Interstellar Power Couple
Translator: Lala
Quality Check: Leslie
Editor: Chesh
First Published on Chaleuria
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Chapter 47: Primary Fruit
In the end, Xiao Lingyu still took the clothes prepared in his aircraft out for Lei Jue. Lei Jue put them on, then they walked out of the multi-purpose room together, because they had both remembered the message that Uncle had left for them in that picture—to drip his blood into the mud next to the trunk of the tree when the Golden Fruit tree bloomed.
Thus, Lei Jue stuck one hand in the pocket of his pants, the other holding an army knife, as he watched Xiao Lingyu once again open the blast-proof layer and the light-collecting layer.
While this happened, two of the multi-purpose rooms opened up, their residents coming out after hearing the noise. “What’s happening?”
Xiao Lingyu replied, “The tree bloomed, we’re going down to take a look.”
“It’s flowering on the day it was planted?” Qi Yu felt that it was a miracle no matter how he thought about it. When they had planted it, there wasn’t even a flower bud on the tree, right?
“Hopefully you guys won’t be too surprised in a moment.” Lei Jue twirled the army knife, encased in leather, in his hands, and stomped twice on the smart elevator’s center.
“What do you mean by too sur—it smells so good!” Che Heng took a whiff. “It’s even better smelling than before.”
“…My god! Is-is this the tree you guys planted earlier?!” All hints of sleepiness flew away the moment Qi Yu laid his eyes on Little Odd Flower.
Was the tree a demon or something? What kind of tree could grow two to three times its size within a day?!
“Isn’t it amazing?” When the smart elevator landed, Lei Jue led the way in, slowly approaching Little Odd Flower. The flower rain was still going, and the ground was already carpeted with a layer of pale yellow petals. Walking on top gave one a very noticeable, floaty kind of happy feeling.
“Babe, wait a moment first.” Xiao Lingyu suddenly smiled and said, “Can I first take a few pictures?” A few petals had fallen on Lei Jue’s head, and the image of him raising his head to look at the treetop was too beautiful and heartwarming. Xiao Lingyu wanted to capture this moment for eternity.
Xiao Lingyu pointed his communicator at Lei Jue. Lei Jue gazed at him, revealing a casual smile, then, perhaps out of embarrassment from being bombarded by Xiao Lingyu’s loving gaze, he dipped his head slightly. Like a butterfly’s wings, his thick lashes fell as well, hiding his eyes. The slyness in his gaze disappeared completely, and he looked almost bashful.
Realistically speaking, it was a very short scene that lasted no longer than five seconds. Even so, however, this exceedingly simple scene was so beautiful it made one’s heart skip a beat.
Forget Xiao Lingyu, even Lu Xian and Che Heng’s breathing hitched for a moment.
Lei Jue asked, “Are you done?”
Xiao Lingyu nodded, then watched as Lei Jue came to a stop roughly thirty centimeters away from the trunk. He took out his army knife and made a cut on his fingertip, but before any blood could flow out, the cut healed faster than one could blink.
Lei Jue could only move the knife to his wrist.
“What is he doing?” Si Qing asked.
“Watering it with blood.” Lei Jue had already made a cut on his wrist—a ten centimeter cut at that—but, only three drops of blood managed to flow out before the cut was once again healed!
Xiao Lingyu felt like crying in anger. His heart ached unbearably. He grabbed Lei Jue’s hand and examined it carefully. “There are three drops already, that should be enough right?”
Lei Jue saw that the tree didn’t have much of a response, then after some thought, said, “Let’s give it some more.”
He made a long cut this time, and after he made the cut he quickly put the blade in the wound to prevent it from closing up. The pain from this action was very fierce. After all, he was continuously using something sharp to press on his wound.
But all Lei Jue did was frown slightly. He didn’t shout in pain, although the gazes of the onlookers had an odd look to them. Although they already knew that Lei Jue wasn’t as weak as he looked, seeing him so unflinching after sticking a knife in himself was still surprising.
This time, the blood finally began flowing. Lei Jue let it drip on the tree’s roots, and after a while, he discovered that the flower petals had suddenly stopped falling.
Xiao Lingyu quickly threw the army knife away and blew lightly on Lei Jue’s wound, the worry on his face so apparent that the others almost couldn’t look at him straight.
However, no one laughed at him, because the scene before their eyes was just too astonishing. The downpouring of flowers that was so romantic a second ago had all but disappeared, and the petals that had covered the ground were being absorbed bit by bit by the soil. Only the flowers on the tree remained, blooming as vibrantly as they were before.
