After a battle, there would always be a period of incredibly pleasant leisure. Magelyn rarely had the chance to sleep through an entire stretch without interruption, so she finally enjoyed a full night’s sleep before wandering into the kitchen, intending to find something to eat besides nutritional supplements and satisfy her craving.
The rooms of the several ship captains were not far apart, so she had barely taken a few steps before she ran into Wayne. Relying on the tacit understanding they had developed over many years, they determined through a single exchange of glances where the other person was headed, then walked toward the kitchen together.
There were hardly any people moving through the corridors. Some were on duty or had been dispatched elsewhere, while the rest were still asleep.
Wayne asked Magelyn, “When are you setting off?”
With the Rebel Army’s Eleventh Legion annihilated, it was only natural that the front line had once again been pushed forward by a considerable distance. Lu Fenghan had already made the arrangements. Each of the captains had been assigned a certain star region and would be responsible for leading their respective teams on patrol.
The first task was to completely eliminate the scattered remnants of the enemy forces. The second was to verify the star maps, for example, checking whether particle storms had appeared in places where they had not existed before, or whether there were signs of activity around certain stars.
During the patrols, they could also take the opportunity to make adjustments to the defensive deployments on site. None of these tasks were particularly troublesome but there were certainly quite a few of them.
“Let me find something to eat before I go. Drinking nutritional supplements every day has practically made my mouth go numb from the blandness.” There was a trace of restlessness between Magelyn’s brows. “I was even thinking about it last night. Maybe I should ask the commander for permission and see whether, after I finish my patrol, I can sneak over to the Southern Cross District, land somewhere and breathe some genuinely natural air.”
Wayne understood immediately upon hearing this. “You want to find a man to sleep with, don’t you?”
Magelyn rubbed her nose, then answered with complete justification, “Going into battle consumes too much of a person. Every nerve in my brain is stretched so tight it feels like it’s about to snap. I need to relieve myself! I need to rest! I need to release some stress!”
Wayne did not quite understand. “How about holing up in the gravity training room for two days?”
Magelyn curled her lips disdainfully. She had her own standards when it came to aesthetics. “Too much muscle is ugly. It affects the visual aesthetics in bed. I’m just right as I am now.”
The two were still talking when the kitchen doors slid open to both sides. The moment Magelyn saw what was inside, she stumbled and instinctively rubbed her eyes.
“Did I leave my eyeballs behind when I went out?”
Wayne was equally shocked. “Why is the commander here? Did we take a wrong turn and somehow end up in the command room?”
Everyone aboard the command ship knew that Lu Fenghan had never had particularly high standards when it came to his daily life. He alternated between nutritional supplements and nutritional paste and could happily eat them from January first all the way to December thirtieth. During that entire period, he would not even be bothered to take a can of mashed potatoes to the kitchen and heat it up.
Magelyn muttered four words under her breath.
“…This is truly a ghost.”
At that moment, Pojun’s voice suddenly sounded.
“May I ask where you saw a ghost?”
Lu Fenghan reassured Pojun, “They’re joking. There’s no ghost.” After saying that, he turned his head toward the two people standing at the doorway and pointed upward with one finger. “He’s afraid.”
Magelyn was speechless for a full five seconds.
The commander in chief appearing in the kitchen and an artificial intelligence that was… afraid of ghosts?
Wayne, on the other hand, did not think there was anything strange about it at all. “Pojun is only half a year old. It’s perfectly normal for him to be afraid of ghosts!”
He walked over several more steps, then asked curiously, “Commander, what are you doing in the kitchen?”
Then he lowered his head and took a look.
Lu Fenghan was holding a sharp little knife with a solemn expression, his manner cautious and focused as he carefully carved a piece of apple into the shape of a rabbit.
???
He had seen Lu Fenghan wield a gun. He had seen Lu Fenghan carry artillery but he had never, ever seen Lu Fenghan looking this domestic, this virtuous, this much like someone who belonged in a kitchen!
Lu Fenghan did not think there was anything unusual about what he was doing and simply explained, “Qi Yan is feeling a little unwell, so I’m preparing a plate of fruit for him.”
“Oh, oh, I see…” Wayne suddenly remembered the scene of someone sitting on Lu Fenghan’s thigh. He was practically scratching his heart out with curiosity, desperately wanting to ask something yet for the longest time, he could not bring himself to open his mouth.
After cutting V shaped notches into the apple skin and finishing the final two apple rabbits, Lu Fenghan asked, “Has the distribution of the supplies we seized been completed?”
