Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 162

Chapter 162 – Was She A Kind Person?

“Was she a kind person?”

“…..She was very kind, but had a strong personality. She kept all her words in the classroom so she seemed rather quiet most of the time; she was also an expert in galactic communication theory.” Lin Jingheng asked, “Have you read her publications before?”

Lu Bixing shook his head–that uncultured Monoeyed Hawk, perhaps he had never actually understood what Madame Lu’s research was and would always stutter saying “that space equipment and stuff,” successfully pushing Lu Bixing down the massive pit of mech engineering.

He never studied this field and purposely blocked off all information relating to Madame Lu after learning of her identity to reject her. He was completely clueless as he stared into the empty room inside the hallway and suddenly felt a bit guilty.

“You should take a look sometime, especially at the rebuttals against all her colleagues’ irrational essays; she had a knack for using sharp words. ” Lin Jingheng spoke softly, “She rarely showed anger, but often gave off the vibe of ‘your slow mental development is pitiful so I refuse to waste my time with you’ to others.”

Lu Bixing: “……”

He couldn’t imagine anyone speaking to Lin Jingheng in that manner, so that ‘poorly developed child’ must be…

Speaking of which, he recalled Doctor Laura Gordon also referring to Commander Lu Xin as a ‘gorilla’ in some of her messages, and in Zhanlu’s ‘spicy rabbit hot pot’ song as well.

The attentive Lee nudged Bayer standing beside him; the rest of the soldiers from the Silver Ten also caught on to the mood and backed off cooperatively, leaving space for the two men before them.

“This is the reception room, there are guest rooms in the back.” Lin Jingheng took Lu Bixing through the hallway continuing, “Those plants and tree branches in the yard were all personally designed by Lu Xin; he didn’t like keeping his yard all uniformed and standardized.”

The Union had rebuilt the site with exceeding attention to detail, to the point that the recreation of the mansion looked as if it was a model frozen in time. It easily awoke the spirits of the past from their slumber as they glanced over at Lin Jingheng with a familiar yet strange light in their eyes.

What kind of person was Lu Xin?

Lu Bixing had been the one curious about the place Lin Jingheng grew up in and had suggested this visit, but when they finally arrived on site, he was consumed by an unexplainable anxiety that made him unable to ask this question stuck in his throat.

The inside of the mansion was usually temporarily closed off to the public with a glass door blocking the entrances, allowing only a peek inside the rooms. Luckily, Zhanlu’s temporary control of the surveillance in the mansion allowed him to open up the glass door for them.

The setup was the same as it had been many years ago, clean and dustless.

Behind that tall sofa chair, it seemed as if the master of the house was still sitting on it, jolting up in his seat to look around when he heard footsteps closing in.

The turbulent stream of memories pushed open the doors to the past that had been closed off for decades, almost drowning Lin Jingheng. Time rewound to the past, creating a strange vertigo in his head.

Lu Bixing heard Lin Jingheng let out a deep breath of air. Lin Jingheng suddenly turned around, as if he wanted to leave, but finally stood still in silence with his back facing the glass door.

Lu Bixing didn’t rush him and quietly stood beside the man. His gaze fell on the row of tree branches by the front of the yard; he had thought it looked like a bunch of branches that had been bitten by dogs at first and couldn’t understand the aesthetics behind this fine abstract art. Until he saw from this angle and discovered that the row of dog bite branches were actually letters of the alphabet: “What….home? Lu and….”

“Muller, the letter M,” Lin Jingheng said, “her family name is Muller.”

Lu Bixing trembled slightly.

“The Home of Lu and Muller” on the crown of the tree.

“The Home of Commander Lin and Engineer 001” on the wooden plank.

Lu Bixing stared with mixed feelings at those uniquely styled branches on the tree, unsure how Lin Jingheng felt when he first saw that wooden plank in front of his own house.

As if he knew what the young man was thinking, Lin Jingheng responded: “I’m glad you didn’t take on his unique aesthetics.”

Lu Bixing could hear his heartbeat echoing inside the empty mansion in the serene night on Wolto.

The stone statue in the central plaza of Milky Way City seemed to have come to life as it gave him a quick look across hundreds of lightyears through the galaxies.

“I was taken in by him before I turned ten,” Lin Jingheng said. “It was my first time at his residence, and I didn’t know Lu Xin that well either. I was confused and reluctant to come in, so he dragged me all the way in while I looked down at the ground. Then I walked over here and saw that there was a little face on the floor…it’s still here.”

The white marble flooring leading to the front door of the private residence was simple yet regimented. Lu Bixing’s eyes followed the direction of Lin Jingheng’s gaze to see that there was indeed one piece of the flooring that had a cartoonish face drawn on it; that particular piece of marble was also made of different material from the rest of the building, sticking out like a sore thumb in midst of the mansion.

