Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 196

Chapter 196 – Closing (Part 1)

“Quick, give me a matching tie,” Lu Bixing was frantically putting on his clothes, “we’re running out of time!”

Lin Jingheng gave a carefree acknowledgement as he walked into the closet while still talking to Turan on the line, “Still didn’t find it?”

“Turned it upside down, nothing,” Turan said. “You didn’t even notice your commanding ship had a hole in it back then, thank god the protection airbag filled in the gap on the wall when it released, I bet it rolled out at that time. Damn, boss, did you not hear the alarms? That was really dangerous.”

“There were too many alarms inside the mech at the time, my eardrums were about to explode, how do you expect me to pay attention to everything?” Lin Jingheng pulled out the drawer where Lu Bixing kept all his ties and gasped aloud, feeling as if he was about to choke up on his own indecisiveness–mister Lu had four whole drawers filled with nothing but ties, all organized by color. The colorful patterns almost gave the commander a headache as he complained, “Lu Bixing, is that a neck below your head or a flagpole?”

Turan cackled like a madwoman on the other side, almost ready to ask the Marshal to turn on video call so she could have a tour of the Prime Minister’s bedroom. Thank goodness she managed to check herself at the last minute, bit her tongue and managed to save her head from being thrown under a guillotine.

“By the what, what even is in that little box you lost?” Turan cleared her throat and attempted to speak normally, “why does it sound like a ring?”

Lin Jingheng snorted in response–that was a silent acknowledgement. He glanced at the time right now–December 1st, 7:00 A.M. Then, he pulled out the second drawer and took out the seventh tie from the first row inside and tossed it to Lu Bixing without even looking.

Before Turan could even speak up, Lu Bixing’s horrid cry rang out from the other side of the room, “Babe, I have to go into court today!”

Lin Jingheng turned and took a glance, noticing that random silk tie he tossed over was diamond-patterned with a cute little pumpkin print inside each diamond; it matched almost cutely with that single stand of cowlick that popped up from Lu Bixing’s head.

Either way, he looked nothing like a proper Prime Minister.

Lin Jingheng pressed his lips together slightly and leaned on the closet door, watching that ‘improper Prime Minister’ run around the bedroom to dress himself up. A faint smile lifted up the corner of his lips.

Turan swallowed all the words she was about to say earlier and asked in shock, “M,mmmarshal, wh….what did he just call you?”

This ‘mmmmarshal’ complained that his subordinate didn’t do her job right and asked too many questions, so he hung up the call without hesitation.

Lu Bixing finally settled on a modest suit. He picked up his hairspray and swiftly sprayed on his head without even checking the mirror, clearly a master of dressing himself that relied solely on muscle memory to clean up that bedhead of his.

Then, as if he finally remember something, Lu Bixing pulled the natural grin on his face down and turned his head to ask, “How about this, do I look a bit more serious now?”

Lin Jingheng didn’t respond and slowly lit a cigarette, “What, are you nervous?”

“What a joke,” Lu Bixing gave a slightly stiff grin in response, “I was chased around a whole galaxy by AIs and wasn’t even scared, why would I be nervous now?”

Lin Jingheng pointed at him, “Listener and Hardin.”

Lu Bixing took in a deep breath and pulled back that forced smile.

Four months ago, the Human Alliance passed through harsh tribulations and finally blew up AI Woolf’s main processor; the AI fleets that invaded the Eighth Galaxy surrendered soon after.

The Silver Fourth Squadron formed by vaccubocerebrals followed the Central Militia out of the First Galaxy to deal with the biochip humans left within the other galaxies with their new chip disruption technologies. After this battle, the discrimination against vaccuocerebrals would have completely disappeared from human history and rebranded as humanity’s grave mistake.

The entire First Galaxy’s military force–those mechs that were chasing after the Human Alliance under the control of the AIs–became free supplies for the Alliance. All of the Generals felt their stomachs churn in regret, saying that if they had known this would belong to them they should have saved a few mechs during the last battle.

