Chapter 156: The Emperor’s Basement
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: Karai
Alfred was dizzy for a few seconds. He shook his head to clear his mind but only ended up splattering blood all over his white suit, making the stains stand out sharply. He felt that his nasal bone had been shattered by Lin Xu’s punch.
At this moment, their positions were completely reversed: standing was Lin Xu, and the one sprawling miserably on the ground was Alfred. Looking up, Alfred saw Lin Xu’s cold, icy gaze and couldn’t help but laugh, “Your temper hasn’t changed.”
Lin Xu said, “Get lost.”
Alfred slowly stood up, supporting himself against the wall. He was never a combatant; that punch had been harsh. Beneath the bloodstains, part of the bones around his face were crooked and ugly, but he still leisurely took out a silk-like handkerchief to wipe the blood from his chin and said, “I’ll come see you again next time.”
Lin Xu remained silent. Alfred didn’t insist further. Supporting himself on the wall, he slowly walked out of the cell corridor. In the brief moment when the corridor door was pushed open and then closed, Lin Xu heard the guards and imperial attendants outside anxiously asking about Alfred’s injuries.
Alfred tucked away the bloodied handkerchief and, accompanied by attendants, passed through the crowd. After boarding his private aircraft, he instructed the driver to head to the hospital first.
Lin Xu feared Alfred’s imperial status and dared not truly punch him to death. However, Alfred was certain Lin Xu could do exactly that.
A nearly comminuted fracture of the nasal bridge was troublesome. Conventional medicine and medical pods couldn’t directly fix it. He had to find a plastic surgeon to reset the nasal bones before starting rapid recovery treatment. He might even need implants.
But overall, it wasn’t a big problem. Alfred thought easily: after this lawsuit ended, he could prepare to have the “emperor” abdicate and then transfer his consciousness into the young Crown Prince Leo.
He remembered Leo had trained for a while at the Military Academy and could pilot mecha—a promising talent indeed. Alfred told his attendant, “Arrange mecha training courses for me.”
“Your Majesty, you yourself?” The attendant was surprised.
“Yes, once the recovery surgery finishes, we’ll start.”
“Understood, Your Majesty… General Neumann sent word that Marshal Chu has been closely monitoring the case and has recently been pressuring the police and prosecutors.”
“Pressure only. He can’t change Imperial legal procedures or do much.”
—
When the emperor exited the cell corridor covered in blood, he didn’t leave any complaints behind. Merk pushed open the door into the corridor. He first saw blood droplets on the floor, then looked up to find Lin Xu sitting on the bed’s edge, running his fingers through his long hair.
His expression was cold, occasionally caught by sunlight, briefly illuminating those foggy gray eyes. Lin Xu looked quite worn out.
His back was soaked with cold sweat. The black neck shackle tightly restrained his neck, where there was a charred purple and black electric shock scar. Bloodstains remained on the knuckles of his right hand. Merk guessed it was the emperor’s blood.
“Detective Merk,” Lin Xu called out when Merk approached the cell. Sunlight cast Merk’s shadow long on the floor from the small window behind.
“Lin Xu, you attacked the emperor?!” Merk couldn’t believe it. “How dare you…”
“The victim isn’t pressing charges. Why are you in such a hurry?” Lin Xu retorted.
He knew Alfred wouldn’t continue using legal force to fight him over this matter.
“You—!”
“I want to speak to my lawyer, Thomas Metz,” Lin Xu said.
“You just hit the emperor at the police station!”
Lin Xu paused his actions and looked at Merk. “I know. That just happened. Now I want to speak to my lawyer. I have that right.”
Yes, he had that right. Merk almost laughed in frustration but couldn’t refuse the request. He could only scowl and open the cell door to take Lin Xu to contact his lawyer.
As Lin Xu walked out of the cell, his arm held firmly to lead him forward, Merk finally clearly saw the wound on Lin Xu’s neck, nearly a burnt patch. The neck shackle continued to rub against the injury while he walked, tearing the coagulated scab again, almost revealing the muscles beneath the skin that contracted from the electric shocks.
“You…” That neck shackle was placed on Lin Xu by someone who claimed to be a special observer. Merk didn’t know what exactly the device was or what relationship Lin Xu had with the emperor, nor what had been discussed earlier that led to Lin Xu being electrocuted so severely by it.
Wasn’t this really prisoner abuse?
Was Lin Xu planning to contact a lawyer to sue?
The wound was so frightening up close that Merk couldn’t help but say, “I’ll get you a doctor to look at the wound.”
Lin Xu glanced at him. “No need. This thing can’t be taken off.”
He even worried that the doctor might be electrocuted while trying to open the inhibitor to treat the wound. Merk took Lin Xu to a separate room. After using the police station communicator to contact Metz for Lin Xu, he left.
“Dr. Lin, what’s the problem?”
“Hmm, I need your help contacting Colonel Chen Jinshan.”
“Colonel Chen?” Metz said, “I’ve been in contact with him recently. He also helped with reviewing the will. He’s always wanted to speak out for you, but we haven’t planned the details yet.”
“Don’t rush to speak out. I want to talk with him first.”
Lin Xu had a new plan.
Knowing that the emperor’s body was inhabited by Alfred’s consciousness, merely refuting the prosecution’s evidence to prove his innocence was no longer enough. Alfred would continue to pursue him relentlessly.
“Okay, I’ll arrange a meeting as soon as possible.”
After ending the communication, Lin Xu left the room. Merk took him back. Halfway there, Merk pulled some small items from his bag and placed them in Lin Xu’s hand. Lin Xu looked. They were disposable alcohol wipes and small packets of healing ointment.
Merk said, “If you don’t want to see a doctor, then treat it yourself.”
