Chapter 287: The Top Decision Maker? [Part 2]
The people’s—especially the newcomers—attitude toward Cillin clearly changed after he returned to the base. Before the live stream, they were casual enough around him to crack jokes and bump fists with him. After the live stream, they were much more restrained and cautious around him. They were only a few days away from the deadline, and there was absolutely no need to bring a fiend onto themselves.
Their last few days on the planet was puzzlingly quiet. After the horde of white mice inside the cave were dealt with, the last of their numbers and the occasional roaming bio-soldiers and wild beasts were unable to threaten them at all.
Wheeze was so bored that it spent the entire day rolling downhill, literally. After it was done teasing the animals in the area, it climbed up the cliff back to the base and bullied Mercury. As a result, the latter took to the sky like its life depended on it every time it saw Wheeze. Thank goodness the cat didn’t have wings, or only god knows what would happen to it!
After finishing the defense network with Hei Dou, Cillin went to discuss with Neo about several research projects that were still incomplete. In the end, nothing notable happened during their final days despite their worry and puzzlement.
The deadline was calculated based on Cillin’s time of arrival. When Guan Feng said thirty days, he meant that the tests would end on the thirtieth day since Cillin’s arrival on this planet.
On the thirtieth day, a huge amount of spaceplanes appeared on the sky. The passengers were all robots with human exterior.
The Black Vipers members didn’t follow the test candidates onto the spaceplanes, but they weren’t worried in the slightest. They would be evacuated on special spaceplanes that would carry them, their lab and their workshop altogether to a safe area.
Cillin was the first one to enter the spaceplane, followed by Gu Xin, Tu Ba, and everyone else.
Cillin split up with the gang after the spaceplane brought them to a group of buildings. His role was different from the rest of them. Guan Feng drove a flying car himself to receive Cillin and White Night at another reception area.
Unlike Cillin, White Night was covered in wounds. Everyone on the spaceplane White Night was on—scratch that, everyone besides Cillin’s group—more or less cut a sorry figure.
When Guan Feng saw the doubt behind Cillin’s eyes, he smiled at him and said, “You’re different from them.”
“How?”
“The role you’re going to play, the position you’re going to succeed, and what’ll be demanded of you are very different from theirs.”
Cillin raised his eyebrows and asked, “Succeed?”
Guan Feng hit Cillin in the head gently before replying, “What’s with the reluctant look? It’s good news. No noble will dare to offend you if you successfully take over my position, even without the Gen Family’s backing. If someone does, just send a lackey to fuck them over, easy.”
Cillin and White Night filtered Guan Feng’s last line straight out of their heads. Who teaches their student like this?!
“Where are we going?” Cillin asked.
“A place.”
Well, duh! Cillin rolled in his eyes in his imagination.
“We would like to contact Nikki and the others first.”
“There’s no need, I’ve already spoken to them.”
“It sounds like you’re prepared for everything.”
“Not really. For example, I absolutely wasn’t expecting you to take out twelve mice with the PTS S. I had to pretend that everything was alright and bullshit the old bastards even though I was really covered in cold sweat!” Guan Feng was annoyed the second he was reminded of that incident, but at the same time he was very proud of Cillin. He had never felt so many emotions at once in such a short time.
White Night’s eyelids twitched when he heard Guan Feng’s comment. PTS S?! Twelve white mice?!!
He knew just how powerful those white mice were. At the very least, they were as strong as the monsters that showed up during the latter half of the trial. But what did Guan Feng say just now? Cillin taking out twelve of them with the PTS S?
That was a feat that stunned even White Night. At first, he thought that Cillin must’ve had an easier time than him since he looked untouched, but that was clearly not the case.
Guan Feng stepped down on the pedal and drove like the wind until they reached a spaceport. The spaceport was different from the one that received Cillin and White Night before. The building was still mostly operated by robots, but there were more life here than in the previous building, and no one looked like an insignificant small fry. They probably held important positions inside Black Viper.
A couple of gazes were directed his way the moment he got off the car, but one of them was unusually sharp. When Cillin tracked the source of the gaze, he saw an average-looking man with an average constitution, but was brimming with machine language. He clearly wasn’t a robot, but he was surrounded by machine signals.
Wheeze’s tail swayed left and right as it whispered to Cillin from his shoulders, “His signal is similar to Sigma’s.”
It meant that this man was who they were looking for.
