"Without a doubt. I am a Namekian," Su Jin replied, his voice a flat, unwavering calm.

"Cousin, are you... are you wearing a human skin suit?" Fu Qingdai asked, her voice trembling violently.

"We Namekians look exactly like this."

Hearing Su Jin's firm answer, Fu Qingdai felt a marginal sense of relief, though her brain was still short-circuiting with a thousand unanswered questions.

After a moment of panicked calculation, she blurted out the most pressing one.

"Cousin... what exactly is the deal with the apocalypse in my dream?"

"It's highly classified and overly complex, so I'll give you the executive summary," Su Jin bullshitted seamlessly, his mind racing. "The universe is teeming with civilizations. Earth is merely a speck. According to our high-command intel, your sector has been targeted by a syndicate of interstellar pirates known as the Trisolarans. They're absolute scum. Their standard operating procedure is to exterminate all native life, process the biomass into fertilizer, and strip-mine the planet's resources."

"Those Trisolaran psychopaths have just deployed a bio-weapon into your atmosphere. Once the virus wipes out ninety-nine percent of the population, they'll circle back in a few decades for the harvest."

All the blood drained from Fu Qingdai's face. "Then why involve me?! You should be warning the world leaders, the presidents! I... why would something this massive fall on me?"

Her breathing hitched into hyperventilation as tears streamed down her cheeks.

It was absolutely terrifying! She was just an average, pretty high schooler. Why on earth was she getting drafted into an intergalactic war?

Watching the girl break down sobbing yet again, Su Jin winced, a genuine twinge of sympathy warring with his annoyance.

Damn it, I'd also like to know why a fit, highly responsible, and professionally competent corporate slave like me got dragged into this mess!

"Breathe, Qingdai. Look at me," Su Jin said, suppressing his own rising panic to adopt a soothing, authoritative tone. "We chose you for a very specific reason. Your genetics are an anomaly; your body naturally produces antibodies against the virus. As long as you stay breathing, we can synthesize a cure."

"Then hurry up and extract it! Take my blood, whatever you need!" Fu Qingdai cried, desperately shoving her arm toward him. "Or—or we need to call the police right now! Cousin... use your spaceship to contact the military, they have to believe an alien!"

"Negative. That's a no-go," Su Jin lied with practiced ease. "My vessel was ambushed by a Trisolaran patrol upon entry. The ship crashed, coordinates unknown. My entire squad was wiped out. I'm the sole survivor. The apocalypse is locked in; we are officially flying blind. Your only KPI right now is survival. If you die, this entire planet goes down with you."

The sheer weight of that statement hit her like a physical blow.

Fu Qingdai went slack-jawed, staring at him in catatonic horror.

Su Jin snapped his fingers in front of her face. "Regulate your emotions. The event hasn't triggered yet. We have a prep window. It’s a crisis, but it’s a manageable crisis if we execute properly."

Perhaps hardened by weeks of apocalyptic nightmares, Fu Qingdai managed to reboot her brain. She swallowed hard, her voice a ragged croak. "Brother... I just don't get it. Why risk your lives to save us?"

"It's simple. Where there are bad actors, there are good ones. To protect the world from devastation. To maintain universal peace. To uphold the justice of love and truth, we travel the cosmos protecting vulnerable civilizations."

"Plus, the Trisolarans have launched several unprovoked strikes against Planet Namek. From a purely geopolitical standpoint, we can't sit idle. We Namekians are a peace-loving people, but hear this: anyone who offends Planet Namek, no matter how far they hide, will be executed!" Su Jin delivered the line with stone-cold conviction, though internally, he was dying of cringe.

My bladder is practically spasming from anxiety, and I'm out here acting like a Marvel hero just to do psychological crowd control.

Still, the kid has it rough. She’s carrying just as much apocalyptic dread as I am.

"That... doesn't sound very peace-loving..."

"We Namekians have a zero-tolerance policy for pedantic arguments!"

"I'll stop asking, brother. I'm sorry..." Fu Qingdai shrank back, wiping her eyes like a scolded puppy.

