IPC Chapter 46: It Blooms

Interstellar Power Couple

Translator: Lala

Quality Check: Asuka

Editor: Chesh

First Published on Chaleuria

Chapter 46: It Blooms

What Lei Jue had originally wanted to say to Cheng He was, How about if all three shots hit the center, you run the fifteen kilometers with Qi Yu?

But he changed his words just before they left his mouth so he wouldn’t earn Cheng He’s ire. When Xiao Lingyu had resigned himself to Lei Jue’s willfulness, it was because Xiao Lingyu loved him and was willing to bear with his antics. If he acted like that with Cheng He, it would be akin to asking for a beating, and actions that made the leader of the group want to beat you must not be taken lightly. 

Cheng He’s gaze stayed fixed on the bullets in the tree for a while, asking Lei Jue, “Who taught you?”

Lei Jue looked at Xiao Lingyu and smiled. 

Xiao Lingyu looked back at Lei Jue and gave him a big thumbs up. Although he didn’t say anything, the pride written across his face was obvious for all to see. 

Cheng He felt a flicker of astonishment. He nodded and said, “Tell Qi Yu to return to the team.” 

It was only when his words had fallen that everyone else came back to their senses, and conversation instantly blew up. 

“My god, six thousand meters!”

“He’s only just arrived and is already breaking records…”

“That marksmanship is certainly something. The people in the entire Northern District who could do that can be counted on one hand!”

At this point in time, Che Heng uttered a sentence that summed up what everyone’s thoughts, “As expected, the person the freak marries is a freak as well!”

Seeing Xiao Lingyu glaring at him after he said that, he hurriedly put his hands up. “I’m sincerely praising you! It’s praise! Thank you very much!”

When Qi Yu came back, he was so tired he felt like he would fall, but at the thought of not having to run any farther, he felt considerably moved. When he heard that it was thanks to Xiao Lingyu and Lei Jue’s marksmanship that he didn’t have to run almost half the distance, his gratitude shot up so much it practically dripped with all the extra digits, and he had the urge to pull the two into a hug and plant a big smooch on each of them. 

Except he didn’t dare to. And so it was that he—with lungs full of enthusiasm and nowhere to vent it—leapt onto Lu Xian and pushed him down. He panted, pushing his whole weight down on him. “The exhaustion is… is killing me.”

Lu Xian had only just taken off the weights, so the sudden weight of a person knocked the wind out of him. When he caught his breath, he pushed Qi Yu to the side with all his strength. “Go lie somewhere else.”

“Lying down so soon? You still have shooting practice! Everyone up!” Captain Ka Nuo gave a big shout. “Those whose shooting skills pass can go back and rest. As for those who don’t pass, same old rules, get into groups of twenty according to the order you arrived in and get ready to shoot!”

Everyone got moving, and, like clockwork, neatly formed groups of twenty after taking their positions in order of arrival. 

Xiao Lingyu and Lei Jue were naturally part of the group that passed, and Xiao Lingyu knew that Lu Xian and the others wouldn’t have any problems either. Thus he sent a nod at his friends, signaling that he would go back with Lei Jue first. Lu Xian and the others gave their own nod of understanding, knowing that Lei Jue wasn’t as resistant to the cold as them, and, on top of that, also knowing that the thing hiding within the ‘weapon depot’ did indeed warrant their worry. 

Che Heng looked at the two who had taken their leave first and said, “Doll, don’t you think that that couple is pretty interesting?”

Shan Yang had a babyface, so when Cheng He was in a mood he would call Shan Yang ‘Doll’. Everyone in the Holy Eagles Mecha Corps knew about this, but none of them dared laugh about it. Every single one of them had been punished because they’d laughed at one point. Although they knew, Lu Xian and the others didn’t. Thus, Qi Yu and Che Heng burst into laughter on the spot, and after laughing, they saw Cheng He glaring at them. 

Xiao Lingyu and Lei Jue took Xiao Lei and the two other pets into the weapon depot, and seeing that there wasn’t anything off inside, they felt a bit more at ease. After making sure that the door was shut tight, they opened up the blast-proof and light-collecting layers, and rode the elevators down into the basement. 

They hadn’t actually left for that long in total, but when Lei Jue saw Little Odd Flower, they felt as if they hadn’t seen each other in a very long time. Before, he had been a little worried over whether Little Odd Flower might be affected by the lack of light, but now he knew that he was just being paranoid. “Carrera, how much did he grow while we left?” Xiao Lingyu asked. 

