In the end, Cheng Li still failed to finish tidying up and was persuaded by Uncle Zhao to go rest instead.
Yuan Mu’s room was enormous, taking up more than half of the second floor. Besides the bed, it also had a sofa, a gaming pod, and a treatment pod.
“Where am I sleeping?” Cheng Li asked. Her gaze shifted from the large red bed to the sofa not far from it. The sofa was at least one and a half meters wide and over two meters long. Cheng Li sat down to test it and found it surprisingly comfortable.
“I’m not used to sharing a room with strangers,” Yuan Mu said coldly.
Cheng Li’s movements paused. She had the sudden urge to ask him, ‘Didn’t you live in a shared dorm at school? How did you manage when you first enrolled?’
“Go to the guest room next door.” Yuan Mu pointed toward the door. The meaning couldn’t have been clearer. He was telling her to leave.
Cheng Li left quickly, afraid that if she lingered even a second longer, Yuan Mu would misunderstand and think she wanted to sleep with him.
Cheng Li had never been picky about where she slept. After years of struggling to survive in the apocalypse, she could fall asleep peacefully even out on the street. After taking a shower, the exhausted Cheng Li drifted off almost the moment her head touched the pillow.
No one knew how much time had passed when a faint, elusive scent drifted into her room.
Hm? What’s that smell?
Still half-asleep, Cheng Li twitched her nose. The next second, her eyes snapped open. At some point, her room had become filled with a cold, woody fragrance.
What happened?
Cheng Li got out of bed and headed outside. Following the scent, she arrived at Yuan Mu’s door. The fragrance seemed to be coming from inside, growing stronger the closer she got to his room.
Just as Cheng Li was hesitating over whether to knock, a suppressed groan came from inside.
“Yuan Mu, what happened? Are you okay?” Cheng Li knocked on the door.
With a loud clang, something inside the room seemed to crash onto the floor.
Cheng Li twisted the doorknob and discovered the door wasn’t locked. She gently pushed it open. “Yuan Mu, I’m coming in.”
The lights in the room were off, leaving it pitch-black. This body of Cheng Li’s had yet to develop proper night vision, so she could only fumble her way toward the bed.
“Yuan Mu, where are you?” Cheng Li asked.
Suddenly, she tripped over something and lurched forward uncontrollably. Bang. Their heads collided, and Cheng Li sucked in a sharp breath from the pain.
The next second, the lights came on.
“Get up!” Yuan Mu gritted out through clenched teeth.
Only then did Cheng Li finally see what he looked like. His face was flushed red, and his clothes were soaked through with sweat. She immediately grew anxious. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m fine.” Those two words seemed to drain all of Yuan Mu’s remaining strength. Leaning against the bed, he sounded weak and breathless.
“You don’t look fine at all.” Thinking it might be inconvenient for him to explain, Cheng Li turned to go notify Uncle Zhao.
Not long after, Uncle Zhao came in with the family doctor.
“Your pheromones are losing control again?” The doctor’s expression turned grave. “If this keeps happening, your rank will probably continue to drop.”
Yuan Mu lay on the bed, his eyes unfocused.
“Is your mental sea in turmoil again?” the doctor asked while examining him.
Yuan Mu gave a faint hum. Veins bulged prominently across his forehead.
“Let me take a look.” The doctor closed his eyes.
“The doctor is performing mental guidance for the young master. Let’s wait outside,” Uncle Zhao said to Cheng Li.
Cheng Li suddenly snapped out of her daze. After leaving the room with Uncle Zhao, she could not help asking, “Uncle Zhao, what does Yuan Mu’s pheromone smell like?”
“I heard it’s a cold woody scent. I can’t smell it myself, so I don’t know exactly what kind of woody fragrance it is,” Uncle Zhao replied.
Cheng Li froze. Muttering to herself, she said, “Only sentinels or guides can smell pheromones?”
“That’s right.” Uncle Zhao answered without hesitation. He looked at Cheng Li, unsure why she was asking something even a three-year-old child would know.
Cheng Li’s heart sank. Still unwilling to give up, she pressed on, “Sentinels and guides usually awaken before the age of fifteen?”
“Not necessarily. Some people only awaken after fifteen. There was even a report two years ago about a twenty-three-year-old woman who awakened as a guide. And the year before that, there was a twenty-two-year…”
Cheng Li could no longer hear the rest of his words. Only one thought remained in her mind:
She might be about to awaken as either a sentinel or a guide.
