Chapter 38

"Pres Lu," White laid a bunch of used draft papers in front of him. "I can't get the results."

With dark circles under his eyes, Bixing Lu looked weary. Every once in a while, he would rub his temples and forehead.

The tireless robots displayed in the empty lab were silent and lifeless like terracotta warriors.

With his forehead resting upon his hand, Bixing Lu flipped through White's work. The breaking dawn from the energy tower cast beams of sunlight into the lab, throwing a soft shadow on his face. He stayed quiet for such a long time that White even started to think that he'd push aside the draft papers in the next second and tell them it was all over, and they wouldn't have to work in vain anymore.

That anticipation made young White a bit nervous, though he didn't really know why.

However, after he'd been waiting anxiously for quite a while, all Bixing Lu did was to ask calmly, "I presume you've all read the reference books. What do you not understand?"

The students exchanged an uneasy look.

Rickhead said in a gruff voice, "Everything."

"That's not possible," Bixing Lu stacked the messy papers into a pile with a blank expression. "Unless you didn't pay attention to what you were reading."

He was always gentle and affectionate when he talked to people, leaving them the sense of being valued wholeheartedly. But now, though he was still gentle and patient towards his students, and as hard as he tried to restrain himself, there was still a hint of weariness in his voice.

Anyway, when all was said and done, a person who couldn't be moved no matter what you do was probably really a stone under human disguise. He'd been dead from the day he was born, and wouldn't mind if his flesh and bones rot again.

The door to the lab stayed open this whole time. Not a single soul had passed through it.

Bixing Lu glanced at it, heavily disappointed. He felt ridiculous and frankly a little despicable keeping this up. There's an invisible countdown timer hanging over this place, ticking towards their death. He knew about it but he hadn't planned on telling anyone.

Whatever was happening must be serious military operations if the Ten Squadrons were involved. Even if Lin hadn't planned on using the base as bait, the scoundrels at the base were still not the ones to be trusted. The contradictory thing was, he understood the situation very well, but he'd still hoped he could just kindle a fire on them with his crude flintstones.

It was practically illogical of him.

"We don't understand the mathematical models used here," Mint said, bracing herself. "We don't...we don't even know how to substitute the figures."

Bixing Lu remembered himself, paused before saying, "Mhmm, so all that talk about you 'having reached a level equivalent to primary education' was just a scam, wasn't it? How much did your primary degree cost you?"

White fiddled with his fingers, answering warily, "I didn't buy it. I just...well I didn't have the chance to use it for a long time so I've forgotten most of it."

Mint interrupted him, "80 bucks for an authentic cert guaranteed, traceable registration number with the Ministry of Education. Plus another 200 bucks, you'd get the full set of application material."

"Too expensive," Bixing Lu turned on his personal terminal and took out a reference book. "The old Dean of the College of Information Technology said you could get the full set for 138. You got scammed."

"President, the primary education systems in the other galaxies cover all the classic mathematical models." Jingshu Huang pointed at her temple. "By the time their kids' brains reached a certain level of development...Well, of course, by that I mean normal brains, the Eden would instill the knowledge into them. It's as if they were born with that knowledge."

Bixing Lu lifted his eyes from the book and shot her a cold gaze. "What are you trying to say?"

"The cavemen who drank blood and ate flesh were human. The ancient Earthlings who'd never left the atmosphere were human. We're human, — but we're not all the same. We're different from the people of the IU. What they're born with are the things we might never achieve even if we dedicate all of our life to it." Jingshu Huang said. "President, you're measuring us against IU standards. Don't you think that's unfair?"

"No," Lu gave her a wry smile, flipping through the e-book hanging above his terminal with a flick of his finger, "Do you consider it an achievement just to understand a primary mathematical model? There's a thought. But to me, existing maths models are but tools, not much different from your mallets and your hammers and your ropes. The first person to invent a mallet could be called a genius, but should all the apes who follow suit and use a mallet to crack nuts be said to qualify to recive a "Genius Achievement Award"?"

