Cat and Rose - Cat & Rose - Chapter 43 - Cycle and Begin Again (5)

Chapter 43 – Cycle and Begin Again (5)

Madam Chen believed that Lin Si should not leave the Voyager.

Her opinions were very clear. These ten years, to a scientific researcher, were extremely precious, so if he remained on the Voyager, Lin Si would absolutely be able to achieve results even greater than “limitless”.

“My energy will be spent on helping the Expeditioners explore new planets,” said Lin Si, “its purpose is no less than scientific research.”

“But Lucia can replace you,” said Madam Chen. “Moreover, sacrifice always comes with interstellar exploration. Even on the Voyager’s expedition, nearly one-hundred scientific researchers have died on planets with harsh environments.”

“You cannot be sacrificed.” Her tone became harsher. “You, Tang Ning, Zheng Shu, all the core members of each Area—all of you in particular cannot be sacrificed. All of you are ones among the millions of gifted people, who graduated from the top schools on Earth. The maximum amount of education and resources within the society’s rules at that time, what was accomplished were people like you—and we no longer have this kind of environment. Our new generation will never be able to produce people of your quality.”

“Our people are the same as our resources. Use how many, lose how many,” Madam Chen sighed. “If you get into an accident out there, where else can I find someone the same level as you?”

***

Ling Yi was writing in his diary.

Ever since that time Lin Si told him about the second law of thermodynamics, he began to keep a diary.

Ling Yi thought that this way, he would be able to preserve the things he was afraid of forgetting.

“Today, Lin Si found out that I fought with the Colonel without Skeletons a few days ago. Lin Si was unhappy.”

“Lin Si asked me, what would I choose if my intuition was different from the machine’s conclusion. I still want to choose my own intuition, because sometimes, when Tang Ning writes programmes, there will still be bugs.”

He finished writing these two paragraphs, then propped his chin up to think about what other things from today he could write about.

It seemed that there were no more.

So he wrote in the next line “Lin Si hasn’t come back yet, I miss him.”—then shut his diary notebook.

When he finished, he no longer had anything to do, so after memorising a few chemistry formulas, he went to find Tang Ning to ask about some maths questions.

After learning the Fourier series, he had to learn multiple integrals, which to him, was very troublesome.

He left the training grounds, walked through the familiar corridors then made a turn, arriving at the laboratory Tang Ning was usually at.

Tang Ning’s laboratory and Zheng Shu’s office were both at the very end of the same corridor, on opposite sides. During work hours, the doors would all be covered with a crack open.

A woman’s voice could be heard from Zheng Shu’s laboratory. It seemed to be someone from another Area, who came to exchange business talk. After their exchange, they leisurely chatted about their lives.

Zheng Shu was very popular with women, but this type of popularity was different from Ling Yi’s type. The madams looked at Ling Yi like they were looking at their child, but towards Zheng Shu, they would hold an ambiguously flirtatious tone—a man like him with elegant, graceful demeanour could not be found just anywhere on the ship.

At this moment, Zheng Shu’s attitude towards that woman inside the room was very considerate and courteous, which could allow good feelings to easily sprout in one’s heart.

While at the same time, the only sounds that came from Tang Ning’s room were the buzzing sounds of the computer and the rustling of pen and paper together, which evidently showed he was alone in his laboratory.

Ling Yi knew not to disturb Tang Ning at this moment, so he did not knock, and simply entered quietly. If he did not want to make any sounds, a normal person would not notice him.

As he entered, he saw Tang Ning performing some calculations in front of his computer—regarding what it was, it was nowhere near the level of comprehension with Ling Yi’s current level of mathematics.

Vivian sat beside Tang Ning. Seeing Ling Yi enter, she raised her index finger in front of her lips, signalling for him to be quiet.

Ling Yi blinked at her, walked through the holographic projection, then sat on the chair that Vivian was on. Vivian quickly understood what he wanted to do, so she smiled sweetly and adjusted her position to sit on Ling Yi’s lap, her slim arms encircling his neck, squinting her eyes with a pleased expression.

Until Tang Ning’s calculation process had filled sheets and sheets of paper, he finally obtained a series of results. He swiftly tapped on his keyboard with both hands, after writing a few hundred lines of the programme, his attention became less focused than before, and finally saw that Ling Yi was sitting beside him.

“Finished writing?” asked Ling Yi.

Tang Ning made a sound of affirmation. “I’m optimising Lucia.”

“Isn’t Lucia already super amazing?” asked Ling Yi.

“She’ll go with the Expeditioner to faraway planets,” said Tang Ning. “The message I received was that the Expeditioner will only be equipped with a group of mechanics to maintain her, while she’ll be in charge of all the spaceship’s facilities and vitality systems.”

Ling Yi nodded. “Lucia is incredible.”

“She still hasn’t arrived at our expectations yet,” Tang Ning said flatly. “She has a self-learning system. After coming with you guys to the faraway planets, she’ll learn lots of things. In the future, it’s possible for her to control a ship all by herself in order to finish all the exploration tasks.”

Ling Yi blinked, digested the information, and thought that Tang Ning, who coded Lucia’s core programme, was truly a miraculous person.