“0.8 centimeters in height and 0.5 centimeters in width.” Upon hearing Xiao Lingyu mention Little Odd Flower, Carrera knew it was okay to talk about the secret. “Sir, there are new updates on the case about Zuo Feng taking his people to search for something on Mount Rikalun. Yu Le contacted you, but you weren’t available at the time, so I told him to transfer the information to your private inbox.”

“Okay.” Having confirmed that Little Odd Flower was okay, Xiao Lingyu took Lei Jue to the top of the protection layer and entered the small portable multi-purpose white room to look at what Yu Le had sent them. 

After planting Little Odd Flower and confirming that its leaves were heart-shaped with lobed edges, Lei Jue had guessed that Little Odd Flower might be the thing Zuo Feng and Feng Gu were looking for on Mount Rikalun. When he wanted to bring it up with Xiao Lingyu, however, it had been on the night of the ‘cross-arm drinking’, and Xiao Lingyu had given him a blow-job because of it. After that, Lei Jue had brushed the thing out of his mind. What he hadn’t thought of was that Xiao Lingyu would get someone to look into the incident later. 

They needed to know where Zuo Feng had gotten the information from, and right now, Yu Le had gotten his hands on new information on it. 

“So what Yu Le means is that the information is very likely to have come from Lei Jianying?” After Lei Jue looked at the information Yu Le had sent, he said, “But only the Golden Fruit clan of Planet Maikalun have the Tree of Life, so why was Zuo Feng looking for it on Mount Rikalun?”

“Zuo Feng might not actually know that Planet Maikalun exists, or Lei Jianying might’ve purposefully misled him to think that Rikalun is Maikalun. All of these are just guesses, though. What I’m most curious to find out is whether Lei Jianying knows about Little Odd Flower’s existence right now.”  

“I don’t think he knew before. After all, we planted Little Odd Flower after meeting Zuo Feng and the rest on Mount Rikalun. That is to say, before we planted Little Odd Flower, Zuo Feng only knew that he needed to find the Tree of Life. That makes it very possible that Lei Jianying was already borrowing the Zuo family’s connections to find it at the time.” As Lei Jue pondered about this, he started very slowly taking off his clothes. “Say… could Zuo Zhihuan possibly have been poisoned by Lei Jianying and his group?”

“It isn’t impossible.” Xiao Lingyu’s gaze darkened. “That year when Dad was poisoned, we were never able to find out how it happened in the end. At the time, he had gone into battle, but the army he took with him wasn’t the Northern Ling army, so it wouldn’t have been strange for someone to take the opportunity to do something. But even after all these years, we still don’t have any leads.”

“Do you still remember what Uncle said when he came before?” Lei Jue’s thoughts jumped around a little. “I asked him why he pulled the sprout out of my head, and he said it was only like this that I could grow up like a normal child. Otherwise, if they were to discover my power, the consequences would be devastating.”

“I remember. At the time, you asked him whether he was talking about your healing powers too.”

“That’s right. At the time, all he did was smile a bit, and didn’t give an answer. But think—if it were just healing powers, what would be so scary about that? It’s not like there aren’t people with healing powers on Planet Casweir.” Lei Jue had felt that it was a bit strange at the time, but he hadn’t found any particularly strange abilities in his Uncle’s memories, so he didn’t think to pursue an answer later. Of course, he hadn’t thought that his Uncle would leave at the drop of a hat at the time either, otherwise he would have definitely gotten to the bottom of things. 

Taking Lei Jue’s suspicions into account, Xiao Lingyu reorganized his own thoughts. 

Firstly, they could be sure that, in order to gain the mysterious power of the Golden Fruit Clan,  Lei Jianying had wanted to invade the Golden Fruit clan’s land, and even control the people. But because the guards of the Golden Fruit clan’s territory hadn’t lowered their heads at him, Lei Jianying’s plan hadn’t succeeded, and in the end, he had even stolen Lei Jue. Di Lin hadn’t been able to save Lei Jue at the time, but he was scared that Lei Jue’s abilities would be discovered so he pulled off the sprout on Lei Jue’s head, causing him to lose his special abilities. Therefore, Lei Jue had grown up like a normal person until now. 

Lei Jianying had placed Lei Jue right beneath his nose, but he didn’t find anything about Lei Jue that was different from a normal person. 

That was, until Lei Jue had begun displaying his elemental abilities. 

Then, under the circumstance of being in the know about Lei Jue’s special circumstances, Lei Jianying would definitely suspect whether Lei Jue’s abilities had anything to do with the Golden Fruit clan’s abilities. 

Also, this special ability of his, was it really as simple as being able to cure things? Surely, Lei Jianying wouldn’t do so much if it were. 

Lei Jue took off the last thing restricting his body. “Looks like Lei Jianying won’t let things rest until one side loses completely.”

