Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 101

Chapter 101 – I Hope He’s Already Dead

Before the old capital planet Cayley turned into stardust, there used to be a place not suitable for minors floating above the skies of the planet that also acted as the main source of the whole planet’s gross income. Within this floating wonderland, a popular energy drink called the “tornado” once swept through the community. One drink could let a single adult man stay awake for 72 hours without trouble, and for people that took to the drink better than others, they could run a whole marathon while singing the anthem of the Independent Navy without breaking a sweat. Of course, plenty of people still died every year from overdose.

The day Lu Bixing reached adulthood, he stole a sip of a drink from his father. The impact of the energy drink was so powerful that he could still remember its effects clearly over a decade later–just like how he felt right now.

Following the schedule, it should be time for Lin Jingheng’s morning run right now. Aside from the few days the commander was stuck inside the medical capsule, he never missed a day of his training until today. He leaned on his arm with his hair slightly messy, grey eyes closing gently as he fell asleep. Following the influence of his slightly pinked lips, his sharp features relaxed into a rare smoothness, giving the man a sense of warmth and gentleness.

Lu Bixing’s eyes were entirely glued to him. His heartbeat drummed faster as the minutes passed, as if he had just downed a whole bottle of the old “tornado”. He felt as if he could shoot up into the clouds and run a whole marathon around the planet, but he also didn’t want to leave Lin Jingheng, so he could only embrace the planet’s gravitation while running miles in his own mind instead.

His heartbeat grew louder to the point that it not only shot his own soul up in the air, but also woke Lin Jingheng up from his light nap. Lin Jingheng opened his eyes lightly, pulled a hand up to gesture for the young man to stay quiet. Lu Bixing couldn’t stop his racing heart and could only shift his body to block out the rays of sunlight peeking in from the windows, then leaned down and gently pressed his lips on the commander’s fingers.

He felt as if he was a knight receiving an accolade that was blessed by a holy light, and at the end of his long journey as a trainee he could finally step out and face any challenges without fear.

“Lin.” Lu Bixing knew that Lin Jingheng wasn’t asleep and annoyingly rolled in closer as he spoke quietly into the commander’s ears, “Did Zhanlu’s main mech body really got destroyed? What if I made you a new one? I’ve seen the standard specs of a Grade-A Union mech in a book before, and the factory’s blueprint is already onto its fourth draft. I can start programming the robots from the engineering team, and when the factory is done…hey, don’t laugh!”

Lin Jingheng’s voice was a little hoarse: “Think about what you want to say before you say it.”

“But I’m the best mech engineer of the Eighth Galaxy.”

Lin Jingheng’s eyes remained closed, but the smile on his face dimmed down–back when he was still in the Black Orchid Academy, the most common insults were “you’re the something something of the Eighth Galaxy” or “that’s Eighth Galaxy level”. Victims of these insults often took it as the highest form of offense which would usually lead to a round of vulgar fights.

“Eighth Galaxy” was only a little bit more sophisticated than vulgarity.

The self-proclaimed Number One mech engineer of the Eighth Galaxy breathed intimately by Lin Jingheng’s ears and continued bragging like any average man trying to impress his lover: “I also want to incorporate a small section in the factory for ‘training mechs’ like those training bikes for new mech pilots. But a friend in the engineering team told me that even a training mech was still a dangerous weapon, so it wouldn’t be safe to mass-produce them; I think he’s right, so I’m planning on only using them for academic lectures…Qiming will have a new Starry Sea Academy, and it will soon be like the Black Orchid Academy of the Eighth Galaxy…Oh, maybe Qiming will be like Wolto in the future. Uh…of course, we’ll have a larger population than Wolto, it’s not fun if we just have a whole planet filled with elites. We’ll also have layered walkways and roads so that we don’t run into car accidents anymore…Right, there’s a lot of open land on Qiming, I can go ask the Prime Minister for a piece and rebuild your mansion from Wolto here, how about it?”

Lin Jingheng said: “No.”

