🪽 Day 19th of Anniversary Celebration 🪽
The Mykono Star kidnapping incident continued to dominate public attention for several days.
The Expeditionary Army fleet was drifting countless light years away yet they were by no means cut off from the outside world. For example, the Leto Daily had increased the number of daily news pushes to six or seven and every single one was related to this incident.
The people of Mykono Star were grateful to have escaped disaster, while the administrative officer formally sent a letter expressing gratitude for the Expeditionary Army’s assistance and for the crisis being brought to an end.
After the details of the incident and the rebels’ plan were fully disclosed, countless people on the interstellar network used simulators to model what would have happened if all forty two stellar grade missiles had truly been detonated within a short period of time, imagining just how catastrophic the consequences would have been.
Sacrificing every living being on an entire planet simply to use them as a bargaining chip for steering public opinion and provoking conflict, the rebels’ ruthless methods immediately stirred the empathy of countless people.
As a result, following Founding Day, the public’s anger was completely ignited. The voices condemning the rebels and calling for the war effort grew louder with every passing wave.
The most obvious change was that the number of people signing up to join the military rose dramatically within just a few days.
Vincent handed the materials he had compiled to Lu Fenghan and, as usual, did not forget to offer a few thoughts of his own.
“The description of ‘an entire planet exploding in an instant’ has finally made everyone in the Alliance truly understand what we’re facing. Before this, the military kept publicizing things like our retreat from Turin to York Star, or how many warships had been destroyed but for the overwhelming majority of people, it doesn’t matter which front we’re talking about or how many warships are involved. If they have no concept of it, then they simply have no concept of it.”
Vincent spread his hands. “This proves that people can only truly perceive and understand something when it’s right in front of them, beneath their feet and connected to their own personal interests. Only then can they put themselves in that situation and only then will they speak out.”
Lu Fenghan raised his eyelids. “You’re quite skilled at external publicity. Should I transfer you there?”
Knowing that his superior was simply complaining about how much he talked, Vincent snapped his heels together with a sharp “clack” and declared righteously, “Reporting to the commander, compared to being transferred away, I would much rather remain your attack dog!”
“Attack dog?” Lu Fenghan did not show him the slightest courtesy. “Get lost.”
Vincent replied, “Yes, sir!”
The door to the command room closed.
Lu Fenghan pinched the bridge of his nose, when Pojun’s voice suddenly sounded.
“General, Elisa is requesting communications.”
“Connect.”
This time, Elisa contacted Lu Fenghan in her capacity as a White Tower liaison officer to inform him that the key verification systems at the stellar grade missile storage sites had already been updated.
“After the update, the method of bypassing the system and entering its interior to make unlimited attempts at matching the key has basically been stopped. However, we can’t rule out the possibility that the rebels might once again invent something new under the name of ‘divine gift.’”
Elisa then mentioned, “As for the communications blockade method, the rebels call it ‘Island.’ Two hours ago, the White Tower submitted a progress report to General Nie.”
Clearly, Elisa did not need to explain the matter of the communications blockade to him herself. Nie Huaiting had probably instructed her to mention it when she submitted the progress report.
Lu Fenghan did not ask further. “Thank you for your hard work.”
Once the official matters were finished, the conversation shifted to Qi Yan.
Elisa said happily, “I conducted an emotional assessment for Qi Yan. His ability to perceive emotions is gradually recovering. It’s currently back to around thirty to forty percent. You should be able to notice it.”
“Yes.” Lu Fenghan remembered that night at the hotel on Mykono Star. Qi Yan had been so mentally exhausted that he had practically fallen asleep the moment his head touched the pillow. However, sometime in the middle of the night, Lu Fenghan had been awakened by a faint sound.
Qi Yan had been having a nightmare. His face was damp, covered in tears.
Afterward, Qi Yan had held onto his wrist and continued holding it until dawn.
