Several days later, Yu Weiming moved Gu Yuanze from the bedchamber to a glass conservatory.
He was settled on a large bed draped with gauzy curtains, with the Empire’s softest silver fox fur blanket laid beneath him. The temperature inside the conservatory was maintained at a constant twenty two degrees Celsius, and the lighting adjusted automatically according to the angle of the sunlight, ensuring that the person lying on the bed could enjoy a moderate amount of sunshine.
Beyond the glass walls stretched an artificial sea of brilliant blue.
Seagulls cried overhead, and a gentle sea breeze drifted through the air. Occasionally, the salty moisture carried by the wind stirred the blooming black rose bushes, its faint touch also brushing against Gu Yuanze’s eyelashes.
The sleeping man breathed faintly, his chest rising and falling with each shallow breath.
Intravenous lines wound beneath his skin, while his tired, gaunt face appeared even more strikingly handsome and sharply defined beneath the sunlight.
…
Yu Weiming had to leave the Imperial capital for several days to attend the Federation’s surrender ceremony.
The new emperor was reluctant to part with him.
So much so that, until the very last moment before his departure, he was still clutching the commander’s lips and kissing him fiercely, refusing to stop as he pressed his mouth against Gu Yuanze’s in a prolonged, passionate embrace. His gray eyes remained fixed on the man without moving, his expression so crazed that it seemed as though he intended to devour him whole.
He continued kissing him until he himself was panting heavily. The commander, meanwhile, was unable to breathe on his own, and the heart monitor began sounding alarms as his heart rate slipped into an abnormal rhythm.
Even when the medical staff rushed forward, the emperor still refused to let go.
It was practically indistinguishable from attempted murder.
Qi Shaozhou could not help glaring fiercely at him.
Yet the mad emperor merely swayed as he rose to his feet, then unhurriedly strolled over to the rose garden.
Bending down, he carefully selected the most beautiful yellow rose in the conservatory for the commander.
“Shaozhou, have you ever heard the story of Sleeping Beauty?” The new emperor clipped the rose from its stem and placed it beside the sleeping man’s pillow. Then, quite suddenly, he smiled, his expression somewhat strange.
Qi Shaozhou: “…”
Of course he had heard it. A sleeping princess was awakened by a prince who kissed her for no apparent reason. It was a terrifying story that seemed romantic at first glance but became increasingly horrifying the more one thought about it.
Damn it.
Only at that moment did Qi Shaozhou suddenly realize what the scene before him resembled: a handsome, mentally unstable prince attempting to kiss awake his commander, who lay thin and unconscious within a magical rose garden.
In the end, Yu Weiming naturally failed to wake the commander with his kiss. Even so, his fingertips could not resist greedily brushing against the sleeping man’s lips one last time.
“Wait for me to return, my Sleeping Beauty Commander.”
……
If he had a choice, Qi Shaozhou really did not want to speak to a lunatic.
Unfortunately, when Yu Weiming finally left the bedchamber, Qi Shaozhou still hurried after him.
His medical team had recently completed the second phase of an in depth treatment for Gu Yuanze. They had discovered that the commander’s current catatonic state was caused not only by psychological trauma but also by residual effects from certain drugs that had been forcibly administered to him during his imprisonment.
“Therefore, once those substances have been completely eliminated from his system, the commander should have a chance of regaining some degree of consciousness and responsiveness.”
“It should take approximately ten days, which means it will probably happen around the time Your Majesty returns.”
“…”
When Yu Weiming first heard the news that Gu Yuanze might recover, he had naturally been delighted.
However, after spending several days aboard his warship and having time to calm down, his mood gradually darkened in silence.
After all, the future he had recently envisioned for himself had always been the same: after completing an entire day of exhausting and headache inducing state affairs, he would return to his bedchamber and find his beloved, whose mind had already collapsed.
His doll, belonging to him alone, would be waiting on the curtained bed with a blindfold covering his eyes and a mouth gag in place, awaiting his arrival and his alone.
He would gaze at Yu Weiming with bewildered, feverish longing, unable to bear his own desire, begging him to come and set him free.
And so, the long days would stretch endlessly ahead of them.
His happiness would lie in having his deity forever dependent on him, forever drowning in a sea of desire, surviving on the decadent bliss that he alone provided each day.
