Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 99

Chapter 99 – Landing on Planet Beijing

Lu Bixing quickly shot a glance at Lin Jingheng on the screen, whose figure still looked as if the screen was lagging and attempted to cut in: “Prime Minister, we…”

Perhaps the Prime Minister was getting old or still had some lasting damage to his hearing from the Rainbow Virus, but he would easily hear ringing in his ears from getting too worked up and didn’t hear Lu Bixing’s voice. He continued with agitation: “We’ve rebelled against the Cayley family, and after sacrificing a whole generation of people we finally managed to kick them out of the Eighth Galaxy. The Union never fulfilled their promises to us and left us to survive on our own; that was fine, we could wait. Even if they couldn’t provide, we could figure things out on our own. The Eighth Galaxy had no say in the interstellar meetings, our currency was equivalent to garbage; that was all fine, we didn’t have any complaints. That just meant that we’re poor, and being poor was still better than living like slaves and cattle under the Cayley rule back then, right? The Union won’t give military autonomy to individual galaxies, this is still fine. If these are the laws of the Union, we’d be willing to follow and adapt their cultures. Even if we are the furthest galaxy of the Union, even if our neighbors are space pirates and live with the lingering fear that the Cayley pirates will come back and threaten the peace we finally built…”

Lu Bixing reached his arm out past Turan towards the old Prime Minister but didn’t reach him–the Prime Minister banged his hands on the table and stood up: “I don’t understand all that she said, and I can guarantee you anyone you pick up randomly on the streets won’t understand either. How would we know anything about the legislation for Eden and whatever historical event, or how many famous people were arrested? We’ve never even seen what Eden was, so I only know that they had money, status and power to sponsor the AUS outside of the Union, feeding the pirates!”

“Are we not people as well? Do we not deserve to live? Simply because we don’t have any grand ideals?” The Prime Minister turned to the screen, his gaze as sharp as a blade when it landed on the chest of the man on the screen.

Lu Bixing also got up immediately and interrupted him in a louder voice: “Prime Minister!”

At that moment, Lu Bixing realized that the old Prime Minister did have something to say to Lin Jingheng.

It wasn’t because Laura Gordon was Lin’s mother, but because he himself came from the complicated Military Council of the Union. His presence here represented the corruption of the central Union government–as well as the arrogant attitude the central government had looking down on the Eighth Galaxy.

Also, as the head of the Silver Fortress who’d faced a strange ‘death’ and then ‘revived’ suspiciously, the pirate invasion and fall of the Union both happened right as Lin Jingheng came back. Anyone with a clear mind could tell that there was something going on behind the scenes, and it wasn’t that the old Prime Minister didn’t have his own guesses, he just chose to keep quiet and cooperated with the commander for the sake of the Eighth Galaxy.

Heroes and people of power all had their own burdens to carry and challenges to face. They stood above everyone else and could see through the galaxies; their thoughts were always for the sake of the bigger picture and had the power to influence the world. They would fight amongst themselves for the sake of their ideals, hatred, or even personal gains on the stage of the universe. Every battle could change the fate of the world no matter who won or lost.

But what about the commoners who died in despair during a revolution?

These heroes that stood on a pedestal weren’t even aware that these people existed. They didn’t know that not only did they exist, but they were also sacrificial lambs of their political games. Perhaps if they knew, they would all be shocked like the famous Commander Lin right now.

This time, the Prime Minister finally heard Lu Bixing’s voice. His face trembled lightly as his dry lips pressed together. Just as Turan reached her arm out to cut off the communication, the old Prime Minister lowered his head silently and quickly walked out of the lab.

Lu Bixing immediately turned toward Lin Jingheng: “Lin, you…”

The communication was cut off from Lin Jingheng’s side the moment he opened his mouth, and the screen turned black.

Lu Bixing’s words were stuck in his throat. He pressed his hands on the meeting table and took in a deep breath; by the time he looked back up, his expression had already calmed down. Now that the Prime Minister was gone, the group of people that remained in the lab turned blankly towards him like lost lambs.

