Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 138

Chapter 138 – He’s Really Back

Lu Bixing used the number 6 relaxant as an excuse to get a day off from work after returning to the Eighth Galaxy.

But after a day of rest, everyone was already at the brink of unleashing chaos and began bombarding the Prime Minister with messages.

There were simply too many items of unresolved business waiting for Lu Bixing at work– top priority right now was the need to arrange the settlement of the Silver Ten. This was an extremely important job that affected the structure of the entire Galactic Defense Department, it wasn’t something that the Prime Minister could handle with a signature on some papers.

At the same time, he also had to consider the political climate outside of the Eighth Galaxy and come up with various strategies to deal with any potential changes that may affect the galaxy in the future. The accidental encounter with the Union Forces in the Heart of the Rose forced the plan of reconnecting with the Union 50 years earlier than expected; many of the old preparation work would need to be readjusted to fit the current political situation.

In comparison with that, news like “The Expedition Team made groundbreaking advancement in the research on wormholes” and “Prime Minister Lu is actually Commander Lu Xin’s child” that normally would take over the gossip columns in the media were all thrown into a small corner.

As for Lin Jingheng, after being locked inside the galactic prison for sixteen years, he needed extra time to readapt to the world outside. Even the SIlver Ten were all summoned in urgency and had no time to properly reorganize; Lin Jingheng had to take up crash courses on current events and catch up with all the familiar faces.

But no matter where he went, he would always return home at the same time every night.

The first day when Lin Jingheng went out to visit Turan, Lu Bixing found that he couldn’t bring himself to process anymore words the moment the sky turned dark. This sense of unease quickly manifested into physical discomfort when he felt as if a heavy piece of lead was pressed inside his stomach and kept jumbling inside his gut. Lu Bixing couldn’t hold in the disgust and avoided the sensitive medical capsule at home to puke in the bathroom, then made sure Zhanlu wouldn’t tattletale on him. It wasn’t until Lin Jingheng came that his stomach finally felt a little better.

He spent that night twisting and turning on his bed restlessly, repeating the words Lin Jingheng said to him that day countless times in his head like a miser of words. He also pondered over countless questions he wanted to ask the next day, only to discover that he still underestimated the cunningness of a certain Commander. The answers Lin Jingheng gave to his daily two questions generally sounded like this–

“Why were you on a nameless planet in the Sixth Galaxy?”

“Someone fished up my ecopod at the site of the explosion.”

“Who?”

“Someone from the Freedom Corps.”

“Why was someone from the Freedom Corps there? Why did they take you away? Why…”

Lin Jingheng pressed a finger to Lu Bixing’s lips: “Shh, this is a story for tomorrow.”

It seemed as if he was determined to bury the stories of the last sixteen years in the ground and only let Lu Bixing chisel away a little bit of dirt every day to peek at the truth. Very quickly, all of those scenes and stories from the past that Lu Bixing had been consciously avoiding and turning his head away from became things he needed to fight for everyday to get even a gist of the full picture.

Lu Bixing also noticed that Lin Jingheng always returned home at the same time everyday. No matter where he went, what he did, even if he left the planet, Lin Jingheng would always be back home on the clock.

The battlefield of space was an ever-changing environment, therefore a commander’s grasp of time in outer space would often be pivotal to the current state of the battle. Lin Jingheng was someone who further honed his skill in time management to the point of machine precision, so his ‘on-time’ was always calculated down to the second. Regardless if Lu Bixing was home that day, the antique clock hanging in the living room would always be pointed at the same exact location the moment he opened up the door back home each day. If the hands weren’t, it was more often than not the clock’s problem–Lin Jingheng himself and his personal device followed the clock of the Eighth Galaxy.

He was like the little gremlin living in a clock tower that chimed the bell everyday at the same exact time.

Within a week, Lu Bixing felt like he became one of Pavlov’s dogs, trained by Lin Jingheng to react on reflex. Everyday, half a minute before that magical time in the evening, the sounds of that antique clock’s ticks would suddenly become the only sound inside the house. His heartbeat would grow faster and sometimes he even felt short of breath; he would be completely shut off from the outside world until the last few seconds of the countdown. Then, Zhanlu’s alarm-like voice would ring out by the door: “Welcome back, sir.”

Lu Bixing had trouble sleeping at night in the beginning. He was already getting very few hours of sleep every night and still had to be woken up randomly a few times in the middle of the night. He would wake up and turn to check if Lin Jingheng was still around; the commander discovered this horrible habit once and started sleeping beside the young man.

The biochip would increase the senses of an individual; even in a pitched-black room at night, Lu Bixing could still clearly see the person who held his hand beside him. The man who touched his fingers pulled him out of the haunting nightmares as the quiet profile of the commander’s face reflected within Lu Bixing’s eyes. Sometimes he would hold in his breath and stare at Lin Jingheng for an extended period of time with an empty mind.

