Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 94

Chapter 94 – Reborned at the Edge of Civilization

Impossible , she thought.

She watched the last remaining recording of the Jingyuan spaceship getting blown into pieces by a pirate attack millions of times.

The moment she received the authority as the temporary spokesperson of the Eden Committee’s Director Board from the old Gordon, she personally went through all of Eden’s database and checked the time and place that person perished with her two eyes like an obsessive madwoman.

She could even recite those complicated interstellar coordinates perfectly from memory.

This must be fake.

Genetic cloning was prohibited within territories under Eden’s control, but it didn’t mean the barbarians in the Eighth Galaxy and outside the Union wouldn’t do such a thing…it was possible this wasn’t even a clone and was simply a copied artificial being.

A nuclear bomb of rage exploded within Lin Jingshu’s heart. She clenched her teeth too tightly in the mouth to the point she could taste a hint of blood.

How could they, how dare they!?

But Lin Jingshu wasn’t someone that avidly expressed emotions on her face and after years of suppression, she could no longer take her cold mask off. Therefore, no matter how much of a storm remained in her heart, she could only suppress her rage silently behind a facade. She subconsciously tapped her guard’s personal device to obtain control and replayed the video on the wall.

This time, she took a much closer look at the man’s face.

For many years, Lin Jingshu liked to collect all news and articles about the young commander even if the majority painted the man in a negative light. Though to her, even these slanderous words the media came up with were fun to read; it didn’t matter whether he was truly a supervillain or rebellious asshole, the young commander’s existence was the last piece of comfort for Lin Jingshu.

Lin Jingheng was only a name, a photo, a vague image to the public; but in her heart, he was a living person. She had traced out every detail of his existence countless times in her mind, from his aloof and cold demeanor, apathetic attitude, and even the way he walked. Sometimes she would think about how if she was willing to change her personality and do a little plastic surgery, she could transform herself into a second Lin Jingheng.

That figure inside the recording was too familiar.

The stone wall inside Lin Jingshu’s heart began to collapse as she looked at him through the screen for the second time.

Even if it was just an artificial man or a clone that made an exact physical copy, was it possible to replicate the same soul?

Also…that robotic arm.

Lin Jingheng never displayed Zhanlu out in public; even when he needed to bring Zhanlu out, he would let Zhanlu mingle with the guards and soldiers in human form since nobody could tell he was an AI. In contrast to the other well-known mechs, Zhanlu was a very mysterious mech that only ever appeared as a giant heavy mech in public.

Lin Jingshu was one of the few non-military personnel that had seen Zhanlu’s core body.

She remembered that was the day Lin Jingheng was appointed the top commander of the Silver Fortress. After the official appointment ceremony, there was a political banquet among the higher-ups of the different departments in the Union Government. The Eden Committee was keen on getting onto the good side of the young commander and brought Lin Jingshu to the banquet, who was still in school as a sociology researcher at this time. She didn’t know how to deal with such social events back then and only stood awkwardly in silence as she reunited with her twin brother for the first time in years.

The guests of the party courteously gave the twins time for themselves, but because Lin Jingheng really had no idea what to say, he ended up introducing Zhanlu to her. Despite knowing Zhanlu was just an AI, he was too human-like that Lin Jingshu was taken aback a little at first. She wore a knit-jacket that day with her school’s logo embroidered on it, and Zhanlu kindly transformed into that robotic arm symbolizing “technology’s impact in transforming society” on the logo of her jacket.

This was probably the one little secret the twins shared between each other since childhood.

She didn’t know that Lin Jingheng changed Zhanlu’s default power-saving mode to that robot arm. She also didn’t know how her brother escaped the Heart of Rose that year and completely erased his existence from Eden. She didn’t know why he was in the Eighth Galaxy, why he didn’t choose to come back, what he was planning, if he was living well over there…she didn’t know why he refused to spare a few words to her even if they were just hints that he was still alive.

He’s still alive , Lin Jingshu thought, he’s in the Eighth Galaxy.

