Su Su was still very excited, saying, "Brother Lu, Brother Lu, a lot of clothes, furniture, and decorations I bought today will arrive. When you get home, go to the nearest post station and take a look. These are for decorating our little room..."

Xue Law: "..."

Xue Dinglu couldn't say anything about the girl, but let her be. Even if she shopped online, she wouldn't buy much, and she wouldn't even spend as much money as Hercules had spent on games before.

……

In the morning, Xue Dinglu spent his time listening to lectures while chatting with Su Su.

Within the space of consciousness, time was reset to zero once again.

Who will be the new traveler this time? Xue Dinglu was also very curious.

When the time came, a dilapidated mechanical lens appeared in the consciousness space.

Xue Dinglu's eyebrows twitched. This scene seemed familiar to him; it looked just like the Dreadnought-class mech from 5332.

When he got his hands on it and examined it, he found that it should be a Dreadnought-class mech, but it seemed to be an older version, and the damage and malfunctions of this mech were more serious than those of the 5332 that had come into his consciousness space.

Xue Luding sighed and inspected the core's soul imprint. He found some damage and took out some materials that had been used to repair 5332. There was still a mechanical spider base and a large number of mechanical arms left. Even the soldering iron and solder were still there, having not been lost in some strange incidents.

Congratulations!

Following the same method he had used to repair 5332, Xue began repairing the core of the Dreadnought Mech. Even the core's speaker was broken. While 5332, despite its damage, could at least teach Xue how to solder and connect wires, this mech essentially lacked that function. It seemed extremely weak; the Dreadnought Mech's true form was actually the soul imprint on its inner wall—the core of its soul. The rest were merely external limbs, easily replaceable.

However, a penetrating wound appeared on the core of the body, seemingly pierced directly by the sharp spikes of an insect. Although it did not directly damage the inscription, Xue Dalu was unsure how much damage it had caused to the main body.

However, this wound alone shows how fierce the battle between these fearless mechs and the swarm was. The swarm was not without learning and evolution. When they realized that even destroying the mechs' bodies would not completely kill them, they naturally developed a way to target their core.

This wound that pierced through to the soul imprint might not have been caused by bad luck, but rather it was the insects' initial target. As the machine upgraded, the swarm also evolved, learning how to kill these uncontaminated machines more quickly.

Xue Lude thought this while examining the injury.

At the same time, he took a photo, posted it in the group, and directly tagged Captain Singal and Vice Captain Stanley of the Starfleet.

Sage (Second Generation): I found a former Dreadnought-class mech in the subspace. Can you contact 5332 and have him come over to bring back the core of this predecessor mech?

The message quickly went viral in the group where people were always sharing photos of their kids and posting tips, but Captain Singal's reply came soon after.

Captain Singar: Okay! I'll contact 5332 right away.
This message seemed to have no impact on the chat group. People from other worlds continued to show off their Pokémon, share their stories, and post all sorts of training guides. Xue Law even felt like he had entered a Pokémon breeding and exchange group rather than an inter-world chat group.

In the parallel world, their counterparts became their Pokémon, and the copied souls they sold became the Pokémon eggs they hatched.

Xue Dinglu stopped chatting in the group and began to try his best to repair the damage to the mecha.

Soon after, 5332 applied to enter Xue's Law's subspace, and Xue's Law allowed it in directly.

What arrived was like an extremely large agricultural machine, covered in mud and a tipping bucket. Xue Lude could even smell the mixture of mud and lubricating oil inside.

"Long time no see, 5332," Xue Dinglu said.

"It's only been less than a month since we last met, Brother Xue," the agricultural machinery responded.

Right before Xue's eyes, the agricultural machine instantly transformed into a standing farm vehicle.

Although it was a very abstract topic, Xue Dinglu held back his吐槽 (tu cao, a Chinese internet slang term for sarcastic or critical comments) and asked, "Actually, it's not a big deal. It's just that we recently found another Dreadnought-class mech. I don't know what model it is or how badly it's damaged, so I called you over."

Without saying much, 5332 went straight to Xue Lude. The camera, seeing the core in his hand, immediately became urgent: "The older model, predecessor..."

"The old model?" Xue asked as he repaired the parts he had previously fixed for 5332.

"Or rather, the initial model of the Dreadnought Mech, these were the first batch of mechs to fight against the Zerg swarm. At that time, Colony 3 had just fallen, and we had not yet found the Zerg's weaknesses and habits. Therefore, the first batch of Dreadnought-class mechs were designed with conventional firepower and configuration. There was not even the support of Scorched Earth Mechs back then..."

"Therefore, the initial machines suffered extremely heavy losses..."

5332 spoke quietly.

Then, this large agricultural machine seemed to be difficult to use. The next moment, all the external parts of the machine went into standby mode. Xue Lude saw a small eight-legged thing emerge from the machine and nimbly come to Xue Lude's side.

“This large agricultural machine is still too cumbersome. Let me talk to you from this perspective.” The small robot spoke to Xue Dinglu through its camera.

Xue Dinglu also gave up his position, giving half of his space to 5332. The two repaired the equipment while 5332 recounted the battles they had fought.

"Our predecessors were still using weapons from the Civil War, namely guns and cannons. Back then, we didn't create any mechs specifically designed to counter the Zerg swarm, which later became the Scorched Earth Mechs."

"Therefore, there was a time when the sacrifices of our predecessors were extremely tragic, so tragic that the data would be completely scrapped before it could be uploaded back, to the point that it could not be recovered."

"When we landed on the third colony later, we found a lot of fragments of our predecessors' machines. Many of them had been buried by sand and dust and had become part of the landscape."

"And this machine seems to be the one that first fought against the swarm of insects. It still retains many of the original structures. We have optimized these later, making it stronger and more space-saving, while also increasing the strength of our machine spirit."

"This part is welded wrong. This machine is different from mine..."

Xue Law: "..."

He had always thought that after memorizing all the welding points of 5332, he would at least have no problem repairing the mecha. Little did he know that he now realized that what he had memorized might all be wrong, and many of the joints on the prototype were different...

Then came a series of methods involving rewiring and resoldering.

After a speaker was installed, the 5332's mechanical leg touched an interface, seemingly for power supply or communication.

"Senior, senior..." The loudspeaker of 5332 kept calling out to this veteran, whose origins were unknown.

A red light appeared on the veteran's body, and it seemed that it would soon wake up. The first thing it did after waking up was...

"The Zerg swarm is about to attack Colony Alpha Outpost!"

"Ask for support, please support!"

5332 fell silent in an instant.

It seemed that it had already guessed the information about this machine at this moment, which seemed to be a large battle they had fought in the past, but Xue Law did not understand these things, and just listened silently from the side.

It immediately calmed its senior, and the loudspeaker announced: "Senior, calm down, calm down. This is APT Dreadnought 5332. The war is over, everything is over..."

The mech that had been reacting to the stress finally came to a stop, and the entire consciousness space was eerily quiet. After a long while, a sudden sound came.

"We defeated the swarm, didn't we?" (End of Chapter)