Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 54

Chapter 54 – Why Are You So Good To Me?

A myriad of thoughts unsuitable for children raced through Lu Bixing’s mind as he spoke. He forcefully suppressed the urge to lift up a smile but didn’t quite succeed in hiding his excitement, making him look like a child that had just committed a prank behind the backs of unknowing eyes.

Lin Jingheng stopped in alarm.

“What’s wrong,” Lu Bixing innocently asked

Lin Jingheng shook his head and walked quietly behind Lu Bixing into the workroom. He felt as if he had too much free time lately and paid a little too much attention towards Lu Bixing, making him overthink every little thing the boy says or does.

Luckily, Lu Bixing was quick to switch back to work mode.

“I think I’m going to do a test in outer space, within the limits of our internal network.” Lu Bixing led Lin into his workroom and started explaining the basics of his anti-detection system. “Look here, the internal network of the space station only covers the range of four sailing days around the station. Thankfully, it’s large enough for smaller mechs to do small-scale battle simulations.”

Lin Jingheng lifted a brow without breaking his expression.

“My plan is to divide the self-defense squad up into multiple smaller teams to practice on real mechs, and split them up into two factions. During the drill, all participating mechs will open up their communication terminals and send coded signals to simulate long-distance communications. They can then choose to use the anti-detection system to hide their coordinate points or try and hack into the system to find their opponents. How’s that? We can both train the squad and test the anti-detection system in real-time in a simulation battle.”

Contrary to Lu Bixing’s approachable and gentle appearance, deep down he still had a stubborn nature. While he was good at making negotiations and reasonably understanding he wasn’t about to back down on this round; to him, the self-defense squad were still soldiers.

Lin Jingheng only nodded helplessly at the suggestion and said, “Hm…good idea, play space hide-and-seek with a bunch of gorillas.”

Lu Bixing stopped a few meters away and turned around to face Lin Jingheng under the warm white light of his workroom: “Hey Lin, I know I asked you this before…when you found those space pirates near the underground terminal, why did you bait them out before they reached us? With the time you had back then, you could’ve returned back to the station, finished up at least half of your surveying map and left. You had all the hidden terminals and recharge stations on hand, why didn’t you just abandon this place? Do you really think those people are just gorillas?”

“No, that’s just a figure of speech.” Lin Jingheng didn’t even bat an eyelash. “I didn’t mean to insult gorillas.”

Lu Bixing kept his eyes on him.

“In any case, why would I abandon this place?” Lin Jingheng walked past him and out the door slowly. “I’m not the one hiding, it was always the space pirates hiding from me. There’s no reason for me to give them free resources. Primal Alien? Hmph…who does he think he is?”

Lu Bixing let out a big sigh as he watched Lin Jingheng stroll out the door. This was the first time he was met with this level of stubbornness, and Lin Jingheng had proven to be much harder than a rock. He felt as if he was hitting on a cold, hard surface of a ceramic table. He could almost feel the coldness in his mouth and licked his lips subconsciously, wondering if the same mouth that spewed out these harsh words was also cold to the touch.

Lin Jingheng’s voice from the staircase pulled him back to reality: “Your ‘Self-Defense Squad’ only knows how to sail on fixed paths right now, don’t even think about putting them in drills or simulation battles. Do you have any other backup plans?”

Lu Bixing immediately followed over: “I’ll think of something.”

“They’re a bunch of fools in a crowd, what else can you do?”

“There are ways to herd sheep and ways to domesticate wild animals.” Lu Bixing said. “I may not be the most reliable person, but I’ve always pulled through at the end, right? Just trust me this once, please?”

A call from Mint came into his personal device the second Lu Bixing finished: “Hey teach, a few of the self-defense squad people are looking for you.”

Lu Bixing’s eyes remained on Lin Jingheng as he responded: “Give me one second.”

Lin Jingheng couldn’t imagine how that old cat managed to raise this child to be such a character. Despite being incredibly naive at times, Lin Jingheng found himself unable to move his attention away from this boy. He would much rather have Lu Bixing bother other people, but when trouble came to find him, Lin Jingheng wasn’t willing to give attitude as long as Lu Bixing stayed within his lane.