For a short moment, Lin Jingshu felt as if something stabbed her numb heart. The pain in her chest amplified and began to throb violently as if new flesh was being churned out from a rotting corpse. That realistic pain almost gave her the delusion that she was still alive with a heart.

She lifted her eyes in awe to meet the guard’s timid gaze.

Lin Jingshu’s conscience was immediately pulled back at that instant and realized that the man before her was both fearful and anxiously waiting for her reaction.

“Lin Jingheng is still alive” –this was a powerful piece of information that would overturn the entire war.

And no matter what he was doing in the Eighth Galaxy right now, coming out to personally deal with a fleet like the Eagle himself proved that he had very limited resources on hand right now.

Lin Jingshu quietly glanced at the small mirror at the corner of the desk to make sure she didn’t express any signs of weakness on her face. She was an Azure Sea that once bloomed under the spotlight where every detail of her petals were exposed under the gaze of countless eyes, so she was used to covering herself up with a strong facade.

She cleared her face of all emotions within a matter of seconds and turned off the recording on her guard’s personal device. She sat behind her desk like a delicate doll, then lifted a cold smile: “What is this? The excuse you found for yourself?”

The guard opened his mouth: “Madam, this person in the video….don’t you think he looks…”

Lin Jingshu’s sharp gaze pieced through his bones. The guard knew that if he uttered the name “Lin Jingheng”, the security AI in front of the door would immediately come for his head.

“If you’re here to anger me, then you’re quite successful.” Lin Jingshu said, “Who gave you this idea?”

The guard understood what she meant after a short pause and cried out in panic: “No, I didn’t plan any of this, Madam. How could I possibly do such a horrible…horrible thing…just to place the blame on others? Besides, how could I possibly get a hold of Commander Lin’s DNA? Please believe me, I…”

Lin Jingshu lifted her eyebrows slightly and interrupted: “Who else could it be if it wasn’t you?”

She was slender and pale like a delicate porcelain doll, her snow white neck long and thin; how hard would it be to snap it in half? But the guard was still afraid of her. The closer he gets to her, the more he could smell the rotting flesh and blood on her. There was something about Lin Jingshu’s aura he couldn’t quite explain, like a vague silhouette of a ghost in his nightmares that will grin at him as it commits a horrific act before his eyes the next instant.

Lin Jingshu asked him again: “If it wasn’t you, who else could it be? Hm?”

The guard: “I…I’ll go investigate right now…”

“You better go,” Lin Jingshu said, “I don’t care what method you use, I will send this clone back into its grave. I also want to know how his DNA information leaked out of the Union and who made his copy. I want you to chop down every hand that had touched him; if you can’t get this done, you will pay with your own–”

The guard shivered in fear.

“I am going to thoroughly investigate and take control of the Eighth Galaxy.” Lin Jingshu twirled a piece of her long hair with her fingers, “from now on, I need you all to dispatch extra troops into the Eighth Galaxy.”

“Madam,” the guard said, “we really can’t pull out much profits from the Eighth Galaxy, we shouldn’t be wasting too much resources and energy on…”

Lin Jingshu lifted her head and looked at him with a blank face.

The guard continued: “If we do that, our profits and sales will take a hit in the near future, we’ll be experiencing a great loss.”

He knew that if their plan failed, this woman before him will not reflect on her own mistakes and instead put the blame on him.

Lin Jingshu asked: “A loss? How so? Did the first round of opium sales in the military not bring in any profit?”

The guard lowered his head and said in defeat: “We’re still in the experimental phase, and we’re still 15 days away from the first biochip replacement. It’s hard to tell how many returning customers we will get…and you should also know that we need to be extremely careful when selling opium to the military and even within the City of Angels, otherwise the higher-ups might notice…”

Lin Jingshu smiled at him: “That won’t happen. Did you know that it’s virtually impossible to obtain legal mood stabilizers in the City of Angels now? Even my sources are useless now, that’s why everyone is finding their own ways to get in touch with the black market. Some ‘rumors’ say that certain places in the black market have already developed a ‘partial Eden’ system with just one tiny biochip. Now everyone’s desperately trying to find these biochips with all of their resources.”

