FT DR Chapter 59: Tragedy Triggered by a Long Reflex

Chapter 59: Tragedy Triggered by a Long Reflex

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Karai

What’s going on?

Mu was a bit puzzled. He felt a bit strange, light-headed, as if something uncontrollable was happening, but he couldn’t grasp it at the moment.

“Are you Dean Mu?” His Excellency the President’s firm mouth lifted into a gentle smile as he reached out his hand. “I’ve heard so much about you. It’s truly an honor to meet you.”

Jin Zhe was tall, almost half a head taller than Mu, with broad and solid shoulders. He was dressed in a refined dark gray suit, which still couldn’t hide his robust muscles. He exuded the ruggedness typical of a soldier, yet also had the gentleness and cunning of a politician.

A golden-brown Barbary lion stood by his leg, resembling Jin Xuan’s quantum beast, but with a slightly darker fur and a more robust build. Its eyes scanned Mu’s sides vigilantly, as if searching for something.

“Hello, Your Excellency the President.” Mu suppressed the feeling of discord in his heart and shook his hand. Jin Zhe’s hand was large and heavy, with thick fingers and rough palms. Mu discreetly observed his appearance. Somehow, although it was their first meeting, there was a familiar feeling.

“Oh, I’m shaking the most precious hands in the entire federation right now.” Jin Zhe said with an easy smile. “Jin Xuan, come take a picture with us. This is a moment worth commemorating.”

When it came to flattering, perhaps no one in the entire federation was more professional than him. Jin Xuan rolled his eyes and gave a middle finger in his heart, then opened his personal terminal and took a picture for them, saying, “Done.”

Jin Zhe’s attitude was gentle and modest, yet not overly obsequious, making people feel refreshed. Mu felt his consciousness swirling fiercely, feeling a bit disoriented. He forced a smile and said, “Your Excellency the President is indeed witty.”

“Oh, everyone says so.” Jin Zhe smiled. “Personal charm, haha. Please make sure to vote for me during the election. Supporting me means supporting the federal government!”

Don’t be so obvious about soliciting votes, okay? Mu lowered his eyelids slightly, feeling that where there’s one rascal, there’s bound to be another. These two were really alike when it came to being shameless.

Jin Zhe came to see Wu Chenghe, bringing a large bouquet of flowers, pink carnations paired with bright red sword lilies, creating a warm and joyous atmosphere. Mu thanked him, asked someone to put them in a vase, and briefly explained Wu Chenghe’s condition. Jin Zhe listened to him attentively throughout, occasionally asking a question or two in a low voice, with a sincere and gentle expression on his face. It made Mu somewhat doubt whether he was really as ruthless as he appeared, whether organizing a protest with thousands of people to besiege the St. Martin Hospital was a misinformation from the parliament.

Or are all politicians just good actors?

The President was busy with official duties and only stayed for five minutes before the security reminded him to hurry to the next event. Jin Zhe bid farewell to Mu regretfully. “Thank you for your hard work, Dean Mu. Please, take good care of this child. Otherwise, I won’t be able to explain to his father.”

Mu squinted his eyes. How come in the blink of an eye, he started to act like an elder? What’s with this guardian-like tone?

“Hannibal and I have been good friends for decades. He sent his child to me for schooling, but now things have turned out like this. I really can’t face him with this. Sigh.” Jin Zhe sighed with self-reproach and regret, as if he and Hannibal were real brothers. “I failed to take care of his son properly, which betrayed his trust in me.” He turned to Jin Xuan. “You’re at Aston, so please take care of this child for me, pay more attention to his life, and bring him to the official residence for holidays, got it?”

Jin Xuan almost couldn’t hold back the black lines on his head. Old rascal, can you be any more shameless? If Hannibal were here, he’d probably feel so disgusted he’d vomit on the spot.

But he was still grateful to him for privately helping create excuses for a date. “I will, big brother.”

Mu felt a bit nauseated by the President’s heartfelt instructions. The longstanding feud between the Federal Government and the Voyager Army was well-known, and it seemed that politicians were all just actors!

