CH 116

“Starship…” Xu Zhiheng repeated.

It was true that when everyone regrouped, He YunTing had simply said, ‘Central City is cleared, no survivors,’ and the miserable state of the other cities had convinced everyone to believe the General’s words. No one could imagine what was in the lower deck of a starship that could hold tens of thousands of people under a mecha formation.

Lin Han threw He YunTing a bottle of hemostatic medicine from the mecha, and waited patiently for Xu Zhiheng to react slowly.

“No way.” After the other side calmed down again, there was a hint of confidence in his voice, “Not to mention Central City, Xi Yuan just arrived at V Proton’s berth but didn’t last long. How long has it been since he first returned from V Proton, how could Central City not be affected at all?”

Lin Han didn’t answer, but still curved the corners of his mouth, quietly looking at Xu Zhiheng.

His tone still seemed to carry extreme confidence, “Mr. Lin’s joke is really uninteresting.”

He YunTing took the hemostatic medicine, simply treated the bleeding wound, and said indifferently, “I knew it a long time ago.”

He really didn’t think of Xu Zhiheng in that way at first.

When he was in the border area, Lin Han said that he used to go to Xu Zhiheng’s lectures, which made him pay more attention to Xu Zhiheng subconsciously. When the two finally returned from the border area, Qi JiaMu, who begged He YunTing to save his brother, soon made him think of Xu Zhiheng as well.

Even more coincidentally, Professor Xu, who was rumored to dislike socializing, took the initiative to greet them on their return day and even shook hands with Lin Han.

He YunTing simply asked Lu AnHe to protect him.

The change naturally began on the day Lu AnHe briefly lost contact.

At that time, Xu Zhiheng had a very routine lecture, but there was an accident.

It didn’t matter how the process went, but in any case the result Xu Zhiheng presented to everyone later was obvious — as someone directly related to Burning Blood, Xi Yuan was pushed to the stage, and the presence of radical Luo Qi’s people in the lecture naturally made it easy to connect the two together. He, in turn, could remove himself completely, leaving a perfect and positive image to present before He YunTing.

“The problem was that the first time I went to V Proton, I was in my susceptible period where I was physically repulsed by my own kind — including you, Professor Xu, who were traveling with me at the time. I wondered at the time if it could have been caused by my own wariness of you,” He YunTing stopped looking at Xu Zhiheng, “and later found out that it was either that or the rejection of pheromone. The obvious disgust and rejection of an ‘Omega,'” He YunTing said, “I originally thought it was a matter of my impression of you. I later delved a little deeper myself and accidentally learned something different.”

Xu Zhiheng didn’t expect to be noticed on such a matter, but didn’t feel it was a reason to bring down the other party, “If General had found out long ago that I wasn’t an Omega, he obviously could have revealed me then.”

“I wanted to know your reasoning for doing so.” He YunTing said coldly, “So I didn’t fully believe everything you did and said after that, sorry.” He apologized with little sincerity, “But I really thought for a moment at that time that you could have saved V Proton.”

Xu Zhiheng had an odd smile on his face, “I wanted to hear what was on your mind at that time, but I never found the opportunity to touch you.”

At that time, He YunTing had already secretly told Chang Lin, the leader of V Proton, that no matter what, no matter whether this crisis could be truly overcome, he shouldn’t easily open the doors of Central City and unsuspectingly accept his fellow countrymen who seemed to have “recovered”. Chang Lin trusted He YunTing unconditionally and didn’t reveal anything about it to the public while continuing to close down Center City.

He still loved his people, but he also understood the trade-offs when it mattered.

It was better to leave the last city behind than to lose an entire planet. It didn’t take long for the worrying thing to happen.

The infected aliens resurfaced in cities other than Central City, which hadn’t been opened to the public since the formation left the first time, and none of the previous aliens had ever entered Central City, and the supply system, which was different from the other cities, allowed the city to last as the last hope of V Proton Star, until He YunTing’s second arrival.

