Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 124

Chapter 124 – The Prisoner in the Cage

Whether it was the researchers in the medical team or the guards waiting outside, nobody dared to speak up when Lin Jingshu was present.

Doctor Hardin looked at her strangely: “Jingshu, do you know what you’re saying?”

The red in her bloodshot eyes quickly faded away as her voice softened: “It’s nothing, Grandpa Hardin. Sorry, those are just irrational complaints. A breathing corpse is still better than a cold corpse, right? We don’t know…”

“No, you know,” the doctor’s tone stiffened up for once as he pulled his back up from the chair and said hoarsely, “you know, because you’re smart like Laura. How could you not know the difference between the dead and the living? Aside from the fact that a breathing corpse is prettier than bones, what’s the difference between being stuck inside an ecopod and being buried in a grave? You’re scared; you’re scared of him waking up, scared of facing him, scared of facing yourself. You only want to…”

A clicking sound rang from the wheelchair. Lin Jingshu turned on the wheel brakes and locked the old doctor on the spot.

The wheelchair trembled slightly as the old doctor rushed to maintain his balance.

“My words are the rules here, doctor.” Lin Jingshu lifted her lips up slightly into a sharp angle. She then stood upright and looked deeply into the lab through the glass window and carefully repeated her words: “I said to maintain the status quo–okay, let me know immediately when his condition is more stable. Doctor Hardin is getting old, send him back to rest up soon, don’t let him sit here the whole night.”

“Jingshu, that’s your selfish desires.” It seemed as if Doctor Hardin was determined to not let her go today. “What about him? What if he refuses to maintain the status quo, what will you do? Kill him with your own hands?”

Lin Jingshu’s footsteps stopped.

Doctor Hardin continued: “This world can’t revolve around the will of one person, nobody can be god and control everything. Jingshu, do you still not understand at this point?”

Lin Jingshu didn’t respond and walked away as the sound of her heels clicking on the ground drifted further away.

She had arrogantly thought that Lin Jingheng was stuck in the Eighth Galaxy because of limited resources, that he was being targeted by the lowlifes in the galaxy due to his fame. She thought that if she could turn the war into a bigger mess across the galaxies, he would be able to take the chance to leave that place.

She thought that she had picked the right time to crush the weak bond between the Union and the Central Militias and shatter the Union at its core. She thought that the helpless citizens who gradually grew to accept the fact that Eden would never be fixed would embrace the gift of opium.

Yet nothing went according to plan.

A Top Commander of the Union like Lin Jingheng had the power of the Silver Ten in his hands; if he wished, there was nothing in the universe that he couldn’t conquer, no enemies he couldn’t kill. Lin Jingshu couldn’t imagine what kind of curse fell upon him to make him give up such a powerful weapon and fall into this state.

Two years ago when the Freedom Corps had the opportunity to exponentially expand their influence without fear, her biggest enemy wasn’t the Union and Central Militia, nor was it another pirate organization, but the Silver Ten themselves.

The Silver Ten that had regrouped and resummoned through her own base.

Why?

Did Lin Jingheng figure out that she was the one behind the Freedom Corps? Lin Jingshu didn’t even want to think deeper about this question…

If he didn’t figure it out and this was all an unfortunate natural course of events, wouldn’t that mean fate was fighting against her? The shadows of fate had been shackling her for over 50 years and forced her to walk down all the wrong paths in life. If she couldn’t even break out of this curse with her own hands, what was the point of her living in this damned world?

If Lin Jingheng had figured it out…

Lin Jingshu’s footsteps grew faster as if she was running away from a monster that only appeared in nightmares, opening its mouth, ready to swallow her up.

Many things were like an uneven balancing scale that always leaned towards the direction nobody wanted it to go toward. Murphy’s Law wasn’t exclusive to those weak souls in life who tried to cheat their way out of the limits of fate, it also applied to the powerful figures that smugly thought they could manipulate the world.

Like how the medical team couldn’t immediately ‘revive’ Lin Jingheng into full health in the beginning, they couldn’t maintain the status quo right now.

That accidental signal disruption woke the mental network like a sudden unstoppable shower of rain that revived the dried plants in a drought.

