Chapter 63
The medicine Lu Feng provided had worked, and Gu Xiyu had managed to force out the 011 miniature creatures that had taken control of the old king. The creatures were paralyzed and temporarily immobilized, so they put them into a bottle to use as evidence against Lu Yan.
In order not to startle the snake, the old king deliberately waited until the press conference began, and Lu Yan sent someone to invite him down before exposing the other party’s actions. Gu Xiyu was supposed to be there before him to see what was going on, but when he was coming down from the floor of the old king’s bedroom, a small mouse came out of nowhere and suddenly scurried in front of him.
It was a small, grayish-white mouse with a red cap the size of a thumb on top of its head. It didn’t speak human language, but he could somehow understand it.
The little mouse was emotional: “Your Highness, the beast race received the signal sent by the battleship before it crashed, and we were sent out to look for you because we were worried about your safety.”
After finishing a bunch of nice catch-up words, the little mouse then asked with his palms clasped together, “It’s great that you’re okay; I wonder if the message was delivered……”
The beasts did not want to be enemies with the humans. Aside from the past interactions and opposition to fighting, there was another reason they were more or less afraid of humans. The human race was not yet capable of fighting the alien races beyond the portal, but they are advancing, and with the development of technology and forces, the beasts would have the most difficulty defending themselves against those attacks. The king of the beast race did not want to get involved in the ensuing trouble, so they tried to find Wen Yu, the most crucial person in this issue, to negotiate.
Gu Xiyu was honest with the little mouse, who seemed to be his father’s confidant: “The message was delivered, but he refused.”
The little mouse’s face was unreadable, but his eyes flashed with a bit of chagrin, and the answer seemed to be what he expected: “The king probably thought that it would not be that easy to make it happen. He told me to tell you that if you failed, it would be all right and that you should return with us to the Beast Race to think of the next plan.”
“You are almost an adult; the king has offered to throw a bamquet for you, and he has suggested that you and Miss Grace should be married at that time, in order to complete the reproduction of the tiger-rabbit clan as soon as possible.” The little mouse didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with that statement.
Gu Xiyu did not show his inner displeasure on his face and only said, “Fine, it just so happens that I also want to discuss this marriage contract with Father.”
So, he did not go to the press conference to observe the whole thing, but used that time to slip back to the Admiral’s mansion, deliberately left a letter like that for Wen Yu, and then left the main planet of the Empire on the beast race’s spaceship.
He got to know what happened after the press conference from Lu Feng. The entire broadcast had been recorded and shared by enthusiastic netizens, and Lu Feng had sent him a link on his communicator, which he watched before the spaceship flew away from the signal.
He also heard the last words Wen Yu said through the loudspeakers.
So Gu Xiyu felt that the special tasks were not completely useless. At least Wen Yu, who was most likely to destroy the main city after taking over the Unification Center, chose not to do so, and even helped them set up Lu Yan.
With the mentality of taking all he could down with him, Lu Yan revealed all the things that Caesar had helped him do. All these things were documented and proven, and as long as he was willing to let them out, Caesar’s guilt could be firmly established.
‘Caesar’ disappeared into obscurity after that. As the evidence was overwhelming, he became a wanted man in the Empire. The main planet was ordered into lockdown, and all the city’s soldiers and generals were sent out to find him. Xie Mingan was responsible for carrying out this task.
The last time Gu Xiyu heard anything related to Wen Yu was when the beast race spaceship was about to sail out of the farthest range the communicator could receive a signal.
He was watching a live stream, and Xie Mingan, dressed in formal attire, stood solemnly in front of the camera with a hint of grief in his eyes: “…During the chase for Admiral Caesar, his spaceship was hit by gunfire from the warship and unfortunately crashed on planet NS-381. We have confirmed the death of Admiral Caesar, and his body was destroyed in the explosion of the crash…”
Gu Xiyu stared at Xie Mingan’s face, slightly lost in thought.
If Wen Yu was really dead, the system would have sent him a notification a long time ago, so he was very certain that the target was still safe. What he didn’t understand was, if that were the case, how could someone as decent and “black and white” as Xie Mingan be willing to help lie? Especially since there was evidence of the things ‘Caesar’ had done. No matter how great his merits were, he couldn’t be let off easily.
With that in mind, the live feed began to show some lag and interference.
Before the signal completely disappeared, he suddenly received a message from Lu Feng on his communicator.
[Wen Ruo has already told me his identity and other things. I just want to tell you that Caesar is dead, but he’s not dead.]
Gu Xiyu lowered his eyes in silence, and after a long time, he turned off the message interface of his communicator.
So that was it.
Gu Xiyu spent many days in the vast and boundless universe; the journey through the portal and back to the Beast’s territory was not a short one. The communicator he had received from the Empire had become a complete trinket in his hand, and no one could get in touch with him. Fortunately, his so-called fiancée hadn’t come for him. Grace was quite respectable among the Beast race, so they probably stopped her from coming for fear for her safety.
During this time, only the intelligent system could still keep in touch with him.
Wen Yu was not under surveillance right now, and there was actually nothing to communicate between him and the system. But the system became a bit more active during this period of time and would take the initiative to chat with him, although the conversation was basically unrelated to the mission.
But Gu Xiyu didn’t mind, the intelligent system was the only familiar companion in these strange mission worlds.
