Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 82

Chapter 82 – Let’s Go Back

The connection between Qiming’s operational base and Lin Jingheng had been cut off for a long time. As the central figure of the temporary command center, Turan not only had to cooperate with Weasel’s lies to the civilians, but also had to deploy both the Ninth Squadron and the Self-Defense Squad to high-risk areas. On top of that, she had to be on-call to wait for the worst news. Two days had passed working around the clock nonstop; Monoeyed Hawk already brought over everyone he could to help out, so the medical team took over the work of the Self-Defense Squad and only left a few members of the Ninth Squadron to patrol the area in case of any situations that might arise.

The operational base was filled with people sleeping on the ground inside their isolation suits.

People have already done what they can, and the rest is up to fate.

Turan couldn’t wait until fate gave her a response and fell asleep sitting upright like a bird from exhaustion.

A day on Qiming was almost painfully long; when the crew finally managed to survive until sundown, heavy rain clouds covered the sky, drawing long shadows on the ground. Monoeyed Hawk was leaning by the window with a cigarette in hand. When the second long-distance signal arrived, he gave a quick glance at the knocked-out Turan as he casually unlocked the message.

A loud thump came before he could pull his hand off the screen. The Captain of the Ninth Squadron jumped up out of instinct, thinking there was an enemy attack, subconsciously placing her hand by the gun pocket on her waist. She opened her eyes with murderous intent as she unlocked the safety lock on her gun; she then saw the communication screen that had been dead for most of the day suddenly flash before her and asked in shock: “What happened? Wait, what’s going on?”

Monoeyed Hawk only saw a flash of Lu Bixing’s silhouette as he stepped forward towards the screen. The screen shook violently and flashed in different lights; the alarm on the mech could be clearly heard from the transmission but the individual on the mech could no longer be seen.

Monoeyed Hawk felt blood rushing to his head and his eyes burning. He suddenly had a mad urge to fly out to space along with the communication signal and shoot a bullet right into Lin Jingheng’s head.

Do you know how hard it was for me to find him?

Do you know how much I sacrificed to raise him?

Even if you wanted to use him as an ancient tiger seal to mobilize your troops, then so be it, but how could you…

Monoeyed Hawk swung his fist towards the signal receiver, taking Turan by surprise. She ran over and stepped in front of him: “Calm down, calm down. We all understand your feelings but this data file was sent at the risk of their lives, let me at least receive it…Mister Lu!”

It was as if a volcano erupted within Monoeyed Hawk and blew away all his senses: “Stay back!”

Turan wasn’t in a position to fight back with force so she took a step back in hesitation. She then spotted the screen and said: “Wait, this mech wasn’t the one they left in earlier.”

Monoeyed Hawk was taken aback for a second.

Turan gave him a quick glance before she called into the underground prison’s security: “Bring Hope up to me!”

Outside the territories of the Union, no mech could escape under such an ambush, let alone two small mechs.

A mech shield could hold up to a certain level of particle cannons, but there was no way it could withstand dozens of layers of high-energy waves all at once. The heat from the high-energy would be able to melt anything, and it would be impossible to escape or warp away with the speed of mechs.

Normally when faced with a dead end like this, even someone like Lin Jingheng should be spending time reminiscing his life as it comes to an end. He had already done all he could but still wasn’t able to escape as he had planned — perhaps this was all fate. Countless civilizations that had existed within human history were eventually buried under the mire of time to either rot or fossilize, or perhaps they still existed as they watched the future of mankind through the lenses of history. This was the beginning of the end for the Eighth Galaxy, and what could an insignificant human do during this raging tide of a monumental turn in history?

However…there was still someone else on the mech; something that must never bow to the cruelty of fate.

Lin Jingheng bit down his lips and called: “Zhanlu!”

Zhanlu’s body “melted” under his command, and within a blink of an eye he had already infiltrated the system of the Ark and immediately replaced the existing mental network on it.

Within this short instant, heavy layers of high-energy particle cannons are already visible to the eye and melted the shield on the Ark.

“Shield damage from high temperature, damage percentage rising, 50%…..60%….”

“Warning, shield deterioration abnormally high–”

The violent effects of the relaxant had almost destroyed the last bit of Lin Jingheng’s immune system.

Zhanlu reminded him inside the mental network: “Sir, your body temperature has reached over 40 degrees, your mental stability is falling, and the sync rate is….”

Lin Jingheng ignored him: “Activate the armory self-destruction system.”