…
The next morning after waking up, Qi Yan seemed somewhat unaccustomed to the changes. He was even quieter than usual, often wrapped in Lu Fenghan’s clothes as he stared blankly at a single point in the air.
“This kind of recovery doesn’t happen all at once. Qi Yan needs time to adjust to and process all the different emotions that are suddenly surging out of him.” The relief in Elisa’s voice was obvious. “We were once very worried about what might happen to him as he gradually reduced his medication but with you by his side, there shouldn’t be any accidents.”
After saying this, Elisa asked the question she had carefully considered.
“Commander Lu, I think you already understand that you mean something extraordinary to Qi Yan. Or rather, Qi Yan’s feelings for you and his dependence on you may sometimes make you feel that they’re somewhat unhealthy and exhausting.”
Lu Fenghan knew what Elisa had left unsaid.
She was worried that one day, because he felt powerless or simply grew tired of it, he might want to break free from Qi Yan.
Regarding this concern, Lu Fenghan regarded Elisa as an elder in Qi Yan’s life, so his answer was exceptionally solemn.
“What you’re worried about will never happen.”
At that moment, despite the distance of countless planets between them, Elisa could still sense the confidence that ran deep in Lu Fenghan’s bones.
He was strong enough.
Strong enough to take responsibility for another person’s life and strong enough to become Qi Yan’s anchor.
The door to the room opened.
Qi Yan, who had been reading through his reader, raised his eyes and looked toward Lu Fenghan standing in the doorway.
After staring at him for several seconds, he tilted his head slightly.
“The feeling I’m having right now is… happiness?”
The bedroom lights were on, deliberately adjusted to simulate natural daylight. The sheets were creased and rumpled and the person sitting on the bed wore a thin, light colored shirt, his features clean and composed.
Lu Fenghan raised an eyebrow. “You’re really happy just because you saw me?”
Qi Yan hesitated before nodding. “I think so.”
Lu Fenghan walked closer, bent down and gently pinched Qi Yan’s cheek. “Mm. Then our emotions are the same right now.”
Only after a moment did Qi Yan belatedly realize that he felt a little embarrassed.
He sat up straight on the bed and carefully counted out his emotions for Lu Fenghan, one by one.
“After you left, I seemed to feel a little disappointed. I saw a newly published paper on my reader and spent seventy minutes reading it from beginning to end. That gave me a feeling of satisfaction. A physical book I’ve been searching for since a long time ago, I just received a message confirming that it’s out of print. I felt a little… regretful? Pojun told me a bad joke because he wanted to make me happy and I don’t know how to describe that emotion. It seemed to be embarrassment?”
Qi Yan’s fingers slid across the screen of the reader. “You said you would come back at exactly six o’clock. At five oh three, I began to feel anticipation and anxiety but when I heard the door, both of those feelings disappeared. What came afterward was happiness. Very strong happiness.”
After listening seriously to everything Qi Yan had said, Lu Fenghan suddenly had the illusion that the fingertips that had just touched Qi Yan’s cheek were about to burn.
Perhaps it was because of the lighting. Even the air in the room seemed to have softened along with it.
Qi Yan analyzed the matter from the perspective of a research project. “However, the satisfaction, regret and embarrassment were all very shallow and faint. They only lasted for a few seconds. By comparison, the disappointment, anticipation, anxiety and the happiness I’m feeling now are much more obvious and they last considerably longer.”
Lu Fenghan felt that he was about to lose his mind.
Every single word Qi Yan spoke was cautious and serious, delivered with the gravity of someone conducting a formal analysis yet to Lu Fenghan’s ears, each sentence was like a cat’s paw repeatedly scratching at the most sensitive place in his heart.
With one hand, he loosened the top three buttons of his regulation shirt and changed the subject. “Do you still want to eat starflower mushroom noodles?”
They had stayed on Mykono Star for one night and early the next morning, the two of them had deliberately gone out to eat the noodles again before setting off back to the fleet.
Qi Yan shook his head. “I’ve already memorized the taste of the noodles. I can savor it in my memory.”
