Chapter 83: Can you smile again?
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: Karai
Lin Xu gradually began to move to the front of the room, from being a voice on the radio to speaking on stage as the top spokesperson. Because he had to write and issue all kinds of announcements for the bite-sized base, messages big and small gathered in his hands. Even in the apocalypse, the rules of the political game remained the same: information serves as a resource and a weapon. Lin Xu was moving step by step to the center of power.
The images and sounds in his memory flashed by, as Heinrich watched Lin Xu running around in the massive, oppressive steel and concrete buildings of the East Region base for the numbers on paper, the various paper reports, and the distorted syllables on the radio.
As for the zombies and mutated creatures that truly and anxiously threatened the survival of all mankind, they existed for him only in photographs, videos, and laboratories. After a few years of this life, Lin Xu’s cramped and windowless office was about to be filled with reports and drafts when one of the base’s top brass was killed in a hunt for advanced mutants and the remaining ones were ready to hold a meeting to discuss who would fill the gap.
As the meeting proceeded, Lin Xu was writing the weekly summary of the base’s broadcasts, for which he was always personally responsible, and the pencil lead was pressed through his shaking hand three times. He waited nervously for the outcome of the meeting.
Heinrich entered the memory from Lin Xu’s point of view, and Lin Xu’s thoughts and emotions were transmitted to his consciousness as if they were his own memories. Lin Xu was not afraid at this point, on the contrary, he was very excited.
Unlike the onlookers in his memory, Heinrich knew Lin Xu’s mind, and he was able to confirm that he would take over the position before the official selection was made. He had done the math and found no one better than him, from any angle. Sure enough, in the early hours of that morning, Lin Xu was lying in his single bed, well past his normal bedtime, but he was still staring up at the ceiling with his eyes open. The next day, as the sun climbed into the gray canopy, the ventilation system sent purified, cold air inside the base, and people began to call him Chief Lin.
Lin Xu’s focus shifted and became even busier, and from then on there was no talk of a normal bedtime, his office was lit up nearly all day. His shortcomings in health were thoroughly exposed by the intensity of his work, and Heinrich was always worried that the memory of Lin Xu would collapse in the next moment, but it was as if a burning fire was supporting him so that he could face everything with a soft smile. But there was nothing soft about Lin Xu’s style. Even if Lin Xu himself didn’t realize it at first, his gentle demeanor was indeed for others to see.
Even in his quiet life before the apocalypse, there were waves of fear between his quiet words, his calm and gentle appearance concealing the many chasms in Lin Xu’s heart.
A small memory fragment flashed in front of Heinrich’s eyes, a sad mother broke through the heavy guards and jumped at Lin Xu’s feet, asking him to save her son. She said her son was a psychic, surrounded by a tide of zombies in this purge.
Lin Xu lowered his eyebrows to help her up, dried her tears, and told the mother in a sympathetic but firm voice that the search and rescue team had already set out and they would do their best.
But after she limped away, the communications officer reported to him that the rescue team found that the action squad was all infected by the zombie virus and was in the process of transformation. The look of sympathy and sadness on Lin Xu’s face hadn’t been completely put away when the icy words were already on his lips, “Kill according to regulations.”
His methods were more stubborn and resolute than those of his military-born colleagues, and the various commands issued were close to the point of coldness. He could assign “necessary sacrifice” missions calmly and without a trace of guilt. Each time, a new trolley problem presented itself, Lin Xu would not sit idly by, he was the one who did not hesitate to pull the wrench and make the choice.
Lin Xu still did his weekly wrap-up broadcast, and the survivors found his new management system and programs extraordinarily harsh and effective, along with Chief Lin’s always seemingly gentle and gracious appearance, like a fingerprinted star in the fog, a tangle of emotions.
Most people were at peace. But once he came to the fore, the extremists disgruntled by the indifference and harshness of the controls had a target to aim at, and the grief-stricken who had lost loved ones in field missions joined them in venting their anger and fear at Lin Xu’s name. The curses were circulated privately and would be compiled and submitted to Lin Xu’s desk.
“Chief Lin, do you want to deal with it?”
Lin Xu stood in front of the window, his back to his subordinates, and said indifferently, “No. There are not enough psychologists at the base. We have to give them some other outlet for their emotions, so they don’t go crazy.”
Scold him if you want, as long as the work went well, the base was functioning normally, to continue to maintain the life of the orphans of human civilization. This gradually diffused disgust reached its peak after Lin Xu was unexpectedly infected with the zombie virus.
The accident occurred when Lin Xu left the main base and was on his way to the Northern Region base to negotiate, his convoy was attacked by a tide of zombies, resulting in death and injury, and Lin Xu also had his arm scratched by a zombie’s claw.
But the moment the zombie virus invaded Lin Xu’s immune system, his psychic powers were awakened and he began to fight the virus, and the two reached a strange balance after a fierce and painful fight. Lin Xu survived his injuries but was half-zombified. He woke up again, lying on the base’s lab bench.