“What exactly is this?” Lu Xian couldn’t resist asking.
“It’s a tree. It’s my Offspring Tree.” Lei Jue smiled and met gazes with Xiao Lingyu, because they both knew just what the tree represented for them.
“Offspring Tree?” Che Heng’s expression bespoke his confusion. “What’s that?”
“To Lei Jue and I, it’s something we would be willing to exchange with our lives.” Xiao Lingyu gently stroked the tree trunk. At this time, something even more amazing happened. The biggest cluster of little yellow flowers suddenly fell, revealing a round wooden ball. The wooden ball was about the size of a soccer ball, and upon touching it, was hard and could emit a pale golden glow.
“Could this be the Primary Fruit?” Xiao Lingyu asked with a sliver of hidden excitement.
“It should be.” Lei Jue touched it too, and detected that there seemed to be some sort of liquid inside. He didn’t know what it was, however.
“This fruit looks really strange. Could it be the legendary fruit of immortality?” Qi Yu asked jokingly. “Can I eat it?”
“No, you can’t!” Xiao Lingyu’s hair stood up on end instantly. “I’m warning you guys, no one is allowed to so much as think of doing something to this fruit.” This was something that impacted their sex life! And it impacted the next generation of the Xiao family too; if someone ate it, he would cry himself to death!
“When the fruit matures, the fluid inside will have healing properties, but it is indeed inedible. Because if you eat it, even I may not be able to heal you.” Lei Jue was very serious as he said this, because everything he said was true. The Golden Fruit’s shell was incredibly hard, but the insides were soft and had a lot of juice. They were a bit like large-sized coconuts, so to speak, but they indeed couldn’t be consumed. Members from the Golden Fruit Clan would be alright after eating it, but if outsiders consumed it they might die.
“But will it continue growing at this rate? If so, then after a week we won’t be able to hide its existence anymore, right?” Lu Xian grew serious, and worry filled his gaze.
“It won’t grow that fast after it bears fruit.” Lei Jue thought inwardly that he and Xiao Lingyu needed to control themselves a bit, otherwise the crazy growth would definitely become a problem. The tree was already over ten meters tall right now, and it was only about thirty meters from the ground to the third barrier. If he and Xiao Lingyu slipped up again, it would be very possible for it to grow until it bumped into the barrier. So they needed to wait until the Primary Fruit was mature before messing around. That way, they won’t need to worry about Little Odd Flower absorbing their ‘air of love’.
“Okay, let’s go up.” Lei Jue said. “I’ll give you guys a rough explanation on what that is.”
The people that Xiao Lingyu had recruited to guard Little Odd Flower were definitely people who could be trusted, so Lei Jue didn’t want to keep them in the dark. After all, it was better to be more open with friends. Also, sometimes when things were deliberately kept a secret, the one who was in the dark would make wild guesses, which may, in the end, bring more trouble than if they had just been honest.
The group didn’t go in, but sat straight atop the weapon crates. Lei Jue mentioned everything from the Golden Fruit Tree’s origin to its abilities, from how he came to be on Planet Casweir to how Lei Jianying had treated him. He didn’t mention his uncle, but he did his best to help them understand the basic picture.
When Lu Xian and the others had been helping Xiao Lingyu look into Lei Jianying’s problems, they had discovered many things about him that the public didn’t know, so their opinions of him had not been great to begin with. Now that they knew he was cruel enough to kill so many people, they were essentially even more disgusted with Lei Jianying.
If two sides were on opposite ends of the battlefield and killed each other, then that couldn’t be helped; the only thing that could be done was to consider the big picture. But to murder for the sake of selfish gain was unacceptable.
Everybody had originally thought that Lei Jianwei had died on the battlefield. Now, however, things no longer seemed so simple.
“Rest assured, we definitely won’t blabber about this,” Lu Xian said. “But with how things are now, Lei Jue, you need to be more careful. That year when your father passed away, Lei Jianying wasn’t as powerful as he is now, so… I think you know what I mean.” Lei Jianying definitely had someone backing him.
“I understand, but it is of no consequence.” Lei Jue slowly raised his head and looked at Lu Xian, smiling faintly. “If anyone attacks me, I’ll attack them right back. Think of it as exercise.”
Lu Xian had nothing to say against that.
