Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 118

Chapter 118 – His Hand Fell from His Chest

Inside a small space station, people were running away in panic. The looming clouds of smoke chased after them and consumed the world.

Saturday stared in a daze and thought he was watching live footage from the Seventh Galaxy. Soon after, he noticed the battered up buildings in the background and the rough roads as the sense of familiarity grew stronger. The young man stared at the screen blankly and thought: huh, is the Seventh Galaxy also this run-down?

Yet that unexplainable feeling of familiarity kept hitting his mind with every heartbeat until a few seconds later, Saturday could hear the noise in his head.

His memories began to resurface from a nightmare.

No, this is…

A small, old merchant ship shot out from the rain of gunfire on the screen, desperately sending two connecting ecopods out of the atmosphere. The next moment, the merchant ship turned into ashes under concentrated gunfire and missiles.

This was the scene that woke him up from countless naps, the scene that he couldn’t let go of–

Space was dark and cold with no rays of hope that could shine through. The two connected ecopods carried a young boy and young girl like two chicks inside a floating bottle. They couldn’t communicate and could only see each other’s face through the tiny window on their ecopods…until a misfired missile passed through the girl’s ecopod.

The small pods lost their balance. The little boy was thrown around inside the ecopod’s balancing fluids as he struggled to get back on his feet, only to see the tail end of the connecting ecopod crack open, fluids leaking out into space. The air pressure inside the young girl’s ecopod was out of control, the boy watched his beloved little girl struggle within the half of the broken pod. Her little face pressed on the window until her pained expression froze in time.

No matter how much the little boy struggled, the ecopod was only a machine programmed for survival. The ecopod removed the damaged part of its body, the other half that protected the little girl; this was the first time the little boy witnessed life and death.

From then on, he no longer had an identity, no longer had a background, and no longer had a name; he became a pitiful ‘Saturday’.

Saturday’s blood ran cold as goosebumps raised on his skin: “Who are you?”

There was no response.

Saturday’s hands were trembling uncontrollably. His mech detected his abnormal state and propped up a medical capsule without a word. The capsule followed him around the mech, almost tripping Saturday until the young man yelled in frustration at the capsule: “Go away!”

He ran towards the supercomputer inside the mech without thinking. Yet the Eighth Galaxy was vast and unreachable, how would he be able to find the sender of this message? Saturday wasn’t well-educated and had very limited knowledge of working with mechs; he attempted a few times in vain and could only make out the signal coming from somewhere within the Eighth Galaxy.

“God damn it.” Saturday opened up his personal device and got ready to contact the engineering team on the frontlines.

At that moment, the person that sent him the footage sent him a message: “If I were you, I wouldn’t trust the people around me.”

Saturday: “What do you mean? Who are you!?”

“The first time you heard people mention the ‘Nuwa Project’ was when you were in the Eighth Galaxy Defense Force, and I’m sure you didn’t pay much attention to it, right? Your whole family was dragged into the Nuwa Project and died for it, yet you’re completely oblivious to the truth. You followed them around without knowing anything. My goodness, how could anyone be so foolish…young man, even I can’t stand to see you like this and decided to tell you the truth myself.”

Saturday bit down his lips, his head completely blank.

“I’m about to leave the Eighth Galaxy. I know you’re near the border of the Eighth Galaxy towards the outside of the Union, so I’ll send a long-distance passcode in your direction that you’ll be able to receive when you pass through the next transfer portal. Come find me if you want to know the truth, young man.”

Coincidentally, Saturday passed through a transfer portal inside the secret terminal right as he received this message and activated the passcode. The mech asked Saturday if he would like to accept the long-distance connection request.

Saturday’s hand trembled.

The fundamental science behind a long-distance communication and passcode was something the Engineering team and Lu Bixing had personally lectured them on. Even though Saturday only managed to pick up a few points in the lecture, he at least knew the basic concepts of it after being enlisted for so long.

All of the transfer portals leading outside the Union from the Eighth Galaxy had been cleared up aside from a secret terminal they reserved for their own troops. All portals within this terminal were protected and could not be scanned by outsiders. It would be almost impossible to detect by luck in this vast space environment even with the most powerful supercomputer of the time.

However, after narrowing down to a general direction of where the protected portals are, as long as someone who was within range (usually within the same galaxy) sends out a long-distance signal, the chances of the signal getting caught by the portals are extremely high. Of course, as long as nobody connects to long-distance signals, these portals are safe. Though once a connection has been successfully made through one of these portals, the risk of exposing the terminal would greatly increase.

