Chapter 146: Yuanxiao Learned to Talk and Write!
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: Karai
That morning, Lin Xu and Curator Zhao visited the preview setup for the Ancient Earth Research Exhibition on Capital Star. They were invited to stay for lunch by the organizers before returning to Endymion.
Arnold, having been entrusted with a task by Lin Xu, took Yuanxiao to play near the Ancient Earth Natural Science Museum. When Lin Xu returned to the museum in the afternoon to continue working, he picked Yuanxiao up and brought them back to his side.
Yuanxiao had just finished a game of fetch with Arnold in the park. Even after resting for ten minutes, they were still panting excitedly, rolling around in the cat carrier and bumping into their eggshell.
Their movements were so energetic that when a young intern came by to deliver something to Lin Xu, they couldn’t help but glance curiously at the carrier.
The rolling had pushed the zipper open slightly, and through the small gap, Yuanxiao peeked out. Their bright blue eyes blinked and met the intern’s gaze. The intern gasped sharply.
Lin Xu had just taken an envelope from the intern when he noticed their expression, as if they were about to choke on air. Lin Xu’s brow lifted. “What’s wrong?”
“N-Nothing,” the intern stammered, waving their hand quickly. “It’s nothing.”
They had simply been overwhelmed by how adorable the little dragon was…
Over the past few weeks, Dr. Lin had almost always brought the little Volant along. The interns and other staff had already guessed that the creature inside the carrier was Lin Xu and Marshal Chu’s child, but until now, the little dragon had always been quiet and well-behaved—never seen in public.
Today, the intern had finally glimpsed a piece of that baby dragon—and nearly fainted from the sheer cuteness overload. After a few deep breaths to steady themselves, the intern said, “Dr. Lin, this is an invitation to the Ancient Earth Research Symposium from Professor Zeng.”
Professor Zeng was one of the scholars who had previously co-published papers with Lin Xu. He had already invited Lin Xu to attend the symposium. Now that the invitations were finally printed, he had promptly sent one over.
The exhibition and the symposium were funded by the same sponsors—partially from Parliament, partially from the royal family and nobility—but the organizers were different. The exhibition was open to the public, while the symposium was reserved for scholars from various fields.
Lin Xu opened the envelope. It was a rare paper invitation, bearing his name, title, and the symposium’s time and location. The pale blue-green colors of the invitation seemed to echo Earth’s hues.
“Dr. Lin, will you be speaking at the symposium? I’m already looking forward to it,” the intern asked.
“I won’t be speaking.” He hadn’t even decided whether he would attend. Lin Xu slid the invitation back into the envelope with one finger. “Are you going?”
“Oh, no, I’m just a student. I’m not qualified to be there in person. But I’ll definitely be watching the StarNet livestream!” the intern said excitedly. “Only top scholars from every field can attend in person. I heard that the City Defense Force Commander is in charge of security. No one knows if it’s because they’re taking it seriously or if the commander himself is just interested in Ancient Earth. Either way, getting a chance to be there must be amazing.”
“The City Defense Force Commander?” Lin Xu paused. “Who is it?”
“Huh? I don’t actually know. People like that are way out of my league,” the intern said, then quickly corrected themself, “I mean, I don’t have a chance to meet someone like that.”
Dr. Lin was different—he’d somehow managed to reel in Marshal Chu, after all.
“It’s fine. Thanks for delivering the message. I won’t hold you up. Go back to work,” Lin Xu said.
The intern, delighted to have gotten a response from Lin Xu—who rarely spoke with a warm expression—grinned and skipped back to their station. After saying goodbye to the starstruck young intern, Lin Xu carried the cat carrier back to his office.
Still bursting with energy after a full morning of play, Yuanxiao clawed the zipper open wider, squeezed out through the gap, and flapped their wings, landing on the wide desk across from Lin Xu’s. The desk held a sandbox and several sheets of vocabulary words.
Using their tail, Yuanxiao wiped away the old marks in the sand, then reached out with a white paw. Glancing between the vocabulary sheets and the sandbox, they began practicing writing the words with a claw.
Lin Xu watched Yuanxiao’s determined attempts at self-study for a moment, then pulled out a few blank sheets of paper. He wrote down some new vocabulary and, after teaching them the pronunciations through his mental link, left them to practice on their own.
With the baby dragon occupied, Lin Xu logged into the military department’s system and once again confirmed that the City Defense and Imperial Guard were both under the command of the same man—General Luca Neumann.
Luca Neumann would be attending the Ancient Earth Research Symposium. Lin Xu stared at the screen for a moment, then decided not to feed the invitation to the shredder. He wanted to know what kind of person this General Neumann really was.
After exiting the military system, his terminal automatically returned to the StarNet homepage. Among all the entertainment headlines, one bold line dominated the front page:
Capital Star Police Department’s former senior detective Rolson suspected of embezzling over five billion credits! Accused of falsifying evidence, using torture to extract confessions, unlawful entry, and trafficking extraterrestrial labor across star systems! He has been placed on the most-wanted list—citizens are urged to provide any leads to local authorities.
– –
By nightfall, the giant rotating searchlights at the Capital Star port shone with such intensity, they seemed capable of piercing the atmosphere and shooting straight into space.