Lu Bixing sent off the Alliance that saved the world and then escorted the poor Woltorian refugees waiting in the Heart of the Rose to the City of Angels. Soon after, the former Union Troops and First Galaxy Patrol Fleets teamed up to conduct a galaxy-wide inspection in the First Galaxy to clean up all remaining AI and biochip toxins.

Lu Bixing himself then returned to the Eighth Galaxy with his escorts.

By the way, there was another little episode on the journey back. As expected of the universe’s beloved Marshal Lin who could always find himself in astronomically impossible and unlucky situations–because the man insisted on waiting by the entrance of the wormhole to personally greet Lu Bixing, fate played a game and left Lu Bixing’s crew inside the terminal for a whole twenty-eight days. It was almost a record travel time; if the technicians didn’t confirm that there were still signals coming out of the wormhole, Lin Jingheng might have physically attempted to tear up the wormhole and drag the young man out.

After a chaotic period of time, things had finally begun to settle.

Lu Bixing was also ready to fulfill his promise he made to the people of the Eighth Galaxy before he left–to accept a public trial on the matter of the Nuwa Project and illegally conducting biochip experiments.

To the young man, fighting for his life in the First Galaxy was his obligation, but to face a trial in the Eighth Galaxy certainly wasn’t as easy as it sounded…he had poured a decade of his life into rebuilding this place, his life’s greatest happiness and grievances were all engraved beneath the cement grounds of the Milky Way City.

“He…Lu….Uh, my father,” Lu Bixing suddenly spoke up and asked, “How was it like when he was summoned to court for a trial back in Wolto?”

“That man spent his whole life fighting for the Union, so he believed that the Union would give him justice. He also believed that the people he had once protected would never betray him,” Lin Jingheng paused slightly, then continued in a gentle tone, “but his whole life was a pendulum of great success and failure. A lot of things in life are not determined by the casualty of an individual’s actions, many are bonded to luck. A genius among people may become a legend two hundred years into the future, but if they were unfortunate to be born in an era too early, they would only become a thunderstorm that overturns the whole world until everything perishes into ashes. No matter how beautiful the flower, they can’t bloom outside the right season.”

Lu Bixing stared at him in surprise; he had never expected to hear the word ‘luck’ come out of Lin Jingheng’s mouth in this lifetime.

Thin white mist rose up between his fingers, dying those grey eyes that always seemed to be carrying some sort of hatred behind them. The man leaned on the wooden closet door, his gaze surprisingly tranquil and long.

Lu Bixing suddenly realized that this man had also changed a lot over the silent two decades.

“Let’s go, I’ll head out with you.” Lin Jingheng said, “Don’t worry, your fortune arrived at the perfect time.”

The citizens of the Eighth Galaxy did not have the clouded vision caused by Eden. They had all just crawled out of the most treacherous of times and hadn’t even had time to create a false delusion of a peaceful world for themselves. Both their eyes and hearts were clear. Building the interstellar anti-missile system, blocking off the AI invasion into the galaxy, fighting for equality for vaccuocerebrals…the Eighth Galaxy had just taken its first step into prosperity. Lu Bixing’s work and contributions were still shining vibrantly in the eyes of people that followed him. This was his best season with no fear for any storms or rain.

The Supreme Court of the Eighth Galaxy was located not far away from the central plaza of the Milky Way City. There was still time before the trial began, but people had already gathered by the front door. All journalists and media sent more than their usual reporting robots: the whole street was crowded with tourists and other people. Commander Lu Xin’s statue that was normally quiet in the corner suddenly had a flood of people sitting by his feet; the soldiers and security guards couldn’t stop the incoming crowd and decided to retreat.

