Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 84

Chapter 84 – I Will Rebuild The Department of Defense for The Eighth Galaxy

Lu Bixing stood wide-eyed and dumbfounded. He was in the middle of readjusting his clothing and half of his shirt was still dangling below his belt. His hands stopped abruptly as if he just had a hallucination.

He opened and closed his mouth until a sound came out of his throat: “Huh?”

Lu Bixing might seem overzealous occasionally and perhaps a bit out of control, but he was actually quite mentally stable and very responsible as a person. He could carry the title of a ‘headmaster’ and ‘professor’ very well; even when he started making up stories on the spot, his demeanor was closer to being a little overexcited and not irritable or naive like an average young man.

Yet at this moment, he was so much in a panic that he even forgot to clean himself up to be presentable and walked out with a dumb face that clearly just woke up. An imprint of the crab leg was still visible on his chin while he stood there like a fool. His brown pupils were completely blank and even shone brightly with a rare hint of childish naivety .

Lin Jingheng leaned against the window with his arms crossed on his chest and stared at him. His heart slowly softened as he looked and developed a sudden urge to touch Lu Bixing’s hair.

“What happened to being so brave and shameless on the mech?” Lin Jingheng taunted as if he was ready to nitpick some unsettled business and spoke calmly to Lu Bixing: “Where should I start? Hm, let’s start with you pretending to fall unconscious, that was pretty believable. Did you have experiences pretending to be a corpse, headmaster Lu?”

Lu Bixing could only laugh awkwardly in response: “You’re praising me too much.”

Lin Jingheng slowly walked towards him. He was wearing the slippers provided by the hospital room, but his footsteps didn’t drag on the floor at all and instead was threatening like a tiger circling around its prey.

Lu Bixing spent the last few days taking advantage of this sick feline and played around with him like a toy; he got a little too ahead of himself and almost forgot who he was messing with until the sick feline finally woke up and returned back to his normal self. The tiger showed its fangs and poked right through the dreamy bubbles the young scientist blew out during the last few days.

“Stealing the mental network, taking off your isolation suit like it wasn’t a big deal.” Lin Jingheng questioned him expresionlessly, “Do you know what happened to the last person that tried to steal the mental network from me?”

Lu Bixing had a very high EQ and could tell that Lin Jingheng wasn’t seriously picking bones with him, but under the threat of the commander he still took a step back subconsciously. He tried to explain weakly: “That…was an accident, a complete accident…also you were the one that tried to throw me away first, you even gave me Zhanlu’s backup access…”

Lin Jingheng took another step forward and cut him off: “Do you know what happened to the last person that tried to nitpick my mistakes?”

This was the first time Lu Bixing ran into someone so unreasonable that could turn this act into a personal fashion statement. He felt like he underestimated Lin Jingheng’s twisted heart, but at the same time this sick attitude tasted strange on his tongue. A strange shudder crawled up Lu Bixing’s back as he trembled a little and felt his mouth dry.

At that moment, an idea suddenly flashed across his mind and answered: “I do.”

Lin Jingheng was just messing with him and didn’t expect this response.

He then heard Lu Bixing continue sternly: “I heard this person fell head over heels for you and completely lost the basic function to survive on his own. So terrifying, so brutal, I can feel my goosebumps rising.”

Lin Jingheng: “……”

He only now remembered that the person that held him hostage in the mental network, harassed him, bothered him with endless lectures was this same young man right before his eyes! He completely forgot about this whole event!

Lu Bixing accidentally found a way to deal with this asshole with a bad attitude and decided to just throw his shame away. He ripped the last thin skin on his face off heroically and said with great confidence while closing his eyes: “I haven’t finished listing out my crimes, commander. I’ve attempted to attack you…uh, break an appropriate social distance, twice, and almost ripped your lips. I’ve also severely blocked your breathing like a madman, so I am requesting to repent for my sins before you. I am also strongly encouraging you to counterattack an eye for an eye, I promise I will not resist.”

Lin Jingheng didn’t know how to react to this textbook definition of a provocation.

Lu Bixing opened one of his eyes and added: “I can also take on double the blow, hurry up and take your revenge!”