“So Professor Xu still doesn’t believe it.” Lin Han said, “You don’t want to have nothing left of the V Proton Star either.”

The other side snorted, “It’s just a failed experiment planet, what do I care?”

“But that was indeed unplanned by you. Otherwise you wouldn’t have let Xi Yuan leave Wen TianYao’s side and come over to investigate the situation himself.”

“General is really something, he can guess everything.” Xu Zhiheng simply didn’t deny it, “V Proton was just a bargaining chip for me to communicate with the Queen Zerg. I promised them that if I could transform the Beta of the V Proton Star to Burning Blood, I would contact the mother insects to join forces and attack. How could I have expected those Beta to be so useless? Totally unusable failures.”

Speaking of this, Xu Zhiheng frowned in dissatisfaction.

“Of course I still want to try to improve it.” Xu Zhiheng remembered the teenager with the cake and thinking of something, “That kid just seemed to be obedient and a good kid. I think I would’ve been able to cure him. It was also true that I wanted to give it a try at that time despite the order. I couldn’t guarantee the effect of the antigen, but I also didn’t imagine that it would fail so quickly.” Xu Zhiheng gave a tsk, “It’s not my fault that the Queen had to attack.”

He himself raised a group of larvae that only obeyed his orders as well as the Burning Blood Omega over the years, “My experiment hadn’t been fully successful yet, and my children have not yet grown up. But the Queen, seeing the situation on V Proton, was really stupid o think that an entire planet being infected was a sign of success — they wouldn’t listen to my advice and had to launch an immediate attack. I can’t just tell them that this group of Beta are just useless losers, so why don’t I just play the game?” Xu Zhiheng smiled, “I told the Queen that V Proton didn’t fail, those Beta were successful, but they were all killed by you, General. “

“Guess if they will rise up to attack because their kind was killed?” Xu Zhiheng’s face resurfaced with a kind of frenzied excitement, “A creature as impulsive as a Zerg, after hearing this, it makes sense that the Queen would personally appear at the fortress. I knew that the Queen would definitely come, and I also knew that the Eye of the Star River would definitely be activated, and I understand even more that a talent like you, General, would definitely be able to hold the fortress. Mind reading is too good, Lu Huai’s General father happens to be an old acquaintance of my friend, so it was easy to reach General Lu through him, and it wasn’t hard to guess that there was a leap point here. I might as well just wait for you here.” Xu Zhiheng finished all this with a smile back on his face, “But General you’re really smart, we can still have a good chat.”

He YunTing only seemed to find him ridiculous, his finger re-pulled the trigger and shot at Xu Zhiheng’s eyebrow.

But just as the bullet left the barrel of the gun, several people saw a blur before their eyes, and the Omega kept by Xu Zhiheng’s side rushed to him at the absolute limit of speed, and blocked the bullet for him.

“Look, these are such good kids.” Xu Zhiheng said unhurriedly, “Without the recklessness and clumsiness of the Zerg, and without the ridiculous and despicable variety of human minds. If we join forces, the Queen would have disappeared by now, the larvae are still within my control, and I know that Wen Zhao has given you supreme military power. It is simply easier to resist. Give it a try, General. we should open up a wider sky.”

Xu Zhiheng finished, finally smiling and looking up at He YunTing. His tone and eyes were all sincere, he really felt that his suggestion was worth taking, and believed that He YunTing would seriously consider it and come to his side.

Unfortunately, He YunTing just looked at him coldly.

Xu Zhiheng began to show a trace of genuine doubt, which wasn’t the same as what he thought. Even if He YunTing knew about his abilities and what he had done, they should still be able to work together. He didn’t know when his way of thinking had changed, and he couldn’t even gain insight into how his thinking had changed.

Gradually, the smile at the corner of Xu Zhiheng’s mouth disappeared. Without the need of mind reading, he knew that the meeting, negotiation and temptation he had been looking forward to for a long time was lightly written off as a rejection.

