Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 86

Chapter 86 – His #1 Interest is Lin Jingheng, #2 is Cooking Chicken Soup for the Soul

Lin Jingheng frowned.

“Commander, I’ve always thought the Freedom Corps are kind of different from the other two pirate forces,” Turan followed behind him and said, “those Glory Troops that took over Wolto are the most ambitious and the AUS are the craziest. The two share a common characteristic – that you can tell they have money and are well-prepared the moment you cross fires with them. They both have very well-developed plans with a fleet of heavy mechs that are almost comparable to the Union’s fortress fleets, but…the Freedom Corps are an exception.”

Lin Jingheng nodded; it was clear from an commanding perspective that the Freedom Corps’ management was a mess. They collaborated with a small cult in the Eighth Galaxy on the human experiments of the opium, but while they were doing horrible things at the ends of the galaxies the researchers involved were like inexperienced interns.

Lin Jingheng had been in contact with them twice; whether it was the useless 001 or the fleet of small mechs that ran aimlessly after a disruption, the entire organization didn’t seem to be a serious or immediate threat.

“These biochips were all made outside of the Union and tested in the Eighth Galaxy, so we didn’t really make the connection to the Union at first.” Turan said, “but now that I think about it, over 1/5th of the population in the Eighth Galaxy are vaccuocerebrals with no money, where do they even get the money to do drugs? These must be specifically targeting the Union, especially the current Union after Eden broke down. So is there a possibility that these people already knew Eden would break down and started planning this out much earlier on? This ‘Freedom Corps’ is just a branch of small gangsters this mastermind is raising outside of the Union.”

“The Glory Troops want to build an empire, the AUS…regardless of what their religion teaches, they should have the ability to perform their own research and don’t need to rely on others to test biochips.” Lin Jingheng’s voice was quiet but firm, “so whoever is behind the Freedom Corps is likely someone from the Union that already knew what was going to happen and had connections with at least one of the other two major pirate forces. This person might even be a spy for the others; but why doesn’t this person use their existing resources to play around instead of wasting their time to back another force outside of the Union?”

“For money or power, anything is possible,” Turan answered. “Letting opium overtake the Union will bring an unimaginable amount of profit; if this person doesn’t have enough say and power to negotiate within the Union, then choosing to work with powerful pirates would only mean this person will end up eating their own poison. Who else with their own armed forces can most efficiently harvest profit in the shortest amount of time during wartime other than drug dealers that know their targets? They’re so much smarter than random organizations like us growing our own farmland outside of the Union!”

Lin Jingheng gave her a cold gaze.

Turan quickly shut her mouth: “I’m sorry I won’t talk anymore, commander, just don’t shave my head and I’ll do anything!”

“One more thing,” Lin Jingheng ignored her and continued, “why did the Freedom Corps have to attack the AUS headquarters, what do they want? By the way, have we decoded the protected data on the ark yet?”

“No,” Turan shrugged helplessly, “Professor Lu ain’t here and we’re extremely short of technical personnel, sir!”

Lu Bixing went with the Prime Minister—if they planned on revitalizing the Eighth Galaxy, they would need to first recover essential industries and rebuild the social order. After receiving the support of Commander Lin, the elderly Minister trembled in excitement and shed tears of joy for a whole night in his room. The next day, he took the remaining officials with him before he fully recovered to carry out their plans. The first step of their plan involved using the network of the old Independent Navy through Monoeyed Hawk and William Yu to glue the loose ends of the Eighth Galaxy back together into a unified system. Ever since the Navy disbanded, most veteran soldiers have grown to build up their own territories of influences throughout the galaxy; if they would reunite these veterans, it would be much easier to rebuild social order from the ground up.

Monoeyed Hawk took William off towards one direction and appointed his son to follow the Prime Minister in place of himself. He claimed it was a strategy to split up and make the process more efficient, but our brilliant and clever Captain Turan knew what the old man’s real intentions were—he just wanted to throw Lu Bixing out so this little rascal didn’t continue following Command Lin around.

“Who the hell knows where those monkeys in the Third Squadron are right now and Professor Lu isn’t around either. We can’t let this continue, boss.” Turan said with a heavy heart, “why don’t you try and control yourself….”

