Chapter 57: It’s happening
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: Karai
On the forty-fifth day after Lin Xu fell asleep, Heinrich was in a conference link with General Kalt when a sudden alarm on the monitor at hand interrupted Kalt.
“Marshal Chu?”
Heinrich looked at the monitor displaying the subject’s disembarkation warning, his breath stopped straight away and he stood up at once, “General Kalt, I’m sorry, I have something important to take care of, matters related to entering this galactic cluster will be fully interfaced with you by Captain Honda Agana of the Victoria and my adjutant Captain Arnold. “
With that, he took a big step out of the conference room, Arnold did not even catch a piece of his coat, could only apologize to Kalt, and sternly said Marshal had to deal with important military affairs. In fact, he had no idea what information Heinrich had received.
When Heinrich arrived at Zhou Pingbo’s lab, Zhou Pingbo also rushed forward in a frenzy and grabbed his arm.
“Lin Xu is awake?”
“Yes, more than awake, he broke down my lab door and ran away!” Zhou Pingbo’s heart stopped when he saw the mess in the lab, knowing that his lab on the Victoria had a level of containment second only to the highest lab in the Imperial Institute. Ruth was able to monitor Lin Xu’s movements after he left the lab.
“Get Tech to report the repair.” Heinrich threw down a sentence and turned to follow Ruth’s instructions and ran to area H.
As soon as he stepped into area H, he saw Blackie and Snowy, two rabbit-cats, being chased out and cowering in the corner of the corridor. Heinrich kicked open the half-hidden door of Lin Xu’s room and stepped in.
In the darkness, Lin Xu was panting and whimpering in pain, seemingly struggling to exert himself. He was lying on his side in the nest, his long black fishtail taut, his back to Heinrich, revealing a pale, bony spine, the muscles of his back and waist showing visible signs of exertion.
Heinrich almost held his breath, coming around to the front. Lin Xu closed his eyes tightly, sweat soaked his long hair against his cheeks, and suddenly, Heinrich’s eyes stared. On the black as steel fish tail, fine scales opened with Lin Xu’s force, and a creamy white, slightly long, round object emerged from between the black scales. Lin Xu’s…. …mermaid’s egg?
The flat front of the fish’s tail in its normal state was propped up in undulating lines by the mermaid egg. The size of the egg looked like it needed to be held together by Heinrich with both hands, and it wasn’t small at all, holding up all the scales, with the visible pink interior almost translucent and light-colored, as it was stretched covering the eggshell as it was squeezed out.
The breath Lin Xu held did not last long enough to expel the whole mermaid egg, he suddenly stopped and breathed heavily, the fishtail being opened seemed to cause him extreme pain, the white egg shrank back a little with his breathing and went in.
Heinrich stepped forward and tried to hold Lin Xu, but he didn’t know what position would save Lin Xu’s strength. Just then, Lin Xu’s tightly closed eyes opened for a moment and looked at Heinrich through his tears and long eyelashes, “Heinrich…”
He tugged on Heinrich’s hand and pulled him to his side, Heinrich shuddered and held Lin Xu’s leaning shoulder, the mermaid egg stayed halfway between, up and down, Lin Xu’s stiff, lean upper body kept trembling, his lips were bitten through, blood staining the pale color.
“Heinrich…” Lin Xu was so tired that he had no strength, but she held onto Heinrich’s hand for dear life, dragging out a weak and faint voice, “How long have I been sleeping?”
“Forty-five days.” Heinrich carefully stroked his forehead hair.
“Where did the fleet go?”
Heinrich followed Lin Xu’s gaze out the window, past the escort ships surrounding the Victoria, countless bright points of light leaving elongated trails in his field of vision, like stationary meteors, their light falling into the dark room after millions of years of flight, coating everything with a cool silvery-white glow, faintly fading away.
Lin Xu breathed in and out, his white egg rising and falling with them, his muscles aching and sore, and he almost didn’t want to go on.
Heinrich looked into Lin Xu’s eyes, golden eyes in the shimmering light like a shallow sea full of daylight, “We’re entering the galaxy cluster, the warp engines are running. Look at the spiral galaxy on the left, that’s the fairy galaxy that the ancient Earthlings had recorded.”
