translator: loop
proofreader: roki
After saying this, even Chu Si himself felt what he said was out of line, because there was a hint of interrogation in his words.
Who was he interrogating? Sa’e Yang? Even if he really had noticed the problem long ago, what obligation did he have to speak up? If he didn’t want to say anything now, or if he was actually innocent, he didn’t even need a reason to throw such words at him.
He could even imagine Sa’e Yang’s reaction upon hearing those words, how he would tug out a grin from the corners of his mouth, how he would use a drawling and casual tone…
No matter what he did, it would only be mocking, and make Chu Si’s mood worse.
So Chu Si lowered his gaze, and before Sa’e Yang could speak, he used the back of his hand to move aside his shoulder, saying, “Excuse me, please step aside and don’t stand in the way. Next time, don’t choose to send yourself to my doorstep when I’m not in a good mood. After all, I’m an unreasonable person.”
When he said this, Chu Si’s voice was very calm. It even had his habitual edge of speaking nonsense, and could be considered as him sweeping what he had said before under the rug.
Perhaps the conversation was buried too quickly, or perhaps there was some other reason, but when Chu Si left the doorway and walked around Sa’e Yang to stand in front of Carlos and his wanderer group, Sa’e Yang didn’t even make a sarcastic remark.
This was already saving him a lot of face, Chu Si thought.
He didn’t look back at Sa’e’s expression, but randomly picked out a few relatively innocent-looking wanderers and unlocked their shackles.
Perhaps it was his illusion, but he felt Sa’e was watching him, his gaze on his back making him feel very uncomfortable. For the briefest moment, he wanted to look back and confirm, but considering that what he said before was already out of character, he didn’t want to do anything out of character again.
When the electronic shackle unlocked and beeped, Carlos Black and his wanderers were all a little stunned.
“You’ve really unlocked them?” Carlos Black said in surprise.
Chu Si’s expression was normal, and he didn’t seem to have been affected by all the distractions just then. He shook the shackle he had just unlocked in his hand, and metal collided with a clanging sound, underlining his calm and elegant voice: “I said before that for every piece of information, I’d unlock someone. Most of the time, I’m very trustworthy.”
Carlos looked at him with great doubt.
They stared at each other for two seconds before Chu Si shook the shackle in his hand again and said, “Your Excellency, you seem to be very dissatisfied. Since that’s the case, I’ll recuff them.”
Carlos said, “No! What am I dissatisfied with?! When did you see me dissatisfied? Hey! You—”
By the time he said this, Chu Si had already recuffed a person. Carlos was so anxious his throat almost cracked, and he shouted: “Satisfied, satisfied, satisfied, I’ve never been so fucking satisfied in my life, stop cuffing!”
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.
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Chu Si raised his eyebrows: “Not in a narrow sense. I’m with the Security Building.”
Carlos looked him up and down, with a pained expression on his face: “Isn’t your planet’s Security Building a bunch of old guys who do nothing all day but think about what to do and what to say? There’s even someone like you there?”
Chu Si: “This is also the first time I’ve seen a King of the Wanderers like you.”
“…” Carlos chuckled. “I hate talking to young people like you who open their mouths to spew out insults. Why don’t you try speaking like this to me a hundred years ago? After getting older, I’m no longer on the same level as you.”
Carlos Black’s golden age was a hundred years ago. At that time, he was about the same age as the Chu Si and Sa’e Yang in front of him, but now, he was almost 170 years old.
Even with a typical lifespan of over 200 years, he was already in his twilight years.
Although he talked about “getting old” and stressed his seniority, in his heart he still didn’t believe he was getting old. He was still tall and muscular, capable of using his fists and carrying firearms. His dark brown hair and beard were just as thick as ten, twenty, or even fifty or sixty years ago.
He was still a long way from getting old.
When Carlos spoke of “old age”, it was often because he wanted to negotiate something with the other party.
Chu Si saw through him, and as he listened to Carlos let out a half-fake, half-real sigh, he lifted his chin: “Stop panting. Why don’t you just speak bluntly?”
Carlos laughed. “Ah, how refreshing! I like young people like you who don’t beat around the bush. Things are like this…your current situation is actually not much better than us prisoners. This may be unpleasant to hear, but it’s the truth. The planet has collapsed into fragments, and you all only occupy a small piece. Furthermore, it’s deserted. You lack living supplies, manpower, and a stable environment. I can guess—”
When he narrowed his eyes, his eyebrows slanted even more. He looked like a hawk, and seemed much more like a wanderer leader compared to before. After pausing, he then continued: “You all must be curious about some news, such as whether the government is alright, whether the military has a response strategy, how many people have already woken up, how long you’ll have to drift before coming across anything, whether other people from other planets have heard about the explosion, and whether they’ve taken any action.”
The more Carlos spoke, the quieter his voice became, but it held another kind of oppression.
Every word he said was accurate, indeed the questions that everyone wanted to know. Moreover, Chu Si had one more question: just what had happened to his time?
Each of those questions was enough to make one’s head ache, and each of them were related to whether they could get rid of their current wandering situation as soon as possible.
Chu Si fiddled with the shackles in his hand, pondered for a moment, then lifted his eyelids and looked at him. ”You have news, and want to make a deal?”
Carlos Black didn’t beat around the bush either: ”I’ll give you the news. You unlock all our shackles, and return our aircraft.”