“I was startled and looked up at him; that’s when he made the face at me. ” Lin Jingheng’s hand skimmed over the door to the living room. “Let’s go inside. ”

The inside of the private residence was rather familiar to Lu Bixing.

There were multiple videos of young Lin Jingheng that had been taken inside this house; all of those scenes had been engraved in his mind, so it wasn’t hard to find a sense of familiarity within the residence.

Lu Bixing’s fingers gently swept across a piano in the corner of the living room, a thin layer of dust collected at the tip of his finger: “Whose is this? Did any of them like playing instruments?”

“Nobody did, it’s never been played since it was bought. ” Lin Jingheng said, “It was supposed to be for me. ”

Lu Bixing: “……”

He almost dropped the cover of the piano on his hands.

“Between the ages of six to ten, children in the Union have to go through different stages of preliminary education. After that, they have a few years to experience different types of professions and decide between ages ten to twenty what career path they want to take. When Lu Xin first took me in, I was barely done with my preliminary education. He was very excited to plan out all kinds of futures for me, and these weren’t the worst of them. There were more ridiculous plans than this. ”

Lu Bixing looked at the old and heavy piano as he imagined how Lin Jingheng would be if he didn’t enlist in the military and was instead playing classical music under a dome in a fancy suit. The imagination quickly got out of hand in his mind as he forced himself to focus on the situation before him, then cleared his throat: “I thought he’d send you to the Black Orchid Academy. ”

“No,” Lin Jingheng fell silent for a few moments, “aside from giving me a toy mech as a present, he never suggested the Black Orchid Academy as an option; I enrolled in it behind his back.”

Lu Bixing lowered his gaze and looked at that piano that seemed out of place inside this household, experiencing a sudden epiphany.

The Lu Xin that had reclaimed the Eighth Galaxy, the Lu Xin that billions had followed behind, the Lu Xin that insisted on fighting with the Committee for his promises and ideals, the Lu Xin that held the forbidden fruit system and refused to have his name listed on there even until his death…

When the man took that little boy from Woolf’s hands, he never planned on letting the little boy carry any of these burdens.

Maybe Lu Xin was born a protector , Lu Bixing thought; at the edge of the turbulent storms, he carried everything he could on his shoulders. He even built his own house in the central area of the Union and loved the Union as if it was his own home. Lu Xin wasn’t like him, who was forced to lug around the burden of the world and finally found his own method of interacting with the world after countless trials and tribulations.

“That was Lu Xin’s seat,” Lin Jingheng’s voice pulled him back to reality. Lu Bixing lifted his head to see Lin Jingheng pointing at a small sofa. “When there were guests in the house, he would sit there properly like a person. When the guests left, he would lift his leg up and rest it on the coffee table beside it as he dangled around like a manchild.”

“Lu Xin would take me out with him sometimes because auntie had a lot of academic events in her schedule and would often leave on business trips. He was afraid that nobody would look after me at home…he really didn’t need to do that, I wasn’t a kid anymore so I could take care of myself. Besides, there were also digital butlers and Eden, so it didn’t matter if I was home alone, I didn’t need someone to look after me.”

How could anyone leave you here alone? Lu Bixing thought, even if we gathered up and force fed you all of the love and emotions in the world, everyone would be afraid that you wouldn’t even open your mouth.

Unlike Lin Jingheng who often stayed on the Silver Fortress, Lu Xin was obsessed with going home. If given the opportunity, he would run back home, even if he only had time to take a nap. The whole world was his stage but nowhere was quite like home; it was only when he returned here that he could finally rest at peace.

Lin Jingheng used to live upstairs. The staircase was exceptionally familiar to Lu Bixing–he remembered that Lu Xin gifted him a toy mech on his tenth birthday and even filmed the event. The person behind the camera had run right up the same stairs as in the footage.

Lu Bixing’s footsteps stopped abruptly by the staircase and asked: “Lu…was he about the same height as me?”

Lin Jingheng didn’t understand the question and lifted an eyebrow in confusion: “Hm?”

“……It’s nothing. ”

The perspective and view overlapped perfectly with the image in his mind, so familiar that it almost felt like Lu Bixing was the one revisiting the mansion.

The second to the last step of the staircase was a tad shorter than the other steps; Lu Bixing subconsciously took an extra step like the man that had carried the toy mech and skipped over that lowered step.

He felt as if an invisible soul passed by him the moment he jumped up the last step.

There were countless frames on the walls of the staircase; most people would decorate the area with paintings and artworks, but this place was filled with photos. Family, friends…it was like the master of the house had so much passion and love that a small room wouldn’t be able to contain them.