Lin Jingheng’s body hadn’t woken up, but the brainwave activity was growing more active by the day.

It started off as small reactions once every month, then grew to a reaction once every few days. A while after, his brainwave activity flooded the monitor like an open river into a continuous stream.

“Doctor, look,” a doctor from the medical team said to Doctor Hardin, “his brainwave activity was exceptionally active this morning. We scanned his brain and mental network to find out that there were weak signs of human-mech activity on the mental network–it’s almost as if he was ‘looking’ outside the pod through the mental network.”

Doctor Hardin lowered his voice: “His consciousness is recovering.”

“It has already recovered.” The medical team doctor said, “We’ve already successfully communicated with him once today; we already connected a simple typewriter onto the external mental network we built outside.”

Doctor Hardin looked up in surprise.

“It’s only very simple phrases or words, he can’t handle long sentences at this rate yet. We asked how he felt and if there were any discomfort in his body, and after about 40 minutes he responded ‘no’.”

“No? No discomfort?”

“That’s not the case. With his current conditions, it should mean that he can’t feel his body right now.” The medical doctor suddenly lowered his voice, “Doctor, trust me, if we don’t have an order from our master, we wouldn’t dare to give him extra stimulus. We can’t even use extra medication or biochips, everything from the position down to the status of the ecopod has been the same since we found him.”

Doctor Hardin: “Hm…what about it?”

“I don’t want to say this,” the medical doctor said, “but if our master insists on ‘maintaining the status quo’, in my perspective I can only use inhibitory drugs to keep his neurological activity down to a minimum.”

As the first director of the White Tower and a specialist in human-machine interaction with the Eden system, Doctor Hardin knew immediately that this ‘inhibitory drug’ wasn’t any normal hypnotic drug.

If Lin Jingheng’s situation before was still considered in between life and death, then any extra medication and drugs introduced now would potentially destroy his soul.

“Doctor, what should we do?”

Doctor Hardin fell silent: “…Go ask Lin Jingshu. Ask her if she wants to turn her own brother into a human display.”

Lin Jingshu was a busy woman. With the AUS’s ambush and newly patched up relationship between the Union and Central Militias, the Freedom Corps were forced to move underground to avoid getting caught in the crossfire and wait for the next opportunity to slice through the Union. This wasn’t hard; Lin Jingshu believed that the unity and sense of justice that held the Union together was built on lies. The Union had already used the same lie for over three centuries, so this was simply the last straw that needed to be uprooted. In addition, statistics proved that opium users were still increasing at a steady pace even as the Freedom Corps turned to the underground market.

But no matter how busy she got, she still insisted on visiting the dwarf planet once every three days.

The medical doctor gave her a very roundabout explanation on Lin Jingheng’s current status and Doctor Hardin’s question. Lin Jingshu remained silent for a long time after the explanation.

The doctor said: “If you decide to use inhibitory drugs, we have the medication plan and drug already prepared. They’re inside the medical capsule beside the ecopod, we can start anytime.”

Lin Jingshu walked toward the door of the lab and interrupted him: “All of you, leave. Don’t bother me.”

The doctor closed his mouth and ordered the rest of the team out of the lab as he notified the guards outside to clear out the area of people as well.

The ecopod was like a whole world of its own, closing itself off from the outside as it carefully protected the person inside. Through the glass cover, one could even clearly look at his calm expression as if the man inside was only taking a nap. He’s a bit different than before , Lin Jingshu thought. Her impression of her brother had always been that he was always quite cold, his brows naturally angled over a sharp gaze in his eyes.

Was this face also capable of showing a soft expression like this?

“They told me that you’re attempting to use the mental network they connected for you. Can you hear me talk right now?”

The man inside the ecopod didn’t react, neither did the medical equipment nor the small screen connected to the mental network. Lin Jingshu studied him for a bit and concluded that she probably came in during his resting time.

She sat down slowly beside the ecopod as her fingers glossed over a button on the medical capsule beside it–with one press of a button, the medical capsule would shoot out a syringe into the ecopod and return the man inside back into deep slumber.

