Chapter 16: Sixteenth Day of Lying Flat Like a Salted Fish

“I used to be.”

Lu Yuan answered calmly. He had already expected Siming to ask this question.

He didn’t mind admitting it, either.

If Siming couldn’t get off this Desolate Planet, knowing he was once a Marshal wouldn’t do much good. If Siming could leave, he would be able to find out soon enough on his own. There was no point in hiding it.

So, while he gave a casual answer, his mind was distracted by something else-

Wen Shen…

Who was that again?

Seeing his distraction, Siming immediately realized this was an opportunity. His fox-like eyes narrowed into thin slits as he asked in an equally nonchalant tone, “Used to be? Then how did you end up here?”

“I didn’t want to do it anymore, so I ran away,” Lu Yuan replied. “This is a good place to slack off.”

“Surely you didn’t need to run to such a desolate place?”

Lu Yuan glanced at him. “I picked a planet at random. My luck was bad, but I was too lazy to move again. Any problem with that?”

“No, no.” Siming shook his head quickly, steering the conversation away. “So that Wen Shen fellow took over your position? It seems he hasn’t been following your rules… How did you choose someone like that to succeed you?”

“I didn’t choose him.” Lu Yuan had finally remembered who Wen Shen was and gave an inscrutable smile. “The Emperor probably did it. I’m not familiar with the man. Though, at least his name sounds nice.”

“…” Siming didn’t follow up on that.

Lu Yuan shook his head. “Anyway, it has nothing to do with me anymore. I’ll leave these people for you to deal with. You can ask them about the state of the starship. I’m leaving.”

“Eh?” Siming was about to say something, but Lu Yuan had already pushed open the control room door and walked out.

Siming curled his lip, gave a click of his tongue, and sat in the chair just as Lu Yuan had, staring blankly at the surveillance monitors.

Before long, Lu Yuan’s figure appeared on the screen.

Siming watched him walk slowly into the cargo bay. Goudan saw him and waved. Lu Yuan gave a casual wave back in response.

The people in the cargo bay almost instinctively made a path for him. Lu Yuan walked through the crowd and approached the pile of ammunition crates.

Without even opening the boxes, Lu Yuan could tell the type of ammunition just from the serial numbers on top.

Different grades and types of ammunition had different uses. In the military, every single type of ammunition had a unique serial number.

For example, Number 10001 was the weakest blank shell used for salutes. A few days ago, when Lu Yuan watched his own first anniversary memorial service, the soldiers had fired salutes using these shells. They were vacuum casings, reusable, and had almost zero lethality; they were only good for making noise. The upside was that they were indeed environmentally friendly and pollution-free.

The highest serial number currently in existence was Number 90231, the Stellar Bomb, also known as a nuclear fusion catalyst. It could cause a star’s nuclear fusion to accelerate suddenly, sending the reaction out of control and detonating the star within a few months, creating a supernova-like event.

The ammunition in front of him was labeled Number 50129. A number starting with 5 meant its intensity wasn’t particularly high, but it had a specialized function.

This was an Organic Matter Decomposition Bomb.

As the name suggested, it had the function of powerfully and rapidly decomposing organic matter. On the other hand, it caused almost no damage to inorganic matter.

This characteristic made it very common in many specific scenarios.

For instance, clearing a battlefield.

In the past ten years, Lu Yuan had used this type of ammunition countless times. Whenever a local battle was won, after the logistics fleet had organized certain special Zerg corpses worth researching, they would gather the remaining corpses together and fire an Organic Matter Decomposition Bomb into the pile.

After detonation, this ammunition would completely decompose all organic matter in the area into small inorganic molecules within a few days. Even the incredibly hard-shelled Zerg that were difficult to cut with light-energy blades would completely vanish under its effects.

The reason such a useful ammunition was mostly used only for clearing battlefields was primarily because it was an area-of-effect weapon. Once detonated, it could only function within a certain range and timeframe, rather than striking a specific target directly.

Furthermore, the near-vacuum environment of space would cause its concentration to quickly reach a point of failure. Therefore, most of the time, it could only be used for direct attacks on planets, especially those with atmospheres.

Unfortunately, this was a planet with an atmosphere.

It wasn’t hard for Lu Yuan to imagine the goal of the mastermind behind this choice of ammunition-

It would only destroy the living organisms here without ruining anything else, such as the buildings.

That way, after a period of time, people could come here to settle again. Although the bombs would have made the land even more barren, the people of the Desolate Planet rarely relied on farming or hunting to survive anyway. As long as Garbage Ships continued to dump trash here, the newcomers could continue to live.

In just a few years, the place would return to its original state.

