Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 85

Chapter 85 – The Azure Sea

“Madame, please have my condolences for your loss.” A woman handed over a bouquet of flowers as she spoke, “these are home-grown flowers. Everyone’s living spaces shrunk significantly after we moved here, I had no choice and could only manage to keep a small garden. I can’t grow too much of a variety so the colors might be a little bland, please accept my apologies.”

Lin Jingshu was stopped in the middle of her walk. Though quite annoyed by the interruption, she still thanked the lady and took the flowers.

This was a type of rose called the “Azure Sea”. The heart of the flower was a dark blue close to black that grew lighter towards the outside like a gradient. The blue was richer the closer it was to the root, and light as it reached the edges of the petals until it ended up with a white rim on top. This wasn’t a pure white color but a cold and hazy white that resembled the distant horizon of breaking dawn. In the center of the flower, silver glitter shone on the dark blue like the night sky while the gradient layers of blue on the petals represented the different colors of the sky on Wolto–the clearer the “starry sky” portion of the flower was, the deeper the blue gradients and the white horizon was, indicating the quality and price of the flower.

The Azure Sea started trending among civilians after the Union’s central government moved to the City of Angels; because the environment of the artificial fortress was completely man-made from the source of energy to the atmosphere, the sky naturally wouldn’t have those changes a real atmosphere would have. The City of Angels was small and compact with not a lot of space, so there were no horizons visible. Thus the horizon soon became the most meaningful and bittersweet scene in the hearts of the refugees in the City of Angels; the Azure Sea became a symbol carrying the memories of yearning like the ancient epics documenting the fall of great civilizations, elegant but fleeting; the flower language was “the hometown of no return”.

Lin Jingshu glanced quickly at this home-grown flower and noticed it was a rare breed of high quality. The heavy scent of the rose covered the surrounding air on top of the glittering center of the rose and was almost hypnotizing—it was quite an expensive piece, while not worth very much it was enough to trade for a medium-sized mech.

“If it wasn’t for the current circumstances, raising the child externally could’ve been an option. With Eden’s supervision, there wouldn’t be any issues…this is such a tragedy and shame. You’ve barely gotten out of the hospital and already need to work for the committee, I’m so heartbroken to see you looking so exhausted.” This lady was perhaps a madam of a high government official and had a forgettable face; her voice and tone was a standard Woltorian accent that was soft but filled with emotion.

Lin Jingshu patiently thanked her for the kind words but still couldn’t remember who she was.

The woman waxed poetic to herself for a while after pouring out a half bottle’s worth of tears and finally got to her point to ask: “By the way, Madam, when will we be able to return to Eden?”

Before the mass exodus of Wolto, Secretary General Gordon was assassinated and left Lin Jingshu’s child the last of the Gordon bloodline. The unborn child’s status immediately earned political importance; as one of the seven directors of the Eden Committee and the grandfather of the late secretary general, Elder Gordon let Lin Jingshu escape on the first fleet of mech that left to the City of Angels with the luxury of the top directors of the committee.

However, even with the top security of the committee, it was as if karma finally knocked on the Gordon family’s door: they were suddenly met with events of misfortune one after another.

Elder Gordon had two sons and three underage grandchildren that were on a separate fleet to the City of Angels that were supposed to follow right after him. However, they didn’t expect the space pirates to arrive in the First Galaxy so soon. Wolto’s transportation system for evacuation was limited and wasn’t fast enough to carry all refugees at once. Unable to wait for the third fleet that may not even arrive safely, the Gordon family all rushed on the same mech towards the City of Angels against all safety precautions and were unfortunately shot down during the trip by a pirate invasion.

The elder Gordon fell into illness from shock after this incident. As the main family that had close ties to the founding of the Eden Committee, their position was a hot seat that attracted many distant relatives to seize this opportunity to claim a spot in the committee. The elder had no choice but to temporarily bring his grand-daughter-in-law Lin Jingshu onto the stage to be his spokesperson in order to calm the situation.