Xiao Lingyu didn’t reply. 

Lei Jue noticed the way that Xiao Lingyu was looking at him and suddenly felt a bit speechless. When they lived at home, they had a lot of room, and he had mostly gone into the bathroom before taking off his clothes so Xiao Lingyu wouldn’t get worked up looking at him. Here, however, the bathroom was very small, and the washing machine was outside at that, so he had taken off his clothes while thinking about their problems. 

Their clothes were very dirty after exercising, so Xiao Lingyu didn’t sit on the bed, and despite seeing that Lei Jue had finished stripping, he didn’t go up to hug him either. He bent down and kissed Lei Jue, “You go in and wash up first, I’ll go get Xiao Lei something to eat.”

Lei Jue smiled and gave Xiao Lingyu’s ears a pinch. “Okay.”

Xiao Lei was too big. If they had let him in the multipurpose room, there would be nowhere left to stand, so Xiao Lei had remained in the foyer. Luckily, the foyer wasn’t cold, and it was big enough so that Xiao Lei could run around happily. 

Xiao Lingyu went and picked up Xiao Lei’s clothing, pondering whether to get him his own large-sized washing machine, then went into the kitchen to find food. Before he left, he got Xiao Lei to guard Lei Jue, taking Loquat and Curly with him. Loquat curled up in his arms, and Curly The Monkey climbed on his shoulders. 

Various fresh meats, vegetables, and fruit were always kept in the kitchen. Xiao Lingyu spent his own money to buy food in order to feed their family. 

Xiao Lei ate big pieces of meat, while Loquat and Curly didn’t have huge appetites and were satisfied with a bit of fish and some fruit. 

Xiao Lingyu told Xiao Lei to take Loquat and Curly aside to eat, and seeing that the two houses left had yet to open, he knew that Lu Xian and the others had yet to come back. He entered and saw that Lei Jue had already come out of the bathroom and was currently wrapped up in a blanket sitting on the bed, with only two arms poking out. Xiao Lingyu asked, “What’re you doing?”

Lei Jue had a big ball of green energy in his hand, which was holding a small icebox the size of two shoe boxes. 

“With an E-rank physique, regardless of how fast my recovery abilities are, my basic physical stats and explosive force are still limited, so I wanted to see if my elemental abilities can supplement that.” As he spoke, Lei Jue slowly dispersed the elemental energy and the icebox steadily dropped back down. 

“Want to eat?” Xiao Lingyu was carrying a bag in his hand, with plenty of food inside that was suitable to eat at night. 

“I’ll wait and eat with you,” Lei Jue replied, seeing that Xiao Lingyu had begun stripping. “That’s right, Lingyu, help me gather some statistics on the mecha corps’ fighting style before going in. I want to read up on it first.” After all, despite everything, he was still a member of the Northern Ling District’s strongest mecha corps, and it would be far too embarrassing for him to be utterly clueless if someone were to ask him anything about mecha. 

“Carrera, send the third group of hidden folders in my communicator to the madam.” As he spoke, he quickly stripped off his clothes and entered the bathroom, taking a super-rushed shower before coming out. He didn’t wear pajama bottoms with nothing on top, unlike when they were back home, because he hadn’t brought any pajama bottoms with him. Therefore, he was currently wearing military-issued underwear, though he still wore nothing on top. 

Lei Jue glanced at him and his expression became a little strange. 

“What’s wrong?” Xiao Lingyu gathered Lei Jue into his arms, blanket and all, and breathed his scent in. He really did like the faint, fresh scent that Lei Jue naturally had on him. “Did you see anything you don’t understand?”

“Yes…” As Lei Jue spoke, he swept his gaze over Xiao Lingyu’s lower half, then kneaded his temples. “We should think of a way to get me two sets of other clothing tomorrow.”

“What?” Xiao Lingyu looked at Lei Jue, and, seeing in the helplessness in his gaze, his thoughts suddenly clicked. That’s right, they all had new clothes sent out to them except for Lei Jue

He was wondering why Lei Jue was using the blanket to wrap himself up. 

They hadn’t considered the topic when they came, but had directly moved in. They had originally planned on going back and picking up some stuff, but Cheng He had suddenly arrived to make them train so it had never happened. The result was that now Lei Jue had nothing to wear after taking off his clothes. 

No, wait. He did have something. 

There were clothes that had been prepared for Lei Jue on Xiao Lingyu’s aircraft, in case there was going to be a difference in temperature if they ever went on sudden trips. 

After some consideration, however, Xiao Lingyu decided to continue playing dumb. Not only that, he even opened the doors of the elevator just a sliver, and opened the ventilation window on their ceiling, too. After this, he pried Lei Jue out from the blankets, and, while embracing him, began pressing kisses down. 

