Chapter 22
“This… should we report it?”
Seeing that this group of pirates seemed different from other pirates, everyone looked at one another, not knowing what to do.
“Report it. Why wouldn’t we report it? We can’t refuse to warn others just because they didn’t hurt anyone. We might have been an accident, but is the passenger who escaped not also a life?”
The captain stood up, his expression solemn, and immediately began reporting it.
The leader who had left in the spaceship remembered the important point only a few minutes later. They had treated themselves like soldiers. They had not taken hostages, and they had not even demanded protection fees.
“Turn around.”
His subordinate was puzzled. “Huh?”
The leader slapped the person beside him on the head. “Idiot. We acted too differently. People will think we’re soldiers.”
The subordinate covered his head. “But we are soldiers…”
The leader slapped him again and angrily scolded, “Right now, we’re pirates.”
Everyone suddenly understood and finally realized what was wrong.
By the time they rushed back and chased forward for a while, they discovered that the civilian spaceship had not continued sailing forward. Instead, it had chosen to turn back.
“Fuck. Stop them!”
They had just chased after it when they discovered that troops from the border planet were already approaching this side. Judging from the emblem, they were even the marshal’s people.
“What do we do, boss?”
The subordinates panicked. They had not expected Su Yunshan to send people over. Could there have been a mistake from the higher-ups that led to their tracks being exposed?
“What else can we do? Retreat!”
The leader also did not dare face Su Yunshan’s people head-on. He could only grit his teeth and lead his men away.
As for the people on the civilian spaceship, they all wore expressions of having survived a disaster. Afterward, they told the military about Leng Zhuoyan entering an escape pod.
When the officer heard that an escape pod had been activated, his expression changed slightly, but he quickly said, “We understand. We will send people to search. There’s no need to worry.”
“That’s good. I only hope she can hold on.”
The captain also understood that the group of pirates had hijacked them because of Leng Zhuoyan, but human life was even more important.
Su Cha, who was lying inside a nutrition pod and had fallen into sleep, suddenly felt a suffocating pain in her heart. Then she opened her eyes, only feeling a wave of dizziness. Her whole body seemed to have been dragged into some whirlpool, and bursts of darkness appeared before her eyes.
She closed her eyes again, forcefully enduring the urge to vomit. She quietly waited for half an hour. The feeling of dizziness grew lighter and lighter, and when it finally stopped completely, she opened the nutrition pod and climbed out in a miserable state.
“Ugh—”
Aside from her, everyone else in the cockpit had yet to wake up.
She ran over to check the universe sector they were in. After confirming that their group was already on the road toward the Imperial Capital Planet, she finally relaxed.
Good. They had not deviated from their position.
The sensation just now should have been the nausea caused when passing through folded space. As long as she could endure it, it was fine.
Suddenly, a white cylinder drifted over from the originally empty space in front of them.
“Mm?”
What was that?
Su Cha leaned close to the screen, wanting to see clearly what it was. Then the nutrition pod behind her opened again. Bian climbed out from inside skillfully. When she saw Su Cha, she froze for a moment, not expecting Su Cha to wake up before her without any training and solely by relying on her powerful mental power.
“You’re awake.”
Su Cha turned back and waved at her. “Come look at this. What is it?”
Bian leaned over and recognized it at first glance. This was actually a civilian escape pod.
“This is an escape pod. Usually, it only activates during emergencies. Let’s bring it in and see if there’s anyone inside.”
Su Cha said, “Okay.”
Bian said, “Activate capture and docking mode.”
[Activating.]
[Target approaching—]
[Target captured.]
[Capture successful. Docking complete. Please proceed to the rear cabin for inspection.]
Bian brought the curious Su Cha to the rear cabin. Looking at the escape pod before them, which was one and a half people tall, Su Cha reached out and touched it. Then, after Bian touched some unknown spot, the escape pod’s cover suddenly opened.
An empty escape pod appeared before them. Su Cha let out a breath of relief, but Bian furrowed her brows tightly.
“This isn’t right.”
Su Cha tilted her head. “What’s wrong?”
“Normally, an escape pod only launches when an emergency happens and the spaceship must be abandoned. At a time like that, escape pods absolutely wouldn’t be empty. An empty escape pod proves that before the spaceship crashed, it may have automatically launched all its escape pods to ensure the safety of the people inside.”
“And now that this escape pod is empty, it’s very possible that the others aren’t in this direction.”
After Bian explained it, Su Cha also understood the seriousness of the situation. “Then what do we do? Should we go look for them?”
Since it involved lives, Bian hesitated.
Thinking of Su Cha and Modesty’s identities, and then thinking of the meaning behind the different spaceship the young master had specially sent over, she bit her lower lip and shook her head. “At a time like this, going over won’t help. It may even expose our tracks.”
“You are the newest planet lord. If someone discovers that you entered the Imperial Capital Planet’s star region without applying, you may be forcibly fined.”
“Besides, saving people is naturally the military’s job. I’ll tell Young Master later and have him inform Eldest Young Master. There are too few of us, and we have too few supplies. We won’t be of much help. If the spaceship runs out of energy then, we’d have to trouble the military instead.”
