FT DR Chapter 27: Mutual Dependence

Chapter 27: Mutual Dependence

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Karai

“What do we do?”

“As long as we survive, that’s all that matters.” Jin Xuan’s voice was calm and composed. He opened his arms and embraced Wu Chenghe, touching his helmet through the space gloves and whispering softly, “Don’t be afraid, we will both make it through.”

“Jin Xuan…” Wu Chenghe’s eyes welled up, his voice choked, “They’re all dead, the teachers, classmates, Chen Miaomiao… they’re all dead! I-I’m going to kill those bastards! Jin Xuan, we have to survive, we must survive!”

Jin Xuan cupped his helmet with both hands, looking into his eyes through the transparent visor. “Shh… take deep breaths, Wu Chenghe, deep breaths. Everything will be okay. We will survive and avenge them.”

“Jin Xuan…” Wu Chenghe felt a warm liquid rolling down his cheeks, quickly evaporated by his self-cleaning helmet. But he knew that tear was etched into his heart, never to be erased. He took a deep breath and asked, “Did you succeed? Did you manage to infiltrate their communication?”

“The time was too short. I just managed to get in, but I didn’t have time to talk to them. I only downloaded a little bit of information. I was worried about you getting hurt, so I gave up halfway,” Jin Xuan said. “The space station is destroyed, everyone is dead. Doing this now serves no purpose and might even expose us to them. Our only option now is to hide, make them think there are no survivors, and wait for Ivanov’s people to rescue us.”

“Okay,” Wu Chenghe agreed, Jin Xuan released his helmet, connecting his waist tether to his own, and said, “They might start cleaning up soon. We need to find a safe place to hide quickly.”

“What about going into Zone A?” Wu Chenghe calmed down, his rationality returning. “It was the first to be destroyed, so they might overlook it.”

“Sounds good,” Jin Xuan agreed with his idea. “There’s a large freezer in the water sample laboratory. We can hide in there. The freezer walls can shield us from most radiation. Unless they come very close, they won’t find us.”

With an agreement reached, they flew towards the devastated Zone A, with Jin Xuan skillfully maneuvering the thrusters, using the terrain to conceal their presence, and quietly arriving at their destination within minutes.

The area, which had been intact half an hour ago, was now a complete ruin. Fragments of samples and instruments floated in the air, surrounded by burnt debris. Despite the destruction, Wu Chenghe still held onto hope. He extended his mental tendrils, searching around in hopes of finding one or two survivors.

Suddenly, Jin Xuan stopped in his tracks. “Someone’s there!”

Wu Chenghe also felt it. There was a faint light in the storage room of their medicine-based cultivation laboratory.

“Someone’s still alive!” Jin Xuan’s voice was tinged with excitement. He immediately released his mental tendrils through his Barbary lion and observed the wreckage from its perspective. Wu Chenghe also stretched out his mental tendrils, probing towards the spot where the light was.

“It’s Chen Miaomiao!” Jin Xuan’s observation was straightforward. He quickly “saw” the survivor through the lion’s eyes. “He’s still alive, in the storage room!”

“We have to go save him,” Wu Chenghe’s voice trembled with excitement as he followed Jin Xuan towards the storage room, clearing away various burnt instruments and deformed metal blocks, and approaching the storage room door.

“He’s inside, the door is closed, and there’s residual oxygen.” Jin Xuan pried open the damaged intercom system beside the door, reconnected the wires, and then connected his personal terminal to it, shouting, “Chen Miaomiao! Is that you, Chen Miaomiao?”

“King!” Chen Miaomiao’s weak voice came through the intercom, filled with tears. “King, is that you? I’m Chen Miaomiao, I’m trapped by the storage locker, I can’t move, my leg seems to be broken, it hurts so much, and I’m bleeding a lot!”

“Miaomiao! Don’t worry, we’ll figure out a way to save you!” Wu Chenghe was extremely excited. He asked Jin Xuan, “What should we do? How do we get him out?”

“He’s not wearing a spacesuit. Opening the door will kill him,” Jin Xuan looked around and noticed that the ventilation duct overhead was intact for a long distance. He said, “Maybe we can go in through the ventilation duct. There’s residual air inside, which will provide some buffer. Entering won’t cause a rapid loss of air pressure.”

“I’ll go in,” Wu Chenghe immediately volunteered. “I’m small enough to crawl in.”

“Wait,” Jin Xuan carefully observed the surroundings and said, “Next to the storage room is the sample room, and next to that is the rest cabin. The metal wall on this side should be intact, and there should be residual air inside. Let’s pry open the side metal wall, go into the rest cabin first, and then into the sample room, take off our spacesuits, and then crawl into the storage room through the ventilation duct. This way, the loss of air pressure will be minimal and won’t harm him.”

“Let’s do that,” Wu Chenghe never felt Jin Xuan was so wise before.

