Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 115

Chapter 115 – Eat Shit, Lin Jingheng!

The Seventh Galaxy was located in a very unique place in space, especially near the borders: it was between the commonly acknowledged “civilization” and “uncivilized territory”. It wasn’t like the Eighth Galaxy where order didn’t exist, yet at the same time the sheer number of immigrants and smugglers from the Eighth Galaxy cast a different kind of light on the Seventh Galaxy.

On the newly renamed planet Peace, security was tight and the streets were considerably deserted. Many people had died since the war broke out, but more people survived in the midst of chaos and maintained order in their small society. The survivors were healthy and looked to be keeping a decent quality of life, even at the frontlines.

“When the war started, General Ankur immediately took over the military reserves of the Seventh Galaxy,” an escort from the Seventh Galaxy explained to Prime Minister Edward, “he might have used some force, but…how do you say it, during times like this you can’t leave any room for negotiation or hesitation. The cannons from the pirates don’t wait, you’ll be dead if you don’t react fast enough.”

Prime Minister Edward attempted to sound them out and said: “I’ve heard that the Seventh Galaxy was also more peaceful compared to the other galaxies.”

The escort smiled but didn’t respond.

The old Prime Minister might have been an honest and straightforward person, but he wasn’t stupid; he could tell from the response of the escort that Lin Jingheng’s suspicion that Ankur had some connections with the pirates might have some truth behind it. Back when Ankur fought on the same front as the Union against the space pirates, he might have already been making secret negotiations under the table while the battlefield was busy.

Yet as he passed through the clean and peaceful roads of the planet, the Prime Minister felt he couldn’t criticize an ex-subordinate of Lu Xin for betraying their commander’s ideals to side with the pirates.

If he had skin thick enough to play games with different forces to exchange for the peace of a galaxy, Prime Minister Edward would also hold the hand of the devil if he was given a chance to choose.

Crowds of residents waved and greeted them as the Prime Minister’s escort slowly drove by.

The Prime Minister also held out a hand to greet the residents out of courtesy; he didn’t know why someone like him would deserve such a warm welcome on foreign land and was caught by surprise. He turned his head back and asked his escort: “How did you all manage to get so many people over? This ceremony must have cost the Seventh Galaxy a lot of money.”

The escort was a strange individual that Ankur hired who would answer anything as long as it didn’t touch on sensitive topics: “We didn’t, the only people we hired to attend were the ones already waiting at the site. These people all came on their own; perhaps they were all immigrants from the Eighth Galaxy that recognized you.”

However, the cheering crowd wasn’t here because they were bored; the enthusiasm down the whole street of over ten kilometers was clear. Some people tossed flowers toward the car, others wanted to blow kisses–only to be blocked by the security guards along the street, who instead received the kisses from these citizens.

One guard’s face had a moment of awkwardness but wasn’t angry. The crowd’s optimistic vibes might have affected the overall mood; the guard was unable to scold such inappropriate acts.

The escort said: “These immigrants have been living a rough life ever since they moved here. They were like the outcasts of the Seventh Galaxy’s society, but nobody was willing to move back either…ah, sorry, I didn’t mean that the Eighth Galaxy is bad….”

Prime Minister Edward shook his head.

The escort then added: “But it’s better now since Eden is gone. The Seventh and Eighth Galaxy also signed a treaty, we’ll be a family from now on. Perhaps these people also finally found their sense of belonging again.”

Prime Minister Edward held out his hand towards the crowd. A child being held up by his father poked his head out and held the old Prime Minister’s hand with a look of surprise.

The child’s hand was a little wet, perhaps he just ate.

The Prime Minister smiled and thought: I sure wish that cold Commander could see this place .

For this trip, the Prime Minister took the directors of the Finance and Planning departments and a few engineers along with him. The engineers came in place of Lu Bixing, who temporarily held the position as the director of special advisory with the authority of the Prime Minister. Thus, the unwritten rule was that between this young man and the Prime Minister, one of them must stay on the capitol planet while the other was out.