Lu Fenghan made another attempt to find something to talk about. “The coat you’re wearing is mine?”
Qi Yan lowered his eyes and looked at the silver star on the shoulder insignia. “Mm. It has your scent on it. I like it very much.”
A wave of heat rushed upward along Lu Fenghan’s spine.
Unable to restrain himself, he leaned forward, bracing one arm beside Qi Yan and drawing extremely close. The tip of his nose moved toward the hollow of Qi Yan’s neck and he took a quiet breath.
When he realized that Qi Yan was not avoiding him, he simply lowered his forehead onto Qi Yan’s shoulder.
He thought helplessly, How am I supposed to deal with one sentence after another like this?
“Right now, ” Qi Yan carefully sensed his own condition. “My heart is beating a little fast, my mouth is dry and I’m nervous. I also seem to be feeling very pleased?”
Lu Fenghan’s voice was low and husky. “Because I’m this close to you?”
Qi Yan said, “…Mm.”
He could not think of any other reason.
At that moment, Pojun spoke.
“General, Captain Magelyn has returned and is requesting to report to you.”
“Tell her, forget it.” Lu Fenghan paused for a few seconds before straightening up. “Have her wait in the command room.”
Seeing that Lu Fenghan was preparing to leave, Qi Yan spoke. “I- ”
“Shh.” Lu Fenghan gave him a helpless smile. “I know. Are you feeling a little reluctant to let me go right now?”
Qi Yan nodded, the hair over his forehead swaying slightly with the movement. “It seems so.”
“Mm. I’ll go for a while. I’ll be back soon.” After saying this, Lu Fenghan casually pinched Qi Yan’s earlobe.
He had not even used much force yet after he released it, a faint layer of pink had spread across it.
When Lu Fenghan entered the command room, he found Magelyn sitting there with her long legs crossed in a completely improper posture.
He deliberately did not soften his footsteps. Only after she heard him and hurriedly got to her feet did he speak.
“Looks like you gained quite a lot from this trip.”
Magelyn’s military cap had been tossed aside. Her obvious princess cut hairstyle had clearly been trimmed shorter and made much neater and her hair had been dyed pure black, the ends cut straight across to create the illusion of long, straight hair.
Her double eyelids had always been narrow and with this hairstyle, the overall impression she gave off was even colder and more aloof.
“‘Quite a lot’ would be an exaggeration. Average, average.” Magelyn’s eyes shifted. “But Commander, what makes you think I gained quite a lot?”
Lu Fenghan pulled out a chair and sat down. “The bite mark on your neck is still there. It couldn’t possibly have been bitten by you yourself. If you want to see it, go home and look in the mirror.”
Magelyn did not bother covering it. She sat back down as well. “On the way back, I secretly took a miniature starship to a planet in the Southern Cross Region and stayed there for one night. I slept, then left. It didn’t delay anything.”
Lu Fenghan could not be bothered to listen.
Everyone in the Expeditionary Army knew about Magelyn’s preferences, which had remained unchanged for years, she only liked people who were young and good looking, preferably those who would call her “big sister” in bed.
His fingers lightly tapped against the tabletop.
“Get to the point.”
Magelyn’s expression immediately became serious.
“You told me to make a big detour and I really did run into something. There was one medium sized ship and three small ships from the Eleventh Legion. They may have fled as soon as the fighting started. They were rushing to defect to the Eighth Legion but I intercepted them and gave them a good beating.
“The Eighth Legion is remarkably composed. They must have received Donald’s distress signal yet they stubbornly didn’t move even a single soldier. The infighting within the rebel army is much more severe than what we have in the Alliance.”
Lu Fenghan said, “Under monotheism, there can naturally only be one supreme ‘Wise One.’ People have their own degrees of closeness and distance from one another. Once power becomes concentrated in one person’s hands, that person will naturally form a circle of favored subordinates and trusted confidants. Glory, power and wealth can only trickle out through the fingers of a single person. The legion commanders of the rebel army are therefore all competitors. Isn’t it better if one of them dies? That’s one less person reaching out to fight over gold and wealth.”