…
Yu Weiming failed to fall asleep again that night.
In the middle of the night, he rose from his bed and went alone to the command room of the Empire’s flagship, the Akhenaten. There, he gazed out through the windows at the vast, pitch black universe and the countless stars stretching into infinity.
One would have thought that, having already sunk into the delusion of possessing a completely broken commander, he should no longer dwell on the commander’s former glory.
Unfortunately, the place where he now stood was the flagship’s main control room.
It was precisely here that he had first encountered Gu Yuanze in his life.
Six years earlier, the Second Battle of the Celestial Fortress had reached its fiercest stage. Sitting in the very same captain’s seat he occupied now, Yu Weiming had personally initiated a video call with Gu Yuanze.
At that time, Gu Yuanze had not yet become the Federation’s highest ranking military commander.
Nevertheless, he was already the only nemesis Yu Weiming truly acknowledged.
Naturally, the crown prince had accorded him the highest form of respect recognized by the Empire. He had sat upright with impeccable posture, his long silver hair meticulously tied back without a single strand out of place, and his golden sash draped precisely across his chest. Even the Empire’s most fastidious ceremonial officers would have been unable to find the slightest fault with his appearance.
The generals and strategic advisers standing behind him had also been dressed in full formal uniforms, each of them holding their breath in solemn anticipation.
Yet when the video call connected, the image displayed on the other end of the screen was nothing like the dignified scene Yu Weiming had prepared.
Instead, it showed a young man sitting before a cluttered desk piled high with documents.
Worse still, Gu Yuanze was holding a meat bun in his hands, his cheeks stuffed so full that his normally slender face had become visibly puffed up. He looked at the screen and said, “You were saying?”
The youngest fleet commander in the Federation, a celebrated war hero revered by countless people, turned out to be a handsome young man with black hair and black eyes who did not look particularly military at all.
The fighting had been intense for several consecutive days, leaving him with little time to eat or sleep.
Consequently, when answering a video call from the Imperial Crown Prince, he had simply taken advantage of every available second to eat his meal, his face bearing the dark circles of someone who had barely slept.
……..
This was practically an act of flagrant disrespect toward the Empire.
The guards standing behind the crown prince had nearly lost their tempers, but Yu Weiming raised a hand and stopped them.
“Captain Gu Yuanze,” the crown prince said, his long, narrow gray eyes narrowing coldly. “It seems I have contacted you at an inconvenient time. I have interrupted your lunch.”
Hearing this, Gu Yuanze gave a muffled “Mm.”
He clearly began eating his meat bun much faster. Then he tipped his head back, gulped down the coffee beside him, and did his best to offer an almost apologetic smile.
“No, Your Highness. The timing is perfect. If you’d called a little later, I would have gone for my afternoon nap.”
Yu Weiming: “…”
Naturally, the two sides reached no agreement during that video call.
With his usual sharpness and arrogance, Yu Weiming informed his nemesis that the Imperial fleet had already surrounded the exits of the Celestial Fortress with three times the firepower.
The Federation’s defeat was inevitable. He hoped the young captain would recognize the situation, cherish his own life, and refrain from making pointless sacrifices. He should hurry up, get his affairs in order, and surrender.
Yet the commander was not intimidated in the slightest. Instead, he scratched his head in mild confusion, his black eyes filled with an almost disarmingly sincere and humble expression.
“No, Your Highness. If you truly wish to avoid unnecessary casualties, then I would suggest that you order the Imperial Army to retreat as soon as possible.”
After the video call ended, the Imperial Army was practically seething with indignation at Gu Yuanze’s arrogance.
The Imperial forces had completely surrounded the Federation’s fortress. They possessed overwhelming superiority in both fleet numbers and maneuverability. Under such circumstances, how could the Federation possibly turn the tables?
…
Yet the final outcome of that battle was indeed a crushing defeat for the Empire.
Even Yu Weiming’s proudly handsome face had acquired a hideous scar.
With the Empire’s advanced technology, an injury of that severity could easily have been removed without leaving the slightest trace.
However, for several consecutive months, Yu Weiming deliberately refused to have it treated. He continued wearing the long, ugly scar across his face, simply to remind himself of the humiliation of having been thoroughly crushed by the Federation commander.