The guard caught the unspoken words from her mouth and covered himself in another layer of cold sweat. He realized that this madwoman had more than one outlet for smuggling drugs; in fact, she had a spider web of connections, and he was merely one of the many connections she had…

Perhaps even a disposable connection.

Lin Jingshu placed her cold fingers on his wrist and said: “I will not allow anyone to pretend to be Lin Jingheng. This man is a fake, and the fake must die; do you understand what I’m saying?”

The guard had his doubts before because the man in the video looked way too similar to Lin Jingheng, but as soon as he received the stringent order from Lin Jingshu, his doubt was quickly replaced by fear and anxiety. He didn’t have the guts to ask how she was able to tell the man in the video wasn’t Lin Jingheng, but he knew that she wouldn’t have ordered for murder if she had even a tiny bit of doubt. Perhaps there really was some unexplainable connection between the twins.

The guard’s heart was filled with worry from the impossible task that Lin Jingshu just assigned him and subconsciously accepted the idea that the man in the video was a clone. It’s impossible to create an exact replica of the same person even using the same DNA , he thought, this is a fact that even ancient Earthlings knew, who’s the idiot that would do such a thing to Lin Jingheng? Now that the devil has been angered, he had no choice but to clean up the mess.

He stood without a reaction for a while until Lin Jingshu picked up the cup of hot tea on her desk and splashed it on his face.

After a loud scream inside the otherwise quiet office, the guard took a few steps back with his hand over his reddened face from the burn.

Lin Jingshu: “If he doesn’t disappear, then you’ll perish in his place, understood?”

The guard took a few heavy breaths in as he held in his pain, unable to refuse her order. He nodded in response and quickly made his way out of Lin Jingshu’s office.

Lin Jingshu sat elegantly behind her desk. A refined lady of noble background must always watch her words and body language; she was taught to never make small gestures and should always present herself like a Renaissance painting.

But at this moment, she really wanted to curl up in a ball because it was simply too cold for her.

A cleaning robot walked into the office and cleaned up the water on the floor in silence. Lin Jingshu watched the robot motionlessly. To those beasts that live in solidarity, showing weakness was the most fatal mistake it could make. Therefore, they would always choose to hide their pain and never express any weakness to the outside world.

Lin Jingshu looked at her reflection in the mirror as if she could see the ending of the story.

She slowly fixed her lipstick and turned on the heater inside her office.

The City of Angels sure is a chilly place , she thought.

While the shadow of the abyss loomed above the skies of the Union waiting to swallow up its prey, the limbo that was the Eighth Galaxy experienced the first wind of Spring blowing over its deserted land for the first time in centuries. Seeds of miracles began to sprout in the dead field.

Superintendent Yu’s last speech was the wake-up call to his muddling comrades, and the Ninth Squadron’s heroic feat on the battlefield was like a shot of relaxant that cleared the clouds above the galaxy’s head.

Rumors already began to spread before the communication within the galaxy recovered.

Countless soldiers that had once obtained medals from the military stood back on their feet as the battle song of the Independent Navy played from afar. The perpetually anxious leaders throughout the Eighth Galaxy were frantically looking for the live recording of that legendary battle that swept through the galaxy in hopes to find a new shield to hide behind. As for the people who were struggling to survive throughout the galaxy, rumors of being able to exchange living necessities with work on planet Qiming were like a small ray of light in their miserable lives.

Prime Minister Edward took his newly formed advisory team out for an extra two weeks of overtime work and still couldn’t finish processing all the loyalty pledge requests to the new government from all the planets and stations throughout the Eighth Galaxy. The structure of the new government was still under construction, but Lu Bixing received a gift of resources to carry out his project rebuilding the Eighth Galaxy’s communication network. Technicians and engineers from various planets and stations became the first group of people that worked for the new government for nutrient syringes.