Just as Su Jin opened his mouth to drop more lore, a decidedly frosty voice cut through the air from behind him.

"Hey... Namekian. Come with me for a second."

Fu Qingdai choked on a sob. Su Jin pivoted on his heel.

A severe-looking nurse in her early twenties stood a few feet away, her arms crossed and her expression practically screaming "lawsuit." He hadn't even heard her approach.

Su Jin shot Fu Qingdai a subtle look to stay put, then turned his full attention to the nurse.

"Follow me," she ordered coldly.

Without waiting for a reply, she spun around and marched toward an open-air balcony. Watching her retreating back, Su Jin took a deep breath and recalibrated his corporate persona.

Perfect. Time to test my soft skills on the locals. Consider this a networking exercise.

The nurse halted on the balcony and fixed him with a hard glare. "Are you Fu Qingdai's registered guardian?"

"I'm her cousin," Su Jin replied smoothly.

"Her mother was here this morning. Did you check in at the front desk when you arrived?"

"Of course. Is there a compliance issue?"

"No administrative issue. But medically? That girl is currently suffering from severe paranoid delusions, and you're in there feeding her sci-fi nonsense. You are actively degrading her mental state!" The nurse practically hissed. "You're allowed visitation rights, but I expect you not to sabotage our psychiatric treatment."

"Nurse, I believe there's a slight miscommunication in our paradigms here. May I ask your name?"

"Ding Jia. And what exactly am I misunderstanding?"

"I practically raised Qingdai when she was little. We have a high-trust dynamic. Back in the day, I used to run role-playing campaigns for her. Today was just a therapeutic exercise in nostalgia." Su Jin paused, feigning a sigh. "I just flew back from overseas. I intended to surprise her at school, only to find out she'd been institutionalized."

"From my brief assessment, her cognitive baseline is stable. Aside from some elevated stress levels, she doesn't exhibit any acute psychotic traits. Give me the unvarnished truth—how is she actually coping with the ward environment?"

Just returned from abroad? That was a rare demographic around here.

Ding Jia gave Su Jin a skeptical visual sweep, her hostility dialing down just a fraction. "Her prognosis isn't optimistic. She exhibits chronic apocalyptic ideation. She keeps cornering people, ranting about the end of the world and telling them to stockpile resources."

"Although, off the record... her pathology is a bit unusual."

"Unusual how?"

Ding Jia sighed, her professional facade cracking slightly. "She doesn't present like a typical schizophrenic. Honestly, ninety percent of the time, she seems perfectly rational. But the content of her delusions is just so hyper-specific and absurd... it's almost as if she's genuinely witnessing the apocalypse firsthand."

Su Jin massaged his temples with a practiced, weary smile. "I pulled some intel from her classmates. Her KPIs at school have been tanking recently. My aunt is a notorious micromanager; she's likely squeezing the kid for academic performance until she popped. This 'apocalypse' narrative is probably just a radical escapist coping mechanism. But Miss Ding, I do have a rather unorthodox request. I'd appreciate your discretion."

"Which is?" Ding Jia eyed him warily.

"I want to terminate her residency here. Qingdai hates the ward, and frankly, this clinical environment is only going to compound her stress and derail her college prep. My uncle is a pushover when it comes to his daughter; he'd pull her out in a heartbeat. The bottleneck is my aunt... I need you to run interference for me. Next time her mother visits, I need you to frame it as a medical recommendation that Qingdai be discharged into home care."

"Absolutely out of the question!" Ding Jia snapped, her professional wall slamming back up. "We have strict operational protocols. Unless her legal guardians explicitly demand a discharge, the staff cannot interfere with family dynamics."

"I respect the compliance boundaries, of course. It was merely a suggestion," Su Jin said smoothly. "Tell you what, let's sync up our contact info just in case."

Without missing a beat, Su Jin casually reached into his pocket and withdrew his prestigious, top-of-the-line Xiaomi 6, blindingly illuminating the balcony with its 1080P ultra-clear LCD screen!