Can Ci Pin/Imperfections(残次品)BL by Priest

V2 The Road of Thorns Chapter 29

Volume II: The Road of Thorns

The real-time navigation map on the "Beijing" mech displayed only a blank figure. Right now, the passage they were passing through was an underground passage not on the map. It was opened up by the countless smugglers traveling around in the Eighth Galaxy, which meant that safety was not ensured at all in this passage.

"Beijing" –– this was the name of Jingheng Lin's small mech.

Normally, only heavy mechs like Zhanlu would have their own name and serial number. Tiny mechs like these, basically a model of a mech, could only count as a measly bug in this boundless universe. Without an AI, there was also no need to give it a name, of course. But Bixing Lu insisted on calling it "Beijing", as if to use this mech, the last one from Beijing β, to commemorate the place they could never go back to.

Jingshu Huang half knelt, half sat in a corner of the training room, a palm-sized teeny window opened on the mech's walls. She gazed out from the small window. There was still only unchanging darkness outside, nothing able to be seen. No lights, no company, and no celestial bodies either. In interstellar traveling, gravity could be deadly, and passages had to avoid orbits of large celestial bodies.

Only in rare occasions did the mech ran into some space particles. Those tiny specks of dust floated and spinned, reflecting lights from faraway stars. Gazing at them from a far distance, they were like a paper-thin layer of gauze glowing a faint halo, thin like the wings of a cricket.

They were close to travelling on this underground passage for a month. In the duration, they had gone through several non-emergency jumps, Jingshu was slowly able to tolerate the feel of her innards being squeezed close to bursting from her torso.

Additionally, the mech's surroundings had always been like this, not exciting, and not thrilling, either. It dazedly made people feel like this endless loneliness was the norm.

Whether it was the colossal war between the Union and the interstellar pirates, the crazed Prince Cayley, or her calamized, dissipated homeland...They all seemed to be nothing more than a bizarre and unusual dream of refracted lights.

The backwards students born from a backwards place did not gain any unusual talents from their unusual experiences, either. They were still encumbrance.

A simulated mech was built into the training room, one that even had a tiny imitation of a mental network in it. They trained like crazy for a month, but until now, none of them had successfully connected to it even once.

White was a weakling –– no matter if it was fitness or anti weightlessness, he ranked the least in his classmates. Even now, he still would immediately pass out the instant he connected to the simulated mech.

Rickhead, the giant dumbass, was contrastingly good at fitness, and had zero problems with what they were eating. But there was a sight problem –– his mental growth was indeed unpleasing. Lacking the most primary education level, he was basically semiliterate. It wasn't even about teaching him any high grade, precise, advanced skills –– even making him read a small household appliance manual was hard enough. Not to mention that there were also behavioral disorders, such as violent tendencies and attentional problems.

If the two just mentioned above were challenging but could be slowly taught over time, then Mint's situation wasn't that easy to solve.

She had *nyctophobia to a pretty damn far extent. Before, no matter whether the time when she was at the orphanage or at the girls' dorm, she wasn't alone at night, so her symptoms weren't as prominent. But once she was connected to the mental network, her senses would be shared with those of the mech's in the great universe. Just like a normal person would place most of their concentration on their surroundings and wouldn't notice their heartbeat or breathing unless they actually meant to, someone who had just connected to a mech's mental network would be drowned in the colossal amount of information from outside the mech –– the absolute darkness of the space environment brought her great emotional stress. Once she connected to the mental network, she would start screaming around and sobbing relentlessly within five seconds, her whole body covered in cold sweat, her heart and lung functions in such disarray she almost needed medicinal intervention.

*nyctophobia: fear of darkness

As for Jingshu Huang –– an empty brain was an empty brain. Until now, her compatibility with the mental network had not even once reached 30%, the reason unknown.

A pull ring being pulled open sounded, someone had opened a can of beer beside her, the smell of it drifting over. Jingshu Huang turned her head. "Pres Lu."

Bixing Lu pulled out a paper cup, and poured half of the beer for her. "This is from Lin's previous stock. Probably stuffed in the mech by his subordinates or something like that. They don't know that he dislikes drinking these –– they're definitely close to expiring."