Just as he was throwing himself out shamelessly like a child, another loud footstep came from afar.

Lu Bixing, who was just throwing all his shame on the ground earlier, jumped a bit at the sound. Then, as if someone grabbed his invisible tail, he looked around cautiously and ran off.

He made his way straight into the hospital room, took down the hammock within a matter of seconds, shoved that 1 meter long fluffy crab pillow under his arm and pulled out a rope

out of nowhere. One end of the rope tied to his wrist, the other end was like the octopus’ sucking disc that can without up to a few tons of weight after attaching onto a wall. He tossed the disc towards the wall and then jumped right out the 4th floor window.

The smart rope calculated his body weight and automatically adjusted the pulling force. When his speed reached 2 meters per second, the rope dragged him down in a linear motion and sent him to the ground safely.

Then, the footsteps–Monoeyed Hawk, turned the corner into the room.

Lin Jingheng glanced over at the timer on his personal device and noticed that it took less than 15 seconds for this young scientist to pack up his belongings and jump out the window. He was well-equipped and swift in action that would be up to standard if he were to be put in the Silver Fortress. It was clear that he had been practicing numerous times.

Monoeyed Hawk scolded: “Little shit…”

“Mister Lu,” Lin Jingheng said with a threatening smile towards the old persian cat, “is it a tradition in your galaxy to pay hospital visits before the sun rises?”

Monoeyed Hawk was originally here to search for his son and didn’t expect to run into a living Lin Jingheng. He completely forgot his original intention as his blood pressure rose and turned to him for revenge. Lin Jingheng pointed towards the window and gave away Lu Bixing’s whereabouts without hesitation: “Over there, he just left.”

Monoeyed Hawk turned towards the direction Lin Jingheng pointed at and caught the little suction discs on the wall falling off. He took a few steps forward and leaned by the window to see Lu Bixing running away by the wall as the rope swiped through the air in a handsome curve like a long tail proudly wagging behind him.

Monoeyed Hawk had never seen such a phenomenal skill of “escaping after getting caught with an affair” from his son and didn’t know what went wrong while raising this child. He yelled: “Lu Bixing!”

Lu Bixing ran without a response.

This howl by Monoeyed Hawk triggered the alarm on all the medical capsules in the room as they all announced at once: “Please do not yell inside medical facilities and watch your manners—”

Monoeyed Hawk: “…”

Lin Jingheng walked by calmly during this chaotic episode and made an appropriate comment: “Don’t worry, the Ninth Squadron also has something similar to that, I can ask Turan to find you a rope next time.”

Lu Bixing barely left Lin Jingheng’s side during the 6 days he fell unconscious. When he wasn’t allowed in the room at first, he just sat down by the door inside his isolation clothing like he was meditating and even slept in the same position. On the third night, Lin Jingheng suffered an allergic reaction and got another high fever, then fell out of the medical capsule. Lu Bixing couldn’t even pretend to comply to the rules any longer and insisted on staying beside the capsule—it’s not like any digital lock could stop him nor was there any security camera he couldn’t hack into, so he disappeared and reappeared as if he was fighting a guerilla war with the security.

Monoeyed Hawk chased him down for days and immediately recognized the jacket that rested on Lin Jingheng’s shoulder. He was suddenly both exhausted mentally and physically and complained sluggishly: “Fuck off, asshole.”

Lin Jingheng just recovered from the Rainbow Virus and planned on taking a walk around, yet little did he expect to run into such a troublesome bunch and already felt tired.

He stretched out his legs and sat on the opened medical capsule, then spoke to Monoeyed Hawk like his boss: “Take a seat, and give me a cigarette.”

Monoeyed Hawk didn’t want to give him the attention and stood straight like a pole by the wall.

Lin Jingheng: “Turan’s been wiping a lot of asses ever since she enlisted. She’s not bad at destroying things, but she was never around for jobs like maintaining order. I just saw that they were quite relaxed earlier, so the virus situation must be settled…it’s only been a week, were you the one that found help?”

“What, are you saying you’re the one that brought help over?” Monoeyed Hawk responded annoyingly, “Commander Lin, I think the most significant thing you can give to humanity is to die early.”

