Chapter 183
They were now certain, the computer Orr chose was the Queen’s hiding place, he was not a mole, but the galaxy’s savior! In order to give timely feedback on the battlefield, just like brain controlled mech, manual mech had real-time monitoring equipment installed. Orr’s every action in the information center was recorded, and it was not only reported to the military, it was spread throughout the barracks. He didn’t hesitate to stop Kane, then he quickly ran out to find the right computer and implanted the chip, efficiently completing the task.
But this was nothing, the most shocking thing was the video of the two minute fight he had with Kane. He was clearly using a manual mecha, but his smooth moves could put a brain controlled mech to shame. With only one side kick, a heavy punch, and a sharp elbow jab, Kane’s mech was completely destroyed, then he pulled Kane out of the cockpit and nonchalantly tossed him aside, this move was unspeakably callous, yet so dashing.
The heavy and slow manual mech, under his control, was exceptionally flexible and agile, if he was using a brain controlled mech, it was not difficult to imagine how powerful his combat effectiveness would be. After watching the video, all of the soldiers were awed by General Orr’s superb combat level and combat awareness.
The military repeatedly analyzed the video, and finally concluded: Kane attacked Orr first, and his purpose was to destroy the chip already inserted into the computer. If Orr hadn’t stopped him, the salvation mission would’ve been a failure. Therefore, Orr wouldn’t bear any responsibility.
The survivors of this catastrophe were very satisfied with the results of this verdict, except Kane Celayan, who was furious, and sent complaints to the military court several times, but they were mercilessly dismissed. Kane almost put the chip into the wrong computer, almost causing the mission to fail, and he also spouted those foolish sentiments, which was enough to offset his previous honors.
“For those seven months Orr was in a coma, who was fighting on the front line? Who faced up against the robot army and pushed them back, again and again? It was me. But because of that computer chip, they ignore all my previous efforts and achievements, and praise Orr, this is so unfair.” Kane half sat up on his hospital bed, and said with a calmness he didn’t feel.
Nan Qing’s expression was awkward, he seemed to want to comfort his older brother, but he couldn’t find the right words. This was how the world worked, no one saw the sweat and labor other people put in, they could only see the flashy and gorgeous results of success. After considering for a few minutes, Nan Qing gently said, “Big Brother, I know it hurts, but you should look at it from another perspective. You should thank Orr, if he hadn’t stopped you in time, you would’ve become the Empire’s greatest sinner.”
“I still have to thank him?” Like he’d heard a big joke, Kane smiled coldly. He didn’t want to be grateful, since they were kids, Orr always outperformed him, and after finally receiving such a good opportunity, Orr destroyed it. Since Orr knew which computer the Queen was in, he should’ve just told him and let him perform the task, rather than abruptly snatching the chip away. When all was said and done, this was merely a fight over a military achievement.
Restraining his loathing, Kane nodded, “You’re right, I’ll let it go. The matter has already passed, it makes no sense to brood over it. Has Orr woken up?”
“He was still in a coma when I went to visit him yesterday. Wait a while, I’ll go check on him again.” Nan Qing couldn’t help but feel relieved seeing his brother give up on Orr. Orr was currently Asaph Galaxy’s Superhero, he would soon be promoted and honored. He was now a General, so he could be promoted to Admiral, a 27 year old Admiral was unprecedented in Asaph Galaxy. Plus, he had a special advantage, he still had at least 300 years left in his lifespan, whereas the other four Admirals, and even the Marshal, were already ancient, and might soon retire.
With the way things were headed, Orr stood a strong chance of becoming the supreme ruler of the Empire. Nan Qing sketched out a brilliant future with Orr in his mind, and his heart couldn’t help but race. He was going to start clinging to Orr, instead of keeping him hanging like before.
