Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 135

Chapter 135 – …You Little Shit

Lin Jingheng’s life had been ironically deprived of chatterboxes the last few years. When he was jailed in the galactic prison for fourteen years, there was only an old Doctor Hardin beside him who would constantly bother him with stories about the past and galactic societies. For the most part, he felt that his tolerance for pointless chatter and awful attitude had improved significantly over the years; yet when Zhanlu mentioned the part about ‘injecting biochips,’ Lin Jingheng still couldn’t control his rage.

“What did you say?” Lin Jingheng quickly pulled his arm out from Lu Bixing’s grip, only to discover that he was unsuccessful and the knocked-out Prime Minister’s grip on him grew stronger. Lu Bixing’s fingers were like tough metal handcuffs that violated the Universal Prisoner’s Rights Law; their grip was so cold and tight that Lin Jingheng could almost feel the pain in his bones. This inhuman power only fueled the fire in his heart while it proved the effects of that biochip in the man’s body. “Bastard!”

Then, almost as if he could feel Lin Jingheng’s attempt to escape, Lu Bixing’s breathing grew heavier while his whole body instinctively curled up in pain, knocking his forehead against the medical capsule.

Lin Jingheng’s heart skipped a beat as the fire in his heart was suddenly put out by this new sense of worry: “What’s going on with him?”

“Don’t worry, this is just the side-effects of relaxant number 6,” Zhanlu answered. “This particular relaxant will cause slight disruption of brainwaves temporarily; a common symptom is the low quality of sleep of the patient after injecting the relaxant. They can be easily awakened, but while they’re in deep slumber they will sometimes experience sleepwalking.”

Lin Jingheng nit-picked at this immediately: “You all upgraded your relaxants up to number 6 already, how come the side effects are worse than the original?”

“First of all, relaxant number 6 is actually a side-product of other drugs and not an upgraded version of an existing product, it’s rarely used in practice. Second of all, it did solve the problem of extreme instantaneous muscle twitching. Under emergency situations, it can significantly increase the mech pilot’s factor and…”

Lin Jingheng didn’t want to listen to him recite proper drug-use instructions and interrupted the AI: “Just tell me what I need to do.”

“You do not need to do anything,” Zhanlu said. “Please simply stay quiet and put, try to avoid disturbing his sleep.”

So…trying to pull his own hand out of this tight grip was considered a disturbing action? Lin Jingheng stared for a few moments and carefully sat down beside the edge of the medical capsule. He relaxed his breathing, and with a still restless heart, let out an exhausted sigh: “What are you good for anyway, why didn’t you stop him?”

“My permissions were blocked off at the time, and after I regained my access, I wasn’t able to adequately determine the risk of removing the biochip due to lack of proper research data. Therefore, I’ve determined that it would be unsafe to forcefully remove the chip.” Zhanlu explained patiently for himself, “But once I regained my parental permissions over my master, I’ve had a success rate of near 100% in stopping Headmaster Lu’s series of irrational actions.”

Lin Jingheng looked up and glanced at the small robotic arm. This was a replica of the old arm with some strange proportions; Lin Jingheng couldn’t quite place his finger on it, but the strangeness almost made the AI look like a poor old toy in his eyes. He finally gave in and tried to give the AI a bit of spotlight: “For example?”

Zhanlu: “For example, he once tried to clone you with a strand of your hair.”

Lin Jingheng: “……”

Zhanlu kindly reminded him: “We’ve talked about this earlier; you need to remain quiet and calm right now.”

Of course, the powerful AI still couldn’t fully understand human emotions. Lin Jingheng’s reaction was surprisingly rather collected, and even quite dumbfounded as he lowered his head to take a look at Lu Bixing sleeping inside the medical capsule. The young man’s physical features hadn’t changed much; people under the age of 100 could maintain their physique fairly easily with a medical capsule. Of course, as the Prime Minister of the Eighth Galaxy, keeping a good image was part of his job on a daily basis.

Lin Jingheng stared at this familiar face and had a sudden hallucination that they were still back together sixteen years ago, on that day he left Lu Bixing and sailed out to the border of the Seventh and Eighth Galaxy–

It was a sunny day in Milky Way City. He carried his jacket in his arms with a white glove in his mouth as he carefully put the other glove on his hand, then announced to Lu Bixing through his teeth: “I’m leaving.”

Lu Bixing strolled over and wrapped his arms around the commander from behind like a needy child. Those mischievous hands kept tugging and pulling on the commander in various attempts to keep the man from leaving: “Let’s do a bet; I bet you won’t be coming back anytime soon.”

“I’m not playing with you,” Lin Jingheng said. “My thoughts are the same…stop it, I just buttoned up!”

Lu Bixing let out a sigh: “They call it EQ, my commander, why can’t you at least try and get better at it? I swear if it wasn’t for your looks, you’d be doomed to stay single forever–here, let me show you the proper response. You’re supposed to say ‘babe, I’ll bet that the 8th Galaxy Star will rise from the east side of the planet tomorrow’.”