Magelyn was noisily tearing open a chocolate wrapper. Upon hearing his question, she answered, “Dividing the spoils absolutely has to rank among the top three things that must be done after a battle! We finished dividing them ages ago. The few of us took sixty percent and everything else was transferred into the logistics reserves. The logistics department was probably working overtime last night to count everything. The report should be delivered to you very soon, Commander.”
The Space Force had never been quite as romantic as people imagined it to be. After firing off cannons with impressive flair on the battlefield, they had to obediently write reports once they came off the battlefield, not to mention dealing with rotation frequencies, rest day shifts, inventory counts and the distribution of supplies.
Especially after Leto fell and the Alliance’s military and political center had collectively relocated to Odin, life was difficult for everyone, making the storage and management of supplies particularly important.
That was also why their eyes lit up with greed whenever they saw an enemy supply ship.
After years of working together, they had developed an understanding that required very few words. Lu Fenghan asked only that one question before leaving the matter alone. Carrying the fruit plate, he walked out of the kitchen.
Pojun opened the bedroom door.
The moment Lu Fenghan stepped inside, he met Qi Yan’s gaze.
For some inexplicable reason, that gaze seemed a little aggrieved, as though Qi Yan were pitifully asking, “Where did you go?”
Lu Fenghan instinctively explained, “I went to the kitchen for a while.”
As he spoke, he placed the fruit plate on the small table beside Qi Yan’s bed.
That morning, Qi Yan had taken his medication according to the second dosage reduction. Before long, the medicine had left him limp and lacking in strength and Lu Fenghan had carried him into bed and tucked him beneath the covers.
Now, his gaze fell upon the fruit plate and his eyes widened slightly.
“Are… those little rabbits?”
“Mm. Don’t you get tired of eating nutritional supplements every day? Try something with a different flavor.” Lu Fenghan brought an apple piece carved into the shape of a rabbit to Qi Yan’s lips and Qi Yan obediently opened his mouth.
After seeing him swallow it, Lu Fenghan’s fingers gently brushed through the loose strands of hair across his forehead.
Qi Yan shivered faintly.
Lu Fenghan raised an eyebrow. “Did it hurt?”
Avoiding Lu Fenghan’s gaze, Qi Yan shook his head. “It doesn’t hurt. It tickles.” His eyes passed over Lu Fenghan’s fingertips. “You have calluses on your fingertips.”
Knowing that Qi Yan was sensitive, Lu Fenghan did not tease him any further. After waiting for him to swallow the second piece, he spoke in a low voice.
“Qi Yan, I’m real. Can you be certain of that?”
Qi Yan raised his eyes, his gaze calm and still.
Or rather, Qi Yan’s eyes had always been like this. Lu Fenghan did not know whether all people who devoted their entire lives to scientific research and pursued the truth were like this but somewhere deep within Qi Yan’s eyes, there was always a rare kind of innocence and single mindedness.
He never seemed to care too much about trivial matters or the ways of the world. His eyes were always fixed upon some distant direction.
“I’m certain.”
The moment Qi Yan answered, he understood Lu Fenghan’s intention.
Turning the apple pieces into rabbits was something the Lu Fenghan of the past had never done. Naturally, it was also a fragment that did not exist anywhere in his memories.
It was not fabricated.
It was real.
The man standing before his eyes truly existed.
At that instant, a faint crack seemed to split open deep within Qi Yan’s heart and some indescribable sorrow slowly, thread by thread, seeped out through it.
Yet because of the presence of the person beside him, that sorrow was completely scattered by the long, sweeping wind of the wilderness.
He suddenly remembered something. “Ye Pei invited me to go eat spaghetti with mushroom sauce together.”
Understanding that Qi Yan was trying to verify his memories, Lu Fenghan pinched his nose. “There’s no mushroom sauce on the command ship. Tulan Academy is where they have it.”
“I remembered it wrong.”
Lu Fenghan fed Qi Yan another piece of apple, then spoke somewhat abruptly. “I’m very glad.”
Qi Yan’s words were slightly muffled as he chewed. “Glad about what?”
Lu Fenghan’s voice was very soft. “I’m glad that you’re still willing to trust me.”
Whether it was the fact that Qi Yan did not resist his approach, the subtle dependence he showed in the smallest details, or the fact that he allowed Lu Fenghan to kiss him, even now, when he was asking Lu Fenghan to verify whether his memories were real or false,
Lu Fenghan was immensely grateful for all of it.
Qi Yan had not rejected him.
He had not distanced himself from him.
He was still willing to believe in him.
There had been a time when Lu Fenghan was afraid. He was afraid that a towering wall might rise between the two of them and he had no idea how he would ever cross it.
But it had not happened.
Even though he had once brought Qi Yan so much pain.