“Thanks for your praise,” Lin Jingeheng shot back, “But unfortunately even if you died right now, it wouldn’t be considered an early death.”

Monoeyed Hawk, who was reaching close to 200 years old: “……”

Just then, Lin Jinghend said: “He told me about the Nuwa Project.”

Monoeyed Hawk was stumped at first before his expression completely changed and forgot about his petty anger: “What did he tell you? That’s impossible!”

“A lot, including the part where you dissected him out of a corpses’ womb, how you kept the Nuwa Project a secret from him to keep him safe, and rebuilt his body. You…” Lin Jingheng wanted to thank him, but as the words reached the tip of his tongue he felt like Monoeyed Hawk might simply taunt him back and swallowed his words. He then asked in a very businesslike manner, “What’s the reason why he didn’t catch the Rainbow Virus this time?”

A number of expressions flashed across Monoeyed Hawk’s face as he walked around in circles a few times in frustration. Lu Bixing is a very honest and open person that won’t hide his feelings and thoughts, but this was the only thing he never brings up in front of anyone, so Monoeyed Hawk didn’t expect him to lay everything out to Lin Jingheng.

A long youthful life gave people plenty of time to wander about. A young love was like a kid’s fascination with an amusement park; while strong and desirous, it doesn’t last very long. It would always start from the desire to try out something new and end with a new obsession elsewhere. Lu Bixing wasn’t a kid anymore and had plenty of ideas of his own. Even if Monoeyed Hawk didn’t approve of his crush, he really didn’t have the power to stop his son.

However…

Monoeyed Hawk’s gaze glossed over Lin Jingheng, who was still sitting on the medical capsule and thought: Why did you decide to hand your heart over to someone like this?

“I don’t know. He’s never been exposed to this new type of Rainbow Virus so I’m not sure why he didn’t get affected. I also don’t know what the ultimate goal of the Nuwa Project is, and the Rainbow Virus was only one of the tools they used. My original intention was to use the Nuwa Project to rebuild a body for him—his own body, not some artificial organs that would turn him into something like Ares Von. The Rainbow Virus can let normal cells devolve into stem cells, so in theory they can rebuild an entirely new body. However…the process also changed the natural human genes, and this was something we didn’t even think about at that time, so it caused quite a bit of problems. The Nuwa Project was exposed at the time and got destroyed. I spent over a decade making him look like a normal person, but even then it was hard to tell what the Rainbow Virus might do to him.”

Lin Jingheng remained silent for a moment and made a surprisingly decent comment that could almost be considered a consolation: “From the looks of it now, perhaps the change was rebuilding his immune system, which is a good thing.”

Monoeyed Hawk’s heavy gaze fell on him.

Lin Jingheng continued: “This matter ends here with me. I’ll keep it a strict secret and won’t let it fall into the hands of a third person—did anyone suspect him this time for not contracting the virus? How did you explain that to them?”

“The research on the mutated Rainbow Virus was also quite flaky on the AUS’ end. They were just doing human experiments earlier so it’s hard to say,” Monoeyed Hawk paused. “Vaccuocerebrals seem to be unresponsive to the mutated virus; one of his students, that little girl, took off her isolation suit once in public and didn’t get infected–of course, it might also just be that she was lucky and didn’t come in contact with carriers of the virus. There was a time when he was little because of….that, it made him show some symptoms of a vaccuocerebral, so that’s a valid reason.”

Lin Jingheng’s heart jumped as he raced through his memories in his head to see if he had made any offensive comments about vaccuocerebral patients in front of Lu Bixing….because he did really think that way in the past.

“In the data you guys sent over, there’s a portion of the Nuwa Project that is heavily locked as top secret, and they still haven’t been able to unlock the code right now.”

Lin Jingheng nodded absent-mindedly.

The two were silent for a while. Monoeyed Hawk was very conflicted right now as he looked out the window. His precious son now turned into spiderman–the most shameless of them all that was also impossible to catch.

As for warning Lin Jingheng…First of all, Lin Jingheng hadn’t left the hospital since he returned so it wasn’t his fault. Second, the old persian cat knew very well that Lin Jingheng wouldn’t listen to him anyway.

