Chapter 90: Mr. Lin Looks Handsome
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: Karai
“Mr. Metz, where will they be staying after this?”
“We haven’t arranged their rooms yet.”
“I’ll take them to area H.”
“It’s all up to you,” Metz wasn’t worried that Lin Xu would mistreat the laborers. “I’ll have Ruth send you a Slime Life Science Guide. Just follow the guide; they are quite resilient.”
Lin Xu nodded and leaned forward to ask Lu’a and Lu’la what they thought. The two little slimes responded cheerfully and excitedly. Lin Xu also messaged Heinrich, who said the slimes could stay in Room 010 and logistics soldier Xu Xing would take care of their food and lodging.
After finishing their syrup, the two slimes bounced happily behind Lin Xu towards area H. Their lively bouncing ears attracted the attention of many passersby. At the end of corridor H, Heinrich had already opened the door to Room 010 and was waiting for Lin Xu.
After the slimes bounced into the room, they rolled around wildly on the soft bed.
[Wow, no more sleeping on hard stone slabs.]
Lin Xu handed Heinrich a translator earpiece and sat opposite him on the sofa, shoulder to shoulder.
“What’s wrong?”
Lin Xu’s gaze fell on the light yellow jelly blobs, his expression thoughtful and serious. “Did Mr. Metz tell you about their identity?”
“Yeah, he mentioned Lu’a, Lu’la, and their relationship with the Perseus Group.”
Lin Xu nodded. “Lu’a, Lu’la, I have some questions.”
As the two slimes frolicked, their soft bodies twisted into strange shapes. Upon hearing Lin Xu’s steady voice, they straightened up and waited for their soft, droopy bodies to return to their normal round, rolly-polly shapes.
[I’m Lu’a, Mr. Lin, what does he want to ask?]
Heinrich looked at the two slimes, unable to tell the difference between Lu’a and Lu’la.
Lin Xu asked, “Have you ever met Marianna Perser?”
[We met once. Beautiful Marianne is our big employer, but shortly after she saw us, ships and mecha came to take the miners away.]
Lin Xu keenly sensed the implications behind Lu’a’s words. “She visited the mining wasteland on G398?”
[That planet was named G398,] said the other slime, Lu’la. [She came once.]
“Do you know why she went to G398?”
A ripple of unease stirred in Lin Xu’s heart. In his impression, Marianna only left Crescent District for academic exchanges and vacation trips. She was pampered and lived surrounded by flowers and glamour, with no motive or reason to venture into the chaotic desolation of the Abatis Galaxy.
[Of course!] Lu’a said, slimes not being very intelligent but always optimistic and lively.
[We found lots of humans in the soil layers of G398 who couldn’t breathe, couldn’t open their eyes, and had gone cold!]
Lu’la continued, [After the report was submitted, beautiful Marianna came! She didn’t see us mining; she spent a few days around the discovered humans, and then another group of people came.]
Humans who couldn’t breathe and had gone cold? Lin Xu was stunned.
Heinrich whispered quietly in his ear, “Slimes perish when their energy depletes, shrinking until they vanish, without the concept of corpses. Cold humans should refer to corpses.”
With no civilized jurisdiction in the Abatis Galaxy and high development costs due to its remote location, except for the valuable minerals planned for extraction by the Perseus Group, most planets were abandoned by developers, with only occasional appearances by Star Pirates and explorers near the Imperial edge of the Abatis Galaxy.
For these bloodthirsty criminals, death was always close by, and abandoning corpses on some desolate planet was not uncommon. But Lu’la said they had found multiple groups of humans’ bodies. These corpses were definitely not insignificant, not even listed by the Imperial Bureau of Statistics.
“Lu’a, Lu’la, do you remember any distinctive features of the people who came to G398 after Marianna?”
Lu’a and Lu’la huddled closely together, their jelly-like bodies almost blending together. They murmured and discussed, their voices too faint for the translator to capture, falling into silence at this moment. Soon after, Lu’la jumped out and bounced to Lin Xu’s feet, then flattened her body on the ground. The light yellow slime rolled like thick paint on the ground, outlining a picture.
The symbols in this painting were abstract, resembling a triangle with symmetrically connected vertices on two sides, very abstract. Lu’a bounced around next to the flattened Lu’la, [Their starships and clothes had this pattern!]
Three triangles?
Lin Xu licked his dry lips, reluctant to dampen Lu’a’s and Lu’la’s enthusiasm, but he couldn’t figure out what they were referring to. However, Heinrich seemed to have an idea. As he pondered, his brows furrowed slightly, and his forehead creased with shadows as if frost had settled. Lu’a, intimidated by his severity, stopped bouncing around and leaned softly against Lu’la, not daring to move.
Heinrich disregarded Lu’a’s fear and brought up an image to show the slimes. “Do you recognize this symbol?”
In the picture, an eagle spread its broad wings under the Big Dipper, its starry cross gleaming. [Yes!] Lulu extended a tendril and patted Lula, signaling it to stop flattening into a carpet. Heinrich turned to meet Lin Xu’s gaze. “It’s the emblem of the First Legion.”
Under the Big Dipper, the eagle soared. The First Legion originated during the Ark Fleet era and now defended the Feilengcui Line outside Crescent District, battled Zergs, and internally managed the Capital Star’s defense forces and Imperial Guards, directly commanded by His Majesty the Emperor, making it Imperial’s oldest and most prestigious legion.