About half a minute late, Lin Jingheng finally gave up and waved him off: “Do whatever you want.”

Lu Bixing broke out into a big smile, and lowered his voice slightly: “Hey Commander, I noticed that ever since the day we met, you’ve never really said no to my requests, why are you so good to me?”

Lin Jingheng couldn’t answer this question for various reasons, so he ignored the question and walked off with his hands in his pockets.

Lu Bixing gave a little pout and realized he actually found this asshole attitude from Lin kind of refreshing. He made another mental note to himself: the ancient saying about love blinding people was correct. Hormone activities stimulated by love can suppress negative feelings in the brain, making it possible to see the flaws of your target as cute gestures.

Lu Bixing then asked giddily: “Are you asking me to repay you with my body?”

“Leave.” Lin Jingheng answered coldly.

And then Lu Bixing left with great satisfaction.

Today, all the little groupies that were upset with Saturday’s training sent their own messengers to visit Lu Bixing, making the main control room exceptionally busy. Some came to get lessons about mech piloting, others came in to complain about Saturday; there were even a few that came in an attempt to build up their social links with him.

The fixed night patrolling schedule also turned into a mess because the groups refused to communicate with each other.

Three waves of patrols came in at noon within a span of ten minutes; the fight for patrolling rights sparked off on the dock and almost blew up the mech rail. By the afternoon and evening, the dock was dead silent, leaving only a lonely artificial sun up in the sky.

Soon after, what was left of the Self-Defense Squad was just Saturday and his small group of followers. Everyone else started grouping up on their own in this small space station; within a few days, countless informal armed squads appeared like pimples during a massive breakout.

Embarrassing names like “The Space Tigers” and “Galaxy’s Ultimate Fleet” started appearing on the sign-up lists of the mech dock. It was truly a living nightmare.

Lin Jingheng decided to completely ignore this hot mess and delved straight into work now that Zhanlu’s energy problem was solved. He would travel between the two recharge stations and the main station every day to check on stock and fuel, carefully preparing for the last battle that could happen at any time.

However, the issue with the warring groups of the space station wasn’t just the groups themselves; they were taking up too much energy in their cockfights. The main energy source that powered the mechs was the same recyclable energy used by the other residents of the station for their daily lives.

Before the era of the warring groupies, there was fixed schedules and times to launch off the mechs that allowed for enough energy to circulate the rest of the station. Now, on top of the chaotic atmosphere and the fights on the docks, there were also problems with blackouts on the main station.

The few hundred thousand residents of the space station already grew accustomed to their comfortable lives with sufficient energy supply throughout the day; the sudden blackouts after a month of stable energy supply led to another small group of dissatisfied elderly to march onto the mech dock for complaints.

Faced with the young delinquents of the armed groups who were already busy fighting amongst themselves, the addition of these elderly complaints only fueled their frustration. They cursed out the old folks with little to no patience, causing another storm of complaints throughout the rest of the space station.

When Lu Bixing fixed the energy tower, there were many different options he could’ve used to rebuild the system but settled with the circulating recycled energy system. Maybe he already foresaw the uproar that this could cause if people don’t conserve energy, and purposely kept quiet to let the residents solve their own problems.

Either way, the current reality was that whoever abused the armed mechs of the station and messed with the energy circulation, that person would be responsible for bringing the rest of the population down.

When another blackout cut off the peaceful civilian’s little movie, it became a riot.

The angry civilians crawled out of their little huts and stormed the streets, finally surrounding the mech dock completely. Regardless if anyone was “The Space Tigers,” “Invincible Dragon,” or “The Galaxy’s Baddest Boys,” whoever stepped foot on the dock were greeted by violent beatings from the furious residents.

By the time Lu Bixing made his way over on his shift, The Space Tigers were almost beaten to toothless tigers.

“Ok ok, that’s enough.” Lu Bixing pulled the old cinema lady back before she could storm further ahead. “Lady, please! Calm down! Stay in line! Watch your blood pressure, let’s talk it out first.”

The old cinema lady pulled her mop up and hit it firmly on the ground as she announced: “I don’t care if you’re a self-defense squad or a suicide squad, follow the rules we’ve set for launching mechs or we won’t let you down anymore!”