“Please, rest assured, I will take good care of my student,” Mu said lightly, implying that Jin Zhe’s little brother should keep his distance.

“With both of you, I am completely reassured,” Jin Zhe said with an expression of old contentment, remarking, “Dean, I feel like I’ve known you forever. Your demeanor as an intellectual is truly impressive. By the way, have we met somewhere before?”

“…No, we haven’t,” Mu replied. He was not used to being touched by someone, especially not someone who shook his hands as relentlessly as Jin Zhe, as if taking advantage of him. “I often see you in online news, but you probably haven’t seen me.”

“Oh, it must be fate.” Jin Zhe admired, as if in just five minutes, Mu had become his devoted fan. “Goodbye, Dean Mu. Please, take care of yourself as well. You’re too thin; it’s not a good sign. Please, eat more for the sake of the Federation.”

“…You’re overthinking it. I’m fine. I’ve always been this thin, not because I’m dieting,” Mu replied, feeling a bit overwhelmed by his eccentric enthusiasm.

“The Federation needs you, Dean!” Jin Zhe said earnestly. “If you fall ill, it would be a loss for Aston University and for the Federation.” He affectionately squeezed Mu’s shoulder.

Mu hadn’t been touched and handled like this in decades. His entire body’s hair stood on end, but he couldn’t refuse the care of His Excellency the President. With a stiff face, he said, “Your Excellency, your time is precious. I won’t delay you any longer. Goodbye!”

“Goodbye!” Jin Zhe completed his friendly visit and left with a group of security personnel and secretaries. Watching his departing figure, Mu almost collapsed, feeling more exhausted than after performing major surgery. His Icarus butterfly seemed stimulated, fluttering around in his head, making his mind fuzzy.

“Are you okay?” Jin Xuan looked at him sympathetically. It was obvious that the pure-hearted Dean had been injured by the old rascal.

Mu took a deep breath to steady himself. “I’m fine… Alright, Jin Xuan, you should go now. It’s too chaotic here; don’t disturb Wu Chenghe’s rest. He needs absolute quiet.”

“Okay.” Jin Xuan had to compromise for the sake of the birthday gift. He covered the unfinished fish congee and said, “Then I’ll go, Dean. Remember to authorize my access card; I’ll come by at 8 a.m. sharp tomorrow.”

Mu tried to calm down his frayed nerves, waving him away. Just as Jin Xuan was about to leave, he turned back to look at Mu’s face and asked, “Um, Dean, are you feeling too stressed lately or did I put too much ginger in the congee?”

“What?” Mu was a bit confused by his butterfly-like behavior, feeling a bit agitated.

“You’re having a nosebleed, Dean.”

“Huh?” Mu touched his nostrils with his fingers, and indeed, they came away red. He felt his face and realized he might be running a fever.

“Um, maybe it’s stress.” Mu dismissed Jin Xuan and had someone escort him downstairs. Then he returned to his office, went to the bathroom to apply a cold compress, and found some cotton to stop the nosebleed.

Just as he was in chaos, there was a knock on the door. Sienna pushed it open. “Did His Excellency the President leave? How did it go? Did he give you a hard time? Is Wu Chenghe awake… Oh, what’s that smell?”

“What smell?” Mu came out with a towel over his forehead, completely unaware of the danger. He just felt like he might have a fever, and there was a slight numbness in his extremities.

Sienna stared at his face for two seconds, gasped, and whispered, “Oh my God! Mu, you’re in estrus!”

Mu froze. Sienna quickly realized the situation and hurriedly closed the doors and windows, sealing off the space. “Oh my god, Mu, you’re really in estrus. Your face is redder than a boiled shrimp. You must be emitting pheromones already. Damn it, your sweet scent could drive all compatible sentinels within a kilometer radius crazy!”