Lin Jingheng remained uncooperative: “Thanks but no thanks, I’m confident my brain is still functioning–you can stop with the smooth talking.”

“And that’s when I’ll respond with ‘sure, I’ll bet the sun will rise from the west side’,” Lu Bixing skillfully ignored the mood killer and looked straight into Lin Jingheng’s judging gaze with a straight face. “So then I can lose myself to you.”

Lin Jingheng: “……”

“So I’m gonna bet that you won’t come home soon; however many days you’re gone you’ll have to make it up to me when you come back. You’ll have to do everything I say during those days, like you’re not allowed to wear a shirt at home…hey.”

Lin Jingheng didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at his clinginess and could only grab the young man before him and shut this loud mouth with a deep kiss in hopes that it would tie up his tongue. The commander then left with a hint of satisfaction in the corner of his eyes and a short line of: “You shameless little rascal.”

These memories shattered into pieces and reassembled into the face of this young man before him. Lin Jingheng reached an arm out subconsciously as he gently rubbed at Lu Bixing’s face in an attempt to wipe off the cloud of worry on it.

He didn’t have this on him before, Lin Jingheng thought.

Suddenly, all the worries and concern he had while on the road vanished like clearing mist as a strange hint of anger resurfaced in Lin Jingheng’s heart. There were so many people in the Eighth Galaxy, but was the whole world suddenly attracted to women or was everyone blind? Why hadn’t anyone even thought about keeping him company during these years? Even if he rejected them, why wasn’t there at least someone that had enough patience to pursue him for a few more years? It had been sixteen years already, someone should’ve been able to warm up this frozen little snake, right?

Lin Jingheng asked Zhanlu in a voice almost as small as a whisper: “Why did you blow up his breeding tank?”

Zhanlu’s forever rational response followed: “Any form of cloning a human being is a taboo in all forms of human legal systems due to the immoral nature of this act. In addition, a clone can never replace the real you; a clone is still an individual entity of its own. Besides, this could also bring about more ethical issues in the future; there are enough cases throughout history that can prove cloning would not comfort him and instead create more difficult psychological issues to the patient. This would simply create a vicious cycle of unquenchable thirst.”

Of course, this was something everyone understood.

But when people were trudging through the path down purgatory, they would already be spending too much energy to keep themselves alive. When given even a little bit of light, they would subconsciously cling onto it like a ray of hope. They were already desperate to cling on to any sort of saving grace; how would they have the energy to determine whether it was starlight or the flames of hell?

The path would only grow darker as the abyss dragged one in deeper.

Until everything reached destruction.

“Zhanlu,” Lin Jingheng asked, “can you do an analysis based off of your database and tell me how I should face him when he wakes up?”

Zhanlu didn’t catch that this was simply a helpless mumble to himself and quickly got on the job to search up social case studies. AIs were very non-discriminant in this effect; whether he was being the Union’s Number One mech core or a relationship counselor, he would put 100% effort into the tasks he was ordered to do: “Sir, according to research, people’s long-term memories are prone to being affected by emotions and will grow more and more out of touch with factual reality. And the person in your memories will always be changing, creating a dissonance that causes drifts in relationships. Therefore, after long breakups, people often find each other to be different and harder to get along with than their memories, regardless of if it is a breakup of emotional dependency or an accidental breakup. Thus, I believe you should treat him with patience, get to know who he is now, and try not to refer back to how things were in the past.”

This strange little robot arm spoke sternly and logically as if a human soul was trapped inside it.

“But I believe with Headmaster Lu’s situation right now, it may be difficult for him to achieve this in a rational state of mind,” Zhanlu said. “You should know that both positive and negative stimulation can be harmful if overused.”

Lin Jingheng only gave a quiet nod before he leaned his head on the medical capsule and remained silent for the rest of the trip.

The fate of the Eighth Galaxy had once been carried on his shoulders, heavy like a mountain. After countless times of rubbing his skin and flesh raw from the heavy burden, he grew a steel armor across his shoulders that could withstand the pressure of the world. Now, he had to carry the weight of this person that felt almost as light as a feather compared to everything in the past, but this job suddenly became the most daunting and difficult burden he’d ever carried.

Lu Bixing remained fast asleep even when they successfully landed on Qiming, which didn’t seem to match up with what Zhanlu said about “low quality sleep.” However, the medical capsule didn’t indicate anything abnormal, as if he was simply too tired and was sleeping in.

Thankfully, it seemed like Turan already knew their Prime Minister would return a mess and took care of all the aftermath on her own.

Lin Jingheng took the special terminal and dragged Lu Bixing along with the medical capsule home–to the Home of Commander Lin and Engineer 001.