Lu Bixing turned his face toward the beaten up groupies in an elegant fashion: “That’s right, we need order here. Where’s civilization if there’s no order?”

But who would set the order?

None of the armed groups were willing to surrender authority to the other and started bickering again in the faces of the increasingly annoyed civilians.

“We only have so many mechs here and so many people, who should we all listen to? Have you guys even counted your people?”

“I don’t care who you guys listen to, just don’t bother me when I’m watching my movies.”

“Then why don’t you guys send a group to fight for it? No rules on method, whoever wins gets to command the losers.”

“That’s right, fight!”

The bosses of the Space Tigers and Invincible Dragons both had their heads pressed on the ground. Lu Bixing watched as their heads got pushed closer together like they were being forced into marriage, and finally said: “I do have an idea to fairly settle this.”

On the evening of the third day, Lin Jingheng returned with a fully loaded Model 3 of weapons and backup mechs to a sports festival in the space station.

The operation range of the anti-detection system was turned down to the smallest radius for operational testing. Outside of the artificial atmosphere, numerous mechs equipped with simulation missiles were going in and out of the mirrored terminal created from the anti-detection system like a bunch of overly excited rabbits jumping into a hole.

“Sir, it looks like they’re doing an interesting exercise,” Zhanlu said.

“No, I think they’re hosting a ‘Paralympics for dementia patients’ here.” Lin Jingheng responded emotionlessly.

Zhanlu went silent for two seconds: “Hahaha.”

“That wasn’t a joke, who said you can laugh?” Lin Jingheng’s brows lowered. “Analyze the anti-detection system and stay away from them, or you’ll end up getting dragged into that mess.”

Zhanlu’s mental network easily covered the anti-detection system in battery-saving mode. The Model 3 made its way to the other side of the station and landed on the dock. Unlike the other times it landed, there was not a single soul waiting to see the Model 3; civilians and armed forces alike, all their attention was on the big multimedia screen in the central plaza.

Lin Jingheng could hear Lu Bixing’s voice from afar: “Invincible Dragon 4 needs to watch their ammunition supply. Even though it’s just a simulation missile, we limit the amount of supply a mech can carry just like they would in a real battle. If Number 4 continues to fire out all their missiles like this, they will be out in no time…Self-Defense number 1 and Thunderbolt Emperor 3 collided, but don’t worry, the defense shields are opened to the highest power during these drills, and we’ve set a speed limit for the mechs so there won’t be any damage to the mech itself. Self-Defense 1 is Saturday, right? Nice move, he also managed to overtake his opponent’s mental network during the collision…wait, here we see the last mech of the Supreme King get shot down, making them the first team to be completely wiped out this round. They scored relatively high…Oh! The mech lost control, perhaps the pilot lost consciousness– Jingshu, send in support!”

Lu Bixing himself was on a mech, commentating while working on the anti-detection system. He tasked the four students with the job of maneuvering the mechs back out of the drill zone when pilots got knocked unconscious. Their inexperience in piloting would sometimes cause the mechs to quiver as they slowly moved the mechs and pilot outside, looking way more nervous than the participants of the simulation battle.

At the corner of the multimedia screen, the scores of all the teams were listed. The scoring system was complex, but the bottom three teams with the least scores were all marked in red. Almost every three minutes, Lu Bixing would call out and comment on the last three: “Team ‘I’m Number One’ is currently in the last place, but don’t worry friends, you still have chances to move up now that the Supreme Kings are out of the game. Also, one more thing, the last place team of this match will be disbanded and all members of the team will no longer be able to form another group. So your choice is either to leave the station or join other existing teams.”

Lin Jingheng lit a cigarette as he leaned on the Model 3 and watched this chaos before him unfold. He was starting to see where Lu Bixing was going with this– pulling these folks together and forcing them through military training would be too late already. They didn’t have the luxury to take things step by step with the clock ticking; there was no way anyone could turn these station rats into elite soldiers overnight. The entire station was already a mess, so Lu Bixing took the opportunity to fuel the mess by creating this situation where they were forced to fight for their own interests; with the right kind of management and leadership, they could even turn internal conflict into something more meaningful.