This wasn’t the right time, however.
After Cillin and White Night got out, another flying car descended swiftly before stopping nearby. The exiting passenger had a similar appearance to White Night, but his aura was incredibly powerful. Although he had withdrawn his battle spirit, people like him naturally exuded a kind of aura that demanded respect from others no matter where he went.
Obviously, Wheeze and Cillin were different from him. A feather from Mercury’s body was stuck to Wheeze’s tail, and every time it swung its tail the feather would hit Cillin’s hair. As a result, the duo were like a comedic duo in the middle of what seemed like a serious atmosphere. The cat was swinging its tail idly, and the man was pushing the annoying feather away. They showed no regard to the heavyweights present whatsoever.
“Aiya, it’s you again, old man!!” Wheeze pointed a paw straight at Gu Changan, who was being pushed over by Qiu Xu.
Gu Changan was still sitting on his wheelchair, and Cillin couldn’t understand why. Why the hell would anyone want to sit on a wheelchair when their legs were perfectly fine? Did everyone in Black Viper have their own eccentricities?
The meeting was a serious one, so their surroundings were mostly silent besides some mechanical noises. So Wheeze’s shout was loud to say the least.
Old man?
Who would’ve thought that a cat would address Gu Changan, one of the three heads of Black Viper like this? It wasn’t even trying to pretend to be polite. Everyone including the imposing newcomer turned to stare at Gu Changan with surprise in their eyes.
To Gu Changan’s credit, he wasn’t angered by Wheeze’s impoliteness in the slightest. He simply fished inside his pocket for a second, took out a bag of fish biscuits and waved a hand at the gray cat, saying, “Come here, little kitty. I have a bag of freshly made fish biscuits right here.”
Everyone: “…”
Wheeze lifted its head high and replied, “You think you can bribe me with just a bag of fish biscuits?!”
That was what Wheeze said, but it did nothing to stop its legs from carrying it right next to Gu Changan. After pulling the bag into its lap and finding a comfortable spot to snuggle on Gu Changan’s legs, it happily tore into the fish biscuits.
Wheeze’s master, Cillin facepalmed hard. So embarrassing…
That being said, the gray cat’s antics helped loosen up the atmosphere a lot. Guan Feng chuckled and spread his hands at Kristi. Lang and the rest of his colleagues, meaning that this was a perfectly ordinary thing to happen when Wheeze was involved.
Throwing the gray cat to the back of their minds, Kristi. Lang called Cillin, White Night and the newcomer named Hadar toward him.
“I believe you’re all aware of the positions you’re going to succeed?”
White Night nodded. Hadar nodded. But Cillin shook his head.
Kristi. Lang wasn’t a patient man, but he made an exception for Cillin. He explained that Black Viper was led by three people, and everyone of them had their own areas of responsibility. For example, Guan Feng’s area of responsibility was academics, and most of his operations were overt and plain to see. White Night was taking over Gu Changan, so he would mostly be dealing with people like them. Hadar was taking over Kristi. Lang, so his area of responsibility involved decision making and coordination.
They hoped that Cillin would succeed Guan Feng. Cillin didn’t give them an answer.
What did he mean by “people like them”? The phrasing confused Cillin greatly.
“You want to know the answer? You may find it yourself. You’ll know everything about Black Viper in that place,” Gu Changan said from his wheelchair.
Another spaceplane descended from the air while they were talking. The exiting passenger was a young man Cillin had seen before at AF1, but he didn’t know who he really was at the time.
The heavyweights of Black Viper including Krisiti. Lang saluted the young man after he appeared. The young man responded with a different kind of salute.
“He’ll be leading you three on the last legs of your journey,” Krisiti. Lang said.
“What will we be doing?” Cillin asked.
“You’ll be meeting the top decision maker, also the primogenitor of Black Viper.”
It was clear that everyone, be it Kristi. Lang or the young man viewed this so-called “top decision maker” in very high regard.
Again, Cillin was confused by the use of the word “primogenitor”. Just how impressive was this person to be called the “primogenitor” of Black Viper, and win the wholehearted respect of these people?
Cillin, White Night and Hadar got up the third spaceplane. Wheeze followed them with the bag of unfinished fish biscuits. No one tried to stop it.
The hatch closed, and the spaceplane took off and left the planet completely.
Their destination was a nearby planet. If he remembered the star chart correctly, the planet was within the “vanished” zone.