What was meant to be humorous became unintentionally mean. The sensitive Jingshu Huang picked up on the frustration in his voice, "President, w- what's wrong?"

"Nothing." Bixing Lu lowered his eyes and softened his tone. "Read the book yourselves. I've given you permission to use the library on your personal terminals. There are detailed explanations for each model. If there's anything specific you don't understand, you can pick it out and ask me, but I'm not guiding you through the safety manual of a mallet. Any questions?"

White was stammering, "President, so do we still have to do our assignment?"

Lu gave a terse "Yes."

"But..."

"If you believe something is useful, then try to convince someone else. If you can't, then do what you have to do." Lu said. "In a war, the energy problem takes top priority. It has to be solved one way or another. There's no way around it."

Otherwise, even if the Ninth Squadron were to land, it'd be a hassle if they couldn't find a place to dock and a stable energy system. They'd come all the way from beyond the realm after all.

Putting disappointment aside, they still had to do what they had to do.

The students knew to be tactful then. They exchanged looks and walked aside, leaving Lu alone.

The word "Mathematics" might sound inaccessible, but "the safety manual of a mallet" might sound more down to earth. Perhaps it was because of the new state of mind. As noon approached, the students, who finally set their minds to reading the "manual", managed to put together some sort of patterns after they taught themselves with discussions in a soft voice and some occasional bickering. The whole process was just like a scene in which some toddlers were fumbling with their toy blocks for the first time.

Lu didn't pay them much mind. Before long, he finished calibrating the repair program for the first batch of robots. They could start working now. The only problem was that things were going to be slow due to the lack of robots. Lu thought he'd best further simplify the energy system plan of the base.

He sent the first line of robots to the field. Just as he was returning to the lab, someone suddenly stopped him, "Lu...urgh, Expert Lu."

Lu spun around and was surprised by what he saw.

It was baby-faced Saturday, Holiday with the rabbit ashes hanging around his neck, the gap-toothed old man and the crippled old man who were fighting endlessly when they last met, the old film aficionada who told Lu to fix the multimedia devices, and Big who always found every pot and bowl too small...and so on. The whole lot was here. Not only were they here, they also brought another bunch of people with them.

Saturday was sporting a bruise on the corner of his lips. Half of the buttons were missing from his dishevelled shirt, exposing a few twisted holes on the fabric. It looked as if something scratched his neck, leaving three bloody scars on his skin, but the look on his face was one of excitement. He grinned like a naughty child who was making a triumphant return from breaking someone's window.

Behind him were a dozen young people tied by a single rope like a bunch of crickets. They looked much worse. One of them had his belt missing. His eyes black and his face swollen, the young man had to hold his trousers whilst he trudged forward with a limp.

Big carried a heavy laser gun on her shoulder – one of those that could blast through a steel door at a pull of the trigger. She guarded them without mercy. If any of the crickets were dragging their feet, she'd hit them with the muzzle of her gun.

The one holding his trousers unfortunately had his ulnar nerve hit and inadvertently let go. An accident happened...

His trousers fluttered down, revealing two hairy legs...and a pair of dinosaur-patterned boxer shorts.

Bixing Lu and Dinosaur-pants stared at each other, confused, "Please may I ask...what is this tradition of yours?"

"This lot are from the Self-Defense Force. They're in the same platoon as me." Blood dripped down Saturday's nose as he spoke. He casually wiped it away with his arm. When that didn't wipe it clean, he stuck his tongue out and lapped it up. He mumbled, "I asked them to come with me this morning. They wouldn't come so I had to challenge every single one of them to a duel."

Bixing Lu thought he heard a very outdated and primitive expression. "I'm sorry. Challenged them to a what?"

"A duel. Big and Holiday are both witnesses." Saturday said. "Whoever loses has to do as the winner says and call him boss."

Bixing Lu nodded and counted the people tied by the rope. He said with some admiration, "So you had eighteen fights this morning and lost none of them. What a hero."