“Speaking of exercising—” Qi Yu pinched his foot. “Lei Jue, can you heal me? I twisted my foot while running earlier. It didn’t feel like much back then, but now it’s swelled up a bit.” Normally he wouldn’t have thought much about a little injury like this, but if they were to continue training tomorrow, it would be cumbersome to carry weight with his wounds. He had originally wanted to ask for Lei Jue’s help only after seeing how his wound was after a nap, but now that Lei Jue hadn’t gone to sleep yet, it would be better to heal it beforehand.
“Let me see.” Lei Jue leapt off the weapons crate and went to check it out. Seeing that it was indeed swollen, he laid the back of three of his fingers on QI Yu’s forehead and quickly sent healing energy into his body. He spent about five seconds at most, but everyone watched as Qi Yu’s foot went from swollen and red back to how it was before.
“How do you feel now?” Lei Jue asked.
“Th-this is simply too amazing!” Qi Yu looked ridiculously excited. He walked a few steps and stretched out his foot, then looked around him. “My eyesight seems to have gotten better, too.” He had originally planned on getting his eyesight treated after he realised that his vision was a little blurry, but now everything was clear and sharp!
“You can do that too? Then I want treatment too!” Che Heng came down to get Lei Jue’s help too. Actually, blurry vision and the like could all be treated at the hospital, but how troublesome was that? They couldn’t be bothered going either, since it was something so insignificant.
So the group that had originally been discussing Little Odd Flower became a group that was lining up for eyesight treatment. Lei Jue didn’t mind either, helping each of them get their eyesight to return to its optimal state, and helping them recover their physical strength at the same time, so that they didn’t feel fatigued at all anymore.
While this was going on, Xiao Lingyu sent a message to his father, Xiao Zhicheng, reporting Little Odd Flower’s growth.
Lei Jue finished up the healing and said, “I want to go down and look at it a little more, you guys go back and rest first.”
Xiao Lingyu said, “I’ll come with you.”
The others were quite smart; seeing this, they didn’t follow those two, but went to their multi-purpose rooms in pairs to rest. Si Qing and Che Heng were in one room, while Lu Xian and Qi Yu were in the other.
But when Xiao Lingyu and Lei Jue went down again, Lei Jue once again took the army knife to his wrist and, like before, used the blade to hold the wound open.
The place that had healed to the point where it looked like it had never been injured was now once again bleeding. Drop by drop, the blood dripped into the soil and the fruit grew bigger, just as Lei Jue had predicted it would.
If one were to say that the ‘air of love’ was Little Odd Flower’s fertiliser, then apparently blood was the fruit’s fertiliser.
Lei Jue pressed the blade on his wound with much strength, forcing the blood to flow faster.
Seeing this, Xiao Lingyu directly snatched the blade away. “The Primary Fruit has already grown, so we don’t need to be so rushed right now. If you do this… I feel pained.” Despite clearly knowing that Lei Jue would be able to heal himself, seeing him with wounds still sent aches through his heart. “Let’s let it grow naturally.”
If it weren’t for the fact that his body was so special, Lei Jue wouldn’t have to do this at all.
The Golden Fruit looked like a huge pineapple-flavoured lollipop at this moment. By sight, Lei Jue estimated the fruit to be roughly forty centimeters in diameter. It was actually growing much faster than he had predicted already, but, even though he couldn’t say why, he had been feeling restless ever since the flowers had bloomed.
Could it be because ‘spring’ was coming?
Lei Jue once again took the knife back from Xiao Lingyu. “I’ll recover either way, and the sooner the better. Also, do you think it’d be better if I make one cut that hurts the whole time or I make a cut every days and feel pain across a number of days?”
But Xiao Lingyu still held him down. “How about we try using a needle tomorrow?”
Lei Jue shook his head. “That wouldn’t work.” He turned around and bit lightly on XIao Lingyu’s adam’s apple, then pushed him away. Smiling, he said, “And I don’t want to wait any more.”
Xiao Lingyu saw Lei Jue make the cut even deeper this time, the blood almost spurting out of it. But the results of this were apparent. The fruit began rapidly growing, as if it had been injected with some sort of super fertiliser.
The fruit grew until it had a diameter of fifty centimeters. Lei Jue wondered whether he could make it ripen overnight, at this rate. But right at that moment he heard a crack, and—
A full thirty-centimeter crack opened up in the fruit!
Xiao Lingyu and Lei Jue’s face were instantly drained of color, and it almost felt as if crickets were chirping in the background.