“The Eighth Galaxy is essentially operating independently now, so the ideological battle between the Union and pirate forces no longer concerns us. From the recording earlier, it looks like there are only two things we need to pay close attention to.” Lu Bixing spoke as objectively and calmly as he could. “First, the pirates have spies within the Union, but Captain Turan inspected the entire file earlier and noticed that the ‘spies list’ only included the names of the people who were arrested decades ago in the Union that everyone knew about. This is strange — these are all from the internal database of the AUS, so why did they need to hide from their own people?”

The room was completely silent for a few moments until everyone caught on to what he meant and exploded.

“Professor Lu, are you saying that someone must’ve removed something from the files before we decoded it?”

Lu Bixing lifted his head and looked towards Turan: “Captain, I heard that when Mister Hope first saw Lin, he immediately recognized the commander’s identity.”

“…fuck.” Turan cursed and slapped her personal device harshly, “Keep that Hope guy under strict control!”

The newly appointed director of the lab felt this discussion was getting out of hand and commented; “Professor Lu, the lab is a heavily restricted area. If Hope were to come close, someone would notice so he couldn’t possibly find a chance.”

Lu Bixing looked into his eyes deeply and asked: “Director, do you know who among the researchers working on this file within the last few months have spoken to this ex-Prophet of the AUS?”

The director froze up.

“Second, we can see from the video that Miss Laura Gordon injected a biochip into herself in order to block off the enemy’s attempt to hack the mental network. This chip was strong enough for her to handle a well-trained military fleet all on her own – this is something that even Commander Lin can’t do with his mental strength. If a biochip like this can increase a non-military personnel’s mental strength to this level, imagine what kind of fleet could be formed if these chips get mass produced? Luckily as of now, whether it’s the Union or pirates, we have not seen any trace of these superhuman fleets existing. The ‘opium’ from the Freedom Corps can only be used as a drug right now and is only a shabby copy of the original. I’m guessing that the real data of how to produce these biochips was lost, but it’s clear that both the Freedom Corps and AUS are looking for it, so we have to be prepared.”

A sudden thought flashed across Lu Bixing’s mind as he spoke. The Nuwa Project’s slogan was ‘human evolution’, and if he was the original planner of the project Doctor Hardin, he would most likely put the focus of the research on ‘psychological evolution’. The carbon-based human body had its limits, and in order to fully maximize strength, mechanicalization of the body would be the only option.

As for Laura Gordon’s biochip, despite being lost to history, it still had a modern-day copy by the name of opium. With the research abilities of the sponsored pirates, were they really still not able to solve this problem after 50 years?

Then perhaps the problem wasn’t the chip itself, but the physical body that the chip is injected into.

Therefore, it is very likely that the chip and Nuwa Project were actually the same project. In other words, the Nuwa Project’s goal was to raise a human that could fully absorb this biochip. After Laura Gordon was forced to self-destruct, both the AUS and Freedom Corps lost the most important piece of their research and ended up going down different paths in their research.

Yet as Lu Bixing scanned through all the anxious faces in the room, he quietly kept this theory to himself.

He didn’t know if these victims that were stuck with the trauma of the Rainbow Virus would hold out their hand in temptation if a force powerful enough to turn the tables of the warfare were to be presented in front of them right now. Thinking about it carefully, a simple chip injection could turn a newbie who had just learned how to pilot a mech into a super soldier more powerful than the Silver Ten; even Lu Bixing himself found that temptation quite irresistible.

They were already walking on lava, that fragile light of humanity within each soul couldn’t possibly handle another moral challenge right now.

Lu Bixing poured another bowl of chicken soup without a word and diluted this dangerous topic. He then concluded in place of the Prime Minister who had run off in anger: “I don’t believe that we can really conquer anything with the help of outside forces or influences. Back when our last generations stood up to fight against the Cayley rule, even commoners were brave enough to stand up and form the Independent Navy. Today, we have a new government and our own military forces, what do we need to be afraid of? As long as our anger for the Rainbow Virus exists, the spirit of the Independent Navy is still alive. I am fearless; what about everyone else?”

The newly formed council of the government didn’t respond.

