校對：茗榴，shy

White was the first to wake up. He sat up in a daze, patting himself from head to toe, making sure that he hadn't lost any body parts or sprayed his brains everywhere. Then he crashed back onto the ground, letting out a loud sigh of relief, flipping over with his belly facing up.

It felt like his measly life had just returned.

White's family was slightly well off.He had traveled with a Seventh Galaxy tour group once and acquired an experience of half a month travelling on a stars.h.i.+p.He thought that he could roam wherever he wanted in s.p.a.ce — but more than eighty percent of a pa.s.senger stars.h.i.+p's weight was of service devices. In top-grade stars.h.i.+ps, people can barely feel the difference between being on a stars.h.i.+p and on the ground.

Military stars.h.i.+ps were a completely different story though.

White laid there, philosophizing about life and death. Before he could come to his ultimate conclusion, something beside him moved — Mint and Jingshu Huang had woke up one by one.

Jingshu Huang retched on the ground for five minutes. Pointing at Mint, she snarled, "Can't you control your hands, b.i.t.c.h?"

Mint knew it was her fault, so she bit back a retort. She pushed herself up painfully, her legs shaky, unable to walk in a straight line. "Where are we?"

"Who are you asking?" Jingshu Huang snapped.

"There's a trip recorder." White was afraid to touch anything on the mech now. He stood in a stiff position, with his hands pressing against both sides of his legs. Standing up on his tiptoes, he looked up at the dashboard. "I……wait, can anyone read interstellar coordinates?"

The two girls stared at each other in dismay.

White grinned mindlessly. "So we decided to fly the mech out — without being able to read interstellar coordinates?"

"Two lights on the cabin door turned green," Mint ignored him, and tottered towards the door, saying, "Let me see…pressure levels…no, that's the air pressure level outside, so the other one should be air quality. Pres Lu has said that before — only high-grade mechs have their own AI core…a simple one like this should only have basic signal lights……um, except for hats, green's always a good thing, right?"

"Could we still be on Beijing-ß? Flying a full circle and falling back into the atmosphere?" White asked.

"I don't know. We should probably get out first—we'll f.u.c.king die in here if we go through another trip." Jingshu Huang stood up. She suddenly remembered something, asking with uncertainty, "Wait, did we forget someone?"

After a moment, they found young Mr. Rickhead in a corner. White foam was coming out of his mouth, making him look extra pathetic. Jingshu Huang kicked his s.h.i.+n. "Is this s.h.i.+thead still alive?"

There actually was medical equipment on the mech, but the three of them held a short meeting, and agreed on the fact that Rickhead's life wasn't that worthless and shouldn't be performed with this experiment. They left the mech to search for help, with White responsible for carrying Rickhead.

Rickhead was tall and broad. If they removed all the flesh from him and make a bag out of his skin, White could definitely be stuffed in itg. Carried on White's back motionless, Rickhead weighed down Stars Academy's top tech geek, making him pant like a donkey. Sweating and breathing heavily, White listened to his two cla.s.smates quarrelling, profanities spitting out of their mouths. He blushed scarlet all the way to his ears.

Finally, the two girls settled b.u.mpily on a plan -- to directly force the cabin door open.

"He's pa.s.sed out, so the mental network's connection with the pilot should be broken. We're traveling along the autopilot route, and as we're at the destination, we should be able to get off anytime." Mint explained, tentatively pulling at the cabin door, "It's just that I don't know how to get this hatch……"

Before she could say "open", the mech sighed a chilling rumble.

Their faces paled together, thinking that the mech was going to go airborne again. Just as White was going to faint by instinct, a breeze blew in, carrying a weird scent — the cabin door had slid open.

After G.o.d knows how long, Mint turned around stiffly. "…What is this place?"

Spread out before them were rows of mechs, gleaming icily, parked side by side in a large garage. Sinister weapons were armed on the mechs. A pitch-black muzzle pointed at them, its b.l.o.o.d.y intentions clear.

Pieces of the wind's whistling sounds came from the garage's other side, brus.h.i.+ng tiny whispers. The garage's other side was so deep that the students could not see its end at the first glance.

Chills went down White's spine.

This was definitely not Beijing-ß.

Suddenly, Jingshu Huang pulled Mint over by her arm, stuffing her behind the door and m.u.f.fling her mouth.