But first, he must find out the identity of the boy claiming to be Orr’s lover. The mocking remark he’d made to the Old Marshal over the com (Where did you find this idiot?), was currently already spreading throughout the Empire, and the label of “Idiot” was being forcibly placed on his big brother’s head, he was being ridiculed by people around the world. Because of this sentence, his brother’s career suffered an unprecedented blow. To shake off its influence, it’d take at least a few years, and he also needed to work harder than everyone else.
Nan Qing grew more indignant the more he thought about it, he stood up and rushed towards Orr’s ward.
Kane stared at his younger brother’s impatiently leaving back, his eyes slightly squinted. He would never allow Orr to outshine him again, perhaps that plan they had prepared could now be implemented.
—————
Zhou Yun Sheng was lying on the hospital bed, lifting up Orr’s eyelids to check his pupils. He reviewed the video of the fight many times, he noticed details that ordinary people missed, like when Orr grabbed Kane’s wrist, his eyes had changed color, from light brown to pure black, a silver light emanating from them. Because he was standing in the shadows at that time, the change could only be seen in the side mirror, so those not looking carefully would find it hard to detect.
Zhou Yun Sheng confirmed it, that man was not Orr Assai, but his lover. So currently, he was holding onto a small flashlight, repeatedly examining Orr’s eyes, at this moment, Orr woke up, and asked dully, “Joe, what are you doing?” The teenager had flipped open his eyelids too many times, he was feeling an obvious stab of pain.
“I’m examining you. You’ve been unconscious for three days and three nights.” Zhou Yun Sheng flicked off his flashlight and lazily sat up. The person currently awake was Orr Assai, but strangely enough, he didn’t feel disappointed or depressed. Because now he had proof that his lover was already in this body, and could wake up at any moment. He could think of ways to wake him up while waiting, that was much better than the seemingly hopeless situation he was in before.
“I was really unconscious for three days and three nights?” Orr made a fist, his body felt like it was full of violent energy, there was none of the weakness of being unconscious for a long time. He even faintly felt like he could tear a mech to shreds with his bare hands.
“Do you remember what happened before you fell unconscious?” Zhou Yun Sheng flipped open his laptop, and as usual, wrote an observation diary.
“I followed Kane into the information center, we found the Queen, she was furious, but she couldn’t drive us out. Kane was about to insert the chip into the main processor … …” Here, Orr stopped, and started massaging his furiously aching temple, then hesitatingly said, “I can’t remember what happened after that. I fainted?”
“Yes, you fell into a coma, but before that, you stopped Kane and snatched the chip away.” Zhou Yun Sheng absentmindedly narrated while typing.
“I stole the chip?” Orr looked shocked.
“Yup, you took the chip and inserted it into the correct computer. Nobody knew, when I cut off the Queen’s connection to the outside world and tried to confine her in the terminal system, she broke free at the last second, and transferred to another computer. The magnetic field I’d set trapped her in the information center, but to find the right computer among hundreds of thousands in thirty minutes, the vanguard army was bound to fail. But congratulations, you completed the mission.”
Orr was astonished, he murmured, “But I don’t remember anything…”
“You severely injured Kane during the mission, someone from the military will soon come by to question you. Here’s some free advice, if you don’t want to be suspected, don’t mention your memory loss.” Zhou Yun Sheng fixed his eyes on him, his golden eyes flashing a strange, bewitching light. He was trying to use hypnosis to awaken his lover, but just like previously, it failed.
Orr fell into a trance for one second, but quickly sobered up, he nodded while giving his thanks. He knew how overly suspicious those military people could be, if they found out about his abnormalities, he’d be subject to endless investigation and surveillance.
“Before they come to question you, you’d better watch this video a few times, remember every detail.” Zhou Yun Sheng tossed over a USB, then stood up and walked away.
“Thank you.” Orr felt touched, every time he woke up from a coma, the boy was always there to accompany him, and always solved all his troubles for him. Perhaps the Marshal was right, maybe the boy really did like him, but he just wasn’t very good at expressing it.