Jin Xuan was incredibly strong. With just his hands, he pried open a large gap in the side metal wall. They crawled in one after the other, passed through another door, and successfully reached the sample room.

The oxygen here was thin, but they could barely breathe. Jin Xuan took off his spacesuit, helped Wu Chenghe take off his, and removed the oxygen supply device inside. “Take this, there’s enough for about an hour.”

The two of them attached the oxygen supply device to their belts, entered the ventilation duct one after the other, crawled forward for a few meters, and successfully reached the storage room.

The Barbary lion was spinning in circles in the storage room. When it saw them, it immediately approached affectionately, circling around Jin Xuan’s legs.

“He’s behind the cabinet, stuck,” Jin Xuan communicated with the lion and quickly understood Chen Miaomiao’s location. With Wu Chenghe’s help, they moved away the deformed cabinet and saw his slender body stuck between the metal wall and a large cabinet.

“Senior!” Chen Miaomiao burst into tears when he saw Wu Chenghe, not caring about his image as a fan at this critical moment. “Senior, save me! My leg is broken, it hurts… what happened? I heard the teacher say everyone should evacuate to Zone B, and then there was no sound. Did they all go to Zone B? Is there no one left in Zone A?”

Wu Chenghe couldn’t answer his questions, so he tried to change the subject. “Don’t worry, let’s get you out first. You seem to have a fracture, and your blood vessels may be broken, or you wouldn’t be bleeding so much.”

Chen Miaomiao’s face turned pale. He wiped away his tears and said, “Okay, Senior, King, thank you for coming to save me, sniffle…”

Jin Xuan sighed silently and didn’t speak. He grasped the corner of the cabinet with both hands, forcefully pushing it inward, creating a large dent. Then he picked up a metal pipe and poked a hole in the wall that was pinning him.

Wu Chenghe dragged Chen Miaomiao out from under the cabinet and indeed found that his right shin bone was broken, with a gash on his thigh from a metal shard, causing significant bleeding. 

Wu Chenghe activated his “saintly aura” mode, swiftly tending to Chen Miaomiao’s wounds without needing to say anything. Meanwhile, Jin Xuan searched the surroundings and found a breathing converter in the cabinet, then pried open the door leading to the water sample laboratory adjacent to the storage room. The damage there wasn’t severe, and some air pressure was still maintained. The freezer was intact and spacious enough to accommodate six or seven people comfortably.

“We need to get to the freezer as soon as possible,” Jin Xuan checked the time and realized that over ten minutes had passed. According to the rules of war, the enemy might start cleaning up soon.

“Alright,” Wu Chenghe finished setting Chen Miaomiao’s broken bone, fashioned makeshift splints from two metal plates, tightened them with bandages, and applied a tourniquet to the wound on his thigh. Jin Xuan waited for Wu Chenghe to finish his work before gently picking up Chen Miaomiao and heading towards the adjacent room.

The freezer was spacious enough for three people. Jin Xuan activated the breathing converter, and soon the laboratory was filled with oxygen. He laid Chen Miaomiao down at the bottom, sat on one side himself, and gestured for Wu Chenghe to sit in his lap, saying, “Sit here in my arms; it’s cold in here.”

With the temperature around zero degrees Celsius inside the freezer, Wu Chenghe, wearing only his space suit underwear, shivered uncontrollably. He paid no mind to Chen Miaomiao’s astonished gaze and sat on Jin Xuan’s lap, snuggling into his embrace. Jin Xuan wrapped his arms tightly around him, resting his chin on his shoulder, and let out a long sigh of relief.

As their body temperatures gradually warmed each other, the areas where they touched gradually grew warmer. In the quiet surroundings, they felt like they had just experienced a nightmare, despite their calm and decisive actions during the past hour. Now that they had quieted down, they began to tremble with fear, feeling a strong sense of relief.

“I’m so scared,” Jin Xuan whispered in his ear, “I’m afraid I can’t protect you.”

Wu Chenghe’s nose tingled, recalling the debris floating around them and the bodies of their classmates. He reached out and grasped Jin Xuan’s large hand, saying, “Without you, I would have died long ago.”

Jin Xuan’s breath caught, and he tightened his arms around him, almost squeezing him too tightly. “If you died, I wouldn’t be able to live either.”

The Barbary lion curled up in the corner, feeling pleased to see its master and almost-master finally acting like they were in love and not arguing. But after a while, it remembered that it was still all alone and even lacked a single extra flea in its mane. Feeling a surge of sadness, it whimpered softly.

“Senior, King, you, you…” Chen Miaomiao finally understood what was going on. His mouth opened wide enough to fit an egg, “Senior, so it was really you!”

At death’s door, Wu Chenghe didn’t bother hiding anything from him anymore and simply nodded, acknowledging it.

“Oh my!” Chen Miaomiao’s fists clenched, trembling with excitement in front of his chest. “To think I stumbled upon such a big piece of gossip! Even if I die now, I can die content!”