The base had no intention of dissecting Lin Xu, and the rest of the executives asked all the doctors to do their best to save Lin Xu, who remembered more than anything in his head, but the doctors and experimenters feared that the half-zombie Lin Xu would attack humans and had to strap him to the bench for treatment.
The chief physician was overjoyed to find that Lin Xu was still conscious and, although infected with the virus, his blood and saliva were not contagious, nor did he develop an instinctive tendency to attack humans; could this be some kind of solution to cure the zombie virus?!
But at the base, certain people who were already vaguely dissatisfied with Lin Xu, but could not find a breakthrough from his actions without showing a single crack, somehow got the news of Lin Xu being infected with the virus, the base wanted to save him by all means, which violated the usual rules in the apocalypse, they were not convinced! Why! The top brass had to forcefully suppress these protests and urge the chief physician to hurry up.
After some research, it was found that Lin Xu was not fully controlled by the Zombie virus because he had awakened his fusion powers, a condition that had no reference value for ordinary infected people.
Lin Xu was lying in a hospital bed, but his information source was never cut off, and he knew what was happening outside. One day, when the chief physician came in for a review, he said, “You should put a bullet in my head.”
The chief physician froze for a moment and first said reassuringly, “Don’t worry, the virus won’t continue to spread, you won’t become a zombie.”
“But according to the rules, the shot should have been fired a long time ago.”
Heinrich clearly felt that at this moment Lin Xu’s mind was extremely firm, not half wavering, and he would never blink at the muzzle of a gun.
The chief physician’s brow furrowed deeply and looked at Lin Xu with a complicated expression, and was silent for a long time before he spoke, “Chief Lin, this is the rule for people. If you are not a human being, you do not have to abide by it, we are developing a genetic-based alien transplantation technology, the project declaration you have read, but all the previous experimental subjects have failed, I would like to ask if you are interested in becoming a volunteer experimental subject, fused alien abilities might be a breakthrough.”
“Think about it, but don’t think about finding a gun to point at yourself, I’ll have someone tie you up with restraints for now, sorry about that.”
Before the chief physician left, he looked back at Lin Xu, “Chief Lin, the world is still getting worse, but you have managed the base well, I hope you can still retain patience and faith in ordinary people like before, one day, they will understand what you have done.”
Lin Xu was tied to his bed for a night of contemplation, and the next morning signed the informed consent form for the volunteer subjects. He was handed over to the people who were doing all the heavy lifting, and then he was immediately thrown into the experiment.
There was no anesthesia for the genetic experiments, and the pain of the transformation was so intense that Lin Xu, controlling the memory replay, sped up the process for Heinrich.
Eventually, Lin Xu got five powers, telekinesis, space-time control, deep-sea genes, water control and fire control, he was also undergoing psychic training and combat, and weapons training, which was a pile, one item to polish him into the sharpest and most horrific combat weapons. And became a weapon that didn’t fear infection from the Zombie virus.
Since then, Lin Xu went into fierce combat on the front lines, and he was barely seen on the base, only to be heard at each combat debriefing, and then again at the next combat dispatch.
Still there were people who didn’t know the details of the transformation experiment who resented the fact that Lin Xu survived and was even able to gain powers transplanted from other psychics, as if Lin Xu had enjoyed all the benefits that were beyond their reach.
Lin Xu never refuted these remarks, and after that, he didn’t talk much. He started to get used to being alone, like a silent lone wolf, wounded again and again in fierce battles, and relying on himself to heal again and again.
The fire burning in his heart was quenched by the stormy rain, and the ashes were submerged in water, turning into a cold, wet, deep swamp. The mask of gentleness was completely torn. The relationship between the base survivors and Lin Xu became increasingly frosty.
Under the last zombie tidal wave attack that was enough to destroy the East Region’s main base, Lin Xu refused to be rescued by his old classmate, Alfred, the leader of the North Region.
“Alfred, true courage is not fighting for survival, but facing the fall of humanity directly.”
“… Do you have it?”
“I do.”
“… You are going to refuse my help to prove that you have this courage?”
“No, I stayed because I wanted to fight for them one last time.” Lin Xu said, “Stop asking, Alfred, you have plenty of men on your side, there is no shortage of me.”
Lin Xu did not go back on his word, he fought until his last breath, with only a little strength left to open the space-time channel and let the force field in the space tunnel tear apart all the enemies around him. When he woke up again, he was on the border planet of the Imperial Dionysus Region.
Lin Xu, with his wounds and pains, fought through the chaos for a while. He quickly learned Imperial language and earned a fortune through underground bounty missions in the border zone, and got a new identity in the black market.