If people from the First Legion had come, it was likely involving the royal family. Did Marianna have contact with the royal family at that time? Lin Xu was completely unaware. He continued in a low voice, “What happened after they arrived?”
Lu’la: [Beautiful Marianna left shortly after they arrived. The group took away the cold humans and then took away my companions too. Lu’a and I were sleeping in the mine at the time. They forgot about us, and we almost starved to death.]
“Do you remember anything else about the cold humans?”
[They were very thin, dehydrated, clutching their arms, lying in the dirt in strange positions.]
Heinrich asked, “Did they wear many clothes?”
[Just thin clothes.]
“No helmets?”
[None. They had nothing else with them. We didn’t even find their spaceship.]
Heinrich turned to Lin Xu. “The rescue team reported the environmental conditions of G398—thin atmosphere, no liquid in any form, large temperature differences day and night. The corpses likely died due to low temperatures, dehydration, and suffocation.”
So, as the slimes said, they wore thin clothes that couldn’t withstand low temperatures and radiation, clutching their arms, painfully curled up on the ground, embracing death in the vast universe, without seeing any way out. But humans without any technology couldn’t possibly reach a desolate planet on their own feet. It could only be… “Someone threw them onto G398 and let them die.”
While in the borderlands, Lin Xu had heard of the Star Pirates’ tradition of “walking the plank” inherited from ancient Earth pirates. Pirates let traitors walk the plank, where God would decide whether they survived. But traitors thrown into space by Star Pirates couldn’t possibly survive.
But what did this have to do with the First Legion, responsible for the security of Crescent District and combating Zergs? The barren and desolate Abatis Galaxy couldn’t even support a decent-sized Star Pirates group.
Could it be that some noble youths from Capital Star were kidnapped and thrown away, prompting the Emperor to send the First Legion to collect their bodies?
“But who could compel the First Legion to act?”
Heinrich couldn’t answer Lin Xu’s question for the moment, but Lu’la shuffled over to Lin Xu’s feet and looked up at him with wide eyes. [Beautiful Mr. Lin, if you hug me, I have something else to tell you.]
Lin Xu raised an eyebrow, looking down at the small blob of slime. The light yellow slime was like a newly feathered duckling, with round, earnest eyes.
“What if I don’t?”
[Oh…] Lu’la suddenly covered the lower part of her body with her hands, burying her head like an ostrich. [I’ll be so sad and cry.]
Lin Xu made a soft sound through his nose. Just as Lu’la thought he disagreed and peeked at Lin Xu with her eyes, he grabbed her with one hand.
Lin Xu reached out and picked up Lu’la. The slime’s body was extremely soft, making him worry about squeezing her, but Lu’la immediately wrapped herself around Lin Xu’s fingers, and Lu’a also jumped up to hitch a ride happily.
[Beautiful Mr. Lin is a good human!] Lula exclaimed. Heinrich watched the two slimes clinging to Lin Xu’s hand, his face cold. Lin Xu just felt the strange sensation and poked Lu’a with his other hand. Lu’a giggled like she was drunk. [Hehe, beautiful Mr. Lin is so sweet!]
Heinrich’s aura dropped so low it could freeze a person, but two of the three beings in the room weren’t human, and the other wasn’t a target for his cold attack. Heinrich had to take the initiative to pull Lu’la and Lu’a off Lin Xu’s fingers.
[Waaah…] Lu’a and Lu’la held their heads in their hands and cried in pain. [Beautiful Mr. Lin is sweeter than anyone else!]
What’s next?
Heinrich released Lu’a and Lu’la, throwing them onto the ground, then called Ruth to fetch some tissues and personally wiped Lin Xu’s hands. However, the slimes’ smooth surfaces left nothing on Lin Xu’s hands, while Heinrich ended up leaving red imprints on Lin Xu’s hands with the tissue.
“Alright, alright,” Lin Xu patted Heinrich’s hand and turned back to the pitiful slimes. “Can you tell me anything else?”
Lu’la slowly crawled up to Lin Xu under Heinrich’s sharp gaze and spat out a metallic object from under her body. It seemed to be a metal ornament.
[I secretly took it from someone. Don’t tell anyone, okay?]
Lin Xu looked at the metal object, everything that had just transpired now fading into insignificance. His throat suddenly tightened, and he felt rooted to the spot for a moment. Eventually, he leaned down and picked up the object, trying several times before he could speak, “…This is a Base Medal from ancient Earth.”
The cloud shape of the medal could faintly be seen, corroded to the point of being mottled, with a string of numerical codes recorded on the back.
“The Western Region Base’s Meritorious Medal, awarded to heroes who rescued over five hundred survivors.” Lin Xu’s movements became very gentle as he spoke, the two slimes twisting their heads left and right, unable to understand the complex emotions in Lin Xu’s expression towards them. “Their bodies were on G398.”
Following Lin Xu’s thoughts, Heinrich speculated, “It was the Ark Fleet that abandoned them.”
“Yeah…” Lin Xu instructed Ruth to find a suitable container and placed the cloud-shaped medal inside. He frowned many times before saying, “The internal conflicts within the Ark Fleet are even more severe than I imagined.”
Even though survivors from the Western Region Base escaped Earth aboard ships, they still couldn’t escape the fate of being exiled to the wilderness by their own comrades. Three thousand years later, the descendants of the Fleet’s crew, now Imperial’s upper echelons, were still grappling with using military force to cover up the Fleet’s internal conflicts from back then.
But… Marianna likely knew about these conflicts.
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