“Don’t talk nonsense. We will all survive,” Wu Chenghe didn’t feel particularly embarrassed about having such a big secret exposed. Instead, he felt a strange sense of joy in the secrecy and scolded, “Stop talking, rest quietly for a while. You’ve lost a lot of blood, and we don’t know if your wounds will become infected.”

“Hiss—” Chen Miaomiao immediately felt the pain in his leg intensify at Wu Chenghe’s words, and his head began to spin, groaning in agony.

“Hush!” Jin Xuan suddenly gestured for them to be silent and whispered, “They’re clearing the area. Don’t make a sound, try not to move, and be cautious. We’re not sure if this freezer is effective; we can’t afford to be careless.”

Wu Chenghe and Chen Miaomiao nervously closed their mouths, and the surroundings fell silent, except for the sound of their breathing.

Jin Xuan heightened his senses to the maximum, feeling the fluctuations in the surrounding fields. He sensed a beam of light sweeping over their area and then sweeping back, repeating this three times before finally disappearing.

“They’ve finished clearing,” Jin Xuan said. “We’re safe.”

The three of them looked at each other, initially feeling relieved, then a wave of sorrow washed over them—after the enemy finished clearing the area and didn’t launch another attack, it meant that besides the three of them, there were no other survivors on the space station.

Just yesterday, they were happily working together, joking around, and having meals. Today, they were separated by life and death. All three of them closed their eyes in sadness.

Jin Xuan felt Wu Chenghe clench his fist tightly, trembling slightly. He gently wrapped his hand around his fist, squeezing it tightly, and said, “Don’t be sad. They will pay for their blood debts. Neither the Voyager Army nor the Federation will let their blood be shed in vain.”

Wu Chenghe nodded, his voice heavy, “Yes.”

Suddenly, his left palm trembled. Wu Chenghe felt a surge of joy, opened his inbox, and found a message from Ivanov, saying that he was nearing their star system and would arrive in about ten minutes.

“They’ll be here in ten minutes,” Wu Chenghe finally felt the hope of survival. He replied to Ivanov’s message, telling him their location and informing him that there were three survivors on their side—himself, Jin Xuan, and Chen Miaomiao.

All they could do now was wait. Wu Chenghe leaned against Jin Xuan’s chest, smelling the faint scent of sweat on him, vaguely hearing his steady heartbeat, and suddenly felt the urge to confess his feelings.

But the poor Barbary lion… it realized that it was still all alone and even lacked a single extra flea in its mane. Feeling a surge of sadness, it whimpered softly.

“Uh-oh!” Jin Xuan’s body suddenly tensed up, whispering, “Someone is using their consciousness to sweep the area. They have a guide!” He had been on high alert outside, and he faintly felt a surge of consciousness pass by, as if it was the mental tendrils of a guide.

Wu Chenghe was startled, “What?”

“The enemy has a guide, and they’re not confident, so they’re trying to use mental tendrils to sense survivors,” Jin Xuan whispered. “This is bad. Mental tendrils can’t be shielded. Given enough time, he will definitely ‘see’ our light spots!”

“Ah? A guide?” Chen Miaomiao was also startled and immediately started sobbing, “Oh my god, we will definitely be discovered. My dad is a guide. When we played hide and seek as kids, he could find me even when I hid in the freezer. He can sense the thought spots of anyone.”

Wu Chenghe fell silent. In modern warfare, guides were crucial. They could not only soothe their own soldiers and induce the enemy’s mania but could also search for hidden opponents using mental tendrils. In such a situation, the only way to counter it was to have a guide of their own, of equal strength, who could establish a consciousness barrier to protect their “light spots” from being seen by the enemy.

Wu Chenghe was not yet an adult and hadn’t received professional training. Acting rashly could potentially harm his brain. However, in such a situation, it was either fight or die. The lives of the three of them rested on him alone, and he had no choice but to step up.

“I’ll try,” Wu Chenghe didn’t want to reveal his identity in front of Chen Miaomiao and quietly wrote in Jin Xuan’s palm, “I’ll establish a consciousness barrier and hide you.”

Jin Xuan was taken aback. Writing on his hand, he expressed concern, “The enemy is very strong, and you’re still underage. If you damage your brain, you might become a vegetable.”

Wu Chenghe wrote back, “If I become a vegetable, will you let me go then?”

Jin Xuan held his hand, not writing anything more. He leaned close to his ear and whispered, “No! Never!”

Although it sounded like pestering, Wu Chenghe felt warmth in his heart, letting him hold his hand and closing his eyes, starting to stretch out his mental tendrils, weaving a consciousness barrier around the three of them.

Author’s note: The author loves mixing humor and thrilling moments in their stories, so don’t be surprised if it’s a rollercoaster of emotions! And there will be some twists and turns in the rescue mission. After all, if emo has suffered such a big loss, he won’t let those responsible get away easily; they’re bound to suffer even greater losses…