Chapter 347: The Border Defense Star Stowaways

Chapter 347: Chapter 347: The Border Defense Star Stowaways

The scent of blood in the room gradually faded. The Monarch looked back at the monitor, at the person sitting cross-legged in the cage.

Interest and admiration colored his gaze. "The young lady is quite calm."

Unlike the other captured females, who just screamed and shouted incessantly.

’But what use was screaming? He wouldn’t let them leave.’

The Monarch’s gaze shifted to the contents of the housekeeping bot’s memory. The screen showed a small, green mushroom being cradled in Shi Lan’s arms.

He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. ’A mushroom spirit body is unheard of. Could a unique spirit body be the key to curing spiritual power collapse? Or is it the 3S Spiritual Power?’

’No matter which it was, he was keeping Shi Lan.’

Just then, the Monarch received a message from Ye Ming.

It read: [Father, where are you? I need to ask for your help with something.]

The Monarch replied nonchalantly: [Is that so? I’ll be there shortly. Let’s meet in the study in ten minutes.]

Ten minutes later, Ye Ming rushed to the palace, his face pale with worry. He spoke the moment he walked through the door.

"Father, my wife is missing. Can you dispatch more troops to help me find her?"

"What? How are you all taking care of your wife?"

The Monarch’s pupils constricted in feigned shock. He looked at Ye Ming with bitter disappointment. "You knew full well how exceptional your wife is—and that she’s the only 3S-Level. How could you not protect her properly? You all are truly reckless."

Ye Ming bit his lip so hard it bled, the stark red making his skin seem even paler. After a long moment, he lowered his head and mumbled, "You’re right, Father. We were too careless."

"Sigh... Well, what’s done is done. The only thing to do is find her as quickly as possible. Don’t worry, I will dispatch soldiers to join the search at once. We’ll strive to find Shi Lan soon."

"Thank you, Father."

Ye Ming lowered his gaze, hiding the sorrow and guilt in his eyes. Inwardly, he breathed a small sigh of relief.

’With Father’s help, the more people searching, the greater the chance of finding Lanlan.’

"Ming’er, don’t worry. We will definitely find her."

The Monarch patted his shoulder, offering a word of comfort.

Ye Ming looked at him, his eyes filling with gratitude and admiration. In moments like this, his father seemed to be his rock. He didn’t need to be a mature adult; he could lean on him.

But since finding Shi Lan was the priority, Ye Ming didn’t stay in the study for long. He immediately took the additional troops, assigned them to different planets, and began the search.

——

Ye Ming and the others never expected that, even after a full week of searching, there would be no news at all.

Meanwhile, He Hanshi’s premonition had not been wrong. In the days that followed, the Chao Si appeared on the Border Defense Star in a continuous stream.

However, He Hanshi managed to capture two people. It seemed they were the ones smuggling the Chao Si, and there was a mole among the new recruits at the military base. This collaboration between insiders and outsiders was why it had taken him so long to discover the operation.

If the Chao Si were being smuggled, it meant they were likely being artificially bred. This would explain why the Chao Si, which had disappeared three years ago, had suddenly reappeared.

He Hanshi was already sick with worry over Shi Lan’s disappearance, and his mood was foul. He decided he would rigorously interrogate the people he had captured.

But before he could get any useful information out of them, they killed themselves with knives.

As they died, they shouted, "We will never be the females’ lapdogs! Males reign supreme! This is a world for us great males!"

He Hanshi stared coldly at the bodies in the military base’s brig. The two smugglers and the new recruit who had been their mole all looked very young. He had seen their personnel files—they were only twenty-three or twenty-four years old.

’To die not on the battlefield, but by their own hands.’

’Still, they had smuggled Chao Si and endangered the lives of soldiers. They deserved to die.’

He Hanshi was not a particularly kind or magnanimous person. He waved a hand to have the bodies buried and silently mulled over their last words.

’ "We will never be the females’ lapdogs! Males reign supreme..." ’

’The Recovery Alliance.’

He was instantly reminded of the organization mentioned by that interstellar pirate. The slogan seemed to align with that group’s agenda.

’If it really is that organization, then they’re not only kidnapping females, but they’ve also started cultivating Chao Si.’

’Or maybe the sudden appearance of the Chao Si as a Mutated Insect Clan was this organization’s doing from the very beginning.’

The more he thought about it, the more a chill ran down He Hanshi’s spine.

It meant this organization didn’t just appear after they came to Black Star; it had been lurking in the shadows long before that.

A sudden thought prompted He Hanshi to immediately start a group call with Ye Ming and the other three. Everyone, hoping that He Hanshi might have news, connected almost instantly.

None of the Beast Husbands had gotten much sleep over the past few days. When He Hanshi looked up, he was met with faces that mirrored his own exhaustion—dark, bruised circles under every eye.

He hesitated for a moment before asking, "Any news on Lanlan?"

Jiang Xia shook his head, his expression bleak. "Nothing. There are 231 known planets in this interstellar region. I’ve taken my family’s corporate bodyguards and searched fifteen planets already, but no one has seen any trace of Lanlan."

Mu Tangfeng was just as crestfallen, his brow furrowed with irritation. "My family posted a bounty in the holographic game pods. Anyone who can provide info on Lanlan gets a ten million-credit reward. We’ve received 1,489 tips from scammers. Not one of them has been useful."

"Damn all these males, showing up just to cause trouble at a time like this. If I wasn’t so busy, I’d track them down through the network and beat them up one by one."

The red mole between Yan Huoshui’s eyebrows seemed to have dimmed from his exhaustion. He lowered his shadowed eyes, his tone icy. "I’ve been searching different planets with Mr. Lu Sr., but we still haven’t found a single lead. Most people haven’t even heard of an organization called the Recovery Alliance."

"Someone left a breadcrumb about it on the Star Network, but my permissions are limited. I can’t legally pry into someone’s privacy, so I couldn’t pinpoint their exact location. They never responded to my messages, either. However, I did ask the Eldest Prince to investigate."

At his words, Ye Ming rubbed his throbbing forehead and shook his head. "That message can only be traced to the specific location it was sent from, but the person is long gone. After that single post, they left no other trace online. I eventually pulled their real name, only to find their chip-based identity has been terminated."

Termination meant the person was already dead, and the trail went cold right there.

All of them lapsed into silence. Jiang Xia muttered anxiously, "What are we going to do? What if our wife is hurt? And our babies..."

As he spoke, his nose started to sting, and tears immediately welled up, streaming down his cheeks.

He was on a spaceship at that moment, along with his family’s corporate bodyguards. Seeing their young master’s tears, the group of burly males silently slung their arms over each other’s shoulders and ambled away.

They hadn’t seen anything. Not a single thing.

Though the young master looked sad and docile at the moment, a picture of soft helplessness, they knew he would retaliate against them one by one later.

One couldn’t afford to be so tactless.