Lin Jingheng had deployed an elite security team to escort them that carried anti-disruption energy fields. If Ankur really turned on them at the last minute, the guards could immediately take the Prime Minister directly through the energy field to the starship they arrived on.

The starship was filled with a newly produced batch of training mechs the Eighth Galaxy had recently made. These mechs were small enough to fit only one person, and after removing their armory they barely passed the security check of the Seventh Galaxy–but it was a successful move in getting past the Seventh Galaxy. It seemed that while the director of the Engineering Department, Mister Lu, may often be an embarrassing mess at home, he was still quite a reliable mechanic during times of need.

As for the decision to remove the armory of these training mechs, it was to protect these old government officials from hurting themselves by firing aimlessly. Therefore, all training mechs had all their energy sources reserved for emergency warping through a dummy system that would activate automatically once it left the gravitational field of the planet and would send the mechs to the border of the Seventh and Eighth Galaxies.

And Lin Jingheng himself would be waiting by the border with his missiles ready to fire at their enemies.

This was the result of the two completely opposing opinions being forcefully merged together.

Of course, the Prime Minister still thought they were being a little too overprotective.

Ankur was already dressed up and waiting by the ceremony plaza as he heard the escort driving over from afar. He looked up at the sky knowing that Lin Jingheng’s missiles were watching over him and curled his lips up, then thought: You don’t even have the Silver Ten with you during a chaotic time like this, how many mechs could you possibly bring out even if you planned ahead?

They only wanted Lin Jingheng’s life. It was a small price to pay if one man’s death could bring a happy ending for everyone.

Besides, even if Lin Jingheng managed to isolate the Eighth Galaxy, one side was the Seventh Galaxy and the empty void of space, the other was the AUS headquarters – where would he run? He would be locking himself in with no escape.

A proud smile lit up Ankur’s face as he thought about his plan and turned to welcome Prime Minister Edward.

At the same time, the engineers that followed the Prime Minister quietly connected into the Seventh Galaxy’s internet network to use it as a medium to hack into the Seventh Galaxy’s long-distance communication system.

Lu Bixing, who was forcefully made to stay on Qiming received the message that the connection was successful and jumped from the sofa in his house: “Man, that was slow. If I were there myself, I could hack into the internal network by the time I closed in on the atmosphere–wait for me, I’ll go over to the command post and find a supercomputer to give you guys instructions.”

A large screen suddenly appeared on a wall the moment he finished his sentence and automatically connected into the main control system of the Milky Way City Military Base.

Lu Bixing: “Wow.”

Zhanlu’s voice rang up inside “The Home of Commander Lin and Engineer 001”: “Please let me assist you, Headmaster Lu. If you want to, you can even work from home.”

“Zhanlu?” Lu Bixing asked, “Didn’t you head out to the border with Lin?”

“The commander connected me directly into the digital butler system you built in the house, which is equivalent to me building a backup inside the house. Of course, this backup is only my system and not my physical body. I hope you don’t mind the electricity bill caused by me as well.”

“Why would I mind?” Lu Bixing laughed, “Remember how many times he told me to leave and go away when I asked to borrow you on Beijing? Hahaha…by the way, can I ask you to relay messages for me to Lin?”

“Of course,” Zhanlu said, “but please let me confirm that you two are not currently fighting before I relay your message, or I will be banned from speaking by the commander.”

“We’re not fighting this time…what should I tell him?” Lu Bixing thought about it for a moment before telling Zhanlu, “give him a kiss for me.”

Lin Jingheng just received a report that the Prime Minister had safely met with Ankur and that the Eighth Galaxy Forces were also ready to activate the explosives for the transfer portals leading outside the Union.

Lin Jingheng: “Received. Do one last round of inspection to check if there are any signs of life around the area, get ready to activate the bombs and stay on guard.”

“Yes sir!”

