translator: loop
proofreader: roki
Once, there was a saying that if everyone disappeared, leaving behind their intact houses, streets, highways, and lawns… it would only take five years at the most for even a place like Xixi City to become completely unrecognizable.
Of course, later on, with the dragon pillars, the time it took could be multiplied by at least ten. Chu Si’s villa had lasted at least fifty years of chaos.
If the rate of time on this planetary fragment was normal and not out-of-the-ordinary, a few months would never be enough to turn the city into a wasteland.
However, ever since Chu Si saw the vanished apartment reappearing in the video, he wasn’t sure what the fragment’s rate of time was.
When the Space Prison had connected to the fragment, dragging their edges together, the two dragon pillars transformed from facing each other to a three-legged tripod. This time, its self-regulation lasted a bit longer, and the tremors and weightlessness lasted for nearly an hour before weakening, eventually settling down and returning to normal operation.
“I almost thought it was going to last until the next century…” The communication channel hadn’t been disconnected yet, and Tang retched several times from the other end. “Executive… retch…”
“…” Chu Si said unkindly, “Why don’t you first disconnect, and talk to me after you finish throwing up?”
Tang tried to save his face: “No no no, I’m not the only one throwing up. Except for Le Pen and… en, that little brat, everyone else is throwing up. Mr. Little Braid is almost kneeling on the ground. But they’re all too scheming, and threw all of their communicators to me, hiding themselves to throw up, so you didn’t hear them.”
Chu Si said, “You’re even a little proud?”
Tang probably also felt that the fact that a group of grandfathers was more delicate than a little girl, who wasn’t even as tall as their waists, caused them to lose a bit of their dignity as “elders,” and agreed vaguely.
Ultimately, it was Le Pen who came over to snatch the conversation: “Executive, do you need us to go with you?”
Chu Si said, “That’s not necessary, just keep an eye on Fort Barney. I’ll go with Sa’e… Yang to take a look around that city. Keep in touch, if I need anything I’ll call you guys.”
Le Pen agreed: “Don’t worry, sir. I’ll take care of these two delicate 180-centimeter, 150-pound fools.”
Tang weakly protested, “The heroic Miss Le Pen, please don’t add so many adjectives. Your words are too mocking.”
Le Pen smiled and said, “Who said they weren’t?”
Chu Si gave an “en”: “Then keep an eye on them. We don’t have many people in the first place, and losing a few due to airsickness wouldn’t be good.”
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.
After having more or less communicated with the training camp, and gently mocking… no, comforting them, Chu Si temporarily cut off the communication.
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Chu Si rubbed his forehead, put away the communicator, and disconnected SkyEye’s core disk from the central console. Without looking up, he replied, “A person who sleeps like a corpse when he falls into bed isn’t qualified to comment on this.”
Sa’e Yang raised his eyebrows: “When?”
“When else could it be?” Chu Si looked at him strangely. “Do you often fall into bed right in front of people?”
As he spoke, he had already tidied everything up, putting the Space Prison back into an invisible and silent state. He walked straight outside.
Sa’e Yang followed lazily behind him, just a step behind. “Of course not. It’s only that I can’t remember that time when a person pushed me, and can only remember them sleeping against my back for the first half, and holding onto my wrist for the second half.”
Just as Chu Si stepped out of the Space Prison’s entrance, he halted his steps, then turned his head and said, “What kind of nonsense are you—”
Before he could finish, he and Sa’e Yang bumped into each other.
His chest muscles, lean and strong, felt solid as they hit Chu Si’s arm. Fortunately, he still had some reflexes, or else they wouldn’t have collided chest to shoulder, but face to face.
Despite this, an intense aura that belonged only to “Sa’e Yang” rushed forward. With a natural aggressiveness, it could envelop a person in an instant.
Chu Si tilted his head and took two steps aside. Before he could completely escape from that aura, he heard that bastard complain, “Executive, why’d you brake without warning?”
“…You were the one who didn’t react in time, aren’t you being unreasonable?” Chu Si was about to laugh out of anger.
Sa’e Yang narrowed his eyes at him, again with his typical unreadable expression, a little lazy and a little provocative. His gaze caught with Chu Si’s, and after a moment of not looking away, he suddenly snorted and lifted his leg to give it a causal shake. “My legs are too long, I couldn’t help it.”
Chu Si: “…”
Until he got into Carlos Black’s aircraft, he didn’t want to talk to Sa’e Yang again.
Chu Si himself felt that this mentality was very inconsistent with his usual style of behavior. Whether at work or in private, he was not considered a mild-tempered person, but he rarely revealed his thoughts on his face. Most of the time, it was he who lightly said a few words that made others angry and speechless.
Even if he was sometimes made speechless, or was too lazy to say something again, he would jokingly dismiss the subject with a half-true threat. However, only when it came to Sa’e Yang did he want to turn around and leave.
He really was evolving backwards, and was even starting to lose his composure.
With a clatter, Chu Si pulled back all the control levers, taking the pilot’s seat. Despite having just laughed at himself in his mind, he still acted with complete disregard for the other living being in the cockpit.
The aircraft hummed to life, and soon crossed the border into the fragment where the city was located.
The entire city was dark. Chu Si had to open the searchlight on the outer shell of the aircraft to see the outlines of the buildings, in order to avoid crashing into them.
