Chapter 43: Blood Rushing Wild

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Karai

Lu Yao asked, “General Zhou, is there something you need?”

Zhou Yunchen’s lips moved slightly, his brows pressed low in a solemn, almost frowning expression—serious and commanding, with nothing clingy about it.

“About the recent test?”

“Hmm,” Zhou Yunchen tried to calm himself. “I wanted to ask whether Distant Star could carry more powerful weapons.”

“It can replace external missiles, torpedoes, and explosives, but the built-in energy and electromagnetic weapons are limited by the current energy supply and cannot be strengthened for now,” Lu Yao paused. “However, a new energy system is planned. In a few years, during Distant Star’s annual maintenance, it should be ready for use. If you need stronger weapons now, I can have the weapons lab supervisor introduce the available options. External weapons don’t require testing, just familiarize yourself with their performance.”

“Alright.”

Lu Yao nodded, stepping forward to leave the neural interface room, but the person he left behind suddenly called out, “Lu Yao.”

He turned his head, saying nothing, ice-blue eyes meeting the upright, uniformed figure of General Zhou Yunchen.

“You… do you realize the smell of your pheromones?”

Lu Yao froze. For an alpha to ask an omega in estrus about their pheromones’ scent—this was practically a teasing, flirtatious question, crossing boundaries from any perspective. If it were anyone else, Lu Yao might have turned and left coldly. But now the question came from Zhou Yunchen.

His handsome, resolute face remained serious, not a hint of levity. His brows were slightly furrowed, looking a bit uncomfortable. The bruise near his cheek made him seem like a battle-hardened warrior emerging from conflict, about to face another trial. And yet, they were just talking. Lu Yao replied calmly, “It smells like mint.”

His tone was neutral; if you ignored the words, the conversation sounded like a casual remark about the fragrance of a roadside flower.

“I’ve used a suppressant. If the smell bothers you, I can apply a pheromone-blocking patch.”

“No need. It’s faint, no one else can smell it.” Zhou Yunchen was slightly uncomfortable—his mind felt dizzy, like clouds tangled in the wind. Lu Yao raised an eyebrow. But you can smell it?

“It’s not just mint… it’s catnip.” Zhou Yunchen said intently.

“Catnip?” People often describe alpha-omega pheromones using familiar real-world scents, but pheromones only resemble these smells—they are never identical. Lu Yao had smelled his own pheromones before his sense of smell was impaired—a herbal scent similar to mint. He hadn’t expected Zhou Yunchen to identify it as catnip. “Do you mean the scent or the effect?”

Zhou Yunchen’s fingers twitched but ultimately did nothing, his hand resting quietly on his leg. “Take it home and let the two cats there try—it’s the only way to know.”

True. Zhou Yunchen was human. Even if his keen nose could identify catnip, he would not react to it like a feline. He wouldn’t, like a snow leopard, become euphoric from the nepetalactone in catnip, but the pheromone scent was enough to trigger memories in his brain, evoking the light, floating pleasure he had experienced as a snow leopard.

“Lu Yao, you…” Zhou Yunchen’s voice wavered slightly. He pinched his fingertips, trying to control himself, but the topic drifted uncontrollably. “Did you see the snow leopard’s neck wound?”

“Yes, I did,” Lu Yao paused, stepping back. This was a question he had long postponed, unsure when to ask Zhou Yunchen. Unexpectedly, Zhou Yunchen had brought it up himself. “Is that an electric collar burn?”

“No. I never trained him with electric shocks,” Zhou Yunchen defended himself. “That… was a wound he got in the wild when we rescued him. It has healed, but that patch of skin and fur remains relatively sensitive. You can… touch it more.”

Lu Yao was surprised. “You never tamed him?”

“No.”

“But he seems very gentle, almost unlike a wild-grown beast.”

“Because he likes you, he won’t act aggressively,” Zhou Yunchen said. “Though, if you want to tame him for certain tasks, that’s also fine.”

Lu Yao looked at Zhou Yunchen. “I will try to…Tame him.”

While his superiors were off testing mecha and… apparently doing a little romance on the side, Zhao Minghe quietly stayed in the spaceship’s lounge, browsing various star-net forums to monitor public opinion.

He noticed a user with the ID “DW” mentioned by other netizens, said to have posted many strange fantasies about Chief Engineer Lu. Zhao Minghe clicked into DW’s profile and realized that, while DW was clearly a devoted fan of Lu Yao, the content wasn’t nearly as bizarre as others claimed. Most comments were short, concise, and serious in tone—yet when the words were combined, it was hard not to read them the wrong way.

Zhao Minghe had originally intended to show DW’s posts to the General, but when he followed the thread into a closed forum, he realized that although DW was a pioneer in posting such content, the people in this closed forum were on an entirely different level. “Why is everyone here shouting things like ‘Chief Engineer Lu stepped on me’?”

Deciding it was safer not to show this to Zhou Yunchen—lest the General lose control like a leaping snow leopard—Zhao Minghe turned his attention elsewhere.

At that moment, the lounge door slid open. Zhao Minghe hadn’t even exited the closed forum yet, and in a flash, he slapped his personal AI assistant screen shut. Zhou Yunchen walked in.