The port blazed with light. Countless starships lifted off and landed amid a roar so loud it rattled the eardrums. Because of that, there were no residential areas surrounding the port. Beyond the tangled highways leading into the city, the open fields lay in near-total darkness. A bit farther out, one would reach the most chaotic part of Capital Star:
The X District.
Everywhere had people who fell into the mire of poverty—Capital Star was no exception.
The X District had once been abandoned due to ecological destruction, but the buildings were still structurally sound. Many who couldn’t afford the sky-high rent moved in, creating a mess of a neighborhood impossible to manage.
The authorities of Capital Star turned a blind eye to its existence. After all, the city’s pristine, beautiful streets allowed no room for beggars or vagrants. But the law also forbade them from throwing citizens into space, and they had no intention of handing out money out of goodwill. So, they let the unwanted rot in the X District, out of sight, out of mind.
It was practically a lawless zone, where even the climate control systems often malfunctioned. Drizzling rain blurred the scattered lights. In a narrow alley between old buildings, a man wrapped in a cloak crouched in a corner, using a garbage bin to conceal himself.
He opened a stolen, half-broken terminal. After several attempts, he finally got a signal and dialed the number he remembered. Shivering in the rain, he waited a long time before the call connected.
“Detective Chief Rolson?” Luca said. “Why are you calling me? You should be speaking with Major Yan.”
“General Neumann! Please, help me! Have you seen the news? The police are hunting me down!”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Truthfully, General Neumann hadn’t been paying attention to the news of some lowly detective—he had too many imperial tasks to worry about. But someone else sitting across from him had heard Rolson’s desperate cry. Alfred turned to Luca. “Then let’s take a look now.”
Luca reluctantly opened his terminal. The headlines showed a disgraced Rolson—now a wanted man. The police were combing all of Capital Star for him. His movements were being monitored, and he couldn’t leave the planet by starship. That made things complicated. Rolson knew too much about their cooperation. Luca’s expression darkened.
“General Neumann, I’m begging you! If I can’t clear my name, at least smuggle me off Capital Star!”
But Alfred and Neumann couldn’t risk the entire operation being exposed. Letting someone with that much knowledge be captured by the police was out of the question. There were only two options:
Rescue Rolson and make sure he left Capital Star for good.
Or make sure he left the world entirely.
Luca glanced at Alfred, seeking the emperor’s judgment. Alfred sat in thought, scrolling through the news on his screen. His expression shifted several times—until suddenly, he smiled, like a child solving a difficult puzzle. “Ask him where he is. Send someone to pick him up.”
Luca obeyed. In the alley, Rolson was overjoyed when he heard the news. Luca immediately dispatched a team to the X District.
“Your Majesty,” Luca asked, “where should we send him?”
“Beat him a few more times. Make him mute or brain-damaged. Then anonymously report his hiding place to the police.”
Luca stiffened in shock. “Your Majesty! If we need to silence him, we can handle it directly—there’s no need for theatrics. If he ends up in court, he might not be sentenced to death. More likely, he’ll just be locked up for a century.”
“Do as I said,” Alfred replied, his voice leaving no room for negotiation. Luca hesitated, frozen in place for a moment, before reluctantly accepting the command.
All of Rolson’s dirty secrets had been well-covered, thanks to two powerful collaborators past and present. He had hidden everything carefully. If someone hadn’t deliberately gone digging, those scandals would never have surfaced—much less exploded all at once in the media.
Someone was targeting Rolson. And yet, no victims had come forward to share their stories. The one pulling the strings stayed hidden, like a ghost in the shadows. This person bore a deep, personal grudge against Rolson—but didn’t want any tearful apology or some grand display of justice. No, they wanted to use external power to utterly crush him. Alfred didn’t need to think hard to know exactly whose style this was. Lin Xu.
Back in the days, the two of them had taken similar courses and often debated with each other. Alfred had heard some of Lin Xu’s darker, more unthinkable ideas—the kind of ruthless tactics that couldn’t be shared openly.
Most people weren’t so lucky. The Lin Xu they knew now wore a calm and quiet mask. No one could see the beast within—howling for power and control. If Lin Xu wanted to play one of his twisted little games with Rolson, Alfred had no intention of interfering.
He suspected that on the day Rolson finally stood trial, Lin Xu would feel a secret and indescribable satisfaction.
– –
After a period of lessons, Yuanxiao could finally say a full sentence in the mental domain! Unfortunately, conversations held in the spiritual domain—while recordable by a mental energy connector—couldn’t be transmitted through the StarNet. So Lin Xu wasn’t able to send Yuanxiao’s very first spoken sentence to Heinrich.
As a reward for his excellent progress, Lin Xu bought him the plush cat bag he’d been longing for. The bag was still black on the outside, but inside it was lined with soft memory foam, covered in a layer of faux fur. Though artificial, the fur was smooth to the touch, and once Yuanxiao curled up inside, it felt just like sleeping on the rabbit-cats at night.
Yuanxiao purred happily inside the plush cat bag while Lin Xu changed into formal wear. He tucked three sea crystals into the bag, zipped it closed, and prepared to leave.
Today was the Ancient Earth Research Symposium. On his way up the space elevator to Capital Star, Lin Xu saw that the port was filled with extraterrestrial spacecraft.
Across the StarNet, news of alien delegates arriving to attend the symposium and exhibition on Ancient Earth had gone viral. At the same time, the Empire announced that the entire event would be broadcast live to the entire universe.
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