Chapter 300 - 299

Ting Ying hovered above Zone Five.

Jian Yu looked down.

Pei Yin, not getting a response, muttered in disappointment, "How did we get here so fast?"

He stood up, wrapped an arm around Jian Yu’s waist, and brought them in for a landing on a Zone Five rooftop.

Pei Yin’s lips pressed into a thin line as he reined in his intimidating presence.

He looked at Jian Yu anxiously. "If you don’t want to, then forget it. I was just joking."

Jian Yu hugged him tightly, her eyelashes trembling as she looked up. "You don’t want to marry me anymore?"

Pei Yin froze for a moment. When he realized what she meant, a brilliant smile lit up his face.

He awkwardly averted his gaze. "I’m good with it."

Jian Yu said, "Oh. In that case, let’s forget it. I was just kidding, too."

The smile on Pei Yin’s face froze. "I’m not laughing."

He gritted his teeth. "No matter what, I’m not breaking up with you. If it comes down to it, I can be a concubine!"

’You weren’t the main one to begin with,’ Jian Yu thought.

Pei Yin cupped Jian Yu’s face and kissed her forcefully.

His expression was fierce and his tone vicious. "Don’t even think about shaking me off."

Jian Yu pressed her lips together. Her breathing grew heavy, and her face flushed hotly.

She wasn’t very good with sweet words, so she just quietly tightened her grip on Pei Yin’s hand.

She said earnestly, "I’m not trying to shake you off. There’s only one of me and several of you. You’re the ones getting the short end of the stick."

Pei Yin snorted. "I don’t feel like I’m losing out. If they do, they can quit."

It was as if Pei Yin had suddenly grown cunning.

He suddenly added, "You only think that because they’re the ones who feel it’s unfair and that they’re losing out. They probably couldn’t control their expressions or tone, and you noticed."

Jian Yu stared at him blankly.

Huh?

Pei Yin swept her up in one arm, his gaze fixed straight ahead. "They’re just trying to PUA you, making you feel unworthy so you’ll give your whole heart to them."

He lowered his head and planted a loud smack of a kiss on Jian Yu’s face.

"I’m different, babe. I won’t PUA you. Even with one of you and seven or eight of us, I’d still call it a match made in heaven, absolutely perfect."

Pei Yin landed with her in his arms, the black wings on his back beating twice before slowly retracting.

"I know you’re anxious, so go ahead. They should be waking up by now."

Jian Yu’s feet touched the ground.

She placed a hand on Pei Yin’s arm to steady herself.

The door slid open to both sides.

Ling Yanzhi was lounging on the hospital bed in a black and red uniform, looking nonchalant.

He had one leg crossed over the other, his gaze lowered as he toyed with a military medal in his hand.

Perhaps it was from his time on the battlefield, but even his casual posture couldn’t hide the sharp, crisp bearing unique to a soldier.

Following behind Jian Yu, Pei Yin called out cockily, "Ling Gou, I’m back."

Ling Yanzhi lifted his gaze, his eyes nonchalant with a hint of wildness.

Jian Yu hesitated to approach for a moment. "Ayan."

Ling Yanzhi paused.

Between his injuries and the sense of security that Zone Five provided, he had subconsciously refrained from using his soul domain and Spirit Domain.

He had thought Si Xu had taken Jian Yu away again, and that only Pei Yin had returned.

"It hurts so much," Ling Yanzhi’s eyes flickered as he raised a hand to rub his chest, his voice terribly weak.

Jian Yu hurried over and sat on the edge of the bed, looking at him with concern. "Don’t you have a strong Self-healing Ability? How can you still be in pain?"

Ling Yanzhi’s eyelids drooped. "Maybe the wound is too severe. My Self-healing Ability has its limits."

He held out his hand, his usually defiant eyes showing a wronged expression. "My hand... it hurts a lot, too."

Jian Yu quickly took his hand, forcing out what little Green Mist she could muster from her natural energy regeneration.

She had given all the 3S Rank Beast Crystals to Pei Yin to make into Crystal Cards, keeping only two with the Healing Attribute for herself.

