Chapter 152: Events from over 200 years ago
Lin Ye sat aside, not knowing why, but always feeling at a loss.
It was as if I, who had just been chatting harmoniously with the old people, suddenly became out of tune with them after Xingxing came in.
The peaceful and calm atmosphere between the two of them became extremely exclusive after Xingxing said that.
This made Lin Ye feel uncomfortable all over.
Seeing that it was getting late, he simply stood up and said goodbye tactfully. However, after saying goodbye, he made an appointment with Qinan to meet and teach next week.
After he left, Qi Nan looked down at the silent child in his arms and asked curiously, "Does Xingxing dislike that brother just now?"
In fact, Xingxing has never expressed her likes or dislikes for a person so obviously in front of Qi Nan. Qi Nan thought that the slight hostility that Xingxing showed when they met Lin Ye by chance last time was not because of Lin Ye, but from this brief time together and confrontation, it seems that Xingxing's rejection of Lin Ye is written all over her face.
Especially those two ruthless and straightforward conversations just now.
Hearing his question, Xingxing did not hide anything but nodded seriously.
Qi Nan was even more confused, "Why?"
Xingxing hugged Bubble and thought for a while before answering him: "Grandpa, Lin Ye wants everything and wants everything, but I don't like him coveting my things."
Whether it is an object or a person, whether it is a mechanical doll or Qinan.
“…Maybe he didn’t mean that.” Qi Nan tried to explain for Lin Ye.
But after he finished speaking, he was speechless by the look that turned around and looked up at him.
"Grandpa, the words you humans say are always more hypocritical than your actual actions."
"Lin Ye is a hypocritical child."
"I hate him."
Xingxing once again bluntly expressed her dislike for Lin Ye.
This time, not only Qinan, but even Qiuqiu was surprised by Xingxing's clear and even firm attitude.
"Why, kid? I think he looks okay, nothing fake about him..."
As he spoke, Qiuqiu carefully recalled the conversations after Lin Ye appeared, and then asked thoughtfully: "Is it because Lin Ye's words are too smooth and sophisticated? That's why Xingxing thinks he is hypocritical?"
Qiuqiu's impression of Lin Ye is that he is smooth but frank. Although he is only eight years old, Lin Ye is an adult at heart after all. He knows how to communicate and get along with others harmoniously. He will not make people feel uncomfortable during conversations and will guide the topic subtly, making people want to keep chatting with him.
Just now, Qi Nan was led by Lin Ye to talk about many things.
However, Qiuqiu's guess was denied by Xingxing who shook his head.
"No."
Xingxing refuted Qiuqiu in her heart, then frowned and said to Qi Nan who was also confused: "Grandpa, he wants your skills, he wants my ability, and he also wants my life."
Even though Lin Ye didn't ask them for anything.
But Xingxing always finds his words so irritating.
The strong purpose that is unconsciously brought out in the words is particularly clear, and then when it is realized that the purpose cannot be achieved, it will be quickly erased with a frank and honest appearance. After a while, another purpose will be unconsciously added to the words to guide the topic.
What makes Xingxing feel most uncomfortable is such a strong sense of purpose. The person who holds these purposes seems to be unaware of it. He just says it so naturally, and uses age and words as a disguise so naturally to cover up the implicit sense of plunder in time.
Qi Nan didn't expect Xingxing to speak so clearly and straightforwardly.
He was stunned for a moment, but his first reaction after coming to his senses was to be amazed at the "sensitivity" of the stars.
He reached out and picked up the child in his arms, and asked it with joy instead of surprise: "Star, can you understand these emotions?"
Star:"……?"
An equally small question mark slowly appeared on the little forehead.
What's the meaning?
Shouldn't I understand?
"If I hadn't woken you up so many times myself, if you didn't have this mechanical body, I would have thought you were a normal human child, even one that was sharp enough to be called a genius!"
Qi Nan seemed to be smiling, his brows were relaxed, and the ignorant look of Xing Xing was reflected in his mechanical eyes. His tone was much more intimate and gentle than when he was chatting with Qi Nan.
He weighed the star twice, and couldn't help but put it on his knees. He reached out and gently touched the top of the child's head. Finally, he held its small shoulders on both sides and said with a smile: "You are right, Lin Ye does want everything, but it is not a bad thing to have ambition. If he didn't have ambition to survive on the planet of Exile, he would have been easily eaten by other scavengers."
Xingxing didn’t quite understand why Qinan was so happy.
It pursed its lips and still resisted: "I don't understand, but I still don't like him."
Qi Nan rubbed its head more gently, and after a long time he spoke again, with a hint of complexity in his tone.
"I don't like these ambitious people since childhood, but what can I do? I owe his family more than one life. Now he is the only child left in his family who is still alive. If possible, I even need to pay him with my life."
Xingxing understood this sentence.
It also quieted down.
After a long while, she finally pulled down the hand that was still on her head, patted it gently as if to comfort him, and then asked him, "Why do you owe all that?"
It is now night time on this planet.
The weather outside didn't change much.
However, Qi Nan felt that he seemed to really feel a kind of tiredness that required him to relax and rest.
He steadied the small robot on his knee with one hand and pushed the wheelchair out of the house with the other.
Pushing the door open, the wheelchair drove steadily to the top of the garbage mountain. Qi Nan looked at the dark haze that stretched as far as the eye could see under the gray-black sky. He looked at it quietly for a long time before he finally gathered enough courage to speak slowly:
"It's a long story..."