For the rest of the night, Cheng Li tossed and turned, suffering from the rare experience of insomnia. Just before dawn, she opened the StarNet and searched for ways to stop an awakening.
She searched until sunrise and still found nothing. No one would willingly give up the chance to become a superior sentinel or guide.
‘I’ll deal with it when the time comes,’ Cheng Li told herself.
Today was Cheng Li’s first day married into the Yuan family. Breakfast had to be eaten at the main residence, and it was also an opportunity for her to familiarize herself with the family members.
The Yuan family had always been prosperous. Yuan Zhaoling had two younger brothers and one younger sister. Both brothers had died on the battlefield, while the sister had married and moved to another planet. Yuan Mu’s wedding had been arranged too hastily for her to make it back in time.
Yuan Zhaoling had married twice. His first wife was Yuan Mu’s mother. When Yuan Mu was three years old, the starship she had been traveling on was attacked by the insectoid race, and she lost her life in the sea of stars. His second wife had given birth to a son named Yuan Yu, who was thirteen this year and currently in middle school. He had not appeared at yesterday’s wedding either.
To be precise, whether it was the engagement banquet or the wedding itself, Yuan Zhaoling had been the only member of the Yuan family to attend. Yuan Mu’s stepmother could not even be bothered to keep up appearances, openly displaying her discord with Yuan Mu for all to see.
This was Cheng Li’s first time meeting the stepmother. She had delicate features and pale, flawless skin. Though already in her forties, she looked not even thirty. Part of it was due to excellent maintenance, and part of it was because people in the interstellar era lived long lives. Even ordinary humans had an average lifespan of one hundred and fifty years, while sentinels and guides lived even longer.
The stepmother’s name was Ye Zi, a B-rank guide. Guides generally ranked lower than sentinels, so a B-rank was already considered fairly high. After all, the highest-ranked guides in the Alliance at present were only S-rank, and there were fewer than five of them.
Rumor had it that Yuan Zhaoling had gone to great lengths to pursue this B-rank guide. After their marriage, he spoiled her endlessly and practically obeyed her every word.
He had even abandoned his own SS-rank sentinel son without hesitation.
Cheng Li followed beside Yuan Mu’s wheelchair. Since Yuan Mu did not greet anyone, she remained silent as well. After Yuan Zhaoling casually said, “You’re here,” he fell quiet. Meanwhile, Ye Zi ate her breakfast from start to finish without even raising her head.
The dining table was deathly silent, the atmosphere tense and oppressive.
Cheng Li calmly enjoyed the food, becoming the person who ate the most at the table, causing the other three to glance at her repeatedly.
“Pack your things today. You’ll leave for the mining planet tomorrow,” Ye Zi said, her tone leaving no room for argument.
“If you’re missing anything, have someone buy it beforehand. Supplies over there aren’t as complete as on Alpha Star,” Yuan Zhaoling reminded them.
Yuan Mu gave a quiet hum in response, which counted as agreement.
After breakfast, Cheng Li and Yuan Mu headed to the school to process their leave of absence paperwork. Some documents required them to sign in person.
The First Military Academy had an illustrious reputation. It was one of the top two schools in the Alliance, and six of the Alliance’s Ten Marshals had graduated from there.
Cheng Li looked at Yuan Mu in his wheelchair. If he had not lost both his legs, perhaps he might one day have become one of those Ten Marshals himself.
“Well, well, well, look who it is.” Zhao Pang had heard Yuan Mu appeared at the academy and hurried over at once. With a provocative sneer, he said, “You’ve already lost your legs, and you still dare come to class? Can you even pilot a mech anymore?”
Yuan Mu pressed his lips tightly together as the pressure around him suddenly dropped.
“Good dogs don’t block the road. Move aside!” Cheng Li stepped in front of the wheelchair and shoved Zhao Pang away.
“The hell did you just call me? Believe it or not, I’ll beat you up!” Zhao Pang raised his fist.
Cheng Li truly was not afraid of him. “Go ahead and hit me. I wonder whether the position of First Seat would really be handed to someone who bullies the disabled and starts fights on campus.”
After the engagement banquet, Cheng Li had looked into the grudge between Zhao Pang and Yuan Mu on the school forums. The source of their conflict was the battle for the position of First Seat. Now that Yuan Mu was injured, Zhao Pang had become the most likely candidate to take that position.
Sure enough, the moment he heard the words “First Seat,” Zhao Pang lowered his fist. Gritting his teeth, he spat out a threat, “Yuan Mu, if you dare come back, I’ll make sure to deal with you!”