Jian Yu took out the largest Beast Crystal.

Ling Yanzhi’s eye twitched when he saw the 3S Rank Beast Crystal.

He placed his hand over Jian Yu’s, leaning weakly against her. "I feel much better. Let’s save it for now. No need to waste it."

Jian Yu was not swayed. "It’ll have to be used sooner or later."

Ling Yanzhi coughed lightly. "Something this valuable should be saved for an emergency."

He shot a pointed look at Pei Yin. "With Pei Yin around, nothing will happen to me."

Ling Yanzhi looked exhausted, punctuating his words with constant coughs.

Although Jian Yu could tell something was fishy, she didn’t have the heart to call his bluff and obediently put the Beast Crystal away.

Pei Yin scowled. "It’s not like you’re dying. But if you keep that up, you just might cough yourself to death!"

Pei Yin eyed him disdainfully. "For old times’ sake, if I can’t save you, I’ll just strangle you myself. Spare you the misery of living."

Ling Yanzhi raised an eyebrow.

Jian Yu fidgeted with the hem of her dress, pretending not to notice the palpable tension in their words and glances.

It wasn’t that she was completely oblivious; her heart just leaned a little more toward Ling Yanzhi.

"Why isn’t anyone asking about me?" Xi Yu’s voice emerged gloomily.

Jian Yu glanced around.

A long, slanted shadow slowly rose from a corner next to the hospital bed.

Xi Yu’s eyes were full of resentment, his expression sullen.

He was hugging a large stuffed animal—a big, sallow-colored dog.

Jian Yu blinked. She found the combination to be surprisingly cute.

Xi Yu wobbled over and sat down on the edge of the bed.

He sat down close to Jian Yu, but his eyes were on Pei Yin. "What did you find out?"

Pei Yin summarized the events in the simplest terms possible.

Finally, he concluded, "The Alliance screwed up."

The Alliance had always maintained a neutral stance toward the two factions—the one that supported commoners and the one that sought to stabilize the nobility’s position.

When Yan Tianba first rose to prominence, the Alliance had even offered a few words of praise.

Jian Yu recalled what the director of the research institute had said and added hesitantly, "Over three hundred people were brought back from Emperor Wolf Star. Just because the hundred-plus survivors are fine doesn’t mean there was nothing wrong with the ones who died."

Xi Yu also thought there had to be a reason for so many deaths.

When he and Ling Yanzhi had rescued them, those people had all been alive and kicking.

He had asked Si Xu. "Ah Xu said that by the time he got there, the bodies had already been burned, and the higher-ups were adamant that the cause of death was poisoning."

Pei Yin frowned. "All of them were burned? No wonder my request was denied."

Yan Mingjiao’s body had disappeared, so he planned to request two random corpses to try transplanting those eyes into.

Since more than half of the people rescued from Emperor Wolf Star had died, he’d inquired if any of the bodies met his criteria.

The Slave Market had captured people under the pretext of them being criminals; surely not every single one of them was innocent.

Out of three hundred people, over two hundred had died. If he couldn’t even scrounge up two suitable corpses from that group, then something was seriously wrong.

"They didn’t even try to contact the families of the deceased, did they? How is that any different from rushing to destroy the evidence?"

Pei Yin was speechless. "So, it wasn’t that the bodies didn’t meet the criteria for the experiment, but that they never bothered to verify the identities of the deceased at all."

Jian Yu was stunned. "Doesn’t the Alliance get involved?"

Ling Yanzhi chuckled softly and explained the key point.

"It’s not that they won’t get involved, but that they can’t. And it’s not that they don’t want to, but that they don’t dare."

He couldn’t break it down piece by piece, because the answer was brutally realistic.

"Power is too decentralized. The Alliance has no military and no real authority. It’s essentially just a negotiating body—at best, you could call it a quasi-interstellar government."

As things stand now, Emperor Wolf Star acts with more impunity than anyone else.

"At the end of the day, all that will come of this Emperor Wolf Star incident is a meeting, some harsh condemnation from the moral high ground, and perhaps a vote to pass a few related, toothless initiatives."