Huimao licked his paws. The man in front of him must know Tu Ba, and they should be on good terms. But why was he reacting so strongly?
"Are you Tu Ba's comrades-in-arms?" Huimao cocked his head at Tu Ba as if he couldn't sense Tu Ba's hostility.
Shusag didn't say anything. What happened back then was too much of a blow for him to handle, so he didn't dare say anything before he got to the bottom of things.
"Fine, another question." Huimao's tail twitched as he pondered what to ask. There were some things he couldn't say, but he had to get to the bottom of this man's background. Huimao didn't plan on contacting Silin. He wanted to get to the bottom of this on his own. Silin and Moon proved that he was a thoughtful cat.
"I know Tu Ba. We were teammates before. But that kid isn't strong enough. He's barely holding us back."
Wheeze's words caused Shusag's face to twitch abruptly. Tu Ba isn't strong enough? Who are you kidding? Back in the day, Tu Ba was the only person in the company who could hold his own for a while. Plus, after so many years, Shusag knew that Tu Ba could only be stronger than he was now.
Shusag carefully observed Huimao's eyes as he spoke and moved his finger knife away. "How is he now?"
"Don't you know that Tu Ba was sent to the imperial prison?"
"Prison?! How?! "Shusag couldn't believe it.
"I think … he was sent to the imperial prison for treason, and it's a life sentence." Huimao didn't say anything about Black Viper. The man in front of him wouldn't contact Tu Ba anyway. Plus, he was telling the truth. If Tu Ba hadn't been dragged into Black Viper, he would still be in the imperial prison.
Bang!
Shusag's finger knife sliced the table into several pieces.
Shusag slowly took out a cigarette with his non-specialized hand. His hand was shaking uncontrollably. One could only imagine how intense a person like him must be feeling right now.
"Wh … when did that happen?" Shusag's voice was hoarse and suppressed.
"It should be three years ago." Huimao recalled the information he overheard Silin and the others talking about Tu Ba. He said with certainty, "Yes, he was imprisoned in the Empire's high-security prison three years ago."
Shusag sat in his chair, his body radiating an aura of melancholy and dejection. His eyes were bloodshot, but Shusag couldn't tell if he was angry or feeling sorry for Tu Ba. At the very least, Huimao couldn't understand what was going on. Human emotions were too complicated, and Huimao couldn't tell them apart.
Just then, the doorbell rang.
Shusag didn't move. Tesoro glanced at his father, who wasn't paying attention at all. Then, he glanced at Huimao, who was licking his paw as if nothing had happened. Tesoro walked to the door helplessly. Opening the door of their house required skill.
A couple of kicks later, Tesoro pulled the door open. It was none other than Cillin.
Before Tesoro could say anything, Huimao yelled, "Why are you here so soon?"
Cillin smiled apologetically at the puzzled and wary Tesoro and said, "I'm sorry for the trouble he caused."
Tesoro nodded. It looked like this person was the owner of the fat cat.
Entering the house, Silin sensed the strange atmosphere. Shusag, who was sitting there smoking, still had one of his hands in his specialized form. The blade of his finger bone was chilling.
Tesoro had been observing Cillin's reaction ever since he entered the room. To his surprise, however, Cillin didn't show much of a reaction to his father's finger blades. Tesoro immediately felt a lot more at ease. After all, mutants were the most ostracized and discriminated against. Even if you weren't a pure mutant, as long as you had a mutant bloodline, you were still considered "lowly".
Silin looked at Huimao and asked him what was going on. Huimao explained it to Silin in robotic language, looking smug and eager for praise.
"Good job." Silin rubbed Huimao's round head. Although Huimao was a little reckless, it didn't matter. Silin could handle it.
Shusag's file on this planet was simple, as simple as a normal resident. But Silin knew that Shusag had disguised his information. His real information wouldn't be recorded in the resident's HR system.
Shusag was a comrade of Tu Ba, which meant that he was also a member of the Imperial United Garrison. It wasn't easy to survive in the military as a half-mutant.
"I'd like to know something about Tu Ba," Shusag finally said from his chair.
