OVPBM 26

Chapter 26 – What Chu Xuanzhou Fears

He was far more mature than Ji Xinhuai, and his wheat-colored skin was marked with many small scars.

As if he did not see the quantum gun at all, Lu Yunwan stepped closer to Chu Xuanzhou and gently rested his chin on the young man’s shoulder.

Half of Chu Xuanzhou’s body instantly tensed.

The Regent’s gloves, made of ultrafiber, were even colder than a merman’s skin. Yet the patch of skin his hand touched felt as if sparks had fallen upon it, burning hot.

The word “possession” was like a bomb, landing in Chu Xuanzhou’s heart along with Lu Yunwan’s voice.

…Lu Yunwan was the Regent who stood at the pinnacle of the Empire. He wielded power across the interstellar realm and possessed endless riches and authority. Yet today, he had said, ‘I am this gentleman’s possession.’

Even though he knew Lu Yunwan was only joking, Chu Xuanzhou’s breathing still grew unsteady.

Those words were like a key, unlocking a hidden door in his heart that had never before been opened.

Lu Yunwan was like a radiant star, distant in the heavens.

But in this moment, Chu Xuanzhou realized that even a star could be possessed…

As soon as Lu Yunwan finished speaking, the humans before them began looking at him with a trace more disgust.

In the interstellar era, there was no shortage of humans who chose to sell themselves and attach themselves to merfolk. On the black market of Planet Xuanxi, such people were especially common.

They pitied such humans, and they despised them even more.

The crowd’s gazes toward Lu Yunwan shifted into something ambiguous at once.

“You?!” Ji Xinhuai, who had just stepped out of the mecha simulator, widened his eyes. “Impossible. You… You just… just beat me, didn’t you?”

Unwilling to admit that he had lost to Lu Yunwan, Ji Xinhuai held it in for a long while before finally forcing out those words.

By this point, the Regent was fully immersed in his role.

Lu Yunwan’s tone was filled with regret. He cast a somewhat reluctant glance at the mecha and said with self-mockery, “That was only a simulator.”

He said only half of what he meant, but everyone present understood the implication.

“That’s true…” After a moment of silence, one of the humans muttered softly, “Piloting a mecha requires more than just skill. It also requires mental power. We humans have weak mental power. Only a rare few can actually pilot a mecha.”

The person pointing the gun at Lu Yunwan shot him a glare, while Ji Xinhuai could not help retorting, “How is it weak? Isn’t Lu Yunwan maxed out?”

The instant he realized what he had just said, Ji Xinhuai immediately spat, “Ptooey!” and cursed his own bad luck.

At the same time, the person standing opposite Lu Yunwan extended his mental power to probe him, checking whether this human truly had weak mental power.

Under normal circumstances, Lu Yunwan should have been exposed.

But to avoid being discovered by zombies, ability users had long since learned how to conceal the fluctuations of their powers.

The human holding the quantum gun could sense only a trace of mental power so faint it was practically negligible.

Slowly, he lowered the weapon in his hand.

Lu Yunwan could not help but let out a long breath of relief in his heart.

Yet just as he was about to leave, Ji Xinhuai once again circled past his companion and walked over. “You could try applying to the Imperial Military Academy. A major related to mecha theory.”

Lu Yunwan smiled. He lightly brushed his cheek against Chu Xuanzhou’s shoulder a few times. Then, at the very moment of departure, he said to Ji Xinhuai in an incredibly gentle tone, “I will only do what this gentleman wants me to do.”

By now, the humans’ gazes toward him were filled entirely with disgust.

Only Chu Xuanzhou felt, in that fleeting instant, a secret thrill of pleasure. Lu Yunwan’s tone had been far too convincing, so convincing that he had almost believed it himself.

Having grown up on a lower-class merfolk planet, he did not shy away from his own heart.

Chu Xuanzhou had to admit that he had indeed begun to feel a sense of anticipation toward what Lu Yunwan had said.