“No, it’s not possible…” Mu was stunned. He had awakened at the age of four, matured at eighteen, and apart from that one accidental incident during adulthood, he had never experienced estrus in the thirty years since! It wasn’t that he was sexually indifferent, but rather, he was too strong. He had controlled himself too well. He could block almost all temptations without the need for medication. As a Morpho butterfly guide highly compatible with sentinels, which were extremely rare, there had been no occurrences of estrus in the thirty years since awakening. He couldn’t believe that someone in this world could induce estrus in him. This! Is! Not! Scientific!

“Nothing is impossible, just look at yourself… God, you’d better inject some medication.” Sienna was also a bit flustered. In her memory, Mu’s condition had always been very stable after adulthood, so stable that she had forgotten he could experience estrus!

“No, no, you should leave first. I’ll take care of myself.” Mu began to realize that he might have encountered a sentinel with a 100% compatibility. He felt his body temperature rising, dizziness, and his heartbeat accelerating…

“I’ll get the medication for you to inject. You look too…” Sienna was at a loss for words. Mu had always given the impression of being serious and ascetic, seemingly immune to anyone’s charms. This was the first time she had seen him with watery eyes and flushed cheeks.

“I don’t need it. I can control myself.” Mu didn’t want to use medication. As one of the developers of inhibitors himself, he knew very well that it was best not to use such drugs if possible. “Help me evacuate the people in this area and seal off the section. I can handle this on my own… Now, please leave. I want to be alone.” He guessed that he must look terrible at the moment. As a perfectionist with obsessive-compulsive disorder, he didn’t want anyone to see him lose control.

Sienna was forcibly pushed out of the office by him and went to evacuate the crowd and seal off the area. Mu closed the door, leaned against it, and gasped for breath. He felt his limbs getting weak, as if he had smoked marijuana, floating and ethereal. And he was running a fever, feeling hot all over. Sweat was pouring out of him at a visible rate, dripping onto the floor with a crackling sound. Each drop contained his sweet pheromones.

Calm down, you can get through this, you can control yourself… Mu kept telling himself, going to the bathroom to turn on the cold water, stripping off his clothes and standing under the spray head, desperately trying to cool himself down. The icy water poured over him, temporarily extinguishing the high temperature of his skin, but it couldn’t calm the restlessness in his heart. He saw his distorted reflection on the mirrored wall of the bathroom, his thin and pale body, but his chest was emitting a strange pink glow, and his face, his cheeks were as if they had been burned by fire, glowing with a blush.

He was a very indifferent person in that aspect, usually satisfying himself very rarely. Seeing himself like this at this moment, he felt truly ugly, almost nauseating!

He hated his lack of control!

Mu manipulated his personal terminal to set the mirrored wall to pure black and turned around, pressing his hands against the wall as he rinsed his back with cold water. Time passed second by second, and he closed his eyes, trying hard to calm the heat within himself. His usually disciplined body seemed a bit disobedient. Instead of cooling down, it intensified, and the most direct manifestation was a slight erection.

“Damn it!” He mercilessly slammed his fist, worth eighty million federal coins, against the wall, breathing deeply like a stranded fish. Soon, his nasal cavity was filled with moist vapor and a faint medicinal smell unique to the research center… Wait a minute! Mu’s pitch-black eyes widened suddenly. He finally understood why he was losing control—besides his own pheromones, there was also a faint scent of unfamiliar pheromones in the air. They should belong to that sentinel who was 100% compatible with him!

He should have realized earlier. If it were just his estrus alone, it wouldn’t be so hard to suppress. But the triggering of pheromones was mutual. He emitted pheromones, and the highly compatible sentinel naturally responded reflexively. They probably both belonged to the type with extremely strong self-control, so everyone’s reflex arc was a bit long, and they didn’t realize their own reactions at the time!

Tragic! When the pheromones of an adult guide and an adult sentinel are successively stimulated and blend with each other, it triggers bonding heat. Bonding heat makes them abandon their humanity and dignity, bonding together like animals, disregarding everything, venting their desires, and possessing each other.

This is the consequence of genetic fusion and the punishment given to humans by God, punishing them for their disrespect for the Creator.

