Chapter 44#
The Innocent and Naive Fool#
After the live broadcast ended, the chaotic situation on the Central Star underwent another earth-shaking change.
Public opinion began to lean heavily towards the military under Gu Xi’s command. Denunciations of the nobles on the Star Network increased, victims stepped forward to tell their stories, and there were even incidents of minor nobles who bullied others being beaten on the street by angry onlookers.
As the situation developed, Earl Lian finally made up his mind—he had to deal with Lu Xing as soon as possible and restore the reputation of the Empire’s nobility!
Late the next night, a small spacecraft took off from the palace undetected and arrived at the blockade line outside the atmosphere.
“Greetings, Commander!”
The soldier responsible for checking contraband turned to see Gu Xi and his adjutant walking in one after the other and quickly stood at attention and saluted.
But Gu Xi waved his hand for him to relax: “Alright, report the situation. What did Lu Xing send over?”
“This…” The soldier swallowed, appearing somewhat hesitant to speak, “It’s not a dangerous item, and it’s been fluoroscopically checked for any parasitic material. But… you, you’d better see for yourself.”
He stepped aside, revealing a gift box behind him, meticulously wrapped in silver-white ribbon.
On top of the box lay a scented card with a sentence written in elegant florid script—
“To my dear Little Prince.”
Seeing this card, Gu Xi’s brow instantly furrowed.
He walked to the table, expressionlessly threw the card into the trash, and then opened the box. When he saw what was inside, even the habitually calm and collected Gu Xi couldn’t help but have his pupils constrict.
There were only two things in the box.
A fresh rose, and a light-colored eyeball soaked in a special medicinal solution.
Xu Feng gasped: “What does Lu Xing mean by this!?”
The color of the eyeball was too unique. Everyone present knew exactly who it belonged to. But setting aside how bizarre and perverted it was to send an eyeball for Valentine’s Day, in the current situation, the meaning of this gift was extraordinary.
It meant that Lu Xing clearly knew his fate and had handed over the complete control of the Star-Destroying Cannon to them in advance.
The rumors of assassins were likely a ruse he had leaked himself to distract the nobles; otherwise, Lu Xing could not have easily delivered the key, which required iris verification, into Gu Xi’s hands.
“Lieutenant General,” Xu Feng could feel his heart pounding. Although he didn’t know why Lu Xing did this, it was indeed a god-sent opportunity, “Let’s attack!”
Gu Xi remained silent for a moment without answering.
The man lowered his head, staring intently at the light-colored eyeball floating in the jar of medicine, his brow tightly knit as if weighing the pros and cons. But soon, the silence in the room was broken by a messenger who rushed in frantically:
“Reporting to the Lieutenant General! Space detectors just detected an unknown energy fluctuation in the TU108 star sector!”
Hearing the TU108 star sector, Gu Xi was first stunned, then his expression changed—
This was a mandatory point on the Star-Destroying Cannon’s periodic patrol!
Xu Feng obviously thought of this too. He followed Gu Xi in large strides to the command room, and the scene displayed on the star map left everyone present instantly speechless—
On the monitoring screen, the Star-Destroying Cannon, which had been operating normally on its periodic orbit, suddenly lit up.
One bar of energy, two bars, three bars…
In just a few seconds, the stored emission energy of the Star-Destroying Cannon reached fifteen percent.
This was the limit that a direct royal descendant could operate without the Marshal’s medal.
The massive compressed energy erupted violently in a thousandth of a second, instantly shattering all nearby small meteorites into dust.
The monitoring personnel quickly simulated the missile path, calculated the final target coordinates of the energy cannon, and switched to the nearest monitoring footage.
Looking at that familiar planet, Gu Xi only felt a stabbing pain deep in his eye sockets.
Due to the delay in information transmission, the scene seen in the command room was nearly half a minute later than the actual time of occurrence.
In other words, by the moment they received the news, it was already too late.
The man stared fixedly at the screen, his fists clenched, without saying a word.
The Merman Star, which had been floating quietly in the universe, vanished into the vast cosmos after an extreme, blinding flash of light, turning into cold cosmic dust.
It was currently 1:37 AM, Central Star capital time.
Two hours ago, the little merman had just finished his last bite of ice cream with satisfaction, given him a sweet goodnight kiss, and obediently climbed into bed clutching his cloud pillow.
Although he said he would wait for Gu Xi to return, every time he couldn’t hold out and fell asleep first, leaving only a warm yellow nightlight lit in the darkness.
“Lieutenant General…”
Xu Feng was trembling with rage.
He slammed the table hard. The usually good-tempered adjutant was also completely enraged this time: “How dare they!!??”
“Report! Earl Lian has just issued a statement, claiming that Lu Xing used the Star-Destroying Cannon to destroy the Merman Star without authorization!”
“Report! A large-scale bloodshed is occurring at the palace gate, suspected palace coup!”
“Report!…”
One report after another was delivered to Gu Xi.
This shot from the Star-Destroying Cannon became the fuse for the series of events that followed.
Gu Xi punched the nearby wall.
The entire command room became so quiet that even the sound of a pin dropping could be heard.
After a long time, the adjutant gathered his courage to speak: “Lieutenant General, this is not your fault…”
The man closed his eyes.
“What exactly is the situation on the Central Star now?” he asked in a raspy voice.
“After that previous palace bloodbath, Lu Xing’s public reputation has hit rock bottom,” Xu Feng said. “Adding the words Xiaodong said before the live broadcast ended, I’m afraid that even if he denies it now, the public will firmly believe he did it.”
And then the old-guard nobles can just occupy the moral high ground and wipe out the new-guard forces in one fell swoop.
Gu Xi immediately completed the unfinished sentence in his mind.
Though angry, his thinking remained clear, and he figured out the connections in just a few seconds.
