The massive Thanatos carrier moved through the pitch-black darkness of space. In the main control room, Xia Fei emerged from the bottom of the control desk and put the universal pliers back into his pocket.
“It’s done. The Estamel cloaking device has been linked to the navigation control system. For the rest of the journey, we can advance while cloaked, saving us a lot of unnecessary trouble.”
The little robot Pod rushed over with a cup of Xia Fei’s favorite biluochun green tea. “Master, you’ve worked hard. Alas, Pod was made to be a servant robot and can’t help you with machinery repair, and the ones who could repair machines turned traitor.”
The mention of the members of his kind that had betrayed mankind made Pod turn sad. Xia Fei patted him on the head. “It’s fine. You’re different from your comrades. Besides, you’re the best servant robot I’ve ever seen. Everyone has their worth, and simply doing their duty is more than enough.”
Pod grew extremely excited from Xia Fei’s praise, hastily saying, “I’ll prepare some of your beloved fried paste noodles, together with some cucumber slices and tomatoes.”
After Xia Fei nodded and said ‘okay’, Pod excitedly rushed into the kitchen and got to work.
Phantom smiled. “That fellow is getting more and more delightful.”
Xia Fei gratefully said, “I know, right? Life is just too easy with him around. I feel like I’ve put on a couple more kilos recently.”
Phantom and Xia Fei laughed together. Xia Fei activated the Estamel cloaking device, and the Thanatos carrier immediately entered stealth, its enormous figure blending into the vastness of space.
“We’ll be entering the Na’vi territory soon. A stealthed jump will avoid a lot of unnecessary trouble. Unfortunately, there are no pirates along the way, so there’s no way to test this capital ship’s fighting power,” Xia Fei somewhat regretfully said.
Phantom heartily laughed. “I knew it. You’re purposely not using the cloaking system so that you can test this warship. Last time, a pirate ship recklessly got close, but upon seeing that it’s a capital ship, all crew abandoned ship on a shuttle, and there’s no need to talk about the sorry figure they cut.”
Xia Fei shrugged. The Wild Star Region was known for its wicked pirates, but in front of Xia Fei’s carrier, even the boldest pirate would be unable to stay calm. After all, this was an authentic capital ship, and it even had a serial code from the Navy.
“Give this ship a name,” Phantom said.
Xia Fei thought about it. “This ship originally belonged to the Alliance Navy, and it was lost in the sea of stars for thousands of years before finally reemerging. Its original owner was the first heroic general, so let’s call it ‘Nirvana’. A hero reborn, the nirvana of a phoenix.”
Phantom raised his hands. “Nirvana,excellent! After experiencing nirvana, a phoenix will become even stronger. Hopefully, Nirvana will be able to be several times stronger under its new master.
“But the Estamel cloaking system has a flaw. When jumping, it will create a unique energy pulse. Previously, the Impaler, a mere cruiser, had its signal detected by the enemies. Won’t the massive Nirvana be even more easily detected?”
Xia Fei smiled. “This flaw is actually quite simple. The Estamel cloaking device’s energy control unit has a kind of throttle. This valve is used to disperse the energy discharge to minimize energy disturbances. This resolves the problem of the energy disturbances produced by the warship, but it will create hashed energy particles around the ship, and a radar’s microwave channel can easily detect such disturbances, making one actually easier to discover.
“By referencing the Titan’s energy unit, I managed to install an energy circuit that can return the energy output to the reactor rather than sending it out into space.”
Phantom was taken aback. “When did you do that? Why didn’t I know?”
Xia Fei casually said, “As long as the principle is understood, one simply needs to apply it. When I was reinstalling the Black Bat radar, I decided to set up the energy return unit. After all, Nirvana is huge and has all the resources and processing equipment.”
Carriers were intended to serve motherly roles for other smaller ships in fleets, repairing and resupplying them. Thus, the ship had all kinds of facilities and storage compartments packed with raw materials. It was essentially a moving city. Alas, this massive city felt very cold and cheerless, inhabited by only one person, one ghost, one grass, one ball, and one robot.
“Yulani’s Avatar Titan blueprints are truly wonderful stuff, giving me quite a lot of inspirations. The Black Bat radar’s complete optimization was also thanks to those,” Xia Fei said.