Was this also the reason why the land on this planet was so barren to begin with?

Lu Yuan shook his head, choosing not to think further on it. He reached out and touched the top crate, and a touch panel rose from the lid.

Lu Yuan tapped on it casually, and lines of code flashed across the screen.

He had been “dead” for a year, and the military’s password database had long since been updated. The activation and destruction codes for this ammunition were already different from the ones he knew. But cracking these things was no difficult task for him. Quite easily, Lu Yuan found the command to destroy the ammunition.

All military ammunition had a method for destruction, or “neutralization.” In theory, ammunition discarded for various reasons should be neutralized before being sent back to the Department of Equipment for repair or remanufacturing.

This was the first time Lu Yuan had heard of expired ammunition being dumped on a garbage planet as trash without being processed.

Shaking his head, Lu Yuan sighed at the crates before him.

Entering the commands one by one was such a hassle.

“…”

Lu Yuan stood in silence, looking at the crates for a while, then at his own hands. He spent more time hesitating over whether to find someone to help than he had spent cracking the commands.

But every command was different, long, and complex. Teaching someone else would be just as difficult.

If someone made a mistake or failed to finish before the timer ran out, detonating the bombs would be even more troublesome.

After thinking for a long time, Lu Yuan spread his Mental Power out with a face full of reluctance, connecting to the command interface of every single crate.

In the surveillance room, Siming found the sight amusing, but he also grew more curious about Lu Yuan.

Unlike the vast majority of people on the Desolate Planet, Siming had once been taught by a real soldier. He had a concept of what the title of “Marshal” actually represented.

The Empire spanned an entire galaxy, containing countless habitable planets and a population that required massive units of measurement to count.

The Empire divided its vast airspace into nine major sectors, with one legion stationed in each.

In other words, in the entire massive Empire, there were only nine legions, and only nine Marshals.

And Lu Yuan was very young.

Siming hadn’t asked for Lu Yuan’s specific age, but based on his looks, he was still a young man.

How did he manage to become the Marshal of a combat zone at such a young age and with such shallow seniority? And why did he step down so quickly to come to a godforsaken place like this? Was it really just because he didn’t want to do it anymore? Even if he didn’t want the job, there was no need to go into hiding.

That captain just now looked like he’d seen a ghost. But Lu Yuan was a man who was particularly soft-hearted and habitually lazy; it was impossible for him to do anything to harm people. So, what had made that man so terrified and frantic? Could he really have suspected he was “seeing a ghost”?

In the cargo bay, two minutes later, the ammunition in the crates hummed simultaneously, and then the humming abruptly ceased.

Lu Yuan withdrew his Mental Power and clapped his hands. “Alright, this pile of stuff is safe now. You can do whatever you want with it.”

“Great!!!”

Goudan ran over excitedly, and many others crowded around as well. They had long felt these crates looked high-tech and had been curious for a while.

In the surveillance room, Siming finally withdrew his gaze and turned to look at the five prisoners beside him.

He reached out and gently tapped the captain to wake him from his daze. Siming flashed a kind smile. “Do you want to live?”

The captain was dazed for a moment before looking up in terror.

Siming said, “Tell me about Lu Yuan. If I’m satisfied, I’ll spare your life.”

On the other side, Lu Yuan bypassed the noisy crowd and walked out of the starship.

He had been holed up in his little shop for too long. Now that he was close to such a lively scene, he actually found it somewhat novel.

For a moment, he couldn’t help but look back to observe the crowd around him.

Siming was still in the control room, while Zhu Rong and Lao Tong had been left outside. The young girl had become increasingly lively lately, with more and more smiles appearing on her face, but she seemed a bit socially detached. She didn’t join the other children, staying quietly near Lao Tong instead.

Goudan, on the other hand, stood in the center of the crowd, noisily directing everyone. The “photographers” who usually followed him were also by his side. These people had always been his capable assistants; now they had put down their cameras to help maintain order.

Suddenly, the sound of musical instruments reached his ears.

Lu Yuan turned his head to look.

A group of teenagers stood nearby, gathered around a pile of musical instruments. One boy carefully lifted an organ, his fingers brushing over the black and white keys, his face alight with excitement.

Was this the group Goudan had mentioned before, the ones interested in music?

It seemed they hadn’t visited the shop lately.

He wondered how Goudan’s filming was progressing.

Lu Yuan tilted his head and suddenly smiled.

His arrival today had been sudden, and he hadn’t told Goudan in advance. Goudan himself had been so focused on organizing people to move things that he’d completely forgotten about filming his play.

Once he realized what he’d missed, he would likely spend a long time sighing in grief and beating his chest in regret.