Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 78

Chapter 78 – Thankfully We’re On the Same Boat

Lu Bixing was a rural child born on the border of the galaxy who had always dreamed of paying a visit to the Union; yet due to various reasons, the Union collapsed before he had any chances to realize his dream. Yet in his memories, even if the Union had countless problems while always bluffing and faking peace within their borders, at the end of the day it was still a place that could be a safe shelter for many people for the rest of their lives.

He didn’t think that the Union was so unpredictable and unstable under the beautiful facade of Eden, to the point where it was already rotten to its core.

No wonder it popped like a bubble.

“Before the Model 3 retired, it used to be a heavily supervised and controlled piece of weapon under the Military Council, so how did it get smuggled out of the Union? I have no idea because the last batch of Model 3s produced by the Council was created over a century ago.”

“So…” Lu Bixing hesitated a little. “The Union got taken over by pirates not because the military was weak nor because the government was useless? No wait…say, you Union people, why can’t you all just live peacefully together and instead need to start so much mess? What’s so bad out there that Eden can’t satisfy?”

Lin Jingheng said, “from what I know, most people in the Military Council and even a portion of the members in the Eden Committee block out most of the functions of Eden normally. Only the main ideology remains untouched – while they pretend to love Eden, they just simply don’t announce their decision to block out publicly.”

Lu Bixing frowned and thought about it: “But I heard that Commander Woolf was still managing the work of the committee. If the pirates still haven’t completely taken over the world yet, wouldn’t that prove…”

“Prove that he’s innocent?” Lin Jingheng looked at him calmly. “Not necessarily, because it could mean that he might be just as dirty as the pirates or that his allies are not the Glory Troops that took over Wolto.”

Lin Jingheng’s sharp tongue normally was like second nature to him, and anyone that knew him had been a victim of his insults at least once. But this time, Lu Bixing felt that none of his brutal insults from the past could add up to match the cruelty of these few “in all fairness” opinions he’d just given and couldn’t help but ask: “have you really trusted him before?”

Lin Jingheng didn’t answer.

He wasn’t god, he didn’t know.

Commander Woolf was one of the founding members of the Union, the first headmaster of Black Orchid Academy, and was still an honorary board member of the academy today. Before Lin Jingheng was adopted by Lu Xin, he had been under Woolf’s care; even when he grew up, Woolf had helped him up the political ladder more than once.

The Commander in Chief had given his entire life to the Union and left many students across the seven galaxies.

If someone like him can’t even be trusted, what does the Union’s Pledge of Freedom even stand for?

A mass hallucination that the whole world is full of love?

Lin Jingheng knew that he didn’t have much time left, so he tried to be succinct with his words: “A few months ago, I caught the Rainbow Virus from Primal Alien’s place. The comprehensive antibodies were effective against it, which meant that the Cayley pirates don’t have the mutated virus in their hand because they wouldn’t wait until the next day to serve their ‘guests’. I’m guessing Ares Von doesn’t even know about the Nuwa Project on the Ema satellite.”

The AUS had always publicized their anti-human experiment and anti-unnatural transplant agenda and thus created the monster that was Ares Von as their mascot. If he were to find out that the two-faced liars of the AUS were actually involved in this project behind the scenes, this madman would’ve already blown up their labs.

Lu Bixing nodded hesitantly and felt something was off–it wasn’t because what Lin Jingheng had said was wrong, it was the speaker himself that was giving off strange vibes. The Commander was always the uncaring “I don’t care if you don’t understand, just do as I say” kind of asshole; since when did he gain the patience to talk about his own thoughts?

“The people that developed the Rainbow Virus in the Eighth Galaxy used mutant pets as their facade, and the biggest market for them were actually in the other seven galaxies…from this, it seems like the sponsor for the Nuwa Project is more than likely to be from the Union. There are many factions within the space pirates and each have their own strongpoints; the traitors of the Union may not also just be a single faction – clearly the latter is the more dangerous of the two.”

The worry within Lu Bixing’s heart grew by the minute as he thought: “why is he telling me all this?”

Lin Jingheng looked deeply at Lu Bixing and asked Zhanlu directly through the mental network: “how is his heart rate and body temperature right now?”