“The Rainbow Virus was the deepest wound to the Eighth Galaxy in the past…”

“But Prime Minister Lu was a patient with no autonomy of his body when his body was in process of being modified by the virus. All associated parties at the time have died and cannot be summoned to court…”

“Then, when the Nuwa Project launched the second time…”

“The second launch of the Nuwa Project was initiated by the extremist faction of the AUS. The mutated rainbow virus and biochips used in their research were bounties received during wartime; according to the Wartime Special Ordinance, all persons of section manager ranks and higher from departments of engineering, security, and military strategy have the right to mobilize all enemy supplies obtained during battle in order to better prepare for the warfront. Prime Minister Lu has the authority to use any resources under their jurisdiction at the time. While the procedure for mobilizing was not through proper means, the subjective reality was that the experiment itself did not threaten public security nor did it objectively cause any irreversible harm to the people; so we believe that this should be treated as a case of improper procedural conduct.”

“But the human experiment…”

“The Human Rights Protection bill has a clause that specifically bans human experiments, which defines ‘illegal human experimentation’ as use of force, manipulation, or other unethical means to conduct unconventional human body experimentation on third parties, causing psychological and biological damage to the experiment body–clearly, Prime Minister Lu’s experimentation did not include any third parties.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to remind everyone that the street right outside of the Supreme Court is called Rainbow Street. It used to be a slum city filled with dirt and trash, it was also the place where the mutated Rainbow Virus first broke out on our planet. That place had once been filled with a horrible pandemic, fear, hunger, and poverty; now please take a look down at the smooth grounds and wide streets beneath your feets, then above your heads at the clean airways and awesome skyscrapers–”

Lin Jingheng relaxed his shoulders in the audience section, learning back into the soft chair and said to Doctor Hardin beside him, “So how is it, can you take the chip out of him?”

“I should be able to,” Doctor Hardin said, “a modified body is the basis and already meets the requirements for safe levels of mutation. Of course, mutations are limitless and the chip’s job is to merely guide the mutation into the ideal form of evolution. I see that his physical condition and health is already way past stable now, we should be able to attempt to remove the chip within a few years.”

Lin Jingheng looked at him from the corner of his eyes and said, “Sounds like it’s completely different fundamentally from those hierarchical chips the Freedom Corps use.”

Doctor Hardin didn’t suspect this question and explained thoroughly, “Indeed, Minister Lu received his portion of the data from the AUS, which was the original copy left by Laura, so it was naturally different from the Freedom Corps….”

Lin Jingheng didn’t wait for the old man to finish and said, “Then why did you call right as we returned and purposely mentioned that those Freedom Corps chips gave you some bullshit new ideas about his chip?”

The doctor froze.

Lin Jingheng looked at this poor old man turn into a helpless frog that met the gaze of a deadly snake, resting his head in an arm on the armrest, “Hm?”

Doctor Hardin panicked slightly at the stare, “I….I….was just…”

Yet Lin Jingheng smiled suddenly and dropped the question. He gave a casual pat on the old doctor’s shoulder and walked out of the court before a verdict was officially given.

Chief Lin Ge’er’s notebook had a section of mundane conversations. Three hundred years ago, a young bookworm Hardin, who was filled with impossible ideas, told his friend and brother that a perverse creation could only be defeated by an even more perverse creation.

Woolf disagreed and said that a super AI with unlimited framework was doomed to become an enemy of mankind–they must be destroyed.

What the chief didn’t record in the notebook was what Woolf said after that: “If one day we have no choice but to go down this demonic path and use something like that to achieve a certain goal, we must destroy it immediately after we accomplish the goal. We have to destroy it before it has time to clone its main processor because we are simply borrowing the hands of a devil. The longer we attempt to create the facade of a peaceful world between humans and AIs, the deeper we sink in, damning ourselves even more in the end.”

“I was…I just wanted to try it,” Doctor Hardin said behind Lin Jingheng, “I don’t know if he still remembered what he had said before nor was I sure if I should tell you all. It….it has been three hundred years already, we’ve already grown to become completely different people. This was a war with too much to wager, I was scared that this could cloud your judgements….”

Lin Jingheng waved at him from afar.

Doctor Hardin stopped and stared in slight disbelief. Many things had changed, but many things also remained the same. Some memories faded or transformed into a different monster, while others seemed to have been engraved in time.