Saturday smiled with pride. He was just about to brush it off and say "that's nothing", but before he could get his pose in place, blood shot out of his nose again. Saturday immediately stood straight and lifted his head, holding his bleeding nose in his hands.

Bixing Lu swept his eyes across the tied up "recruits", and thought to himself, "Well, if they buck when I lead them and only go backwards when I push them, then why hadn't I just beaten them up yesterday while I was invincible? What was I doing being all civilised with them?"

Just then, Holiday, who'd been standing by the side this whole time, filled in for Saturday, "We came for you."

Bixing Lu was taken aback.

"You said so yesterday – whoever doesn't want to die, come find you at the mech platform today." Holiday said. "So here we are. Can we hold off wearing the uniform until tomorrow?"

The old film lover muttered to herself, "I'm too old for this. I'm not working. I'm just here to watch."

Big said, "I've still got a business to take care of. I can only come around before noon, after lunch."

Gap-tooth gave a crooked grin, "Can't we fix the speakers first?"

For countless times now, the flintstones had scraped against each other in the dark and at long last, gushing out a spark. This was the first crew joining him in the base. There were in total 34 people, even though a small part of them leaned towards the older side, most of the young people were threatened at gunpoint by Saturday, and all of them the very definition of "unsightly".

But they were still a spark of fire on this boundless wasteland.

The residents of the base crammed into their living quarters as though they were canned sardines, but the empty mech station occupied over half of that space. For just over thirty people, it was plenty of space. They'd need the internal network just to communicate with one another. They work with the robots during the day. The robots were superbly efficient and merciless, ordering the useless idiots around as though they were dogs. Every once in a while, one of the students would dash across the grounds, yelling after Bixing Lu, "Teacher, is that how you carry out this step?"

By dusk, the energy tower had started falling and the sky darkened. The students had finally finished their first assignment and were strewn across the mech platform. All of a sudden, the emergency light lit up. Bixing Lu sauntered over like a ruthless discipline master checking a dorm room, kicking each of the boys on the calf, "Get up. We haven't had our lessons of the day yet."

White got on all fours, staring at him like a dead puppy, "So what have we been doing all day?"

Bixing Lu replied matter-of-factly, "Catching up on your assignments. You handed in your assignments late and delayed our lessons, so naturally we have to catch up again after school. Wasn't that how they did things in your old school?"

If a teacher had dared to pull something like that in their old school, that teacher would have found a bag over their head and gotten a nice beating. The students each pulled a long face and followed him to the mech platform with a heavy heart.

Thirty four came on the first day and each went home that day with dark circles under their eyes. The next day, two ran off due to fatigue. Thirty two remained.

The hardworking robots worked through the night, removing the backup radiation absorbers from each mech, then took them apart and welded the pieces together according to the designs. Early in the morning, the four students who had been tortured by the noise of the robots for nearly half of the night, Saturday, together with the lads who were defeated by him, all picked up the radiator absorber by themselves. In groups of two, they started to weld the pieces together according to the designs, guided by the robots.

As the artsy one in all of them, the film woman somehow got herself one of those horn speakers that you could take into a museum, and started reciting classical literature with a chilly voice and an unidentifiable accent, "He won't let lions terrify, nor monsters frighten, nor dragons daunt him, for seeking these, attacking those, and vanquishing all of them are his main and true exercise.*"

By the third day, the huge dome-like radiator absorber had begun to take shape. It gazed right across at the energy tower that had been quietly floating in space for centuries. Of the thirty two human kindling, twenty eight were left. The old woman had spoken too much and lost her voice. All that was left for her to do was hunching over her feet and picking her toes solemnly.

However, people started peering at them from the outside of the tranquil mech station.

On the seventh day, Saturday, Holiday, and a few young people from the Self-Defense Force followed the students half-heartedly to take the lessons given by the craftiest mech designer in the Eighth Galaxy about mech maneuver and internal structures.

