Chapter 118: You Changed in Front of Them?!
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: Karai
Jiang Wei stared at the bright white energy pulsing from NTL’s central core, a cold smirk curling his lips. The officer beside him frowned at the strange expression. “Mr. Jiang Wei…”
“I know. Let’s go. I’ll cooperate with your investigation into Jaeger Industries.” Jiang Wei rose to his feet just as the NTL cockpit opened. The victorious pilot stepped out confidently; even with the full helmet obscuring their face, the broad shoulders, narrow waist, and calm, resolute aura in the smoke and dust thrilled the livestream audience. Most attention was on the mecha—few noticed Jiang Wei being escorted away.
As he passed Lu Yao’s seat, Jiang Wei suddenly stopped. The officers tensed instantly. The prosecutor hadn’t formally charged Jiang Wei with murder yet, but the police knew he had motive and had taken action against Lu Yao. They feared he might act recklessly, striking Lu Yao with his bare hands.
But Jiang Wei only looked at Lu Yao’s ice-blue eyes. It was the first time he had seen them up close. He had known Lu Yao even before the laboratory accident. He remembered Lu Yao’s eyes had once been ordinary black—bland, dull, unremarkable. Yet that unremarkable person always seemed one step ahead.
Now, the pale, translucent blue of Lu Yao’s irises radiated a chilling, almost otherworldly quality. The past impression of dullness had been an illusion; the eyes alone revealed the non-human essence in Lu Yao. How could anyone endure—or even like—someone who seemed barely human? Jiang Wei’s lips curled in a sneer. “After today, you think you’ll have an easy life?”
Lu Yao’s brows furrowed slightly, but before he could respond, a pair of hands wrapped around his shoulders. The newcomer protected Lu Yao and replied, “No need for Chief Jiang to trouble himself.”
The voice, distorted slightly by the helmet, was instantly recognizable to Lu Yao—he didn’t need to think twice; the answer was already clear.
“Who are you?” Jiang Wei demanded.
Across the livestream, countless viewers watched as the NTL pilot rejected the support crew’s checkup and walked toward the rest area. The camera drones followed, capturing the confrontation between Jiang Wei and Lu Yao.
All eyes witnessed the mysterious pilot place a hand on Lu Yao’s shoulder, drawing him slightly closer.
!!!
“Who the hell is that? Doesn’t he worry about General Zhou breaking his hand?”
“Can we get a restraining order for exes?”
“Wait, if Lu Yao and him weren’t familiar, he’d probably snap the hand off himself!”
“I feel… uneasy, like something’s about to happen…”
“Me too, that fighting style… it’s like someone we know…”
“Who?”
Under the world’s gaze, the mysterious pilot removed the all-black helmet, revealing a handsome, cold, determined face beneath the goggles. Sweat-soaked hair clung to his forehead, and his sharp eyes locked on the enemy like a predator racing across the wilderness.
“I am Lu Yao’s mecha pilot,” he said clearly, word by word.
The livestream erupted once again. The over-the-top drama sent countless fans into a frenzy.
“!!!”
“It’s really Zhou Yunchen!”
“Did they remarry? Did they remarry? My OTP divorced and remarried!”
Jiang Wei’s face shifted rapidly from pale green to purple. Confronted by the towering alpha, he couldn’t speak. The officer nudged him forward, signaling him to continue. Jiang Wei staggered, nearly falling.
Meanwhile, in the presidential viewing area, a man wearing the Helios Group sun emblem followed the support crew inside the protective barrier.
NTL’s chest cavity had been damaged, and repair staff were working to fix it. The man did not approach, only observing the bright white glow leaking from the fracture. He squinted and spoke into his comm: “The new energy developed by Lu Yao is indeed viable.”
As the Hephaestus Grand Tournament concluded, the investigation and prosecution of Jaeger Industries officially began. The prior “accidents” involving the first two test pilots were submitted to the authorities. Lu Yao was occasionally summoned to provide information. Whenever the media caught him entering or leaving the central police station, the livestream exploded with commentary. Yet no matter how intense the discussions or how enthusiastic the praise for NTL’s performance, Lu Yao paid them no attention.
He and Mo Feng had been drowning in endless paperwork for days. According to tournament procedure, the winner could receive full funding from the Helios Group and the military, but before disbursement, the First Research Base needed to submit a complete pre-project plan and budget request.
Mo Feng had already prepared the submission for the Space Planning Department, but with the leopard mecha and NTL’s new energy catching military attention, they demanded the energy research be prioritized, and the funding would be included in NTL’s budget.
Receiving the funding was good, but it meant revising the already-prepared, thousand-page pre-project plan—Mo Feng was ready to bang his head against the wall.