Zhao Minghe stiffened, scrambling for an explanation. What could he say? Did he have something he shouldn’t be seen doing? Should he say he was watching… something inappropriate? For the sake of the General’s cardiovascular health, Zhao Minghe prepared to sacrifice his own reputation.

Just as the automatic lock clicked shut, Zhou Yunchen’s knee buckled, and he collapsed forward.

“General!” Zhao Minghe dropped the AI assistant and rushed to steady him. Zhou Yunchen, half-kneeling, used a nearby wall-mounted seat to support himself. His normally neat hair fell across his forehead, his eyes bloodshot from exertion, breathing heavy, sweat dripping from his hairline.

“General, you…” Zhao Minghe sensed an overwhelming alpha pheromone presence.

“I’m fine. Go ahead, leave me alone for a while,” Zhou Yunchen said with difficulty.

“I’ll stay just outside the door.”

Zhao Minghe obeyed and stepped out. Finally alone, Zhou Yunchen allowed himself to let go of all restraint. His alpha instincts, along with the heat of blood, surged chaotically through his body. Veins bulged across his forehead, eyes tightly closed—but the trigger for his turmoil was not physically present; it only roamed in his mind. The herbal-sweet scent of pheromones lingered on his nose, and those striking ice-blue eyes flashed in his vision, cold and piercing.

Lu Yao was such a person. Simply doing his work, his icy, aggressive beauty seemed unbearably arrogant. Like a perfectly cut diamond cone, it could pierce flesh inch by inch with just a flick of his gaze, drawing heat and pain, leaving you trembling and gasping.

Your blood seems insufficient to warm the cone; the pain and heat strike relentlessly, leaving only you gasping. But he would never truly hurt you. He didn’t care about you; all of this was one-sided desire. Physically, there was no real pain, but the frantic heartbeat and tremors blurred the line between fear and desire, pain and love. The mind bowed in submission before even realizing, only for rebellious, base fantasies to flood in, spreading filth and shame, intensifying fear and trembling.

None of this was what Lu Yao wanted to see. He preferred calm and orderly rationality. Zhou Yunchen reminded himself that he must conceal all of his depravity. Yet the closer he was to Lu Yao, the nearer he came to the edge of losing control.

On the third day of the space tests, the Azure Dragon Exploration Corps’ mecha combat team arrived at the interstellar testing grounds.

Lu Yao had invited them to assist in testing the FL03 mecha’s intelligent defense system. This was a safety measure: if the mecha pilot were seriously injured and unable to continue combat, the intelligent defense system would take over control, executing defensive maneuvers, counterattacks, and withdrawal.

Lu Yao could not pit the intelligent defense system against autonomous weapons; having two machines compete in calculations and strategy during testing was meaningless. The pursuers in this test had to be human.

The head of the Assembly Testing Department handled reception and coordination. Since Distant Star was not needed for this test, Lu Yao accompanied Zhou Yunchen to the controllable black hole for jump testing. At the observation platform, Lu Yao adjusted the black hole parameters. The massive celestial body warped in countless virtual numbers, twisting and coiling like a golden Ouroboros.

To ensure safety, Zhou Yunchen remained at the observation platform, while the mecha AI controlled the entire jump process. From the darkness of space, Distant Star looked like a small silver-gray figure, cautiously approaching the black hole—a gate hiding countless dangers and secrets. Light twisted within the black hole’s intense gravitational field.

Lu Yao focused intently on this tiny silver-white point, until the head of the Technical Intelligence Department hurriedly arrived beside him.

“Chief Engineer Lu, there’s news from New Blue Star.” The supervisor handed Lu Yao an electronic screen, his expression anxious.

“Is it urgent?”

“The message just came through. It’s very important.”

The implication was that this message contained an immutable fact. Lu Yao opened the file and quickly skimmed it, his brow furrowing. “The NTL concept draft got sent back?”

“Not only that,” the supervisor said. “Next quarter’s funding was also cut by the full review committee of the Space Planning Department. Chief Engineer Lu, nothing like this has ever happened before.”

Lu Yao remained silent, still scanning the file. The supervisor bit his lip and cautiously asked, “Chief Engineer, could this have anything to do with prior online speculation?”

“What speculation?”

“They… speculated that you were pregnant.”

The supervisor wasn’t certain, as Lu Yao was the first Omega Chief Engineer at the Federation’s Mecha Research Institute; there was no precedent.

“That’s impossible,” Lu Yao replied. “They know it’s false.”

Moreover, the file showed that the other two bases had also faced funding cuts, but since they were not at the intersection of new and ongoing projects, the reductions did not affect them significantly. “Give me the full meeting… with the list of voting members.”

The supervisor quickly complied, “Here, Chief Engineer Lu.” Lu Yao scanned the names of over three hundred attendees, his gaze darkening.

Author’s note:

Lu Yao: I punch one pervert at a time, but Zhou Yunchen doesn’t look like a pervert.

Zhou Yunchen: I definitely am a pervert.

 

 

This Title is available for faster chapter releases through paid Patreon membership. Any proceeds go to keeping the website running. Check it out HERE.