Things were just like that sometimes. When given only the radar blueprints, Xia Fei could spend ages and not understand the principle, but when he was given the complete set of blueprints, previous problems were easily resolved. After all, radars did not exist all by themselves but were used with many other systems of warships. Once the principle was understood, he could draw on his experience from other fields.
*Beep beep beep…*
Just as he was talking about the Black Bat radar, the radar system began pinging.
With the press of a button, Charlie and Porter appeared on the screen.
“Xia Fei, the designs you sent back this time are pretty good, making the Black Bat radar several times easier to produce and also much safer and more durable. It can be considered as perfected now.”
Charlie excitedly said, “Moreover, the manufacturing costs aren’t even one-fifth of what they were in the past, yet the selling price has doubled. The profits will be simply astonishing.”
Xia Fei smiled. “You guys didn’t call me just for that, did you?”
Charlie nodded. “I was just commenting about it. The real reason is the split of Quantum Holding’s management. One group is heading for Terminus, while another is heading back to Earth. At present, the Earth group has already arrived.”
“How is Earth?” Xia Fei anxiously asked. As his only homeplanet, it would be a lie to say that Xia Fei was not worried about Earth. In truth, Xia Fei was very sentimental about it. The Chinese all had this unwillingness to leave their homeland, and Xia Fei was no different.
“The situation isn’t very good. Although Earth is just an unremarkable little planet, the insectoids still didn’t let it go. Almost all the major cities have been destroyed, and the infrastructure has been gravely damaged.”
“What about the natural environment?” Xia Fei nervously asked.
Buildings could be rebuilt, but if the natural environment became unsuitable for human habitation, this would be an irrecoverable loss. If Mount Tai was gone, would they have to rebuild it again? If Jiuzhai was gone, would they dig out another canyon?
Charlie replied, “The natural environment didn’t suffer too much damage. Earth has little strategic importance, so the insectoids only fired a few shots and flattened the cities before leaving.”
Xia Fei sighed in relief. “Great, great.”
Charlie continued, “But the rebuilding of the infrastructure will take a lot of money. President Wu Long is currently running all over the place to gather funds for the reconstruction effort.”
Xia Fei waved his hand and solemnly said, “We’re people of the Earth, and we can’t forget it, even if it’s the end of the universe. You and Wu Long just need to say the word, and Quantum Holdings will provide all the capital by itself!”
Charlie replied, “Wu Long will definitely be happy to hear that. I’ll inform him right away.”
Xia Fei nodded. “I know that Quantum Holdings’ circumstances aren’t too good, and the substantial devaluation of currency has led to a decrease in profits than expected, but you don’t need to worry. As long as I’m here, Quantum Holdings will never go bankrupt. Not only will we have the money to rebuild Earth, we’ll also take care of the refugees and ensure that the bereaved families are taken care of. Moreover, Earth must be rebuilt to the highest standard. We’ll rebuild it so that it becomes one of the best places in the Alliance to live!”
Charlie stuck out his tongue. “Rebuild according to the Alliance’s highest standards? That would be an enormous expense. Xia Fei, are you sure?”
He stroked his finger across his spatial ring. The things inside the ring were enough to buy several hundred Earths. Rebuilding Earth was just an appetizer.
“Believe me. Money won’t be a problem.”
After they were done discussing company business, Charlie tactfully left, leaving Xia Fei with Porter. Porter awkwardly scratched his head and said, “During this crisis, Windchime and I had to take care of each other, and we got along rather well. Windchime told me thank you for forcibly taking her out of Black Abyss and to my side. Otherwise, she would’ve missed out being with me and would’ve never known how lucky it was to be with me.”
Xia Fei smiled. “I’m naturally happy to know that you two are getting along. As for thanks, that’s not necessary. Back then, I did a bad thing by essentially kidnapping her and bringing her to Earth.”
Once the screen was off, Phantom deeply sighed. “You… managed to handle Old Porter’s love problem rather well, but are you still clueless about your own? Avril is still waiting for you.”
Xia Fei was speechless. Law Adepts lived in a part of space separated from the rest of the universe. Based on his past experience, Xia Fei understood that the more experts that were gathered in one place, the fiercer the competition between them would be. Someone as pure as Avril was not suited for that lifestyle. Moreover, if someone tried to use Avril to threaten him, it would be a huge problem.
