translator: loop
proofreader: roki
“Three months… what’s the matter?” Carlos Black tried to lift his head, wanting to see the expression on Chu Si’s face. After all, the capturing and interpretation of facial expressions were useful tools during a negotiation.
However, he could only see the back of Sa’e Yang’s head before falling back in anger.
Chu Si remained silent for a second: “You haven’t counted the days wrong? How exactly did you get the news?”
Although Carlos Black didn’t understand why his sentence caused Chu Si to have such a strange reaction, he immediately seized this opportunity and began to desperately struggle again: “I refuse to tell you while I’m lying here, I at least want to sit down! Otherwise, don’t think of prying a single word out of my mouth!”
His stubbornness caused Chu Si to ponder for a moment before nodding. “Alright then, we’ll sit and chat inside. Please wait just a moment.”
When facing strangers, Executive Chu spoke very politely. However, his politeness was very special, probably because that one year’s “after stepping on my face you have to say thank you” had an irreversible impact on his life. So if he was extremely polite, it was likely he was about to do something bastardly and immoral.
The Security Building and the people he worked with were very aware of this problem. Those he had been with in the training camp were aware, Sa’e Yang was aware, and only Carlos wasn’t.
“Ah… finally, there’s someone reasonable who respects the elderly.” Carlos cast sidelong glances at Sa’e’s back. While sighing, he said, “If you did this earlier, perhaps we could’ve worked together sincerely.”
Ten minutes later, under Executive Chu’s command, the wanderers led by Carlos Black were forked into a flip compartment by the training camp members, resembling dead fish caught in a net.
The flip compartment was built into Carlos’ aircraft, and it was visibly older than both Chu Si and Sa’e Yang’s ages combined. When it extended from behind the aircraft, trembling and tottering, there were even creaking noises.
It was what Carlos occasionally used when salvaging ”garbage” in space, but now it carried 137 wanderers, and he, the once noble King of Wanderers, was at the very bottom.
Fucking bastards treating him like a prisoner of war.
The 137 prisoners of war were finally settled down in the East Tower of Fort Barney, where Le Pen and the others came and went freely. At the conference room on the top floor, the aircraft that brought them up temporarily landed at a platform extending from a window.
Nearly all the ropes and electronic shackles in the equipment rooms of the aircraft were used on them— their right feet were cuffed to their left hands, their left feet were cuffed to their right hands, and they sat against the wall in a circle.
Chu Si leaned against the whole oblong conference table, his hands propped up on the edge. He looked down at Carlos Black, elegant and condescending.
They were inside, sitting, and chatting. There was nothing wrong.
“As per your wishes.” Chu Si rapped his finger twice on the table and said to Carlos, “What other requests do you have? Feel free to list them.”
Carlos Black’s lips wriggled silently twice, probably cursing “beast” or something. With a greenish face, he cleared his throat and said, “Nothing else.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Sa’e Yang also sat on the table, bored to death. He poked Chu Si with his elbow: “In ten minutes, Executive, in just ten minutes, you became a beast like me. Congratulations.”
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Carlos originally had a sarcastic expression on his face and wanted to say something, but after hearing this, he reluctantly swallowed back his sarcasm and said, “With what happened before, do you think I’ll believe your lies?”
Chu Si shrugged his shoulders: “Believe me or not, it doesn’t matter.”
Carlos had a mouthful of old blood.
He really didn’t have any way of dealing with Chu Si. Even if he spoke, even if he didn’t speak, he would only end up spitting out two more mouthfuls of blood. It really didn’t matter whether he believed him or not.