This event officially put Lin Jingshu onto the political stage, but to everyone’s surprise, despite being a puppet spokesperson for the Gordon family, her presentation on stage was almost flawless. She exercised her unique charisma and unexpected tactics to plant herself down within the committee as a key player, and with the addition of her good reputation she essentially became the brand ambassador of the committee.

One week ago, Lady Lin insisted on leaving the City of Angels to visit the Eden experimental lab as a representative of the people despite her physical condition. Her fleet was ambushed unexpectedly by space pirates and barely managed to escape under the protection of her special force bodyguards. Though unfortunately, she lost the child she had—in an era where a large portion of the population would choose to raise babies in vitro, a noble madam was forced to bear the child in her own womb due to war. She also faced a tragedy that could only be seen in ancient times; according to the rumors of the upper class living in the City of Angels, everyone shed a week’s worth of tears for her after hearing this story. Some said that there were people still running around today crying for this year’s Freedom Contribution Award to be awarded to her.

Lin Jingshu responded gently: “You should know that the eight galaxies are like broken plates smashed to the ground by pirates right now. It’s not realistic to rebuild the communication network within a short amount of time, and Eden still lacks a reliable hardware to support its functions. The committee is looking into alternative methods right now, our experimental lab has already brought up a number of proposals, is it possible for you all to wait a little longer?”

The lady frantically took a step forward: “I understand, I’m just saying…has the committee considered a partial Eden? We can ignore the parts that haven’t recovered from the broken network, we can just use the City of Angel’s internal network and create a small-scale Eden, is that possible?”

Lin Jingshu lowered her gaze and pretended to ponder for a bit even though she really wanted to shoot this fool right in the head deep down–then this foolish lady could get what she wanted and go to heaven.

Yet the smile on her face was still sweet and graceful like honey. Lin Jingshu’s clear voice reached the lady’s ears: “But we can’t recover the most important database of Eden right now.”

The lady responded: “That’s okay, we just need the basic functions. I’ve suffered through a lifetime’s worth of anxiety and depression ever since I left Eden. I don’t know how to deal with those old robots without it, my life is also a mess…on top of that, they’re also planning on limiting sales of mood stabilizer medication!”

Mood stabilizer medications were never provided based on market demand; without Eden, people can easily overdose. The central government had passed down regulation laws to prevent abuse, and now in the City of Angels they were only obtainable through certain methods.

Seeing Lin Jingshu’s slight expression of realization, the woman immediately followed up: “We’re not asking much, we’ve already sent some tips to your account, I…”

Lin Jingshu lifted a faint smile on her face and leaned in towards the whimpering woman and said something into her ear. She then opened up her own personal device, connected to the woman’s device and scanned a special logo over as she warned softly: “I only have this much, please use mood stabilizers with caution.

The woman’s eyes suddenly brightened: “Madam, I…I don’t know what to say, thank you! Thank you so much!”

She desperately hid her frantic excitement like a drug addict from ancient times while her face twisted into an almost terrible smile. After thanking Lin Jingshu, the woman ran like the wind as if she was escaping for her life.

These were the elites in the City of Angels, the nobles of the Union.

They were willing to do anything for their mood stabilizer medications.

Lin Jingshu stood gracefully as she watched the silhouette of the woman disappear from sight before she continued walking forward. She then casually spoke to the personal guard beside her: “Old Chuck from the committee got his hands on a box of mood stabilizers that slipped through inspection and everyone that heard the news went crazy. His backyard was filled with young women fighting over this 260 year-old man for these medications…I’m a little jealous, no men have physically fought over me like that before.”

The guard behind her watched from afar as the personal guard beside her was the only one that had the right to stay close to her. The personal guard answered to Lin Jingshu: “The old man woke up once when he heard you had an abortion.”

Lin Jingshu glanced over: “Oh? For how long?”