Saturday thought: is this person trying to mock my lack of education and trying to make me expose the coordinates of the secret terminal?

He grew more alert after this moment and immediately deleted the shady passcode. Soon after, he called the communication center on Qiming with his mech in hopes of getting technical support.

The communication post took a short while to pick up his call due to the busy frontlines; all the engineers on shift right now were loaded with messages to the point where even interns were dragged over to help record messages. Coincidentally, the intern that picked up Saturday’s call was Lu Bixing’s student, Mint.

Meanwhile, the first batch of refugees from the Seventh Galaxy had just passed through the last transfer portal between the Seventh and Eighth Galaxies. Turan had already prepared security inspections to let unarmed civilians and starships in.

The last starship that passed through the portal caught its tail on fire like a lizard cutting off its own tail. They had witnessed their comrades behind them get swallowed up by the missiles from the pursuing pirates and could not afford to turn back to help.

“Holy shit, are they playing pass the torch or something!?” Turan cursed under her breath and extended her mental network to forcefully take over the starship on fire. She quickly disarmed the part that was caught on fire but as the tail end was about to fall off, the fire triggered a massive explosion. The mechs from the Eighth Galaxy Defense Force quickly surrounded the ship and pulled up their shields instantly to block off the impact.

Turan: “Block off that starship! Their engine malfunctioned and can’t be manually controlled!”

Two mechs sailed out at the order and extended their capture nets as they sandwiched the starship, then forcefully dragged it out to a safe distance.

“Air pressure abnormality detected, air pressure abnormality detected–”

To make matters worse, something else inside the starship also broke down as the air pressure inside dropped at a rapid speed. Turan, who was remotely controlling the starship on her mech couldn’t detect the problem and yelled: “What the fuck! Is there a goddamn idol statue of Lin Jingheng on this starship or something!?”

She turned on the broadcast inside the starship and quickly announced to the passengers: “Everyone, due to the breakdown of the starship’s main body, the air pressure is dropping rapidly inside–quiet down! Listen to me! Please immediately make your way down to the lowest level of the starship, there are some backup ecopods in there. Don’t push around! Let the elderly and sick in first!”

The passengers panicked the moment they heard that the starship had broken down and rushed towards the bottom level of the starship. The crowd pushed and shoved each other as a heavy cloud of despair fell on their heads until someone finally broke down and cried.

This cry had a sort of piercing effect that immediately changed the mood inside the starship.

Turan was furious: “How do you all still have time to cry!? You…”

“Everyone listen!” An old man from the backseat suddenly stood up. Perhaps he was a manager of some sort before, a group of people surrounded him as he called out three times. The people surrounding the old man also attempted to calm down the other passengers around them as a small light gathered around this area. The old man stood up with an arm on the wall and said, “I am the mayor of Sabien—now named Peace’s satellite Number 1, I’m sure everyone recognizes me. Please follow me, if we can make it past the barricade of pirates, we won’t die that easily here. Don’t you all see that people are here to save us now?”

The two mechs sandwiching the starship had already dragged the half-broken ship hundreds of kilometers away as it forcefully put a break on the engine going on a rampage. Most functions on the starship were already damaged, so this forceful move by two military mechs fully shut down the gravity-control system inside the starship as people began floating inside.

The old mayor quickly grabbed onto a handle on the ceiling and called out: “Hold onto the hands of the people next to you!”

People quickly reached out and grabbed onto one another, creating a giant web. The old mayor was already feeling a shortness of breath as he continued: “On the count of three, everyone slowly move down—”

Turan quietly turned off the broadcast and watched these people struggle together through her mental network. It was almost comical to watch, but the desire to live and the power to fight within the eyes of these people created a mesmerizing scene.

The mechs dragging the starship rolled out their connecting tunnels to the pod room inside the starship. Soldiers in space suits flew out from the mechs with loads of medical capsules and ecopos from behind as they rushed into the starship.

Turan let out a sigh as she turned her gaze back towards the direction of the transfer portals. She mumbled to herself: “Would Professor Lu turn against me if I blow up the portals before Commander Lin comes back? What if he hacks into my personal device and posts all my nudes for the world to see?”

The subordinate beside her thought: You’re saying you’re actually thin-skinned enough to think about this at a time like this?

The Captain then answered her own question: “But what if a sexy icon like me gets blown up on the internet on accident, I’ll even have to share that advertisement money with him….this is my own face and body, why should I share my profits with him? What a scam, I might as well just post the nudes myself.”