“Then we’ll rebuild my old house on Cayley–that place is huge so we’ll need a lot of robots to clean it up, we can even use Zhanlu as the central control system like a personal butler.”

Lin Jingheng said: “Zhanlu’s annoying.”

“Don’t worry, if you think we’re annoying, you can kick us both out so that I can be annoying with Zhanlu when you’re not around.” Lu Bixing quickly gave a solution and then lowered his voice, “But…don’t kick me out too often, please.”

Lin Jingheng could feel the person beside him crawling closer. Lu Bixing held his arm up above Lin Jingheng for a while before finally reaching over to grab the commander like a child playing with a toy.

Lin Jingheng opened his eyes and shot a glance at Lu Bixing, the latter quickly stopped his itching paws as the invisible tail behind his back raised up in alarm: “Let me hug you a bit longer, I promise I’ll stop moving around.”

Lin Jingheng lightly slapped the back of Lu Bixing’s hand.

Lu Bixing took in a breath of air silently as he buried himself in the warmth of the other man’s body. Now that he’d tasted the sour grapes and discovered it was actually sweet, he knew that he would continue picking those grapes and felt a little restless. Being somewhat apologetic to Turan- he once bluffed to her face as a naïve child- he didn’t know if he could take back his pretentious façade and make it up to her..

Even though Lin Jingheng didn’t show it, Lu Bixing had a hunch that he also hadn’t done a very good job in making the commander feel completely at ease. It was as if this young scientist had discovered a new field of study along the road; as he opened up the new book to the table of contents, he was suddenly engulfed with an incredible thirst for knowledge. He almost couldn’t hold in his desire to pick up some new textbooks and study materials from Captain Turan to expand his knowledge.

Lu Bixing let his mind run for a while until he realized his thoughts were going down another dangerous path, then quickly pulled his thoughts back with a red face.

“When we get old, the war would be over as well.” He said, “I’ll go teach and write books; I’ll write a lot of books. I’ll talk about how I rebuilt the most powerful mech of the Union, I’ll also write a memoir; half of it will talk about the standard stuff, the other half will talk about the most important part–how I won the heart of the Union’s most-wanted man today…”

Lu Bixing wanted to plan out every second of their lives until their death; he could spend two weeks making a bucket list of what they would do together in the future. Lin Jingheng listened in to the beginning and felt that if this young man continued, the rest of his 200 year life might not even be enough to check off everything on that bucket list. They might need to pray for another genetic revolution to extend the average human lifespan to 500 years.

The future that Lu Bixing painted was like a dream where all the rough currents of life disappeared, the concept of separation at death never existed.

“Do people nowadays still like these pipe dream stories? …Until death do us part and stuff.”

In the City of Angels, a 3D screen beside the statue of the tearful goddess was playing a movie trailer. In times of crisis, the entertainment industry in the City of Angels didn’t plummet, and instead saw a growth that was ever higher than its golden times in Wolto. Perhaps to the poor people that were kicked out of Eden, entertainment was the only thing left to fill the empty holes in their souls.

The sudden boom of the industry allowed a small portion of movie studios to earn enough money for a ticket to the City of Angels. A single concert ticket to Yevgenia’s live performance was extremely hard to find with a price equivalent to a bouquet of Azure Seas.

There was a telescope in Chief Woolf’s breakroom that could be used for stargazing at night, and to look down on the central plaza at daytime. He took a sip of his tea as he finished watching the trailer of the movie; it was a movie called “The Hallway of Happiness” that told the story of a couple from the time they met until they aged. The story was quite romantic and was even filmed in Wolto–of course, now that Wolto had been taken over by pirates, most of the scenery in the movie was artificial backgrounds.

“I heard the new movie is already trending among the people, the premiere showing tickets are all sold out.” The secretary of the Chief Commander bent down and courteously filled the empty cup with hot tea. The secretary was a tall, skinny man over 200 years old by the name of Wang Ailun.