“It seems that Professor Xu is still too confident.” Lin Han finally felt that he didn’t need to talk too much with someone like him, “Do you still remember when you just returned from V Proton, the starship didn’t return on its regular route?” He threw something at Xu Zhiheng, a small video communicator, “You can take a look and see what those Betas you thought had become a shovelful of dust are doing now.”

Xu Zhiheng knew this thing, he was using this to communicate with Xi Yuan.

Through the modest light screen, he saw the people of Central City integrating into the civilian areas in batches, even though the living environment wasn’t quite the same as before, even though they had no glands on their bodies and no pheromone, everyone was living in earnest, trying to find meaning in their existence through themselves, rather than being set for life and death by a tube of serum.

He could pretend that the two men had lied to him about the previous inferences, but the fresh life and images couldn’t.

“Everyone’s doing well now, and Chang Lin is temporarily in the base.” Lin Han’s voice was relaxed, “Professor Xu, do you want to cooperate now?”

There was a palpable pity in his eyes.

This look seemed to have touched a corner of Xu Zhiheng’s heart where the light didn’t shine, the calmness of the other side’s face fell apart, he grabbed the curled up larvae at his feet and threw them to the ground, “Wonderful, really wonderful.”

He couldn’t accept his sudden defeat, moreover he couldn’t accept that he had been tricked by the other side at such an early time. He still couldn’t completely understand.

He knew that He YunTing wasn’t easy to approach, and even hitched his reputation to help him explain when the other was misunderstood by the public in order to gain goodwill. Originally he didn’t expect this General to cooperate with him immediately, but at least to gain a little trust, but he didn’t expect… 

Xu Zhiheng gritted his teeth reluctantly, “Then why did you still speak for me at that time?”

“Courtesy.”

Xu Zhiheng thought of something, “Then the information that discredited me…?”

“It was also me. The effect would be better if you look for small newspapers first and then official media.”

“But you also asked Qi JiaMu to protect me at that time, and there was nothing wrong with his inner thoughts.”

“That matter wasn’t even known to Lu AnHe.” Probably his current expression was too impressive, so He YunTing had the rare patience to explain, “The less people know, the more real it looks.”

“So…”

“It wasn’t His Majesty who took the initiative to summon you, either. It was me who proposed to him, and that’s why I brought you along to the side hall.”

Only then did Xu Zhiheng realize that he had been fooled for so long, and his nameless anger surged up, “He YunTing, you—”

Boom!

M2742 released a heavy armor-piercing bullet directly at the larvae around him, and the larvae’s brains exploded, and the palace, which had been destroyed beyond recognition, now collapsed into a large area. It was also at this moment that Xu Zhiheng’s next words weren’t even spoken before he was restrained by the General who suddenly appeared in front of him.

He YunTing had long taken advantage of the few people talking to figure out the most convenient route to approach him bit by bit, dropping the hesitation he pretended to have before, he rushed towards Xu Zhiheng and used him as a threat to keep those alien species from approaching. The mecha kept firing one heavy bullet after another with fire, but relying on the pilot’s absolutely excellent mental strength, each time precisely avoiding him before viciously attacking other species. He YunTing used the cloak on the other to gag him and quickly boarded the mecha, “Quick, go to the berth.”

Lin Han understood and turned back to He YunTing as the mecha started its engines and lifted off, “I already searched when I came here, there’s no one else here.”

After He YunTing nodded, Lin Han simply opened the weapon arsenal, pulled the lever to the bottom, faced with the dense screen of all the jumping data, then didn’t hesitate to click the laser cannon—

After a loud sound, the palace and the larvae that failed to take shape were reduced to pieces, raising a sky of dust.

He YunTing threw Xu Zhiheng to the corner, the other party’s mouth was blocked only to let out a burst of whimpering, probably disgusted by his noise, he simply knocked him out with a strike, and then wiped his hands clean and cupped Lin Han just out of the cockpit face wet with sweat, painfully kissed, said “Good job.”

Lin Han’s face was obviously tired, but his smile was still clear and gentle.