Sa’e Yang leaned against the side porthole, gazing down at the silent city below.
Chu Si adjusted the speed of the aircraft to the secondary gear for land navigation, about as fast as a sports car on the ground.
For twenty minutes or so, neither of them spoke. Chu Si occasionally fiddled with the control levers or fine-tuned the direction, while Sa’e Yang kept looking out the window.
In this kind of silence, Chu Si actually did not feel the slightest bit embarrassed. The longer he nestled into the pilot’s seat, the more he gave off a kind of laziness. It was unknown whether it was because he had returned to the only city he had ever lived in comfortably, or because he had been infected by Sa’e Yang.
As the aircraft passed over the central square of the city, its searchlight swept past the square’s iconic sculptures. Sae Yang finally spoke. “If it weren’t for seeing that group of sculptures, I wouldn’t have realized this was Emerald Harbor.”
Emerald Harbor was once densely populated and illuminated day and night. It was next to the inland sea, very close to the White Eagle Military Command Center, and looked out over the heavily guarded Red Maple Base out at sea. Thus, it was considered to be one of the most balanced cities in terms of safety and bustle.
But at present, it had nothing to do with either of those.
According to the images on the monitor, neither the White Eagle Military Command Center nor the Red Maple Base were on the fragment.
Chu Si let out an “en” and turned his head to glance at Sa’e Yang, only to see that after finishing that sentence, he was quiet again. He was still looking down at the buildings and streets sweeping by under his feet with half-lidded eyes.
Sometimes, when he suddenly saw him like this, he had the illusion that he was reminiscing about the past.
But the act of “reminiscing about the past” always had an indescribable sense of discord when applied to Sa’e Yang, because he looked like a person who didn’t have a past and didn’t want to think about the future. Everything that wasn’t happening right in front of his eyes didn’t seem to attract his attention.
Back then in the military sanatorium, many people’s backgrounds were almost transparent. That person was the orphan of someone in the Military Department, that person’s parents died during those hundred years of chaos… and so on.
But there were some whose backgrounds were a little less well known, such as Chu Si, such as Sa’e Yang.
Strictly speaking, they were similar in the regard that they did not like to talk about their personal affairs or share their thoughts with others, whether it was because they were too guarded or simply had no interest in talking about it.
Chu Si was more inclined towards the former, so he wasn’t completely impossible to pry open. He didn’t mind explaining himself when dealing with people he was relatively comfortable with, but it was only very occasionally, and very briefly, like the casual “no family to contact” when reminded by the guys at the training camp that he could signal his family.
That was all.
But Sa’e Yang seemed to be more inclined towards the latter, with too few people catching his interest, and even fewer getting him to talk, let alone to talk about personal matters or his innermost thoughts.
So among the many people in the sanatorium back then, Sa’e Yang’s background was the most mysterious.
No one knew where he was born, by whom he was raised, and what he entered the sanatorium for…
Everyone’s understanding of him was a blank sheet of paper.
It was said that there had been attempts to ask him. After all, there were always some people who were enamored with this kind of outstanding appearance and dangerous temperament, and indeed there were many, both in the sanatorium and in the training camp. Chu Si had seen no less than ten who were not afraid to die, and even if he thought with his toes, he could guess what their ends were. So, there was no need to say anything more about the topic.
At that time, Chu Si was an indifferent bystander, but now, when he saw Sa’e Yang leaning by the window, quietly looking down at the Emerald Harbor under his feet, Chu Si suddenly wanted to ask him: Which city did you once live in?
But as soon as the first word came out of his mouth and Sa’e Yang lifted his eyes at the sound of his voice, the sentence at Chu Si’s lips took an abrupt turn and he said, “Nothing. I was saying you can stop gawking and pack up now, we’re about to land.”
Sa’e Yang narrowed his eyes. When his almost transparent eyes landed on someone, they would always give them the feeling that even their innermost thoughts were clearly seen.
Normally, Chu Si was almost immune to his gaze. To be able to speak so much nonsense, he would need at least a little tolerance. However, this time, he couldn’t help but let himself give way for a moment.
Sa’e Yang suddenly laughed. “Do I need to pack up my necessities, Executive?”
Chu Si said unkindly, “What else? You have nothing else to do anyways, don’t you?”
“Alright—” he casually replied, then straightened up and walked towards the pilot’s seat.
Chu Si raised his hand and pointed into the depths of the aircraft. “You’ve turned the wrong way.”
Sa’e shrugged. “I only need a little bit of weaponry, I won’t use the rest. The only thing I need to pack up and take away is you, Executive.”
Chu Si: “…”
This rogue dropped one smooth line after another. Chu Si opened his mouth and was about to reply when he heard a loud bang. It was as if the entire aircraft had suddenly hit something and was being pulled at. All the operating systems were thrown into inexplicable chaos, as if they had been fed a mouthful of poison out of thin air, rolling and shaking violently, but never able to get one step closer to the apartment building.
I crave more Chu Si and Sa’e Yang interactions 😩
i love sa’e yang’s way of speaking so much. he’s so annoying but with class
Yh the perfect match for Chu So with his elegant bullying
this is what match made in heaven looks like
They fit each other so well