Her subordinate couldn’t stand it any longer and responded back: “Captain, Commander Lin hasn’t given us any orders yet, don’t be so pessimistic.”

Turan shook her head as her playful expression disappeared. She sighed and said: “At this point, he won’t leave the Seventh Galaxy on its own anymore.”

The subordinate looked at her in confusion.

“He’s not the director of the law enforcement in the Eighth Galaxy.” Turan said in low-spirits, “he’s the director of the Silver Fortress, the last Top Commander of the Interstellar Union.”

No matter what he said, no matter how much he loathed the Union, he would do everything he could until the last second of his life to protect these two galaxies.

It was almost as if this was common sense and the natural course of action.

Even if the Union never acknowledged him, even if those people all wanted him dead.

Perhaps the Black Orchid Academy really was a brainwashing school.

“Captain, Professor Lu is here.”

“Speaking of the devil.” Turan rolled her eyes. She thought about it for a few moments before turning back to her subordinate and whispered something to his ear, then picked up Lu Bixing’s call as if nothing happened. “I knew it, all handsome lads have telepathy with me, I was just about to ask someone to contact you. Hurry up, figure out how to relocate those refugees, I can’t handle this on my own when the Prime Minister’s not here, take over for me!”

“I’m on my way.” Lu Bixing had already seen the chaos up on the frontlines and sailed up to Turan’s commanding ship. He quickly organized all the terminals in the Eighth Galaxy; he’d already memorized all the terminals of the galaxy so only scanned through the situation briefly before making a few calls to various directors and mayors of surrounding planets and stations. The young man was very sociable and worked very efficiently: it took only ten minutes for him to find places to settle these refugees before he turned back to Turan. “When is Lin coming back? Tell me the truth, I don’t have Zhanlu’s main system access permission and he refuses to give me real-time updates.”

Turan stared at him for a few seconds before pushing a cup of coffee towards Lu Bixing.

“I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I hate lying in front of people.” Turan thought about for a few moments before she finally explained gravely, “I suspect the commander never planned on coming back from this side.”

Lu Bixing’s expression changed.

Turan reached out a hand and pressed onto his shoulder: “Don’t worry, he already informed me that he will return from the back through the underground terminal. Headmaster Lu, since he said he will return himself, can you also stay calm for a bit? If even Lin Jingheng can’t make you trust him, nobody else in this world will be trustworthy.”

Lu Bixing picked up the coffee cup with a conflicted heart, then put it back down as if he suddenly remembered something.

Turan watched him as he pulled the coffee over and took a sip of her own: “I’m not afraid to tell you that I won’t stop you from doing what you want. Are you suspecting that I’ll drug you? I don’t even do such an underhand move when I hook up at clubs, who do you think I am?”

Lu Bixing cleared his throat awkwardly and didn’t want to poke at her bubble to say her boss was the one that showed him what an underhand move was.

Turan said: “Take care of the mess for me over here, and you can go find him if you want, I’ll pretend I don’t know.”

Lu Bixing let out a sigh of relief. Some types of friends will warn you and stop you from doing anything stupid for your sake, but others are the type that would give you a hand when you want to do something crazy and pretend they didn’t see anything. The former are all good friends that one should keep, but sometimes the existence of the latter is much more valuable.

Lu Bixing: “Thanks.”

He had no power to control what Lin Jingheng thought, nor did he have the right to interfere with the man’s decision. Even a kind ‘threat’ like ‘I will wait for you behind the portal’ wouldn’t be effective. Yet at the same time, there was no way Lu Bixing could wait at home during a time like this. He could only follow the commander to the other side of guns and fire; if Lin Jingheng could safely return from the underground tunnel, he’d follow him, but if…

Turan knew what he wanted to do. It wasn’t because the Captain was all-knowing, it was because Lu Bixing wouldn’t have it any other way.

Lu Bixing had once opened up a school for the underprivileged and built a space station for smugglers, it was as if he naturally had the talent to create order amidst chaos. He very quickly established a simple system to receive the refugees into the Eighth Galaxy and cleaned up the clogging of the terminals. At the same time, the second batch of refugees entered the galaxy. They were much more battle-worn than the first batch, and a few of the starships were only pieces of remnants by the time they passed through the portals, leaving them with the job of cleaning up the corpses.

Lu Bixing bit his lip and ran towards the mech dock inside Turan’s commanding ship; he couldn’t wait any longer.

