Chapter 62: Where are the scales?
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: Karai
Lin Xu’s words of reassurance made the current situation even worse. More and more things emerged in Heinrich’s mental field, the world of consciousness held no continuous picture, all the sights, sounds, smells swept in like fragments, and faded like snowy waves, leaving shallow traces of ripples rolling across the beach.
The two stars of the Sandy star scorched and distorted the air, and the slightest movement caused sweat to roll down. Heinrich’s gaze fell on the reddened sunburn marks on Lin Xu’s shoulders, his nasal and trembling murmurs blurred, a vision of Lin Xu’s dark eyelashes, long eyebrows and red, dry lips as intense as red Chinese roses under strong exposure.
Strong magnetic handcuffs arced to imprison him, and the always powerful black fishtail now hung limply on the ground. In the real past, Heinrich had cleaned up Lin Xu’s wounds and stains in a strong but serious manner, restraining and reassuring him.
But here, in the silence of mecha Blizzard, Marshal Chu was wearing the most magnificent and solemn of all military uniforms, holding down the fishtail and forcing Lin Xu’s scales away.
Tears clouded the extremely lustrous eyes and rolled down the shoulder with Heinrich’s strong and reckless momentum, drenching the exposed wound with salt.
Silver-white dragon scales with sharp edges, fish tail with scales could resist, but without scales at the place it was scraped in the exchange and became swollen and bleeding.
The more Lin Xu cried, the stronger the current from the magnetic handcuffs on his wrists, his throat hoarse. The other man, like a hungry beast, grabbed him by the neck and injected pheromone into the back of his neck, which had no omega glands at all.
The abnormal fluid invaded his bloodstream, and his immune system reacted so violently that he whimpered in pain. A wave of mental energy overwhelmed Lin Xu. Heinrich noticed, too, that he was struggling to control himself. But when one allows oneself not to think about something, one thinks about it.
Countless details were replayed in a loop in Lin Xu’s consciousness, and Heinrich’s perceptions and desires were fed back to Lin Xu’s brain through mental energy connection, and for some reason, the scene of Heinrich’s consciousness was filled with an ardent sweetness that would not go away.
Lin Xu only felt that if he let everything go, Heinrich would want to shoot his overactive brain in the head.
“Heinrich, calm down first.”
“I’m sorry, I…” Heinrich’s tone was dry and repressed, and after being stripped away from all his coverings, he was almost afraid to face Lin Xu.
In this most untold fantasy, he bit the back of Lin Xu’s neck, blood smeared all over his back, Heinrich’s lips and teeth scraping over the bruises on Lin Xu’s cheeks and shoulders, Lin Xu shivering, fearful and resistant, tears soaking his face, everything in chaos.
Heinrich was like the craziest beast in the colosseum and the most tyrannical despot in the palace, frantically trying to tear everything apart.
“It’s okay, Heinrich, it’s not a crime to think about it.”
Lin Xu cried and begged for mercy in the constant flashes of phantom dreams.
As calm as a glacier in the mental domain, he turned to Heinrich and said, “Relax, I can help you. But don’t suppress your mind and don’t resist, you must relax and let me into your consciousness.”
The next moment, the scene of the memory fragment changed again, and they were leaning against the huge porthole of the outdoor platform of the archive, and Lin Xu told Heinrich to ‘relax and take it easy,’ as he had done last time.
The stars swirled and glowed outside the window, and Lin Xu’s hands looked like melting ice. Lin Xu blinked at the shifting images, forcing his mental energy to stay on an even keel.
“When do you think about this? When it’s all over and you’re lying in bed, remembering the day’s experiences?”
Heinrich’s mental energy fluctuated violently as his secret was easily revealed. Lin Xu spoke as usual, “Imagine you’re back in room 002… You see Blackie and Snowy cowering on the edge of your pillow, falling asleep.”
The illusion descended into chaos, and all the scenes were falling apart and shattering.
“I’m there, too, just to the right of the bed, covered with a thin blanket, already asleep.” Lin Xu continued, as Heinrich’s vision gradually revealed its clear outline, “Ruth dims the lights to sleep mode, a soft orange color. You turn to wash up, and the exhaustion of work is gradually isolated.”