“About 20 minutes. We were forced to give him a strong sedative because of it.” The personal guard said very quickly in a mumble, “First, his grandson dying was a ‘terrifying coincidence’, the second time his family died from a ‘tragic accident’, but the third time was always the charm. If he didn’t catch something off this time, he would have wasted his life in the committee. Pardon my words but you made it too obvious this time, what’s the purpose? It’s simply a child that won’t threaten you even if they were born.”

Lin Jingshu gave him a slight smile that sent chills down the personal guard’s spine.

“A baby is something that fights for nutrition with its mother inside her womb, especially those children that were not blessed to arrive in this world, they’re not something that you would grow to like logically. But once you’re under the influence of hormones, you’ll naturally be caught in the illusion that you love this child. Then, it can greedily ask for care and love until they grow up to get back to you.” Lin Jingshu sneered, “maternal ties of mammals, hah. Did the old man only just realize this? It’s always too late, can he not see the big picture? If so, then I suggest we should just give him dementia and save ourselves from pretending to see him everyday.”

Lin Jingshu walked quietly along the road in her leather shoes as she spoke. The City of Angels was like a mini version of Wolto with elegant scenery and organized streets and sidewalks; when cars drive by, the signal light will project the silhouette of the car onto the closed tunnel above ground through a specialized system. People taking walks on the ground can see a giant shadow fly by above their heads like legendary creatures from ancient mythos. These creatures would swim or fly by to the music of the water fountains into the forest of the sky, making it seem like one was walking through a land of fantasy.

The water fountain rested in the central plaza. A six-meter tall statue of a crystal goddess stood at the center of the mist, one hand holding up her long silk dress as she gazed up at the sky. Her face was moist from the mist, giving the illusion of tears while her long neck reached up like a swan ready to fly off into the distance.

Who could imagine that the Union was in the midst of an all-out war from this peaceful scenery?

Suddenly, a siren rang from the streets. The guards quickly got up before Lin Jingshu to protect her from danger.

A properly dressed middle-aged man rushed out from the other side of the sidewalk; in contrast to his appearance, his body trembled unnaturally while his bloodshot eyes stared to the distance as he yelled: “Move it! Move it!”

Everyone’s personal device flashed red in alarm. The next instant, a piece of cement raised from the smooth ground surface and tripped the middle-aged man. He fell about a meter out as a group of security robots rushed over to press him down.

The man struggled desperately and even dented the cement board with his head.

The security robots swiftly knocked the man out with electric handcuffs, covered his mouth and bowed apologetically towards the bystanders around. Their robotic voices repeated their standard dialogue of “Thank you all for your cooperation, sorry for the inconvenience” as they dragged the middle-aged man away.

“Don’t worry,” the personal guard waved towards the team behind him, “it’s just another drug addict.”

This was a new type of drug with a long name called “injection type human neural oscillation biological chip”, also known as “opium”.

The security department wasn’t able to find the source of this new drug and could only put the blame on space pirates as they usually do. The drug broke into the market first under the guise of “improving physical health, neutralizing biological disruption caused by the disconnection of Eden. ”People soon discovered that after injecting these biochips, not only did they feel much better, their body would also gain some ‘superhuman qualities’ overnight that allowed them to control other people’s minds and machines under certain conditions like a simplified Eden.

Within a short time, ‘opium’ became a hot seller within the Union until the government called it off in an emergency and publicly announced the dangers of its addictiveness. Long-term injection would increase the addictiveness and slowly drive people insane, making authorities place it into strict regulation under the category of illegal drugs.

Lin Jingshu asked in a voice that was almost unhearable: “What happened to the opium after the ban within the Union?”

“It’s completely out of control because these days without Eden are too difficult. Look, there are people in the City of Angels that have already given up on their public image for them, it’s not hard to imagine the situation outside of here.” The personal guard whispered into her ears, “the Union’s been trying to block off the chip’s ability to hack into digital devices so we have to change the chips once every month. Because of the ban, we’ve also raised the prices of the chips; even then, the sales within the seven galaxies this month increased significantly.”