Even though that pain had been so intense.
Qi Yan had not become afraid.
Qi Yan swallowed the piece of apple and answered with great rationality, “Because no one knows when an accident will happen. You saved me.”
“You came back.”
After saying those four words, Qi Yan instinctively stopped. After a moment of hesitation, he said, “I think I was a little… happy just now?”
He seemed somewhat bewildered himself. “I can’t be certain whether that feeling was happiness.”
Lu Fenghan’s fingers brushed across the corner of his lips. “It doesn’t really matter whether you’re certain or not.” He naturally changed the subject. “What were you doing just now?”
“The frequency that interferes with the images transmitted back by ‘Thousand Mile Eye,’ the one I mentioned to you yesterday. I came up with a small idea and was trying it out but I don’t know how the Expeditionary Force’s frequency bands are decomposed, so I wanted to go ask Lorenz.”
Lu Fenghan remembered the nights Qi Yan had spent staying awake back in Leto and understood what he meant. “Now?”
Qi Yan remembered the thick stack of repair applications Magelyn and the others had submitted. “Would going now interfere with his work?”
“I’m guessing Lorenz’s face is going to be terrible for the entire next week. Whether we go now or seven days from now, there won’t be any difference. If we wait seven days and then go looking for him, there’s a good chance the probability of Lorenz’s emotions exploding will be even higher.” Once Qi Yan got out of bed, Lu Fenghan draped a coat over him. “Come on. I’ll go with you.”
Within the technical department’s section of the ship, the rich aroma of coffee permeated the air.
Ye Pei and Mondrian had been taken along by their senior to repair the Jiangling’s propulsion system. The amount of data inside it was like a vast ocean and the two of them had practically been floating in that sea all night. Now, each of them was clutching a cup of espresso to keep themselves alive.
Ye Pei thumped her head and spoke in a completely lifeless voice. “I’m already stupid. Which devil designed the propulsion system in the first place? Is his brain constructed differently from ours? But I understand now why the department head hates Captain Magelyn and Captain Duchamp so much! The two of them are basically walking sources of unlimited additional workload!”
Mondrian took a sip of coffee. The bitter, stimulating taste struck his taste buds and only then did his mind become a little clearer. “I heard one of the seniors say that the basic prototype of the propulsion system was designed by people from the White Tower a hundred years ago. It’s been upgraded every single year since then, so its internal structure has become increasingly complicated.”
“The White Tower… ‘For the continuation of humanity.’” After reciting the White Tower’s motto, a look of longing appeared on Ye Pei’s face.
That name was like a star in the distant heavens to anyone working in scientific research.
But in the next second, Ye Pei wilted again. “I only managed to remember two thirds of what the senior explained just now. Let’s find some time to compare notes and fill in what’s missing. I feel like what we covered today alone was more than Professor Fu teaches in an entire month!”
Mondrian agreed, then suddenly said, “Do you think it’s similar?”
Ye Pei blinked, as though they were exchanging a secret code. “You think so too?”
The two looked at each other, both knowing that the other understood exactly what they were talking about.
Mondrian added, “I heard Lorenz mention that the commander in chief’s surname is Lu.”
Ye Pei’s fingers tightened around the handle of her cup. She leaned slightly forward, her speech becoming a little faster. “Do you also think that voice sounds especially similar to Qi Yan’s bodyguard? Especially that sentence yesterday, ‘All members of the Expeditionary Force, assemble.’ The moment I heard it, I remembered him!”
After saying that, Ye Pei sank back into her chair and immediately overturned her own speculation. “But how could that possibly be? The commander is the commander in chief of the Expeditionary Force and he’s also the youngest brigadier general in the Alliance. If it weren’t for his age, I estimate he would have already been promoted to major general through military merit. There’s no way he could have been working as someone’s bodyguard in Leto.”
Mondrian held his nearly empty coffee cup in both hands and felt that Ye Pei’s reasoning made perfect sense.
“Right? There are so many people in the Alliance. It’s perfectly normal for two people to have similar voices and the surname ‘Lu’ isn’t exactly rare. Look, General Lu Jun has the surname Lu too.” Ye Pei remembered what had happened on Founding Day. “But if we ever get the chance to see him again, we should thank him in person.”
At that moment, a sound came from the direction of the main entrance.
Ye Pei and Mondrian looked over without thinking much of it, only to see Qi Yan walking in.
She was just about to stand when she immediately noticed that someone else was following behind Qi Yan.
He was tall, long legged, with sharply defined features and an intimidating presence, standing half a step behind Qi Yan at his side.
Ye Pei was extremely familiar with this scene. Back at Tulan Academy, she had practically seen it every single day.