Zhanlu: “Understood, self-destruction system requires double confirmation–”

“Shield damage percentage reached 85%, shield is about to be destroyed–”

Lin Jingheng’s body trembled under the effects of his high fever, but his voice remained firm and forceful: “Confirming again, detach armory and activate self-destruction system.”

The two connecting mechs simultaneously detached their armories and activated their self-destruction system the moment they were removed from the main body of the mech, exploding the few dozen missiles inside into pieces. The explosion ripped through the remains of the damaged shield, the aftershock shaking the entire body of the mech violently. Lu Bixing held onto Lin Jingheng tightly in his arms as the both of them were pushed against the wall. The effects of the Rainbow Virus became much more visible during this moment as skin peeled off from the back of Lin Jingheng’s hand after a gentle rub against Lu Bixing’s sleeves.

At the same time, this suicide explosion was like a piece of metal blocking off a current of particle waves and protected the two mechs. The particle cannons scratched the edges of the mechs and disappeared into the void.

Before the next wave of attack could fire, the two connected mechs made an emergency warp.

Lin Jingheng felt as if his entire body was on fire as the heat wrapped around his skin. His consciousness was like a broken ship sinking into the deep sea as the dark water drowned the last of his soul with no escape. “I need to let Lu Bixing escape alive” was like a needle within that ocean, reflecting the only light from the sky, desperately pinning his fleeting consciousness to this world.

Inside the mental network, Zhanlu anxiously attempted to communicate with his master’s consciousness, but Lin Jingheng could no longer gather up the energy to respond. The moment the mechs warped, Lin Jingheng gave out his last command–the Ark would separate from their small mech and turn off all its dynamic systems while the small mech would accelerate full speed towards the transfer portal after they landed.

And then darkness consumed his vision.

The AUS fleet waited in ambus around the transfer portal locked onto the small mech that had passed through and fired a handful of missiles the moment it appeared, blowing the mech into pieces.

Inside the communication channel of the AUS, a cold voice reported: “Team Four reporting in, target has been annihilated.”

“Received.”

“Wait, there’s a weak energy signal around the transfer portal. It might be an escaping ecopod, requesting further investigation.”

“It’s not an ecopod…”

After the aftershock of the explosion passed, the Ark slowly made its way out of the transfer portal like a ghost ship.

This mech in disguise was only left with backup energy. It was unclear whether it was broken or not, but the dynamic systems were completely turned off and half of the mech had already been detached and burnt off. It was a miracle that it was still there at all, but even then it was in no shape to battle and was comparable to space waste before the powerful AUS fleet.

“It’s the Ark!”

The pirates raised their cannons up at it but didn’t fire.

The AUS was unaware that the suspected ‘Freedom Corps’ mech they knocked down earlier was installed with a cheat called Zhanlu. In theory, the mental network of a small mech couldn’t cover all the surrounding transfer portals nor could it perform long-distance scans; in other words, nobody inside the small mech should have been able to tell that there was an ambush waiting beside the transfer portals.

It also happened that the little mech that had passed through the portal earlier seemed as if it was running for its life after throwing away its hostages.

“Careful, don’t fire yet. The target has been annihilated already, our comrades might be on the Ark.”

Lu Bixing’s hands were covered in Lin Jingheng’s blood. For the first time, he wished he had grown some more body fat to serve as a cushion as he was fearful to even touch Lin Jingheng with his bare hands: “Zhanlu…Zhanlu…help….help me.”

Zhanlu returned to his human form at the call and leaned down. His hands melted like candles as it transformed into a soft cushion as he carefully lifted Lin Jingheng up and placed him carefully inside the only medical capsule inside the ark. For the first time, this transformable material that cost 6 million a gram finally became useful.

The simple medical capsule once again had no real use aside from physically cooling down the fever and protecting the patient from violent collisions.

Lu Bixing understood what Lin Jingheng planned on doing the moment the two mechs separated. He placed his forehead on the cold cover of the capsule and forced himself to calm down while re-connecting Zhanlu’s mental network.

The Ark floated into the range of the pirates while countless methods of escape flashed across Lu Bixing’s mind, but were all ultimately shot down.

Lin Jingheng had successfully fooled the enemies with his final command, but what about now? How were they supposed to escape safely under the fleet of these pirates?

If the enemy attempted to capture them, should he resist or submit?

Resisting would mean exposing themselves to countless missiles and cannons with no way to escape. If he submitted, that would mean he could only wait to be captured by the pirates.

