IPC Chapter 29 Part 2: Done For

Interstellar Power Couple

Translator: Lala

Quality Check: Linn

Editor: Chesh

First Published on Chaleuria

Chapter 29: Done For

“Correct. But the strange thing is that this person was already dead before meeting up with He Yunshu, and he used to be He Yunshu’s former classmate. That is to say, someone has killed He Yunshu’s classmate and used his identity to contact He Yunshu,” Lu Xian explained. “But it’s hard to say what they talked about upon meeting up, because we can’t confirm whether this is something He Yunshu is doing independently or whether it has something to do with the entire He family. So, in order not to alert them of our actions, we haven’t taken any measures to understand the situation directly from the people of the He family for now. What we can be sure of is that Plan A3 has something to do with He Yunshu.”

“But when you took Lei Jue and left that day, He Yunshu looked pretty panicked,” Si Qing said. “Dunno whether it’s because she got scared or because she knows something.”

“What about Wei Li’s case? Are there any results on that?” Xiao Lingyu asked.

“A little. We discovered that the person disguised as He Yunshu’s classmate headed back to Lin City, so we wondered whether this person was Wei Li,” Si Qing said. “But we lost him after he arrived at Lin City.”

“I suspect that Lei Jianying might have hidden him, which is why we still have yet to find him,” Lu Xian said. “Also, when the video of Emily attacking Lei Jue was posted, Lei Jianying might’ve felt guilty or something, because he changed Emily out. The robotic housekeeper in their house now is much more high-end than Emily, so we can’t use our methods from before to see whether Lei Jianying met up with anyone in particular in his home.” Lu Xian spread out his hands, “You’ll have to deal with this one yourself.”

Xiao Lingyu nodded, and the aircraft arrived at the VIP service hall of a mechanical maintenance center. When Xiao Lingyu, Qi Yu, and Si Qing stepped out, strange changes occurred in the big hall that, aside from its slightly more advanced maintenance equipment, had nothing special about it. The ground that seemed solid and seamless gradually split in two after Xiao Lingyu gave a command, revealing a whole other world hidden in the ground.

The place looked like a hangar for making illegal alterations in aircraft, with three men and a woman wearing work clothes inside, holding various tools in their hands. When they saw who had come, however, they buried themselves back in their work.

Xiao Lingyu and the rest didn’t say anything, either. After walking to the north of the hall and scanning their irises, they got on a lift and went down another level. Immediately facing them after they stepped out was a wall projection of a landscape painting. Xiao Lingyu walked up and tapped his finger on a few of the small mountains in it, and those mountains slowly moved. Despite the change in positions, it didn’t interrupt the overall aesthetic of the painting. Then, the entire painting slowly moved away and they finally arrived at their destination.

Various calls instantly sounded from within, “Boss, congratulations on getting married!”, “Boss, are you even working overtime on your honeymoon?” “What? Boss, when did you come back…”

Xiao Lingyu waved his hands. “I had stuff to do for now, so I came. I’ll treat you all to a meal when the time comes for the official vacation.”

Someone hurriedly mustered up their courage and asked, “Is it the kind of meal where we’ll be able to meet your wife?”

Xiao Lingyu smiled. “I’ll have to ask him first.”

After he was done speaking, Xiao Lingyu walked into the office, leaving four people making weird howling noises behind.

This was too big of a change, isn’t it? Could it be that on top of being a wood element user, Lei Jue is also a beast tamer?! He’s actually managed to train this irritable and wolf-like person to be so genial and amiable!

In Xiao Lingyu’s office, a person who looked almost exactly the same as Xiao Lingyu raised his head at the ruckus. “Oh hey, you’re back.”

Lu Xian kicked the chair the person was sitting on. “It’s not like there’s a mission, so why did you make yourself look like that?”

The person sighed. “I saw a certain somebody posting a picture of a couple’s feet online, so I had a feeling that my work benefit of being able to eat, drink, play, and flirt with beauties was coming to an end. Not only that, I wouldn’t be able to use this handsome face anymore either, so I decided to use my time wisely and revel in this feeling for a couple more days.”