The guards on the launching deck didn’t stop him, perhaps Turan had already informed them ahead of time, and even opened up the elevator for him. Lu Bixing nodded in gratitude as he walked into the elevator with no suspicion of his ‘friend’…until he noticed that his personal device’s signal had been blocked.

Lu Bixing looked up in shock, but the elevator door already closed up.

Lu Bixing: “Elizabeth Turan!”

Nobody answered as the elevator shot down. At the same time, a strong mist of anesthetics shot from the ventilation holes inside the elevator and consumed him.

Little underhand tricks were clearly a tradition of the Silver Ten, she had been lying under his nose this whole time!

Lu Bixing held in his breath but these little particles were contact-type anesthetics that quickly dissolved through his skin. His limbs began to numb as his muscles relaxed; Lu Bixing used the last bit of his strength to pull at the crack of the elevator doors. The young man’s numb fingers began to lose strength as his nails cracked on the door…

In the end, those hands slid from the elevator door and left a bloodied mark.

Inside the Seventh Galaxy, the AUS and Central Militia fought desperately against each other, almost like a physical brawl of ancient battles. Despite the Central Militia’s efforts to drive out the pirates, they were still at a disadvantage against the sheer number of the AUS fleet. All planets, satellites, and space stations within the vast Seventh Galaxy needed to be protected, so the Seventh Galaxy was forced to decentralize their military power.

But even a broken rock still had its strength.

Countless people dropped out from the Seventh Galaxy’s network without a sound as dots of light disappeared on the screens like a darkening night sky.

“Commander,” a guard spoke to Lin Jingheng, “let’s go. The pirates have noticed that the Seventh Galaxy refugees are escaping towards the Eighth Galaxy and are blocking off the terminals. The Seventh Galaxy won’t be able to escape, I doubt there’s any starships that will be coming in anymore.”

Lin Jingheng ordered without turning his head: “Send an escort for the Prime Minister, tell them to leave first…connect to Turan.”

Turan responded promptly: “Commander.”

Lin Jingheng’s gaze scanned through the screen and locked on the medical capsule Lu Bixing was sleeping in behind Turan. The young scientist was in deep sleep as if he was in a neverending dream.

“I did it, it’s only anesthetics.” Turan gave him a complicated laugh, “You have to come back, Commander. If you manage to come back safely, I’ll shave my head bald in apology at most, otherwise Professor Lu will have a knife at my neck for the rest of my life. You can’t underestimate a technician!”

Lin Jingheng gave her a slightly meek smile: “I’ll get you a wig net from the Seventh Galaxy when I return…Captain Turan!”

“Yes, sir.”

“I need you to activate the portal explosions in 20 minutes regardless of if I make it back, and regardless of if all refugees have made it through. Can you do it?”

Turan: “Roger that.”

“We’ll meet at the underground terminal.” Lin Jingheng swiftly cut off the communication and turned to Zhanlu, “What’s the name of that suicide team commander from Ankur’s fleet?”

Zhanlu: “He’s…”

“Whatever his face is.” Lin Jingheng waved it off. “Tell that garbage to hand over his commanding authority.”

Zhanlu responded: “Sir, codename ‘whatever his face is’ General responded that the Seventh Galaxy Militia will follow all orders from the Silver Fortress without question.”

“You’re trying to play dodgeball in a glass house and you still expect the enemy to play by your rules?” Lin Jingheng let out a laugh, “Fools, listen to my command!”

The Eighth Galaxy forces charged into the pirate fleet straight towards the civilian starship trapped in the center. The passengers in the starships were all stunned by this sudden act as the powerful heavy mechs shot past their starship from the side. Soon after, the Eighth Galaxy forces slashed through the AUS mechs and met up with General ‘whatever his face is’ to clear up a large hole within the pirate fleet.

Lin Jingheng: “Don’t block the way, dumb dogs.”

The AUS pirates gathered up like a hawk that had smelled rotten flesh and were dragged away from the terminal towards Lin Jingheng’s fleet. The defense near the terminals weakened while the Central Militia quickly split up into two teams to fire at the enemy while the main pirates tailed Lin Jingheng.

The tables turned within an instant. The pirates’ one-sided massacre ended as soon as the Eighth Galaxy Forces entered the battlefield.

The civilian starships within the Seventh Galaxy fled like lost lambs, making it impossible for the AUS to capture any of them as hostages. A swarm of refugees passed through the border between the Seventh and Eighth Galaxies. Prime Minister Edward refused to leave first and lingered near the transfer portal towards the Eighth Galaxy with his escorts to wait for the refugee starships.