The next second, footsteps sounded, coming closer and closer. Afraid to let out even a single sound, the three youngsters huddled together. They peeked out the cabin door's c.h.i.n.ks and saw a rail car slowly travel past where they were. Two men with poisonous bugs tattooed on their faces walked by the cart, holding guns. On the cart was a string of children, unclear if alive or not.

"Jeez, those pirates are getting more and more greedy. Are they planning to rebel, with every household name detained here?," one of the men said.

"Haven't you heard about the capital planet? They've already had their meat, and if we don't act fast, we won't even get the soup."

"To be honest, we've been part of the Union for more than a century, but have they cared about us? This G.o.dd.a.m.n place is still s.h.i.+tty as before, isn't it? Who gives a f.u.c.k about them rebelling," the other man replied.

After a moment of silence, the first man spoke, "Even if they've never cared about us, at least they still treated us like human beings…"

"Shh, keep your mouth shut."

The two of them fell silent. Then their stifled footsteps and the trail cart's sounds traveled away from the juveniles.

After quite a while, Jingshu Huang released her hand from Mint's mouth. "I've seen them before," she breathed.

White and Mint stared at her. Jingshu Huang swiftly explained what she encountered on the day she registered at Starry Sea Academy.

"You…you're…an empty.....?" White stammered, shocked.

"Empty brain, yeah, you got a problem with that? Did I take up your house's RAM?" Jingshu Huang shot back, giving him the death glare.

White shuddered and shut his mouth tight.

Mint pondered about Jingshu's words for a while, then she spoke, "I think I get it. The mech probably belonged to the guy you met, who was definitely gotten rid of by B4. For some reason B4 decided to give the mech to the school. And when I accidentally turned automatic return on, the mech took us back to its base."

White, carrying a heavy load named Rickhead, felt like his legs were close to collapsing. "Then let's call the police!"

"Get the f.u.c.k out!" Jingshu Huang and Mint screeched at him simultaneously.

White: "……"

Glancing at Rickhead, who was still out cold, Mint frankly said, "It's impossible for us to fly this thing back, so what do we do now?"

The four of them were like travelers lost in the desert -- every route they took would inevitably turn out as a dead end. The only thing left for them would be choosing which way to die: Stay where they were and starve to death, attempt to fly the mech and get into a gory accident...

Or, if they were unlucky, be found and silenced forever.

"Wait, did you guys hear what the two said?' Jingshu Huang spoke, lost in thought.

"Something about rebelling against the Union?" asked White.

"Yeah. One of them said that every household name is being held here…what did that mean? Does B4 count as a 'household name'?"

"Even if B4 isn't here, there must be someone else. I bet they aren't here voluntarily, or the guy wouldn't have used the word 'detained'." Mint said.  "They should be in the same situation as us. We might not be able to leave, but anything's better than staying here. "

In the three people awake, two of them agreed on it. No matter what White's opinion was, he had to agree, too — after all, the majority rules. He shut up smartly, hauling Rickhead onto his back painfully.

With the place full of petrifying mechs, they were afraid to trigger something dangerous and dared not to walk around. So they followed the rail cart's tracks and searched forward, starved and freezing.

Meanwhile, on Beijing-ß, Bixing Lu went to find Jingheng Lin the moment he was let out. To his surprise, Lin was gone.

"He's left Beijing-ß," said Penny.

Lin hadn't even gone out of the atmosphere in five years, being the "homebody" he was. But he somehow chose to go on a faraway trip today.

This was definitely more than simply bad luck, Bixing Lu thought.

His eyelids twitched.

"Penny," Lu asked, "can you lend me a mech?"

Penny feigned sincerity, putting on an earnest mask. "What are you saying, Mr. Lu? Mechs are illegal weaponry."

Lu: "......"

Twenty minutes later, members of the Blackhole were shocked to find B4, who was supposed to have left Beijing-ß, back. Penny rubbed her eyes to make sure that she was right, and it wasn't her vision that was blurry.

B4's had a serene expression on, "Prepare everything. I'm leaving for a short trip." He spoke in his usual brief way.

Penny was weirded out by his words, but upon seeing his expression, she was afraid to ask. She hurriedly followed him, asking, "Where are you going? Do you need a stars.h.i.+p or a mech, or something like that...What are you heading for, B4?"

"A mech." B4 halted to speak, then turned round the corner. He pushed the door open and walked into the restroom.