The famed Chief Commander had a strange preference to hire living humans around him as secretaries and didn’t like using AIs. Wang Ailun had been following him for over 150 years and took care of his everyday life like a butler. This top secretary normally didn’t talk when there were others around and had very little presence even in public; most of the time, he acted more like a robot than a real robot. Only during private occasions would he chat with Chief Woolf for a little: “Everyone’s living on the edge right now, so they’re naturally more inclined to cling onto concepts like eternal love…or something else. Everyone wants to return back to Wolto. The reason why the Azure Sea has taken over the market lately is its meaning in flower language of “the place of no return.” This movie portrays both of these themes that touch the hearts of the people; perhaps it will be the newest hot topic during afternoon tea in the City of Angels.”

“You’re right. I’ve heard that you have an investment in the farmland of the Azure Sea, did you make quite a handful already?” Chief Woolf glanced at his secretary tauntingly, and before Wang AIlun could answer, the chief added, “people want to return to Wolto, but that place is no longer the old Wolto you knew. The people around you have changed, and by the time you reach the age of whitening hair, you’ll notice that you changed as well. Everything you once believed in has perished, your beliefs and morals have at least collapsed a hundred times over the years, the organs in your body have been changed numerous times by medical capsules. Yet even then, you still want to reminisce about the past, until you find out that you can’t remember anything and need to rely on artificial memory storages; Ailun, don’t you think that’s quite pitiful?”

Wang Ailun listened quietly like a wallflower without interrupting, not even a single line of “I will always follow you” to show his loyalty.

“Some would think…you’re just a zombie taking control of someone else’s body. They were right to halt the project on human genetic research. Why do people need to live that long? We weren’t born with a soul that can last that long, what’s the point of extending the lifespan of the flesh? People want to live until they become a cinerary casket and force society’s metabolism to slow down until it becomes a fossil, now the whole world stinks of rotten flesh.”

Chief Woolf paused as he stared at his teacup in a daze.

The old Chief Commander never married in his whole life. Rumors had it that there was a scandal when he was young that sounded almost too comical to be real, but the other individual of the scandal passed away before the new Interstellar Union was established. Out of respect for the deceased, nobody brought up the incident again after that. From the days of a handsome young man to an aged old man, he was as old as the Union’s historical museum. When he wasn’t working he would spend his time in his residence. He didn’t have many hobbies, and perhaps the only pastime he enjoyed was to stare at his teacup and look back on his past.

Some have said that if it wasn’t for the fact that all the most promising commanders had passed on at an early age within these years, the old Chief Commander should’ve already retired.

Suddenly, a small sound clicked inside the breakroom and a wall slowly opened up to reveal a hidden room.

The old man liked his peace and quiet so his private breakroom was never opened for anyone. Aside from his secretary, anyone that needed to see him had to make an appointment; though there were clearly some exceptions.

Wang Ailun took out another set of teacups as if he was already prepared. He placed the teacups before the visitors and skillfully poured his freshly brewed tea in the cups.

The visitors were all wearing long robes with a strange mask. On the front of their robes, a visible silhouette of a woman with a snake body was embroidered onto the fabric representing the Nuwa Project and AUS; nobody knew that these fearsome space pirates could freely walk in and out of the highest commanding post of the City of Angels.

“You’re all here.” The old Chief scanned the group, “The City of Angels automatically set the internal temperature to 26℃, aren’t you all hot in those robes?”

“Our hearts are filled with fear.” A masked individual answered, “even the air particles under the Union could have nanomachine surveillance, we’d rather not show even a strand of our hair.”

Another masked individual added: “But we pray that the world we create in a century will no longer face digital terrorism.”

They were used to speaking in the language of the prophets, making all of their greetings sound like a script. Their voices and tone dragged in a strange rhythm that made it sound more like they were singing rather than talking.

Woolf waved his hand and said: “That’s enough, don’t worry about the future if you all can’t even handle those pawns from the Glory Troops. The organization is also in shambles right now with countless voices of complaints, worry about yourselves first.”

Wang Ailun walked up and held his arm up to display a 3D screen from his arm. A plainly-dressed middle-aged man appeared in front of everyone as his worried gaze looked into everyone in the room.