Everyone here was grown adults and not naive students of the Starry Sea Academy. In the face of challenging times, Headmaster Lu’s words were hard to digest. The group slowly left the room while repeating the word ‘fearless’ in their minds in an attempt to brainwash themselves into staying optimistic.

Lu Bixing let out a breath of air and thought about how much he missed Lin Jingheng despite already seeing him a few hours ago.

He pressed his hand on his personal device and wanted to contact him. However, a long-distance connection could only be established when both sides agreed on a location, and if he didn’t know the other party’s exact coordinates, he could only pray for the commander to manually scan for a signal when they reached the nearest portal.

Lu Bixing thought about it for a moment and sent a message to the long-distance network: “Are you okay? Please respond if you can.”

The text message was recorded into an electromagnetic signal and was sent out of the atmosphere after being password protected. The recorded message sailed through the network and went out into the galaxy, yet Lin Jingheng didn’t respond immediately.

Lu Bixing let out another sigh and turned to look at the empty long-distance communication screen. For some reason, he felt that person’s weakness through the black and silent screen.

For a long time, he always thought Lin Jingheng was handsome and strong, the kindness the commander showed like a wildflower growing in the cracks of a rock. It was both warm and almost playful at times, and Lu Bixing never associated ‘weakness’ with Lin Jingheng. Even when the commander was sick and fell out of the medical capsule in his sleep, those eyes clouded by fever still maintained a strength that could pierce through his weak body.

He couldn’t imagine how Lin Jingheng felt right now; the commander would never express his feelings to the world no matter what it was. All Lu Bixing knew right now was that his heart was heavy and restless, perhaps unable to find a peace of mind until he could touch that person with his own hands.

“What?” Suddenly, Turan raised her voice beside him, “what are you fools all doing?”

Lu Bixing pulled his thoughts back and turned towards her.

“Hope went missing.” Turan glanced at him quickly, carrying a hint of coldness in her eyes. “We have a whole team of guards watching him, and yet he still managed to escape. Did the security in this damn base turn into a broken fishnet right before my eyes? Inform everyone to gather up immediately!

That last line was directed towards her personal device.

Turan’s personality was naturally bright and cheerful, but her attitude towards anyone regardless of status was quite bossy. Sometimes people would forget what kind of person this Captain of the Ninth Squadron was really like.

Lu Bixing wanted to say something but nothing came out of his mouth as he watched Turan walk out like a storm. The captain was in charge of the Ninth Squadron and had her own way of handling things, but Lu Bixing wasn’t part of the military so he wasn’t in a position to make comments. A sense of helplessness filled his heart; he remembered when Lin was laying in his arms with a high fever, when Hope helped him fool the eyes of the pursuers from the AUS to bring back the vaccine and saved the entire planet. He remembered when Hope worked restlessly to build the Eighth Galaxy’s agricultural base, how the man even told him upon returning that the robots were already programmed with the proper codes, that as long they had supplies and a supervisor, more agricultural bases like that could be produced on demand.

That’s right, Hope even promised to give him two bottles of wine.

Lu Bixing thought that misunderstanding between people came from distancing; if people were lucky enough to share a journey together, they could smooth out the rough edges on each other. It wasn’t until now that he realized that some people were meant to walk different paths.

Turan didn’t bother nitpicking responsibility on the training grounds because nobody could explain how Hope got away, so the result was everyone had to suffer the punishment. The newly enlisted members of the Self-Defense Squad faced the cruel discipline of the Ninth Squadron’s military law.

Saturday lowered his head as he walked with the soldiers. His expression was blank, but his heart was quite rebellious.

What could Hope do? He was just a poor soul that got bullied out of the AUS, and after being captured he had been very cooperative with the military. He had also helped save the planet, to the point where even Lin Jingheng himself couldn’t lock him up and treat him like a hostage. Hope had worked so hard for the Eighth Galaxy and the base, yet he could still be pulled out for another interrogation at a single command. Saturday watched coldly on the sidelines as he felt Hope was wronged.

He admired the world that Hope described, filled with light and the chirps of early birds to the point where he learned to grow a sympathetic heart.

