Chapter 280：Phoenix

On the day Orr was imprisoned, Lady Assai and Jeram bought a luxurious banquet and opened a bottle of expensive wine to celebrate, as soon as Orr died, all of the Assai family inheritance would belong to them. Old Assai tried his best to defend it, but he couldn't defend against having a moronic son.

But after drinking only half the bottle, they heard the sound of a suspension vehicle docking in the driveway. Because all the robots had been sent back to the factory for maintenance, to prevent another rebellion from occurring, only the mother and son were living in the huge Assai estate. Lady Assai waved, telling her son to go and see who was outside. Jeram folded his napkin and walked up to the door to look outside, but his annoyed expression immediately turned disbelieving. Is that man the polite, gentle and prudent Orr? Has he gone mad? No, shouldn't he be in Kavala? Why is he back?

Outside, a man wearing a military uniform was helping a boy out of the car, then the man pressed him into the front of the car and covered him with frantic kisses, his big hands probing into the boy's clothes, exploring up and down. The boy looked startled for a moment, then he gave a most enthusiastic response, constantly changing the angle of the kisses, unable to settle on a type. His legs were tightly wrapped around the man's waist, repeatedly clamping, his golden peach eyes slightly misty and flushed, like he was about to melt at any second. They were kissing so intensely, but they never closed their eyes, they gazed deeply at each other, as if they couldn't see each other enough, a string of silver escaping from between their attached lips, the picture was very obscene but strangely beautiful.

Jeram felt the air heating up, making his nose and eyes almost burn up. He'd never seen such a passionate and unrestrained Orr. The boy pressed onto the front of the car seemed to feel a little tired, his legs wrapped around Orr's waist loosening slightly. Orr gave a dissatisfied grunt, then hitched the boy's thighs up higher, and impatiently started pulling open his shirt.

When the boy's round white shoulders were exposed to the open air, Orr finally seemed to realize that there was a third person on the scene. He immediately pulled the boy's collar back in place, took off his uniform jacket to wrap him up, then turned to look at the spectator.

Jeram's line of sight briefly touched his face before looking away, unconsciously backing up. Bluntly put, Orr made his heart tremble in fright. The other man's eyes had turned pure black, like a bottomless abyss, and because of his irritation over the interruption, the white part of his eyes were bloodshot, at first glance, he looked inhuman, like an extremely hungry beast whose feeding time was disturbed. Jeram even suspected that the other man was debating whether or not to pounce on him and rip him to shreds.

When Orr started walking closer, the surrounding air gradually grew heavier, until it was impossible to breathe. Is this man really Orr? Jeram was deathly pale, he stammered, "B-big brother, h-how did you come back?"

The man was very busy, even looking at him was a waste of time, let alone replying. He flung the boy over his shoulder and strode into the living room, followed the spiral staircase up to his bedroom, then slammed the door shut. The teenager kicked up a fuss at first, but he conceded after three consecutive spanks, and even raised his head in greeting to the shocked speechless Jeram and Lady Assai as they passed by.

The door was slammed shut, and judging by Orr's already lust warped expression, it'd be a long time before they came back out.

"What the hell's going on? How did he come back?" Lady Assai kicked passed her chair and anxiously ran out into the living room, due to her extreme shock, her usually elegant and gentle voice resembled a screech.

"Joe must've bailed him out. Fuck, I forgot that Joe was interested in him!" Jeram's forehead veins bulged in anger, he paced back and forth in the living room.

"Who's Joe? We had several influential families band together to deal with him, yet he has the ability to protect him? What's his identity?" Lady Assai was astonished to know that Orr still had such a powerful person around him.

"He's the information and cybersecurity expert the military hired, he's the one who made the virus that destroyed the Queen, and now he's responsible for rebuilding a more secure Star Network for the Empire. All the officers say that his authority is comparable to the Marshal. Of course it was easy for him to bail Orr out. Damn it, how did I forget about him?!" Jeram yanked his hair in frustration.

From her son's explanation, Lady Assai became fully aware of what kind of character that handsome young man was. Although humanity just experienced an AI rebellion, advanced science and technology was inseparably integrated into society by this point, they were unable to completely leave the network life. Without the Star Network, schools, governments, hospitals, factories, almost every sector would be paralyzed. So rebuilding a more secure Star Network system, allowing human life to go back to normal, was a top priority.

The boy developed a virus to destroy the Queen, his strength could clearly be understood. His current position was comparable to the original IT father, Dr. Wilson, he not only determined the societal development process, he could influence the supreme ruler's decision making. It was easy for him to save Orr.

Lady Assai exposed an unprecedented apprehensive expression, and ordered her son to quickly notify Kane and the other ally families. They couldn't give Orr a chance to stand back up, otherwise, only God knew what misfortunes would befall them in the future. But before the phone could connect, the sounds of suspension cars pulling up to the house echoed, followed by a series of heavy footsteps.

"Marshal, what brings you here?" Jeram looked carefully at the visitors, and he and his mother quickly came forward to greet them.

