Chapter 17: Hail the Emperor—He Finally Banished the Temptress!
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: Karai
Lu Yao’s fingers carried the warmth of his body, their pads soft yet strong, sending a shiver of electricity across the skin they touched. But he spoke only a single sentence before returning to the desk, opening a shopping site to browse through fresh food deliveries.
Zhao Minghe had once told him that feeding the snow leopard nutrient solution alone was enough. Yet when Lu Yao examined the listed ingredients, he began to doubt whether such a formula truly suited the leopard’s diet.
A few days earlier, when he had fed Torque the pig liver that Merchant Boss had gifted him, the snow leopard had come over to sniff at it, curious. Lu Yao wondered if offering fresh meat, restoring a snow leopard’s original diet from Earth, might be far more appropriate.
He had never purchased fresh cuts of meat before, but now he was studying intently, comparing the nutritional values of different animal parts. The snow leopard sprawled half a meter from him, but quickly realized that Lu Yao, absorbed in online shops and butchery charts, was no longer paying attention to playing with him.
So the snow leopard lay there in silence, body utterly still. Yet his long tail began sweeping back and forth across Lu Yao’s feet, brushing lightly against his insteps, ticklish and soft.
“Come, let’s celebrate—Lu Yao finally got divorced!” Countless glasses clinked together, the crisp sound echoing through the private room. A group of uniformed officers drank and joked, the atmosphere roaring with noise and laughter. One glance at the stars on their epaulets made it clear—not a single rank among them fell below General. Under the glitter of crystal chandeliers, copper gleamed everywhere.
This was a private feast, with no press, no rules. As the rounds of alcohol flowed and the mood grew looser, their chatter drifted toward gossip from Military Headquarters.
A General in a brown uniform downed his drink in one swallow, then sneered. “That bastard with the surname Zhou—I’d like to see how he struts around now!”
“Exactly!” A beta major general covered his face, half laughing, half crying. “Gentlemen, do you even know? Every time my quartermaster goes to First Base, he comes back in tears. Half the mecha allocations are swallowed by the Silver Halberd Fleet. What’s left over for us is nowhere near enough.”
A voice immediately chimed in. “Don’t even start on the quartermasters. I went myself last time. Just happened to see the Silver Halberd Fleet’s man walk out with another fresh batch of mecha. He was smiling, and I thought my heart would crack in two. Every new model First Base rolls out gets prioritized to them. We only get stuck with the old ones.”
An alpha beside him slammed the table. “What’s wrong with old models? If you don’t want them, hand them to me.”
Another officer tugged at his arm, laughing nervously. “Don’t be mad, don’t be mad. Tonight we’re all on the same side.”
“That’s right. We’re gathered here to celebrate His Majesty Lu—the so-called ‘Dull Monarch’—finally kicking that Zhou brat into the cold palace!”
“Let’s hope the monarch finally opens his eyes.” Someone sighed.
An alpha lieutenant general leaned forward thoughtfully. “Having Lu Yao play the confused monarch may not be the worst outcome. If mecha quotas were distributed strictly by regulation, our fleets might not see more than a scrap from him anyway. After all, his focus has always been on developing high-assault models. Those are usually reserved for fleets on the front lines fighting aberrant beasts. The Silver Halberd Fleet is always first into the fray. Their mecha losses are massive, so their replacement quota is always high. We exploration fleets barely touch anything that comes fresh out of First Base.
“But now that Zhou Yunchen has divorced him—if Lu Yao truly turns out to be a dull monarch—then perhaps we should slip a few beauties into his bedchamber. A little pillow talk, and maybe in high spirits he’ll hand us the newest models.”
The Beta major general sighed. “Easier said than done. For all these years, aside from that mandatory Central AI match to General Zhou, Lu Yao hasn’t had a single alpha by his side.”
Three years ago, when the Central AI announced that Lu Yao and Zhou Yunchen were a high compatibility match and ordered them to marry, these very generals had nearly panicked. They had been waiting, like anxious in-laws, hoping to snag new mecha from under Lu Yao’s hand at First Base.
Although in the past few centuries traditional family values had crumbled and workplace discrimination against omegas had eased, the biological suppression between alphas and omegas remained etched in DNA.
An omega could never entirely escape the pull of his alpha’s pheromones. Possessive alphas sometimes used that bond to trap their omega spouses at home, forbidding them from working. And if Zhou Yunchen had ever forbidden Lu Yao from leaving the house, then where would they have gone for new mecha? To those private military manufacturers churning out piles of scrap metal?
