Chapter 69: The sweetness came from…
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: Karai
Heinrich turned off the light, looked down and said, “Close your eyes.”
His words were short and strong, but not quite cold enough to dictate, and Lin Xu did as he was told, the darkness sweeping in like a tidal wave, the rest of his senses becoming clearer in the darkness.
He scratched his fingers as he heard Heinrich’s footsteps fade away, trying to sit up, but then there was the clatter of the closet being opened, which slowed Lin Xu’s movements and temporarily stopped him from rushing out of bed to drag Heinrich back.
The clash of metal and leather seemed like sparks in the darkness, and Lin Xu guessed that it was the armed belt used to hold Heinrich’s weapon on his uniform. Soon, his suspicions were confirmed. Heinrich approached again and rolled Lin Xu over, leaning over and tying his hands to the bed with the belt, while his legs were tied apart.
The robe was removed and placed over Lin Xu’s face, obliterating the last possibility of him seeing anything. The sound of the outside world became hazy through the fabric, and the acuity of touch increased dramatically when Heinrich’s hands approached his shoulder blades. Before they touched, the mere heat of the body coming through the air sent shivers down Lin Xu’s spine.
Heinrich’s rough but warm palm worked its way up, finally pinching the back of Lin Xu’s neck and pressing him into the pillow. But then, all his movements remained the same, gentle and calm.
The cold, raised brass clasp of the armed belt sent shivers down Lin Xu’s sensitive nerves, and Heinrich’s gentle movements were magnified by the darkness on Lin Xu’s senses.
By the time it was over, Lin Xu couldn’t believe that the calmness of the mirror lake was enough to make his mind flood over and over again.
The white chocolate seemed to be absorbed, and there was a surge of heat behind him that allowed Lin Xu to slow down his breathing without feeling tired or weary. Thinking about what he had just done, he kicked Heinrich in the face with a lot of energy.
Lin Xu even thought about rolling over and doing it himself, the armed straps that bound him were actually as fragile as silk and would break with the slightest struggle, but Heinrich’s palms were like hot, red-hot steel, holding him down so tightly that he couldn’t move.
After Heinrich’s knee was kicked, he got up and untied everything for Lin Xu, who was still rolling contentedly but irritably, and Heinrich had to hold him in his arms and ask, “More?”
“Mmm…”
“… Turn into a fishtail.” Heinrich ordered.
He used his hands to help Lin Xu open the scales and touch the fishtail. Lin Xu only felt the force and speed of Heinrich’s hands exceeded his own, and after several repetitions, the fishtail twitched and overcharged, and Lin Xu finally couldn’t support himself and passed out.
–
The sunlight poured through the round portholes and into the leaden gray floor of the lander’s interior. As Ryan ran through the dining room in an isolation suit, Heinrich called out to him, “You’re going out?”
“Uh-huh.” Ryan nodded cheerfully, “Yesterday’s detector showed no abnormalities, and Professor Lin said I could then go out and hang out.”
Behind him, Arnold came up slowly, and as soon as he saw Heinrich, he immediately raised his hand in a military salute, and Heinrich swept him, “Keep an eye on him.”
“Yes, Marshal!”
Ryan took half a step out of the dining room and then suddenly returned, running to the refrigerator and pulling out a glass jar filled with some kind of golden, sticky liquid that slid slowly with Ryan’s movements.
“Marshal! Do you want to try this?” Ryan asked, “I cross-referenced the history and this is a natural sweetener called honey that was commonly used by the ancient Earth people. I just picked it out of the honeycomb yesterday and it’s really sweet!”
Ryan was ready to open the mouth of the jar, Arnold took a look at Heinrich face cold, instantly stopping him, “Okay, Ryan, put it down. Don’t mess with untested food from an alien planet.”
Ryan looked at Arnold strangely, wanting to say, “Didn’t you have a good time eating honey yesterday? Besides, it’s a traditional human food on Earth, so how can you not eat it?”
But Arnold had pressed his hand forcefully and told him to put down the honey jar. Heinrich’s sharp gaze fell on the glass jar, lips pursed, Arnold cold sweat, a slap on Ryan’s hand to tell him to let go quickly. “Marshal, I’m taking him away.” Arnold pressed Ryan’s shoulder and pushed him out.
Heinrich nodded, his brow furrowing slightly as he looked at the jar of honey. Arnold pushed Ryan out and then ran over to clean up the mess, ready to put the jar of honey into a sealed and isolated sample room.
“Don’t touch it.” Heinrich suddenly said in a cold voice. His hand froze in mid-air. What did the honey do to Marshal? Arnold had practiced it himself; it was sweet and had an exotic fragrance that was not toxic. When Heinrich looked at him with cold golden eyes, he saluted and left without a minute to spare.
After Arnold’s departure, Heinrich was left alone in the dining room. The artificial milk in a glass was boiling and bubbling, giving off a milky aroma.
Heinrich pulled the glass jar in front of him, the mouth of the jar, which Ryan had opened halfway and hadn’t had time to recap, smelled vaguely of sweet honey, and he opened the metal cap with a serious expression.
Heinrich lowered his eyebrows, took a small spoon, reached into the glass jar and stirred the honey, finally scooped up a spoonful, the honey pulled out a golden sweet thin silk.
“Morning.”
