[Translation] Defective by Priest

Chapter 10

Lu Bixing immediately started taking crisis PR measures, and sought out the resigned department chairs and teachers for 1:1s. But after this peculiar convocation experience, whether it was convincing by reason, persuasion by emotion, or temptation with profit... nothing worked. After such a peculiar convocation experience, none of them could be convinced to stay. 

The old department chair had clearly spelt out his ideals in his speech. As one that looked to the stars, even if he was motivated by profit, he had his red line. Dreams and dignity were not to be corrupted by money.

(Translator's note: "Look up to the stars", a metaphor for having lofty aspirations, is a widely known poem by a former Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, which later became the prompt for Beijing's 2010 college entrance exams.)

Not even dreams and dignity of the desperate.

Lu Bixing rushed about for a full day without time for even a sip of water. Parched, hungry, and having achieved nothing, he returned alone to the faculty office building.

The building was empty. The now unassigned desks and chairs were neatly arranged. The teachers were all quite well-mannered, and cleaned out their spaces before leaving. The place was as clean as if nobody had ever been there.

Lu Bixing paced around a few times and found it too quiet. He turned on the building's automatic cleaning system so that the sound of vacuums added some liveliness, and then fed himself a box of compressed nutrients.

The compressed nutrient meal looked like a small cube, and had the texture of crab-apple jelly. It was an artificial composition based off of the human body's nutrient requirements, hunger satiation guaranteed, convenient, cheap, fast, but not particularly well-tasting—after all, even the fancier pets ate organic food these days.

It's not that Lu Bixing had never had or couldn't afford fancier food, it's just that he never craved them and was too lazy to spend his efforts there.

He finished his dinner in two bites. The insulin levels in his blood vessels rose gradually, and caused physiological symptoms of tiredness. Aside from that, he felt a tinge of loneliness.

He spaced out for a bit, then a holographic interface popped up above his desk displaying the university's directory. The section under faculty was almost completely grey, leaving only the principal. Of the hundred or so students from last year, there were only thirty of them left this year. Within the time it took for him to eat his meal, half of those thirty students went gray—probably those who acknowledged their fates after receiving their grades.

And this year, of the hundred and five letters of admission they sent, ninety showed up for enrollment, many of them Planet Beijing locals who were there just to see what Si Ge looked like and left after they'd achieved that goal. Within a day, forty of them had withdrawn. That number was still fluctuating on the screen, as if it were trolling him.

"Every step is hard." The young principal sighed.

Lu Bixing had pretty good lung capacity—this sigh lasted half a minute. But afterwards, he decided to look on the bright side. The times were improving, civilization was progressing, the "weirdos" of the old times were gaining equal rights and becoming "normal folk" through unwavering advocacy and protest, but the new times would create new "weirdos".

Lu Bixing self styled as a "genius", but he also knew that geniuses of this sort were just a different phrasing for weirdo.

As a weirdo, if you couldn't find your own silver linings, how were you supposed to survive the days?

Lu Bixing had the central computer play an EDM song loud enough to blow the ceiling up to the sky—usually in consideration of the old gentlemen's heart conditions, the office buildings only played light classical music.

Today, the entire building was his kingdom. Lu Bixing had the central computer lock the front and back doors. Assured of no audiences, he set himself free. He threw down his coat and still felt stifled so he kicked off his shoes and socks and freed his ten toes. The tea cup on the table vibrated to the music. The principal, standing with a foot on his chair like a bandit, sent out new hiring posts with great alacrity and productively established a "Plan B"--

In the odd chance that no teachers would come, that was no big deal. He didn't have that many students right now anyway. If it came to it, he would just teach them himself. At this rate of withdrawal, it wouldn't be long before the entire Xinghai Academy would be down to one small class. The first and second grades as well as all three colleges could very much combine into one—from the looks of last years grades, there was no need to divide these geniuses into grade levels and majors anyway.

His three small steps were now merged into a single tiny step, which Lu Bixing found quite reasonable. He concluded that this temporary setback was due to trying to bite off more than he could chew. Having arrived at this conclusion, he quickly put the whole thing aside. He hummed an off-tune song to the ridiculously loud music, and started fiddling with the chip he got from Lin with his limited research facilities. He planned to first get his bearings, create a budget, and then go ask Zhan Lu for money.

At the thought of Zhan Lu, Lu Bixing's attention made a hyperspace jump from that fascinating AI to the AI's owner. As he analyzed the biological chip's interface, his attention suddenly drifted, without reason, to Lin's eyes.

It might have been due to the dramatic lighting effects of the auditorium, or perhaps the gangsters made too striking of an entrance. But regardless, the second that scene popped up in his mind's eye, Lu Bixing could not dismiss it.