Heinrich saw himself in the mirror, his brow furrowed, almost with an intense anger and disgust at himself. Lin Xu’s voice was soft like the wind through the pine forest, “After washing up, you stepped out of the bathroom and sat first on the edge of the bed… You touched the two rabbit-cats and also my hair, both of which are fluffy.”
Extremely sharp tactile sensations appeared in the consciousness, and the scene of chaos and rage was being replaced by a gentle night light, Lin Xu’s face sunk into the fluffy pillows, and his cold, sharp features appeared calmer, as Heinrich’s fingers followed the side shadows cast by the light on Lin Xu’s face, tracing the shapes he was casting on Lin Xu’s face. Lin Xu’s eyelashes fluttered, like the wings of a butterfly disturbed by the wind.
“You lift the covers and lie down, the bed is already warm. Rabbit-cat sleeps between our pillows and moves its tail as you lie down.”
The smart lights in the room gradually dimmed, and Heinrich watched Lin Xu’s side fall a little into darkness and starlight.
“… You look at me and tell Ruth to turn off the lights,” Lin Xu saw Heinrich gradually taking control of the mental domain and started to wrap up the scene, “Everything goes back to darkness except Star Ocean, and you raise your hand to hold my shoulder.”
Heinrich wrapped his arms around Lin Xu’s shoulders and back, almost circling his entire body into his arms, and gently caressed Lin Xu’s shoulder blades and the back of his neck.
“… You hold me completely, the warmth and serenity calming your thoughts, slowly dissipating your consciousness and falling into a deep sleep.”
As Heinrich’s mind fell into a calm nothingness, Lin Xu managed to break through the resistance of Heinrich’s mental domain and calmly entered it.
“Heinrich, I’m coming in, open your eyes.”
When Heinrich opened his eyes, he saw Lin Xu in front of him and was confused for a moment.
The mecha’s mental energy linking system was different from StarNet’s consciousness access, where the pilot’s consciousness was directly connected to the mecha, sharing senses and control systems, without the appearance of a character similar to the initial landing screen of the Star Ocean game.
But now, in an up-and-down infinite space, he opened his eyes and plainly saw Lin Xu standing in front of him, countless memory fragments suspended and flickering in the space.
“I call this place memory palace, it is in the middle of the mental domain, but more solid and controllable.”
The two’s mental energy was still in close co-connection, and Lin Xu was able to easily capture Heinrich’s emotional changes and new ideas.
“We can exercise and control mental energy and consciousness by constructing a memory palace.”
“Is that… Your method of training there?” Heinrich knew Lin Xu didn’t like to call himself from the mermaid community.
“That’s right, want to try it? Your mental energy level is already high enough that you can skip the basic steps and start directly with building the palace.”
The memory fragments were still flying around, Heinrich raised his hand and tried to touch Lin Xu’s hair, in the memory palace, they felt real to the touch and fluffy to the touch. Lin Xu tilted his head and rubbed against his hand. Heinrich’s hand got a little heavier, and he lowered his voice, “Yes.”
–
The door to mecha’s repair room opened, and a continuous stream of conversation and footsteps enlivened the empty space.
“Captain Arnold asked us to repair Blizzard before the fleet arrives in Earth’s orbit. We rushed to complete the restoration of the basic components, leaving the final overhaul of the mental energy maneuvering and intelligence systems unfinished, and we had to ask you to help, vice-marshal Igor.” A mecha repairman guided Ika to the foot of Blizzard.
Ika looked up and stared expressionlessly at Blizzard for a moment. The repairman was overwhelmed by his quiet silence and finally, he asked, “I remember that the technical department was able to complete the maintenance and overhaul of Blizzard independently before.”
“Yes…” The repairman replied. “But this time, after an initial overhaul of the mental energy maneuvering and intelligence systems, we found traces of forced intrusion into the system and that the two-person link mode had been used. Blizzard’s system design is so sophisticated that we didn’t dare to modify the settings.” The repairman couldn’t resist asking one more question, “Vice-marshal Igor , do you know who the second pilot of Blizzard is and whether Marshal will continue to work with this pilot in the future? If so, we may need to make a closer adjustment to the tandem control system.”