“It’s tiring to stay alive, don’t you think?” Lin Jingshu rested her elbow on her knee as she held up her face. She spoke gently, but of course Lin Jingheng couldn’t respond; she tilted her head slightly as she looked down towards the man in the pod. “They said that you entered the Black Orchid Academy when you were 14, and you were already decided as the honorary graduate of your class the moment you walked onto the campus. They said you’d be the eye of the storm for the Union when you graduate; you must’ve had a tough life during those years, right?”

“I’m sure you’ve never read novels, but I read a lot. They didn’t like for me to work too hard, so I could only appease them by drowning myself in boring pastime activities. Did you know that horror stories are actually very similar to adventure stories? Both protagonists would run into terrifying antagonists and those antagonists would come up with millions of ways to kill the protagonist, but do you know what the difference between the two are?”

Lin Jingshu paused a little and pretended to wait for a reply, then continued her own ramblings: “For example, there’s someone who has friends and family, a job, a good life, and many dreams and aspirations in their hearts…then one day after coming home from work, they realize the door to their house is open and there is a murderer waiting inside the house to snap their neck. When you get here, you’ll be drawn in by the story with fear and curiosity as to what will happen next. Is the protagonist’s family all dead? How will they escape, and even if they do manage to escape, will they be chased down? What will happen to their job? Will their life from now on be changed forever? This is a horror story. But what will happen when you take the same scene and same murderer but flip the protagonist into a murderer’s role? You wouldn’t be scared at that point and will instead be excited to see how the protagonist will kill the other killer in their house; that’s an adventure story. Jingheng, what kind do you prefer?”

Lin Jingheng didn’t give a response.

Lin Jingshu smiled at him and said: “Do you know what conclusion I drew from these two stories? The more you care about the world around you, the easier it is for others to threaten you and push you to the edge. When people get slowly pushed to the edge, they will break down, go mad, and even scare themselves to death–unless you become one of those people threatening others and give up the burden called ‘desires’. When you do that, you will have no fear.”

“Do you know why the Committee chose me back then?”

“Because the day Laura Gordon left, she snuck into the breeding center and pulled both of us out over ten days early. So perhaps there wasn’t any real reason for you to be called my older brother, you just happened to be heavier and look bigger than me when we were born…the Committee was notified of her escape and forced our father to chase her down with force. She split both of us up between herself and her comrade; her comprade that carried you was caught in secret and taken into her husband’s hands while I was brought up to her mech…until she placed me inside an ecopod and pushed me out before she self-destructed. And because of that strange mental power, the Committee had always suspected there was something in me.”

“In the beginning, they used the excuse of doing health checkups for premature births to take me away, only to find that my mental strength range was seven times higher than average children of my age. Would you believe that I’m a genius? What a coincidence, the Committee also didn’t believe that. So when our father Lin Wei died, they were desperate to take me away by all means possible. But guess what? This ‘genius’ child was actually an artificial product created by Laura using a semi-permanent relaxant. It wasn’t until I reached adulthood when the effects slowly faded and the Committee realized they’d been fooled for all these years, that she had already given the forbidden fruit to Lu Xin. In order to lure the Committee away, she didn’t even hesitate to use her own child as bait. If Lu Xin didn’t jump out to try and fight for the young girl after Lin Wei’s death, perhaps the Committee would also never have found out that the forbidden fruit was in his hands.”

“Semi-permanent relaxants have been banned since before the Union was founded due to their high potential of causing irreversible damage to the human nervous system. I haven’t felt anything yet, but perhaps it’s because I haven’t reached that age, maybe I’ll get dementia when I grow old? That would be interesting.”

“For decades, people monitored me day and night. They were insistent on training me to be an obedient dog. I’ve probably taken more illegal drugs and medications than all the pirates you’ve ever beaten up in your life.”

“And those old directors of the White Tower with their boundless reach…Doctor Hardin, a saint who escaped the surveillance of Eden, who was backstabbed by his own men, who ran and hid for many years to the point where he couldn’t even believe in his most precious student and friend. Perhaps only a little girl who also had nothing left could make him open up his heart, right?” Lin Jingshu looked towards the security camera inside the lab and lifted her red lips up slightly into a faint smile. “He feared that this little girl would be brainwashed into a foolish puppet under the Committee and tried to save her by keeping her ‘free spirit’.”