That was when Zhanlu interrupted with absolutely no care for the atmosphere of the room: “Sir, Headmaster Lu asks me to bring a kiss for you. Should I deliver it verbally or change to human form and deliver it in action?”

Lin Jingheng: “……”

The soldiers inside the meeting room couldn’t laugh and lowered their heads as their shoulders trembled from desperate attempts to hold in their laughter.

The corner of Lin Jingheng’s eye twitched: “Shut up. No talking for three hours unless it is an absolute emergency.”

“Outer layer transfer portals inspection complete.”

“Explosives on standby.”

“Sending out an alert to all residents’ personal devices—”

Every citizen of the Eighth Galaxy received three alerts on their personal devices, and soon after the first round of cleanup began.

In the void of space, the small ‘miracles’ connecting spacetime disappeared one by one. All stations and planets around the area set up their shields as powerful streams of high-energy particles flew by, sending disruptions all the way to the Seventh Galaxy.

Lin Jingheng suddenly remembered an old documentary he watched when he was little about how the very first transfer portal in the world was built.

Back then, the ancients had very limited reach in space and held curious imaginings about the vast universe. Thinking that there would be other civilizations outside of the Milky Way, people risked their fragile and short lives to explore the unknown.

They used transfer portals to connect with each other in the realm of the unknown and found their own sense of belonging.

It began with particle experiments, then a few centuries later they expanded their test subjects into inanimate objects; two generations later, they sent out a white mice, then a sheep, gorilla…the first person that walked out of the transfer portal was a hero with his name engraved in history. There were only two sentences he said after he returned.

The first one: “I’m back.”

The second was “I’ve never felt such a strong sense of belonging towards human civilization.”

These two lines opened up the great Age of Exploration in space.

Transfer networks were then called the umbilical cord of human civilization in space.

Perhaps nobody would’ve imagined back then that two eras later, their descendants would personally cut off this umbilical cord.

On Sabien–now Peace, the multimedia equipment around the ceremony received a strong disruption before Prime Minister Edward could even begin his speech. Soon after, the alarm for high-energy particle waves rang as it indicated a disturbance larger than a solar storm from the Seventh Galaxy’s sun.

The crowd grew restless as Ankur’s expression changed.

Prime Minister Edward paused as the microphone malfunctioned from the disruption, then turned towards Ankur who had a grave expression on his face: “It’s nothing, General Ankur. The pirates have been quite active within the Seventh and Eighth Galaxy lately. To stop their advances from the outside, we are currently cleaning up all the illegal terminals into the Eighth Galaxy. Don’t worry, aside from around two hours of signal disruption it will not affect the Seventh Galaxy directly.”

For a split second, Ankur mustered up all his professionalism to maintain a calm expression on his face as he returned a fake smile: “Is that so? Commander Lin sure is careful and thorough.”

The noise from the disruption hadn’t passed and the engineers were all frantically repairing the equipment onsite. Most people on the Seventh Galaxy were more collected than the Eighth Galaxy and didn’t run around in panic regardless of where they were.

Prime Minister Edward clapped his hands together and made a small gesture of apology behind the podium then turned to Ankur: “The Eighth Galaxy doesn’t have a large military, nor do we have as many supplies and resources as you, so we can only attempt to shorten the frontline…”

Buzz–

Another round of noise rang from the speakers before the Prime Minister could finish.

“My apologies, it seems like the second batch of portals got blown up.”

Ankur clenched his fist tightly behind his back and walked away quickly, his secretary following behind him.

Ankur hissed in anger: “He could’ve chosen any other time to blow up those portals, but he purposely did it now to mock me!”

The secretary leaned in and whispered: “General, the people over there said they will take care of it, we just need to follow the plan and don’t worry about it.”

“How will they take care of this?” Ankur harshly pressed his finger into the palm of his hand. Then, he let out a sigh and said, “Lin Jingheng cut off the terminals leading outside the Union…if the pirates want to make an invasion, they will have to pass through the Seventh Galaxy. I can’t let them turn my territory into their battlefield with Lin Jingheng; I can lend a hand if necessary, but I won’t let them mess with the Seventh Galaxy.”