Ruth captured the image through the ship’s equipped astronomical telescope, which was only visible to the naked eye as a flickering dot of light, and zoomed in to project it in mid-air, the swirling fairy galaxy was orange and yellow in the center, with a soft blue-violet glow around the edges.
“The history books say ancient Earth also called it M31, what number is that?” Heinrich asked him.
Imperial lost many of the astronomical records of ancient Earth, and after the interstellar era, mankind had a more rigorous scientific ordering of galaxies, only such poetic names as the Andromeda Galaxy were left in memory, intentionally or not.
“It was 31st in the Messier catalog, the earliest system cataloged by humans on ancient Earth, but it faded into obscurity after Imperial reached the Einstein Galaxy, millions of light-years away, where it was not used.” Lin Xu said slowly, the simulated starlight of the Andromeda Galaxy falling on his tightly frowning face, the pain of his fishtail making him grunt softly every now and then.
Heinrich kept an eye on the mermaid egg halfway down Lin Xu’s fishtail, the light-colored soft walls wrapped around the egg shell, shivering and contracting every now and then, “Lin Xu, you…”
Suddenly, Lin Xu’s eyes widened, and the light from the window cast gradually shifting shadows on his face, a brilliant glow lighting up the foggy gray eyes, and Heinrich looked up to see the Victoria passing above a vast swirling galaxy in which the cantilever of countless stars was spinning extremely slowly, the brightest, slightly rod-shaped nuclear sphere at the center of the rotation.
The dazzling light of the cantilever faded into the blue glow of young stars, mixed with the deep red glow of the scattered masses of secondary hydrogen that were excited in their place. Heinrich stroked his hair and looked at the side of Lin Xu’s face, “This is the Milky Way.”
The universe was vast and silent, and the seemingly huge Abyss Fleet was as small as a grain of dust as it swept above the spinning Milky Way, and the even smaller humans could only see the galaxy in its entirety with the help of special observation tools. Three thousand years ago, humans living on ancient Earth never had the chance to look down on this beautiful and vast galaxy.
But now, humans have been able to use the leap and curvature engine, instantly across millions of light years, re-visiting the old place. In this moment, the river of time and space seemed to pause, and the tears in his gray eyes finally gathered enough weight to roll down Lin Xu’s lower eyelashes. Heinrich wiped away his tears and whispered, “We will enter the solar system from the Oort Nebula.”
The next moment, Lin Xu closed his eyes and lowered his head to bite into Heinrich’s tiger’s mouth, arching his back, his fishtail pushing again, stiffening as he continued to squeeze out the white egg.
The mermaid’s sharp teeth could easily tear apart enemies in the deep sea. Lin Xu bit down on Heinrich’s tiger’s mouth, seemingly with force, but actually tensing his bite muscles, leaving abrasive marks on Heinrich’s hand without actually biting down.
The white egg was spat out to the thickest part of the middle, and countless stars in the galaxy were being born, growing, collapsing, cooling, and dying. The tranquil light shone through the porthole window to make everything almost transparent, and Lin Xu grabbed the hem of Heinrich’s shirt and shuddered with force.
Suddenly, his teeth bit into Heinrich’s flesh and blood, almost transmitting the pain along the link of flesh and blood, and the mermaid egg…
It shattered down the middle with a snap.
Scalding blood dripped from Lin Xu’s lips to his chest, sliding out in a pale red bloodstain as a warm, clear liquid flowed from the shattered egg, all of it pouring onto the pitch-black fishtail, the scales opening and closing almost greedily to suck the egg liquid into the crevices.
“Ugh…” Lin Xu grunted softly.
Heinrich caught the eggshell before it slid down and fell, while the other half was reduced to fragments, flowing out of the crack that had been opened and not yet restored, along with the egg liquid, and then it was reabsorbed by the fish tail.
Lin Xu gently swung the fishtail, releasing his fangs and holding onto Heinrich’s arm to catch his breath. The upper part of the fishtail bounced with his breathing, more pieces are wrapped in rhythmic muscles and spit out, the white egg that has robbed so much energy returning it back to the mother after failing to nurture life.