“The free spirit–how lavish and unreachable. The little girl didn’t even dare to think about it, she thought a cheap ‘freedom’ of the body was enough already, but why did she not acquire what she yearned for, my dear Doctor Hardin? That’s because you wanted a venomous snake that could bite into the root of the Committee, right? Then don’t complain. Isn’t it normal for the breeder of the venomous snake to taste the bite of the snake they raised?”

Perhaps it was her imagination, but she felt as if the camera in the corner turned slightly away from her like it couldn’t look her in the eye.

“This was a fate we were both supposed to share, but you ran away in the middle of it. Sometimes when I remember this, I feel envious and hate you; we’re both the same, why should you have it better than me? But sometimes I’m also relieved because you’re like another me…however, Jingheng, are you…still another me?”

At that moment, the small screen on the ecopod displayed a small reaction; the man inside the pod gave a small brainwave reaction.

Lin Jingshu lifted her head up and stared at the curve on the brainwave detector for a short while. Her hand glossed over Lin Jingheng’s face through the glass cover of the pod as she said with a cold smile on her face: “Stay here with me, I only have you left.”

She turned to the medical capsule onto the side: “Activate automated injection for the inhibitory drug.”

The medical capsule’s robotic voice responded with an alert: “The selected inhibitory drug will cause unknown damage to the patient’s nervous system, please confirm injection.”

Lin Jingshu: “……”

The medical capsule’s voice once again rang inside the empty lab: “Please confirm injection.”

Lin Jingshu took a deep breath, the word “yes” was already at the tip of her tongue as a single word suddenly appeared on the text monitor connected to the mental network: “…Wh?”

The person controlling the mental network seemed to be struggling to formulate words and made a small typo on a simple word.

Lin Jingshu trembled in shock.

The monitor indicated that the patient was attempting to expand the mental network to ‘look out’ through the network. The monitor showed that the invisible network was slowly expanding and passed through the place she was standing at. Lin Jingshu trembled even more as the urge to run filled her mind.

The text monitor dimmed down for a few moments as another line of text appeared: “Who are you?”

This time, he fixed his own typo. However, Lin Jingshu didn’t notice because her vision blurred with no sign of clearing up: “You don’t know who I am anymore?”

The medical capsule asked again: “Please confirm injection.”

The small monitor connecting to the mental network carefully displayed another word: “……You?”

Lin Jingshu suddenly grabbed onto the robotic hand reaching up from the medical capsule behind her: “Do you still remember who you are?”

“……No.”

The ‘no’ disappeared abruptly as another line with a typo appeared: “Don cry.”

This line crushed her. Lin Jingshu suddenly turned around and ran out the lab as if she couldn’t handle staying on this dwarf planet any longer, then left the planet on her mech. Three hours later, she ordered the destruction of all the mech docks and galactic vehicles on the small dwarf planet. She then activated a special type of signal blocker used for galactic prisons to cut off all connections from the outside and turned this planet into an isolated cage in the midst of space.

There was only one prisoner in this cage, with a planet full of prison guards also locked inside.

One hundred days later, the prisoner successfully disconnected from the mental network on his own and opened his own eyes.

He had been sleeping for too long and wasn’t used to his own body, only able to move his eyes. Those grey eyes were clear and vibrant, but soulless as if they were the eyes of a dead man.

Doctor Hardin, who was also left inside the prison, rolled his wheelchair into the lab. He waved everyone else out the lab and blocked off all the surveillance.

Lin Jingheng looked at him blankly as if he didn’t recognize this infamous traitor of the Union, even studying the old man curiously.

The old doctor sat in his wheelchair and stared at the man inside the pod in silence for a long while.

“When the brain is damaged, it can’t completely control the mental network. It’s difficult to even maintain a normal rate of conscious activity –’s when people are the most honest,” Doctor Hardin said.

Lin Jingheng blinked.

“So when the person insists on lying, it would cause some uncontrollable technical mistakes; for example, typos,” the doctor said.

The clear and innocent grey eyes grew cold.