Arcius had not yet reacted when his mother pushed him away. When he heard the words “third little one,” his mind went blank for a moment. By the time he came back to his senses, his mother was already shaking his arm, urging him to stop the car.
Even though the shock was immense, he tried his best to stay calm and pulled the hovercar toward the roadside while asking, “Mom, what did you just say? What third…?”
He hesitated, unable to bring himself to say the final two words. Accepting the existence of another sibling besides Lu Xunzhi so suddenly was simply too difficult.
Pu Xin leaned against the window, peering outside, and replied without turning around, “Maybe your younger brother or maybe your older brother. I saw him just now. Can we get out here?”
Her voice was urgent. Arcius clearly heard the undisguised anxiety in it. Afraid she might do something dangerous, he hurriedly said, “Don’t worry, don’t worry. I’ll have the hovercar turn around right away.”
The hovercar was moving quickly, and within only a few seconds the person behind them had already vanished from sight. If they got out and chased back on foot, the person would likely be gone.
Pu Xin nodded repeatedly, but her gaze remained fixed outside the window.
Arcius quickly adjusted the vehicle’s direction and switched lanes to head back. While doing so, his heart twisted uncomfortably.
Where had this supposed brother come from? Why did he only learn about it now? And why had Lu Xunzhi never mentioned it?
Outside, the scenery sped backward. Pu Xin was not quite as anxious now, yet she still clung to the window, watching the pedestrians with wide, hopeful eyes.
The rest of the hovercars in the convoy did not understand what had happened, but they all began switching lanes to follow Arcius’s vehicle.
Feeling rather conflicted, Arcius carefully probed, “Mom… I thought I only had one brother, Lu Xunzhi?”
Until now, that was what he had always believed. Lu Xunzhi must have thought the same…
At that thought, Arcius suddenly understood why Lu Xunzhi had always been so unwelcoming toward him. His throat tightened.
Yet Pu Xin, still staring out the window and clearly distracted, replied absentmindedly, “More than one. Several.”
Arcius: “?????”
Wait. Exactly what else did I not know?
In this world of three people, was he the only clueless idiot?
Arcius forced a smile and asked with a trembling heart, “How many?”
He hoped desperately that he had misheard.
Pu Xin nodded and stretched out her pale hand, spreading all five fingers. As he held his breath, she wiggled them.
“I have five seeds.”
Arcius: “……………………”
Then she curled several fingers down, leaving only her index and middle fingers touching affectionately together.
“So far I’ve only found you and Zhizhi. But I just spotted another one. I’m not sure yet if it’s him.”
Arcius’s head is practically filled with exclamation marks.
Before he could even process the shock, Pu Xin suddenly grabbed his wrist and pointed excitedly. “Right there! Right there! Let me out!”
She had seen Ye Hanzhou around this area!
Arcius hurriedly pulled the hovercar to the roadside. Pu Xin rushed out.
There were not many people nearby, and one glance was enough to clearly see every passerby. But the person she hoped to see, Ye Hanzhou, was nowhere to be found.
She looked around again and even tried to sense the little one’s aura, but unfortunately there was nothing.
Little Dandelion drooped in disappointment.
She had passed her little one by.
Seeing her wilted expression, Arcius suppressed the sour feeling in his chest and pretended to be generous. “Mom, searching like this is like finding a needle in the ocean. Tell me what he looks like, and I’ll have someone investigate.”
The pitiful conglomerate CEO had not even enjoyed a full day of exclusive motherly affection before facing the tragic fate of having to share it.
Pu Xin’s eyes lit up immediately. She poured out everything she had noticed and guessed like spilling beans.
“His name is Ye Hanzhou. He’s very handsome, wears glasses, and likes wearing a white lab coat…”
Little Dandelion’s sensing of her little ones was very special. Sometimes just a single glance was enough.
Arcius had already stopped listening when he heard the name Ye Hanzhou.
Coming back to himself, he gritted his teeth. “Why him?”
Hearing the strange tone in his voice, Pu Xin blinked. “You know him?”
Her eyes sparkled with curiosity and excitement as she looked up at him.
Realizing his earlier reaction had been inappropriate, Arcius quickly composed himself.
“He’s an arrogant and nasty man. Extremely picky, and he even said he’d rather die than perform surgery on me…”
Having long held a grudge against Ye Hanzhou, Arcius took the opportunity to smear him shamelessly. At the end he summarized firmly.
“Mom, he absolutely cannot be my brother!”
Pu Xin listened attentively to all his complaints and nodded thoughtfully. She did not argue.
After all, she herself was not entirely sure whether Ye Hanzhou was one of her little ones. They had only brushed past each other earlier, and she had not sensed his aura nearby.
Little Dandelion stood on tiptoe and patted Arcius’s shoulder, then looped her arm through his and walked back toward the hovercar.
“We’ll go home first,” she said gently.
Her tone was warm and patient.
She did not mention Ye Hanzhou again, completely different from the urgency she had shown earlier.
Instead of feeling relieved, Arcius felt guilty.
Ye Hanzhou really was extremely unpleasant, but now that he thought about it, he had not exactly been polite either. Every time they met, he had people drag Ye Hanzhou over by force…
Once back inside the hovercar, he spoke first.
“I’ll have someone look into it. If possible, we’ll arrange to meet him.”
Learning suddenly that he might have four brothers was not something Arcius could accept easily. His dream of becoming a useless slacker collapsed instantly.
Lu Xunzhi was a combat maniac with terrifying strength who slaughtered insect swarms mercilessly.
Ye Hanzhou was a research fanatic who had achieved countless academic accomplishments at a young age and was hailed as the greatest and youngest biologist since Ye Congyu.
If he became a useless slacker, they would definitely mock him.
At that thought, Arcius paused.