Lin Jingheng’s expression immediately cooled down as he heard this shameless hooligan starting to ramble: “Control myself for what?”

“I meant your attitude, your attitude!” Turan also realized that her comment earlier had some strange implications and quickly turned to explain herself, “Don’t get me wrong…say, Commander, you look so proper and serious all the time but your thoughts are truly….I’m not telling you to control yourself elsewhere, my point is….you know, you can be a little bit more kind and start from winning his heart first, and then you’ll find that the world is full of love and pleasure…”

Lin Jingheng turned to her with a cold smile on his face as he listened to her ramble. He suddenly felt like this Captain of the Ninth Squadron should get buried in a pile of human waste and experience what a truly beautiful ‘world full of love and pleasure’ was.

Turan’s voice grew weaker until it disappeared measly as she closed her mouth. She turned around and said, “I’ll go interrogate those hostages.”

“Wait,” Lin Jingheng called her back, “How long will it be until it’s all done?”

Turan answered: “It won’t take long, I’ll report back to you immediately once we get information out of their mouths!”

Lin Jingheng: “….Who the fuck asked about you?”

Turan, who just lost her two whiskers, only now realized that she completely got ahead of herself. She mourned for her broken heart for a moment as she glanced at her beautiful reflection on the steel door of the mech. After suffering the pain of having her pride hurt, she responded without a second thought: “They’re on their way back already, they should arrive within a day.”

Lin Jingheng nodded slightly and gestured for her to leave.

What part of me is ugly? Turan pondered in her mind as she walked and cursed, hope you don’t get hard, asshole.

Lu Bixing was indeed already on his way back and left his four students to pilot the mech in turns. He found a bar inside the mech and sat down quietly to work on something in his hands.

These poor students had always piloted mechs on their own in emergency situations up until now–if they weren’t stuck in a high-energy wave of beams, they were in the middle of battle. None of them have taken passengers before and sailed a bumpy ride as if they were all on an amusement park ride.

The Prime Minister could almost feel himself puking his stomach out. The muscles and skin on his leg hadn’t fully recovered from the Rainbow Virus and he had to rely on a cane to move around. He dragged himself towards the control room to hear the little boy in glasses speak very excitedly to his fellow classmates.

White gestured with great enthusiasm: “I think this plan would work, trust me. Let’s turn in this proposal for Professor Lu’s month-end exam this time–Introductory Mech Study. How’s that for something practical? Think about it, when you first start learning how to swim, you all have to carry floaties to keep yourself afloat before you slowly get used to it. Even when you learn how to ride a bike, you’ll usually start off with training wheels, right? So why do we have to suffer through the boring and complicated process of introductory mech classes? Why can’t we just have a ‘training mech’ to help us out here?”

Mint crossed her arms on her chest and stared at him unamused: “Young master, it’s because we’re not concerned about it like you. What ‘training wheel’, do you also need someone to spoon feed baby food right next to you?”

White sighed: “Mint, are you trying to grow up to be the next Commander Lin? You’re going to be forever alone if you do that.”

“That beardless dumbass from the self-defense squad had been chasing her around everyday, I think you should be more worried about yourself.” Huang Jingshu stood beside Mint and said, “I never had all that equipment when I learned how to swim, all I needed was a cold-hearted father.”

Everyone turned towards her.

Huang Jingshu shrugged: “My dad was a vaccuocerebral that later found out I was one too, and finally accepted that this was a hereditary disease. After he realized that his genes were doomed to be weeded out of society and that his bloodline will forever be stuck in the lowest class, he grew extremely depressed. It got to the point where he couldn’t even commit suicide himself, so what did he do instead? Tossed me into a river.”

White and Mint both went silent. They were all gradually growing used to this high-intensity learning environment and unconventional lifestyle in the Eighth Galaxy. They’ve gotten used to mechs, missiles, pandemics and war; their lives before the war was starting to feel like a hallucination. When man is forced to walk forward by the violent currents of the world, they will rarely have time to reminisce about the past.

But the past will always remain.