Mu was about to cry. If he could still control the estrus, then bonding heat would be incurable. Even if he were gifted, he couldn’t go against the instinct deep in his genes.

He wanted to make love, to submit, to let that sentinel who triggered the bonding heat enter his body.

There seemed to be a demon moaning in his body. Mu endured the last shred of rationality, opened his personal terminal, “Sienna, have the people in this area been evacuated? Is the space sealed?” He heard his voice with a strange sobbing tone, helpless and weak, like a bullied child.

“It’s sealed, except for Wu Chenghe, everyone else has been evacuated. He’s in a coma, so it should be fine.” Sienna also noticed his abnormality and asked with concern, “Mu, how are you?”

“I… I’m fine.” Mu mumbled, covering his mouth. “I’m going to the pharmacy now, that’s it.”

He hung up the communication, closed the cold water, and grabbed a white coat, putting it on. He opened the office door and walked to the pharmacy. This area had already been cleared, and there was no one in the corridor. Only the air purifiers were humming, and there was a faint smell of vinegar everywhere. Sienna must have instructed them to spray it to mask the small amount of pheromones he had emitted.

Mu walked barefoot down the corridor, leaving behind two wet footprints on the ground. He paid no attention to them and went straight to the pharmacy door. Because most medications were stored at low temperatures, the temperature here was maintained at around five degrees Celsius, which was a bit too cold for ordinary people, but just right for him.

“Squirrel, fruit fly… chameleon, orchid mantis… Oh, found it.” He finally found the inhibitor specifically for Icarus butterflies, trembling as he filled the syringe with double the dosage of the translucent emulsion and injected it into his jugular vein.

The ice-cold drug entered his bloodstream and quickly took effect. He felt a little more awake, although his body was still uncomfortably hot, his desire seemed to be cooling down. He slowly knelt against the medicine cabinet, tilting his neck to resist wave after wave of rising emotions. He didn’t know if the dosage just now was enough to restore him to normal. He had never experienced anything like this before, but based on clinical treatment experience, generally, when a guide triggers bonding heat, they need several times the usual dosage.

He didn’t dare to take risks and could only stay here, waiting for the bonding heat to pass completely. Fortunately, the temperature here was very low, making him feel a little more comfortable than in the office.

Jin Zhe and the agents exited the Saint Martin Research Center and got into the presidential vehicle. The chief of staff briefed him on the upcoming schedule, “We need to hurry to ‘Iron Wing’. The Voyager Army’s Second Army Group and the Lyra Constellation B Cluster Mining Association within their jurisdiction have initiated a vote on the amount of tax rebate for mining. You need to attend the final joint meeting.”

“Alright, send me the latest information.” Jin Zhe, an energetic President, even if he only slept for four or five hours every two or three days, still looked lively. The chief of staff sent him the meeting materials through his personal terminal, and said, “Would you like to eat something first? You haven’t had breakfast yet, and the meeting might not end before lunch.”

“Um, just give me some nutrients, double portion.” Jin Zhe opened the documents and quickly browsed through them. The chief of staff handed him the nutrients, but suddenly his face changed, and he said to the driver of the flying saucer, “Oh! Heavens! Stop the car and call the doctor!”

“What’s wrong?” Jin Zhe was startled, looking up to ask.

“You’re having a nosebleed, Your Excellency!” The chief of staff panicked. It was worth noting that Jin Zhe was a powerful sentinel, and he had never even had a nosebleed in all these years, let alone other issues!

“Ah?” Jin Zhe was stunned, wiped his nose, and indeed found blood on his hand. He said indifferently, “Don’t make a fuss, keep going. It’s probably just because I’m feeling hot lately…” Before he could finish his words, his face suddenly changed, and he stiffened for three seconds, saying sharply, “No! Turn around, go back to the Saint Martin Research Center, immediately!”