Lin Jingshu: “What about the Eighth Galaxy?”

“This…the Eighth Galaxy is filled with the poor and vaccuocerebrals…”

Lin Jingshu stopped and turned to her personal guard with a blank face: “And that’s why we can let them roam freely?”

The personal guard lowered his head immediately: “Madam, we’ve already started testing the waters as you’ve ordered us, but…”

It was hard to tell the expression on Lin Jingshu’s face. She lowered her head and breathed in the scent of the rose in her hands. She then casually handed this expensive piece of Azure Sea to her personal guard: “Give this to your daughter when you visit her next time. I like her a lot, she’ll grow up to be a gorgeous young lady worthy of this flower.”

The guard’s hands trembled as he took the flower; he lowered his head even more and swallowed the rest of the line he was about to say.

“The Azure Sea,” Lin Jingshu’s smile was almost bright and innocent. “What a beautiful name.”

There was a hunting game battle in the interstellar terminals of the Eighth Galaxy.

A ‘merchant ship’ without a license just landed in the Eighth Galaxy, and after inspection they’ve discovered that this was a mech in disguise.

“What’s my line again? Something about my mountain and the trees I’ve planted..hey, hey,” Turan complained within the communication channel, “Yo! TOC-R type missiles, nice! Don’t you all dare blow those up! Watch your damn fires! Where are those losers from yesterday’s team battle that had to run naked? Get out there and take down their mental networks or you’ll all run naked again today!”

Team battles were a type of psychological training within the Silver Fortress. Since the Self-Defense Squad joined in, Turan reentered the training into their daily schedule–the training grounds on land would simulate an in-mech environment with a fully equipped mental network. Each team had four members that shared one mental network in a battle to take down their enemies. Getting booted out of a simulation network wouldn’t cause any brain damage and would at most make one puke; therefore, the absolute menace of a Captain Turan invented a new ‘run naked’ punishment to motivate her soldiers.

Commander Lin once ran into this awfully obscene punishment game and gave Turan a bloody scolding on top of cutting off the two little ‘antenna hair’ on top of her head. The Captain swallowed this humiliation and was forced to make amendments to this punishment—men were allowed to wear underwear and women were allowed to wear two piece bikinis, but they were all required to sing.

The entire squadron exploded from this new rule. In order to avoid singing in the cold in front of the whole world, everyone ran up towards the merchant ship like a bunch of desperate butchers ready to cut down its prey.

The small team of mechs in disguise were completely caught off guard–they didn’t expect this lawless land in the Eighth Galaxy to have a patrolling team that would inspect merchant ships. Before the war, none of them would even know the difference between a proper terminal and a secret passage in the Eighth Galaxy.

And yet the patrolling team here wasn’t simply just a group of newbies; there weren’t a lot of people but they were extremely dexterous like a swarm of piranhas that took down the merchant fleet’s mental network within a blink of an eye.

“Captain,” The first soldier that took down the enemy’s mental network spoke up within the channel, “there’s something wrong with the goods they’re carrying.”

Two hours later, the patrolling team dragged down the hostages through the transfer portal and landed in the operational base on Qiming. Lin Jingheng, who already heard of the news, was already waiting by the landing dock. Turan walked quickly towards him and gave a salute as she pulled out an evidence bag containing a small chip from her pocket: “Commander, it’s this thing again.”

This was the same kind of biochip that the Freedom Corps once experimented with on the cult station. Most of its general functions remained the same but received an upgrade.

“This is the fourth batch we intercepted within three days.” Turan said, “these people’s equipment and allocations are all standardized, they must have an organization behind them. We’re currently toughening inspection in all trade routes and underground passages around the area.”

Lin Jingheng glanced at the unconscious hostages and walked up towards the fake merchant ship only to see a giant box filled with biochips. The neatness of their products was clearly industrialized with no sign of the sloppy pirate experiments from the Freedom Corps.

“Where did these come from?” He asked.

Turan answered grimly: “The Union.”