Despite being a wasteland, the Eighth Galaxy still had skilled engineers, especially spatial construction workers and engineers from artificial planets. Their skill level was beyond Lu Bixing’s expectations; for centuries, these nameless people were the engineers that built the foundation of the average man’s life. If it wasn’t for them, those heroes that pilot mechs around in flashy space battles wouldn’t even have the chance to fly out of the atmosphere, as a cosmic ray could destroy everyone on land without a protection layer around the planet.

Unfortunately, without proper planning and management, these engineers were stuck doing basic repair jobs simply to make ends meet. They were essentially not any better than an average civilian and could only sit around everyday trying to figure out how to buy their next meal.

Now, the entire Eighth Galaxy gathered like moths to the light called Qiming under the lure of “high pay” as people crawled out of their caves for the first time. After organizing into a fully-functional engineering team, the members could even complete all the details of the blueprint on their own.

The network’s repair progressed at a speed faster than Lu Bixing could ever imagine, and by the end of April, the Eighth Galaxy’s new network was completed. April 30th, NSC 276–a day before the Union’s Independence Day, Wolto time 12:00 P.M., everyone’s personal device throughout the Eighth Galaxy received an automatic update notification simultaneously. The update took a total of 40 seconds, and after the update, the official Eighth Galaxy channel passed through the dark alleys and corners of the galaxy and turned on inside everyone’s personal devices. Prime Minister Edward presented his first speech as the head of the new government as well as the new constitution of the Eighth Galaxy. Within three days of the speech, countless private military and organizations within the galaxy announced their decision to join the new government, then connected into the centralized executive system and economy. The census survey began almost immediately while private arms were being turned into the government as soldiers and veterans joined in the Eighth Galaxy Self-Defense Force.

The chaotic streams finally returned to the main current and flowed down in a unified manner, the soils on the riverbank began to reappear as fertile land.

May 15th, NSC 276. The new government finally recognized the century-old Independent Navy as a legal military force and acknowledged it as the predecessor of the Eighth Galaxy Self-Defense Force. In the Milky Way City, the new government building and central plaza completed its construction under the work of around 300 robots. The statue of Commander Lu Xin that was once thrown out by Wolto returned to the side of the central plaza near the entrance. After returning from over 30 years of being stardust, the face of the hero remained unchanged as he was reborn at the edge of civilization along with the ruins of the former Eighth Galaxy.

The small city of Milky Way transformed into the Wolto of the Eighth Galaxy. Residents cheered and danced by the statue to celebrate the completion of the new plaza, complete with a full band playing music in the background. Lin Jingheng, who liked his peace and quiet, ran into Monoeyed Hawk inside a new bar that opened up inside the plaza. They exchanged a cigarette and a glass of wine and surprisingly didn’t bicker for once. Monoeyed Hawk didn’t bring up stories of Lu Xin, and Lin Jingheng didn’t explain the acts of ‘betrayal’ he did in the past.

It wasn’t until night rolled around and the crowd outside began to disperse that Monoeyed Hawk finally opened his mouth: “The production lines around the galaxy have recovered slightly, but it will need at least another year before they can match up to modern industrial standards and expand to the point where each planet can sustain themselves. The military supplies we collected before are almost out.”

Lin Jingheng put out the fire on the cigarette and hummed in response.

Monoeyed Hawk: “We’ll need to deal with this soon.”

Lin Jingheng lifted his eyes: “What, Bixing’s engineer team is coming back soon, so you want to send me away?”

Monoeyed Hawk’s eyes twitched.

Lin Jingheng stared at him for a while and laughed. For the first time, the sneer and taunt in his smile disappeared as a rare hint of mischief from a young man appeared on his face. Those clouded grey eyes turned to the statue in the plaza bathed in the light of the dusking sun.

“Put it all on his tab.” Lin Jingheng pushed the old man towards the cashier and strolled out of the bar.