2141 Clearing the Mists!
Li Yao almost cried out when he heard “a refiner from the Covenant Alliance”.
He was now almost certain that the refiner of the Covenant Alliance that ended up in the mysterious world fragment together with the “young female warrior” in Li Lingfeng’s mouth was exactly his foster father, who wandered to the Star Glory Federation in the Heaven’s Origin Sector at the edge of the cosmos later!
If Li Lingfeng was not lying, what unusual stories happened between the man and the woman who belonged to hostile sides, and what kind of influences did their encounter cause to them?
At the very least, from Li Yao’s eyes, the incident should be the turning point of his foster father’s life. His foster father came from the Covenant Alliance, and based on Li Yao’s understanding of the Covenant Alliance, people there all repressed their feelings and self-will and could barely be called humans. They were utterly different from his impressions on his foster father, who was warm, kindhearted, generous, and sometimes lonely.
How did his foster father turn from a standard local of the Covenant Alliance into the middle-aged man that Li Yao met in the magical equipment graveyard, one who had the feelings of a normal human and even sometimes burst into tears late at night?
It was possible that the answer lay in the mysterious world fragment?
He observed Li Linghai’s countenance in secret. Although the white-haired queen’s helmet had disintegrated and retreated, her face still seemed covered in a transparent mask. It was impossible to tell her real feelings.
However, she did not stop Li Lingfeng from continuing the story.
Li Lingfeng smiled. “All that happened later was only the young female warrior’s side of the story, because she claimed that the world fragment was a rarely-seen ‘floating world fragment’, which seemed to be drifting erratically between the three-dimensional and the four-dimensional space. Its entrance and coordinates were completely unpredictable. Nobody else had ever found the world fragment again either.
“All in all, according to the young female warrior, the two parties both had only one last survivor, but she was a warrior and the other survivor was a refiner. Naturally, she was at an overwhelming advantage and suppressed the enemy easily.
“To explore the world fragment, and to dismantle the magical equipment units on the enemy’s starship for the maintenance of her own starship, the young female warrior of the Imperium did not kill the refiner of the Covenant Alliance, but forced him to start exploration and maintenance. She even made up her mind to capture the guy back to the Imperium alive.
“Because the starship was too seriously damaged, and their hands were highly limited, it took them half a year before they finally managed to repair the Imperium’s starship.
“The man and the woman spent half a year in the mysterious world fragment that nobody knew about all by themselves, but they found nothing. It was an unattractive world fragment, with barely any resources or relics and not of any value to be developed. Naturally, it was still the young female warrior’s side of the story.
“All in all, half a year later, they finally escaped from the world fragment on the starship of the Imperium and returned to the Imperium.
“However, before they were discovered by the border patrol of the Imperium, something uncanny happened. According to the young female warrior, the refiner of the Covenant Alliance kept a few powerful weapons to himself in secret during the half year’s maintenance and exploration, and he attacked her at the last moment in an ambush, trying to seize the starship and escape back to the Covenant Alliance.
“But after a fierce battle, the refiner of the Covenant Alliance was killed by her, and even the body had been absorbed to the vacuum of the space through the broken holes on the shell of the starship. Naturally, it was impossible to locate a tiny body in the vast universe.
“It was about the whole incident. By the time the patrol teams of the Imperium discovered the young female warrior, the ragged, collapsing starship had only her and abundant bodies of the Immortal Cultivators that she brought back on board. She was the highest authority to tell everything that happened in the past year.
“Of course, I have to admit that everything that the young female warrior said so far is flawless without major loopholes, my dear sister, right?”
“Yes.”
Li Linghai said casually, “There are indeed no loopholes.
“Yes. The Imperium and the Covenant Alliance have been sworn enemies for a thousand years. Cases were rare where the Immortal Cultivators negotiated peace with the people of the Covenant Alliance. Besides, the young female warrior had also struck other people as meek, kind-natured, and readily-bendable. How could the seniors and big shots of the family have realized that she was lying?”
Li Lingfeng smiled, “Most importantly of all, the family arranged quite a few loyalty tests where her mind was questioned for her, asking her to repeat every detail that happened in the past year for hundreds of times. But no loopholes were identified at all. Eventually, her statement was considered real and trustworthy, and there was nothing wrong with her at all. She was back to the battle sequence of the family.
“Although she was back to the battle sequence of the family, her problems of submissiveness and sentimentality seemed even more serious than before. She sulked and was in a daze every day, and nobody could tell what was on her mind. Her potentials in training were almost drained. Her performance was not even as good as a year ago.