Lin Xu’s eyes were closed and he let out a soft cat-like murmur. Heinrich was holding half of the wet egg shell in one hand and Lin Xu in the other, unable to move. The process of spitting out the pieces lasted nearly four hours, and eventually Lin Xu fell asleep in a daze, and Heinrich had to manually clean out the remaining pieces of eggshell inside him.
His movements were sometimes untimely and heavy, causing Lin Xu to shudder once in his sleep and murmur unknown words, which gradually lowered Heinrich’s heart when he saw Lin Xu fall back to sleep. Lin Xu did not fall into a long, completely unconscious sleep again.
Heinrich carried Lin Xu to clean up, rinsing off the nutrient solution that was still on his body, and gave Lin Xu a new outfit. Lin Xu was so tired that he fell into a deep sleep and let Heinrich take care of him. After changing his clothes, Heinrich waited for a while and watched the dark scales on the fish’s tail reset to cover the light color before carrying Lin Xu to the lab to find Zhou Pingbo. The other was crouching on the floor, studying the lab door that Lin Xu had destroyed.
“Woke up for a while, then went back to sleep, but should not be sleeping for a long time again.” As Heinrich spoke, Lin Xu rubbed his chin in his dream, as if in response.
Zhou Pingbo opened his mouth, “All right. What else do you have in your hand?”
“The egg that Lin Xu laid.”
Zhou Pingbo, “?”
“Wait, wait.” Zhou Pingbo ran to put on his gloves before taking the egg shell from Heinrich, frowning, “Why is it only half a piece?
“No, Lin Xu… Halfway through the birth, the egg shattered on its own and the liquid was absorbed into the fishtail.”
“I haven’t seen this kind of creature…” Zhou Pingbo glanced at the empty eggshell and then at Lin Xu. Although he had just finished a birth, Lin Xu’s pale face had a little more blood on it and he didn’t look so weak anymore, “Come in, I’ll check him out.”
Zhou Pingbo busied himself with testing the eggshell composition and extracting the remaining bit of egg liquid for testing, and then asked Heinrich to carry Lin Xu to this machine and then to the lab table. Heinrich silently held Lin Xu tightly to complete the instructions, during which Arnold reported the results of the on-line meeting to him.
Soon after, Zhou Pingbo slid his swivel chair with a long breath of relief and a conclusion. “One good news, and one bad news, no, two good news, which one do you want to hear first?”
“What’s the bad news?”
Zhou Pingbo sighed, “I knew you would ask this first. The bad news is that Dr. Lin’s hormone levels have not returned to normal, and he may still have abnormal symptoms for some time afterwards, so he needs to be taken care of.”
“And the good news?”
“The good news is that I presume that there is a substance in this egg to replenish the energy he was deficient in before, and the weak state will not continue. The other is that, fortunately, this egg is a spermless egg, and the energy can be re-fed to the mother. If there is really life in the egg, with the birth of new life, Dr. Lin’s deficit energy cannot be re-filled, and it may even be all taken away by this egg, and his life force will be quickly depleted.
“This egg is a catalyst, I really don’t know what kind of extreme environment the mermaid is in to evolve this reproduction mechanism, fortunately there is no second male mermaid on the Victoria.”
Zhou Pingbo said, noticing that Heinrich’s expression was not quite right, and countless guesses flashed through his mind instantly.
“You…you and Lin Xu, uh, this, have exchanged chromosomes before?” Zhou Pingbo usually never avoids professional words in class or in the lab, but at this moment he was a bit stuck in the face of Heinrich and the quietly sleeping Lin Xu, “I did advise you to take safety measures, but this…”
“No.” Heinrich’s answer was the same as last time. Luckily not. Otherwise, he would have been the one who caused Lin Xu’s death.
Zhou Pingbo nodded his head, not sure if he believed it or not, “But your species are different, and your genes may not really fuse.”
“Are human and dragon genes structurally capable of fusion?”
Zhou Pingbo, “… No.”
But Heinrich, a human-dragon hybrid, sat before him alive.
The author has something to say.
This… this egg doesn’t have to be eaten with the mouth, does it?
Postpartum anomalies, you guess? I don’t know if I’ll mouth
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