Magelyn sighed. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. That’s a little miserable.”
“There’s nothing miserable about it. If the rebels manage to conquer the Alliance, then these legion commanders will all become governors ruling their own territories.”
Lu Fenghan had always believed that some people really could be brainwashed by the rebels’ so called “divine authority,” or that the technological catastrophe and the various kinds of hatred they carried for different reasons could shake their minds.
But those several legion commanders were absolutely not among them.
And even less so that so called “Wise One.”
The only thing capable of making hyenas fight over food was profit.
Magelyn blew away a strand of her princess cut hair that had drifted to the corner of her mouth. “Commander, you just said it yourself. They have to conquer the Alliance first! They can keep dreaming!”
She shifted into another sitting position. “I quietly looked around and probed a little. The Eighth Legion should be sharpening its knives, getting ready to come and cut us down. The Eleventh Legion suffered such a disastrous defeat. If the Eighth Legion can help them recover their lost face, perhaps that so called Wise One will look upon them with greater favor.”
“Got it. Go back and coordinate with Wayne and the others.” As he spoke, Lu Fenghan rose from his seat, preparing to leave. “You should go back and get some rest, too.”
Magelyn spun her chair around and stared at Lu Fenghan’s retreating back.
What was wrong with the commander?
Not only had he suddenly started caring about his subordinates but he was also walking as though he were in quite a hurry.
Back in the room, Qi Yan became somewhat distracted after Lu Fenghan left.
He was currently designing the frequency that would interfere with the image transmission from the “Omniscient Eye.” Some of the knowledge he needed required him to consult reference materials and learn it on the spot yet he could not absorb a single word of the paper in front of him.
Once again, he found himself unable to control the memories of Founding Day that surfaced in his mind.
It was different from the feeling he had experienced when he was separated from his emotions.
Back then, he had simply been turning through the images one page after another, as though reviewing a sequence of scenes that belonged to someone else.
Now, however, the memories came rushing toward him together with waves of overwhelming emotion, layer upon layer, crashing into him all at once.
Qi Yan bit down on his lower lip and told himself over and over again that Lu Fenghan was still alive.
He was still alive,
Only then did the sharp, stabbing pain gradually recede somewhat.
But what if this was just like what had happened at the White Tower?
What if all of this was nothing more than a memory he had fabricated himself?
No.
Qi Yan instinctively rejected the thought.
During this period of time, Lu Fenghan had done far too many things that he had never done back when they were in Leto.
He was real.
At that moment, Qi Yan called out, “General.”
No one answered him.
Qi Yan froze for a moment.
Pojun spoke. “The General is currently in the command room, speaking with Miss Magelyn.”
He had remembered it wrong again.
After thinking for a moment, Qi Yan got out of bed.
The passageway from the lounge to the command room was empty and deserted. Qi Yan did not go directly to the command room to look for Lu Fenghan. Instead, he turned at the junction and went to the kitchen first.
He took an apple, intending to bring it back and have Lu Fenghan peel it and carve it into a rabbit.
Just as he was about to leave, he noticed a transparent glass bottle nearby. The liquid inside was a beautiful, vivid color.
“Pojun, what is this?”
He realized that he had become curious again.
Pojun answered, “It’s a fruit flavored beverage with an extremely low alcohol content. I searched the interstellar network. Most of the reviews say things like, ‘sweet and sour, very tasty,’ and ‘refreshing.’ Judging from the people who purchase it, it’s very popular among young people.”
Qi Yan hesitated, then opened the bottle and took a sip.
It really was sweet and sour and its flavor was somewhat similar to that of a nutritional supplement.
Meanwhile, Lu Fenghan had only walked halfway back when Pojun’s voice came through his personal terminal.
“General, you may need to make a trip to the kitchen.”