A few masked individuals of the AUS were shocked; they exclaimed desperately without a care for their image: “Alexander Harris!”

“What happened, is he still alive?”

“He’s alive,” the quiet secretary responded. “Prophet Harris disguised himself under the name of Hope. He hid under the Cayley pirates in the Eighth Galaxy for a while, and through a reliable source, we’ve recently heard that he came back and is secretly looking for support within the organization. My friends, because of your mistakes and short-sightedness to ally with the Glory Troops, these traitors are now chasing you all down after they took over Wolto. You’re all stuck within the Union and can’t escape under the pursuit of the Glory Troops, so naturally the voices of concern within the organization grew. Harris is known to be a charismatic leader, and now that he’s returned, you should all know what to expect.”

Chief Woolf slowly sat down in his seat: “We’re allies, my friends. Now that the storm’s out, we can’t afford to fight amongst ourselves.”

The masked members of the AUS grew silent until one of them stood up and said: “Chief, since you have your connections, can you give us some hints as to where he is right now?”

Wang AIlun smiled and said: “The last coordinate Prophet Harris sent was near Planet Egret in the Eighth Galaxy. He will pass through a public terminal into an interstellar checkpoint. According to reliable sources, someone from the organization will meet up with him in the Seventh Galaxy. I suggest not letting him show his face publicly and best get rid of him while he’s still in the Eighth Galaxy, what do you all think?”

Another masked individual spoke up: “Chief, is this source correct? What’s the connection you have?”

Woolf lifted his head. Those aged eyes shot a sharp gaze that pierced through the mask, and the speaker trembled slightly, intimidated. Two comrades behind that person pulled them back a little, and the speaker immediately turned his head down: “Sorry, I don’t…”

“It’s okay if you don’t believe us, you can wait until Harris is back and fight him to see who comes out in the end.” Wang Ailun answered with a courteous smile still on his face, “I can say I look forward to that if it happens–it’s getting quite late now, the Chief has a medical checkup later, please watch your steps.”

The masked group were on Woolf’s territory and didn’t dare to cause a scene, so they quickly made their ways out as the hidden door closed up. Wang Ailun took their teacups and crushed them inside a heavy smasher, then shot a glance at the old Chief as if he wanted to say something.

Woolf asked: “What is it?”

Wang Ailun hesitated a little before he asked: “You asked someone to escort Harris and give him arms, then gave his whereabouts to those wild dogs of the Mania Factions. Do you plan on helping him or taking his life?”

“Harris is an intelligent man and much stronger than these barking dogs. He was also very close to those rebels in the White Tower in the past; when Laura Gordon sacrificed herself back then, the ‘forbidden fruit’ and the biochip research was lost. After so many years, these fools didn’t succeed in their research, but I suspect that Harris is still keeping something we don’t know. He simply never revealed anything because he was against the Nuwa Project.” Woolf said, “This person could’ve been a threat to us, it’s only unfortunate that he’s getting old and still holds on to his naive dreams of peace. Our goals have never aligned.”

Wang Ailun said: “Yes, these level-headed men are much more troublesome to deal with.”

“But they are also the only ones that can stir up the biggest storms and become the eye of the hurricane.” Woolf said, “He’s too invested in his old farm fantasy, we need to wake him up the hard way. We need to let him know that beliefs are nothing under gunpoint, authority and power must come at the cost of blood, and that he can only rely on us–by the way, what even is in the Eighth Galaxy that can make him stick around for that long?”

Wang Ailun lifted his head and met the old Chief’s gaze.

Woolf’s face was hidden behind the shadows like a sculpture dead in time.

“Whatever it is, clean it up too.” Woolf waved his hands. “Saves him from trying to go back and farm–that old man needs some hatred in him to stand on top.”

Wang Ailun nodded in understanding and then asked, “Chief, about the Eighth Galaxy and Lin Jingheng…do you believe what Harris said?”

Woolf remained silent for a long while.

The secretary felt that he’d asked a bad question and lowered his head as he got ready to leave.

“I want to believe.” Woolf said, “I want to believe that he’s already dead.”