Waking up in the middle of the night also suddenly became quite bearable.

Of course, Lin Jingheng wouldn’t stay by his side all the time in bed. Sometimes Lu Bixing would reach over to feel that the commander had left, but the bedsheets were still warm. He would usually hear the morning birds chirping outside, indicating that the sun was about to rise. But he still had some time to sleep in a little more…if the blanket beside him was cold, then that would normally mean he was also running late to work.

Lin Jingheng used his abnormally strict personal schedule and masterful time management skills to nail down a wedge into Lu Bixing’s wandering soul that had been floating in a lucid dream for the last decade.

The power of biological clocks in humans and other animals that had a strong sense of time and season was a mysterious but mesmerizing force. It was like an uneven stream of water reaching the river and following the current — they would naturally submit to greater forces of nature. If someone’s sense of time was strong enough to carve up deep marks into the ground, other people would naturally follow along with this powerful influence.

One day, an urgent document from the Milky Way City Command Post called the Prime Minister up before 6 A.M. in the morning. Lu Bixing had walked out of a meeting that lasted until midnight the night earlier and barely got enough sleep. He forced himself to crawl out of bed, still drowsy, and cleaned himself up as he pulled out two sets of tops and trousers out of the closet. While he was still half-awake and dozing off, he subconsciously folded up one of the two sets of the clothing and placed it next to the bed.

Lu Bixing was in the middle of tying his tie when he finally fully woke up. He turned his head abruptly and stared at the neatly folded set of clothes resting on the side of the bed in awe and confusion.

At that moment, Lin Jingheng had finished his morning workout and opened the door back into the room. He saw Lu Bixing sit dumbly by the side of that bed and pressed his hand atop the young man’s head, ruffled up his freshly-made hairdo, picked up the folded clothes on the bed, and walked into the bathroom.

There were no words between the two men; one was freshly awake, the other was covered in sweat. Yet the sense of everyday life was suddenly more realistic than ever before.

Lu Bixing could hear the sound of water flowing from behind him and carefully reached his hand over to the side of the bed where the extra set of clothes sat earlier. Then, as if he was double-checking to see if the clothes were really gone, he leaned down and took a deep breath, capturing the lingering smell by the pillow. Like waking up from a long dream, Lu Bixing finally thought: “ He’s really back .”

The bathroom door suddenly opened up before Lin Jingheng could finish drying his hair. Soon after, Lu Bixing grabbed onto Lin Jingheng’s waist and pinned him to the still-humid walls of the bathroom. The force influenced by the biochip was a little more harsh than a push, but Lin Jingheng didn’t react at all and only looked at the young man quietly.

For the first time in a long while, Lin Jingheng saw those eyes that were filled with suppressed emotions and pain glisten in a different light; it was something much more passionate, like sparks of fireworks in a dark night.

Lu Bixing asked: “When you went to the Heart of the Rose that day, it wasn’t because you wanted to join in the fight between the Union and pirates, right? You wanted to come back…for what reason?”

He’d barely dug up the identity of the Freedom Corps yesterday and reasoned out from the hints that perhaps this owner of the Freedom Corps was someone that had a close relationship with Lin Jingheng. His plan today was supposed to be follow-up questions regarding the same topic, but he ruined the order of questions himself.

“Right; that was a coincidence that I only found out about when I closed in–as for the second question,” Lin Jingheng paused slightly before answering, “it’s because of you.”

As soon as he finished, a kiss fell onto his lips. It started off reserved and timid, then quickly grew deeper and uncontrolled; it was almost a little too unrestrained, tossing a sense of pain within the sweetness that scratched his heart. The steam inside the bathroom quickly turned into droplets of water on the wall, drenching Lu Bixing’s clean cuffs. The temperature inside the room rose quickly between the two men; Lin Jingheng gently gave a pat on Lu Bixing’s stiffened back and felt those silent sixteen years that the young man hadn’t been able to cry out.

Then, Zhanlu’s voice suddenly rang out: “Headmaster Lu, the Milky Way City Base called again and asked if you are on your way and how long will it take for you to arrive?”

Lu Bixing: “……”

The Prime Minister looked as if he wanted to curse, but his sophisticated vocabulary pack wasn’t equipped with such vulgar language and couldn’t give an immediate response.

Zhanlu asked ‘kindly’: “Shall I push your schedule back two hours?”

This household only had two capable adult men and no elderly or young to care for, why did they need such a high-spec AI as their digital butler?

Was a standard multi-function household robot not enough?

Perhaps Zhanlu’s mental network and mech core repair needed to be put back onto the priority list.

The entire Milky Way City was buried in work.

Only Thomas Young was carefree enough to play around with no pressure.

