lyra sleepless

Rasimov remembered again how he had obtained the photograph.

Seventeen years ago, shortly after the end of the war, the last time he patrolled the border as an officer was in the no man's land around Vega.He just thought that the boy in the photo with curly hair and squirrel-like cheeks was heartbreakingly cute, reminding him of his wife after a long absence—soon, he would have such a cute little boy.

He didn't know that all of this would be over until the day he returned to Orpheus to report on his duties. His superior said with that kind of fake compassion: "At that time, you were on the dangerous border, so I had to suppress this news, because I could not have predicted how the devastating news of the simultaneous loss of a wife and child would affect my loyal staff, and I apologize, Rasimov."

He numbly obeyed: "There is no need to apologize, major general, it should be like this." Rasimov covered his face with his rough hands, and raised his head after a moment, his eyes were shining like dying stars: "It has been buried It's gone, isn't it?"

The boss nodded: "Listen, I am also very sad. Although your wife has very little contact with Helian's family, she is my distant cousin after all..."

"It's okay." He interrupted in a low voice.

"How about this?" The boss's white silk gloves kept tapping on the table, "I can get you a medal for that spaceship you found on Vega."

"No need, that ship is useless, I know." He felt a pain in his chest, as if his hands twisted the whole world, but only he was heartbroken. He reached out and touched the photo in his coat pocket: " I have a request."

"What?" the boss replied nonchalantly, as if to gauge whether he would open his mouth.

He took out the photo: "This child has no hometown, no relatives, and no one knows about him. The Helian family can save him, right?" His mournful eyes lingered on his boss's face.

The boss stroked his chin and smacked his lips: "No. It's not that I don't give you favor. In Helian's house, even I don't have such great authority."

The light in Rasimov's eyes finally went out. He put away the photo, bowed his back and gave a military salute, and walked out slowly.

Snow fell outside, and the winding lights all the way seemed more and more warm.

Helian's mansion is magnificent, and the people of Orpheus privately call it "Palace".During the war, when Youjia's soldiers were fighting bloody enemies, the Helian family accumulated an astonishing wealth by relying on arms manufacturing and black market transactions. The boss is just a housekeeper jackal in this square inch.

When Rasimov first entered here, with a fanatical longing heart, he quickly left behind the qualities of perseverance and loyalty as a soldier in the war, willing to bend down to the eagle dog and be driven by others.But he didn't expect that when he walked out here for the last time, he would have nothing.

When he stepped out of the gate, a small group of people approached him, and Rasimov subconsciously stepped sideways to give way. It was a group of guards surrounding a child, wearing Kerhak 4.04 calmly around his waist.Good guy, when I was in the army, the general didn't have such a posture when he inspected his subordinates.

This is the capital star, and this is the peaceful Lyra.

"Sir, your things have been dropped." Rasimov paused, turned around, saw the child holding a piece of paper with his fingertips, and smiled at him.

He has ebony hair and eyes, and he has just pulled out a little youthful thinness, and the roundness of a child on his face has not completely faded away, but that smile makes Raximov feel that it is colder than the sky full of snow.

The teenager came over, and he held out his hand and handed over the photo: "He is very cute."

Rasimov carefully tried to take the photo out of his hand, but the child did not let go. Rasimov looked down at his cold face in fear, the child smiled again, and finally returned the photo to him.

Until many years later, Rasimov saw the engagement ceremony between the young elder Heliandin who had just taken over and the adopted son of the Helian family, an interstellar immigrant with an ambiguous background.He turned off the live broadcast screen, and wept loudly in Cerberus' cold and cramped official house.After sobering up, he went to his wife's cemetery and took off the small photo next to him.

Rasimov's son died before he could be born, so he kept a picture of the little boy on the grave.

But the little boy didn't die, he lived a life full of ambition and radiance.

This impermanent fate.

In the end, Rasimov couldn't hold back himself. He looked at Yegor who was sipping the food, and said in a rough voice: "Your Excellency, you may not remember, I picked you up in the Vega restricted zone back then." .”

Yegor looked up at him in surprise, and then slowly said: "Your Excellency, you may have misremembered. I was 14 years old when I was adopted by the Helian family, and that was only 11 years ago. And after the end of the war, you Retired at first."

Although he lost his memory due to some accidents when he first arrived at Lyra, he is not stupid about such things.Most of the old soldiers like to brag, and the confused governor with rosacea probably wants to have a relationship with him.

Yegor smiled apologetically, with his usual bureaucratic sincerity.

Rasimov opened his mouth, but finally said nothing.

At this time, the ice lake fish that Rasimov has been strongly recommending was finally presented, breaking the sudden embarrassment.

Although You Jing, as a person on Earth, is used to calling all vertebrates that swim in water fish, the appearance of this one is indeed beyond his expectations.The ice lake is under the rock formation, without sunlight, and rich in oxygen, so the head of the fish is extremely small, and the body is smooth and covered with patterns. After the fish is cut open, there is no bone spur. The fish meat lives in extremely cold ice all year round. In the water, the texture is fat, soft and transparent, and the fish is covered with a layer of grass seeds.

You Jing subconsciously felt nauseous.This kind of creature, based on his meager experience of visiting aquariums, is more like a jellyfish, or some kind of oversized worm.Human beings have struggled for tens of thousands of years to climb to the top of the biological chain in the history of evolution, and the desire to survive engraved in their genes told him that this thing cannot be eaten.

Yegor, as an alien, felt at ease. He stared at the monster for a while, then suddenly smiled, and expressed his interest in this dish.

Strange, You Jing always thought that Yegor was not interested in anything other than work, and that eating was just a means of sustaining his life.

Anyway, Yegor Shi Shi ran to cut the fish with a huge silver knife (to be honest, it was so disgusting, You Jing felt like cutting a snot), the movement was graceful, and then the knife in his hand, bang Then it fell into the plate, and the vegetable soup splashed all over. The fish was shocked and turned over, lying on the tablecloth, dying.

You Jing gloated and closed his eyes.

Yegor was still very calm. He accurately avoided all the splashing soup at the moment when the knife fell into the plate and turned over. At this moment, he said calmly and calmly: "I'm sorry, Mr. Governor, this meal is over now. .”

Rasimov could only apologize repeatedly for his poor hospitality, until You Jing repeatedly comforted him, saying that he was satisfied with the meal, and then he put away his fear and anxiety.

The man who used to sleep to the sound of the guns at the front will now panic when a plate is overturned at a dinner welcoming the consul.

You Jing sighed, but it didn't last long. When there were only the two of them left, he poked Yegor with his elbow and smiled strangely: "You don't want to eat that fish either, do you?" Gore played a prank together.

Yegor looked at him with that mocking surprised expression again, as if to say, "True or false, you really don't know?"

It wasn't until You Jing was stared at by him that Yegor slowly took out a folded handkerchief: "What do you think is this?"

He opened the handkerchief, and on the snow-white background lay a grass seed quietly.