Only Rickhead, who was currently piloting the mech as if he was playing bumper cars, couldn’t read the atmosphere and interrupted: “I take longer to learn how to pilot mechs…is that because I need a harsher mentor?”

Huang Jingshu: “I recommend Captain Turan.”

The temporary pilot received the shock of his life and almost ran into a transfer portal along the way. Almost immediately, all the broadcast on the mech sent out a warning to him: “Going off course!”

The Prime Minister frantically supported himself on the wall as his cane flew out of his hands.

The pilot responded in horror: “No way, she’ll find out that only my face is worth looking at, and I can’t even sing on key!”

The Prime Minister finally interrupted weakly: “Kids, try and sail smoothly; the gravity field inside the mech has been going through hiccups for at least half an hour already. I’m getting old and can’t handle roller coasters…don’t worry, Captain Turan won’t dare to punish you guys, don’t forget there’s still the Minor Protection Law.”

White jumped up and said: “That’s right, RIckhead, you still have two and a half years to practice your singing–get off and switch with me, I want to see how I can install a kinetic sensor on the mech!”

According to Union Law, mech pilots must be at least 18 years of age.

The Prime Minister slowly picked up his cane and thought: the law should change to 28 years of age instead.

The Prime Minister’s name was Edward Hunt, exactly 240 years old this year. He spent half of his life idle with no real accomplishments; a case of Rainbow Virus had him walk the fine line between life and death. His physical appearance took a great toll from the illness and it looked as if he had aged a decade overnight.

Being the executive leader of the Eighth Galaxy wasn’t a feat to be proud of. The position had no authority nor reputation, and even regular salary must be collected on their own, let alone having any grey income. Everyone that was willing to stand in this position was once someone that had hopes and aspirations when they swore in and dreamed about doing something for this hopeless galaxy.

Minister Edward was one of them that spent his long life dreaming. He would sometimes wake up from this dream to feel the harsh wind against his bare skin and turn his head back against reality. After years and years of repeating rising expectations and disappointment, his body had grown old and exhausted, almost dying in the process with disappointment.

When he thought his tragic life would end with an illness, the heavens sent him a ray of hope.

Like a starving animal finding a piece of bread crumb, he daringly clung onto this small ray of hope with his life.

Lu Bixing was completely unconcerned about his students taking control of the mech. Prime Minister Edward carried himself on his cane towards the young scientist to see the latter was carefully working on some crafts.

On his left, there was a giant glass cover on the bar table that was occupied by a few mini sculpting robots only a few centimeters tall. The mini robots each dragged a long tail behind him that connected directly to Lu Bixing’s personal device as they followed the instructions on the device to sculpt the rocks inside.

The rocks were all picked up by Lu Bixing throughout various planets they stopped by in the Eighth Galaxy, each with their own unique properties that glistened in different colors. Larger rocks were sculpted into detailed buildings and scenery on a base tile, smaller ones were polished by Lu Bixing himself into star shapes that were then glued inside the glass cover. The glass cover was brushed with glittery resin that looked as if they were palm-sized starry skies.

Even with robots working, the project still took a lot of patience and attention to detail to completion. Prime Minister Edward held his breath as he watched on the side until the mini robots finished their last job and blew away the scrap dust with their little fans. At the same time, the crystal embossing on the glass cover already dried up. The Minister watched as Lu Bixing flipped the one meter-long glass cover around and realized that it was a miniature view of the Eighth Galaxy. The bright star at the edge was like a large diamond in the sky, the silhouettes of the small planets around it were also visible to the eye. Underneath the glass cover was a street view created by the various rocks that glowed in their unique colors like the lights of each household in a lively city, creating a breathtakingly exquisite view.

Lu Bixing raised his arm to stretch. His neck was stiff from looking down for too long and cracked a few joints around his neck and back. He pressed on his neck after pulling his muscle by accident and turned around with a smile: “How does it look, mister Prime Minister?”

Minister Edward complimented from the bottom of his heart: “A work of art, this can go into the museum of the Eighth Galaxy.”