Lu Bixing stopped suddenly and saw a familiar person near the corner of the staircase.

He saw the heterochromatic eyes of Monoeyed Hawk.

The young Monoeyed Hawk looked nothing like the old arms merchant of the future. He was a little heavier in the past, wore an ill-fitting, ragged collared shirt with buttons undone; his hair looked as if it hadn’t been brushed in ages, strands of dry and frizzy hair exploding in all directions in an unsightly manner. His fist reached out and bumped with Lu Xin, his wide and silly grin exposing his white teeth toward the camera.

Yet his eyes glistened and shone.

Why are you so good to me? Lu Bixing thought.

“Lu Xin was like a god that descended from the heavens and lit a fire of hope for the entire Eighth Galaxy.” Lin Jingheng looked over in the same direction. “The admiration and emotions Monoeyed Hawk and Minister Edward had for him were something that other people would find difficult to understand.”

“Did he let them believe that the Union hadn’t given up on the Eighth Galaxy?”

“In the eyes of the Eighth Galaxy, Lu Xin was the Union, and even the Pledge of Freedom itself,” Lin Jingheng said, “it was the Pledge that led them out of the abyss of the Rainbow Virus and defeated the totalitarian regime of the Cayley family. Lu Xin was the first person to make them feel that they had another chance in life to live as a person. ”

Lu Bixing shrugged: “The Union burned their own bridge.”

“The Union had disappointed the Eighth Galaxy countless times; thirty years later, the fire that Lu Xin lit up also extinguished into ashes,” Lin Jingheng responded, “the second person that relit that fire is you.”

Lu Bixing turned his head abruptly in shock and locked his gaze with Lin Jingheng’s eyes.

Yet that gaze seemed different than before; it almost resonated in a strange way inside this special place. That gaze turned to him along with the Lu Xin and Monoeyed Hawk inside the photo…this rebel who once tried to uproot and destroy the Pledge of Freedom.

Lu Bixing felt something choking his throat, unable to speak momentarily.

“He would be proud of you,” Lin Jingheng said, “even if you don’t acknowledge him…if that old Persian cat hadn’t left so early, I’m sure he wanted to introduce Lu Xin to you. If that had been the case, perhaps it would be easier for you to accept him. ”

“You two think you’re both so almighty that you can shoulder the burden for me even if the heavens fell, so neither of you wanted to tell me anything.” Lu Bixing gave a little flick to Monoeyed Hawk’s forehead in the photo and felt the corner of his eyes warming up. “Now what, your lies are all exposed.”

Lin Jingheng: “……We were wrong.”

Lu Bixing lifted a finger up and interrupted him: “Too late.”

The corner of Lin Jingheng’s mouth twitched a little in slight panic.

Lu Bixing walked past him up the stairs. After a few steps, he suddenly turned his head and gave a playful but angry comment from the top: “What’s the point of apologizing now, where’s my compensation? Don’t you remember what you promised me before you left for the Seventh Galaxy that year?”

Lin Jingheng was taken aback.

“You said that you’ll let me order you around for as long as you didn’t come back home. You’ll have to listen to whatever I say without questioning,” Lu Bixing said loudly, shamelessly, “it’s been so long and you won’t bring it up if I don’t mention it. What now, Marshal, are you planning on keeping this tab forever?”

The countless Lu Xins inside the photo frames stared as if they were gathered up to ridicule or cheer on the two men’s quarrel.

Lin Jingheng could feel his ears reddending as ‘this shithead Lu Xin’ stared at them through the photos: “You were the one that decided on your own, when did I ever agree to it?!”

Lu Bixing ignored him and swiftly made his way up to the second floor.

The long night of Wolto was about to come to an end; a small beacon of light rose from afar, greeting the tall attic in the mansion from the horizon.

That attic had a unique and almost outlandish decoration, brushed in a layer of candy colored paint. Lu Bixing peeked in out of curiosity and pushed the door open–

The attic was still empty with no furnishings, but there were plenty of small doors and wooden tunnels that were clearly the prototype of a child’s playground.

“He designed this himself, I remember……” Lin Jingheng traced back his memories and followed along the walls, then found the innermost hidden door in the corner of the attic. He reached his hand out and pushed the door, revealing a tunnel inside. “There’s a slide here that connects from the attic all the way down to the first floor. ”

Lu Bixing’s heart jumped, an answer surfacing in his mind: “This is…..”

“This was made for you before you were even born.”

“It’s his proudest design; he even slid down this thing joyfully multiple times after he finished it. Every single person in this household had once looked forward to your birth, like looking forward to an important holiday. ” Lin Jingheng asked softly, “Do you want to try it?”