Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 141

Chapter 141 – Lu Bixing is Finally Going Mad

Wolto.

The natural sunlight slowly dimmed behind a well-preserved forest as lamp lights began to light the grounds. The doctors quickly stepped out of the Chief’s mansion while whispering among themselves. The Chief’s Secretary Wang Ailun walked past them and greeted the doctors: “Good evening.”

“Good evening, Secretary General.”

Wang: “How’s the old Chief today?”

Since five years ago, the old chief had stopped using the cold medical capsule and switched over to a team of specialized human doctors that served him exclusively. Their daily job function was to ensure the old chief maintained a healthy public image and didn’t show any signs of fatigue or old age.

“Not bad, the climate in the mountains is very suitable for the elderly.” A doctor responded, “But he is around 320 years old already, we suspect that signs of the pop reaction are showing themselves on him lately. Secretary General, can you speak with the Chief and ask him to avoid interstellar transportations and armed mobiles as much as possible?”

The deterioration of the DNA could be treated if it was still in its warning signs, but once it began it was a permanent mark on Death’s list.

The Secretary General nodded solemnly and quickly made his way into the mountains after sending off the doctors.

This was deep in the mountains and away from the main residential areas. On the other side of the mountain was the Black Orchid Academy. The Chief’s mansion was built within the mountains, so a portion of the ranges were the private property of the old chief, free from the control of the Wolto government. It was a rare spot on the planet that had a beautiful scenery overlooking the city; before the fall of the capital planet, it was the site of Woolf’s private villa. After reclaiming the planet, the area was revamped into a clean field of greenery.

Wang Ailun stepped off the elevator up towards the mid-mountains and found the old Chief in the small pavilion outside the mansion.

“That used to be Lu Xin’s house.” Woolf pointed ahead of him without turning his head as he heard the footsteps come closer. Over ten kilometers past the back of the mountain was a large valley with incredible scenery. Aside from its natural beauty, the valley was also a great location for construction. The Parliament of the Union stood proudly amongst an area of upper-class residence in the valley; Chief Woolf continued toward his own secretary as he gazed in that direction. “I remember that his yard was always so vulgar, like a dog roamed the gardens and caused chaos…Lin Wei’s house was a bit further away from the valley and looked much cleaner in comparison. But that place was empty most of the time, and they eventually split his property in half and left it for the twins. Unfortunately, one of the children was in the Committee while the other was in the Silver Fortress; neither of them ever went back home.”

Wang Ailun’s gaze followed the old Chief and commented: “Chief, I believe you’re mistaken. General Lin was more reserved and well-mannered, so his house was the one that was in the central area of the valley, not too far from the Parliament building. Commander Lu was the one that moved further away.”

Woolf was taken aback for a moment until a hint of confusion shadowed his face: “Is it? Am I growing senile?”

“Chief.” Wang Ailun placed a small chip on the stone table beside Woolf. “This is all of the data of Madam Lu’s escape to the Eighth Galaxy after Lu Xin died that year, including live footage from those in pursuit at the time.”

Woolf hummed lightly in response, his gaze still fixed to the distance: “I’m getting old, my eyes aren’t that great anymore. Tell me what it’s about.”

“Yes, sir. First of all, we confirmed back then that the chance of Madam Lu’s survival rate was very slim in that situation, but that doesn’t mean it was impossible,” Wang Ailun leaned down slightly and spoke into the Chief’s ears. “She–or perhaps I should say her corpse–was later taken away by an unidentified individual. Only a well-informed local of the Eighth Galaxy could possibly escape from the pursuers; this person must have had a wide web of network for gathering information, was a risk-taker, and had enough troops in their hands. In addition, they must have had close connections with Lu Xin as well. We narrowed down a list of suspects and this ‘Monoeyed Hawk’ was one of them. The camera on the mech caught footage of his mech during the chase, and even though he disguised the appearance of his mech, we’ve analyzed through its performance that it was indeed the same mech that he owned in our records. It didn’t take too long to confirm our suspicion.”