* * *

The starship merged into the river of stars. The gray silhouette of Planet Xuanxi shrank until it finally vanished beyond the viewport.

Lu Yunwan removed his mask, and his gaze met Chu Xuanzhou’s in midair.

The young man’s eyes were exceptionally clear, as if they could see straight through him at a glance.

A sudden chill ran down Lu Yunwan’s back. He realized an extremely important problem.

If the one who had been held at gunpoint on Planet Xuanxi today had been the original host, he would certainly have killed that entire group of people, instead of saying all that nonsense to save his life like he just had.

Will the protagonist suspect me?

Lu Yunwan’s heart immediately grew uneasy.

He had to do damage control. He absolutely had to.

While rapidly forming a plan in his mind, he eased the ring off his finger and placed it into the white porcelain dish at his side. Then he could not help but smile at Chu Xuanzhou.

“Your Highness, do you know who Ji Xinhuai is?”

Chu Xuanzhou had not expected Lu Yunwan to suddenly bring up that name. He paused for a few seconds before honestly shaking his head.

Lu Yunwan extended a finger and lightly nudged the ring in the dish. Accompanied by the crisp, pleasant chime it made, he walked toward Chu Xuanzhou.

He removed the mask from the young man’s face with unhurried ease, casually tossing it aside. Then he bent down and whispered into his ear, “Your Highness, have you heard of the ‘Human Rebel Forces’? Ji Xinhuai is one of them.”

“Oh… Not just him. That entire group of humans just now are as well.” Lu Yunwan’s voice was full of laughter.

The amount of information in Lu Yunwan’s words was staggering.

Many years ago, the Empire had already issued orders demanding that the true identities of this group be uncovered and that they be eradicated. Lu Yunwan himself had even been the principal person in charge of the matter.

Yet from what he was saying… he had clearly known the composition of that group for a long time, and had not the slightest intention of wiping them out.

“Your Excellency, you knew all this from the start?” As expected, Chu Xuanzhou could not help asking.

Lu Yunwan gave a light shrug. He stepped back a few paces and loosely crossed his arms, leaning at an angle against the enormous floor-to-ceiling viewport.

The transparency of the starship’s viewport far surpassed that of glass, with not the slightest reflection.

The one Lu Yunwan leaned against happened to be positioned in the direction of travel. It was not perpendicular to the floor, but inclined slightly outward.

From Chu Xuanzhou’s angle, Lu Yunwan looked as if he were about to fall into the starry void, about to be swallowed by the universe.

Lu Yunwan slowly closed his eyes.

He did not answer Chu Xuanzhou’s question. Instead, he smiled with unmistakable pleasure and said in a hoarse voice, “Your Highness, you see, even those who hate me like this will instinctively use me as an example to refute accusations that humans are born weak.”

Even though Lu Yunwan had already become the Regent who was “more merfolk than a merfolk,” he was still, in the hearts of countless humans, the most special of their kind.

Step by step, Chu Xuanzhou walked toward him.

Just as he was about to reach Lu Yunwan’s side, the Regent’s eyes snapped open.

Completely different from his calm narration moments ago, Lu Yunwan’s eyes were once again tinged with that familiar madness and anticipation.

He slowly spread his hands at his sides, savoring the sensation of “falling” downward along with the starship.

“Be careful…” Chu Xuanzhou could not help saying.

Lu Yunwan shook his head. He did not even look at the young man again, merely speaking to himself. “They choose to resist in this way because they still harbor hope and a trace of expectation toward me. But Your Highness, tell me, if one day they learn that the human who willingly debased himself from today was me, would they be driven mad with rage?”

His words made Chu Xuanzhou realize something utterly terrifying.

Lu Yunwan seemed to be using the destruction of himself as a way to cruelly wound those who still held expectations for him.

Or perhaps he simply wanted to shatter their unrealistic expectations.

Lu Yunwan tilted his head slightly back and narrowed his eyes at the starry space above.