Next, Heinrich watched Lin Xu pass the Imperial all-access exam with high scores and enter the top-ranked Capital Star University, where he chose the cold science of ancient Earth and entered Marianna’s class, and then successfully entered the Ancient Earth Natural Science Museum. He then went on to work at the Ancient Earth Natural Science Museum. Under the blue sky of Cacamorra Plains, Lin Xu built himself a white vintage bungalow and collected two rabbit-cat cubs from the grass to raise. The bloody and death-filled past was buried deep in his mind until today when the owner of the memory voluntarily ripped out the scars and showed everything to Heinrich without reservation.
Lin Xu rubbed his brow and turned his head to find Heinrich looking at him with indefinable emotions in those golden eyes. “What’s on your mind?”
Heinrich’s lips opened slightly but did not immediately make a sound, his silver hair was pressed against his forehead by the mental energy link helmet, soaked with sweat.
Even though Lin Xu was now sitting intact in front of him, he watched Lin Xu’s memory of the thrilling battle, his heart still clenched like that of a choker, in constant fear that the next moment Lin Xu would lose his life and become one of the mountains of bodies stacked in the apocalypse. Heinrich paused for a long time until Lin Xu tilted his head in confusion.
“… Do you want to see my memories?”
Lin Xu took off his helmet, “Marshal Chu’s story pops up hundreds of millions of pages in a single search on the Internet, and I’ve seen quite a few.”
“Some of them are fake news.”
Like something about the Victoria’s main ship being able to take human form and being Heinrich Chu’s secret lover.
“I know, after all, the real Marshal Chu is in front of me.” Lin Xu smiled.
“Lin Xu…”
“Hmm?”
“…”
“Nothing.” The words were on his lips, but Heinrich hesitated to speak to Lin Xu.
He was quiet all of a sudden, the repressed emotions brought back from his memories making his face look even more serious at the moment, reflecting the cold lights of the dashboard in the cockpit, his lips pursed into a straight line, even a bit unapproachable.
Lin Xu could face the past stoically, he knew exactly what he was doing and did not regret any of the choices he had made. Whether as a commander sending soldiers to certain death, or personally going into a sea of blood.
But Heinrich, who had watched all of Lin Xu’s suffering, could not. He could have guessed that Lin Xu had been through countless battles, but if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, people who lived in a civilized world couldn’t imagine the horror and despair when order collapsed.
Heinrich did not know how to speak to the other side the words that came to his mind in a moment. The thoughts in his mind were not half as great or heavy as they could have been, so small that they would have seemed out of place in the face of the gray weight of death.
–
After a ten-minute memory replay time overrun, Heinrich and Lin Xu walked out of the mecha warehouse together and then took the elevator to take Lin Xu back to area H first.
Lin Xu came out without closing the door, Blackie and Snowy had expertly squeezed through the doorway and were rolling in the hallway. After seeing the two of them winging and running over to rub their pant legs. Heinrich’s pace was halted by Blackie, lifting his army boots but not knowing whether to use the back of his foot to exit Blackie or let the rabbit-cat scuffle with his ears. Lin Xu leaned down and scooped up the two rabbit-cats into his arms and asked, “More work?”
“Wrap-up meeting.”
“Go on.” Lin Xu stood in front of the door and rubbed the cats’ heads twice. Heinrich nodded and waited for Lin Xu to enter, and Lin Xu looked at him, waiting for Heinrich to turn around and leave.
Neither of them wanted to be the one to leave first, and the empathic connection seemed to pull them into a pool of sticky, burning glue, with fewer words and as if their consciousnesses were still connected.
Lin Xu patted Heinrich’s shoulder, signaling him to go, and Snowy followed Lin Xu’s lead and pressed his white paw on Heinrich’s shoulder. Heinrich answered, lifted his feet, and turned around, but didn’t take two steps out, then fell back.
“Lin Xu…”
“I’m here.”
Lin Xu stared at his thin lips, wanting to hear exactly what Heinrich had been holding back from the mecha until he got here. He was familiar with Heinrich’s expression when he wanted to speak, but didn’t know what to say to him. It was a look that was always hidden under a slight frown of seriousness and coldness.
But Heinrich still didn’t say anything, a pair of large hands on either side of his face, his thumbs pressed against his lips, the calluses of his fingers hard and rough, his palms dry and warm.
Heinrich’s thumbs pressed down. He knew Lin Xu had two dimples on his cheeks, but they only appeared when his smile was deep, and even in past memory, Heinrich had only seen them once or twice.
His thumb pulled the muscles in Lin Xu’s face upward again. Lin Xu raised his eyebrows and looked at Heinrich in confusion, but Heinrich’s gaze fell only on the lower half of his face. His face was cupped by Heinrich’s hand, and the facial muscles connecting his lips were again pressed by the other man, not quite able to open his mouth to speak.
Heinrich pressed the corners of his lips and for some reason became a little lost. But thank God, he was finally willing to look up into Lin Xu’s gray eyes. Lin Xu watched as Heinrich’s lips opened to reveal a little bit of white, neat teeth, and he pursed his lips again, almost pausing to breathe to formulate the question he had been hiding for so long. “Lin Xu, can you smile again?”