Woolf asked: “You didn’t investigate him immediately?”

Wang Ailun paused and leaned down even further: “Sir, you were the one that blew up in front of the Committee back then and told them to stop the investigation. You said that the man’s already dead and Zhanlu had returned to our hands, and accused them of instigating murder by calling for more troops to chase after related parties…Chief, don’t you remember?”

Woolf’s eyebrows twitched slightly and he fell silent for a short moment before answering: “Right…that was too long ago, almost like memories from my past life. Is there more?”

“Yes; Lin Jingheng had once sailed into the Eighth Galaxy for a mission to chase down the space pirates. I checked his itinerary back then and saw that he had a blank timeframe on his way back when he passed by Planet Cayley. While it’s common for commanders to leave their posts under non-emergency situations to pay diplomatic visits or take breaks, you should know that neither of these were common acts for Lin Jingheng.”

“So you’re saying he might have visited this arms merchant.”

“Perhaps, but I also suspect that he already knew this child existed. When he escaped from the Heart of the Rose back then, he had stayed in the Eighth Galaxy for five years. What did the Eighth Galaxy have that was so special to make him stay for that long? I’ve also noticed that the DNA report this Prime Minister Lu gave General Duke was off of a sample of his brain tissue; this is very uncommon, Chief. This isn’t a technical issue, but…DNA research and technology were remnants of ancient earth. The ancients were limited by their technologies in the past and often sampled cells that could be easily extracted from the outside of the human body, a practice that even we still use today. So why would someone use his brain cells?”

Woolf slowly turned his head around.

Wang Ailun continued: “The AUS had reports that they once restarted the Nuwa Project in the Eighth Galaxy, which happened to be around the same time as Madam Lu’s death. Lastly, Chief, I recall that we had another interesting piece of information that we took out of Hope’s personal device back in the day, aside from Saturday, in regards to the Eighth Galaxy. This Prime Minister Lu–Lu Bixing — had once been exposed to a highly infectious mutated version of the Rainbow Virus for extended periods of time with no sign of infection afterwards. What does this remind you of?”

After listening to Wang Ailun’s long ramblings, Woolf first stared at the secretary for a few seconds before turning his head back in the direction of the valley. He fell silent for a long while as his wrinkled eyelids quietly covered his eyes as if he had fallen asleep.

Wang Ailun stood patiently to the side without a word and waited for him without a hint of irritation.

The Secretary General had always been a patient man who only grew more calm over the last few years. He followed orders and spoke to the Chief at appropriate times; he was as obedient as an AI when it came to answering all of Woolf’s questions. If the old Chief showed any signs of asking him to keep quiet, he would shut his mouth without any questions–and shut away his curious heart along the way. It was almost as if curiosity and desire for expression never existed inside him, like a highly sophisticated AI with a human skin.

If Woolf really did fall asleep in the middle of this conversation, Wang Ailun could simply turn down the shield around the pavilion, prepare the blankets, set the temperature, and prepare everything else inside the mansion before he left. He could come and go like a well-mannered and competent steward of the mansion, humbly accepting the fact that his insightful report had been ignored.

Many servants that thought they were witty found it difficult to even contain their desire to show-off in front of their bosses, so how was someone full of ambition like Wang Ailun able to? The simple fact was that he managed to hide every trace of his ardent heart before the old Chief.

Woolf went ‘offline’ for about five minute before he suddenly spoke up: “Keep your hands off the Eighth Galaxy from now on.”

Wang AIlun’s gaze shifted slightly as he explained in a soft voice: “Chief, it has already been 300 years since the Union achieved the Grand Unification and eliminated the concept of nations and states in human civilization; I’m afraid that a sudden proclamation of independence by them will…”

“I know what you want to say,” Woolf interrupted him. “You want to say that these rebels of the Eighth Galaxy might have the full technology of the Nuwa Project in their hands right now. They can pass through wormholes freely, but our theories and research in this field are still completely barren. They’ve opened up this terminal single-handedly and are therefore fearless in announcing their betrayal of the Union, becoming the dangerous time bomb inside the Heart of the Rose.”