Even if Professor Lu knew, he wouldn’t say anything; Saturday thought quietly.

At this time, Hope’s small mech had already escaped from surveillance and mingled into the public terminal. After disguising the ship, they flew out of the Qiming base.

The Eighth Galaxy’s public terminals had already begun construction and could be used as emergency tracks and terminals during certain times. However, due to lack of military forces, the security inspection system was still under construction so sneaking past security wasn’t that hard.

Hope took a few of his followers into the disguised merchant ship. Most of them were original AUS members that had been stuck in the Qiming base, but quite a few new faces could also be seen among them–if Lu Bixing was here, he would recognize that a few quieter researchers from his team also ran away with Hope.

When they passed by another merchant ship, Hope received a communication request. His followers stood on their toes in anxiety as they watched Hope accept the signal without hesitation.

A clear whistling sound rang from the other side, followed by a rough man’s voice: “I have an emergency, my friend, can I borrow some fuel?”

Hope answered with a warm smile: “What happened?”

“I went to deliver some stuff for Base 4 and just came back, but I ran into some accident and used up all my energy. I’m afraid I can’t sail back with the remaining energy, can you help?”

Hope quickly took out a small portion of his fuel from his own mech’s backup energy and sent it over under the anxious faces of his followers: “This should be enough for you to return to Qiming.”

The passerby didn’t expect Hope to hand over fuel so quickly, and after thanking him the other merchant ship happily sailed away.

“Prophet.” A former researcher from Qiming spoke up after the man left, “those people are all scammers that used to smuggle weapons and illegal stock. They keep a few of their old merchant ships and roam around while people are still too afraid to sail in space to claim all the running starships to earn money. They’re making almost as much as our engineering team selling and buying starships, and to save fuel costs they sail around to scam for fuel from unsuspecting people.”

Hope was quite shocked: “They’re scammers?”

“Yes. If merchant ships get damaged or malfunction, they can call for emergency backup from the guards on the military terminals. Do they look like they dare use the same story to scam soldiers?”

Hope didn’t know whether to cry or laugh at the liveliness of the Eighth Galaxy; even scammers are now out doing their jobs.

They passed by a transfer portal and the mech sent out a small alert: “Long-distance communication key match up; please choose whether to accept the signal.”

Hope turned to look at the screen, the smile in his eyes disappearing. After a few moments, he nodded and said: “Okay, send our coordinates and area code.”

The communication channel was set up almost instantaneously as the signals passed through numerous galaxies. Over 20 hours later, the person on the other end finally appeared. However, the screen remained dark as the person refused to show their face and only released a clearly altered voice through a voice changer.

“The message for the long-distance communication has been there for months,” the voice said, “why did you only respond now? Are you really planning on giving the organization to those madmen?”

Pirate forces outside the Union had a complicated relationship among themselves; even within the AUS itself, there were many different voices and opposing opinions. Some people supported violence and using all available methods during warfare, even going as far as allowing weapons of mass-destruction and biowarfare under necessary circumstances. These were the Mania Factions. Others also believed that the AUS shouldn’t go against their doctrine and should use this time period of unrest to further their missionary goals to spread their teachings; these were the Conventional Factions, and Hope clearly belonged to the latter.

Yet during a chaotic time like this, it was obvious the cries of mania were much louder. Before the outbreak of the pirate invasion into the Union, the AUS had already experienced an internal battle among the factions. Hope had utilized his power of words to gather up his followers and hid under the Cayley Pirates’ forces to escape the storm temporarily.

“The Glory Troops severed their own connections and openly betrayed their comrades. The organization is now stuck within the seven galaxies and are being chased down by forces of the central militia post everywhere, right?” Hope said, “What now, are those people that were desperate to centralize all the armed forces outside the Union finally hearing voices of concern from the organization?”

“These short-sighted barbarians spent too much time with the Glory Troops and wasted their efforts on a plan doomed to fail,” the voice from the other side said. The distance between the two was too far apart and had a few hours of delay even through the long-distance networks, so this was clearly not a response to Hope’s question earlier. “Get out of the slums already and take back control of this organization, I’ll supply you with armed forces.”