What he didn’t ask was who had the mental energy level to match Heinrich Chu’s, and when did the Abyss Fleet get such an extra person?
The technical department was responsible for mecha overhaul, and was familiar with the personnel information of the mecha division in the fleet, but the maintenance staff hadn’t heard of any new mecha masters in a while. And the previous mecha masters… Even though the Abyss Fleet was staffed by some of Imperial’s best mecha masters, there was still no one to match Heinrich. Mismatched mental energy levels could cause heavy damage to the mental domain of the weaker side.
“Mn, debug it, they can use it.”
Ika remembered that on the Sand star, Lin Xu accompanied Heinrich to blow up the black hole, and if a second mecha pilot would appear on Heinrich’s mecha, it could only be Lin Xu.
However, since Lin Xu did not have a mecha driver’s license, such behavior was a driving violation, so Ika did not reveal Lin Xu’s name to the maintenance man.
“Understood.” The maintenance man didn’t ask any more questions. He took Ika to the main maintenance operator, turned on the system detection device, and showed the relevant parameters to Ika. The blue light screen of the operator showed the real-time status of the mecha, “Huh? Why is there someone in the cockpit? And it’s connected to the mental energy manipulation system!”
“There can’t be anyone else.” Ika said.
The maintenance crew got emotional, “Of course there shouldn’t be anyone else! There are multiple authentication and security mechanisms in the maintenance room, no one can get in without permission, how could someone be in Blizzard?!”
Ika blinked, only to see the maintenance man tense and frightened, almost wanting to call the guards to report the infiltrator, he stopped the maintenance man and calmly explained his earlier words, “Only Marshal Chu has access to Blizzard, he’s the one who’s there.”
“Marshal Chu? He…”
“Send a communication request to the cockpit and ask about it.”
The man in the cockpit did not turn on the video, only a cold, low voice came through the current, “This is Blizzard, pilot Heinrich Chu.”
“Marshal Chu!!! Hello!” The repairman immediately replied, suddenly feeling too startled and trying to look professional, “I am the mecha repairman in charge of Blizzard, may I ask if you are experiencing any problems in the cockpit? We plan to overhaul and upgrade the cockpit systems.”
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the communication, as if Heinrich had temporarily cut off the human voice, only to resume a dozen seconds later, “No problem, I’m exiting the cockpit now, please continue with the planned overhaul.”
The repairman suddenly felt full of energy.
–
For the first specific mental energy exercise, Lin Xu asked Heinrich to try some simple actions, such as adding basic decorations to the memory palace.
Lin Xu was not surprised to see that Heinrich had designed the palace as the Victoria, based on the rule that the base lab had worked out during the apocalypse that it was best to construct a familiar scene in the memory palace as a base.
But the Victoria was a complex structure, and Heinrich had picked himself a tough job ahead. When the repairman sent the communication, he had just finished designing the dome of the bridge.
The repairman wanted to continue overhauling the systems and the two men exited the mental energy link, but Lin Xu blocked it before Heinrich could answer again.
“Tell them not to come up here, I need a reprieve.” Lin Xu hunkered down in his seat, looking ahead with his eyes half-lidded.
“What’s wrong?” Heinrich was worried that Lin Xu was having trouble with his mental field.
“Well.” Lin Xu lifted his leg, “I’m a little excited…”
Not understanding at first, Heinrich got up and walked towards Lin Xu, waiting for him to get closer, his eyes dropping down over Lin Xu’s shoulders and down… “Do you want my help?”
“Forget it, the maintenance guys will have to use this place later.”
Heinrich didn’t see any flickering fragments of consciousness in Lin Xu’s mental domain and mistakenly thought Lin Xu remained sedated, but only Lin Xu himself knew that he was struggling to build high walls to lock out any blushing thoughts.
He didn’t mind Heinrich’s crude, blunt fantasies, but… Something doesn’t feel right.
The visions and memories were fragmented, carrying the perspective of the thinking man, not coherent, and when linked, the images flashed quickly through the intermingled consciousness of the two.
Scales so sharp they hurt… where did Heinrich get the scales?
The author has something to say.
Professor Lin real life live sleep aid a□□□r
This Title is available for faster chapter releases through paid Patreon membership. Any proceeds go to keeping the website running. Check it out HERE.