Wang Ailun pressed his lips together: “I do have my concerns regarding this.”

“Ailun, we took so long to finally remove this layer of toxic soil on our lands, so much effort to replant our seeds; we need to raise them properly. We can’t be thinking about cutting down our neighbor’s trees everyday when our own roots are still fresh. I didn’t see any of you talk about the Eighth Galaxy as friends before they declared their independence.” Woolf responded in a low tone, “Civilization without boundaries of states and nations can easily break down hierarchies in society and slow down development. It will cause society to fall into a unique claustrophobic syndrome, so it’s not necessarily a good thing…this was a concept Lin Jingheng already understood when he was barely 15 — do you need me to teach you this lesson again? A hostile neighbor is not necessarily a bad thing to a newly rebuilt Union. Our biggest threat right now is the new galactic terrorist group, the Freedom Corps.”

Wang Ailun heard him mention Lin Jingheng again and felt a sour taste in his mouth; yet at the same time, he pitied the old Chief. No matter how powerful and cold-hearted this man was, age still took a toll on his physical body and turned him into a blob of emotional recollections. He must be reminiscing about those pointless old days again.

These old reminiscing feelings of the elderly were like immortal cockroaches that would come back after deliberately crushing them.

There’s no end to this , Wang AIlun thought.

But he didn’t want to talk back to Woolf and decided to back off as he studied the old Chief’s expression. He followed up with a small bit of praise: “You’re right, Jingheng…Jingheng is indeed a rare genius of his generation. I’ve never seen a second person like him that could always create such miracles. He even managed to re-summon the Silver Ten after sixteen years; if he was an ally, he would be a man that could give everyone a sigh of relief just by mentioning his name. And the way he left in the Heart of the Rose like a man of his words; I’ve been thinking about it lately as well, Chief, did we push him too much back in the Seventh Galaxy? If he was still in the Union and could work for us…”

Woolf let out a light sneer: “That’s not being a ‘man of his words’, Ailun. Perhaps he does have honor and pride, but his words were only worth as much as a small plate of bite-sized cheese, so what makes you think he’ll expose his weakness to you? He was simply bowing down to unforeseen circumstances.”

“The situation sixteen years ago…if Lin Jingheng hadn’t gotten stuck in the Eighth Galaxy and had little access to information, if the Silver Ten hadn’t stood so stubbornly on their Pledge of Freedom, getting themselves blocked on the road, or even if Lin Jingheng had seen the list in the forbidden fruit a little sooner, he would most definitely have taken the initiative and destroyed our careers and the Union. Civilians always admire a powerful military leader and the Central Militia would logically follow him; the AUS had already been broken from the inside, and I doubt Hope would be willing to be his enemy. Even though the Glory Troops took over the First Galaxy, they were also trapped within the galaxy, so it wouldn’t be hard to get rid of them…even Lin Jingshu would possibly go underground to do her business because of him and avoid confrontation. At that very moment, the fate of humanity was at the tip of Lin Jingheng’s fingers. We were fighting with fate for survival, and if we didn’t want to suffer a complete defeat, our only choice was to get rid of him.”

“It’s much different now. The alliance between the Union and the Central Militia is stronger than ever before, and more importantly, the war is over. Lin Jingshu is simply an insane sociopathic terrorist; Jingheng’s opportunity to turn the tables has long passed, he has no choice but to accept this result.” Wang Ailun lowered his head even more. “You sure know him well.”