Orr had just enough time to watch the video before the officers came to repeatedly question him about why he was able to find the Queen’s real computer. He used “intuition” to explain his inexplicable behavior. Intuition was a very reliable motivation for people with extremely high level spiritual power, so it wasn’t difficult to win their trust. Many special people, by virtue of their intuition, escaped death numerous times, and performed many illustrious military feats. In the army, the soldiers preferred to call intuition the combat awareness.
The military investigators accepted his explanation, and departed after wishing him well.
Orr breathed a sigh of relief, and was about to pour a glass of water to wet his patched throat, when Nan Qing excitedly pushed open the door.
“Orr, you’re awake!” He rushed into the ward, then looked around and hesitantly asked, “Where’s Joe? Did he leave?”
“He was busy with something else, so he left early. Phoebe, come sit, do you want some fruit?” Orr handed over a red apple. After the AI rebellion, humanity started living like mice, driven underground by the Queen. Even food was a problem to get, not to mention fruit, this was a special treatment that only the Empire’s hero could enjoy.
Nan Qing glanced at Orr’s slightly flushed ears and felt very satisfied. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and peeled the apple while grumbling, “Orr, did you find a boyfriend behind my back? Didn’t we make a promise? No matter who finds their other half first, they must introduce them to the other person.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend.” Orr hurriedly denied.
“Then why was Joe saying that you’re his lover?” Nan Qing was most concerned about this point.
“How could… the one I like is …” Orr flushed red, and was building up the courage to confess to the person he loved, when his head started twitching painfully, an extremely sharp stab of pain spreading from the depths of his brain to throughout his whole body. He rubbed his face, desperately suppressing a painful groan between clenched teeth.
Nan Qing thought he was being bashful, and pretended to ask curiously, “Who do you like?”
“I like Joe, who else?” Orr looked up, his eyes gradually turning inky black, dotted by ice cold silver light. It was obviously the same serious and handsome face, but because of his raised eyebrow and slight smirk, he unexpectedly looked 100% devilish.
This is the sweetheart Orr couldn’t forget about even after death? Pfft, what’s there to look at?
“You, didn’t you just say you don’t like him?” Nan Qing’s complexion abruptly changed.
“I don’t like him.” Orr got up to strip off his sick clothes and put on his uniform, slowly saying, “How can my feelings be described by such an insignificant word like ‘like’? That’s too superficial. I love him, with my whole soul and my whole life, I love him.”
“That’s impossible! You obviously have a crush on me!” Nan Qing couldn’t hold back anymore, he angrily pushed through the paper privacy partition separating the two people. He thought Orr was just saying these things to provoke him. Well, he succeeded.
“I have a crush on you?” Orr’s expression was very strange, in between scorn and pity. He walked up to the mirror and smoothed out the wrinkles on his uniform one by one, neatly combed his slightly messy hair, then turned around to confront Nan Qing, enunciating each word, “What good points do you have to be worthy of Orr’s love? Your pretty face? A sexy body? Apart from these two, what else do you have? For someone with F level spiritual and physical power, I admit you’d have to be pretty courageous to try and control an S level warrior. But sorry, your coy act won’t work on me. I already have the world’s best lover, I don’t have time to look at others, especially garbage like you.”
“I should get going, Joe’s still waiting for me, enjoy the rest of your day.” He nodded slightly, still polite, but his words were extremely hurtful.
Nan Qing backed up a few steps, on the verge of a breakdown. His spiritual power and constitution was indeed F level, but this was a Celayan family secret, no one in the outside world should know about it. His parents had already fallen into eternal sleep guarding this secret, and his older brother, for the sake of the family’s reputation, wouldn’t dare reveal this to outsiders, especially Orr. So, how did he know?