“Ahem…really?” Lu Bixing found that the Prime Minister wasn’t particularly skilled in complimenting others. The “museum of the Eighth Galaxy” he spoke of used to be on Cayley; Lu Bixing went there once, it was not much different than a dumpster. He carefully cleaned the glass cover and shoved the giant crystal ball into a gift box with foam protection, then turned back towards the Prime Minister: “When the new galaxy museum gets rebuilt, I’ll make a new one for you. This one has an owner already.”

Anyone that’s seen a detailed piece of fine art like this would catch the hint behind his words. Lu Bixing’s unspoken “come ask me about it” line reeked as he waited with his tail up ready to share his story.

Unfortunately, Prime Minister Edward…was not quite the average person when it comes to relationship gossip.

He looked at the box in Lu Bixing’s hand in melancholy: “It would be great if the Eighth Galaxy could look like your sculpture one day. We all should keep an image like this in our hearts.”

Lu Bixing: “…”

A splash of cold water washed away his playful desire as he silently sighed at the Prime Minister’s ability to relate everything to rebuilding the galaxy.

The Prime Minister let out another painful sigh while Lu Bixing quickly put the box cover on and fixed his posture, attempting to put on a similar regretful and worrisome expression on his face.

Prime Minister Edward’s optimism was fueled by the face value of the Qiming defense force and Commander Lin’s support; he left the planet with a full heart and great expectations that this trip would be a successful leap to lead the galaxy into a bright future.

However, the harsh reality once again hit him directly in the face.

Their trip was not very successful, as Lu Bixing had expected.

As society’s ‘sewage’, the Eighth Galaxy hadn’t changed or organized in over a century, how could they possibly be mobilized during a time like this?

This was the objective reality, and not a jab at the Prime Minister’s dreams and passion.

The Eighth Galaxy was like a herd of lost lambs filled with people like old Spencer that only cared to clean up their front yards. Some places developed their own little exclusive social sphere with their own set of order and management system. Their resources were all allocated based on need, though they could sometimes be self-sufficient in providing their own needs like the small shopping district in the Milky Way City. Most of these independent socio economic spheres ran on a very small scale so they tended to avoid interacting with outsiders in order to protect themselves. Lu Bixing and the Prime Minister visited a handful of more developed communities throughout the Eighth Galaxy that were acquainted with Monoeyed Hawk prior to the war. Out of respect for their old friend and pity for the old Minister, everyone agreed to support the independence of the Eighth Galaxy but only verbally and refused to do anything more.

It was already difficult to create a small kingdom that could feed all its people in a place like the Eighth Galaxy, and therefore almost impossible to convince someone that had already been struggling for years to survive on their own in a deserted land to provide for their neighbors. Poverty and harsh living conditions will swallow up a person’s pride, wisdom and empathy.

Aside from these small autonomous communities, the majority of the galaxy still remained in anarchy–that was the real sewage society that even people like Lu Bixing who were born in the Eighth Galaxy wouldn’t dare enter. These places were filled with thieves, bandits, con artists, murderers and other shameless criminals at the bottom of society. There was no other choice than to become one of them in order to survive because anyone that even tried to live a proper life will be dragged down by the abyss of sin and crime until they get swallowed up as a whole.

The Prime Minister said: “I was thinking as we left that I want to help rebuild the communication system in the Eighth Galaxy and contact all our abled friends around here to establish their own governments and start rebuilding the social order. I wanted to rebuild the trust of monetary funds and recover trade, let everyone treat this place as home and find a way to rebuild our galaxy while the war heats up in the rest of the Union so that we can finally have a place in the future!”

Lu Bixing pulled out a white ribbon out of nowhere, held one end in his mouth as he swiftly tied around the gift box from the other end. He mumbled with the ribbon still in his mouth: “Yeah.”

“The effectiveness and respectability of social order, the credibility of the government and law are all at the end of the day built by the trust of the people…isn’t that right?” The Prime Minister said, “Mankind was able to conquer space because of society. Without society, a simple modern man won’t even be able to conquer a small forest. Yet society is like a giant board game that can continue to exist only because each player that acts in different roles all acknowledge the rules of the game; it doesn’t matter if anyone tries to cheat, because the concept of ‘cheating’ in itself is also a form of recognition for the rules.”