When he poured his coffee, when he sat down to write his research plan, when he stood up to exercise to his terrifying music... Lin's eyes seemed to follow the back of his head, and made Lu Bixing rather self conscious about being half naked. So he carefully and neatly put his clothes back on.

Once the lab gets built, Lu Bixing thought, that'd be great for practical education, and maybe tricking Zhan Lu into subbing class.

He could also use this lab as an excuse for reporting research progress to its sponsor too. Once he looked at things this way, Principal Lu thought he had perfectly planned out all of this work, and was renewed with boundless optimism and motivation.

But before he had yet prepared a progress report, the "sponsor" who had established residence in Principal Lu's imagination came by himself. Si Ge had Zhan Lv fix Spider's mech. He had no use for it himself, so he donated it to Xinghai Academy.

Penny had a few people deliver it to Xinghai Academy's lecture building. According to rumor, Penny was the previous Black Hole boss' mistress, but that wasn't actually true. The ex boss had more mistresses than he could count, and none of them actually got anything out of it. For Penny to have climbed to second in command, that was purely because she had gain control of the previous boss' firearms inventory by industry and force and became the boss' close advisor.

But there was something wrong with the ex boss' brain and he kept trying to make a move on his pretty advisor. Well, turned out he tried to bite off more than he could chew.

Lin came from outer space. There was this time when the old boss had been cornered by a bunch of enemies in mechs and was almost done for. Lin had just landed and had been scraping a living by sweeping the streets. The cleaning car was passing by. Lin invaded the mechs through the neural net of his cleaning car, and turned those murderous monsters into sprawled models.

The ex boss recognized him as a brother, Si Ge, brother number four—numbers two and three were both in their graves, "dismissed" after jobs well done.

At the time, Beijing Beta was not yet dominated by Black Hole. Lin choose Black Hole, and Black Hole came to dominate Beijing Beta. The ex boss was unnerved by his overly capable little brother and started contemplating another "dismissal". To his surprise, his advisor staged an uprising, joined forces with Lin and killed him instead.

As the cold winds raged, Penny wrapped herself in a windbreaker coat, and asked Si Ge: "I heard all the teachers at this school left, why are we still giving them shit?"

Without the need to put on appearances for anyone, Si Ge reverted back to his disheveled state. Seeing that she was cold, he led her out of the wind: "If he wants to play with it he can play with it."

Penny was a bit suspicious. Although Si Ge was the indifferent type that didn't like paying people attention, there was already Zhan Lu the boy toy fawning over him, and others might start following suit. Probingly, she said: "You treat Mr. Lu very well."

"I owed his dad a favor."

"Huh?" Penny was surprised, because since the first day she met Si Ge, five years had passed and she had never seen him leave the planet. She only knew that he was pretty close with that weirdo runaway young master Lu Bixing, but nobody knew he was acquainted with the One-Eyed Eagle. "We Black Hole have business with the One-Eyed Eagle?"

"That no. The One-Eyed Eagle doesn't know I'm here." Si Ge paused, "That was many years ago. He returned to me a memento from a friend who had passed."

Zhan Lv, who had been silently accompanying them, raised his head, but Si Ge smiled and wouldn't say anymore.

At this time, sounds of people came from close by. Penny looked up and found that their wind shelter was behind the lecture building.

Lu Bixing gathered all the students in a large classroom. The students looked like a bunch of live monkeys in all sorts of positions. Principal Lu was sitting on top of his podium, teaching himself. They walked towards a window and heard that the topic of the lecture was interstellar smuggling.

Lu Bixing was quite knowledgeable and spoke freely without notes. The live monkeys didn't anticipate that their first day of class would be so exciting, and were actually somewhat paying attention.

"The smuggling business in Galaxy Eight has been around for quite some time, the larger markets are firearms and electronics, and very occasionally a few folks will do a side deal here and there of food and consumer goods." As he spoke, Lu Bixing pointed out the common smuggling flight paths on a large map behind him. "The reason why the routes are so meandering is to avoid the military garrisons on the border of Galaxy Seven. Nobody gives a shit on our side, so long as you're not fighting the larger players for inventory or routes."

The students were entranced. Hewitt, who had hacked into the auditorium speaker system on the first day of school, was quite active. He interrupted: "Principal, how much money can you make from a trip, and what are the price differences for inventory?"

"There isn't a concept of 'price difference' in interstellar smuggling dear, they're not in the business of consumer goods wholesale," Lu Bixing replied, "They don't take Galaxy Eight currency over there, they have no use for it. It's not like they import anything from Galaxy Eight anyway. Usually it's an exchange of goods. As to how an exchange is done for some specific deal, that's up to both sides for negotiation. It's different every time, and how much you make is up to what you can do."