Celine pulled a chair over, "I'm not too sure myself. All I know is that he was sent to the highest security prison of the Empire for treason. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, and he had only recently been promoted to the rank of first lieutenant."
"Lieutenant … That kid's better than me." Shusag rubbed his reddened eyes and looked down. "You guys can go."
Silin didn't linger. He grabbed Huimao, said goodbye to Tesoro, and left.
Back in the spaceplane, Silin did some research on Shusag. With Silin's current authority, he could look up information on the United Garrison's HR system. However, Silin was careful not to leave any traces behind. He didn't want anyone to find out that he was investigating Shusag.
"Why are you investigating him, Silin? It's enough that you know he knows Tu Ba. Why do you need to investigate him so thoroughly? You might as well go find the black box and get back to the League of Stars, "Huimao said.
"I have my own plans. You should think about how to lose weight. Look at your body!" Silin poked Huimao. The guy looked like a ball of fur when he squatted there.
Shusag was his real name, but some records had been changed and a lot of information had been erased. He had to find Tu Ba if he wanted to know more.
From Tu Ba, Silin learned more about Shusag and the real reason Tu Ba was sent to the Imperial Penitentiary. Shusag had something to do with it.
Back in the day, Shusag, a half-mutant, worked his way up to the rank of lieutenant. However, he was disgraced by a minor noble for standing in his way and expelled from the army. What followed was the betrayal and frame-up of his gentle wife. In order to avoid being hunted down by the minor noble, Shusag had no choice but to bring his five-year-old son, Tesoro, with him to a small, unknown planet. There, he had to endure the oppression of starting from scratch.
In order to make a living, Shusag had even melted down his precious Platinum Military Medal and sold it to raise more money to escape.
Back then, there were people he was close to in the military, but there were even more people who disliked him, especially those who discriminated against mutants. That was why after Shusag's incident, there were a lot of people who added insult to injury. In the end, it was Tu Ba who put a stop to it. Three years ago, Tu Ba seized the opportunity to kill the minor noble and sent him to the Imperial Penitentiary for "treason". Tu Ba was a good soldier, but he wasn't a good schemer.
Back when he was kicked out of the military, Shusag was only a second lieutenant. If nothing had happened back then, he would've been promoted to a field officer in the next ten years. A half-mutant with no background was able to achieve all this with his own strength. Back in the day, Shusag was the best fighter in the company, followed by Tu Ba.
According to what Tu Ba said, Shusag was a good person. According to Silin's plan, he could bring a few good seedlings back to the League of Stars, especially those with mutant bloodlines who had always been suppressed. For example, Sha Rou, Shi Tang, and now Shusag and his son.
That being said, Silin still wanted to see how he would deal with Shusag and his son.
The next morning, Shusag, who hadn't slept all night, was woken up by the doorbell. When he opened the door, he saw Silin, Huimao, and Moon standing at the door.
"Rent?" Shusag rubbed his unkempt hair. Who knew how long it had been since he last combed his beard?
"Yes, we can negotiate the rent."
Shusag thought for a moment. "I don't know why you're doing this, but don't drag us into a conflict."
"Of course, we're only here for research and sampling. We don't want people to know who we really are, so we're using you as a shield."
Silin took out a prepared agreement, and Shusag signed it after reading it. He didn't think that an agreement was worth shit as long as they didn't admit it. Still, Shusag wanted to know more about Silin's group, so he didn't object to them renting his house.
And so, Silin lived here as a distant relative of Shusag's. Most of the time, Silin, Moon, and Huimao would go out and search for the remnants of the black boxes. The robots they sent out also searched all over the planet, but to no avail. After a few days of searching, they only managed to find the remnants of the black boxes at different times.
Aside from that, Silin got to know Shusag and his son better. One of them had the rebelliousness and awkwardness of youth, and the other didn't know how to express his love as a father. The father and son quarreled on the surface, but deep down, they both knew that the other was good to them.
Shusag kept calling them "little bastard" and "little bastard", but Silin knew that he cared a lot about Tesoro. In the language of the mutants, "Tesoro" meant "treasure".