[I heard that it’s your birthday soon, are you really going to follow the clan’s arrangement and marry that female tiger rabbit called Grace?] The intelligent system was quite nosy about his next life event.
Of course, Gu Xiyu would not marry Grace. Even the original owner didn’t have much interaction with this fiancée, but as members of the royal family, the elders would arrange such things. It was just that his current relationship with Wen Yu was unclear, and he simply couldn’t be with someone he didn’t like, so he planned to back out of this marriage when he returned.
But he didn’t say anything directly to the system, only saying, “We’ll see.”
“The mission target of this world doesn’t have that kind of interest in me anyway, and it’s just a matter of spending my life with someone. I heard that Grace is a pretty nice girl with a good personality; it’s something to consider.”
[… How can you be sure the target isn’t interested in you if you haven’t asked him?]
“From the way he’s acting, it doesn’t look like he does.”
[Maybe it’s because he has a more introverted personality and is unable to express himself.]
Gu Xiyu paused for a moment, then suddenly smiled and asked, “Why do you keep speaking for him?”
“If I didn’t know that you were the system the bureau had arranged for me, I would have suspected that you were a spy sent over by the target to help him.”
[…]
Gu Xiyu looked at the ellipsis, and the smile on his lips deepened a few more points: “Don’t worry, I’m just joking.”
After that, the system did not talk to him about this matter again.
He finally met his ‘father’, the current king of the beast race. The other man appeared before him in human form, looking unexpectedly young. He looked like a handsome man in his thirties, not at all like someone with a dozen children.
He had long blonde hair similar to his, and he stroked the top of his head affectionately, saying, “My son, you have finally returned.”
Gu Xiyu did not see much affection or concern in his father’s eyes; he was probably going through the motions. He was the youngest prince in the clan, and had more than a dozen brothers and sisters above him, so the succession to the throne would not fall to him in any case.
His father did not love him much, and even had some problems with him at first. Later on, when the original owner grew up a little better and no longer looked so thin and weak, and because his physique had some value, his attitude toward him eased a little.
Gu Xiyu asked him to break off his engagement with Grace.
He thought it would take a while before the matter was resolved, but to his surprise, his father was quick to agree: “No problem.”
But before he could be reassured, he heard him say, “It’s all right if you don’t like Grace; although tiger-rabbits are rare, there are many of them in the beast world. There will be many other tiger rabbits at the banquet to celebrate your birthday, so you can take your pick.”
“You may not want Grace, but you must decide who you will marry on your birthday. Once your birthday is over, it will soon be autumn, and the next steps have to be taken. You know how important this is for the future of the whole beast race, and even the human empire.”
Gu Xiyu did not say yes or no, he could only drag it out for now and return to his quarters.
The original owner was not too close to his other siblings, and few people came to see him after this return trip. Among them was Grace, who came to see him once, and as Lu Feng had said before, she was a pink tiger rabbit, and even the pupils of her eyes were a pretty pink-purple color.
With watery eyes, she asked him, “Am I not good enough, or do you think I am not pretty enough? I can strive to change and improve to meet your requirements as much as possible ……”
Gu Xiyu patted her head to comfort her, “It has nothing to do with you, I just have someone I like and don’t want to hold you back, sorry.”
“Also, you’re very beautiful, you don’t need to change yourself for anyone. Remember, you should get someone who really likes you.”
Grace seemed to understand, but he didn’t know if she got it or not.
Gu Xiyu stayed with the beast race, and his little days passed by in the blink of an eye. He had left that letter to Wen Yu with the idea that if he figured things out, he would come over to the Beast race to look for him. Looking back now, he realizes his decision was actually a gamble, and the event had a certain degree of chance of failure.
As a commander in the bureau, he had never made a decision that did not have a 100% chance of success.
The lively banquet was said to be a celebration of his birthday, but he felt like the whole thing had little to do with him. Apart from his father mentioning him a few times in the opening speech, leading everyone to give him a few birthday wishes and indicating that they were looking for a partner for him tonight, everyone went about their ‘real’ business of socializing.
Gu Xiyu, who wanted to stay low-key through the night, was instantly surrounded by countless tiger rabbits.
Of course, most of them were girls, the pretty and fragrant kind.
Gu Xiyu maintained his tiger rabbit form, hugging his little tail and showing calmness but actually panicking inside: “Thank you for your blessings, please don’t get too close to me, I will feel uncomfortable ……”
As he said that, he felt a sharp look fall on him. He followed that line of sight and met the cold, hard eyes of the beast king.
It was clearly a warning that if he was unable to decide by the end of the night, then he would personally help him choose someone, and he would not be allowed to backtrack then. Moreover, the tiger-rabbit race was a more exclusive species, they would have one partner in their lifetime, and would not find another after the death of the other, let alone something like divorce.
Gu Xiyu was already thinking about finding a chance to slip away, cursing Wen Yu a few times in his mind in the process.
Sure enough, he held too much hope for this world’s great demon.
Just as he was fuming inwardly, the group of tiger rabbits in front of him suddenly became noisy, as if several people were arguing.
“Ah, where did you come from, wild tiger rabbit? How dare you come here when His Highness is looking for a wife?”
“That’s not likely, is it? He’s a male tiger rabbit, did he come to the wrong place?”
Gu Xiyu had just vaguely heard these few questions when he heard the tiger rabbits let out cries of alarm and then scatter in all directions.
“Oh my god, this guy is beating up the tiger rabbits!”