“Let me tell you one more thing; since Lin Jingheng chose to remain silent in the Heart of the Rose, he will remain silent for the rest of his life. At least for a generation or 200 years, the Eighth Galaxy will be that rather unfriendly but inseparable neighbor of the Union. A prophet from the Age of Exploration said that every five years will see a small change, while every ten years will see a groundbreaking revolution. If the Eighth Galaxy can go through this kind of change, why can’t the Union do the same given the same soil to grow in? We can all live in harmony by being a respectable threat and ally to each other; what’s wrong with that?” Woolf’s eyes as he spoke once again glistened in a sharp light that was uncharacteristic of a senile old man of over 320 yeard old. His logic was also very clear and reasonable, wiping out all traces of his silly ramblings earlier, “Ailun, people can have ambitions, but you can’t get too consumed by them. You need to know your limits!”

Wang Ailun nodded his head sincerely as his hand behind his back slowly clenched into a fist.

Woolf stood up with his cane as his secretary quickly stepped over to support him on the side.

The side of Woolf’s nose twitched slightly as he mumbled: “The scent of black tulips…did my Night Empress bloom?”

Wang Ailun squinted as he attempted to capture the scent in the air and relaxed after a few seconds: “Oh, did it?”

“The Night Empress bloomed. When it blooms, it means it’s his death anniversary.” Woolf said, “Is the memorial’s rebuilding complete? I want to go see him tomorrow.”

“Admiral Lin?” Wang Ailun asked, pretending to be surprised, “Chief, wasn’t Admiral Lin’s death anniversary before the Glory Troops handed Wolto over to us? Our small ceremony today was held in the City of Angels, did you forget?”

The sharp light inside Woolf’s eyes dimmed down as his pupils returned to a muddy color. The old chief stared at Wang Ailun strangely for a while until he recalled his memories: “Hm……you’re right, the City of Angels…that did happen…strange, how did I forget about it again?”

Wang Ailun smiled innocently: “Sir, you’re always thinking and calculating too much everyday. Your thoughts always begin with questions regarding the entire interstellar society, so my job is to remember the smaller details of life for you. If you could remember everything in the world, wouldn’t I have lost my job by now? Here, please watch your step.”

The lights in the chief’s mansion slowly dimmed until only the streetlights and decorative glows outside were still shining in the darkness. Wang Ailun carefully helped the old chief into bed like a thoughtful son before he walked out of the mansion. It was past midnight at this time–the secretary used to live inside this mansion and was on call 24/7.

Yet ever since the Union government moved back to Wolto, Wang Ailun was no longer Woolf’s personal secretary and took on the job of the Secretary General of the Union Parliament. This position used to be held by the Eden Committee; his predecessor was even a member of the Gordon family. This was the man who took the hand of the number one beauty of the Union as his wife, who quickly became even an eyesore for the top generals of the military councils to look at. In contrast, Secretary Wang even made time in his busy schedule to visit the old Chief and would often give the impression that he was still the timid little secretary in the eyes of the Council. Of course, Wang Ailun didn’t mind that they looked down at him and humbly took the new position without forgetting his origins.

Wang Ailun input the route into his car as the body of the vehicle automatically drove up toward the sky terminal smoothly. A voice with an unnatural robotic tone rang out from his personal device; it was another voice changer: “What did the old lion say?”

“It looks like the old lion’s teeth are falling out; he can’t even chew on fresh meat anymore, what else would he say?” Wang Ailun sneered slightly. “He wants to appease this snake beside him and pretend it doesn’t exist. He wants to play that ‘friendly neighbor’ game as if he wasn’t the one who ordered these wild grasses uprooted in the past.”

“I’m not surprised,” the voice behind the voice changer said, “but it’s nothing to worry about. He is simply a man already buried in the soil. Be patient, Ailun–if he wants to play the friendly neighbor then let him, we will eventually develop normal diplomatic relations with them. If we don’t, we’ll create this relationship for them; an independent galaxy cannot remain a peerless entity forever.”

A shade of worry flashed across Wang Ailun’s face.

The person behind the voice changer suddenly asked: “So tell me, does he like my Night Empress?”