B4 was usually this c.o.c.ky indeed. So even though she was full of questions, Penny didn't ask him about it. She turned around to prepare.

In the restroom, Bixing Lu, who had disguised himself as B4 with help from the chip, propped himself up on the sink, releasing a deep breath. Raising his head, he stared at the mesmerizing deep grey eyes in the mirror for a moment. Then he lifted his chin and turned his face from left to right, smiling at himself.

Lin's smiles were rare. So Bixing Lu decided to help himself to it, looking at his smile from every angle he could think of. Unsatisfied, he blew a kiss to the mirror with two outstretched fingers.

He scared himself.

"I'm such a creep." Bixing Lu thought. "He'll murder me if he sees this."

Deciding to stop before he got too far into it, he stopped meddling with Lin's face. He immediately departed after he got a mech using his tech and acting skills — the mech that those troublesome "toddlers" flew away had the school's education monitor on it, and wasn't too hard to track down.

It's just that…

Bixing Lu looked at the destination marked on the tracker. He frowned, commanding in a deep voice: "Check the defense system and arms on board."

At the same time, the guests on the Toxic Nest's s.p.a.ce station were brought to the interstellar pirates' "VIP area". There were surprisingly no unethical human experiments and cold researchers on display: all the staff that came in and out were service robots. There was a small bar that served as public s.p.a.ce, and around them was a circle of luxury suites — a quite high-grade treatment.

But no one was in the mood to enjoy the expensive wine and steaks. The counter of the bar was completely empty. veryone were in their rooms, concerned about the latest updates on the Seven Galaxies' situation.

Pirates had their own individual news resources. In the Eighth Galaxy, this was much faster than the official ones.

The First Galaxy had received most of the damage in this ma.s.sive invasion by extraterritorial pirates. They had invaded straight through the Silver Fortress. Rumor said that most of the top politicians had already fled out of Wotto.

Walking back and forth in his room, Jingheng Lin curled his thumb into his palm, four fingers tapping on it. He didn't show anxiety on his face, but he had already circled the room dozens of times—like a spinning grindstone.

Finally, Zhanlu, who had been acting like he was meditating, opened his eyes. "Sir, I have received concrete news from the capital planet."

Lin looked up sharply.

"The Secretary-General was a.s.sa.s.sinated on the way back home with his wife after the party."

Lin's breathing stopped for a moment.

Fortunately, Zhanlu added, "Mrs. Golden was saved by bodyguards, and is unhurt. Three hours later, the First Galaxy announced a state of emergency, and the important people in the capital planet began to evacuate to the Angel City. She was one of the first to be sent away."

After hearing this, Lin went silent for a while. Then he leaned on the TV cabinet beside him, and propped himself up with one leg. He tapped the point of his foot, and snickered, "Oh, that's rare, the Golden family was so nice to her? What, the Eden Management Committee's planning to transform into a widow's rights a.s.sociation?"

Wotto was where the Seven Galaxies' representatives played their political roulette. But above the Seven Galaxies' administrative system, there was the Legislative Committee and Management Committee. The two of them restrained each other — it was either of them at the peak of power. These days, as Eden became more and more powerful, the Management Committee had overpowered the Legislative Committee and became the civilization's most powerful organization at the moment.

The Secretary-General himself was golden on the outside and rotten on the inside. As for why he could have a job of such extreme importance in the Committee, it was because his grandfather was one of the Management Committee's seven permanent directors.

"This is the information I have right now," said Zhanlu, "After the a.s.sa.s.sination, Ms. Lin was asked to turn on Eden to authorize the medical system — the first time she had turned on Eden after she blocked it due to your departure. Then it was found that she hadn't been injured, and was instead pregnant. Director Golden took her away himself."

Jingheng Lin's tapping foot froze. That instant, his facial muscles tightened, perhaps of surprise, or maybe of anger.  But before any emotions could show, they all slipped away without a trace. He lowered his eyes, mumbled an uncaring "oh", and went quiet.

Then a knock sounded.

Before Zhanlu could fully open the door, Monoeye Hawk had shoved the door aside and stormed in.

Zhanlu greeted him politely. "Good evening, Mr. Lu."

"Good your a.s.s!" Mr. Lu with heterochromia answered him rudely. Then he seemed to realize something from Zhanlu's abnormally pale facial features. "Wait, it can't be…you…you're Zhanlu?"

