Chapter 28: Out of Tricks

At ten past three in the morning, the continuous wail of the wind-siren echoed over Base 151. The "Woo—" lasted for six minutes. Shang Lu sat on the grass outside the vertical transfer gate of Workshop 110’s cavern depot, looking up, while cheers erupted from the garage behind him and every corner where people were gathered.

This was the signal that the alert had been lifted.

Humanity had won.

But the triumphant Crimson Lotus did not bear the posture of a victor. Shang Lu was shaken by witnessing the price humanity had to pay to survive this desperate war. He watched from afar as it collapsed onto the earth, dragging itself through the dark with a mangled body—no head, no legs, its one remaining hand clutching a severed arm, barely recognizable as humanoid anymore.

Was that still the Crimson Lotus?

Where were its beautiful crimson armor, its slender frame, and its brilliant mind?

Shang Lu and Bai Shu turned and ran toward the workshop.

Workers slowly hoisted the ruined body of the Crimson Lotus. Up close, one could imagine the intensity and peril of the battle; the Lighthouse Angel had severed almost all of the Lotus’s limbs, much like what Empress Lü Zhi once did to Lady Qi. Yet, incredibly, Shen Jiang had still managed to win. With her very last remaining arm, she had finished off Lighthouse Angel No. 092.

The Lotus’s final hand tightly gripped its own severed right arm, as if wielding a long whip. Shang Lu noticed that the end of this "whip" had been sliced open—it was the severed arm’s weapon bay. There were two cuts on the bay, one shallow and one deep. The deep one had sliced through the arm’s bone, cables, weapon system magazine casing, and the black cylinder at the very core. Shang Lu looked closely, but he could not discern the structures deeper within.

As the pilot’s boarding bridge docked, Shang Lu and Bai Shu were the first to arrive.

When the hatch opened, Shen Jiang was leaning there, clutching her helmet, looking as frail and thin as a sheet of paper—a sodden, fragile sheet.

The girl took one step onto the bridge, then her body swayed.

Bai Shu lunged forward to catch her. Shen Jiang collapsed softly into Bai Shu’s arms, her gaze sweeping hazily across the latter’s face, then over Shang Lu’s, finally resting on his white hard hat, her eyes brightening slightly.

"Supervisor, please tell Director Ji," Shen Jiang rasped, "I brought back 70% of the Crimson Lotus for him."

As she spoke, bright red blood flowed from her nose. She had no strength left to wipe it away, letting it drip to her lips, then her chin, and finally down into her collar.

"Medical team—!" Bai Shu shouted, turning around.

"Headache... sleepy," Shen Jiang muttered, then tilted her head and fell asleep in Bai Shu’s arms.

Shang Lu stood to the side, just about to crouch down for a closer look, when a powerful hand pushed him aside from behind. "Move!"

The medical team hurried over, pushing a stretcher. Shang Lu had to step aside as the doctors and nurses took the sleeping pilot from Bai Shu’s arms and laid her on the bed.

They efficiently checked her blood pressure, administered an IV, and raised the drip. The medical team crowded around the stretcher as they left the workshop. Shang Lu and Bai Shu watched their backs disappear into the elevator.

"How exhausting," Bai Shu said. "Are all pilots this exhausted?"

"They are all this exhausted," Shang Lu nodded. "The BCI system puts immense pressure on their nervous systems. Piloting these giant machines is a form of torture—a torture perhaps second only to studying general relativity."

"Look at my hands, they're covered in blood," Bai Shu said, holding out her fingers, which were stained crimson. "It’s terrifying."

"The early BCI systems were even more terrifying. If the neural interface malfunctioned back then, it wasn't just blood that flowed out. The method used by the Crimson Lotus is the gentlest one available." Shang Lu turned, looked up, and crossed his arms with a frown. "It’s damaged so severely, can it even be repaired?"

"It can," Bai Shu said. "As long as the three main cores haven't suffered fatal damage, other components can be replaced... But I find it hard to imagine. It only had one arm left, beaten to this state—how did she win?"

"She grabbed her own severed arm," Shang Lu said. "That gave her an eighty-meter-long limb, and she used it to strike Lighthouse Angel No. 092."

"But both of her legs were cut off," Bai Shu said. "Look at the cross-section; the Crimson Lotus should have just collapsed..."

"Then she killed the Lighthouse Angel before she collapsed," Shang Lu said. "She might have had 0.5 seconds, or 0.3 seconds, or even 0.1 seconds."

"You really are amazing!" Bai Shu exclaimed.

Shang Lu was stunned.

"You should be saying that Shen Jiang is amazing."

"She is amazing, of course," Bai Shu leaned in, as if trying to find something hidden on Shang Lu’s face. "But you are also amazing."

"I told you, the BCI system is my old trade. This isn't anything special; in the Science City’s Chengdu Institute, people of my level are a dime a dozen." Shang Lu shrugged. "Bai Shu, let me ask you a question. On the battlefield against the Angels, if it were the pilot herself—Shen Jiang—and she had an arm cut off, would she grab her own severed limb and use it as a weapon to keep fighting?"

Bai Shu blinked. "Huh?"

She imagined the scene Shang Lu described, finding it both ridiculous and cruelly bloody.

"Yes," Bai Shu finally nodded.

"So resolute," Shang Lu glanced at her. "Whether it’s you or her, you are both so resolute."

Bai Shu did not understand what he was talking about.

But Shang Lu was already stumbling away, sighing as he walked:

"You resolute people, you’re constantly reminding me what a cruel world this is. I just wanted to lie down and watch the fireworks; why do you have to perform these horror-movie-like scenarios in front of me? Why did you have to cut off a beautiful girl’s arm? She was so pretty. Fuck it. Being born with a brain, living in this goddamn era—that’s probably the unluckiest thing that’s ever happened to me."

"Shang Lu!"

"Don't follow me. The alert is over; you should go get some rest. I’m heading back to the dormitory," Shang Lu shook his head. "Goddamn old man Ji."

***

Shang Lu did not return to the dormitory; he merely went back to his office.

He sat down again at the old neural interface system, put on the helmet, and stared coldly at the telephone on the desk.

After a long silence, the cell phone in his pocket suddenly rang.

Shang Lu answered; it was Chen Yu’s voice.

"Junior Chief Engineer? Where are you? Are you okay?"

"I’ve already reached the Bridge of Helplessness," Shang Lu replied. "Meng Po’s soup is three credits a bowl, no card needed."

Chen Yu let out a sigh of relief.

"Hey."

"Hm?"

"Lord Yama is judging me, asking if I have any unfulfilled regrets in this life. How should I answer?"

There was a moment of silence on the other end, then the reply came:

"Just tell him you’re saving the world, Junior Chief Engineer."

"Right. Yama said I’m not mentally stable, that the underworld won’t take me, and told me to return to where a madman belongs," Shang Lu said. "So, I’m back. I’m going to continue saving the world."

"Junior Chief Engineer."

"Hm?"

"You can do it."

Ending the call, Shang Lu took off the broken helmet, reached out in the darkness, and pressed his hand onto the telephone on the desk. He took a deep breath.

He dialed in the empty office—a number that did not exist in the 151 directory. A few seconds later, he was connected to the command center.

"This is Shang Lu, ID code GAASBCIG0007. Confirming authorization level, highest clearance... Please connect me to the 314 Committee Office of the Chengdu Science City Institute."