The expression on the secretary’s face relaxed a bit: “Ah yes, that is indeed a small miracle…how did you manage to get your hands on it?”

The voice behind the voice changer chuckled lightly, taking on a sharp tone through the machine. It was difficult to tell the age and gender of the person behind, but that small laugh was almost tickling to the ear as they responded: “We have specialists here that study these things. All of you higher-ups are always thinking about missiles and mechs and all of those cold, boring things. Nobody ever cares about the people inside the mechs, as if war in space doesn’t depend on individual skills and qualifications. As for me, I don’t have the power to compete with the military in an arms race; I have to trade and buy my own weapons for self-defense, so my interests are often more on making these little things. By the way, before you all realize your dreams of fully-automated and robotic warfare, don’t you all still need people to command? It’ll be nice working with you, Secretary General Wang.”

The corner of Wang Ailun’s lips lifted slightly with the title “Secretary General.” Inside the car alone, he finally displayed an unrestricted expression of greed and thirst for power across his face.

After the incident of the kidnapping on planet Serbia, the number of opium biochip users slowly but steadily grew around the planet and its neighboring stations.

In the past, opium was considered the illegal replacement of Eden. In addition to the Union’s advertisement, everyone knew that it was an illegal drug and refused to touch it. But after the kidnapping incident and people realizing that members of the Freedom Corps had been living beside them all along, they noticed that these chip-injected pirates were often the most powerful, disciplined, and emotionally stable ‘elites.’

This struck a direct contrast with their image of a drug user.

At that time, most of the Freedom Corps’ main fleet were outside of the atmosphere and shot down plenty of starships that tried to escape in the beginning. However, most of the people on land were actually completely out of the loop. The pirates that ‘kidnapped’ them only took over the government and military agencies overlooking the small planet and were quite friendly towards the civilians on land. Many of the pirates even personally knocked on doors to apologize to the civilians and left them little gifts. A majority of the civilians were simply informed through second-hand sources that they were being held hostage, got onto a starship in confusion, and then were let out in even more confusion due to the interference of the Silver Ten.

A conspiracy theory began spreading from planet Serbia: it said that the Freedom Corps were falsely labeled as ‘pirates’ by the Union and the ‘opium’ wasn’t actually a drug, but an upgraded version of Eden that could drive the potential of human evolution. The government refused to let these uncontrollable evolved humans continue to spread and therefore fabricated a whole story for the masses.

“Look, Master.” A researcher in a lab coat opened up a large galactic map for Lin Jingshu. The map marked all human activity areas in different colors, from white to pink, bright red, dark red, red-brown, until it gradually moved closer to black. The darker the color, the more wide-spread the opium biochip usage was in that area. “The few white zones are areas where the first generation chips have a usage rate of less than 3% among the population, which will require more long-term marketing strategies. Rose-red areas have a rate of over 8% usage, which means that they will usually start building a small culture or community in the area. 8% is a very interesting number; we’ve discovered once we pass this threshold, the spread of the chip will expand in leaps. Red-brown zones are places where chip users make up over 30% of the population, and once we pass 30%, this often means we’ve taken control of this particular area. As for black zones, these indicate places that have second generation chip users and have voluntarily pledged themselves to our ideal world order, so they are allowed to switch to permanent chips and are considered citizens of our kingdom–this is the ideal state. As of now, most of the areas that have reached this stage are often close to border zones. I believe that our strategy for the future can be putting more focus on these red areas instead of the black zones; we should aim to reach more brown zones to secure our influence to bring in more revenue for our business.”

Lin Jingshu nodded her head airily at the report as her gaze fell onto a completely white zone–the Independent Eighth Galaxy.

“Did your parents not teach you that you can never hide behind a mask for the rest of your life?”

“Bastard, you really want to die by my hands!?”

The person’s voice echoed in her head as Lin Jingshu’s hands clenched tightly into a fist beside her.