The sudden sound made his hand shake and the spoon fell with the honey into the artificial milk beside his hand with a crash, splashing away the froth.
Lin Xu raised his hand to wipe the milk stain off Heinrich’s cheek as he passed by, pulled out a stool and sat next to him, pointed to the food and drink on the insulated cooking table, and asked, “Mine?”
“Yeah.” Before Heinrich had a chance to pick out the spoon, the cup and plate were brought over by Lin Xu.
Lin Xu took the handle of the spoon and stirred it a few times, and once the honey was all melted into the cup, he took a natural sip and began to eat the artificially flavored fast food.
Heinrich licked his lips unconsciously, and in silence, he re-digged a dollop of honey from his dinner knife and spread it on the carbonated cookie, taking a bite. The sweet, sticky taste spread across his tongue as he slowly chewed and licked.
The sweet aroma Lin Xu always emitted smelled like this… Honey that flowed with a sunny hue, but because of the warmth and cool body heat, it was mixed with dampness and a faint musky scent that was more persistent and attractive than the sticky pure honey.
Lin Xu felt a little strange when he saw Heinrich staring at the cup in his hand, and pushed the remaining half cup of artificial milk back to Heinrich, “Do you want to drink it?”
“No… Hmm.” Heinrich gave up his refusal and took the cup to take a taste. The honey-added artificial milk had a smooth sweetness on top of the mellow flavor, overpowering the artificial taste and smell.
For a moment, he couldn’t tell the difference between the sweet scent Lin Xu’s fingers left on the wall of the cup and the smell of the honey itself in the milk. Heinrich suddenly remembered that in the days after the end of his pregnancy, Lin Xu’s milk scent rose and sometimes he could smell a similar scent. What if…
Heinrich immediately suppressed the images that flashed through his mind with the mental energy exercises Lin Xu had given him.
“This is what Ryan brought back. Have you tasted honey before?” Heinrich’s sudden question caused Lin Xu’s hand to pause. His action of drinking honey just now was so natural that he momentarily forgot that there was no such thing as honey in the Marion Empire; it only existed in the ancient Earth history books.
“Tasted it.” Lin Xu replied, he couldn’t keep everything from Heinrich all the time, but at the moment he was still hesitant, wanting to wait for an appropriate moment. What else do you have to do with ancient Earth? The question had reached Heinrich’s throat, but in the end he didn’t ask it.
After the meal was over, the housekeeping robots took away the dishes, the honey was resealed by Heinrich and put back in the fridge, and Lin Xu was ready to go back to his room to rest a little more, he was a little tired from being stimulated too many times by the fishtail last night, Heinrich was in good spirits.
But Zhou Pingbo’s communication was accessed at this time, so Lin Xu stayed behind again, fished out a handful of crystal cores from his coat pocket and put them on the table, crushing them in his hands like a melon seed and absorbing them. Heinrich smelled the sweet aroma getting stronger and stronger.
“Marshal. Marshal?” called Zhou Pingbo on the other side of the light screen several times before Heinrich’s eyes moved from Lin Xu to his side.
“I’m here.”
“Good, good, let’s finish quickly so I can go squint for a while.” Zhou Pingbo said he was going to go to sleep, but took another sip of his cold drink, “Dr. Lin is here too? That’s good, I found something interesting in the mutant sample you handed over.
“I thought at first that this was just a common biological characteristic, but after examining more mutants, I confirmed that these carbon-based organisms and Zerg, a carbon-based silicon-based combined organism, share the same gene fragment, which contains a cut of human genes. According to my current speculation, this segment of gene points to an attack on humans.”
Zhou Pingbo sighed as he finished his sentence and took another sip of his drink, “This part of the experiment was done by me alone, without the knowledge of my assistants and experimenters, and Imperial sent us biologists, saying we wanted to check the status of Earth organisms and, if possible, introduce Earth plants and animals to Imperial to increase biodiversity.
I’m afraid they didn’t guess that there are still these dangerous creatures on Earth. But the good thing is that the density of these mutants is not high enough to cause much damage.”
Zerg and mutants have the same genetic fragment? Lin Xu squeezed the crystal core, his face gradually sunken… The information he had read did not contain this bit.
Zhou Pingbo continued, “There is also the team in charge of cultural and social research that is collecting archaeological data in various abandoned cities around the world. I heard some news… Many of the abandoned cities have a large number of unburied human remains, and they are doing radiation examinations on the corpses, presumably due to the massive human deaths caused by strong radiation. I’m not sure about their series of social development models and measures to comment well.”
War, pollution, resource depletion. It was a vague answer mentioned long ago in Imperial history books. But now Lin Xu was able to confirm that it was just a whitewash pretext.
After the apocalypse began, populated cities became areas of concentrated zombie outbreaks, and major bases were set up outside the cities in sparsely populated areas, and most of the human corpses left in the remains of abandoned cities are now zombie bones.
Lin Xu asked, “They only searched the cities?”
“Oh, and a few of the ancient human researchers are out in the wilderness.”
“What about the others? Didn’t they find some of the more well-preserved sanctuary-type ruins?”
The major human bases, even if they could not last more than three thousand years, should be in better condition than the abandoned cities.
“No. But a number of huge craters were found, which historical researchers believe to be evidence of a major war.”
How could . . all the apocalypse bases be destroyed?