Perhaps compared to putting the rats to drown in a dead silent pond, starting a storm and forcing them to move was the better option. At the end of the day, Lu Bixing’s goal was to give them a chance of survival during war and not to save the world.

Sounds of footsteps came in and a hand helped itself by pulling out another cigarette from Lin Jingheng’s pocket: “You finished supplying the Model 3 already? How does it compare to the Primal Asshole?”

Lin Jingheng knew immediately that Lu Bixing spilled the beans about Primal Alien to Monoeyed Hawk. He blew out a cloud of white smoke and stood for a few moments, unsure whether to cry or laugh; it seemed as though Lu Bixing really believed that praising him a bit more in front of the Hawk could ease the tension between the two.

“Not as good as that one.” Lin Jingheng said. “The Model 3’s been eliminated from standard fleets for too long, there are differences in hardware that I can’t fix. But the main core is Zhanlu now, so that should be able to make up for some shortcomings.”

Monoeyed Hawk snorted coldly: “You got a heavy mech now, but what if things don’t go as planned? What will you do if those old dogs of yours already got captured by the space pirates and are completely wiped out?

“Chances are slim. If it does end up at that point, it’s probably just their fate.” Lin Jingheng tapped the ashes off the cigarette. “The SIlver Ten swore their loyalty to me, not the IU.”

Monoeyed Hawk raised a brow: “What do you mean?”

“It means that without my order, even if the Parliament of the IU gets blown into pieces right before their eyes and all the council members are beheaded, the Silver Ten won’t move a finger.”

Monoeyed Hawk was shocked: “In other words, you raised a private army…right under the eyes of the First Galaxy in the Silver Fortress?”

“I wouldn’t say that’s illegal?” Lin Jingheng said nonchalantly. “I took the salary and payment from the IU for all these years and fought for them. I don’t owe the IU anything.”

The Monoeye Hawk looked at him with mixed feelings.

The first time he heard about Lin Jingheng, the commander was still a child. Lu Xin himself sent a photo he snuck while the boy was asleep, proudly showing off to the world that he snatched a son. Rumor had it that the Lin family left a pair of twins that were still underage at the time; the brother was taken by the military council and given to Lu Xin while the sister was taken in by the Eden Committee. The history behind the Lin family was a top secret case kept by the IU. Nobody knew what happened, but everyone knew that the little boy in the photo would not have an easy life ahead of him.

Lu Xin would always show off his son, and Monoeyed Hawk’s impression of the boy was that he was a quiet child. Aristocrats from the First Galaxy tended to be like that; refined and delicate even from his appearance, and very polite…until the day of the revolution of the IU.

Monoeye Hawk used to think that everyone in Wolto was fake and pretentious, that they were all just well-dressed monsters at heart.

Until he really met Lin Jingheng.

“I don’t get you.” Monoeyed Hawk said. “Didn’t you want to wreck shit up back then?”

The main screen showed that three other teams were also eliminated from the game within this short span of time. Lin Jingheng shot a sharp gaze at Monoeye Hawk at the phrase “wreck shit up” and didn’t deny.

Monoeyed Hawk wasn’t sure how Lin Jingheng managed to assemble a private fleet, but the entire combat fleet and military power of the IU were centralized on the Silver Fortress. If Lin Jingheng were to revolt anytime during a pirate invasion, the IU would’ve already been wiped out and the decades of peace wouldn’t have come.

“Then why didn’t you…” Monoeyed Hawk said.

“Why didn’t I do it earlier?” Lin Jingheng glanced at Monoeyed Hawk as if he didn’t want to answer, but still interrupted the older man with his response, “If the Silver Ten revolts, the pirates would take the opportunity to come in. On top of that, Lu Xin’s ex-officers who were betrayed by the IU would also join in the mess, it’d be small-scale warfare at that point.”

If that happened, Lu Xin would probably crawl out of his own coffin in anger.

Surprisingly, Monoeyed Hawk understood the unspoken words.

Lin Jingheng paused, and then laughed self-mockingly: “Although the situation isn’t that much better now, you can just take it as my own conceit.”