“Heart rate is increasing a little, perhaps due to emotional effects,” Zhanlu answered, “body temperature is normal.”

Lin Jingheng let out a mental sigh of relief.

As an ex-soldier, his physical condition was much stronger than a normal person’s. When they had escaped the fuel station after the Cayley fleet blew up Beijing-β, Lin Jingheng underwent a suture operation without the use of anesthetics and antibiotics; aside from a light fever and some uncomfortableness in the following two or so days, he pretty much had no other visible reaction from the surgery. He may not give a lot of care to himself, but his body was raised by the most intense training and strictest health management system of the Union. He had been injected with countless strange antibiotics and syringes, turning his immune system into almost a literal fortress that nearly made him forget what the flu felt like for decades of his life.

The incubation period of a virus is usually determined by the method of spreading, the amount of viral particles, and the contractor’s physical condition. Given this, it was unlikely that symptoms wouldn’t have shown up at this point if Lu Bixing had also contracted the Rainbow Virus.

It’s possible that when his body was rebuilt using the Rainbow Virus, it somehow engraved a special kind of immunity into his genes.

Or perhaps it was just luck…but none of these were important.

The most important part was that he was safe.

There were rows of armed mechs up ahead and no helping hand behind them; they were helpless insects in a web–Lin Jingheng felt like it was about time fate should at least give him some pity. It couldn’t possibly just deliver a bit of luck to everyone in the universe and skip him specifically, right?

If he had known this would be the case, he regretted not knocking Lu Bixing unconscious and leaving him back on Qiming.

“Zhanlu,” Lin Jingheng said, “give Lu Bixing your full backup administrative access.”

Zhanlu asked: “Sir, didn’t you say you won’t give him administrative access like how Commander Lu Xin did to you?”

“Uh,” Lin Jingheng paused for a moment, “right, I accidentally ate my own words.”

Zhanlu then asked: “What about the highest level code-locked data?”

“Don’t show it to him for now,” Lin Jingheng said, “if you determine that his life is threatened, decline all self-harming orders from him and send the genetic comparison data to all of Lu Xin’s ex-subordinates–those central militia, send it to anyone you can get in contact with.”

“Understood,” Zhanlu answered, “when his life is being threatened– just like you right now.”

Lin Jingheng: “Shut up.”

Lu Xin left Zhanlu with him because he wanted the young man to become a sword of the Union; he was leaving Zhanlu with Lu Bixing simply because he wanted the latter to live on without worries.

Lin Jingheng: “I also need a nutrient syringe filled with strong hypnotics.”

His conversation with Zhanlu was all within the mental network; the communication through the mind was much more efficient than speech, so their conversation was completed in less than a second’s worth of time.

Lin Jingheng seemed as if he had simply stopped talking only for a quick moment before he continued speaking to Lu Bixing without any changes in expression: “That Hope may not be lying – this fleet of mechs is only made of small mechs. You can tell even from afar that their models are not uniform and are different from the typical AUS formation of a central heavy mech and surrounding mid-sized mechs, so I suspect that this was all just a coincidence.”

Zhanlu’s robot arm followed the wall into the medical chamber and pulled out two nutrient syringes. Lin Jingheng held his hand out without hesitation as Zhanlu placed one of them on his hand.

There was a self-disinfecting needle hole on the isolation suit designed for people that needed to wear them in extreme situations for extended periods of time. Lin Jinheng casually shoved one inside as he spoke to Lu Bixing: “It’s going to be a rough battle later. We haven’t eaten in a while, so store up some stamina.”

There was nothing wrong with this line and Lu Bixing was indeed a bit hungry; yet the moment he received the syringe, a cloud of unease swept his mind.

Lin Jingheng wasn’t a kind and caring person; not only was he bad at taking care of himself, he was also horrible at taking care of others. Lu Bixing thought he was getting a little too sensitive, but he couldn’t help but think this harmless reminder was a little too extra—with Lin’s personality, wouldn’t the most he’d say be “take whatever you need if you’re hungry”?