He wasn’t particularly concerned for himself, but Lin…

Lin Jingheng’s skin was starting to rip away from his body, staining his shirt collar with blood. His lower leg was twisted unnaturally from the side effects of the relaxant, but the pain had already been concealed up by the Rainbow Virus before he noticed. His weak body was no longer in shape to suffer any kind of harsh physical contact, only able to rely on the medical capsule to hold him down.

“Headmaster Lu,” Zhanlu’s voice came from inside the mental network, “the enemy is requesting a connection.”

An idea flashed in Lu Bixing’s mind.

“Requesting once…”

“Requesting twice…”

The pirates’ cannons were glistening as they charged up their beams. How should he respond?

Suddenly, someone’s voice came up: “Commander Lin.”

Lu Bixing turned his head and found that the long-distance connection port was still on. Now that they’d escaped the deadly rain of particle waves and were at an area with a stable energy field close to a transfer portal, the communication automatically connected. A strange middle-aged man appeared on the screen before Lu Bixing’s eyes.

Turan then appeared behind him and said: “Headmaster Lu, this is Mister Hope, what happened to the commander? What’s going on over there?”

Lu Bixing was dumbfounded for a second before he suddenly remembered–

This Hope person once said he was somewhat well-known within the AUS but had been exiled to the Cayley pirate fleet due to internal strife. That’s why he knew where the headquarters was, and if he wasn’t lying…

No, even if he did lie, there was no other choice now.

Lu Bixing quickly ordered Zhanlu to send over the photos of the unfortunate hostages to Hope and jumped right into his request without a self-introduction: “Is there someone you know among these people well enough that you can pretend to be for a while?”

Hope was a bit confused: “What?”

The Ark continued to send out its reminder: “Requesting for the fourth time…”

Lu Bixing could feel cold sweat on his hands: “Can you do it or not?”

“The third person from the left is Prophet Radham, I am only vaguely acquainted with him, but…”

“Requesting for the fifth time…”

“No more buts, our lives are in your hands now. Don’t worry, you don’t need to show your face.” Lu Bixing’s mind processed everything quickly like a supercomputer under extreme stress. He ordered Zhanlu to forcefully break into the long-distance signal port and pulled out the complex core chip of the system to install onto his personal device as a temporary signal station. He then modeled a fake communication port on the Ark onto his personal device, making it impossible for the pirates to track the long-distance signal and allowing Hope to speak with them directly as if he were on the mech himself.

Then, Lu Bixing adjusted the camera of the communication portal towards Lin Jingheng’s bloodied hands. He took a deep breath and accepted the communication request after the seventh attempt.

The AUS respondent called off the cannons the moment he saw that the request had gone through and let his hand down in shock.

The screen before him flashed and showed a person covered in blood from the chest down on screen for a few seconds before the image disappeared. It seemed as if something had gone wrong with the communication system on the Ark, and after a few strange flashes the screen before them completely went blank.

The person in charge of this small fleet frowned slightly, then gestured for the communication technician to step back as he spoke directly to the camera.

Lu Bixing only heard the man speak in an unknown language and turned up to look at Zhanlu.

Zhanlu shook his head–this language did not exist in his database.

Through the long-distance portal, Hope told him through text: “This is the language of the Prophet, only people that have reached the status of a Prophet in the AUS can learn it. He just asked which Prophet is on the Ark.”

Soon after, the person said another line with the same language.

Hope: “He’s asking if the Prophets on the Ark are feeling unwell.”

Lu Bixing transformed what he wanted to say into text through the mental network and sent it to Hope’s screen: “Tell him you got infected with the Rainbow Virus.”

Hope’s expression grew troubled. He was like a very self-disciplined follower that found the act of lying a sin harder than anything he’d ever done.

Monoeyed Hawk was ready to lift his fist and give this cult follower a beating until Turan stopped him.

Turan was a shameless individual that could take her masks and pride off as easily as changing clothes. She was well aware that they needed his help and prepared to say what she needed to as she whispered into Hope’s ears: “Mister Hope, isn’t your religion about saving mankind? The rules and doctrine of the religion only exist to self-discipline everyday life, is it even a question to choose between these rules and the teachings of your religion when they clash in extreme situations?”

Hope gave her a helpless look and felt like these atheist soldiers had no morals. It was like she had selective amnesia and completely forgot how she’d just used violence and force earlier like a supervillain.