Qi Yan and his bodyguard always came and went together.
But this was the command ship of the Expeditionary Force.
Then she saw the people in the technical department gradually rise to their feet and perform a perfectly standard military salute.
Ye Pei turned toward Mondrian, her gaze drifting uncertainly as she murmured, “Did I stay up too many nights and start hallucinating?”
Very soon, Lorenz walked out, as though he always had an espresso in his hand. His tone was not particularly pleasant. “Did something happen to the Dingyuan?”
“No. I wanted to ask you about frequency band decomposition.” Lu Fenghan took in the dark shadows beneath Lorenz’s eyes and thought that Magelyn and Duchamp’s decision to avoid the technical department really had been the correct one.
Lorenz’s gaze accurately shifted onto Qi Yan and there was a trace of scrutiny in his eyes. However, he could see the instinctive protectiveness Lu Fenghan displayed toward this person. After no more than three seconds, he withdrew his gaze.
“Come to my studio and talk.”
Lorenz’s workshop was a mess, with things scattered haphazardly everywhere. Several handwritten boards stood in the corners, covered from top to bottom with all kinds of symbols and formulas.
Qi Yan stopped in front of them. “Are you researching the Laplace formula transformation?”
Lorenz followed his gaze toward the handwritten boards. They contained the rough drafts he had scribbled down in a mess over the past few days, completely lacking any sense of order. He had not expected Qi Yan to actually be able to make sense of them at a glance.
“That’s right.”
Qi Yan walked over to the handwritten board and picked up the metal stylus. “Do you mind if I write on it?”
Lorenz was not particularly particular about such things. “Go ahead.”
Only then did Qi Yan circle several lines of the analytical process on the board. He moved to an empty space and began writing, speaking as he did so. “Everything before this point is correct. Here, you need to apply the first breakpoint to obtain a hyperbolic quantity.”
His writing was quick. Inside the workshop, apart from the white noise of the starship operating in the background, the only sound was the soft metallic tapping of the stylus against the handwritten board.
“…Then use the Strahl discrimination method to extract the correct quantity.”
Lorenz’s gaze remained fixed on the board, his eyes burning with intensity. “How did you think of using the first breakpoint?”
Qi Yan did not know how to answer that question. He put the metal stylus back where it had been before finally giving an answer that could hardly be considered an answer. “The first breakpoint is the only one that can be used here. Secondary separation would be incorrect.”
Lorenz went over what Qi Yan had written several times.
At first, he had assumed that Qi Yan had come aboard the command ship simply because he had saved Lu Fenghan’s life on Leto but now, it was obvious that there was much more to him than that.
Someone who could, in an extremely short period of time, effortlessly identify where he had gone wrong in his Laplace formula transformation and solve a problem that had been troubling him for nearly half a month,
But Lorenz did not press him for an explanation. He simply thanked him sincerely.
Qi Yan shook his head. “You should be the one telling me not to be too presumptuous.”
Throughout the entire exchange, Lu Fenghan had been leaning his lower back against the edge of the desk, standing in a relaxed posture as he quietly waited beside them.
It was not until he heard Lorenz, the man who was often irritable from lack of sleep and whose eyes always carried a hint of cold mockery, ask Qi Yan, “May I ask if you have some time today? There are a few questions I would like to ask you.”
A faint sense of crisis immediately tightened Lu Fenghan’s gaze.
He straightened and looked toward Qi Yan, his voice as gentle as ever. “Once you’ve finished asking about the frequency decomposition, shall we go back?”
Qi Yan looked at Lorenz, who was waiting for his answer, then turned toward Lu Fenghan. “Okay.”
✦ ✧ ✦
Vynellia
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
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☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
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← PreviousNext →
ChaptersChapter 50 · I am Pojun.Chapter 51 · Unable to deceive oneselfChapter 52 · Resurrected from the deadChapter 53 · Hello, General!Chapter 54 · My hand is injured.Chapter 55 · Come to my place.Chapter 56 · First VictoryChapter 57 · Self-introductionChapter 58 · Never changedChapter 59 · One reasonChapter 60 · Gentle and restrainedChapter 61 · Only you are allowed.Chapter 62 · To the Souls of the FallenChapter 63 · His reliefChapter 64 · His ambitionChapter 65 · Date TimeChapter 66 Part 1 · Abducting PlanetsChapter 66 Part 2 · Abducting PlanetsChapter 67 · Did not leaveChapter 68 · Perceiving EmotionsChapter 69 · My own effortsChapter 70 · Bright FlameChapter 71 · Dress codeChapter 72 · Take me with you!Chapter 73 · MirageChapter 74 · I’m used to it.