Over the following years, the crown prince repeatedly watched recordings of every battle commanded by Gu Yuanze. He secretly established a dedicated strategic advisory group to study the Federation commander’s tactics, while the Analysis of Gu Yuanze’s Battle Strategies, compiled by the Strategic Analysis Bureau, became one of his regular bedtime reading materials.
Yet even after enduring all that humiliation and diligently studying his nemesis’s methods, Yu Weiming still found himself beaten into a miserable state by Gu Yuanze’s bizarre and unpredictable tactics on countless occasions.
There were even several battles in which he had narrowly escaped being killed.
In the end, he had no choice but to resort to underhanded methods. Sometimes, he bribed high ranking officials within the Federation. At other times, he despicably threatened the lives of ordinary civilians, forcing the opposing forces to withdraw.
On another occasion, he had escaped death only because Gu Yuanze’s warship was so poorly equipped that its systems shut down just as the commander was about to deliver a fatal blow.
The supposedly invincible Imperial Crown Prince had never managed to secure even a single victory against his nemesis throughout his life. In the end, simply to preserve the Empire’s dignity, he had even been forced to have his scar removed.
As he lay on the operating table, Yu Weiming could not help feeling bitterly amused.
Nevertheless, the crown prince refused to abandon his determination to repay every humiliation in full.
Ultimately, after suffering four serious injuries that had each brought him to the brink of death, he finally managed to destroy one of Gu Yuanze’s legs.
It was, at best, the greatest military achievement he had ever managed to accomplish against the Federation commander.
……
Of course, during those years, the Empire had also made repeated attempts to recruit Gu Yuanze by offering him prestigious positions, generous salaries, and extraordinary privileges.
However, Commander Gu Yuanze appeared to be so unwaveringly loyal to the Federation that he was unwilling even to accept the position of Imperial Marshal.
It was only much later that Yu Weiming finally understood the truth.
Gu Yuanze simply did not want to be a marshal.
If the Empire had not offered him such an exalted position, but instead promised him a modest two story house, an inexpensive car, and a respectable salary sufficient for a comfortable middle class life, the outcome might have been entirely different.
If they had then assigned him to work as a researcher at a wheat cultivation base on one of the Empire’s agricultural satellites and specially authorized him to have a yeast laboratory where he could steam buns and bake bread whenever he pleased, Commander Gu might very well have accepted the offer immediately and with genuine enthusiasm.
Throughout the ten year war between the Empire and the Federation, Gu Yuanze had been nothing more than a commoner who wanted to live an ordinary, peaceful life. He had simply been swept into a conflict that had never been part of his plans.
Once he had been forced to shoulder responsibilities he could neither evade nor refuse, the commander had done everything within his power to protect his homeland and its people, fulfilling his duties with unwavering dedication.
Beyond that, however, Gu Yuanze fundamentally placed no faith in political ideals or political systems of any kind.
He was sick of the pointless squabbles among those bloated, self important officials. He had no desire to throw himself into the ridiculous battlefield of scheming and calculation where the powerful competed for influence and piled up their greed, only to become a pawn or a cannon fodder for their amusement.
That was why he had repeatedly submitted applications for discharge from the military.
All he wanted was to grow wheat and live an ordinary life.
“…”
Yu Weiming closed his eyes and allowed himself to imagine the scene for a moment.
An agricultural satellite covered in endless golden waves of ripening wheat. The black haired commander had become a wheat scientist, perhaps wearing a pair of research glasses as he ate freshly baked bread made from wheat and pine nuts, his cheeks puffed out as he took one bite after another.
Wouldn’t that scene… actually be rather interesting?
The new emperor narrowed his eyes slightly, uncertain of his own thoughts.
At present, he was deeply conflicted.
On the one hand, he was entirely satisfied with this broken, dazed version of Gu Yuanze. This obedient commander could be kissed, comforted, and kept by his side for the rest of his life. Together, they could sink into an endless sea of rose scented desire, with Gu Yuanze remaining his possession and his alone forever.
On the other hand, however, he found himself wanting to see that man again…
The lively, vibrant commander he had first encountered all those years ago.
The young man with beautiful black eyes, an intelligent and sincere nature, a lazy disposition, and an easy smile, who could devour meat buns one after another without a care in the world.
Holding the broken Gu Yuanze in his arms was already an exquisite pleasure.
But what would it feel like to fall asleep while holding a fully conscious, living commander?