Because the Silver Ten hadn’t received an official appointment, they weren’t allowed to tour around the military factories and labs that kept plenty of top-secret research. Luckily, there was a public museum near Milky Way City that was enough to quench his tourist thirst.

The museum wasn’t a popular tourist attraction, as it was built for memorial purposes to preserve many of the technologies used during the internal warfare. However, for an experienced mech engineer, they only needed to sit for a bit in an Eighth Galaxy mech to get a good picture of its functions, and real footage of the mechs in battle were even more valuable to their eyes.

The Engineering Department sent him a young tour guide by the name of White; he was rather thin and small for a young man his age, but his unique and out of the box thinking ended up earning him quite a good reputation with Thomas.

Thomas praised him whole-heartedly: “If we were in the First Galaxy, your skill level would be good enough to earn an honorary graduate from the Black Orchid Academy.”

White responded nonchalantly: “Didn’t they say you have to fight to be an honorary graduate in the Black Orchid Academy? I don’t think I can make it, but the school I went to was also the best school in the Eighth Galaxy.’

Thomas was curious: “What’s the best school in the Eighth Galaxy?”

“The Starry Sea Academy,” White responded proudly. “Our headmaster is Minister Lu, the first lab system was Zhanlu, and our first director on the board was Commander Lin.”

Thomas was first nodding as he listened until the last name was mentioned, he finally turned in shock: “That….your school’s budget….doesn’t sound very high.”

White spread his hands in front of him: “We’re not the only poor ones in the Eighth Galaxy, it’s only gotten a little better the last few years…Captain, I think these things up ahead might interest you. These are all the new technologies we developed during the internal warfare, but of course, we only displayed the non-combative portion.”

Thomas scanned each item on display individually and applauded: “You know, when other people are at war, they would usually fall back a few years in technological advancement; you guys somehow managed to create these things?”

“We were forced by the situation at the time,” White said. “Minister Lu says that the Eighth Galaxy’s most valuable resource is that we have lots of natural planets. Over the last few years, during our darkest times, everyone was desperately protecting the ecosystems on their planets. If these planets really got destroyed by our hands, we’d be marked down as criminals thousands of years into the future. The Engineering Department back then were all original followers of Minister Lu, and before they became our engineers they were simply managers and handymen across the galaxy that maintained these ecosystems, so everyone knew what he meant. Even the Distant Planetary Defense Mechanism was developed by them back in those days.”

Thomas said: “It’s only been a decade.”

Around ten years ago, when people joked about uncultured and uneducated others, the Eighth Galaxy was also the target of insult. Years later, the best mechanic of the Silver Third Squadron stood in reverence beneath the marvelous history of the Eighth Galaxy.

“Since the Nineteenth Century of A.D. Era on ancient earth, groundbreaking revolution often occurs once every ten years.” White explained calmly, “We’re also simply people that were struggling to survive in the small corner of the vast universe.”

The museum was fairly small, so the two reached the end within a short time. White continued: “Captain Young, it was a pleasure to speak with you today. You’re the second Captain of the Silver Ten I’ve met, and I have to say I feel that we get along much better.”

“What’s so special about getting along with Turan? Be careful, you might lose your virginity.” Thomas responded sternly like he wasn’t shading his own colleague, “I’ll introduce you to the others next time…well, to be fair, you don’t really need to know them either. The First Squadron’s a fake honor student, the Fourth Squadron is Commander’s rabid fanboy that won’t stop sucking up to our boss all day. The Sixth Squadron practically doesn’t exist, you can’t even sense their presence; everytime we have a meeting we’d have to skip them at least once during the roll-call. The Tenth Squadron’s just a bunch of bastards. As for the Ninth Squadron, they’re all like their boss, none of them are any good…speaking of which, you know what that dirty-minded gossiper said? She told me that our commander’s going out with Prime Minister Lu–our commander…hahaha! He was the ace icon of the Union back in the day, what was she on?”

White didn’t know how to respond.

Thomas didn’t notice the change in expression on the young man’s face and asked: “Oh right, do you want to meet the first director of the White Tower, Doctor Hardin? I guess our boss picked him up from somewhere, he’s a pretty chatty old man.”

White’s eyes brightened up: “Really? Our first lecture at school by Minister Lu was on the Eden system.”

Thomas: “He’s out of the hospital today, let’s go!”

Due to his age, Doctor Hardin stayed in the hospital for half a month after the long intergalactic journey before Lin Jingheng took him to his residence in the Eighth Galaxy. The poor doctor was so traumatized that his first assumption about Lin Jingheng showing any sort of kindness was that the commander wanted something from him or was plotting something behind his back.

After hearing Lin Jingheng’s explanation of Lu Bixing’s situation, Doctor Hardin fell silent before asking: “The Nuwa Project was successful in the Eight Galaxy, are you sure about this?”