“I want to refute the words of those teachers when I was studying before.” Lin Han said, “I don’t know if I have a black heart, but it’s still pretty cool.”

— 

Xu Zhiheng was still immersed in the conversation just now between drowsiness, which inevitably made him recall many things. For example, his students, his little Meng, and ‘A’Ze.’

Many years ago, after dissecting the insect egg, he was in a daze for a long time. He seemed to have gotten what he wanted, and then he didn’t. It was too easy for Alpha to get a soft Omega.

In the past, when Xu Zhiheng hid his true gender, he only thought it would be more convenient in some ways, and never thought of using pheromone to suppress or force others. But after that insect egg was dissected, he began to feel justified. He would use his ever-warm and gentle appearance to bring back everything that he loved — things that perhaps should have belonged to him.

He ignored the other’s struggles and tears in his midnight dreams, the names he muttered under his breath as his consciousness blurred, only to bite open the back of her neck and leave his mark completely inside her.

His blood had the dreamy scent of lily of the valley, clearly the flower language of lily of the valley was a happy return, but he could only feel sadness in the pheromone that remained in his body. He couldn’t forget the way the student looked at him for the last time.

She destroyed her own marked gland with her own hands, cruelly and decisively, unlike an Omega who always smiled gently.

There was no anger in her eyes, except for the weary look of no more fear, only a little bit of pity — why would she pity him?

Just like just now, the thin Omega also looked at him the same way.

Exactly the same.

At that time, Xu Zhiheng embraced her very tenderly, drew on the fragrance of lily of the valley that was fading from her body, and caressed her ankles that were worn by the chains.

“Why are you so stupid to destroy your own glands with your own hands? It must hurt badly.” He kissed the back of her bloody neck, “I’ll get you the best doctor, I know a lot about it myself, I’m sure I can fix it for you. I’ve checked, our pheromone is a good match, I won’t let it go.” Xu Zhiheng said while gently taking out the sampling tool and aiming it at the woman’s gland, “Don’t be afraid, it doesn’t hurt, I will properly collect everything about you and then it will belong to me forever.”

“Xu Zhiheng,” the Omega allowed him to grab her hand, “you don’t even deserve to be called crazy. —You’re just a four-headed wretch.”

Xu Zhiheng didn’t sound angry at all, he didn’t bother to use violence to make the other submit, he just smiled and released a strong pheromone. Even though her glands were destroyed, the Omega’s submissive nature to an Alpha was always difficult to reverse, not to mention the pheromone that Xu Zhiheng released specifically for suppression.

The woman began to tremble and fell to her knees, painfully shed unbearable physical tears, but clenched her teeth, showing not the slightest sign of weakness. Xu Zhiheng waited until she was sweating all over, even kneeling without strength, to lie lifelessly on the ground, breathing weakly, almost inaudibly.

“Why are you still so capricious?” Xu Zhiheng called her name, “Just say a soft word, I will love you well.”

The Omega wasn’t even angry anymore, Xu Zhiheng had a rare kindness, touching her face, “Then today you will not be locked up.”

He unlocked the bracelets and anklets on the woman’s body, lowered his head to kiss her trembling neck and licked off the blood with the smell of flowers, “I’ll go buy you a bouquet of flowers, I’ll be back soon.”

He locked the door to his room and prepared to go buy a bouquet of eustoma not far from home. It would only take a quarter of an hour. Hopefully, this time when he returned, the woman would finally show her soft side and quietly compromise as he had imagined.

Crazy? He didn’t mind at all if people called him crazy, and even thought it should be a compliment. Unfortunately, his beloved student said he wasn’t even crazy.

Xu Zhiheng was a little distracted, these days he had been feeling as if he did nothing wrong, only rarely did his heart feel empty.

When he put a smile back on his face, he was about to say something nice to coax the Omega in the room that destroyed the glands when he opened the door a moment later all the expressions on his face froze—

The woman disappeared.