On the ninth day, the installation of the radiation absorber was complete. It was plugged into the energy system of the base. Waves of buzzing came from the entire mech station then, and a ringing lingered long after. Bixing Lu cancelled the students' lessons on that day, taking out the designs for the thermo-electric system which was about to be plugged into the mech's cooling system, and resetting the robots' construction program.

The students lifted their wrist, following him around and recording the entire process with their personal terminals. Heads popped up from the low walls outside the lab like meerkats, whispering amongst themselves.

Early morning on the tenth day, the few people who'd ran away came back, shamelessly pretending nothing had happened, as if they were just running off to use the washroom during the interval after they'd finished their work. Saturday and Holiday ganged up on these "traitors" with a few underlings and gave them a proper beat-down. The "traitors" cried in pain, whilst the old woman filmed it all.

Late in the afternoon, the little shits insisted on sticking around, trailing after the robots even after they'd been beaten. A few dozen others came from outside of the mech station, joining the team of workers without a word. With the sudden increase in manpower, less smart tools such as the cranes hidden under the mech and those mechanical arms that were all lifted out from their nest were all fixed and oiled. The construction of the thermo-electric system multiplied in speed.

Early morning on the twelfth day, way before the crack of dawn at the base, everyone drifting out of their slumber heard a thunderous rumble as if there were bagpipes playing from outer space. A noiseless current spread from the cooling tower outside the mech station. It squeezed past the cage-like balconies and houses, causing every one of the shabby windows and doors to hum and tremble.

Monoeye Hawk walked to the balcony from his guest room, a cigarette in his mouth. He squinted at the mech station and saw a humongous object lifted into the air by the magnetic force. Bright light and colours were flowing on the inside as if it was an artificial star. The rumble got louder all of a sudden.

Windows were pushed open and gazes turned towards the object before the base, where previously only six hours of private light-use could be supported per day suddenly became bustling with light. Street lamps that had been unused for ages blinked on. The overcrowded residential area almost took on an illusion of prosperity. Three-dimensional screens unfolded, and the lotus appearing on the screens at the stand-by state swayed gently in the night breeze.

As the night became noisier, Monoeye Hawk slowly blew a smoke ring, and mumbled, "Fucking hell."

Bixing Lu had finished a whole pot of coffee, but he was still sleepy. He forced himself to stay awake and continue testing the newly constructed energy system. When no one was watching, he hid himself in a corner and stretched himself as far as he could.

Before he could yawn, he saw from the corner of his eye a surveillance camera which was not far from him turn around.

A shiver went through him. He remembered how Zhanlu said he would monitor him. He bit back the yawn, raked a hand through his hair while he put his arms down, found the most perfect angle as fast as he could, grinned at the camera and waved.

Not long after, the image travelled through the atmosphere, flew across space, and landed on the screen in front of Jingheng Lin.

Before Admiral Lin could comment on the wave that came straight out of a fan meeting, Bixing Lu had taken a few steps to guide the camera towards a different direction, right where it could film the brightly lit base behind him.

Bixing Lu put his hands together to make a heart-shaped gesture. He'd seemingly taken the camera to be his selfie camera. He said something towards the camera lens.

Soon, his lip movements were identified by the system and the subtitles appeared on one corner of the screen.

Bixing Lu said, "I was wrong. I'm reflecting on it. Please don't be angry. Please?"

Jingheng Lin hadn't even relaxed his pursed lips when the people at the base noticed that their Scientist Lu was posing in a corner. The lads from the Self-Defence Force hadn't seen so much light in ages, so that they rushed over and surrounded the surveillance camera with excessive excitement, making faces like a bunch of apes who had been injected psychostimulants.

The well-worn surveillance camera had long fallen into disrepair and the riot overwhelmed it. The screen in front of Lin fell blank.

Lin: "..."

Author's Note:The lady recited a line from Don Qui...xote.

Hahaha I said 'how could I not find this word in the input method?', turns out I mispronounced it.

*quoted from Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel Cervantes. Interestingly, Don Quixote that was being described by this quote is an honest, dignified, proud, and idealistic, who wants to save the world, as intelligent as he is mad...pretty much comparable to Bixing.