Lu Bixing lowered his head and soundlessly controlled his isolation suit–the isolation suit was like a simpler, travel-sized medical capsule that had a lot of small features like checking body temperature and blood pressure. Lu Bixing pretended to shove the syringe into the needle hole but didn’t inject it into himself, instead selecting the “analyze content” function in the suit.

The nutrient syringe didn’t contain anything strange so the analysis was completed very quickly. Before Lu Bixing could pretend to finish injecting it into himself, the result appeared before him – among countless lines of standard nutrients, a small line of red text appeared with a comment after it: take in by mouth or injection, will control the central nervous system, a strong dosage can also have anesthetic effects.

Lu Bixing: “…”

Lin Jingheng continued as if nothing had happened: “There must be an internal communication network within the fleet. Are you able to hack into their network without alerting them if we move in a little closer?”

Lu Bixing took a deep breath as he felt a swarm of burning rage ignite from his feet up to his head to fill his entire body. He was someone that was naturally kind and calm with a very stable emotional state; when he occasionally got angry, it was usually always something that would die down very quickly. In his entire life, he’d never before experienced this kind of fury to the point where he could almost feel ringing in his ears.

Lin Jingheng turned his head sharply: “What, are there technical difficulties?”

Lu Bixing almost wanted to laugh from rage and thought, Commander Lin sure is an unpolished gem that was hidden by the Black Orchid Academy; if he hadnt become a commander at the broken Silver Fortress, he’d probably already win a few Oscars!

He bit down his lips and ground his teeth, his voice almost muffled even more by this action: “I’ll try my best.”

This was inside a mech; whoever controlled the mental network meant that person was the rule-maker of this little world inside the mech, and guests abroad cannot resist. Lu Bixing gathered up his anger and shoved it all below his tongue as he quietly covered up the empty syringe inside a sterilizing case–bending the needle by accident in the process.

Soon after, he let the isolation suit cool down his outside body temperature and used the small depressors that came inside the clothing to keep his heart rate and blood pressure down–he knew that Zhanlu could always scan his physical condition, so he’d need to make a convincing act of faking sleep.

And then, while he imagined how he could blow out his rage into actual flames to roast that Commander Lin fresh out of the oven, he started hacking into the internal network of the mech fleet ahead obediently while his personal device made various sounds of work.

Do all these asshole liars think that having good manners equates to being helpless pushovers?

The protection of the pirates’ network wasn’t heavily guarded.

Twenty minutes later, Lu Bixing caught some weak signals.

Through the built-in headphones, the isolation suit reported the artificially decreased heart rate and blood pressure into his ears. He gave a realistic yawn as his personal device made a small sound indicating that he had successfully hacked into the pirates’ internal network.

The program started automatically recording and analyzing the model number and position of each mech.

“Okay,” Lu Bixing purposely dragged his voice to make it seem like he was getting tired, “I just…wait, this isn’t the symbol of the AUS right?”

“It’s the Freedom Corps, the place that your students crashed the first time they got on a mech.” Lin Jingheng pressed his hand on the back of his seat. “Didn’t they say they weren’t involved in warfare and were selling that ‘biochip drug’ in the extraterritorial areas?”

Just then, the entire pirate fleet moved as a line of command appeared within the internal network: “Scanning complete, the enemy’s core fleet at the headquarters has been successfully distracted.”

“Received; mark all known transfer portals within 10 sailing days around the area and block out all long-distance signals.”

A short buzz rang from the channel as Lin Jingheng lifted his head, knowing that the long-distance connection port on his mech also walked right through the termination zone.

The pirates from the Freedom Corps immediately sent out an order into the channel: “Prepare for battle!”

They’d jumped right into an internal fight among the pirates!

The Freedom Corps were spreading their ‘biochip project’ outside the Union’s territories by raising human weapons, which was strangely similar to the Nuwa Project of the AUS; was it possible that the Freedom Corps were also eyeing this project?

Just then, Lu Bixing slid out of his seat a little.

Half of Lin Jingheng’s attention was on the pirates while the other half was on him. Lu Bixing blinked in an attempt to keep himself awake as if he was ready to fall asleep.

Lin Jingheng asked on purpose: “is something wrong?”