Lu Fenghan stopped in his tracks and changed direction.
“Is Qi Yan in there?”
“Yes. He’s feeling somewhat dizzy.”
Lu Fenghan’s brows immediately furrowed and he quickened his pace.
When he reached the kitchen, he saw Qi Yan standing against the wall, the tips of his ears flushed red. The tiny mole there, resembling a dot of ink, stood out even more clearly against the redness.
What reassured him was that aside from his slightly unfocused gaze, Qi Yan did not appear to have any other abnormal symptoms.
Lu Fenghan walked closer.
“Dizzy?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the empty beverage bottle beside Qi Yan and immediately understood what had happened. He changed his question to Pojun.
“He drank the entire bottle?”
Pojun replied, “Yes. Apparently, it was sweet and sour and very tasty.”
So the dizziness was not because he was ill.
His tolerance for alcohol was simply far too low. Even a beverage with such a small amount of alcohol was enough to make his head spin.
Lu Fenghan clicked his tongue and asked, “Want me to carry you back?”
It took Qi Yan several seconds to process the question and then another few seconds to think about it.
“Carry me on your back.”
He was even getting particular about how he wanted to be carried now.
That was what Lu Fenghan thought but he had already crouched down in front of Qi Yan.
Qi Yan climbed onto his back.
After carrying him for a few steps, Lu Fenghan shifted his weight slightly and weighed the person on his back with one hand, feeling as though Qi Yan had somehow become even lighter.
In his mind, he had already gone through all the food in the kitchen, considering which things Qi Yan could eat.
As for cooking personally,
Forget it.
Qi Yan might end up becoming even thinner.
Before long, Lu Fenghan felt the person on his back carefully inching closer, pressing himself more firmly against him.
Qi Yan suddenly spoke beside his ear, seemingly without any connection to what had come before.
“I came to the kitchen because I wanted to get an apple.”
“Where’s the apple?”
Qi Yan thought about it for a while before answering.
“I forgot.”
There was a hint of annoyance in his voice.
Lu Fenghan chuckled softly. “When you wake up tomorrow, you’ll be able to see the apple. It’ll be carved into a rabbit, just like you wanted.”
“Mm, okay.”
Qi Yan closed his eyes and spoke in a small voice.
“I’m dizzy.”
Lu Fenghan soothed him. “Sleep for a while and you won’t be dizzy anymore.”
Every step Lu Fenghan took was steady.
The distance was not long yet as he walked, he found himself wishing that this stretch of corridor could somehow become a little longer, that the road back could be extended just a little farther.
Just when he thought Qi Yan had already fallen asleep, he suddenly heard the person on his back speak softly.
“I miss you.”
There was no particular tone to the words.
No embellishment.
Not even the slightest change in Qi Yan’s breathing when he said those three simple words.
Yet Lu Fenghan noticed the dampness.
He was crying.
✦ ✧ ✦
Vynellia
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
✦ A tiny offering to the translator may please the spirits of the Realm. ☕
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
← PreviousNext →
ChaptersChapter 50 · I am Pojun.Chapter 51 · Unable to deceive oneselfChapter 52 · Resurrected from the deadChapter 53 · Hello, General!Chapter 54 · My hand is injured.Chapter 55 · Come to my place.Chapter 56 · First VictoryChapter 57 · Self-introductionChapter 58 · Never changedChapter 59 · One reasonChapter 60 · Gentle and restrainedChapter 61 · Only you are allowed.Chapter 62 · To the Souls of the FallenChapter 63 · His reliefChapter 64 · His ambitionChapter 65 · Date TimeChapter 66 Part 1 · Abducting PlanetsChapter 66 Part 2 · Abducting PlanetsChapter 67 · Did not leaveChapter 68 · Perceiving EmotionsChapter 69 · My own effortsChapter 70 · Bright FlameChapter 71 · Dress codeChapter 72 · Take me with you!Chapter 73 · MirageChapter 74 · I’m used to it.