Hope closed his eyes and followed the expansion of the mental network to see the unimpressive public terminal.

After a short while, the third message from the mystery person finally arrived: “I did hear about a rumor recently, they said that one of the Squadrons of the Silver Ten is in the Eighth Galaxy and annihilated that Von whatever. And the head of the Squadron is suspected to be…Lin Jingheng?”

Hope opened his eyes and responded with a blank expression: “Isn’t he dead?”

There was a long pause after, and it seemed as if the other side finally received the message and said: “Right, but he’s still her son. We haven’t been able to find the ‘forbidden fruit’ after so many years, so I’m wondering if it really ended up in his hands? You’ve been spending a lot of time in the Eighth Galaxy, what are you doing in a place like that?”

Hope’s followers immediately turned to him. Hope lifted a finger up and gestured for them to keep quiet, then said: “Lin Jingheng had always been under your watch. He’s just a child that you saw growing up, how can you not know what he’s like? I don’t know whether or not the Silver Ten is here, but I believe a small portion of them went to become mercenaries after the Union fell, so it’s likely that some of them ended up in the Eighth Galaxy–as for Prince Cayley, Ares Von, he set himself up for his own failure. He blew up three planets and angered those old followers of Lu Xin; those big names in the galaxy utilized the underground tunnels and assassinated him. Also, that old Executive Minister didn’t die and is now rebuilding a new government with his elderly team. He’s leading the people around right now to feed the poor; the new currency here is nutrient syringes, and I was the one that rebuilt the agricultural bases for them.”

The mysterious voice let out a sigh of defeat as they received the message and said: “How unfortunate, I thought….ah. Well, it does sound like something you would do. Anyway, now that we’ve reached this point, you should also stop wandering about and come back, I’ll send someone out to escort you.”

Hope didn’t respond nor did he wait for another message. The disguised mech passed through the transfer portal and sailed quietly towards a wider, crueler world.

Lin Jingheng blocked off his long-distance connection, the guarding ships around him, and let the newly retrieved base float around freely as he made his way towards the former Beijing-β.

He suddenly said: “Land on Planet Beijing-β.”

“Sir, are you sure?” Zhanlu asked, “The atmosphere of Beijing-β suffered fatal damage during its annihilation, the current land environment isn’t at a condition that can support humans to walk on without protection. There are no mech tracks on land and we will need to use force landing to get near it.”

Lin Jingheng hesitated a little.

Zhanlu didn’t bother him anymore and carefully controlled the mobile base to sail around the dead planet. As they felt the natural gravitation of the planet and passed through the toxic remnants of the atmosphere, the mech closed in on land.

When they were 5,000 kilometers away from land, Lin Jingheng could utilize Zhanlu’s mental network to clearly see the planet that he’d stayed on for five years.

It was like the background of a horror movie; the remnants of the streets and buildings remained, ashes from the nuclear bombs covered the ground like a layer of snow as the temperature on land dropped to -160 Celsius and froze everything. A gust of poisonous wind blasted through the land of the dead, and slashed through the ashes to reveal the corpses underneath like a ghost of the past.

Lin Jingheng remembered that old bar he lived in; the lost young people that drank alone in the middle of the night in this quiet place.

Everything had perished into ashes.

“Forget it,” Lin Jingheng broke the silence. “I’m not going down. Accelerate past the gravitational field, we’re leaving.”

The massive space station revved up its internal engine.

“Clean up all the inventory on the station,” Lin Jingheng ordered, “I need a fully compiled list before we reach Qiming. Watch the director of the space station and send a team to find out where he came from…we’re going back.”

By the time Lin Jingheng returned to Qiming, it was already hours before dawn. He didn’t want to talk to anyone and even left Zhanlu on the Model 3 as he quietly made his way through the night back into his small ‘closet’. He hit something the moment he opened the door and alerted the automated lights in the room. Lin Jingheng looked down in shock to find Lu Bixing sitting on the ground near the door, rubbing his eyes half-awake as he got hit on the head by the door.