On one side was Avril and her sincere love, determined to stay with him, on another side was the unknown world with unknown dangers. Xia Fei was willing to share joy and happiness with Avril but not the dangers.
Love was something that even gods found difficult to decide on. Xia Fei sighed and headed back to his room.
…
The Na’vi lived between the humans and insectoids. Always regarded as weak, they had used this war between the two other races to reap a great harvest. The human refugees had needed to pay quite a significant headcount fee, and the insectoids had also given the Na’vi a few gifts so that they would not join hands with the humans, in addition promising that they would not invade.
“Queen, you have reaped an abundant harvest this time, yes? Not only did you obtain many precious treasures from the Panhuman Alliance, you even seized much of their advanced technology.” In the Na’vi royal palace, a high official at a celebratory banquet called in high spirits.
The feast had gone on for seven days, and what they were celebrating was the large fortune that they had compelled from the Panhuman Alliance.
Queen Danguyan’s eyes were hazy from intoxication. In truth, she had not been particularly clear-minded over the last two months.
She grabbed a male human pet with one hand and pressed him hard into her two fat bulges of flesh, almost suffocating him.
“What a pity that the humans and the insectoids signed a peace treaty. Otherwise, this queen would have been able to acquire even more.” Danguyan reached her hand into the man’s pants and fumbled around before picking a grape and eating it, not even washing her hand.
As one of the few matriarchal races in the universe, female Na’vi were tough and lustful while men had low status, the majority of them consigned to domestic duties like caring for children and doing the laundry. Queen Danguyan was a model of this sort of behavior, and her actions made one blush in shame.
To serve as a pet for this fat woman, who weighed more than two hundred kilograms, was truly a tragic affair. There were frequent news from the harem that some male pets could no longer bear the abuse from the queen and commit suicide, with even several trying to castrate themselves and dying in the process.
Moreover, this woman was fond of human pets, not even glancing at the men of her species. As a matter of fact, many young scions, who had fled to the Na’vi territory to escape the chaos of war, after a few days of threats and promises, had been included into the queen’s harem to serve as her companions.
These young scions normally spent their days in debauchery, and they had long ago emptied themselves out for women. After a few rounds with the queen, they upped and died. Thus, the harem’s death rate kept soaring as of late. This could be considered karma for those who were afraid of death and tried to rely on the charity of others.
“Queen, I think that we should provoke the Panhuman Alliance into getting revenge on the insectoids. After all, the humans suffered a great loss this time, and it’s not that easy for them to just let things go. Moreover, Commander Tai of the humans is a fierce and patient character, waiting until the insectoids grew arrogant from their consecutive victories before dealing them a painful blow, destroying nearly one thousand insectoid combined fleets in one go.
“Now that the military strength of the insectoids and humans is equal again, this is the perfect chance to provoke them into further war!”
The one speaking was not as sturdy as Queen Danguyan, but she had a large and bloody mouth full of crooked yellow teeth, so ugly that one would want to vomit at the sight of her.
In her bosom was a male pet. As he was pulled over, she could not help but nibble on him. It was hard to say how this man managed to resist the stench. Presumably, his fair and white face was a result of suffocation.
In short, the Na’vi royal place was home to all sorts of frighteningly ‘supreme beauties’. It was difficult to find any other place in the universe with such a fine gathering.
Suddenly, the sky became dazzlingly bright, like ten thousand suns had risen!
Waves of heat accompanied the light, and when the light faded, the Na’vi ceased to have a capital planet or even a queen. Thus, the world became a little cleaner.
…
“A pity, a true pity! You used up the last Star of Ruin.” Phantom shook his head at the distant light.
Xia Fei did not care. “They were made to be used. As long as they were used properly, there’s nothing to be sad about. It’s not as if they’re going to lay eggs if I just kept them around.”
Phantom said, “If you’re not happy with the Na’vi bullying Avril, you could just go in and kill their queen. Why waste a Star of Ruin to destroy the planet?”
Xia Fei shook his head. “One, my hatred wouldn’t be resolved with the death of the queen alone; two, this was for other people to see.”
“For whom?”
“The insectoids.”
…
In the imperial capital, Qingyan, who was seated in the Golden Tent, was handling various documents. She found it somewhat difficult to go from a supporting role in the Golden Tent to its master, and over the last half month, she had become much thinner.