The agents immediately turned on the lights and made a U-turn, instructing the front and rear security vehicles to follow suit. The chief of staff was extremely worried and said, “Mr. President, how do you feel? Shouldn’t we call a doctor? We’re quite far from the Saint Martin Hospital…”

“Shut up!” Jin Zhe’s face was unusually solemn, his pitch-black eyes flashing with chilling light, as if extremely angry yet also with indescribable excitement and joy. The chief of staff had followed him for nearly ten years and had never seen him like this before. He immediately fell silent and turned away, not daring to look at him.

Jin Zhe’s complexion changed constantly as he watched the passing scenery outside the transparent cabin. After a while, he silently took out a balancing agent from his bag and injected it into his jugular vein.

He didn’t need a doctor; he was just in estrus.

As a fifty-six-year-old sentinel, this wasn’t anything new. He was a very charming man, and with his high status, many guides would involuntarily emit pheromones when they saw him. Among them, there were quite a few who were highly compatible with him, and he had responded to their pheromones a few times.

But he was only in estrus; he had never triggered bonding heat because he had never been attracted to those people.

It wasn’t that he was cold-blooded, but there was once a person, or rather, a child, who breached his defenses at his most vulnerable moment and left an unforgettable sweet taste in his life.

The most exquisite taste in the world, once tasted, other foods would taste like wax. He was the greatest tragedy in the world; his tongue had been “marked” by someone, and he could never taste the flavor of anyone else again.

At that time, he had just graduated from university and joined the Voyager Army because of his ambitions and a bit of recklessness. He volunteered to go to the forefront of interstellar colonization—Seiling Star Cluster.

He had always been lucky, but that time he had run into trouble. He was assigned to a captain whose brain was damaged. The captain was somewhat reckless but lacked a careful mind. Once, he ordered Jin Zhe and his squad to explore a small planet with newly discovered energy minerals, but didn’t provide them with enough weapons and supplies.

When Jin Zhe and his comrades landed on the surface with a shuttle, they found that there were already a large number of alien scorpions gathered there, surrounding them with napkins, holding knives and forks, singing hallelujah, just waiting for them to come and have dinner.

Scorpions were a species with pan-neuronal connectivity, communicating with each other through neural radiation. Some scorpions with developed neurons could even infiltrate human communication systems. That time, it was because the captain underestimated the enemy that the scorpions invaded the strategic system, leaked the plan, and caused the entire vanguard squad to suffer a brutal ambush.

There were only forty people in Jin Zhe’s vanguard squad in total, with insufficient weapons and even less drinking water. As soon as they landed, the communication system was smashed to pieces by the scorpion’s giant sickle-like tentacles, and they couldn’t even call for help.

All they could do was fight to the death! Jin Zhe still remembered those thrilling three days and nights. He and his comrades mowed down wave after wave of scorpions like harvesters in autumn. They started with energy cannons, then used ray guns, and when the energy ran out, they fought with cold light daggers. They repelled wave after wave of attacks, fighting and retreating, leaving piles of corpses wherever they went.

The thick blood soaked their boots, and the dried mucus made it difficult for them to move. They killed hundreds of times their own number of enemies, but they were still limited in numbers, and the entire planet was full of endless scorpions. Later, they retreated to a huge cave, where the squad leader gathered all the weapons together and redistributed them, then personally stuffed a light grenade into each person’s chest pocket.

He didn’t say it explicitly, but everyone knew what it meant.

After a short rest, more scorpions rushed up. Some rushed into the cave and scattered the remaining people. Jin Zhe fought and retreated until he found a small cave that could only fit one person, and his cold light dagger was broken. He was left with only one light grenade on his entire body.

It would be a lie to say he wasn’t afraid. After all, he was only twenty-five years old at the time, having finished his doctoral studies less than six months ago. He didn’t want to die.

But war was inevitable, and a soldier’s duty was to obey. When encountering a fool as a superior, he could only consider himself unlucky.

At the last moment of his life, Jin Zhe wasted his breath cursing all the scorpions blocking him outside, and then cursed his boss’s ancestors, and then detonated the light grenade.

He thought he was doomed to die.

 

 

 

 

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