DS Extra 20

Reunion When the New Bell Chimes (2)

That same night, inside the White Jade Palace.

At three in the morning, Lin Ge emerged from her room hunched over, sporting severe dark circles under her eyes.

This woman who commanded the entire empire now had vacant eyes and disheveled black hair—

Although she had never particularly cared about maintaining the dignified image befitting an emperor, the fact that she had managed to make herself look like a drug-addled ghost clearly meant something extraordinary had happened.

The cause of all this was a photograph she had obtained two days ago.

Lin Ge had long ago begun to sense that something was off with Ryann. Like before, when they had been in the middle of a perfectly fine meeting and the Crown Prince had received a communication and bolted out, refusing to come back no matter how much she called after him.

That anxious expression, flames of agitation barely contained, had instantly made her hallucinate visions of a past she shouldn’t be hallucinating about.

Later on, Ryann’s behavior of sneaking out whenever he found an opportunity escalated further, and the frequency of his daydreaming and emotional fluctuations during the day also increased.

Old Marshal Chen would come complain to her every few days, first putting on a bitter face saying things like “the child’s grown up and his heart’s gone wild, he’s hard to manage now,” then immediately adopting that old fox expression of his and asking, “Does the Little Highness have someone he cares about out there?”

With suspicion gnawing at her, Lin Ge decided to quietly investigate.

Actually, when it came to this little base body, Lin Ge had never really supervised him much over all these years. Add to that her own unconventional personality, and Ryann hadn’t been on guard against the emperor specifically monitoring his social relationships.

In any case, the accumulation of various factors meant that Lin Ge still managed to obtain “evidence” one step ahead of Ryann’s planned confession.

—Two nights ago, Lin Ge had clutched her wrist device with trembling hands, and the semi-transparent photograph projected from the device also swayed and shook.

The photo was very blurry, like one of those celebrity shots taken by paparazzi.

There was no helping it—the heir was someone who had undergone military training, with strong counter-surveillance awareness. He could easily obtain the highest-grade concealment devices, making it extremely difficult to track his movements. Being able to get even this one highly pixelated photo was already no easy feat.

But it was enough.

Although he was wearing a concealment device, Lin Ge still recognized at a glance that the slightly taller one of the young couple embracing and kissing on a bench in the winter snow was her dear bastard’s nominal non-biological son.

The other person’s face was unclear; she could only vaguely determine it was a slender black-haired youth. A clean wrist was visible at the edge of his sleeve—a disabled human.

What it meant to be thunderstruck, what it meant for one’s vision to go dark—Lin Ge had finally experienced it.

A moment later, the emperor, dressed in her nightgown, opened the interstellar communication device with a pale, ashen face.

This was a major crisis, beyond the scope of what she could handle.

Outside assistance—she needed outside assistance!

And so, she placed a call to the Omega Alien Star, to the leader of the Black Shark Base.

But as the saying goes, when fortune abandons you, even drinking cold water gets stuck in your teeth. What greeted the emperor wasn’t Sylph, but the sweet voice of an artificial intelligence:

“Hello, the base is currently in a busy state and your call cannot be connected at this time. Please leave your message after the ‘beep—‘ tone. Beep—“

“……”

Lin Ge tragically raised her leg and kicked the table twice with loud bangs, cursing out a string of profanities like a fish blowing bubbles.

The artificial intelligence’s voice remained polite. “Your message has been received. Thank you for your call.”

The next day, Lin Ge called again.

The result was no different from the first day.

“Hello, the base is currently in a busy state and your call cannot be connected at this time. Please leave your message after the ‘beep—‘ tone. Beep—“

“Sylph.” Lin Ge spoke in a grave tone. “Kaios seems to have fallen in love.”

“Your message has been received. Thank you for your call.”

“……”

And now, at three in the morning on New Year’s Day. The female emperor, unable to sleep all night, once again dialed that number with trembling fingers.

“Hello, the base is currently in a busy state and your call cannot be connected at this time. Please leave your message after the ‘beep—‘ tone. Beep—“

“…………”

Lin Ge finally broke down.

“&\*(#!%……!!”