At this time, Qingliu happily walked, and Qingyan hurriedly gave up her seat for him.
“Daughter, it feels different sitting in the Golden Tent now, right?”
Qingyan sighed. “I really don’t know how to deal with this. It seems like there are always new documents to handle every day, and those officials are always requesting audience with me whether they need it or not. Moreover, once they sit down, they don’t leave, pulling on me this way and that, those greedy eyes making me uneasy. It annoys me to no end.”
Qingliu laughed. “With Uti’s death, you are now a widow, and once the baby in your womb matures, he will inherit the throne. Any man who catches your eyes will become the father of the king! The stepfather of the king of the Golden Tent! It’d be far stranger if those nobles and big officials didn’t attempt to get you. I even heard that many married officials have recently had their wives killed in secret, presumably so that they could be widowed and be available for you.
“Power is a good thing. They’ll go to any lengths to get their hands on it.”
Qingyan exploded in fury, her slender hand slamming on the table. “So that’s what’s going on! Those scoundrels are willing to kill their wives to get with another woman, and one day, Little Yan may be the one with her head off her shoulders! These accursed scoundrels, I’ll definitely have the guards investigate them and have them all executed!”
Qingliu waved his hand. “My dear Yan, the more obsessed those fellows are with you, the more it benefits us.”
Qingyan frowned and asked, “Father, what do you mean?”
Qingliu stroked his beard. “They’re so set on pursuing you that they’ll probably do everything in their power to get in your good graces. If you order them to do something, they’ll definitely do everything in their power to complete it. It was dangerous getting you into the Golden Tent. If not for that dream and Uti’s child in your womb, it would’ve been very difficult to accomplish. What we need is a sturdy foundation. Unless it’s absolutely necessary, we shouldn’t become enemies with them, at least not right now.”
Qingliu intentionally spoke in a serious tone to remind Qingyan that the child in her womb was not really Uti’s child and that this struggle for power was extremely dangerous.
Qingyan was speechless. In her haste, she had had a child with a lowly servant, and before they had had a chance to share much affection with each other, the servant had been killed to silence witnesses.
Now that she thought about it, her life was truly rather sad. When she was young, for the sake of revenge, she was willing to sacrifice herself to be at Uti’s side. At the time, she did not understand the concept of love that much, so she had not cared. She was now in her thirties, but her lustrous body had yet to be touched by a real man. After entering the Golden Tent, she had been eyed by countless people, so she had had even less of a chance.
The greedier and lustful eyes there were, the more Qingyan recalled how Xia Fei had driven her out of his room, and she sorrowfully sighed.
“Recently, the pro-war faction has been calling for war with the Panhuman Alliance again. If we continue to refuse them, they may attempt a coup,” Qingyan said.
Qingliu’s face paled as he tensely said, “Absolutely not! Did you know? A few days ago, the capital planet of Na’vi was destroyed, and the queen and many nobles and officials were destroyed along with it!”
Qingyan nodded. “I heard about that. It seems very similar to that superbomb that Xia Fei used before. Are you saying that he did it?”
“It must be! The Na’vi are backstabbers and extorted a lot of wealth from the Panhuman Alliance. Given Xia Fei’s temper, he wouldn’t easily let the matter go.”
“Didn’t he say that he no longer has any more of those superbombs?” Qingyan asked.
“Xia Fei is too crafty. You absolutely can’t trust him! If he says he doesn’t have it, he definitely does! Given the time that has passed, if he didn’t head straight back to the Panhuman Alliance but detoured to the Na’vi territory, instead, he should arrive there at exactly that time. I couldn’t be wrong. That’s definitely his work! Plus, he’s secretly warning us that, if he can destroy the Na’vi capital planet, he can destroy the insectoid imperial capital—destroy us!”
The expression on Qingyan’s face shifted again and again. For some reason, she felt both fear and admiration toward Xia Fei, believing that the handsome man was the true match for her.
Alas, the falling flowers yearned for love, but the heartless brook flowed on. What did it matter how beautiful, alluring, or flirtatious she was? When a woman lost her purity and kindness, she also lost her soul. Xia Fei had already cast Qingyan to the back of his mind while onboard Nirvana, crossing the sea of stars to make his way to Avril.