Before they left, Eldest Young Master had instructed that no matter what happened, Su Cha’s safety had to come first. They absolutely could not put themselves in danger.
Su Cha also knew she could not force it. Fishing people out of the universe was practically harder than finding a needle in a haystack.
“Then all right. If we run into any more on the way, we’ll help in passing. If we don’t run into them, then forget it.”
The group continued forward. Unexpectedly, halfway along the original route, they were blocked by a belt of drifting rocks. With no other choice, Jinfeng manually piloted the spaceship around it.
After traveling several light-years, another escape pod actually appeared ahead.
Jinfeng immediately captured it and brought it in. Everyone rushed over and opened it. Wasn’t the person lying inside Leng Zhuoyan, whom they had not seen all this time?
“Leng Zhuoyan?”
Su Cha’s breathing grew somewhat rapid. She was afraid this person would die just like this. If that happened, how would she explain it to the other party’s parents? After all, it was because Su Cha had assigned her a task that something had happened to her.
“Leng Zhuoyan, wake up.”
Su Cha could not control herself and reached out to lightly slap Leng Zhuoyan’s face a few times. Seeing Leng Zhuoyan’s eyes tightly shut but her breathing steady, everyone felt anxious.
“Cough, cough…”
“Stop hitting…”
Leng Zhuoyan coughed heavily twice, opened her eyes, and stopped Su Cha from continuing.
Su Cha guiltily withdrew her hand, but soon asked, “Right, weren’t you looking for learning materials? How did you end up in a civilian escape pod?”
Thinking of why she had entered the escape pod, Leng Zhuoyan covered her chest and gritted her teeth. “The Qu family.”
“The Qu family?”
Qu Yanting?
Su Cha helped Leng Zhuoyan sit up on the ground and asked with concern, “What happened with her family?”
Leng Zhuoyan looked at her, then looked at Bian and the others, and did not speak.
Bian knew that she and Jinfeng were outsiders, so she took the initiative to give up the rear cabin. “You talk first. Jinfeng and I will go to the cockpit and see whether anyone is following us.”
Su Cha nodded. “Thanks for the trouble.”
Now, only Su Cha, Leng Zhuoyan, and Modesty were left here. Modesty was from Water Blue Planet, so it did not matter if she knew. In any case, they were grasshoppers tied to the same rope, and none of them could run.
Leng Zhuoyan’s face was heavy. “The Qu family is definitely conducting human genetic experiments that the interstellar world does not allow to be researched privately.”
“Human genetic experiments?”
Leng Zhuoyan’s words did not make Su Cha say anything. Instead, Modesty, standing at the side, was the first to speak.
Su Cha looked over. “What, you know about this?”
Modesty’s expression was complicated. “I wouldn’t say I understand it especially well, but I’ve heard of it.”
Su Cha patted the floor beside her. “Oh? Tell us.”
Modesty did not sit beside her. Instead, she sat opposite her, her gaze heavy as she said, “Genetic experiments are an extremely evil kind of experiment. They can use a person’s genes to create a batch of unconscious gene-modified people. As long as their emotional systems are cut off, they become perfect war machines.”
“They have no emotions and don’t understand restraint. They’re like the Zerg, and even more terrifying than the Zerg, because they possess higher intelligence than the Zerg.”
Su Cha furrowed her brows tightly. “Something like the living dead?”
Modesty shook her head. “Not exactly the living dead, because they can die.”
“The lifespans of these gene-modified people are shorter than ordinary people’s. They basically only live half as long as us. That’s why this kind of experiment is extremely cruel.”
Leng Zhuoyan looked at her suspiciously and asked, “How do you know so much about genetically modified people?”
This was confidential even in the empire. Very few people should know about it.
In this life, she had not yet seen gene-modified people. Only in her previous life had she seen gene-modified people being captured, causing an uproar throughout the empire and making everyone feel endangered.
Modesty pressed her lips tightly together and remained silent for a long time.
After a long while, she asked in a hoarse voice, “Can I trust you?”
Su Cha nodded seriously. “You can.”
“I am your planet lord. As long as your secret is not aimed at Water Blue Planet, then I am on your side.”
“Because…”
Looking at Su Cha’s encouraging yet solemn gaze, Modesty still could not say it.
Su Cha and Leng Zhuoyan waited quietly without urging her.
Modesty’s heart struggled fiercely, but in the end, she still said it.
“…Monica is a gene-modified person.”
Monica was an omega created through genetic modification. But because she had only one side’s genes and was similar to a clone, she also had a genetic disease. Her blind eye was proof.
Her genes were not especially good, but she was still the descendant of an S-rank alpha. Unfortunately, clones could not replicate mental power or gender. Among dozens of rare omegas, she was the one with the highest rank.
Originally, she should have been taken to carry out missions, or sent to a high-rank alpha as a gift.
But in order to experiment on whether an omega whose emotions had not been cut off would develop feelings for a previous omega or alpha with a high compatibility match, she was kept behind.
Monica had her own emotions. Even without the original body’s memories, she could subconsciously tell that something terrifying was happening. So she pretended to obey, then escaped.
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