An unexpected disaster: Mr. Li, congratulations, you are pregnant!
This sleep was extremely long. When Li Yixing woke up, the sky was bright, and nearly nine hours had passed since he lay down on the bed.
He rarely slept for that long. Back when he was undercover on Rhea Star, because of his high mental tension, his sleeping time generally did not exceed six hours a day. Later, returning to work on Nuwa Star, because of his busy schedule, he generally only slept for about seven hours.
Today, however, even after sleeping for nearly nine hours, Li Yixing still felt extremely exhausted. His body felt heavy beyond description, and his limbs were very weak.
The iron bed board underneath was only covered with a very thin mat. While digging into his waist, it also failed to keep him warm. Li Yixing got down from the bed, his complexion looking so poor that it did not seem like that of a living person, gray-white like a corpse that had been dead for a week.
He casually picked out two pieces of casual clothes to put on, and after finishing his washing up, he headed out.
Mandala Bar did not open during the day, so Li Yixing wandered the streets, observing the people and things around him attentively.
The filthy roads and dilapidated urban construction revealed the desolation and poverty of Kenri Star. In the distance, a dozen huge chimneys puffed out white smoke. That was one of the industrial parks in the Ning’an District, where Kenri Star’s ores were mined. These ores were rare minerals, and the space pirates would use a considerable portion of them for space smuggling, thereby exchanging them for enough wealth to fill their money bags and weapons.
Li Yixing walked all the way and finally sat down in a run-down tavern at the entrance of a vegetable market.
A third of this vegetable market’s signboard had fallen off, leaving only two characters standing stubbornly on either side, and the font had even been worn away to the point of being unclear.
However, although this entrance was as dilapidated as a product of the ancient world, it was still very lively inside. Many nearby residents were buying vegetables inside, and the shouting and haggling voices rose and fell in succession.
A cup of ordered wine was placed on the table in front of him, but Li Yixing did not touch a single drop.
A message came through the encrypted communication channel on his wrist device. The Security Department had already vetted three researchers in the Life Science Research Institute suspected to be code-named X. They were currently undergoing interrogation, and monitoring and searches were being conducted on their residences and family members. Results would likely be available in about five days.
Li Yixing twirled the wine glass with his hand, his face expressionless. He turned off the wrist device, leaned his entire body backward, and rested against the old chair.
The disrepair-ridden chair made creaking, strange sounds. Li Yixing closed his eyes, pondering how to break into the upper echelons of the East District pirates.
Over the past few days, he had already figured out some things about Wang Shengxiang, the East District space pirate. This man was seventy years old, single, and had an eight-year-old younger brother named Nuo, who was said to be adopted and had no blood relation. Wang Shengxiang doted on this child almost to the extreme. Aside from fighting wars and going to places unsuitable for minors, he practically tied the person to his waist wherever he went.
Wang Shengxiang himself could not be considered strategic, and his military command attainments were also quite ordinary, but he excelled in business acumen and was very loyal, rising to the position of boss after decades of being a pirate.
He had four deputies, two women and two men. Among them, one newly arrived person of unknown name and identity was the focal point of Li Yixing’s suspicions. He had to figure out who on earth this new deputy was, whether he was related to the Oga Empire, and whether he needed to be directly assassinated to eliminate future trouble, so as to facilitate the Alliance’s crackdown on space pirates.
Of course, there was another point that was also very important. This person had arrived on Kenri Star halfway through the war between the Alliance and the Oga Empire. That time point coincided precisely with the time of Feng Zhao’s sacrifice. If he was related to the Oga Empire, there was a high possibility that he knew the inside story of Feng Zhao’s cause of death.
Mandala Bar was an opportunity to get in touch with the upper echelons of the space pirates, but waiting until he mixed in as a senior waiter to reach the top floor was a bit too time-consuming. Eggs could not be put in the same basket at the same time. Other breakthrough points had to be sought simultaneously.
Thinking of this, Li Yixing stood up, preparing to head to the center of the Ning’an District to scout around.
However, the moment he stood up, he felt dizzy and almost fell to the ground!
Almost simultaneously, Li Yixing smelled the pungent scent of raw meat around the vegetable market, and a familiar sense of nausea instantly surged up from his stomach!
Li Yixing covered his mouth and quickly stepped into a nearby public restroom!
The restroom here was uncleaned, and dirty paper balls were randomly thrown on the ground, many of which had been trampled into a mush, revealing the yellow or black filth inside. An odor lingered in the space, and Li Yixing leaned against the sink and retched, his eye sockets turning red instantly.
He could not vomit anything out. His internal organs were squeezed forcefully along with the retching, creating a sensation of wanting to vomit out his entire heart and lungs. The squeezed heart hurt so much that it thumped wildly. Li Yixing could not catch his breath, and a flush that only appeared after hypoxia spread all over his body.