Even though he clearly knew he shouldn’t, he could never resist wanting to become more intimate with him. Perhaps this was what true love was. 

Lei Jue didn’t say no. He returned Xiao Lingyu’s kiss, allowing the sound of Xiao Lingyu’s roughened breath to ring by his ears.  The friction between their two bodies rapidly increased the temperature in the room, but warmer still was the other person’s hands. 

Xiao Lingyu’s hands roamed across Lei Jue’s back. After working out for a period of time, Lei Jue was a little stronger than before, and the skin underneath Xiao Lingyu’s hands had become firmer and smoother. Xiao Lingyu was a little bit reluctant to let go, and, after some heavy petting, he buried his hands in Lei Jue’s neck and took a deep breath. 

Lei Jue smoothed down Xiao Lingyu’s hair. “I think there’s something wrong with the two of us.” 

Xiao Lingyu gave a bitter laugh. “I couldn’t resist.”

Lei Jue didn’t say anything. At this moment, Little Odd Flower down below was furiously absorbing the energy that no one else but it needed, and had once again begun a round of super-speed growth!

Carrera noticed the abnormal activity. “Sir, Little Odd Flower has once again begun growing at fast rates!”

Lei Jue looked at Xiao Lingyu’s communicator a little doubtfully. “By how much?”

Carrera replied, “I am currently unable to confirm the exact amount, as it is still growing.”

Xiao Lingyu directly opened the video from the surveillance system. Now, both he and Lei Jue could see little Odd Flower’s branches continuously reaching out all over the place. More and more leaves grew out, and when the tiny new leaves came out, they were a light green colour, but would later elongate and turn darker, while the veins of the leaves would become brighter. 

Lei Jue pointed at the ventilation gap at the top. “Did you open it on purpose?”

Xiao Lingyu smiled and replied, “Our love is Little Odd Flower’s soul food, we mustn’t waste it.”

Lei Jue nodded. “You’re right.” Then he sat directly on top of Xiao Lingyu’s abdomen and ensnared him in a kiss once again.

After midnight, there was finally noise outside the door. Xiao Lingyu was currently strolling around the foyer, trying to calm down his excited nerves, but upon hearing the sound, he went and opened the door. 

Lu Xian, Si Qing, and the rest were dog-tired, falling onto the ground in a heap as soon as they came in. Qi Yu shouted, “My god, finally! I can finally rest!”

Xiao Lingyu gently poked Qi Yu with his toe. The guy looked like he didn’t want to take another step. “Why are you guys back so late?”

Che Heng replied, “The captain called the leader ‘Doll’, and we couldn’t resist laughing, so we ended up like this. 

Xiao Lingyu recalled the leader’s babyface and couldn’t resist laughing either. 

At this moment, Lu Xian and Si Qing suddenly frowned, and almost simultaneously said, “Something smells nice…”

Xiao Lingyu had closed the three barriers before he opened the door, but hints of the fragrance did indeed remain in the room. He hadn’t noticed it at the time, but now that Si Qing and Lu Xian mentioned it, he suddenly realised that the smell was a little stronger than before. 

“That should be Little Odd Flower’s scent. It’s bigger now, so the scent has gotten stronger,” Xiao Lingyu explained. “You guys should quickly go wash up and rest.”

“I can’t move one more step. I’ll just sleep here.” Qi Yu patted the floor, making a sly grin. “Where’s Lei Jue, did you put him to sleep?”

“Yeah, he’s asleep.” Xiao Lingyu looked at Xiao Lei. “Xiao Lei, your Uncle Qi Yu is feeling tired, help drag him to his room.”

With a roar, Xiao Lei rushed over!

“Drag?! No thanks, no thanks!” Qi Yu looked at Xiao Lei’s gigantic mouth and shot up like his hass had been burned. “I’ll go back to my room on my own!”

In speeds he had never achieved before, Qi Yu opened the multi-purpose room and closed the door after entering. Outside, Xiao Lingyu saw that everyone had gone back to rest, so he went inside too. 

Lei Jue hadn’t, in fact, fallen asleep, and was looking at Xiao Lingyu with a weird look in his eye. 

“What’s wrong?” Xiao Lingyu asked.

Lei Jue silently took out the surveillance footage of Little Odd Flower for Xiao Lingyu to see, and Xiao Lingyu saw that the light orange and green Tree of Life suddenly had an additional color—a pale yellow. Various pale yellow clusters of hydrangea-like flowers bloomed on the branches of the Tree of Life, and even though there was clearly no wind, they moved as if they were blown by a breeze, drifting down in a rain of blossoms…