Worse, the military required Lu Yao to report on both the leopard mecha and the new energy, including experiments with unmanned ships in the temporal current coordinates. Chang Jian secretly assured Lu Yao that he would bear no responsibility. On the contrary, the authorities were extremely impressed and, recalling Lu Yao’s past suffering when kidnapped by space pirates, granted him a substantial consolation fund.
The cold numbers barely comforted Mo Feng, and did nothing for Lu Yao’s headache after thirty-six continuous hours of work. He sat at his desk, mechanically typing on the floating keyboard, oblivious even to the opening and closing of the office door.
Blue light reflected off Lu Yao’s serious, intense face, utterly unapproachable. But it didn’t matter—he wasn’t expecting a human visitor anyway.
With a soft whoosh, a small white cat leapt onto the desk, startling Lu Yao. It let out a quiet meow, stepped elegantly across his arm, and finally curled up in the crook of his elbow, its back pressed snugly against his inner arm. Torque’s arrival immediately eased Lu Yao’s taut nerves. He scratched the cat’s ears with his index finger, then paused, realizing something—his desk was too high; Torque couldn’t have jumped up from the floor by himself.
Turning his head with curiosity, Lu Yao’s eyes met a silver leopard face. His heart skipped a beat, but the snow leopard leaned close, rubbing his head against his knee affectionately. Lu Yao ruffled the leopard’s head a few times, then pinched his soft ears. “Weren’t you supposed to be at the military for questioning?”
The snow leopard raised his upper body, licked his cheek with a long tongue, then shifted back into human form. “Yes. It’s done.”
“And… how did it go?”
The military had been eager to understand how Zhou Yunchen, a human, could operate an animal-form mecha. The snow leopard’s identity wasn’t exactly a secret, but the explanation depended entirely on how Zhou Yunchen chose to present it.
“I told them about the Villeau Void and my connection to the snow leopard,” Zhou Yunchen replied. Lu Yao frowned. “And yet you still wandered around outside as the snow leopard?”
Having a Federation General strolling around in animal form—and unclothed, no less—was hardly appropriate.
“The discussions were confidential. Only five people attended, all of whom I know and trust,” Zhou Yunchen said calmly.
Lu Yao silently pinched the tip of the leopard tail stretching toward him, then glanced at Zhou Yunchen’s serious human face. Truly, a cat’s tail and a real cat were entirely different creatures… but pinching the tail was undeniably stress-relieving.
“You also transformed into the snow leopard for them?” Lu Yao couldn’t resist asking.
“Only the ears,” Zhou Yunchen replied with a light cough, smoothly sidestepping the delicate topic. “How’s your work progress? You haven’t been home these past two days. Torque has been calling for you constantly.”
Lu Yao suspected that the meowing at home wasn’t entirely from Torque, but he didn’t call Zhou Yunchen out. He toyed with the leopard tail and said, “Paperwork is tedious. Once this section is done, it might be better. The military wants me to focus on the new energy experiments, to accelerate its production and implementation.”
“Is the content complicated?” Zhou Yunchen asked, dragging the glowing screen over to look at Lu Yao’s experimental outline. “I still don’t know the name of your new energy. It’s called… ‘Gravity Conversion’ technology? Gravity?”
“Yes,” Lu Yao nodded. “It requires no mineral resources. It directly converts gravitational forces into usable energy. Its principles are analogous to black holes, wormholes, and temporal currents.”
Half a month later, the Supreme Court of New Blue Planet issued a verdict: Jiang Wei was found guilty of participating in illegal trade organizations, attacking Federation military facilities, stealing classified intelligence, and attempted murder. He faced a sentence of 500 years in alien imprisonment. Simultaneously, the chairman and current president of Jaeger Industries were arrested for official misconduct.
A corporate giant like Jaeger Industries wouldn’t collapse due to two executives’ crimes, but the stock price plunged. Acting on Lu Yao’s suggestion, Mo Feng maneuvered through the corporate turbulence: the First Research Base acquired 31% of Jaeger Industries’ shares, becoming the largest shareholder overnight.
With control over Jaeger Industries’ internal operations, the First Research Base reclaimed their production lines, acquired previous design blueprints, and Lu Yao personally vouched for the military’s repair of former Jaeger tech, patching vulnerabilities to prevent a repeat of the Falcon exercises debacle.
Bureaucracy and management machinery operated at high speed, funds flowed into the First Research Base, and good news arrived one after another—but Lu Yao couldn’t feel at ease. Progress on the new energy experiment was slow, and the Federation fleet’s expedition to the alien planet Erian drew ever closer.
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