But it didn’t matter how he found out, why did he have to use it to humiliate him? Good for nothing, garbage, these were the two labels he couldn’t bear to hold. Orr’s blushing and racing heart, was all that false? Nan Qing couldn’t accept this cruel reality, he backed up to the wall, staring at the handsome man with heartbroken eyes, hoping he’d tell him that everything was just a joke.
Orr headed towards the door, then seemed to remember something and turned back. He turned left and right in front of the mirror, then unbuttoned the top two buttons on his uniform, revealing a slice of bronze skin and collarbone. Satisfied, he glanced at the tearful Nan Qing and smiled, “How do I look? Not bad right?”
The current Orr was not like his previous serious and stiff self. High eyebrows and straight, high nose, his long and narrow eyes were flickering with a callous light, but a playful smile was hanging on his mouth, and his whole body was radiating power, he looked very charming.
Bewitched, Nan Qing unconsciously nodded.
At this, Orr turned around and strode toward the studio, his gait growing faster and faster. Catching sight of a boy hunched over a table assembling a device, his back to him, his eyes started filling with ecstasy. He silently walked up to his side, his hot gaze flicking over the boy’s stuck out, perky butt.
“Baby, guess who?” He grabbed the boy’s lean waist with one hand, his other hand wantonly groping his butt, his lips closely fitted to his jade white ear, licking his earlobe.
Muffled laughter pouring into his eardrum, and a hot giant squeezed in between his thigh gap, Zhou Yun Sheng instantly froze. This lewd tone of voice, this sexual harassment, if it’s not that animal, who could it be? He wanted to beat the other man up, let him understand the weeks of suffering he’d had to endure, but he forgot about that by the time he twisted around, pushing the other man down on the table instead, giving him a frantic kiss.
“Baby, you’re much more passionate than I imagined!” Orr gripped the back of the boy’s head, reluctant to even give him time to breathe.
“If you had to suffer for so many months like I did, you wouldn’t be delaying eating me right now.” Zhou Yun Sheng’s eyes were already flushed with lust.
“I can’t even stand it for just one day. Baby, I’m so sorry … …” Orr was trying to explain when he felt his muscles stiffen, his blood slowly congealing. He swore, completely losing consciousness before he could speak again.
Orr Assai felt someone kissing him, and the kiss was very intense, he cracked open his eyes to find Joe above him. He immediately wanted to push him away, but he couldn’t even summon the strength to lift his limp hands and feet. He felt exhausted, like he’d walked across the entire imperial capital on bare feet.
“Joe, please don’t do this.” Taking advantage of the gap when the boy paused to breathe, he spoke, embarrassed.
Zhou Yun Sheng froze, then opened his eyes to size up the man pressed onto the table. The polite, serious Orr Assai was back, fucking disgusting! He immediately released the man, and even spat out a few times, then wiped his tongue with a sterile wipe, no bothering to hide his revulsion.
Orr was speechless. He didn’t understand how the boy could be so fickle, one second enthusiastically kissing him, the next second, reacting like he’d kissed a toad. He even ran up to the sink and retched.
Orr’s self-esteem received an unprecedented blow.
“What are you looking at? The person I want to kiss isn’t you.” Zhou Yun Sheng washed his face and ordered, pointing to the semi-open door, “Orr Assai, please leave, I have work to do.” He needed to return the Star Network’s system the Queen tampered with to normal, his workload was very heavy. He’d wanted to concentrate on finding a way to awaken his lover, but in order to ensure that the virtual worlds weren’t formatted by the military’s technical experts, he’d had to take over the job. He stored them in a hidden block, protected by heavy defenses, ensuring that the virtual worlds could run independently, forever free from the disturbance and control of the outside world.
Orr looked around and discovered that he wasn’t in the hospital ward. He had a lot of questions to ask, but seeing the boy’s cold expression, and impatient attitude, he had no choice but to hold them in. He dragged his limp feet back to the ward, guessing that he might’ve been sleepwalking again. If he stayed close to Joe, more awkward things were likely to happen again, so he should quickly pack up and go home.