Hearing Tang Ning talk about Lucia’s strengths, Vivian instantly became unhappy. Above her head several dark clouds appeared, letting out a continuous patter of rain. “Lucia is better than Vivian at everything.”

Tang Ning’s tone was very neutral. “I don’t like Lucia.”

The dark clouds instantly vanished, turning into white clouds.

Ling Yi observed their interaction.

When Tang Ning said he did not like Lucia, he meant that he truly did not like her. It was not to console Vivian—he was somewhat obtuse towards other people’s emotions, not to mention that he would not console someone to begin with.

Was it because Lucia had set her own appearance for herself? Ling Yi knew that Tang Ning did not like things that escaped his grasp, since even now, he still had not installed an emotional system for Lucia.

He did not entangle himself over this question, as people’s interests were always strange and could not be understood by outsiders, like how Zheng Shu was so good to everyone but would treat Tang Ning alone coldly…there are many things in this world that were not nice.

Tang Ning asked him, “Is there anything?”

Ling Yi nodded, taking out the problems he did not know how to solve.

If he asked Lin Si about the questions, he would get teased, so he liked to ask Tang Ning more.

—Tang Ning would never shun him for having a brain that was not useful, because in Tang Ning’s eyes, apart from himself and Lin Si, everyone else’s brains were not useful.

After asking about the questions, Ling Yi sat on the desk and studied mathematics, Tang Ning continued to write his programme, and Vivian rested her chin on her hands as she watched them, the atmosphere becoming harmonious in an instant.

When he finished reading today’s assigned content, Ling Yi took out his diary to record what happened.

“Today I went to ask Tang Ning about some maths questions. Tang Ning is very amazing, Lucia is very amazing, and Vivian is very cute.”

“But I was thinking about what Tang Ning said. If there came a day where Lucia had to finish the exploration mission all by herself, would she feel very lonely?”

***

Walking out of Madam Chen’s office, Lin Si twisted his brows, slightly irritated.

When he was about to arrive at Area 6, his bracelet rang again. This time it was Seth, who wanted to apply for a high-grade hazardous reagent.

His team was in progress of creating a strong corrosion liquid. If they succeeded, they could break down and extract metals quickly, increasing the efficiency of machine production.

By the time Lin Si returned to his own office, Seth was already waiting there, an application form in his hand.

Lin Si casually asked about how the programme was progressing, signing his name on the application form, then he sent it to Area 2 for archival and brought Seth to a storage room.

This storage room was located at the very bottom floor of Area 6, guarded with the strictest security and protective measures. Inside it contained all kinds of dangerous reagents and samples.

When the door opened, the dry, low-temperature gas rushed at his face. As there were some special medication stored that could not be shined with intense light, the storage room was very dark. Inside were arranged with metal racks that reached the ceiling, and in each compartment various kinds of reagents and medication were stored. Most of them had a skull stuck on its label.

The walls were also embedded with compartments, which stored things of even higher danger level. They were tightly secured by the rack to prevent falling.

Seth held his cool torchlight as he walked in between the shelves, following the index to find the reagent he needed.

The light rays from the torch shone back and forth between the test tube racks, projecting the continuous, vertical beams of shadows on the ground that lined up one by one.

Lin Si did not make any noises. As if he was the only one in this room, Seth felt the atmosphere was a little spooky, so he could not help but quicken his steps.

He arrived at the area where the reagent was located and was about to look closely, but suddenly heard Lin Si say, “Stop.”

Seth was about to react when he heard Lin Si’s footsteps—he had walked to his side.

It was fast, unlike Lin Si’s usual walking pace.

The torch in Seth’s hands was taken by Lin Si, then shone towards the white ceiling.

At the intersection point of the ceiling and the wall, there was a row of over ten ultrasonic oscillator tubes.

Cleaning, bacterial disinfection, monitoring…many things were done through this row of ultrasonic oscillators.

In the place Lin Si shone, there were two small but long black tubes, but their directions were altered.

They were originally meant to neatly parallel each other, but at this moment, one was shifted diagonally to the left, and the other was shifted diagonally to the right, forming an open “V” shape. This scene in front of them appeared unexpected and strange.

…In that case, the two ultrasonic waves emitted by them would meet at a certain point.

Seth was in thought, then he heard Lin Si’s cold voice say quickly, “Lucia, record.”

The omnipresent Lucia received the command, and a mechanical female voice said flatly, “Photo recorded.”

“Cut the power source.”

“Power source cut.”

The room was instantly submerged in darkness, the only remaining light from the handheld torch.

The cold white torchlight moved away from the ultrasonic oscillators, and shone towards the opposite direction it faced.

It was a specially sealed glass case on the wall, inside was placed a test tube containing something with a strange, pale flesh colour, like a gelatinous colloid.

The label read “Berlin-III”.

—It was the Berlin virus sample!

If…the ultrasonic wave oscillators were invigorated at a particular frequency, producing resonance vibration, breaking the glass, then—

Seth widened his eyes. The hairs all over his body stood on its ends.

Lin Si stepped forward on quick feet, unlocked the box with his fingerprints, opened the compartment, removed the test tube from the rack, placed it inside Seth’s low-temperature box that was originally used for the reagent, then shut it tightly.

He finished, swiftly drawing out the screen from his communication bracelet, and made a call.

“Marshal, this is Area 6. There is trouble.”

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