During the few days they stayed here, Silin got along well with Shusag and his son. Huimao had fish balls to eat every day, and he also got to try some of Shusag's homemade pickles. Although they smelled horrible at first, they got better after a while. At least, that was what Silin thought.
When all the information on the planet was gathered, Silin was ready to leave. Before he left, Silin told Tu Ba to contact Shusag. Of course, he didn't tell him about Black Viper and left out some of the key details. Shusag didn't press the issue. Now that he knew Silin was doing well, he felt less guilty and slept better. His attitude toward Silin was a lot more sincere.
That night, Shusag prepared a sumptuous dinner. Silin decided to leave the next day, so the dinner was his farewell.
It happened to be the day when Tesoro returned from his vacation. Tesoro came back with a piece of news.
"I heard there's going to be a meteor shower tonight. You guys can watch it. A lot of people at school are talking about it. A lot of people are even using the meteor shower as an excuse to date, "Tesoro said.
"Then why didn't you invite a daughter-in-law for me?" Shusag didn't hold back.
Tesoro curled his lips but didn't say anything. At school, the way the girls looked at him made him want to rush up and slap them. He knew what they were saying behind his back. Once, when he skipped class to sleep by the flower bed, he heard them talking behind his back. Tesoro remembered very clearly that those people had said that even his blood was dirty. Because of Tesoro's notoriety, some people didn't dare say it to his face, but they did whisper behind his back. Tesoro had long since lost all hope in his so-called schoolmates. He had always been a lone ranger at school.
Realizing something, Shusag stopped asking questions. For a moment, neither father nor son said anything. Seeing this, Silin broke the awkward atmosphere and asked Tesoro, "Where can we see the meteor shower?"
"We can see it from this area. Of course, we can go to the grassland further away. It'll be quieter there. There will probably be a lot of people watching the meteor shower in town. It'll be noisy."
Silin nodded. "Let's go check it out tonight then. There's nothing to do anyway. "
"Okay!" Tesoro was overjoyed.
Compared to Tesoro's excitement, Huimao didn't feel anything. It was just a meteor shower. What was there to see? He might as well sleep at home. That being said, Huimao followed Silin and the others to the grassland further away from town where he first encountered Tesoro.
The meteor shower arrived in the wee hours of the morning. The friction between the atmosphere created countless sparkling ribbons, which excited many young people. Even from where they stood, they could hear the shouts of the youngsters in town.
However, there wasn't much romance to speak of here. All they did was take care of Tesoro's curiosity.
Beep beep beep beep —
The urgent notification surprised Cillin, but his expression changed when he saw the data sent back by the probe robots scattered around the area.
Moon also noticed that something was wrong. As the meteor shower arrived, he detected the signal of residual matter. Although the signal wasn't obvious, it was definitely the signal of residual matter.
The residual matter really came from outside the planet and came with the meteor shower …
Meteor shower …
Looking at the bright lights streaking across the sky like raindrops, Silin shuddered. He turned to Huimao, who was yawning, and Moon, who was counting the signal points, and said, "Check the comets orbiting this star region!"
Seeing that Silin and the others were suddenly busy, Tesoro pushed Shusag in confusion. "Old man, why are they checking the comets?"
"How would I know? I'm not educated. Aren't you from an intermediate school?"
Tesoro: "..."
"Celine, this is the result of our investigation." Moon projected the results in front of him. The image showed all the periodic comets in this star region, their orbits, and the places the planet had passed.
"Don't call back the probes. Let them continue to collect the residual matter that came with the meteor shower. Let's go back to the spaceplane!" Silin said to Moon.
"We're leaving! Oh, right. "Silin paused and looked back at the father and son." Maybe I'll contact you again soon. Don't move. "
After that, Silin turned around and ran to the spaceplane parked in the woods with Moon and Huimao.
The fundamental cause of these meteor showers was the comet's fragmentation, and the leftover material might have come from the comet's debris. If everything was as Cillin had guessed, then the black box might very well be on the comet's orbit!
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