Under Pu Xin’s confused gaze, he opened his smart device and searched Ye Hanzhou’s profile. When he saw the number twenty-seven listed as his age, he nearly fainted.
If Ye Hanzhou truly was one of their mother’s little ones, Arcius would not even be second anymore.
He would drop to third.
Neither of them noticed that their actions of getting out of the hovercar earlier had been observed.
On the empty street, another hovercar suddenly accelerated forward.
Just as Arcius’s vehicle started moving again, the other car rammed into them.
The specially customized hovercar had powerful collision protection, and the escort vehicles quickly detected the speeding car approaching their lane. They moved to surround Arcius’s car protectively.
But it was useless.
The black hovercar accelerated brutally and smashed forward like it had a death wish. The moment it hit, it directly flipped one of the escort vehicles.
Inside that vehicle, Keller felt the terrifying impact and was immediately wrapped in a protective mechanism. The car’s safety system deployed mechanical arms that smashed open the door after the vehicle landed and forcibly pushed him out.
The sudden attack caught everyone off guard.
Arcius quickly reacted. The escort vehicles tried to counterattack by ramming the suspicious car, but this move plunged them straight into the enemy’s trap.
Hovercars from other lanes suddenly turned around and charged toward them like roaring beasts determined to devour Arcius’s vehicle.
At the same time, high above on a rooftop overlooking the street, a black sniper rifle was set up.
The man holding it wore leather clothes and leather pants. A crimson gemstone earring hung from his right ear. He lazily exhaled smoke rings while ignoring the constant vibrations from his smart device.
The reflective surface of his sunglasses mirrored the chaos below.
After finishing his cigarette, he casually ignited Helange’s Devouring Silver Flame in his palm and burned the cigarette butt away.
Then he lifted the sniper rifle and casually aimed at the hovercar window.
Bang! The bullet shattered the bulletproof glass. White smoke flooded into the cabin.
The two occupants inhaled it before they could react. Their vision blurred, and within seconds they lost consciousness.
Meanwhile, Lu Xunzhi sneezed heavily.
Following Lu Bieling’s instructions, he had sent a message to his foolish mother to tell her he had arrived. He assumed she missed him.
But she did not reply.
After sending another message explaining he was about to start work and might not respond for quite some time, he set off with Qi Xia and the others toward the depths of Bo Yun Star.
The Bo Wu Defense Line referred to the entire star system named Bo Wu.
Every planet in that system contained spatial nodes through which the insect race could invade, so the system had become a defensive barrier.
The Bo Wu Defense Line was not the only such frontline in the universe. Other nations had their own.
However, the Federation’s defense line here was the largest and faced the most intense insect invasions.
Since the Hetulu Empire also had a similar invasion zone within its own territory, neither side stationed troops in the other’s defense line.
Lu Xunzhi was famous across the defense line. His arrival immediately drew attention.
Shortly after reaching the search location, the rescue team leader Katesi came out to meet him.
After reviewing the three dimensional projection of the barren planet generated by radar scans, Lu Xunzhi frowned.
“Still nothing?”
On his way here, he had already learned that the fleet which had captured footage of the Insect Prince had gone missing during operations. After multiple days of searching, no wreckage had been found.
The incident was classified as a wartime disappearance.
Katesi, an old comrade, shook his head.
“We’ve searched everywhere possible. The only remaining areas are the insect nests and the dangerous hurricane zone.”
Entering the nests was impossible.
They were thousands of meters underground, and anyone who fell inside would be torn apart by insect swarms.
The hurricane zone was extremely far from where the fleet disappeared.
Lu Xunzhi stared at the barren projection.
“The Insect Prince’s Traces?”
Katesi shook his head again. “The only information we have is the footage transmitted that day. After that, he vanished along with the fleet.”
After brief consideration, Lu Xunzhi decided.
“This area blocks signals. I’ll lead a team down while the insects are hiding.”
Katesi immediately objected, but Lu Xunzhi insisted.
“If they’re waiting for us to relax, then I’ll act as bait.”
He took the elite rescue squad to the planet’s surface.
The terrain was harsh and sandy. Their protective suits shielded them from the heat but still slowed movement.
An hour passed. The insects never appeared.
Instead of feeling relieved, Lu Xunzhi felt even more uneasy.
Standing atop a rock, he gazed across the wasteland.
The crimson sunset stained the sky blood red.
For some reason he thought of the Insect Prince’s hollow wings dusted with golden scales.
Just as he shook his head to clear the strange thought, he caught sight of a corner of those golden wings fluttering in the distance.
His entire body froze. “Retreat! Retreat immediately!”
When Pu Xin regained consciousness, she found herself tightly bound and thrown into a damp, dark corner.
Her eyes were covered. Everything was pitch black.
Her senses sharpened in the silence. She heard breathing beside her.
Her lips pressed together.
She realized she and her little one had been captured.
She tried to sense the aura beside her but failed. Still, the familiar presence told her that Xiu Xiu Little One was right next to her.
She remained still. Soon someone lightly touched her hand and traced the character for “Mom” in her palm.
She curled her fingers gently around his, letting him know she was alright.
A snort sounded nearby. Arcius stiffened and moved to sit upright, shielding her.
The man nearby laughed mockingly. “What a touching scene of mother and child.”
The voice was teasing rather than hostile.
Soon footsteps approached.
A middle aged man spoke coldly, “The person has arrived. Bring him out.”
The guard reluctantly dragged Arcius away.
Pu Xin nearly acted but felt a cold shoe tip tap her hand twice in warning.
So she stayed still.
As time passed, Arcius did not return.
Then a small voice called out. “Hey… are you okay?”
The cloth covering her eyes was suddenly pulled away.
In front of her stood a giant cactus covered with countless eyes.