–Good people do not need the constraint of laws; bad people will always find a way to circumvent them.
“Hm-hm! You’re back!”
The young woman with short, curly hair was sitting on a bench, enjoying an ice cream. It was evident she possessed a childlike innocence, as she had bought several ice creams for the children around her.
Ke Yiyi raised the metal box towards the young woman, who immediately smiled and gave a thumbs-up.
“Excellent work!”
Ke Yiyi was about to say something, but after glancing around, she ultimately held her tongue. The young woman seemed to understand her unspoken thought and began bidding farewell to the children.
“Alright, alright! Big sister has to go now! Goodbye, little ones.”
Ke Yiyi placed the metal box into the car and then settled into the driver’s seat. Subconsciously, her gaze drifted to the tightly wrapped, elongated object on the back seat. Meanwhile, the young woman swiftly took the passenger seat, nodding and smiling at her. The two then drove off.
“Bianca, you’ve left the gun in the car again. According to…”
“According to Article 1, Section 2, Chapter 3 of the ‘Vega Academy of Sciences Weapon Management Regulations’… if a weapon is stored in an official vehicle driven during work hours, the relevant personnel must not leave the vehicle without authorization. If it is necessary to leave, at least one person must remain in the vehicle to guard the weapon.”
Bianca recited the relevant articles as if they were precious family heirlooms, leaving Ke Yiyi at a loss for words.
“…And yet you knowingly violate it.”
“The car was always within my line of sight, and the distance…” At this, Bianca gestured with her hand.
“No more than ten meters.”
Ke Yiyi said nothing further, concentrating on her driving.
The tightly wrapped, elongated object on the back seat was Bianca’s personal weapon: a lever-action rifle capable of firing special bullets.
Before Ke Yiyi first saw this lever-action rifle, she had never imagined she would encounter such a ‘relic,’ more suited for a museum, in the hands of a police colleague. In the early days of the Academy of Sciences, such firearms were quite popular, but they had long since become obsolete.
However, from a ‘metaphysical’ perspective, no weapon’s true performance could be judged solely by its structure or appearance. Just as the Ten Divine Weapons of Hydooras, wielded by the Ten Chosen Kings of the Gods, which swept across all directions, were, in the end, merely ten cold weapons, yet no one had ever dared to underestimate them.
Unlike Ke Yiyi, Bianca had given her weapon a rather beautiful name: ‘Magic Bullet Shooter’.
Ke Yiyi had to admit she possessed no talent for naming; she could never conceive of such a distinctive moniker. Her own blade, for instance, had no name, and whenever she introduced it, she would simply state, “This is my blade,” or something similar.
“Speaking of which, my dear Captain Ke, we’ll have new police cars soon! I saw pictures earlier; they’re super cool.”
“What kind?”
Ke Yiyi’s curiosity was piqued. Current Vega police cars, if they were everyday models, were essentially the ‘Big Pineapple’ convertible electric vehicles she was driving now. Their speed, of course, couldn’t compare to gasoline-powered cars, but they were primarily about economy and cleanliness.
Naturally, for armed unit operations or detective missions, they would still use ‘D8’ police vehicles. Although these were gasoline-powered, Ke Yiyi had always felt the pollution they caused was negligible and could be entirely ignored. Nevertheless, developing and promoting cleaner, more energy-efficient new energy sources was not a bad thing, and Ke Yiyi wholeheartedly agreed and supported it.
“They added a roof.”
“…It’s not a convertible anymore?”
“Don’t be ungrateful, my dear Captain Ke! A roof is perfectly fine. It might not block the wind, but it can keep out the rain! You know how harsh the summers are in Shell City! And…” Bianca leaned in, lowering her voice.
“Apparently, there are many types of roofs to choose from. Of course, I don’t mean every car can have a different one, but each department can pick a different style. I think our detective unit could go for a hemispherical dome.”
“People will mistake it for a turret.”
“Huh? Don’t you think it looks more like the roof of a planetarium? Or perhaps the design of the ‘Two Iron Balls Dropping Simultaneously’ science exhibition hall?”
“Your imagination is far richer than mine.”
The car circled the beach, heading back to the police station. Bianca gazed at the ocean, its azure expanse reflected in her eyes, and she let out a helpless laugh.
“Actually, I originally wanted to say the ‘Egg of Memories’ Historical Memorial Hall, the one in Ivory Tower City in Yingzhou region, which is now called Qingyi City.”
Ke Yiyi remained silent, continuing to focus on her driving.
“We won’t be able to return to Yingzhou for a very long time.”
Bianca looked North, then suddenly turned and spoke.
“Captain Ke, you were born in Yingzhou, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you miss home?”
“People always have a connection to their homeland.”
“I… I don’t really have any memories of it,” Ke Yiyi hesitated for a moment, refuting Bianca’s statement.
“Not long after I was born, I fled from Yingzhou to Vega because of the war…”
As Ke Yiyi uttered these words, she suddenly felt a strange disjointedness to her sentence, though she couldn’t pinpoint why.
Perhaps it was due to her concentration on driving, leaving no room for distraction, but it took her several seconds to realize the exact anomaly: when the war broke out between Xuanji Star and Vega, she had indeed fled from Yingzhou to the Cloud Mountain Peninsula. However, at that time, both Yingzhou and the Cloud Mountain Peninsula were territories of Vega. In a sense, she hadn’t ‘fled to Vega’ because she had never actually left Vega’s territory. It was simply that she wasn’t yet a citizen of Vega, merely an ‘outsider’ living on its land.