“Everybody thought that her mind was affected by the cruel encounter, and incurable holes had been left deep inside her soul. No matter how she trained herself, it would be impossible for her to grow into a natural, smooth, and flawless super expert. Her seniors and the big shots of the family abandoned her one after another too.
“Later, the family got a precious opportunity of picking a crown princess. After selections and negotiations, she was sent to the Empyreal Terminus Sector, capital of the Imperium, to be the crown princess first. Decades later, after the former emperor passed away and the crown prince acceded to the throne, she naturally turned into the almighty queen of the Imperium!”
Li Linghai listened in silence and observed indifferently. “Is there any problem?”
“Up until now, no problem at all.”
With the most brilliant smile, Li Lingfeng said, “However, a minor problem came right next, which I would like my sister to enlighten me with. Why did the eminent, well-revered queen of the Imperium, after living in the capital for decades, suddenly retrieved one of her life seeds, combined it with a life seed of someone unknown from the Covenant Alliance into a fetus, and launched it into the depths of the universe inside a very advanced automatic starship, as if she wanted the fetus to develop into a healthy baby inside the universe and… escape from the power turbulences of the Imperium to live a free, unrestrained life in somewhere remote?”
Li Linghai’s face was as hollow as before, and she did not give any response.
But the lightning below her feet suddenly turned bright and violent, like ferocious dragons.
Li Lingfeng sniffed. Grabbing his saber tightly, he showed his determination of a desperate fighter again as he shouted, “It seems that Your Grace is neither interested in my story nor willing to answer my questions, right? Fine. I’ll tell the story to the seniors of the Li family or even the experts of other families and ask for their enlightenment!”
Li Linghai’s almost transparent eyes were constricted into the size of needle tips, and she held the lightning dragons below her feet from lunging.
Li Lingfeng laughed and said, “That’s right. I have never wanted to fight you since the beginning. I only want to chat with you and ask you a few questions.
“What exactly happened in the mysterious world fragment a hundred years ago? Did you control the refiner of the Covenant Alliance in order to maintain the starship with him, or did more things that you didn’t care to admit happen?
“Also, is the mysterious world fragment really as barren and unpredictable as you described? Is it possible that many priceless treasures are hidden inside, and it is a rarely-seen relic?
“The oddest of all, if something was really wrong and you were lying, how did you pass the meticulous loyalty tests of the family? Was it because you already received some heritages from the relic a hundred years ago; some techniques that were enough to resist the interrogation of the mind?”
As a bystander, Li Yao more or less had answers about the questions as he eavesdropped.
It seemed that Li Linghai did lie to her family a hundred years ago.
She and Li Yao’s foster father were certainly much more than a victor and a captive. The two of them must’ve grown deep feelings for one another during the half a year’s time.
Otherwise, his foster father wouldn’t have mentioned Li Linghai in his last words or asked Li Yao to come to the Imperium for her if he ran into any trouble.
On the other hand, the world fragment that Li Linghai and his foster father discovered couldn’t have been a forsaken world that was “unattractive” and “barren”.
The reason was simple. Little Black was found in the world fragment by his foster father!
Black Wing’s seal was quite sophisticated itself, and the “liquid magical equipment” form after the seal was broken was also the best medium for human beings to use the Colossi. The enhancement and buffer effects were multiple times better than the neural connection liquids that the federation produced on its own!
Li Yao and the federation’s masters of refining had run detailed analyses on Little Black and speculated that it might be a product of the Star Ocean Imperium ten thousand years ago.
The Star Ocean Imperium was the first magnificent empire of human beings that unified the entire universe in the modern times. The Cultivators of the contemporary sense were born from there!
The civilization was so brilliant and remarkable that it was tantalizing for the Cultivators in a lot of aspects even today!
There was also half of the weird key. Other than Little Black and the last words, Li Yao’s foster father had left him half a weird key. Judging from the style and the material, it was not a product in recent millenniums but very likely a piece of magical equipment from the Star Ocean Imperium too.
His foster father asked him to bring the half key to Li Linghai if he had the opportunity.
Perhaps Li Linghai had the other half of the key?
What could the key open after the two parts of the key were combined?
The mysteries haunted Li Yao, but he was finally able to see the shimmers in the dark night, no longer utterly confused and clueless.
Also, Li Yao made the bold estimation that, even in the worst-case scenario, where Li Linghai had indeed become a cruel and heartless person who cared for neither the relationship with Li Yao’s foster father nor her biological son Li Jialing, she would still be badly in need of the half key in Li Yao’s hands that dated back to the age of the Star Ocean Imperium.
It was now more or less a new leverage for Li Yao to keep himself alive and to play the game with the queen.