Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 151

Chapter 151 – You Sound Like A Whiny Bum

Lin Jingheng wouldn’t normally have been pulled down so easily, but he seemed to be frantically shoving something aside as Lu Bixing suddenly barged into the room. The sudden shock of the uninvited guest made the commander lose his balance as he crashed right onto Lu Bixing’s body.

Lu Bixing took this collision head-on and almost fell onto the floor unsteadily on his still-asleep legs. Yet he still grabbed tightly onto Lin Jingheng and stared right past the commander’s shoulders to see the object that was being hidden away earlier–it was that large crystal ball.

Lu Bixing was dumbstruck as he stared at the familiar object; he almost couldn’t remember where it came from.

A few moments later, his memories that had been in hibernation for years gradually awakened as he remembered– it was from the time the Eighth Galaxy was still barely getting back onto its feet.

Prime Minister Edward was still alive at the time. They were traveling around the Eighth Galaxy together; the old Prime Minister carried all the worries in his heart as he walked around with a perpetually vexed expression. Lu Bixing was in charge of carrying the luggage and exploring the galaxy as if he were on a vacation in the guise of a business trip.

There was still a roof above his head that could protect him even if the heavens fell, so he was filled with naive optimism. He took his four students along joyfully as they followed the footsteps of the old Prime Minister; he picked up unique minerals from each planet they landed on, then used these minerals to sculpt the glowing lights of peace in his dreams for the Eighth Galaxy. He then used epoxy to create an artificial starry night and brought it over to win the heart of his difficult crush like a jolly puppy wagging its tail upon seeing its loved ones.

….He later locked away this crystal ball along with Lin Jingheng’s old belongings into this mini forbidden zone in the house. The crystal ball that had once glistened in starlight had already lost many of its colors over time, such that even the starry sky dimmed down significantly.

That old Prime Minister who didn’t understand the language of romance and only knew how to comment, ”if only one day the Eighth Galaxy could become like your beautiful sculpture” was gone. He had passed on the tiring and heavy burden that vexed his expression to this young man.

Everything seemed like a past life.

Lin Jingheng was almost dumbstruck by the sudden ‘assault’ and only managed to pull himself back to his senses at this moment. His chin rested on Lu Bixing’s shoulder and he almost bit down on his own tongue at the attack. Then he pushed the young man away and scolded: “What are you doing, did you get bit by a mad dog in your sleep or something?”

“Sorry……” Lu Bixing pouted meekly.

This word strangely ticked Lin Jingheng off even more as his gaze cooled down. A whole mouthful of insults and scorn was already at the tip of his tongue when he heard Lu Bixing continue hesitantly: “It’s less than three hours until the meeting time I set up and I thought I could wait until then to see you and talk to you, but…sorry, I can’t wait any longer, I’m at my limit. I can’t even stand waiting for another minute.”

Lin Jingheng hadn’t slept the whole night and was already both physically and mentally tired. He could feel his brain lacking oxygen at this late-night hour and suddenly forgot everything he was going to say after hearing Lu Bixing’s words.

Lu Bixing’s legs finally felt pain, as if thousands of needles were poking at his muscles. He hissed slightly as a pained expression flashed across his face. Even then, this Prime Minister with numb limbs remained still and unwavering as he grabbed onto Lin Jingheng’s arm, unwilling to back down and took a brave step forward.

Lin Jingheng: “……”

While Lin Jingheng pondered whether or not to kick this young man out, Lu Bixing reached both of his arms out and moved another step forward as he embraced Lin Jingheng’s shoulders tightly. Lu Bixing clung onto the commander with all his energy and let out a large sigh of relief, almost ready to drag Lin Jingheng down to the floor with him.

Lu Bixing’s mind completely blanked out as a single thought surfaced in his head: “What the heck was I doing before? Why didn’t I come up earlier?”

“Headmaster Lu, I apologize for my bluntness but you are currently displaying a clear level of addiction. Are you sure you haven’t been taking any illegal drugs?” Zhanlu’s voice rang up from the door as the repairing robots got up the stairs one by one to repair the broken door.

“I don’t know,” Lu Bixing mumbled. “Is the Marshal illegal?”

These words that he spat out without thinking sounded more suggestive than originally intended. Lin Jingheng’s anger still hadn’t been eased and he was suddenly force fed a spoonful of flirtatious teasing, fueling the fire inside him as his ears reddened up.

“Bullshit,” he said. The commander then turned to Zhanlu, “Did I release you from your ban yet? Who let you upstairs?”

Zhanlu–as a poor AI that could never tell whether his master was joking or being serious, responded by curling up his robotic arm into a question mark and replying: “Sir, you were the one that asked me to come up in the morning to help you organize the strategic changes of the dispatched troops in the Heart of the Rose.”

“…….” Lin Jingheng only now remembered that he had given this order. Thankfully, he was used to being unreasonable and wouldn’t get embarrassed by this little mistake. “Get out.”

Zhanlu then carried the broken door away and ordered the little repair robots back to work.

The semi-opened attic welcomed in a night breeze that also extinguished the fire inside Lin Jingheng’s heart. He leaned back slightly against an old gravity training equipment, already feeling his head growing heavier from lack of sleep.

Lin Jingheng fell silent for a few moments as he attempted to find a place to sit–only to realize after scanning the space around him that there was nowhere to sit in this little treasure room aside from the windowsill he’d sat on earlier.

“Can’t you at least clean this place up a bit?” He said with a hint of exhaustion, “You’re shoving everything in here, it’s turning into a storage room.”