Monoeyed Hawk attempted to communicate with him as peacefully as he could: “What exactly are you thinking? Don’t you find him annoying? If he is that annoying, can’t you just straight up tell him to fuck off away from you?”

Lin Jingheng answered cordially: “Don’t worry, he’s not annoying.”

Monoeyed Hawk stood wide-eyed for a second before realizing what he meant and yelled: “Did they fucking feed you the wrong medicine!?”

His loud voice once again triggered the medical capsules: “Please check your manners.”

Monoeyed Hawk: “Manners my ass! Lin Jingheng, you…”

Lin Jingheng turned to look outside the window: “The people you asked for help from were the Independent Union Navy from the past right?”

Monoeyed Hawk: “Don’t you dare try and avoid my question!”

“I heard that even though the pirates were kicked out back then, they were still persistent in harassing the Union and were the biggest threat to public safety. The Eighth Galaxy is the outermost galaxy that suffered the most damage. Lu Xin had brought up to the Military Council numerous times to completely wipe out all the foreign space pirates but was shot down again and again with the excuse of lack of funding.” Lin Jingheng didn’t look at him and said slowly, “So he proposed giving the Eighth Galaxy military autonomy. As a commander of the Union, he voluntarily left Wolto and brought his proposal to the Eighth Galaxy because he didn’t want to let down the hopes of the people that once believed in him…that’s right, the whole debate on military autonomy was a can of worms he opened that eventually sparked the debate among the Military Council and the seven galaxies–his fame and reputation in the Council was one in a million that isn’t comparable to anyone within the last century. He wasn’t aware that his light shined so bright that it blinded other people’s eyes, and continuously poked right into the most vulnerable spot without any care for politics.”

Monoeyed Hawk was speechless.

Lin Jingheng lifted his head. His grey pupils were like a blackhole that sucked in any light that passed through: “The Prime Minister of the Eighth Galaxy and his group are still alive, right? At least I hope they are–now that the Union has fallen, even the pirates all forgot about this place that’s filled with the poor and vaccuocerebrals, so what do you all plan on doing? The last time you all stood up to fight against pirates instead of becoming the unfortunate prey, you were disappointed with the result, do you all still have the guts to stand up once again?”

Lin Jingheng stood up as he finished and gave himself a diagnosis: “Tell them that I’m out of the hospital—if you all don’t want to rot and die in this pile of mud, come find me.”

“Find you?” Monoeyed Hawk questioned, “Commander, it’s been 6 years since you left the Union, can you announce the independence and autonomy of the Eighth Galaxy? Who gave you the right?”

“When I’m in the Silver Fortress, the Union’s Military regiment and jurisdiction is also in the Silver Fortress. When I’m here in the Eighth Galaxy, the Eighth Galaxy will naturally have military autonomy.” Lin Jingheng glanced back at him, “Whoever disagrees, I can talk with them when I’m free–if the Prime Minister isn’t dead, let him come see me with his opinion once he recovers.”

He walked out of the hospital building in his medical pajamas and slippers with Lu Bixing’s coat around him towards the training grounds. The noisy training grounds suddenly grew silent as everyone, including Saturday and Turan, subconsciously stood upright.

Lin Jingheng scanned the group—even though the self-defense squad was following the lead of the Ninth Squadron, their training schedules were still independently decided and didn’t coincide with the elite soldiers. Neither parties bothered each other during training but continued to chat and hang out during their free times.

“Captain,” Lin Jingheng said, “report your training schedule.”

Turan: “Commander, we’re following regular training…”

“Have you heard anyone doing regular training during wartime?” Lin Jingheng interrupted her calmly and walked right through the training grounds, “Starting now, the Ninth Squadron will be split into 10 individual teams. The self-defense squad will join in each team based proportionately for training and readjust each function accordingly. From now on, every battle will be a drill, every drill will be a real battle, you are the instructor.”

Turan: “…..No, we….”

She wanted to ask, are we not returning to the Union? Are we still staying here?

Before she could speak up, she heard Lin Jingheng throw down a line: “I will rebuild the department of defense in the Eighth Galaxy.”