Chapter 61: First Time Interrupting Zhou Yunchen

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Karai

Lu Yao couldn’t help asking, “Why would you think that?”

Zhou Yunchen froze at Lu Yao’s question. He looked over, and Lu Yao’s eyes were still clear and penetrating, focused intently on everything before him, without emotion—so naturally, there was neither hatred nor disgust. “Yesterday… my closeness caused you a lot of pain.”

“That’s not because of you,” Lu Yao thought for a moment, then realized that wasn’t entirely right and corrected himself. “It’s partly your fault too, but… I mean… I have no reason to hate you. I…” Lu Yao didn’t know how to continue. “Is Dr. Elaine still here?”

“She’s resting in the room next door.”

“Mm.” Lu Yao rolled over to find his personal AI assistant. Zhou Yunchen had no chance to maintain his posture close to Lu Yao; he straightened but didn’t sit immediately. Instead, he glanced between the chair and the bed before finally deciding to sit on the edge of Lu Yao’s bed.

Elaine arrived shortly after. It was seven in the morning. She had been in light sleep in the adjoining rest room all night, feeling exhausted, but seeing Lu Yao in relatively good condition allowed her tense heart to relax a little.

“The doctor told me your condition is fairly stable. A period of rest should be enough to recover.”

In fact, the doctor had told Elaine that among the omega patients sent to the emergency room due to forced estrus, Lu Yao’s case was the least severe. The alpha had left a temporary mark to prevent ongoing physiological torment but hadn’t lost reason and forced a mating that would have caused extensive tearing.

All Lu Yao needed now was proper rest, hydration, and to wait for the lactic acid buildup in his muscles to fade. If he didn’t want to stay in the hospital, he could go home anytime—just careful not to let the deep bite on the nape gland get infected.

“Are you here to see me now?” Elaine sensed the subtle tension between Lu Yao and Zhou Yunchen. The massive General sat at the edge of Lu Yao’s bed, yet his shoulders were slightly hunched, giving him a pitiful appearance.

“To… discuss my condition,” Lu Yao coughed. “Zhou Yunchen should know about these matters.”

Elaine immediately understood this would be a complicated conversation. She pulled a chair to Lu Yao’s bedside. Now Zhou Yunchen had no choice but to sit on the edge of Lu Yao’s bed, surrounded by the catnip-like pheromones radiating from him.

“Where should we start?” Elaine switched into professional mode. “Your first meeting?”

Lu Yao shook his head. “Yesterday… and the last incident at the Space Planning Department meeting.”

“Mm. Both times you entered estrus due to trauma re-experiencing.”

“But the triggers weren’t exactly the same.” Lu Yao looked at Zhou Yunchen. “You should know what happened at the CROSS lab back then—guns, screams, estrus, marking.”

His voice grew quieter, eventually reduced to barely more than a breath and coughs. Zhou Yunchen immediately handed him a glass of water.

Elaine supplemented, “All sensory information in Lu Yao’s memory is merged together, inseparable. Any stimulation of one sense could trigger trauma re-experiencing, pulling his body and mind back to that state.”

Lu Yao drank a few sips to soothe his throat, but it still felt dry. He took a segment of the orange Zhou Yunchen had peeled. The juice caused a slight sting in his throat, and he couldn’t taste it, only guessing it was probably sour. His fingers were covered with juice. Zhou Yunchen paused for a moment, then took Lu Yao’s hand and wiped it clean with a cloth.

“At the Space Planning Department meeting, the trigger was the explosion; this time it was because…” Lu Yao started. He felt Zhou Yunchen’s hand tremble around his. “Before you arrived, Li Mo told me that the alpha back then was you. He saw everything, but I didn’t believe him,” Lu Yao said, his voice low and hoarse from the throat injury, making it harder for Zhou Yunchen to discern his meaning. “Until you appeared in person.”

Once Lu Yao’s hand was wiped clean, Zhou Yunchen tried to let go. Just as he moved, Lu Yao grabbed his fingers in return, pressing on the knuckles while avoiding Zhou Yunchen’s injury—but the pressure still caused the wound to sting.

“I’ve always remembered the pheromone scent of that alpha. When you appeared at the door, I smelled the guaiacwood on you, and I finally believed Li Mo hadn’t lied to me.”

Zhou Yunchen parted his lips. “So… the scent was the trigger this time?”

He panicked briefly, wanting to suppress his pheromones further. But when he looked again, he realized Lu Yao had already removed the olfactory stimulator and could no longer smell.

“Scent is the easiest trigger for estrus and memory,” Elaine explained. “Combined with your attempt to suppress Li Mo with pheromones, the internal and external factors forced Lu Yao into estrus.”

Zhou Yunchen stayed silent for a moment. “So… if I just—”

“General Zhou,” Lu Yao interrupted for the first time. “You mean… if you left New Blue Planet, stayed in the far reaches of space, and never saw me again, none of this would have happened?” The shock in Zhou Yunchen’s eyes told Lu Yao he had guessed correctly. He couldn’t help but ask, “General Zhou, I’ve never heard of you retreating in the face of a beast attack.”