Turan grabbed onto her wrist; there were fifteen minutes left.

Saturday looked at the young girl’s innocent face through the screen. Mint’s face overlapped with the face of the little girl inside the ecopod in his mind as words stuck in his throat.

He remembered the message from the mysterious person: If I were you, I wouldn’t trust the people around me.

Mint grabbed a cup from the side and chugged some water: “What’s going on?”

“……Nothing.” Saturday looked at her longingly and said quietly, “I just wanted to see you.”

“Are you stupid?! We’re damn busy right now, nobody has the time to chat with you!” Mint cut off the connection in anger.

At that moment, Saturday’s personal device once again flashed as the mysterious person said: “Do you suspect I’m lying? Why don’t you go ask that Old Fart who took you in about who exposed your family?”

The former smuggler was still locked up inside his own space station. After Lin Jingheng relocated all the residents and supplies on the station, he turned it into a prison to lock up war prisoners.

Saturday wasn’t too far away from the underground terminal. After he changed his shift with his colleague, Saturday found an excuse to leave the fleet and returned to the place he grew up in to find the prisoner locked in for over a year.

The Old Fart almost lost his mind as he saw a human being after spending countless days and nights inside this prison cell and crawled his way over to Saturday: “Saturday! Saturday! I knew you had the biggest heart, I knew you would come save me. I was the one that raised you, bloodline doesn’t matter when we share family bonds, right? You will forgive me…”

Saturday’s heart sank.

Meanwhile, there were five minutes left before the transfer portals were scheduled to self-destruct, but Saturday was completely unaware.

“I’m about to leave, otherwise I’ll be stuck inside the Eighth Galaxy.” The mysterious person once again sent out another passcode. “Do you want to know the truth behind the Nuwa Project? Contact me.”

The demon inside the abyss whispered temptation into his ears–Come, contact me….

Lin Jingheng reorganized the Seventh Galaxy Militia and pulled the AUS fleet further and further away from the intergalactic terminal.

Zhanlu sent out a coordinate for emergency warping to all the Central Militia’s mechs.

There was one minute left before the scheduled explosion.

“Contact me…” Saturday grabbed the long-distance passcode as the siren’s song serenaded him.

“Contact me…”

I already left the underground terminal, Saturday thought, if he uses the portals inside the Eighth Galaxy to connect, the signal will be going through both the Seventh and Eighth Galaxy networks, there will be no risk of exposing the underground terminal .

He connected the passcode subconsciously as he calculated carefully in his mind.

At that moment, Turan blew up the transfer portals as per Lin Jingheng’s order.

The high-energy waves engulfed everyone and everything around the area, from space waste to corpses…this time, even the highly disruption-resilient internal network of the Eighth Galaxy was cut off.

The connection Saturday made at the moment cut off and reconnected almost immediately–the signal was forced out of the Eighth Galaxy network and automatically jumped onto the portal inside the underground terminal.

Within a split second, the portal inside the underground terminal was detected while the mastermind behind this war smiled behind the screen.

Lin Jingheng ordered everyone to make an emergency warp to the designated coordinates. The Seventh Galaxy Militia dropped their guns against the pirate fleet and disappeared on the spot. The commander had already planned out a route of escape; after three emergency warps, they would be able to use the transfer portals near the outside of the Seventh Galaxy and flee the battlefield to the Eighth Galaxy.

At the same time, the other AUS fleet waiting outside the Eighth Galaxy sailed out quietly. They split up into two teams: as one passed through the underground tunnel, the other stood by the path the Seventh Galaxy would have to pass through to reach the Eighth Galaxy. They carefully hid their energy levels while hundreds of missiles pointed at a transfer portal.

When the unsuspecting Seventh and Eighth Galaxy fleets passed through the portal, a wave of missiles shot down and blew up the transfer portal.

The massive firepower slashed through the entire fleet of mechs while timespace warped under high-energy beams.

Lu Bixing struggled subconsciously in his sleep as if he was being haunted by a nightmare while his hand fell from his chest–

What did he dream of?

Would he attempt to fight off his nightmare?

What he didn’t know was that the real nightmare was only about to begin.

Book 5 – Tower of Destruction *

(TL Note: The book title can also be translated as “The Shattered Tower”. I chose the translation that stayed consistent with the rest of the books here but please keep in mind the double meaning is intentional.)