Lu Bixing’s lips moved slightly.

Lin Jingheng shot him a glance: “If you want to say something, say it.”

“This isn’t a storage room.” Lu Bixing’s legs were finally out of that numbing pain as he stood up straight. “This is my….my….”

Lin Jingheng’s senses were also slowly returning to him as he finally discovered that Lu Bixing’s shoulders and hands would stiffen up if he let go of the young man before him. It was a kind of stiffness that was seen commonly on soldiers that slept with their guns, constantly on high alert and calculating everything around them–it was a familiar sight to Lin Jingheng, as if he were looking right into a mirror.

The two stared at each other wordlessly for a few moments. Lin Jingheng struggled to relax his shoulders; this was actually quite difficult for someone like him, used to staying on his toes all the time. Relaxation was not the norm and thus required more focus and conscious effort to do.

“……This is my heart.” Lu Bixing finally finished his sentence after stuttering for a while, “When you weren’t around, I would lock it up and pretend I didn’t see it. Because if I can’t see you, I can finally stop being the coward I used to be.”

Lin Jingheng asked in a low tone: “Who said you’re a coward?”

“If my past self had had the same power to tip the scales of the world like I do now,” Lu Bixing didn’t answer his question, “Turan wouldn’t have knocked me out.”

Lin Jingheng’s gaze flashed across his face for an instant: “I was the one that gave silent approval for Turan to put you out.”

“I know, it was because I couldn’t…I couldn’t do anything for you at the time. I couldn’t magically summon a whole fleet of troops for you even if I sailed out in a small mech to block the fire of the AUS. I didn’t have any game-changing plans either, and I…in that situation, I wouldn’t even be able to patch up that hole that Saturday broke…I simply wanted to find you for my own selfish reasons. If I was Turan in that position, I’d also do the same to myself, it was never her fault.”

Lin Jingheng interrupted: “It’s all in the past now, you don’t need to bring it up again.”

“Okay, let’s talk about now, then. If I could be stronger, enough to manipulate the political games of the Union and instill fear into others, I would be able to tell you that regardless what you…and even what the Silver Ten thinks or decides to do, I would be able to support you all.” Lu Bixing looked at him. Perhaps it was because he finally said it out loud, or perhaps his gaze was so fixed on Lin Jingheng that he subconsciously mimicked the other’s gesture, but he slowly relaxed his half-clenched fist as well. “But I can’t.”

Lin Jingheng almost wanted to rebutt with, “Who asked you to worry so much for me, can I not make my own decisions?”

But the moment the words reached the tip of his tongue, he forcefully swallowed them back down.

Because Lu Bixing was no longer that naive young man who would give groundless advice in a meeting and get kicked out by his more experienced seniors.

Even Prime Minister Edward was only able to hold up this joke of a Eighth Galaxy government many years ago thanks to the help of Lin Jingheng and the Silver Ninth Squadron. Lin Jingheng’s role in the Eighth Galaxy had been like the same dictator of the Silver Fortress during that time; nobody could question his authority. Yet this new cabinet of the Eighth Galaxy government was different: the Silver Ninth Squadron and Turan who had been pushed to the top lost Lin Jingheng’s absolute rule, and these directionless ducklings were forced to work amongst themselves. After long years of grinding and finally breaking out of their cocoons, they shaped a new leader for themselves.

A new leader of unprecedented prestige and honor who no longer relied on others.

Lin Jingheng fell silent for a few moments: “That’s fine.”

“But I still yearn to make you my own despite my uselessness, am I too greedy?” Lu Bixing said, “I want you, I want to keep the Silver Ten in the Eighth Galaxy, and on top of that I also want to let the Eighth Galaxy that just walked out of an internal warfare to have a break, some peaceful times. I don’t want these people that finally managed to build their own homes and society to be shot down once again by a Union that we no longer trust. Jingheng, would you be put in a dilemma if we end up in a conflict with the Union over this?”

This time, Lin Jingheng didn’t hide and confessed after a short pause: “Yes.”

The Black Orchid Academy was the bedrock of his soul, just as the Eighth Galaxy was Lu Bixing’s.

This was a fact that he could not possibly forget or toss away, no matter how much hatred and pain he had suffered through over the years, no matter how many times he had repeated that he was no longer the Commander Lin of the Silver Fortress.

“Whenever I can’t sleep at night, I lie there and think that the greatest blessing the world gave me was for you to return to my side.” Lu Bixing said slowly as if he were chiseling each word off the flesh from his heart, “I can’t think of how I should thank this blessing, nor do I know how I could possibly prove myself worthy of this gift. Sometimes I have nightmares that they say I’m not good enough, so they will take you away from me again…but I can’t even think of how I could stop forcing you to do things you don’t like, how I could possibly make you happier, even if just a little.”

“‘They said’—who are ‘they’?” Lin Jingheng responded in a rather calm voice. Before Lu Bixing could answer, though, he gestured to interrupt those words and said, “Listen carefully here, this goddamn piece of shit of a world did not ‘return me to you,’ I’m the one that came back to find you on my own. This ‘fate’ thing has never given me a good attitude for as long as I’ve lived; I was the one that broke out of the galactic prison, grappled my way out from the abyss, and ran back to you even if I had to crawl on all fours, do you hear me? There’s no bullshit ‘blessing’ here, what the fuck were you thinking!? I don’t even feel guilty — who’s telling you to feel bad for something you never did? And who taught you to speak like a whiny bum begging for your next meal?”