“You give me the news. I’ll release all your shackles, or return your aircraft.” Chu Si emphasized the “or.”
Carlos: “…How could your young heart already be so dark?”
Chu Si said calmly, “I hope Your Excellency understands that you are captured right now, and don’t have the right to make demands.”
Chu Si had originally thought Carlos would struggle again, but who knew he would only think for a brief moment before nodding? He said, “Alright then, I’m too lazy to argue back and forth anyways. So I have to choose between the two? Then I choose for our shackles to be unlocked. We have to stop being prisoners before we can discuss other things.”
Chu Si nodded and said, “Sure. Then let me hear your news first.”
……
Ten minutes later, Carlos Black finally finished speaking and told Chu Si, “That’s all. There were some specific things that I recorded at the time. They’re in my aircraft, which has fallen into your hands anyways. You can go check it out yourself.”
Chu Si nodded happily, straightening up.
Carlos Black’s aircraft was parked on the platform behind him. Chu Si planned to turn around and glance at what Sa’e Yang, who hadn’t said anything for a long time, was doing. However, as soon as he turned his head, he found that where Sa’e Yang was originally standing was empty.
Chu Si was stunned.
Carlos Black seemed to figure out his question from the back of his head, and interjected, “When I said the City of Silver had probably started taking action, that plague god stepped out.”
He left?
Chu Si opened the door of the conference room, walked to the edge of the railing, and looked down.
“Hey, I’ve said all I needed to say, isn’t it time you unlock all our shackles?” Carlos shouted.
“Sure,” Chu Si said, but didn’t approach the wanderers under their expectant gazes, instead stepping onto the platform and entering Carlos’ aircraft.
This was one of the few aircraft that did not have its chip removed and could still be used normally.
An aircraft was in fact equivalent to a wanderer’s house. The space inside was not small, and it had everything a normal apartment would have. In addition, it also had a weapons storeroom, medical cabin, cockpit, etc.
Chu Si went over the general layout in his head, picked around in the weapons storeroom, and found the intelligent ground-walking microbombs.
It was called a ground-walking microbomb, but it was more like an intelligent robot carrying a microbomb on its back, a good tool for sneak attacks.
Chu Si picked one up, inputted the electronic key and unlocking command of the shackles, then threw the robot into the conference room. He himself sat in the cockpit and flicked the activation lever, intending to fly off.
In the conference room, the wanderers were pondering how to rise up and fight back when Chu Si came to unlock their shackles. However, before they could come up with a plan, the ground-walking microbomb rolled over in front of their eyes.
Carlos Black: “I— fuck!”
Chu Si sat in the pilot’s seat, put on a headset, closed the hatch of the aircraft, and silently piloted it down from the high-rise platform. After choosing the option to automatically find a landing point, he took out his communicator and connected to Tang’s channel.
“What’s the matter, Executive? We’ve put all aircraft in the underground warehouse, and their chips are locked in encryption boxes. We’ll bring them to you later.” Tang seemed very excited. “We’ve moved their weapons and ammunition, so we don’t have to worry about them pulling something funny, they have no way of launching a counterattack. Also, Executive, there’s a lot of fresh food! Ah, my mouth was watering when we collected it! God knows how disgusting plain nutrients are!”
Chu Si‘s lips twitched: “Alright, where did you move everything? I’ll go over right now, I’ve unlocked all the wanderers in the East Tower. You go and lock the exit gate there, to temporarily limit the scope of their activity to the East Tower. I’ll discuss specifics later with them… we may need to make some big movements.”
Tang was stunned: “What big movements? To be honest, as soon as I hear something like that, I can’t help but think of that… Mr. Yang.”
Upon hearing him mention Sa’e Yang, the finger Chu Si was tapping on his armrest paused for a second before continuing: “He suddenly left the conference room just now and didn’t say what he was leaving to do. Maybe he remembered something and left directly, I can’t be sure.”
“Left? Who left?” Tang asked.
Chu Si suddenly remembered Carlos’ words. After Sa’e heard that various planets were making their movements, especially the City of Silver, he’d left. Perhaps he had obtained the information he wanted and left to do what he needed to do.
The aircraft slowly landed and stopped behind a wall near the Central Fort. After it had stopped steadily, Chu Si pressed a button and opened the aircraft’s hatch, but didn’t immediately leave the cockpit.
He said to Tang, “Coincidentally, we had harvested a batch of very practical aircraft. If he randomly chose one that’s chip hadn’t been removed, it would be easy to leave. After all, he had no reason to stay here.”
As he spoke, he suddenly felt an itch on his back, and then something pressed down on the backrest of his seat.
Chu Si frowned and sharply turned his head. The Mr. Yang who had “already left” leaned on the backrest of his seat, reaching out his hand and beckoning to him: “Who were you just saying didn’t have a reason to stay?”
With this position, they were quite close to one another, and Chu Si’s heart jolted. Reflexively, he sat upright, leaving Sa’e Yang with only the back of his head.
He furrowed his brows and was about to speak when Sa’e Yang reached out a finger and hooked it under his chin to make him turn back. “Don’t face away, the person you were just talking about… could it be me? Who says I don’t have a reason to stay?”
Sa’e Yang, you get your executive!!
Don’t know whether to say there was some tension there in that last part 😳
Oho his heart jolted you say?