Bianca, clearly having long recognized this nuance, showed no reaction, simply waiting quietly for Ke Yiyi to continue.
“To me, Vega is my home… wherever I am… that’s my home.”
“I doubt that’s entirely sincere, my dear Captain Ke.”
A mischievous glint suddenly appeared on Bianca’s face as she scrutinized Ke Yiyi, as if she had uncovered a secret.
“But what I said is truly how I feel.”
“What about what you *didn’t* say?”
“Hm?”
“You clearly hesitated when you spoke. You’re definitely hiding something.”
“…No.”
Ke Yiyi’s heart fluttered momentarily before she calmed herself.
‘Bianca must have just guessed by chance,’ she thought.
“Is it a boy?”
Ke Yiyi remained silent for a long moment before finally nodding.
She hadn’t expected Bianca to guess so accurately.
“See, I told you! I’m quite good at reading people.”
Ke Yiyi found herself unable to retort. She recalled how, during their usual chess games, Bianca could always anticipate her opponent’s next move. Initially, Ke Yiyi had believed Bianca possessed exceptional chess skills, capable of predicting her adversary’s strategies. Later, however, she learned that Bianca’s true talent lay not in her chess prowess, but in her ability to discern an opponent’s personality and observe their expressions to gauge their current psychological state, then combine that with the rules of the game to deduce their likely next move.
“That boy…”
Bianca’s question was much more cautious now. She had never seen any significant male presence around Ke Yiyi, so regarding this boy she had never met, she couldn’t help but make the worst assumptions.
Ke Yiyi understood Bianca’s thoughts but paid them little mind, as she herself didn’t know what had ultimately become of him.
“He was born before me and looked after me a great deal, like an older brother. I always called him that. He was a very kind person…”
“Then the war broke out, and Xuanji Star advanced rapidly. We only managed to flee as far as the Snow River…”
Hearing Ke Yiyi’s words, Bianca couldn’t help but feel a pang of shame.
Vega had been caught completely off guard by Xuanji Star’s offensive at the time, allowing Xuanji Star to push deep into their territory, piercing the Cloud Mountain Peninsula like a sharp blade.
By the time Vega could organize its forces to resist Xuanji Star’s advance, Xuanji Star had already left a bloody trail across the Cloud Mountain Peninsula.
Had it not been for Xuanji Star’s multi-front war, which eventually weakened its subsequent attacks, it was questionable whether Vega could have even counter-attacked south of the Snow River.
Thinking of this, her mood became considerably somber.
“The river water was bone-chilling, but we had no choice but to leap in and swim desperately. Many died in the river, and in the end, we were separated… To this day, I have never seen him again, nor have I heard any news of him.”
Ke Yiyi sighed softly, knowing that dwelling on many things was useless.
“Perhaps he’s still alive, or perhaps… he’s no longer among the living.”
“If only we had held Xuanji Star at the border back then, perhaps not so many people would have been separated like that…”
Bianca still remembered the expression on her police academy instructor’s face when he spoke of that war. Vega had been caught in a vicious cycle: repeatedly ‘mobilizing forces,’ ‘being encircled and annihilated,’ ‘continuing to mobilize forces,’ and ‘continuing to be encircled and annihilated.’
Every attempt to gather forces for a counter-offensive ultimately devolved into a terrible disaster of being fragmented and wiped out. Vega even prepared to abandon the Cloud Mountain Peninsula, with numerous industries beginning to relocate south. Had they ultimately failed to defend the Cloud Mountain Peninsula, Vega might well have ceded territory and negotiated peace with Xuanji Star, recognizing Yingzhou and the Cloud Mountain Peninsula as Xuanji Star’s territory.
Many factors contributed to Vega’s early devastating defeat: Xuanji Star’s flexible and adaptable strategies and tactics, Vega’s erroneous judgments due to a lack of intelligence, and its own apathy and sluggishness demonstrated throughout the war.
“So much time has passed, and besides… there are no ‘what ifs’ in war.”
“The last war is long gone, but what about the next one? If Xuanji Star invades south along the Cloud Mountain Peninsula again, how will we respond?”
Bianca typically pondered such ‘major issues,’ a habit Ke Yiyi had grown accustomed to.
“Ultimately, it’s our lack of internal unity. If we could change the current system and reorganize the three major councils into a single entity, we would face the next war with far greater confidence.”
“To become like Polaris, then?”
Bianca fell silent. The purpose of the three major councils was precisely to decentralize power, preventing its over-concentration and ensuring no single individual could amass absolute authority and act dictatorially.
The intention was good, but the outcome had not been as desired.
“Sorry, I got off-topic.”
“It’s fine. You usually seem quite ladylike, but whenever these ‘major issues’ come up, you become incredibly focused.”
“Is this ‘focused’? I thought one had to argue with others like Soma to truly be considered focused…”
“There’s a difference in your ‘focus’ on ‘history’ and ‘major issues.’ You focus on learning from history and practical methods for solving problems, while Soma is merely unwilling to accept things and unable to let go.”
“The difference between a realist and an idealist, then?”
“Something like that.”
“Pity. If I were a realist, I wouldn’t be sitting here articulating my thoughts in such dry language.”