The house was filled with the fragrance of lily of the valley, with bright red ghastly blood stains snaking to the violently destroyed window. It was difficult to imagine how the woman used her last breath to do this, even after escaping whether she could still survive was also unknown.

But she just simply left, with that last look of pity.

Xu Zhiheng was sure that she wouldn’t be far away, but didn’t expect that from that day onwards, he never heard from her.

He finally began to regret, began to rage, began to panic. He didn’t do anything wrong! He loved her so much, would feed her, give her hugs, and would send a bunch of eustoma to her every day. He had marked her, why must she go?

—

But okay.

He also had her pheromone, and a genetic sample was taken from the back of her neck gland.

Then there was nothing wrong with tying himself to her.

—He injected those things into his body.

In a change he himself couldn’t explain, a few years after he lost this student, Xu Zhiheng finally felt some other changes and finally understood why he could be inspected by the other side in whatever he thought.

Gradually, a few years later, he began to hear what others were thinking.

Of course he still couldn’t understand the meaning of pity in that look.

So, Xu Zhiheng thought, he tied people to his side for so long when the other person could hear his thoughts. These years he still bought a bunch of eustoma from time to time and left them wilting at home. He didn’t think he had anything to apologize to her, even if she could hear his heart — then she must have heard how much he loved her, right?

Except for the private progress of not deep research, Xu Zhiheng’s life didn’t seem to be different from before.

The fact that she was his personal student, Xu Zhiheng always did a good job in being gracious to others, and Xi Yuan soon became his most capable and trusted assistant. It was just that Xu Zhiheng would often think that it was better to have that female student back then. He picked up a child in the civilian area, clean and cute, and would hug his leg and not let go.

He really couldn’t refuse the good things — Xu Zhiheng took him back.

Xu Zhiheng didn’t feel that reading minds was a chore, but rather he was always curious about humans, and the more curious he was, the more he wanted to know what was really going on in the other person’s mind. He began to feel that most of the people around him were noisy and mostly not honest enough. But he could accept Xi Yuan’s occasional harmless lies, and had no intention of tearing down the thoughts of his colleagues who had all kinds of ideas.

He imagined that he would live with little Su Zuran all the time, that she would accept his love, and then have a child who would never lie to him.

Unfortunately, the bell orchid failed to bloom and was nowhere to be seen.

Fortunately, the child he picked up by accident was the cleanest and purest he had ever seen. His heart was all written on his face, he trusted him completely, called him dad, and was well behaved and understanding.

The most crucial thing was that he never lied, his mind was clear and transparent.

Xu Zhiheng felt that he had never raised a child so attentively, even though he didn’t have any blood with him — but it was okay, Xiao Meng was always honest with him, was the most obedient child, and was a good child.

And so a dozen years passed.

Finally, a few years ago, he finally discovered a special class of Omega with extremely strong mental powers, which he named Burning Blood. He began to be ecstatic about his discovery, but wouldn’t recklessly research in the open.

He first used his best friend from the main peace faction to come out against this discovery, and then asked Xi Yuan to take over from the shadows, so that whoever felt suspicious would not pursue his head. He met a crazy person named Gu Miao, who was even more fanatical than he was, and took the initiative to collect all kinds of Omega for him, and then sent him the numbers one by one, with all the data, genes, and other traits of Omega.

Three years ago, Gu Miao excitedly told him that he had found an unparalleled seedling, and he even wanted to start experimenting right away. But Xu Zhiheng saw a familiar string of idiosyncratic genes in the data information Gu Miao sent over.

Gu Miao even kindly attached the mother’s appearance of this “good seedling” that he found from the civilian area.

—It was his Su Zuran.

His Su Zuran had already died a few years ago, but she had a child.

Xu Zhiheng didn’t know whether to be happy or surprised at once, not only did Su Zuran have a child, but the child even had the same genes as her, and could read minds. He used to toss and turn with Gu Miao, but this time he went crazy and started to stop Gu Miao.