At this point, it didn’t matter much who did it. Or rather, the public simply needed an outlet for their emotions.
If there wasn’t one? Then create one.
But this was absolutely no reason for the Merman Star to be used as a sacrifice. Gu Xi took a deep breath, his sharp gaze sweeping over his confidants in the command room, and said: “Prepare a quiet and empty room for me.”
The coordinates of the Merman Star were a secret among secrets. The first thing Lu Xing did after taking office was to erase all relevant records from the Star Network. The only place where exact intelligence could be obtained was the military’s internal database.
Because so many things had happened one after another recently, Gu Xi hadn’t had time to catch the mole lurking beside him.
Although the adjutant had conducted several internal sweeps, after he brought Lin Xiaodong back from the Merman Star, that mole had made no further moves. Additionally, with the campaign against the mother worm imminent, the matter had been temporarily set aside.
But he hadn’t expected that a single oversight would lead to such irreversible consequences.
Xu Feng gasped: “Lieutenant General, you’re not planning to use the mother worm to directly probe who leaked the information, are you?”
“Yes.”
“No, that’s too dangerous!” he immediately objected. “Receiving information from such a large range of hosts, if you’re not careful, you’ll be assimilated by the mother worm too!”
But he was directly interrupted by Gu Xi: “Xu Feng, that’s an order!”
After a moment of silence, Xu Feng finally compromised.
“…I’ll go have someone prepare it now.”
He walked out of the command room with a cold face, his right hand unconsciously resting on the laser pistol at his hip.
If he found out that the mole was on this starship, he would definitely shoot them dead!
Lin Xiaodong slept very soundly.
There was no distinction between day and night in space, but his biological clock still followed the schedule on the ground.
So when he opened his eyes and saw it was already 10:00 AM, the little merman stretched lazily and simply didn’t get up, waiting directly for Gu Xi to return to the room and carry him to the bathtub for lunch.
“There’s something I think you need to know,” the System said.
Lin Xiaodong gave a “hmm”: “What?”
“Last night while you were fast asleep, the Star-Destroying Cannon was activated.”
“Oh… what!?” Lin Xiaodong’s eyes widened instantly, “Where did it hit?”
Surely he wouldn’t wake up to find the Central Star gone?
“How could the nobles bomb themselves?” the System said. “They need to occupy the moral high ground now.”
“Using a weapon of mass destruction and they can still occupy the moral high ground?” Lin Xiaodong complained, “What, are they holding a press conference with laundry detergent?”
System: “No, they bombed the Merman Star.”
Lin Xiaodong: “…………”
Dammit, after all that, he woke up to find his hometown was bombed!
But beyond his anger, Lin Xiaodong suppressed his rage and carefully considered this move by the old-guard nobles. He had to admit it was a risky move, but indeed the only way to break the three-way stalemate in a short time.
“It must have been that bastard surnamed Lian,” he said with certainty. “I bet the palace has already been taken over by him by now.”
System: “But the trend on the internet is saying Lu Xing did it.”
“Unnecessary, his goal has already been achieved,” Lin Xiaodong said. “And regardless, the Merman Star is still Noah’s hometown. Lu Xing hasn’t gone mad to that extent yet.”
While they were talking, there was suddenly noise at the door.
Gu Xi was back.
The man’s eyes were bloodshot from staying up late, and he looked very tired. He looked at Lin Xiaodong with an expression of wanting to speak but stopping.
“Not eating?” Lin Xiaodong asked him, sounding normal.
Gu Xi looked down at the lunch box in his hand and opened it silently.
When he looked up again, his face had returned to its usual expression.
“The cafeteria made your favorite sweet and sour pork ribs today. Have a taste.”
Lin Xiaodong gave a “hmm,” and before Gu Xi could come over to carry him, he jumped off the bed himself, obediently set up the small table, and scrambled into the bathtub to start the water.
Listening to the sound of splashing water, Gu Xi sat in a chair. He rehearsed the words in his mind several times but still didn’t know how to say them.
“You definitely didn’t sleep all night last night, right?” Lin Xiaodong said suddenly, holding his bowl and looking at him.
Gu Xi snapped out of it and subconsciously found an excuse: “A routine check of the starship’s fuel bay found a small problem, it’s been solved.”
“Oh.” The little merman took a couple of bites of rice, looking like a hamster with wide eyes and puffed-out cheeks as he said muffledly, “If there’s anything troubling you, tell me. Don’t carry it all alone.”
“…Hmm.”
But until the meal was finished, Gu Xi still said nothing.
Instead, he mentioned something Lin Xiaodong hadn’t expected: “Lu Xing sent a box yesterday, said it was for you.”
“What is it?” Lin Xiaodong was a bit curious.
“A rose.”
He didn’t tell the little merman the whole truth. He guessed Lu Xing had also long expected Gu Xi to do this.
“He really likes The Little Prince,” Lin Xiaodong sighed with an unclear meaning, then suddenly remembered something. “By the way, that copy you took when you left, have you finished it?”
“Finished it,” Gu Xi said. “That’s what I wanted to tell you.”
“Xiaodong,” he stroked the little merman’s long hair and said slowly, “For the time being, let’s not go back to the Merman Star. I want to take you somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“You’ll know when we get there,” Gu Xi smiled. “Remember the gift I told you I wanted to give you?”
The little merman glanced at him and realized.
“Oh, so you’re jealous.” He bit his lower lip, suppressed a smile, and said, “You should have said so earlier. Don’t worry, I won’t accept roses from anyone but you.”
Gu Xi: “…I’m not jealous.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Lin Xiaodong said perfunctorily, as if it were common. “You’re just stimulated by the courtship behavior of a fellow male human.”
Gu Xi: “…………”
Forget it, he sighed and thought silently, let Lin Xiaodong think that.