The retching lasted for nearly fifteen minutes. Li Yixing was almost unable to stand, his entire brain was numb, and the knuckles tightly gripping the edge of the sink turned a shocking blue-white.
His throat was full of a rust-like bloody froth, and Li Yixing nearly thought he was going to vomit blood. He limply supported himself against the edge of the sink, cold sweat beading on his temples. The flush on his body from hypoxia actually made his complexion look less poor, but his lips were dead white, revealing that he was extremely uncomfortable at the moment.
After the annoying retching ended, Li Yixing rested for close to ten minutes before staggering out of the public restroom.
This bout of retching was completely sudden. Li Yixing thought that since he had not eaten anything at all, logically it was completely impossible to suddenly retch.
Could there be something wrong with his body?
Could Stan Davis and the Feng family have played any other tricks on him?
However, during those half a month staying at the Life Science Research Institute, Li Yixing was certain that aside from the chip and the assisted reproduction needs, he had completely not contacted any other medicines, and messing with his food was even more impossible. He did not eat at all, and maintaining his vital signs relied entirely on unified production by the military department through numbered and identified nutritional supplements.
Moreover, the Feng family wanted a healthy child, so naturally they would not allow him to use or come into contact with any medicines that harmed his body.
Li Yixing thought about possible problems with deep suspicion, and finally concluded that the probability of Stan Davis and the Feng family wanting to play tricks on his body again was much smaller than the probability of him suffering from acclimatization.
However, over the next few days, such symptoms intensified.
Inside Mandala Bar, Li Yixing retched once again. This was already his fourth time retching that day. He sweated profusely as he vomited in the restroom for ten minutes, while his wrist device beeped, prompting him that his physical condition was very unwell.
“Mr. Li, your heart rate is 176, which is too fast. Please relax your body and take deep breaths.”
Li Yixing could not breathe, and he really wanted to turn off this noisy wrist device.
“Mr. Li, your body temperature has continuously maintained at 37.8 degrees Celsius for three hours, which belongs to a continuous low fever. It is very likely that you are in a low-fever state. You are advised to drink more water and rest well.”
Li Yixing coughed once, finally freeing up a hand to turn off the wrist device.
It was too strange. If it were said to be acclimatization, he should have adapted by this time. How could he have conditions of physical discomfort such as retching and low fever for so many consecutive days?
Li Yixing scooped up half a handful of water and splashed it on his face, barely pulling his spirits back together somewhat.
He needed to get a physical examination, Li Yixing thought.
Kenri Star was in a state of anarchy, so even Ning’an City, the most affluent area in the East District, did not have many proper hospitals. More than ninety percent of those hanging hospital signs were black clinics, and the doctors inside were mostly self-taught without medical qualification certificates. The overwhelming majority belonged to half-baked levels, only able to handle the most basic illnesses like colds and fevers. Therefore, residents on Kenri Star without money had to kick the bucket whenever they fell ill with anything slightly complicated.
In stark contrast to the rotten medical level, Kenri Star’s military industry developed fairly well, with factories or small workshops making weapons everywhere.
Li Yixing searched for a long time before finding a black clinic that looked passable.
The clinic boss was an old man wearing small glasses, about two hundred years old, who asked Li Yixing slowly, “What are the conditions with your body?”
“Retching, low fever,” Li Yixing said concisely. “Dizziness, weak limbs, unable to sleep well, lasting for about a week.”
“It might be catching a cold,” the old man peered at Li Yixing’s complexion. “I will prescribe a few kinds of cold medicine for you. Take them one by one, and you will get better soon.”
Li Yixing: “Oh.”
He declined the old man’s kindness and left the black clinic without looking back.
The black clinic was still too unreliable, so Li Yixing finally decided to visit a private medical center run by East District boss Wang Shengxiang.
This private medical center was in the center of Ning’an City, and its medical equipment was fairly complete. The entire medical center had six floors, and the first-floor lobby was arranged with hundreds of medical pods. These medical pod technologies were already extremely advanced on Kenri Star, able to quickly identify physical states, treat basic diseases, and even detect difficult and complicated diseases.
Of course, these medical pods were not independently produced by Kenri Star, but were snatched back by space pirates on space routes. The manufacturers’ labels were dazzling, and there were even a few pods covered with exclusive seals of the Alliance military department!
Their usage price was also extremely high for the residents of Kenri Star. Using them to check the body once required twenty thousand Ning’an coins.
Li Yixing picked a medical pod that originally belonged to the Alliance, with a production date thirty years ago, and lay flat inside it.
The pleasant voice of the artificial intelligence soon sounded within the medical pod.
“Hello, Mr. Li. For the next ten minutes, I will perform a physical examination on you. Please relax your body and breathe evenly.”