Carlos thought for a moment, but still opened his mouth and said, “I’ll admit meeting you two plague gods was my misfortune. Alright, I’ll talk…”
“Three months ago, I passed by the edge of the alpha star region. While trading with another group of wanderers, I received some news from them. They said that before, when they had taken a detour around the second starfield line of your planet Aquila Gamma, they accidentally crossed it, but didn’t receive a warning. At that time they were a little puzzled, but because they were in a hurry to the planet Carmel and the City of Silver, they didn’t think anything more about it. Three days later, when they traveled from the City of Silver to the alpha star region to trade with us, they took a detour around your planet again and intentionally crossed the starfield line. They still didn’t receive a warning, so they played a cheap trick, and simply went straight into the inner starfield line. Only when they were close enough to the surface of the planet did they realize your planet Aquila Gamma wasn’t there anymore.”
“Then—” Carlos Black gestured awkwardly to himself, “They sold me the news, and I estimated the time. Your planet exploded three and a half months ago, because as far as I know, just four months ago, that wanderer group landed on your planet and reportedly sold a message to your military department? At least when they landed, your planet hadn’t exploded yet.”
“Military Department?” Reasonably, if a group of wanderers entered the starfield to engage in a private transaction with the government or military, the Military Department should’ve notified the Security Building. However, Office 5 where Chu Si worked didn’t manage this field. The one in charge of such things was Office 1, so it was normal for Chu Si to be unaware.
“That’s what the news I received said. As for whether it really was the military department, I’m not very clear. I can only guarantee the news is 80% accurate, not 100%,” Carlos Black said.
Chu Si stared into Carlos’ eyes for a long while, then bent down and searched Carlos’ pockets.
“What are you doing?” Carlos leaned back. “What are you looking for? Even my fucking aircraft was taken away by you guys, what are you trying to find?!”
Chu Si said, “A pocket watch, or wristwatch, anything that tells time.”
When he said this, his tone was very impatient. Carlos was a little scared, and quickly said, “Watch! Watch! Watch! Isn’t it just a watch? There’s one in the pocket of my pants.”
Chu Si frowned and, without saying a word, flipped him over. He reached into his left pants pocket and casually felt inside. It was empty.
Just as he was about to switch to his right pocket, Sa’e Yang suddenly hopped off the table, leaned over, and slapped aside Chu Si’s hand. He took out an object from Carlos’ right pocket and threw it onto the table.
Clang—
A metal object rolled around the table before finally laying flat.
Chu Si was stunned for a second. He glanced at Sa’e and saw that he had turned away, inexplicably appearing a little impatient. Perhaps the conversation between Chu Si and Carlos didn’t hold much interest for him, so he felt annoyed after seeing it drag on.
However, this kind of smiling one second and frowning the other was already familiar to Chu Si, so he didn’t pay too much attention.
He straightened up and grabbed the object from the table, flipping open its cover.
The object had a very retro style, much like an ancient pocket watch— a disc half the size of a palm, with a cover and a chain.
After the cover was flipped open, the display inside wasn’t pointers, but a screen. The circular screen contained a simplified version of the star map, with eighteen dots representing livable planets embedded in different positions on the screen. In a square box in the upper left corner, there was a display indicating the current time. However, its display wasn’t quite the same as what Chu Si commonly used.
Chu Si pressed the dot representing Aquila Gamma, and the display box in the upper left corner was instantly converted into the format most familiar to Chu Si:
New Gregorian Calendar Year 5714
March 17th, 22:09:23
He stared at the year in silence for a long while and confirmed he hadn’t misread anything before lifting his head.
The cover in his hand closed with a click, and he clenched the watch and turned it around twice in his hand. After thinking for a while, he threw it back to Carlos.
Carlos was a little surprised: “You’re not going to keep it?”
“What’s the use of having it?” Chu Si furrowed his brow. His mind clearly wasn’t on Carlos, so he replied thoughtlessly.
There was a problem with time.
Chu Si thought to himself, pacing back and forth a few steps. Striding towards the entrance of the conference room, crossing the circular railing, he glanced at the several people on the ground floor of the East Tower who were busy dealing with the aircraft. Jin’s awkward walking posture particularly stood out.