“If making a choice could eliminate the beasts, and the cost was leaving the galaxy, I would make that choice,” Zhou Yunchen replied.

Lu Yao had questions burning in his chest but found them stuck in his throat. How many people could make him this frustrated? Zhou Yunchen was probably the first. He closed his eyes, then opened them, his ice-blue gaze filled with resolve. “But I never gave you that choice.”

Lu Yao gripped Zhou Yunchen’s hand, pressing his palm against the injured area, causing the red edges to ache. “If I asked for your help treating pheromone stress, would you stay?”

Zhou Yunchen suddenly remembered the conversation he had overheard in the therapy room. Lu Yao had wanted to find him from the start, only interrupted by Li Mo’s message, which had forced Zhou Yunchen to rush to the 39th Restaurant. He didn’t know how to explain everything back then, but he had only thought about not letting Lu Yao be deceived.

Now, calm, Zhou Yunchen only felt a lingering fear—he couldn’t predict Lu Yao’s reaction. What Lu Yao said now wasn’t anything Zhou Yunchen had imagined. Yet it was better than anything he could have expected—so good he dared not think further. “All right,” Zhou Yunchen answered. He would do anything for Lu Yao.

Because the wound on the back of Lu Yao’s neck hadn’t healed yet, pheromone adaptation therapy wouldn’t start immediately. Elaine first collected the physical data of both men, then went back to design a detailed schedule. Zhou Yunchen said the Silver Halberd Fleet would remain on New Blue Planet for at least six months this time, so the therapy could be arranged around that period.

Lu Yao glanced at Zhou Yunchen when he heard this. In the past three years, the Silver Halberd Fleet had never stayed in the Rose System for so long. Each time Zhou Yunchen returned from a mission, he would stay only a few days, report to the military, and then set off again.

Now, Lu Yao suspected that Zhou Yunchen had never needed to leave in such a hurry in previous years.

When Mo Feng learned that Lu Yao had been hospitalized again due to estrus and marking, he wanted to convince him to take a few days off. But once Lu Yao could walk normally, he returned to work immediately, supervising the early design of the NTL mecha.

The researchers and designers at the base noticed Lu Yao’s pale face and unsteady steps over the past few days. Although they didn’t know the specifics, they urged him to rest more.

The NTL mecha was being designed directly on the Distant Star’s modified structure. The team could handle the initial work on their own; Lu Yao only needed to occasionally guide them through key problems.

He used the freed-up time to study the Distant Star. He still had questions about Zhou Yunchen’s appearance on P999. Li Mo had said he had seen Zhou Yunchen and the Distant Star back then.

But at the time, Zhou Yunchen was still a student at Morningstar Military Academy and wasn’t on the exercise roster. He couldn’t have piloted a mecha to the frontier, raided the CROSS lab, and returned unscathed without leaving a trace.

A Distant Star that could be piloted only after ten years of training made it even more impossible. Yet that person had indeed been Zhou Yunchen. And the Distant Star… did have some anomalies.

Lu Yao recalled the other two anomalies detected at the psychomotor control center. The titanium element had decades of accelerated decay, and there was a blank segment in the stellar signal module.

P999 was still within Federation star signal coverage, which wasn’t enough to prove the Distant Star had been there. Or, perhaps more accurately, the blank in the stellar signal suggested the Distant Star had gone to a place human knowledge couldn’t even describe.

Lu Yao hadn’t originally linked the titanium decay to the stellar signal anomaly. But now, he suspected a single cause behind both anomalies. Time and space.

“You’ve been to… where, Zhou Yunchen…” Lu Yao murmured, lost in thought. He understood Li Mo’s final words that day, “I came for this too.”

After confirming that what he had seen on P999 had indeed been the Distant Star, Li Mo had speculated that Zhou Yunchen might have piloted it through time and space. But current human technology was still incapable of forward time travel.

Standing atop the summit of technology and industry intelligence, Lu Yao knew exactly the limits of human science. No scientist had ever proposed a feasible method for forward time travel. History offered no record of it, and some theorists argued that traveling forward could alter history, creating logical paradoxes—something the universe itself might naturally forbid.

Mr. Teng controlled vast intelligence, yet Lu Yao had never heard him mention anything related. In other words, Zhou Yunchen had never told anyone about his experiences.

Li Mo had claimed to the Federation Intelligence Bureau that he was the alpha from back then—partly to pique Lu Yao’s interest and arrange meetings with Zhou Yunchen. Li Mo also recognized that Zhou Yunchen had been deliberately concealing the truth, either out of sincerity or self-preservation. So Li Mo chose to keep the secret for him.

Author’s Note:

All right, the General won’t be running anymore. The days of chasing his husband with full force have begun.

 

 

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