“The examination is about to begin. Countdown 10, 9, 8. Examination begins.”
“Scanning complete blood cell count, complete blood cell count result verification in progress.”
“Scanning hormone levels, hormone level result verification in progress.”
Please wait patiently for the results.
The ten-minute examination passed quickly. The medical pod slowly opened, and the mechanical electronic voice spoke to Li Yixing in a rigid tone: “Thank you for your use this time. Due to busy business systems, your examination report and detailed interpretation will be sent to your personal terminal within three hours. If you have physical problems, please seek medical attention as soon as possible! Thank you again for your use!”
Three hours could not be considered too long. It was already 4:30 PM now, and before 7:30 PM tonight, he would be able to receive the examination results.
However, by this hour, Mandala Bar had also been open for half an hour, and Li Yixing had to go to work.
Today’s theme was a beach party, and all waiters had to appear wearing swimwear. Li Yixing looked expressionlessly at the sexy swimwear assigned to his hands, feeling that the space pirates behind Mandala Bar were truly demoralizing.
On the other side, Feng Zhao had also arrived at Mandala Bar.
Ever since seeing a figure resembling Li Yixing that day, he had been somewhat uneasy, but it was a pity that he had to handle the internal affairs of the pirates these days and never had time to come over and take a look.
The person in charge of Mandala Bar had provided him with employee rosters and photos, and Feng Zhao had taken the time to scan through all of them without seeing anyone who looked like Li Yixing. That figure resembling Li Yixing had perhaps just been a mistake on his part.
But Feng Zhao still felt uneasy. Originally, he had felt that Li Yixing’s death was very suspicious. With Li Yixing’s ability, how could he possibly die so easily? Coupled with the fact that he was a major general in the military department himself, he could not be more familiar with the movements of the Alliance military department. The military department originally had intentions to crack down on space pirates, not to mention that in this battle between the Alliance and the Oga Empire, space pirates did not know how many supplies they had seized taking advantage of the chaos, so they would definitely send intelligence personnel and communication fleets to scout the situation.
Although given Li Yixing’s rank, such a mission generally would not fall on him, who knew what kind of anomalies the Alliance might have? Sending Li Yixing over to scout out locations was not impossible.
Feng Zhao had always been someone who would never give up until seeing exact results. Thus, after handling official duties, he had time and immediately came over personally to investigate.
He arrived at the top-floor private room and called the person in charge of Mandala Bar over.
“Brother Feng! Why did you come yourself?” The person in charge of Mandala Bar was brimming with enthusiasm. “Any instructions, and I will do them right away!”
“Call all the bartenders and waiters of the bar over.” Feng Zhao tilted his head to take a sip of wine, placed the wine glass heavily on the table, and said with a smile to the person in charge of Mandala.
“Ah?” The Mandala person in charge was somewhat troubled. “Everyone? Brother Feng, Mandala has thousands of waiters.”
Click!
The safety catch was pulled open, and the sound of bullets loading was clearly audible in the spacious private room!
The cold sweat of the Mandala person in charge poured down instantly!
That pitch-black muzzle steadily pointed at the person in charge’s head.
“If you cannot bring them all up at once, do it in batches.” Feng Zhao’s gray eyes appeared gloomy under the colorful lights, but his voice still carried a smile, as if he were very approachable. “If you cannot do it, swap to someone who can.”
“I can do it! I can do it!” The Mandala person in charge nodded like a chick pecking at rice, hurriedly instructing his subordinates to go and call the waiters over.
At the same time, Li Yixing had pinched his nose and changed into this pitifully skimpy set of swimwear. To avoid any clues being seen, he even deliberately found waterproof cosmetics to conceal all the scars on his chest and abdomen.
He had just finished when a Mandala manager rushed into this small fitting room in a flurry. “You! You! And you!”
The manager pointed at Li Yixing’s nose and said loudly, “Come over and gather!” Having said that, he turned around and went back out without looking back, anxiously continuing to look for people.
Li Yixing’s brows knitted. What happened?
Before he could ponder deeply, the wrist device strapped to his wrist beeped.
“Mr. Li, the examination report has been delivered. Please review it.” The voice of the artificial intelligence sounded by his ear.
In the New Era calendar period, there was no need to worry about others eavesdropping on communication contents. The wrist device simulated human voices through bone conduction and biometric technology to ring by the ear. Li Yixing remained expressionless while walking outward, speaking to the wrist device, “Interpret the contents of the report.”
“Command received, interpreting the contents of the report.”
After about three seconds of silence, the pleasant voice of the artificial intelligence sounded again: “Report interpretation complete!”
“Mr. Li, congratulations, you are pregnant!”
A single sentence made Li Yixing feel as if struck by lightning, halting his forward steps, and his expression, which had remained cold for ages, shattered abruptly!
What?!
Pregnant?!