Even though the Prime Minister never really accomplished anything during his years on the job, it was clear he still understood the basics of sociology. Lu Bixing was only paying half a mind to the old man’s rambles while he worked on his craft and nodded to the words. He didn’t expect the Prime Minister to suddenly stare at him with a passionate gaze: “Professor Lu….”

Lu Bixing responded immediately: “Ah no, I’m not that qualified. All I can do is just teach underaged kids how to disassemble a mech, please don’t call me a teacher like them.”

“No, no, you are worthy of the title,” Prime Minister Edward didn’t mind and continued on eagerly, “I’ve heard the Silver Ninth Squadron and the self-defense squad call you by this name—Professor Lu, I’ve heard that the people from that self-defense squad used to just be interstellar smugglers in the past. But when you arrived, you turned them into a team comparable to a proper army and even defeated the Cayley pirates, so I know you are a man of great capabilities.”

Prime Minister Edward looked at Lu Bixing as if the latter was a brilliant ancient war general that could fix all problems and subconsciously added more sincerity to his tone. Lu Bixing recognized himself as a considerably extroverted nerd engineer and didn’t know what to make of this praise: “Minister, I came out with you this time only as my father’s substitute. I’m quite good with technology, you see, so as long as we have enough resources I can help plan out military factories and even rebuild the internal network within the Eighth Galaxy as you had mentioned…”

Prime Minister Edward was convinced that the young man was only being humble and firmly said: “Professor Lu, if you want, I will certainly be happy to give you the position of the Prime Minister of the Eighth Galaxy.”

Lu Bixing placed the wrapped gift box to the side and sighed: “Prime Minister, I was just someone that built a school in the past that even scared all his teachers away, I…”

The Prime Minister immediately followed up and fed him a mouthful of dessert: “Then you can take the first public school of the Eighth Galaxy in the future, all funding and government support will follow the same guidelines as the Black Orchid Academy in Wolto, what do you say?”

Lu Bixing let out another long sigh. The Prime Minister was already quite old, and the lure he used to bait a big fish was poorly wrapped in trash paper; not only that, he somehow managed to bake an imaginary cake that was hard to swallow. He wasn’t very good with negotiations and clearly not a good politician.

Perhaps all he had was a heart that could dream of reviving the Eighth Galaxy…and a group of followers that would rather be ripped into pieces inside an energy field than to expose their disease to a crowd of people.

“Minister, if someone was good with words, he can use his talent to fool people around him into following him around, and that’s what I’m good at. If someone’s good at brainwashing others, they can build a giant organization filled with hundreds or thousands of followers that could take all his silly words as gospel, and I think that Prophet Hope from the AUS has that capability. But to administer a city might take a bit of luck–the formation of the self-defense squad wasn’t something I planned on my own, nor did I have the capability of doing so. It was a result of various outside influences and coincidences. As for rebuilding a whole galaxy’s social order,” Lu Bixing lifted a difficult smile, “you seem to think of me a little too highly.”

The light in the Prime Minister’s eyes dimmed down with this rejection.

Lu Bixing’s number one interest is Lin Jingheng, number two is feeding his chicken soup of the day and can’t stand seeing such hopeless eyes of despair. His instincts overtook his head for a second and followed up immediately: “But no matter what you need me to do, I will do my best to fulfill your wishes and jump in fire.”

“Good!” The Prime Minister pressed his hand on the young man’s shoulder, “I was waiting for you to say this. I’ve actually already decided your position, you will be the Eighth Galaxy’s wartime planning advisor, the director of the special board of management committee. You have one veto right, and from now on we shall not get on the same mech. When I’m not around, will you be the temporary head minister that can exercise the powers of the Prime Minister.”

The young scientist and rural homeschool teacher was completely stumped by this long title. Lu Bixing felt the need to pull out a small notebook to write down this two-foot long title three times and memorize it out loud.

The Prime Minister continued endlessly on with his grand ideas until they finally landed back on Qiming. Lu Bixing had to lie about having a stomach ache to escape with his heavy gift box and an even heavier hope for the Eighth Galaxy’s future on his shoulders. He ran down a small alleyway with plans to report his new identity to his commander.