She thrust both hands into her messy hair, letting out wailing cries in the dead of night. “Sylph! Sylph, you damned girl, why aren’t you there at a time like this!!”

“Working overtime, what bloody overtime, is working overtime really that important? What normal person works overtime at three in the morning on New Year’s Day!!”

“I just don’t understand—working overtime every single holiday, hasn’t anyone at Black Shark Base with a backbone stood up to report you!?”

“The damn little brat has fallen in damn love, what the hell am I supposed to do, can you please do something about it—”

The female emperor pounded on the table and cursed viciously, her anguished expression suggesting she wished she could shoot tears from her prosthetic eye as well. This barrage of venting continued for quite a while before finally subsiding.

And the artificial intelligence’s voice arrived right on schedule, still sweet and elegant:

“Your message has been received. Thank you for your call.”

Lin Ge collapsed face-first onto the table, her face deathly pale.

She really hadn’t anticipated this development.

After all, over these ten-plus years, Ryann had maintained his image as an aloof and iron-blooded young heir, focusing his attention on his studies, state affairs, and the far interstellar battlefield, always distant in his interpersonal relationships and too lazy to bother with anyone.

How could such a person have rapidly progressed to the stage of being in a relationship?

And what about Aslan? When Kaios’s original memories and base body memories merged, how would he face this?

Moreover, setting all that aside, according to the original plan, in a few more years this little base body would be thrown into the crystal particle battlefield as well. How could he be in a relationship? Wouldn’t that just be harming the other person?

It was just that because Ryann was still young and his mind not yet mature, she hadn’t had time to reveal the truth about the crystal particles… The more Lin Ge thought about it, the more her teeth itched with frustration: You, you, you—you’re just a teenage brat, why couldn’t you learn something else? Why early romance! What, trying to have some youth campus romance?

Well, admittedly, in his previous life Kaios had also not been very old when he had declared his love to Aslan… But that was Aslan, the Marshal!

Lin Ge self-righteously thought: Isn’t it normal for someone like Aslan to make people fall in love with him!?

But this surge of righteousness quickly deflated.

Lin Ge slumped listlessly on the table, pulling out that “paparazzi photo” again, staring at it in a daze.

What was she supposed to do about this?

Those two people, especially Kaios, had entrusted their affairs to her before going to their deaths. Now it had turned into this…

But avoidance was useless.

Lin Ge took a deep breath, rubbed her temples, and thought darkly: She wouldn’t wait for Sylph anymore. After this New Year, she would go find Ryann and get to the bottom of this.

She wanted to see just which family’s little seductive fox brat it was, what his surname and name were, who actually had the ability to steal away the founding Great Emperor’s heart!

****

On New Year’s Day, it was still snowing.

In the rustling fine snow, a rental aircraft stopped on the main road outside the White Jade Palace.

The aircraft door opened, and the “little seductive fox brat” surnamed Jiang and given name Jianming stepped out. He first swiped his coin points to park the aircraft at the corner of the street, then looked up and exhaled a breath, raising his eyebrows to gaze at the towering palace.

Having been in Aslan for so long, this was still the first time he had observed this palace at such close range. It was now seven-thirty in the evening, and the layered buildings seemed to pierce through the sky, connecting with the river of stars.

The flow of people around him came and went, mostly tourists, with the clicking sounds of photos constantly ringing out. Jiang Jianming stood quietly off to the side alone, out of place with the lively atmosphere.

He hadn’t deliberately made any special preparations.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t considered it—on the contrary, he had pondered it seriously for a long time during the day, including whether he should spend tens of thousands or even over a hundred thousand coin points to get a more high-end outfit to meet people in.

But then he reconsidered: in the eyes of nobles and royalty, what did a formal outfit worth over a hundred thousand amount to anyway? His background and race were what they were—if there were people who looked down on him, even if he wore a several-hundred-thousand formal outfit, they would still mock him as pretending to be what he wasn’t.

And those willing to respect him would, even if their statuses were as different as heaven and earth, solemnly hold his hand and say, “With me here, no one dares to bully you.”

Thinking this way, Jiang Jianming felt relieved and abandoned the option of hemorrhaging his wallet.

He just tidied himself up a bit—clean and presentable would do.