The Queen was gone, and the robot army was all transported back to the arms factory and destroyed, even the domestic robots that didn’t have the ability to attack were being treated coldly by humanity. For the time being, everyone preferred doing their own housework, and when leaving the house, they didn’t use the self-driving features of the suspension cars, which required connection to the Star Network, instead opting to drive them manually. People still used computers, but connecting personal terminals to the Star Network was banned. After experiencing such a catastrophe, humanity was suspicious and fearful of advancing science and technology, and began reflecting on their past. This was one type of societal regression phenomenon, but from a humanistic perspective, it was one type of progress.
Every day, billions of people logged onto the Star Network to carry out daily activities, including almost all the races living in Asaph Galaxy, from this, the disastrous amount of casualties from the war could be calculated. Entire families disappeared, only a small number was lucky to survive. The population plummeted drastically, society was in disorder, and getting rid of this war scar would take at least a few decades. But there was some things to be grateful for, the creatures driven underground by the Queen could finally return to life on the surface.
Orr was granted the doctor’s permission to leave, and drove his suspension car back to the Assai family’s estate. His biological mother passed away a long time ago, and his father died on the battlefield a few years after his second marriage. Fortunately, his stepmother was very kind, she raised him and Jeram, and also preserved the Assai family’s properties. When the AI rebellion broke out, his stepmother was luckily on holiday outside the galaxy, she escaped disaster, and was only recently safely brought back to the imperial capital by military escort.
Seeing her stepson’s return, Lady Assai was ecstatic, she rushed over to give him a warm hug, “Welcome back my big hero! What do you want to eat tonight? I’ll make you a celebration dinner.”
“Mom, it’s so good to see you. You don’t have to make anything special for me, just some simple home cooking is fine. Is Jeram home?” Orr asked, smiling.
“He’s still in the barracks, but he’ll be back soon. Go take a bath first.” Lady Assai pushed him upstairs.
Orr walked into his room, and finally couldn’t support himself any longer, he fell asleep, and woke up three hours later. He habitually picked up the 3d imager placed on his bedside table and pressed the on button, Nan Qing’s figure slowly emerged, singing a love song in a sweet and gentle voice. It was his final performance at the New Year’s Eve dinner, Orr had secretly recorded it and made it into a three-dimensional image. Whenever he felt troubled, he would open it and have a look. This was his treasure, he never went out on a mission without it.
However, as he continued looking at it, his expression gradually turned from fascination to disgust, his pale brown eyes gradually leaking inky black.
“The fuck is this thing!” He sneered, then crushed the titanium alloy built 3d imager with his bare hands. He stomped around the room, tossing everything that had to do with Nan Qing into a metal trunk, then walked downstairs to the garbage compactor.
“What are you doing?” Jeram stood in the doorway and asked in an disbelieving tone. If he wasn’t hallucinating, everything Orr was destroying was related to Nan Qing, these were his treasures.
“Throwing out garbage.” Orr knew that he had to move quickly, he’d used this body twice today, the burden was too heavy, he could crash at any moment.
“But these are all the gifts Phoebe gave you, they’re very meaningful.” Jeram glanced back at Nan Qing, who was standing behind him, with pity. Nan Qing had been telling him the truth, his older brother really had inexplicably fallen out of love.
Orr sneered and turned to leave, but just as he stepped out, he suddenly fainted. Jeram prodded him with his foot a few times, seeing him not reacting, he carried him into the living room and casually dumped him on the floor. Nan Qing was about to call for a doctor when Lady Assai stopped him, “Call your older brother.”
“But my brother isn’t a medical expert.” Orr was always inexplicably fainting, his body certainly had a problem.
“Call your brother and tell him to bring that man here.” Lady Assai said with an unusually cold tone.
Nan Qing hesitatingly made the call, not noticing the insidious look Jeram and Lady Assai exchanged.