Merk escorted Lin Xu back to the cell and locked the door again. Just as he turned to leave, he suddenly looked back and said to Lin Xu, “Actually, the Imperial prison used to hold people like you is pretty decent—better than here. You don’t have to worry.”
Lin Xu raised an eyebrow and then smiled lightly, “I’m not worried. I won’t be going there.”
The fact that the emperor was urgently sent to the hospital for bone-setting and reconstructive surgery was known by very few. Cabricciosa learned the news from Luka’s mouth and then privately relayed it to Crown Prince Leo.
The sunlight was warm as Leo hurried through the palace. It was just a minor surgery, not dangerous, but the emperor had refused to have implants inserted, so the doctors had to spend more time manually setting his nasal bones.
The emperor was expected to finish the surgery and return to the palace in about five hours. Most of the close attendants had gone to the hospital to serve the emperor, while Leo bypassed the palace surveillance and headed to the emperor’s study.
The emperor often handled important affairs in the study, which was kept free of surveillance equipment for confidentiality.
The guards respectfully allowed the crown prince passage, and Leo entered the study without difficulty. He quietly began searching through the emperor’s desk and cabinets.
The documents should be on an electronic panel. Leo swept aside papers but found nothing, then turned to the bookshelves.
Finally, he found an electronic panel among a pile of ancient paper books, bearing the emblem of the Imperial Research Institute’s Biology Department. The moment he touched the screen, the cover of the original draft on hibernation technology appeared.
He needed to know what his father’s intention was in restarting hibernation and genetic research. But something else caught Leo’s attention.
After removing the panel, Leo noticed a small button between the bookshelves. He stood still, thought for a moment, and decided to take the risk. He pressed the button.
Immediately, the heavy bookshelf before him automatically slid to both sides, revealing a secret room hidden in a thick wall—a black hole of space. Leo’s heartbeat felt captured by a giant mouth, pounding wildly. What was this?
Though he was the Imperial crown prince, the emperor did not allow him to enter the study at will. His father’s study remained a secret place to him.
Darkness made Leo hesitate for a moment, but when he activated the terminal’s lighting mode and stepped inside, rows of cold white lights automatically turned on, illuminating a spiraling stairwell.
This gave Leo a bit more courage. He held the electronic panel and began to descend. The staircase was very long; Leo estimated it led at least thirty meters underground.
After cautiously walking down for over ten minutes, a bright and ancient basement appeared before Leo’s eyes.
Inside were rows of glass cabinets filled with paper notebooks. Leo was astonished. He suddenly remembered his father once telling him about the Imperial royal habit of keeping diaries.
One diary lay open in a glass display case, seemingly recently read. Leo approached and saw three faded antique photos placed on the open diary. The people in the photos looked familiar—almost, almost like that Dr. Lin Xu. Before he could think more, he noticed words written on the paper below the photos:
“If you see Him again, do not approach. He is extremely dangerous. Please press the triangular button in the room. You will find your answers.”
Leo turned to look at the triangular button. It seemed to have already been pressed. A door had opened, releasing cold air continuously. The mystery drew Leo toward the door.
Entering, he first passed through a corridor, then into a small room with a platform. Beyond the platform was another room housing a device over two meters long, shaped like a medical pod. The cold air leaked from the seams of the device.
Leo walked over and touched the lid, finding it unsealed. The leaking liquid nitrogen made his fingers stiff. He rubbed his hands and pushed open the lid. Liquid nitrogen and freezing air poured out, revealing a shriveled, stiff corpse with white hair inside his view.
Though unsealed, the corpse had not decomposed due to the low temperature from the liquid nitrogen. It was pale and lifeless.
Startled, Leo quickly stepped back and stumbled, hitting his back on a round object.
He scrambled away, breathing hard in fear, and looked at the object. It was not a frozen head as he feared, but a helmet.
At the lower part of the helmet was a bloody long needle. The corpse soaked in liquid nitrogen also had a long needle connected to the back of its head! Who had that needle on the helmet ever pierced?
A terrifying, chilling suspicion crept into Leo’s mind. This device resembled the one used by Imperial scientists for consciousness exploration experiments on dream cows, where two needles linked two consciousnesses—one of which was now a corpse.
The corpse had originally lain inside the frozen hibernation pod, perhaps still alive when the pod was sealed, but now, after the pod’s lid was opened, no one had cared for it anymore…
Leo took out the three photos again and compared them to his impression of Lin Xu. They were almost identical.
Thinking back to the diary’s words… if you see Him again… press the button…
Had his father come here after seeing Lin Xu, lay on this platform, and had the probe inserted into his brain? Now only a corpse remained, but where had the consciousness gone?
Horrified, Leo’s body hairs stood on end. Was his father really still his father? Leo stared intently at the photos. As he flipped them over, he found a few lines of writing on the back in Old Earth English, which he could barely decipher:
“What can I do to make you stay?
I will give you deserted streets, a despairing sunset, and a desolate moon.
….
I offer you the memory of a yellow rose seen at
sunset, years before you were born.
I offer you explanations of yourself, theories about
yourself, authentic and surprising news of
yourself.
I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the
hunger of my heart; I am trying to bribe you
with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.”
It seemed like a love poem. The signature was Alfred Nobleson, dedicated to L, my love.
At that moment, Leo’s pupils constricted sharply.
L—Lin, Lin Xu.
Alfred Nobleson was the name of the founder of the Marion Empire, but his descendants used the surname Arsen, so outside the royal family, few knew Alfred’s original family name. Was the aged corpse in the hibernation pod Alfred Nobleson? How had the Lin Xu from the ancient photos survived until now? A chill ran down Leo’s spine.
Author’s note:
Jorge Luis Borges, “Two English Poems: II”
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