The thought alone had driven some of them to half-seriously consider cornering General Zhou in an alley and beating him bloody. Fortunately, it had never come to that.
“It wasn’t as if no one ever tried,” an older General recalled. “It’s just that the result wasn’t very pretty.”
That remark sparked a memory for the General in the brown uniform. He waved his hand dismissively. “That incident was obviously harassment. The fact that Lu Yao crippled the alpha who harassed him—that was his spirit!”
The truth of the matter was actually a military secret, but since everyone present held high-ranking positions, they all knew some of the inside story. For a moment, silence fell over the room.
Back when Lu Yao had first married Zhou Yunchen, they had worried not only about Lu Yao but also about General Zhou’s personal safety. Especially during the three-day honeymoon when the pair barely left their home and no one heard a single word about them, the Generals had grown anxious. Some even wondered if Zhou Yunchen had been sliced apart by Lu Yao’s laser blade. After all, Lu Yao had a precedent for that sort of thing.
At last, an old General broke the silence. “Even Zhou Yunchen has been divorced by Lu Yao. Do you really think we can find someone better to replace him?”
Once again, the group scratched their heads, sighing heavily. A Lieutenant General glanced around the table. “Don’t just focus on power and status. When it comes to those, not many can compare with General Zhou, true. But in the past, plenty of wealthy businessmen and politicians pursued Lu Yao, and he never accepted any of them. I’m afraid he doesn’t value those things. We should be looking at appearance, personality, things like that.”
“Zhou Yunchen wasn’t good-looking enough?” someone asked skeptically.
“That’s not what I mean. General Zhou is certainly handsome,” the lieutenant General reasoned, “but what if Lu Yao simply doesn’t like cold, older men? What if he prefers someone youthful, bright, and lively?” He pulled up his personal AI assistant, projecting a flashy webpage for everyone to see. “Look here. This is a fan-voted list of the most popular Delulu Ships (illogical couplings) for Lu Yao. Zhou Yunchen doesn’t even make the rankings. The top spots are filled with cheerful young men. Each one of them seems a better match than Zhou Yunchen.”
Suddenly, someone shouted, “Old Li! Look! Isn’t that your alpha son—the one who went off to become a celebrity—ranked first?”
The General in the brown uniform snatched the AI assistant in disbelief. The poll came from an unofficial discussion forum, ranking Lu Yao’s so-called ‘Delulu Ship.’ Candidates ranged from pop stars to genius painters, business elites, and political figures, with vote counts in the hundreds of millions.
General Li stared at his son, Li Yan, seated firmly at the top of the list. His brow furrowed in confusion and seriousness. “He and Lu Yao don’t even know each other. How could this be possible?”
“Because it’s a Delulu Ship ranking,” the Lieutenant General explained. “As long as netizens think two people look good together, they’ll pair up complete strangers. That’s why it’s called ‘Delulu Ship.’ Look—most of the top candidates are young, energetic men. That shows the majority believe people with that kind of personality suit Lu Yao.”
“And Zhou Yunchen?” someone pressed.
“Zhou Yunchen? Oh, the netizens gave him plenty of pairings too,” a major General said, opening another poll thread. “But since Lu Yao rarely appeared in public, his popularity was nowhere near Zhou Yunchen’s. The pairings for Zhou Yunchen… Well, they’re almost all gentle-type omegas. Let’s see, the current top match for him is… a three-star chef named Shang Sanjiu.”
“And where’s Lu Yao ranked?”
“Further down. Before they got married, you could hardly ever find their names paired together on these lists. It only started happening after the wedding. Now that they’re divorced, I expect they’ll drop right off again.”
“Vice General Wu, you seem to know quite a lot,” someone teased. “You’ve been following this for three years?”
The lieutenant General cleared his throat. “Ahem… just a little dabbling. Just a little dabbling. Anyway, I think we should let Li Yan try. Maybe the netizens’ sharp eyes have found the true match.”
Another General, always eager to stir trouble, clapped General Li on the shoulder. “You’ve always said young Yan was useless. Well, here’s his chance to prove himself. If he ends up with Lu Yao, you’d have as many mecha as you want.”
It was meant as a joke, but General Li grew thoughtful. “Yan mentioned he’s about to shoot a mecha battle movie. Maybe that could be a good excuse to meet Lu Yao.”
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Scheming uncles trying to matchmake…