Xiao Lingyu directly took out an unlabeled spray bottle and spritzed it on the man’s face. Not long after, strange changes began to occur on said face—he went straight from looking like a second Xiao Lingyu to a person who had the same body type, but completely different features. Who else could it be but Che Heng, who’d been shot by Lei Jue when they were playing the virtual reality battle game in the entertainment city?

Che Heng wiped his face dry. “Boss, did you plan on switching locations once your wedding leave was over, or…”

Xiao Lingyu replied while operating a special large-scale photon computer, “Not sure yet.”

“I’ve got a question.” Che Heng hesitated slightly. “Lei Jue’s fighting capabilities don’t seem like that of a normal student. Moreover, he has wood abilities too. When the results come out for ‘Plan A3’, is it possible he’s going to develop his career with the army?”

“Possibly, but I’m not sure.”

“Then is it possible that he’ll develop his career over here with us?” Lu Xian asked, smiling.

“That… is hard to say.” Xiao Lingyu’s hands paused momentarily, then he pressed a few buttons and closed the photon computer. He thought back to when Lei Jue mentioned that he might go develop his future in the army before, so he wasn’t sure what Lei Jue’s final decision was, either. But what he could be sure of was that Lei Jue wasn’t the type to loaf around doing nothing.

Just as he was thinking this, a message from Lei Jue arrived again. “Do I go back by myself first, or wait for you?”

QI Yu scooted over and spotted the message, then said, “Don’t leave for tomorrow what can be done today!”

Even though there was clearly no context for the sentence, the group all seemed to know what Qi Yu was talking about and nodded along with him. “ He’s absolutely right!”

Left with no other choice, Xiao Lingyu could only jokingly reply, “A few of my ‘old flames’ want to ask you out for a meal, want to come out and meet them?”

Lei Jue paused, then replied, “Okay. I’ll show them what it means to ‘slay with looks alone’.”

Hearing this, Xiao Lingyu knew that Lei Jue had mostly understood, so he said, “Wait for me, I’ll go pick you up in a minute.”

When the ambitious goal of don’t leave for tomorrow what can be done today was just about to be realized, the members of Northern Ling Special Ops Squad Five cheered as one, rushing to put down their work and get ready to leave.

It was their turn to rest this month anyway, and even if they did come to the office, it was just to get together and have fun. The thing was, for the people working in these special task forces, the people they usually came in contact with were either enemies or people they only saw for a short time. They had few friends in their lives outside of work, so it was their coworkers who became their best and most trusted friends instead.

Someone asked Xiao Lingyu, “Boss, should we change our faces?”

Xiao Lingyu replied, “Do what you want.”

In the end, nobody changed their faces before following Xiao Lingyu to pick up Lei Jue.

Xiao Lingyu remembered that Lei Jue liked eating drifter fruits, so he suggested to everyone to head to the drifter fruit farm on the way. A girl called Little Fan, however, said that there were too many people in the fruit farm and that there weren’t many eateries nearby, suggesting it would be better to go pick wild ones instead. They could have an on-the-field play battle with paintball guns there, too, as well as picking wild drifter fruits and bringing their own food for a picnic.

Although Xiao Lingyu was the one who laid all the rules down in Squad Five, it didn’t mean that he ignored his subordinates’ opinions, so after asking what everyone else thought, the destination was changed from the drifter fruit farm to Mount Rikalun.

This mountain rested in the Southern Clearwater District, a place where it was warm all year round with a wide expanse of vegetation. It was a good place for camping out in the wild.

Therefore, halfway to where Lei Jue was, Xiao Lingyu told Qi Yu and Little Fan to go buy some food and meet back up with them there.

Lei Jue was just sitting by the window, thinking, when the robot downstairs turned back into an aircraft with a series of clicks. He asked Xiao Lingyu, “You’ve arrived?”.

Xiao Lingyu parked the aircraft directly outside the window of the third floor.

Lei Jue bid Eldest Brother goodbye before vaulting into the aircraft, and they set off for Mount Rikalun.

There were three additional people who he didn’t know in the aircraft. Lei Jue nodded toward them. 