In that moment, he looked somewhat lonely.

Chu Xuanzhou could not help stepping closer to him. He even wanted to give him a hug…

But at that very moment, Lu Yunwan activated his optical-brain. In the next second, lines of dense text appeared across the light screen.

“Ji Xinhuai, Imperial Military Academy, fourth year.”

Beyond his name, Chu Xuanzhou saw many others, some familiar, some unfamiliar. They were scattered across every sector of the Empire.

—Lu Yunwan truly did possess a detailed list of the Human Rebel Forces!

So what exactly did he intend to do?

That familiar sense of fear surged up once more. The Lu Yunwan before him suddenly felt incomparably unfamiliar.

The Lu Yunwan hidden beneath the halo of the “Regent” seemed even more enigmatic than the one the world saw.

In 《 The Merfolk Empire 》, the Human Rebel Forces fought for equality for humankind, and in the later stages, they would also become one of Chu Xuanzhou’s sources of support.

Lu Yunwan was saying all this partly to make up for his earlier behavior, and partly to seize the opportunity to remind Chu Xuanzhou to value humans, paving the way for his own pleasant life after his staged death.

As for the original host’s purpose in compiling the list… It was very simple.

He merely intended to wipe them all out in one sweep.

Lu Yunwan leaned forward with deliberate ease. As if sharing a secret, he said to Chu Xuanzhou, “Your Highness, never truly belittle humans like those fools do.”

“Humans do not have the hardened bones and skin of merfolk, nor can we adapt to extreme environments of high temperatures, bitter cold, or toxic gases. But we have still survived to this day through our own strength,” Lu Yunwan murmured beside Chu Xuanzhou’s ear. “Humans have never been ants.”

“So I must cut them down to the last root, leaving none behind.” Lu Yunwan coldly voiced the original host’s ultimate goal, neatly restoring his persona.

Yet the young man’s attention was not on that final sentence.

If Chu Xuanzhou remembered correctly, this seemed to be the first time Lu Yunwan had categorized himself as “human.”

His voice had been very soft, his speech slightly quick. After saying that line, he returned to the viewport.

—Lu Yunwan once again became the Regent who was “more merfolk than a merfolk.”

If not for the still-glowing light screen at the side, Chu Xuanzhou might have believed that everything just now had been his own illusion.

Every graduate of the Imperial Military Academy would be assigned to a different legion.

Right in front of Chu Xuanzhou, Lu Yunwan altered the legion Ji Xinhuai was to join, transferring him into the one under his own command, ranked number one in the interstellar realm.

That would make cooperation with Chu Xuanzhou more convenient.

“Weren’t you going to kill him?” Chu Xuanzhou asked impulsively when he saw this.  

“Yes…” Lu Yunwan smiled as he shut off the optical-brain. Turning around, he lightly placed his hand against the viewport and gazed at the rushing river of stars outside as he said to Chu Xuanzhou, “Your Highness, that group of humans are simple and foolish. They harbor unrealistic expectations, whether toward themselves or toward me.”

“Tell me, if he were given power, would he become the very kind of person he despises… Become a second me in the interstellar realm?”

In Lu Yunwan’s words, Ji Xinhuai, a member of the Rebel Forces, had become his new toy, a test subject for an experiment about “human nature.”

Even though Lu Yunwan had not expressed the slightest appreciation for Ji Xinhuai, a heavy sense of crisis surged up in Chu Xuanzhou’s heart.

Even panic.

He did not want Lu Yunwan to admire anyone else. He wanted Lu Yunwan’s eyes to hold only himself…

Chu Xuanzhou’s gaze fell upon the light screen. For the first time, behind Lu Yunwan’s back, he memorized every name displayed upon it.

𓇼 ˚｡⋆ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞⋆｡˚ 𓇼

Author’s Note:

Ji Xinhuai suddenly began sneezing uncontrollably: What does your romance have to do with me!