Lu Bixing gave a vague response and suddenly turned around to grab onto Lin Jingheng’s waist; it was almost impossible to feel the body through the heavy isolation suit, but Lu Bixing sat there and shoved his face into Lin Jingheng’s lap thinking: “You asshole, just wait for it.”

And then he let himself rest on Lin Jingheng’s body motionlessly.

Lin Jingheng’s temperature rose steadily while his sore muscles began to lose strength. He stepped backwards half a step before breaking Lu Bixing’s fall and laid him down as he called a medical capsule over, then carefully pulled the ‘sleeping’ man into the capsule. Even just these simple steps were already exhausting him to the point where he was short of breath and trembling.

Through the cover of the capsule and the mask of the isolation suit, he looked at Lu Bixing’s calm expression and could still feel the force of the arm that had wrapped around his waist. Lin Jingheng watched him and felt an unexplainable sense of coldness; it was as if he had been thrown out naked to the cold in Beijing during its 3-year-long winter, and while he could still feel the hint of warmth on his skin it was immediately blown away by the brutal winter storm.

For the first time ever, he wanted to actively get close to someone else.

However, he may no longer have the chance to do so.

Lin Jingheng spent half a minute packing up all those gazes that followed him, the words that surrounded him and all the attempts at physical contact…even those smiles, all into a small package inside his heart, locking it up deep inside. He reached his hand out and pushed the medical capsule away as it rolled quietly into the medical chamber.

Lin Jingheng: “Prepare an ecopod with a fake symbol of the AUS’ Nuwa Project on it and create a false viral experiment report.”

Zhanlu surprisingly didn’t bother with needless commentary and quickly rolled out a realistic-looking experimental ecopod.

Just then, the fleet of Freedom Corps pirates that had been sailing towards the headquarters of the AUS began to change their formation rapidly as they sent out electromagnetic disturbances. The vanguard team’s particle cannons swept through the anti-missile system of the headquarters.

The anti-missile system responded immediately while the invaders gathered up like a large shield made of ants to defend against its cannon. Leagues out of the central battle zone, Lin Jingheng heard countless siren alerts from the mechs. Within moments, the Freedom Corps’ fleet of small mechs collectively changed their firing port while a few dozen missiles locked in on the AUS’ headquarters.

The first wave of missiles poured down while the particle waves exploded throughout the battlefield. The anti-missile system of the AUS almost instantly lost a leg; ten mechs from the headquarters attempted to fly out but were locked on by the forces of the Freedom Corps that had already discovered the mech station. Three missiles shot out simultaneously and blew the station up into pieces.

Within three minutes, the entire anti-missile system broke down.

“You’re all surrounded,” the Freedom Corps’ small fleet of mechs announced towards the AUS as they closed in, “surrender immediately!”

Lin Jingheng took off his isolation suit and slid inside the ecopod. His cheeks were red from the now-high fever, but still ordered Zhanlu as he closed the cover of the ecopod: “Send me over to the coordinates I gave you and sterilize the entire mech, then retreat immediately.”

The ecopod slowly entered the launch rail. One side of the mech’s cover opened up to face the dark universe outside.

Zhanlu’s voice rang from the mental network: “Preparing for launch; sir, are you sure you want to cut off your mental network connection with me?”

“…Yes.”

The next moment, Lin Jingheng’s field of vision that expanded out the universe shrunk into a tiny dot. His consciousness successfully disconnected from the mental network; Zhanlu’s backup access now fell to Lu Bixing – when he woke up he would be in complete control of the mech and Zhanlu.

Lin Jingheng closed his dried eyes painfully. He didnt want to say goodbye to anyone even just within his mind, so he forcefully cut off all his regrets and lingering memories and turned himself back into the deadly human-shaped weapon that could wipe out an entire intergalactic fleet even on his last breath.

Just then, the launching process got cut off.

Lin Jingheng was taken aback for a moment but then heard Zhanlu’s voice ring out inside the empty mech: “Sorry sir, as an artificial intelligence, I retain the power to refuse orders if my master’s life is in danger. My top priority is to constantly monitor your safety, and is also the last permission setting left to me by my former master—Headmaster Lu, you can’t hide the little trick inside your isolation suit from my scanning, but thankfully we’re both on the same boat.”