“Lei Jue.”

The three replied with their own names. From left to right, they were Guan Tong, Zhou Bin, and Yu Le, respectively. Guan Tong was female, while Zhou Bin and Yu Le were both male. Guan Tong had a neat bob haircut and looked like she had a bright and warm-hearted personality. On the other hand, Zhou Bin had a square jaw and Yu Le had a baby face—the former looked more solemn, and the latter looked quite shy.

Guan Tong looked excited, as if she had been waiting to meet Lei Jue for a long time. “Lei Jue, can I ask you a question?” she said.

Lei Jue nodded. “Sure.”

Guan Tong asked, “Is Xiao Lingyu really scared of you at home?”

Lei Jue turned his head to look at Xiao Lingyu. “Are you?”

Xiao Lingyu nodded. “I am. I’m scared of our overseer, even, not to mention our overseer’s boss.”

The overseer, Sir Little Bird, looking as if he could understand that they were talking about him, boastingly flapped his wings up and down. He landed on Xiao Lingyu’s head, the very picture a proud lord looking down his nose in disdain!

Lei Jue grinned, and saw that while Zhou Bin looked like he didn’t have anything to ask, Yu Le looked like he wanted to say something but was holding it back, so he straightforwardly said, “You’re all Lingyu’s friends. If you have any problems that need healing in the future, you can come to me, or get Lingyu to tell me.”

Yu Le looked a little embarrassed, feeling that asking someone who you’d just met for the first time to help you was a bit impolite. Also, he wasn’t sure whether or not he would scare Lei Jue by doing so. With how forthright Lei Jue was, however, he would appear too pretentious if he were to dawdle any longer, so he said, “I have a question, too.” He glanced at Xiao Lingyu. “I have a pet snake, and one of his eyes has gone blind. We’ve used medicine, but it doesn’t have much of an effect on him. Can he still heal with the situation he’s in?”

Lei Jue asked, “Did you bring him?”

Yu Le took a small snake that looked like a California Kingsnake out of his sleeve. He wasn’t sure whether Lei Jue was scared of snakes or not, so he’d been carefully stopping his little snake from moving the entire time.

Then he heard Lei Jue ask, “Could you let me take a look?”

Yu Le replied, “It’s better if I hold him, his poison is very potent.”

Xiao Lingyu tilted his chin at Lei Jue. “He even dares to catch and raise spectral spiders.”

Yu Le’s mouth opened and closed, then he hurriedly passed the snake over.

Lei Jue didn’t appear to be scared of the snake at all, inspecting him after receiving him, then returning him to Yu Le after he healed him. “He’s quite fun, where’d you catch him?”

Yu Le replied with the name of a place Lei Jue didn’t know.

Lei Jue replied that he would go check it out when he got the chance. Right then, however, Carrera suddenly said, “Madam, I have a question.”

Lei Jue did not force her to correct the way she addressed him. “What question?”

Carrera said, “I’ve been curious about this question for a long time, even Sir hasn’t told me.” Then, just when Xiao Lingyu got nervous, feeling that something bad was going to happen, she innocently asked, “Why would Sir enter your nickname as Little Needle Grinder in response to you nicknaming him Little Needle?”

Both Xiao Lingyu and Lei Jue fell silent.

Lei Jue slowly swivelled his head to look at Xiao Lingyu, a chilling smile on his face. Xiao Lingyu immediately looked at his subordinates with a rigid expression.

Guan Tong, Yu Le, and Zhou Bin instantly lowered their heads, not daring to watch and telling themselves, don’t laugh. If you laugh, you’ll definitely die!

Lu Xian, on the other hand, didn’t hold back. A snort came from him, then, “Hahahahahaha, Little Needle and Little Needle Grinder, what’s up with that?!”

With him laughing, the others couldn’t hold back either. Lei Jue absentmindedly thought, with how hard these guys laugh, even the aircraft is f*cking shaking.

While this was going on, Xiao Lingyu was silently recalling whether Mount Rikalun had any frightening poisonous creatures or not. After thinking, only three words were left in his head: I’m done for.