Hewitt was pretty good with computers. In Galaxy Eight, his family was pretty well off, and he was one of the very few students who actually had a real Foundational Education diploma. Supposedly, his family had already made preparations to immigrate to Galaxy Seven. He came to Xinghai Academy purely out of curiosity as a way to pass time, and had a bit of mischevious naïveté. He couldn't help but asked again, "Principal, didn't you just say that they didn't import anything from Galaxy Eight? Then what do we trade with?"

Lu Bixing took a deep look at him and did not answer, rather he asked the class, "Does anyone know?"

A sulky looking girl in the corner answered—it was the one who made her own laser gun, "With people, you dumbass, Galaxy Eight has plenty of loafing idiots like you, perfect for selling to other galaxies to do human experiments on, or to do the type of work they don't allow people to do there."

The color drained from Hewitt's face.

Lu Bixing asked the girl, "What is your name?"

"Mint." The girl looked at him, and nodded very naturally when she stated her name. Her name was rather unusual, but her mannerisms were quite mature. You completely couldn't tell she was the type to pull out a gun upon disagreement.

"That's right, human trafficking is an extremely large portion of interstellar smuggling, and comprises over seventy percent of trading volume—one point to Mint's class participation grade. The classroom participation grade is sixty percent of your final grade, I hope everyone can get full marks on them before the end of the semester. This will help you pass the class." Lu Bixing's conversation casually transitioned between the final exam, human trafficking, smuggling, and sweatshops, "Aside from that, some deals involve banned goods, such as private firearms from Galaxy Eight, things from interstellar pirates, or things that are banned from trading in civilized areas..."

Hewitt insisted on getting to the bottom of things: "What banned goods?"

"Many, some artificial organisms for example," Lu Bixing said, "Have you seen a creature with a human head and a snake's body? It has a human brain. After being forcibly grafted together, it has some intelligence issues, and has the intellectual capacity of a five-year-old human. Although a bit dumb, its thought process and emotional capacity is similar to humans. Grafted onto a shiny snake's tail, it becomes a very expensive and exotic pet for certain rich people."

Hewitt asked in a daze: "Principal, you've seen one?"

"I saw one in my childhood," Lu Bixing paused, "Somebody gave it to my father as a present, I discovered her when I slipped into the basement, it was a girl—it's usually girls, girls faces are often prettier, but apparently there are also some pretty boys."

"And then?"

Lu Bixing: "And then I killed her with a gun."

The classroom was silent.

After a long while, Hewitt's voice was suddenly a lot lower: "You... you didn't set her free?"

"Beauty snakes, and some mermaids, they cannot even be thought of as genetically defective. If taken out of precisely conditioned incubators and nutrient-feeding systems, they cannot survive. If a human, without any alternative, has become a beast, then at least it should be a beast with freedom." Lu Bixing's warm smile that he wore year round had disappeared. His always joking face was frosted over. He cut the topic short and interrupted the novelty-seeking follow-ups with a raise of his hand, "Next question."

Si Ge did not interrupt. He had Penny leave some folks here to deliver the mech to Lu Bixing and silently left with Zhan Lu.

When he got on his own car, Si Ge suddenly said to Zhan Lu, "Scan Lu Bixing's genes for me again."

Zhan Lv obeyed, a second later, the icy robotic voice told him the result: "The third trial results, gene match not found."

Si Ge sighed, and let his head fall back on the car seat.

"Sir, General Lu Xin's accident and the lady's disappearance occurred thirty three years old, but Principal Lu's skeletal age is only twenty eight. The age does not match. From five years ago to today, you've had this suspicion three times and asked me to scan Principal Lu's genes. The results are negative for all three trials." Zhan Lu said, "General Lu Xin was very close to the One-Eyed Eagle before he passed. Thirty three years ago, the One-eyed Eagle changed his surname to Lu to commemorate him. If just the surname causes you to suspect that Principal Lu is the person you are looking for, there is no basis. You can't decide that just because the One-Eyed Eagle returned one of General Lu's mementos, the other "memento" must also be in his hands."

"But he broke through my encryption system," Si Ge said in a lowered voice, "Apart from myself, only..."

Zhan Lv said, "Principal Lu's technical capabilities are extraordinary. With a bit of luck, him breaking through your encryption system is not entirely impossible."

Si Ge stopped arguing, and nodded his assent.

Zhan Lv was silent for a bit, and then asked, "So last time you said, 'if we can't find him, fuck it'. Was that actually an instance of saying one thing and meaning another?"

Si Ge became temporarily deaf again. He felt that although Zhan Lu was extremely intelligent, some times he spoke too much.