"Orr and Joe went upstairs, I'll go call them down for you." Lady Assai gave an elegant smile.

"No, I'll go." The Marshal led the mighty group of people upstairs, but seeing the discarded pieces of clothing littering the aisle, his serious expression gradually turned embarrassed. Finally, when he walked up to the door and saw a pair of briefs hanging on the door handle, he completely gave up on calling them out and turned around, coughing dryly, "Orr and Mr. Zhou seem to be preoccupied, we'll go wait for them downstairs."

The other men exchanged a meaningful glance.

Jeram and Lady Assai invited the group of big-shots into the living room, entertaining the guests while trying to probe out their purpose for coming. But the men were solemn and silent, they seemed to be concerned about something, yet also excited, the atmosphere was very heavy. Gradually, the mother and son lost the courage to keep talking, and waited in apprehension.

Zhou Yun Sheng and his lover frolicked between the sheets until late into the night before stopping for a little rest.

"Why did you insist on returning to the Assai estate?" Zhou Yun Sheng covered his belly with the quilt, lazily half leaning against the headboard, one hand gently stroking his lover's sweat drenched hair. Then he seemed to think of something, and asked in an expectant tone, "My love, do you have a name?"

"I didn't want to see that idiot Orr end up with nothing. Dead, his reputation ruined, and even his inheritance stolen away, his life can't be so much of a failure." The man grabbed the boy's wrist, turning his head to kiss his slender fingers one by one, purring happily, "I love hearing you call me 'my husband' or 'my love', when you call me in that teasing voice, my heart starts to tremble."

Zhou Yun Sheng laughed cheerfully, hugged the man's head and firmly kissed him, then said with finality, "Then I'll continue calling you Zhao Xuan, it complements my name nicely."

Zhao Xuan naturally had no objection. His sweetheart was Chinese, he liked Chinese names, so he naturally liked them too. But he wouldn't tell him, Wilson had actually given him a code name, Little D. It was a foolish name, even more foolish than Orr Assai, and revealing it now would certainly destroy the atmosphere. He hugged his lover, trailing gentle kisses on him, from his eyes to his nose, to his lips, then down to his graceful collarbone, wishing he could use his lips to worship every inch of his body.

Zhou Yun Sheng stopped teasing, his eyes misted, concentrating on the pleasure. He thrust his hands into the other man's hair and lazily opened, "I don't think Orr is a murder, he's the type that's destined to be murdered instead. Did he tell anyone about the memory loss from his coma episodes?" If not, the Black Hand behind the scenes wouldn't have set up this game, no evidence made the crime more difficult to overthrow than Orr himself admitting guilt.

Orr's database was very low-end, Zhao Xuan could read it at a glance. He paused his kisses, and after a cursory glance, he sneered, "Orr that idiot, he confessed everything to Nan Qing."

Zhou Yun Sheng nodded, even more convinced that Orr wasn't a murderer. But Nan Qing's corpse wasn't fake, it even passed the DNA, blood type and other identifying tests. If he was still alive, then where did his corpse come from? A conjecture flashed through his mind. He quickly pushed his lover away and called out 008's 3d control panel, then started searching for related clues on the Star Network.

"Baby, are you suspecting that the dead Nan Qing is his clone?" Zhao Xuan used his spirit to directly invade 008, which allowed him to find relevant information faster than his sweetheart could. Human cloning technology was forbidden in Asaph Galaxy, once it was discovered, the sentence was life imprisonment, and the clones would be destroyed. But there was a biotech company under the Celayan family's name, it was easy for them to secretly manufacture and store a clone.

"Yes." Zhou Yun Sheng nodded, then scoffed, "The Celayan family thinks that they've covered their backs, but they'd never expect that after the Queen developed wisdom and emotions, she started privately collecting the deeply buried secrets of many influential families in order to control humanity. After I took control over her, I transferred out all of these documents. These are all the under the table business dealings of the Celayan family."

"Is it this one?" Zhao Xuan called up a document, it exposed how the biotechnology company cultivated a clone for each member of the Celayan family. If one of their organs failed someday, they could pluck out the corresponding organ from the clone and transplant it. They also cultivated human organs in large quantities, and sold them on the interstellar black market. The Celayan family's wealth reeked of the rotting stench of corpses.

"Perfect, this is the document. With it, we can overthrow the previous evidence and defend you from the point of view of a doubtful crime, then we can slowly wheedle out Nan Qing. The Star Network is currently destroyed, it might not be easy looking for a person in the vast sea of stars, but that doesn't matter, we have plenty of time." Zhou Yun Sheng printed a gentle kiss on his lover's forehead while explaining. The sufferings that Orr endured were actually happening to his lover, how could he not feel upset?

Zhao Xuan felt him obviously cherishing him, and his heart heated up. He kissed him back, and hugged him tightly, hating that they couldn't stay connected forever.

Zhou Yun Sheng placatingly patted his lover's back and asked, "Since you needed time to upgrade, why did you wake up so early? If you'd stayed asleep, I could've had people protect you, then so many dangerous things wouldn't have happened."