But what she said was right.

Hope paused for a few seconds and coughed violently a few times to turn his voice hoarse and husky. He took in a deep breath and then said in the language of the prophets: “I am Radham, I…ahem….am not well, I have contracted the mutated Rainbow Virus.”

His voice was weak and stiff from not being used to lying, but it ended up creating a believable tone for a sick patient.

The AUS was clearly shocked by this information and responded: “What? How? Is there anyone else on the Ark right now?”

Hope glossed over Lu Bixing’s hint: “I don’t know, Prophet Rhode fell unconscious and I can’t tell if he’s dead or alive. Prophet Mage is bleeding and won’t respond to me…our kidnappers were from the Freedom Corps. There was a traitor among us that told them about the Nuwa Project, so to force us to hand in our research data, they hacked into the Ark’s database and sent out high concentrations of the Rainbow Virus into our mech…our other brothers and sisters were also forcibly interrogated on their mechs, and just earlier…”

The language of the prophets had a unique tone to it that sounded similar to a kind of ancient language on earth. Zhanlu had been collecting data in an attempt to analyze the language during the conversation. By this point, Hope couldn’t turn back and was finding himself speaking more smoothly. There was an air of a huckster that surrounded him, making his words sound like a tragic epic in the language of the prophets.

The AUS responded: “Don’t worry, Prophet Radham, you do not need to move. We will capture the Ark right now; there is a vaccine sample on board, we also have enough medical supplies with us, we can mass produce the vaccines immediately!”

Lu Bixing’s heart raced at this news. He turned his head towards a small safe under the main control panel, then bit his tongue to stop himself from rushing over and gave Hope another long message.

Hope’s eyes scanned through the message quickly and looked up at Lu Bixing in shock. He then quickly translated the text into the language of the prophets and said: “What makes you think the Freedom Corps didn’t know that we have the sample vaccine? The virus they exposed us to was not the original version nor was it the one from the Nuwa Project; they invented their own, you should also know about their awful experiments…”

“Prophet!”

Hope sighed and said the last of the line: “Don’t capture us and don’t let more people touch this virus. The energy within the Ark is already depleted, and I suspect that even the communication signals will be cut off soon. We will become like stardust as we float into unknown territories in space; the virus will die like the human body will die. My brother, I’m thinking…was the Nuwa Project really right? Mankind uses technology to steal and escape from the forces of nature – avoiding thousands and millions of years of natural evolution made us arrogant. But if we also attempt to reinvent the process of human evolution with our own hands, are we not arrogant as well?”

Between the two channels that connected through Lu Bixing’s personal device seamlessly, a short silence followed.

Hope continued to speak with his song-like language: “Perhaps I can find an answer to this at the end of my life—don’t worry, I’ve already destroyed all the data within the Ark so there will be no risk of spreading this information. Farewell, my brothers and sisters, praise the glory of life and nature.”

Zhanlu appropriately imitated a beeping sound signaling the depletion of energy and cut off the connection with the AUS.

Hope’s turned to Lu Bixing with a complicated expression and asked: “Headmaster Lu, right? How did you find out about the nature of the Nuwa Project?”

The Ark was still not completely safe and Lu Bixing had no attention to spare to answer him, so he only gave a quick smile and said: “I guessed.”

The broken mech sailed past the numerous AUS pirate ships away into the darkness under the gaze of these deadly cannons. Even if he had the urge to immediately warp away, Lu Bixing didn’t dare to even accelerate the mech.

Suddenly Zhanlu announced: “High energy alert!”

Everyone tensed up at this line. The pirates behind them lifted their cannons at the same time while Turan almost fell to her knees thinking they’d failed their mission, unable to even look at the screen directly. Lu Bixing’s hands grabbed tightly onto the small medical capsule beside him and shut his eyes.

However, the wave of particle beams wasn’t aimed at them and only flew by the Ark like a row of saluting cannons. The AUS pirates remained still after this and only watched the Ark sail off into a distance, until both sides completely disappeared from each other’s sight three hours laters.

Lu Bixing could feel his clothes soaked through from cold sweat. He trudged over and broke into the little safe he’d found earlier. There were multiple small sections inside the box, Lu Bixing frantically searched through the numerous samples and finally found a small test tube marked as “α-1 Version Mutated Rainbow Virus”, then fell to his knees in relief.

“Scan the closest transfer portal,” Lu Bixing said hoarsely. “Go…let’s go back.”