Bixing Lu stood under the calendar, staring blankly. Before he had brought supplies for Sat.u.r.day, no mark was made on the calendar, so it must be a temporary addition.

He turned back for a glimpse: the mech station stood directly opposite him, there were two doors and a path between him and the administration building. The light in Jingheng Lin's room was on.

Since his lie was unintentionally exposed by Zhanlu, it had been a long time since Bixing Lu spoke to Jingheng Lin alone.

In the beginning, he would think of Lin's eyes mixed with astonishment and other emotions as soon as he closed eyes. It was indeed one of the most embarra.s.sing things he had ever experienced, thus giving rise to Bixing Lu's shameful avoidance of meeting Lin in the next following days. Luckily, the young President Lu hardly had no sense of shame when he was going to start conversations with Jingheng Lin over "a combination of theory and practice".

However, he found that Lin had begun to avoid him.

Jingheng Lin might know some special invisibility function: he could come and go like an apparition even if he was driving a colossus such as the Heavy Mech No. 3. Except for routine drills, n.o.body could catch even his shadow with the use of shady technology. It was not until at this point that Bixing Lu realized the reason why Lin had paid no attention to the installation of the anti-tracking system if he thought it really did matter: if even the Silver Ten Squadrons knew how to disappear and avoid tracking, there would be no need for them to adopt lots of countermeasures.

But at that moment, the light in Jingheng Lin's room was on......And judging by the brightness of the light, he could tell that it wasn't coming from the small one for desk working.

It suggested preparing to receive a visitor.

Lin was waiting for him.

But Bixing Lu was caught in a dilemma, pacing back and forth in the path among the mech station and the administration building.

Initially, Bixing Lu's humble goal was to try his best to reduce unnecessary injuries as well as deaths. It would be lucky enough for him to save the base, while the results would be left much to be desired, and all he could do would be to resign to whatever's fated for them. So he had thought of not disrupting Jingheng Lin's plan as much as possible, with the best result provided under his effort to take both local and overall factors alike into his own consideration.

But in the end, he didn't have the same heart as Jingheng Lin, who could remain impersonal, calm and rational in catastrophes.

Three months of being together had offered Bixing Lu a chance to witness that those gra.s.s-like lives struggle over and over again. They tried to rise to feet, like a human, then tumbled down, rolled and crawled on the ground. Together with them, he had changed the base like a junk station into what it was today. He could nearly name everyone......while both Jingheng Lin and Monoeye Hawk knew the 'rules' very well, never bothering to nose into others' names and lives, because they knew it was like a glue that bound people together — be 'bound' too much and it would be hard to give it up.

While growing up, Bixing Lu had suffered hards.h.i.+ps, but he also had been doted on too much. It laid a solid foundation for him at such a young age, so much so that even if he went through horrible catastrophes, he would forget the pain as well as the scar with a belief in mind that things would eventually turn around and get better.

However, he might be wrong.

With less than three hours before the end of the 3-month agreement, the night fell on the base. Foucault and Weasel had learned how to hide under the nose of an anti-tracking system and Sat.u.r.day was going to disband the Self-Defense Force. They did their best but had yet to reap their harvest.

He wondered whether he should beg for more leniency from Jingheng Lin or not.

Three months. It was the maximum concession Lin could afford, which was based on the famous "One Hundred Days Theory" in the history of interstellar wars. It was proposed by General Xin Lu, Bixing Lu had read before — At the outbreak of a full-scale destructive interstellar war, when the communication network is interrupted, all parties that heavily rely on information will take longer to act than usual. Due to the complexity of the s.p.a.ce environment, except for the arrant psycho Prince Cayley, everyone would behave cautiously and carefully after the collapse of the communication network, taking their strongholds as their core to spread their sphere of influence in all directions, and the scale of conflicts will be greatly diminished. Usually, in three or four months, the emerging pattern would form. At that time, the situation will change at a tremendous pace, and one must make an appearance immediately before it's too late.

Bixing Lu didn't want to test whether Jingheng Lin would concede for private feelings, and it made sense for him to not to bother Admiral Lin anymore.

But......what about the people in the base?

Sat.u.r.day, Holiday, Sister Foucault, Weasel, Fatty Sister, Old Movie Grandma.......should they be devoured by the wretched times silently?

"Teacher Lu?" hearing her name called behind him, Bixing Lu took a glance over his shoulder and saw Fatty Sister.

Fatty Sister dressed casually, went out with slippers on, her freshly washed hair wrapped in absorbent towel, carrying two big bags on both of her hands. She popped her head out and checked on him, "I could see somebody going back and forth here from a distance, but I recognized you just now. What are you doing this late?"

Bixing Lu gave a wry smile, "What are you also doing this late?"

"Eh-hem, I did it for those useless old bunch," Fatty Sister said, "Day by day making trouble, not to mention today's New Year, making a fuss to celebrate it, those old bunch insisted for me to send a cake to them at midnight — but what I want to say is, those useless things have all lost their teeth, still celebrating this f.u.c.king year, don't they realize that n.o.body expects them to live longer?"

In a daze, Bixing Lu looked up at the calendar on the mech station in astonishment. As it turns out, he only paid attention to the deadline, but wasn't attentive about the date, it was the last day of the year...

No wonder Sat.u.r.day who was going to disband the Self-Defense Force insisted on returning after tonight.

Complaining with curses and foul words, Fatty Sister took out a food bag with a rustle and slipped a thermal lunch box into Lu's hand. Inside the box was a traditional food called "Lunch-box Cake", originating from the Earth Era and prevailing until the Era of Navigation. The Lunch-box Cake didn't have a definite shape and was purely handmade.

The cakemaker can stack ingredients one by one into the lunch box, while the consumer can dig into it with a spoon, thus creating a kind of simple intimacy.

Fatty Sister wrote "Happy New Year" on the cake with chocolate syrup.

"Have you eaten? You can take this for a midnight snack." Fatty Sister slipped Bixing Lu the lunch box and gave him a slap on the back, "You must eat this midnight snack, you are such a guy as thin as a monkey — when my son was your age, he is much stronger than you, weighing over 115 kilograms."

Bixing Lu gave a hollow laugh, "The goal is too far, I prefer to keep slender. Take care, Fatty Sister."

Fatty Sister waved to Lu and walked towards the residential areas with her b.u.t.t wiggling.