"Yes, Mr. Lu." The AI quickly a.n.a.lyzed his expression, then answered seriously, "Your microexpressions show that you resent me a lot, and you think that I've 'considered a saboteur my father'(1). You've probably misunderstood — my current ident.i.ty does not have a father."

Monoeye Hawk: "……"

Monoeye Hawk didn't have a coat on, showing a body that belonged to an arms dealer — he had extendable protection armor on his shoulders, guns on both sides of his waist, and a laser blade sheathed in his boots. With a particle whip launcher bound on his wrist, he was fully armed, qualified to be a human bomb. He ignored Zhanlu, slamming the door shut. "Why are you not dead yet, son of a b.i.t.c.h named Lin?!"

"Thanks to you, my friend."

"Stop the bulls.h.i.+t." Monoeye Hawk glared at him, then lowered his voice, "Why are you here in the Eighth Galaxy?"

"To hide," Jingheng Lin spread his hands, "There's too much people who want to kill me."

"Ha," Monoeye Hawk revealed his sharp teeth, "Serves you right, huh?"

Jingheng Lin ignored his provocation. "Sit. What, am I making you nervous?"

It was quite a shocker that Jingheng Lin was alive, but it was not really that shocking, after all, disasters have lasted for thousands of years since the ancient times. Monoeye Hawk only had to absorb the news and keep an eye out for a while.

But then he heard someone call Jingheng Lin "B4", and that made him realize that Jingheng Lin was the mysterious "B4" on Beijing-ß.

Finally hearing that Jingheng Lin was dead five years ago, Monoeye Hawk turned a blind eye to Bixing Lu's adventures, letting him "run away". As he only had one son, he still tinkered with things a little bit, not so extremely as to monitor what his son was doing all the time: he just made sure that he always knew where Lu was, and what Lu's state of health was.

Monoeye had always known his precious son was on Beijing-ß.

"I already told you fifteen years ago," Monoeye Hawk hissed, "She's dead, dead! f.u.c.k, she was already gone when I pulled her out of the cabin, and so was the child! I already gave you the chip then, so why are you still badgering me?"

Jingheng Lin looked at him. "I'm not here for a fight."

"Better not!" Monoeye Hawk spat out.

"Xin Lu was my teacher," Jingheng Lin said calmly, "I'm only looking for the child because I want to take care of him."

Monoeye Hawk laughed scathingly. "You, taking care of him? Then I'll have to say this: I'm glad he died before he could be born."

Jingheng Lin didn't say anything, turning round to pour a gla.s.s of liquor for him. Clear liquid in a clear gla.s.s slid across the counter and stopped in front of Monoeye Hawk. Lin was deft as a professional, not spilling even one drop.

"You're not without reason," Jingheng Lin said, "The capital planet definitely isn't safe. It had been blown into tatters."

Just as he finished his sentence, a bold line of words flashed on the screen on the corner, so flamboyant as though it was afraid that no one would see it: "Our comrades have successfully breached the Union Legislative a.s.sembly Central Hall!"

A short video came soon after.

Thick smoke came out of Wotto's forest park. Half of the a.s.sembly Hall, which had just held a party a day ago, was completely charred. The memorial garden was absolutely devastated, its stone statues of the lights of civilization destroyed by rumbling mech tanks, ground to dust. A few sloppily dressed pirates jumped out of the tanks, p.i.s.sing at the garden's remains and laughing out loud.

"…f.u.c.k." Monoeye Hawk gave a short yet concise remark. Even though he loathed Jingheng Lin and the Union, he did not want to let these psychotic barbarians rule the Eight Galaxies either. "Is your Silver Fortress made of G.o.dd.a.m.n paper?"

"There are higher ups of the capital planet that have rebelled," Jingheng Lin glanced out the window, "The Seven Galaxies don't have military autonomy. They're not able to react in time when the First Galaxy was attacked, not to mention the others.  Being silent for more than a century, such sharp and direct action should be pre-planned a long time ago — Zhanlu, help me scan the whole s.p.a.ce station and check what's going on in here."

"What the f.u.c.k are you going to do?" Monoeye Hawk demanded.

"To get a basic understanding first," Jingheng Lin said darkly. "This 'd.a.m.ned Creation' project should not be the only card on their hands."

TBC