The outlandish dancing robot in the front door had disappeared and was replaced by a standard gardening robot, who was carefully cleaning up the grass field. The plants and flowers were neatly decorated, almost like the robot completely replicated a pattern from the “Classic Private Garden Design Encyclopedia,” elegant and pleasant, but a little too standardized.

The house itself had been repainted once, the building now a very typical grey and white color scheme like its neighbors–this residential area sanctioned to the Milky Way City Military Base back then was now a core center of political authority in the Eighth Galaxy; the overly colorful and lavish exteriors were no longer appropriate for this place.

Only the placard on the door remained the same.

Even though the fake flowers around the wooden sign would never wither, the colors had already grown dull over the years. The many rainy seasons had drenched the wood as little moss grew from the cracks of the wood, giving it a sense of age.

The furnishings inside the house hadn’t changed dramatically, but that transformable sofa was still there. The attic was locked while an albino python poked its little head out from the side as it sensed the presence of a stranger, then slid back into its tank out of fear.

Lin Jingheng remembered that Lu Bixing was someone who was a little negligent of organization in his life and would often be too lazy to clean up. He never made his bed and was always in the middle of looking for his own stuff; yet to Lin Jingheng’s surprise, this house was actually quite clean despite him living alone for so long. Aside from the few strange pets Zhanlu brought in, the house was actually considered well-organized.

The little robots in the house cleaned up the furniture in the house periodically. Perhaps it was because Lu Bixing was out of the wormhole for over a month, a cold air surrounded the house and it felt almost like an abandoned building.

Zhanlu’s robotic arm merged in with the walls of the house and his voice rang throughout the building: “Headmaster Lu usually sleeps in the study, so his bedroom is locked.”

Lin Jingheng reached an arm out; the automated lock on the door confirmed his identity and opened up for him. The wooden door opened quietly inwards–Lin Jingheng almost felt like he had opened up a secret chamber in the house. The temperature and humidity level in the room had not been adjusted for a very long time, so only cold air that even the sunlight couldn’t warm up greeted him as he walked in. He then quickly noticed that a ‘person’ faced away from him, head resting on his arms as he sat quietly on the chair by the beside. Lin Jingheng was taken aback for a moment before he realized it was a life-sized 3D printout…of himself. The printout’s expression was still dazed like the man had just woken up, eyes still looking down at the ground; Lin Jingheng couldn’t even remember when Lu Bixing snuck this photo of him.

The digital butler very efficiently blew out the cold air in the room and cleaned it up as well. Within less than five minutes, the room grew warm and homey. Lin Jingheng carefully pulled Lu Bixing out of the medical capsule and placed him on the bed. Suddenly, he felt his legs fall asleep and almost knocked himself into the embrace of the soft blankets along with the sleeping young man.

He was like Pheidippides [3] crashing in Athens as he finally reached his goal, entirely exhausted. He didn’t even have the energy to think about what the Eighth Galaxy looked like now.

Where would the Eighth Galaxy go from now? Where would the Union go after regaining their false sense of peace? What did that madwoman Lin Jingshu want to do? How should he arrange the Silver Ten…

All of these important matters that affected the universe were cleared from his mind. His head was emptied as he quickly lost consciousness. However, endless dreams haunted his sleep like a wave of memories from the past to the present, making him wake countless times in the middle of the night.

Lu Bixing woke up an hour later from a sudden disturbance–that was his normal wake-up time to go to work.

It was as if he had been scared awake as he sat up abruptly before he could even fully open his eyes. His gaze desperately scanned subconsciously as if he was looking for something before it settled by the corner of the bed. Lin Jingheng had fallen asleep sitting on the floor and leaned on the bed with a leg pulled up to his chest. Lu Bixing immediately held his breath and opened up his mouth to call out “Lin,” only to realize that no sound came out of his mouth.

He sat frozen on the bed for a short while then carefully placed his hand on Lin Jingheng’s neck. Unlike the cold material of the 3D print, this was a real and warm human skin rested under his fingers; he could even feel the faint pulse at the neck.

Lu Bixing closed his eyes, his shoulders collapsing in an instant as he curled up on the bed. Immediately after, Lin Jingheng woke up from the sudden movement near his neck and instinctively grabbed onto Lu Bixing’s wrist. He opened his eyes to meet Lu Bixing’s red eyes staring at him.

The two men stared silently at each other for a brief moment at the dawn of the capital planet. Soon after, Lu Bixing grabbed onto Lin Jingheng and pulled the commander towards him, locked in a tight embrace. Lin Jingheng could hear the young man’s heavy breathing by his ears, then quickly gave a loud slap on the young man’s back. Unfortunately this wasn’t enough to put out the fire in his heart– Lin Jingheng witheld the anger and desire to press this young man down over his leg for a good beating.

Lu Bixing’s body tightened up as he finally called out that name in a timid and trembling voice: “Lin…”

“……You little shit.”

[3] The Greek man that inspired and ran the modern marathon race; google is your friend.