Chu Si’s gaze paused on him for a few seconds, before it finally fell on Tang. He said, “Tang, come up here for a moment.”
Tang was startled. He looked up and shouted, “Okay! I’ll be right there!”
A short time later, Tang hastily ran up, braking at the conference room door. He held the doorframe and looked in, whispering to Chu Si, “Executive, what’s going on? Are they being uncooperative?”
Chu Si shook his head and said, “Where’s your communicator? I’ve suddenly remembered that I’ve never asked you for the date.”
Tang puzzledly pulled out his communicator and showed it to Chu Si. It displayed:
New Gregorian Calendar Year 5714
March 6th, 14:21:38
It wasn’t exactly the same time as Carlos’ pocket watch, but the difference wasn’t significant, completely within the normal range for time rate differences.
Actually, without looking at Tang’s communicator, Chu Si could’ve guessed this. He only… wanted to confirm again, like he had obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Between Tang and Carlos there was a time difference of ten days, and Sa’e Yang, who had swung around a black hole, was only a few dozen days apart from them. Then there was the Space Prison…
Everyone’s time rate difference was within a normal range, very close to each other, except for himself.
The year 5714, the year 5763… although Chu Si did not want to admit it, it appeared the former was correct, while something was clearly wrong with the latter.
When he first opened his eyes, it was Jin who told him that 50 years had passed.
Of course, Chu Si’s first thought was that Jin had tampered with the time display on his smartwatch, to make him mistakenly believe that 50 years had passed. But very soon this idea was scrapped, because after Chu Si crawled out of his cyro-capsule, he had received a message from Sa’e Yang. His own communicator had displayed the time it received the message, and it clearly showed the year 5763.
For a moment, a sense of blankness suddenly arose in Chu Si’s heart.
After all, it wasn’t a pleasant experience to have his perspective of time disrupted, reorganized, and then disrupted again. He felt like he was about to have another headache—
Everyone’s time was more or less consistent. According to their time rate, it was now the year 5714, less than 4 months after the planet exploded.
And only his time had a huge disruption, directly 50 years ahead.
What created this change? Who caused it? And for what purpose?
“What’s wrong, Executive?” Tang blinked. “Your face has become a little pale.”
“It’s nothing.” When Chu Si spoke again, his face had already returned to normal. He waved his hand at Tang. “It’s nothing, go back to what you were doing.”
Tang “oh”ed, but just as he turned to leave, Chu Si patted him again and added in a low voice, “Help me… keep an eye on Jin.”
“En?” Tang was stunned for a moment, but quickly understood. He made an “ok” gesture, then hurried down the stairs. Two steps later, he thought for a moment and turned his head back: “You’ve never trusted him, have you? Why else would you keep him on the sidelines of everything?”
Chu Si raised his eyebrows and closed the door of the conference room, almost hitting someone as soon as he turned back around.
Mr. Sa’e Yang, who changed expressions as easily as flipping through a book, was standing right in front of him.
Chu Si said unkindly, “Could you please make some noise when you walk? What are you doing, standing here?”
Sa’e Yang leaned closer, his nearly transparent eyes narrowing slightly. He stared closely into Chu Si’s eyes for two seconds, before saying in a low voice, “Someone’s made our Executive unhappy. Why don’t I guess what’s going on?”
Chu Si’s back tensed subconsciously before relaxing. “You still need to guess? Weren’t you eavesdropping just now?”
After saying this, he remained silent for two seconds, then added, “Or perhaps you didn’t need to eavesdrop at all and had already noticed long ago, but for some reason had no intention of speaking up. Aren’t I right?”
There’s something wrong with Jin? NOOOOOO 😭😭😭
Oooooh the mystery deepens 😮😮😮 Tysm for translating!!!
What a chapter. First we have Sa’e Yang eating vinegar over Chu Si feeling up some other guy’s pants (for a watch), then the revelation of Chu Si’s time perception/passage of time being wrong, and on top of that Jin’s also sus