For the first time, the two had a serious disagreement. Gu Miao was reluctant, saying that this Omega was a perfect experiment, saying that nothing would agree with Xu Zhiheng.

The information Gu Miao gave him didn’t have a picture of the Omega, so Xu Zhiheng kept imagining what his child should look like, and whether it would also have the gentle scent of lily of the valley. He had a lecture that day that he couldn’t put off, and Xu Zhiheng was so anxious that he wanted to find Gu Miao immediately after the lecture and find the Omega… 

But Gu Miao didn’t listen to him after all, and took Omega into the laboratory without permission, but somehow was found squatting, both Gu Miao and the Omega, and in the end nothing was left.

This blow brought Xu Zhiheng’s research to a standstill for a long time, and he would always look at Xiao Meng when he went home and fret, imagining if that Omega was still alive, whether it would be like Xiao Meng.

What he didn’t expect was that even Ji Meng started to change.

Ji Meng’s biological parents came over to find him, Xu Zhiheng held his hand and asked very gently, if Xiao Meng wanted to go back.

Ji Meng said “don’t want to”, but his inside voice had some hesitation.

He had started to lie to him.

Xu Zhiheng thought he could tolerate it, he could support Ji Meng to go to military school to read, as long as he was always sincere to him. It was best not to have any other thoughts, he should be his only father.

But Xiao Meng, from entering the school, began to not be honest with him.

From time to time he would hear an unheard name pop up in Ji Meng’s mind, it was his roommate.

Xiao Meng thought it was terrible to like an Alpha, so he buried the matter in a box and never said it.

Even lied to himself.

He thought that the child would be honest, but Meng wouldn’t tell him anything.

It wasn’t a big deal to like an Alpha, Xu Zhiheng thought. Why did Xiao Meng not tell him?

He tolerated his attachment to his biological parents, but Xiao Meng still refused to tell him. The original Xiao Meng was so simple and clean. He wasn’t a good boy anymore. He was a bad boy who would lie to him.

Xu Zhiheng hated bad children.

It just so happened that the Queen threw him an olive branch and wanted him to do a little bit of work in the base side area for practical training.

With Wen Tianyao, it wasn’t difficult to replace the weapon. Then who will be the scapegoat?

Ordinary soldiers couldn’t do anything since the location was very inconvenient.

It could only be that bad boy.

But when he heard that the bad boy could no longer open his eyes, Xu Zhiheng still seized up.

—

After helping the Queen do this, Xu Zhiheng felt a few similarities between his eyebrows and Su Zuran when He YunTing returned from the border area and saw Lin Han for the first time.

He couldn’t wait to shake Lin Han’s hand, but he couldn’t hear his voice. This Omega had no reading skills. His identity still allowed him to reach out to other Omegas.

Lu AnHe said that the child named A’ze was injured and his glands were destroyed a few years ago, exactly the right time three years ago.

Xu Zhiheng quietly found someone to check, he and his brother weren’t his.

So could he be…

The hope was rekindled in Xu Zhiheng’s heart.

He frequently went to shake Qi JiaZe’s hand, fruit and so on to cure him, but couldn’t hear what he was thinking, hoping to hear his Su Zuran.

“A’ze…” Xu Zhiheng murmured, gradually waking up from his drowsiness. Soon he remembered that he had been posed for one, the Queen was eliminated, his children hadn’t grown up, originally this should be a perfect cooperation, now he was in this situation.

A sharp pain came from his fingertips, he subconsciously wanted to shake it off, but the pain was becoming more and more vivid.

“Awake?” Lin Han’s voice came from above his head.

Xu Zhiheng gritted his teeth and looked at his hand, and found that he was bitten by a black mass, its teeth were deeply embedded in the flesh, gurgling and bleeding.

“The Kudzuar race’s bite is very strong, so it’s probably a little painful.” Lin Han added carelessly.

He forced his dizziness to silently recite the name of the person who caused the current situation, “He YunTing…”

“Shut up.” The youth’s tone was somewhat cold, “Is the General’s name something you can say?