The secretary quickly caught the intention behind his words: “General, you’re saying…”

“Inform all planets and stations to pull up their shields,” Ankur said in a low voice, “be prepared for battle. Lock down all terminals near the planet and keep a close eye out on ‘those people’ that snuck in, get rid of them if they do anything funny.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Also keep an eye on these people in the Eighth Galaxy and their guards, blow up their starship if necessary.”

The secretary: “….Huh?”

The secretary was confused and didn’t know who his boss stood with for a moment. He felt as if Ankur was playing with fire on both hands and asked: “Then…General, who are we helping?”

“Can’t you judge by how things play out?” Ankur slapped his secretary’s head, “You dumb…”

The ground suddenly shook before he could finish, and immediately after, a sharp siren rang out inside the ceremonial hall. The crowd inside the hall began fleeing out of the building in a panic.

The secretary was also shocked: “Who did this? I haven’t even given out your order, General.”

Within an instant, Ankur’s personal devices received a flood of messages.

He picked up the director of the closest defense squad near planet Peace: “What happened!?”

Perhaps they didn’t expect Lin Jingheng to blow up the portals at this time and weren’t prepared for the signal disruption; the voice of the guard was cutting out.

“General Ank….suddenly…we….”

Ankur: “What?”

The screen on the personal device was like a glass window that had gotten scratched by a sharp rock; the director of the defense squad opened his mouth through the screen but no sound came out.

Ankur grew furious at this awful signal: “I fucking swear, eat shit, Lin Jingheng!”

The director’s eyes suddenly widened on his screen and he turned his head abruptly, then within an instant, the screen returned to normal quality. Ankur watched as a wall of fire rose behind the patrolling director of defense on the screen and immediately realized the mech had been hit.

The next second, the entire screen was consumed in flames and the connection cut off.

Ankur’s eyes widened as the ground shook violently again–the aerospace shield of this planet was activated.

Was it Lin Jingheng?

No, that wasn’t it; the Eighth Galaxy’s Prime Minister and government officials were still on the planet. The ceremony was being broadcast live throughout the entire Seventh Galaxy, and the large batch of supplies Ankur planned on using as a bait was still on standby, there would be no reason for Lin Jingheng to act right now….

Ankur pieced together the puzzle within a second.

He was the real bait himself!

The transfer portals leading outside the Union in the Eighth Galaxy had been cleared aside from one underground terminal that was currently being protected with two layers of code. Saturday finished reporting in, and before Lin Jingheng could respond, Zhanlu spoke up despite being ordered to not talk: “Sir, the long-distance scan detected that a large fleet of armed forces suddenly appeared within the Seventh Galaxy.”

“Large fleet of armed forces?” Lin Jingheng said coldly, “Looks like Ankur is way more dedicated than I thought. Let the Prime Minister and his team retreat immediately, we’ll go pick them up. Line up!”

“Sir, are we preparing to illegally pass through the Seventh Galaxy border?”

“We’re not illegally passing through,” Lin Jingheng said, “we’re ‘illegally’ opening fire on them. Let me see how thick Ankur’s skin is to do such a thing under Lu Xin’s statue!”

Meanwhile, the newly named Peace was in complete chaos in direct contrast to its orderly atmosphere earlier. A guard quickly made their way through the fleeing crowd towards Prime Minister Edward. The energy field was already in preparation, but a laser shot fired through the chest of the guard amidst the disorder. The guard fell to the ground before they could make it into the energy field; soon after, the ceremonial hall shook violently as Prime Minister Edward tripped. A hand pulled him up before he fell to the ground.

Sounds of gunfire quickly filled the hall while the Prime Minister turned his head to see Ankur holding him up. The old Prime Minister attempted to struggle out of the General’s grip with no luck.

At the same time, another alarm came up within the ceremonial hall: “Galactic missile passed through anti-missile system, galactic missile passed through anti-missile system!”