"More than two hundred years ago, I was just 23 years old and was the most dazzling genius in our school's mechanical manufacturing major. I could study and analyze clearly all the operating principles of any mechanical product in my hands. But compared to manufacturing mechanical products, I wanted to drive a mecha to join the army and fight on the front line."
"Unfortunately, my mental strength level is only B. In that era when there were so many geniuses, the admission standard of the Federal Military Academy was at least B+. If someone like me went to another military school, I would just be indistinguishable from the crowd. After graduation, I would die quietly on a battlefield, and no one would even come to claim my body."
"Later, I became the most eye-catching chief of the Federal Mechanical Manufacturing College. I was recruited by the federal government before I graduated, and then became the main creator of the official mecha research team. This process took me less than three years."
Xingxing discovered that when Qi Nan talked about his youthful years, the expression on his face was not actually calm.
He seemed to be a little nostalgic and seemed to be regretting something, but in the end, it all turned into a self-deprecating sigh.
"I have been honored, but I always want to go to the front line. At that time, I was also an ambitious person who had a strong sense of purpose and had to achieve or possess anything I wanted. I asked my superiors for a three-year vacation, using the excuse that I wanted to concentrate on developing a god-level mecha that would be more gorgeous than any mecha on the market and would definitely double its combat power. I also produced a concept map and some of the expected data, etc."
"They easily believed my excuse, although I didn't completely deceive them, because that mecha was indeed in my expectations a long time ago, and the development progress was even faster than they thought. But I stopped researching for three years, changed my identity, and went to the front line."
Having said that, Qi Nan looked dazed for a moment, as if he was thinking of the stubborn, willful, yet reckless self he once was.
Being young and frivolous, and blessed with the halo of countless geniuses, he was lifted too high by his own talent, so high that he soon forgot how miserable life at the bottom of society was.
He changed his identity and went to the front line, but did not join the army. Instead, he formed a mecha team with like-minded friends he met along the way. This was allowed by the Federation, and there were even team rankings on each planet in the Federation. Team members could receive a lot of necessary supplies from the official based on their contribution points.
"The team we formed back then was called Big Dipper. It was the captain who decided on it. He said that when he and his vice-captain were dating, he liked to count from the Big Dipper the most."
"My combat capability is not very high, and my B-level mental strength also limits me to being able to drive a mid-level mecha to participate in battles. Fortunately, I know every type of mecha very well and am also good at repairing them, which can save our team a lot of repair costs. So my teammates not only don't think I'm a burden, but they also take good care of me and try their best to protect me in every battle."
"I thought I had found the meaning of life, on the battlefield, in the sea of blood and fire, but in fact... the rise of our wild team has blocked the way of too many people."
Qi Nan's hand that was holding Xingxing's shoulder exerted force for a moment, then quickly relaxed.
"The last time, we received a very ordinary mission to eliminate alien beasts. But that time, our entire team was ambushed by space pirates. When we finally escaped with a narrow escape and thought we had escaped a disaster, we encountered a wave of alien beasts that were not supposed to be there."
Having said this, he was silent for two seconds, silently calming the regret and self-blame that surged in his heart. His mechanical prosthetic eyes looked emotionlessly at the rolling hills of garbage in the night, and he stated in his calm but hoarse voice as much as possible:
"In order to protect me, the captain died in the beast tide, and the main attacker was unable to evacuate with us alive."
"There were seven people in a squad, and only five of us returned."
"Four of them are me and my teammates. Half of them are ranged soldiers who were torn apart by the monsters during the evacuation and are being rescued. The other half... is the deputy captain who was seriously injured and dying after blocking a blow for me."
"...That day, I mobilized all my connections in my true identity just to protect them, but in the end, I couldn't save either of my teammates."
"On the contrary, I was found and held accountable by the Federation because my identity was exposed. They began to question whether my mecha theory was true, and even doubted whether I was truly loyal to the Federation."
"I passed countless interrogations. I promised to turn the concept of god-level mecha into reality in just three years. I thought everything would be back on track, but the facts slapped me hard in the face. It turns out that conspiracies and calculations are everywhere. The mecha team I joined blocked the way of others, and I myself blocked the way of countless people."
"It took me three years to deliver results that satisfied them. The launch of the universe's first god-level mecha, Beidou, pushed my reputation to the peak. I began to investigate what happened to the team back then."
"As a result, even though I was in such a high position, my investigation was still hindered because my hands as a technician were not long enough or strong enough to reach into the military to find the truth."
"But in the process, I found something else..."
Qinan said, looking down at the stars, and said to the children who were listening attentively: "I found the sperm and eggs that the captain and the deputy captain left in the gene bank. It turns out that they had wanted to have a child a long time ago. I even saw the application report for matching and conceiving a child."
The report was approved on the day they escaped death.
But it is no longer possible for the captain and the deputy captain to personally watch over their children from conception to birth and growth.
At that time, Qinan had no intention of rematching their genes to create a child for them who would be born without a father or a mother.
At least for more than a hundred years, he never thought about it.
But the child was born anyway.
In the thirty-third year after he was exiled to the Exile Star, more than a hundred years after the death of the captain and the deputy captain, the two's genes were successfully matched. In the small incubator, he and his three teammates from that year watched the child grow into a baby and then grow to a full moon. Finally, when he was babbling and able to walk unsteadily, he was handed over to one of his healthy teammates to raise.
"We named him together. Both his parents' surnames are Lin, and he lost his parents at birth. We hoped that his vitality would be as strong as weeds, and that he could live well on this desolate and broken exile planet, so we named him Lin Ye."
So, at the beginning, Qi Nan did not know the child he rescued.
But when the other party said the name Lin Ye, he agreed to his request to add a friend.
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