In the pure white zone called the Eighth Galaxy, the night of Qiming was bathed in starlight.

Prime Minister Lu was very tempted to put a huge “Do Not Disturb” sign on his front door.

Lu Bixing was a very stereotypical extroverted character–the difference between extroversion and introversion wasn’t actually on how sociable the individual was on the outside nor how well they handled interpersonal relationships. The difference was the method they chose to recharge their psychological energies, whether it was through internal forces or external forces.

During his carefree young adult life, Lu Bixing was filled with curiosity for the world around him and enjoyed interaction with all kinds of people. Even during his darkest and most insufferable days during the sixteen years that forced him to become more reserved and reclusive, his method of recharging energy was still through external influences. For example, he would much prefer taking on the responsibility of leading people to work than locking himself up all alone at night in his thoughts.

But no matter how extroverted a person was, they still needed time to themselves.

Ever since the entire Silver Ten came in and toured Commander Lin’s mysterious house, Lu Bixing hadn’t found the chance to spend some alone time with Lin Jingheng. The first time, thanks to Lin Jingheng’s silent approval, these hooligans partied to their heart’s extent in the house into the night. There weren’t enough guest rooms in the house, so Zhanlu had to pull up some sleeping bags and wrapped all of them into hot dogs on the ground. From a distance, it looked almost like a bakery filled with fresh bread. Lu Bixing had a whole essay of words to say but couldn’t squeeze out a single word from his mouth and gave up for the night.

After they finally shooed away these loud mouths, Turan came to visit on her own the next day.

The elevator incident had been a knife in Turan and Lu Bixing’s heart for the last sixteen years that was like a fishbone stuck in their throats. The two finally looked back on it as Lin Jingheng quietly sat with them for half a bottle of strong alcohol. Turan finally spat out everything she’d wanted to say for the past decade, including the things she shouldn’t have said. The knife she finally plucked out left a bloodied wound that covered her heart, throbbing in pain every time she touched it–thankfully the living pain reliever Lin Jingheng sat wordlessly by her side as she patched herself back up.

The knife was gone, and the wound would eventually stop bleeding, would eventually be healed.

The Silver Ten were Lin Jingheng’s arms and legs — being able to confirm his relationship with Lin in front of them was a blessing to Lu Bixing. And Turan’s conviction to come clean with him was also something to be proud of.

Yet the third day, Huang Jingshu took the opportunity to come back, grabbing her fellow classmates to visit as well.

Day four, Doctor Hardin came to visit on his own. The old doctor had a love-hate relationship with the Nuwa Project and rambled endlessly to the point where it almost made Lu Bixing fall asleep in the middle of their talk.

Day five, Thomas brought the entire Third Squadron with him uninvited to talk about the universe with the revered Engineer 001.

Day six…

Ten days later, Lu Bixing was finally driven into madness.

It happened to be the day before the weekend when Lin Jingheng returned home at his regular time, only to receive Lu Bixing’s message from his personal device. The Prime Minister said that he was at a hotel somewhere in Milky Way City meeting with a few government officials from other planets in the galaxy. Lin Jingheng clicked his tongue in annoyance; the Prime Minister had no real need to report his job to him, but since a certain someone clearly gave a detailed address, it was more than obvious that this someone was expecting the commander to go pick him up.

Lin Jingheng arrived at the hotel within a short time and was informed by a service robot that the banquet was already over. Prime Minister Lu had had a bit too much to drink and was resting upstairs in his room.

The commander went up to the room and placed his hand on the door, in which the door automatically opened up in response–Lu Bixing’s locked doors always left a special permission for him to enter.

The little hallway inside the room was dark. Lin Jingheng stepped in and asked as he slowly got used to the dark environment: “Are you awake? Do you want to go home and…”

Before he could finish, a gust of wind blew by his ears. Lin Jingheng stepped back in alarm, only to notice that the door behind him had closed automatically. The next moment, he found himself pinned onto the door behind him by someone.