He used the money he saved to buy a science fiction novel he really liked, a classic paper edition, as a New Year’s gift for Ryann.

His wrist device vibrated, interrupting Jiang Jianming’s thoughts.

He immediately put on his earpiece and answered. A familiar voice came from the other end. “Jiang.”

Ryann: “I see you. Why did you arrive so early?”

…Isn’t it because I knew you would definitely come early to wait?

Jiang Jianming grumbled to himself, checking the time as he did so. Sure enough, it was half an hour before their agreed meeting time. This person was always like this.

“I miscalculated the travel time. I thought there would be aircraft traffic on New Year’s Day.”

Jiang Jianming casually deflected, his gaze searching through the crowd. “Where is Your Highness?”

“There are too many tourists over there, it’s inconvenient for me to come over. Turn around, turn left into the small path, there’s a black car.”

Jiang Jianming followed his instructions and walked past the crowd, soon spotting a small door. Ryann must have already given instructions—the two guards saluted him and respectfully opened the door marked “Tourists Stop.”

“Thank you.” Jiang Jianming nodded in acknowledgment, checked that no one was around, and quickly slipped through like a spy.

Once in the small path, the surroundings immediately became quiet. Turning another corner, sure enough there was a car parked there.

Jiang Jianming had barely quickened his pace when the driver’s side door opened. A figure bent down to exit the car, looking toward him—

Instantly, it was like a blinding flash of light before Jiang Jianming’s eyes.

Ryann was actually wearing an entire set of retro, luxurious court-style formal wear, with large areas of embroidered patterns boldly spread across his chest, exquisite and opulent to the extreme. His naturally curled platinum-blond hair seemed to have been given another layer of styling, elegantly arranged and tied behind his head.

That alone would have been enough, but he was also cradling a bouquet of golden roses in his arms—at a glance, there were no fewer than twenty or thirty stems!

The youth’s expression was eager and sincere. Holding the flowers, he strode quickly through the snowy path, with the palace lights behind him painting a halo around his silhouette. He looked like he had walked straight out of some romantic movie set.

Jiang Jianming was dumbstruck.

He couldn’t believe his eyes, thinking: Why did you dress up so luxuriously and dazzlingly? Just who is going to meet whose parents here!?

“Little Highness, you’re putting a lot of pressure on me like this…”

Jiang Jianming even took a step back, saying in a trembling voice, “Perfume? Don’t you usually not like wearing it? Wait, did you also put on makeup!? You…”

Ryann covered the distance in a few quick strides and grasped the arm of Jiang Jianming, who was trying to retreat. “Just a little, it’s required for palace banquets.”

As he spoke, he handed over the bouquet from his arms. The golden roses were delicate and fresh, each petal without the slightest flaw.

“I didn’t expect you to arrive early. I originally wanted to pick ninety-nine stems.” Ryann said seriously. “I heard that lovers should give ninety-nine roses to each other, meaning everlasting love. I’m still quite short, but after I bring you inside, I’ll continue…”

—Isn’t that not quite appropriate, can you just randomly pick the palace roses like that!? And seriously, where did this kid learn these strange dating strategies!

Jiang Jianming was still in disarray when he saw Ryann’s right hand move, as if about to stuff the entire bouquet into his arms.

But then the motion paused.

Right, Ryann frowned and thought darkly—he was naturally born with the instinctive defense of high-grade crystal bones, so picking a hundred or a thousand roses wouldn’t injure him.

But Jiang was different. Freshly picked rose stems still had thorns that might pierce the soft skin of a disabled human.

Ryann clicked his tongue softly in frustration and raised his hand to pull off his hair tie.

His waterfall of platinum-blond curls immediately cascaded down, tumbling onto the youth’s shoulders.

But Ryann paid it no mind. With lowered eyes, he swiftly tied the deep green ribbon—with emerald stones and golden tassels hanging from its ends—around the rose stems, like a bouquet binding ribbon.

After completing this, he finally looked up again, his gaze meeting Jiang Jianming’s stunned eyes.

“Jiang, Happy New Year.”

Ryann carefully placed the golden roses in Jiang Jianming’s hands, swept aside his lover’s black hair, and pressed a light kiss to his forehead. “…I love you.”