IPC Chapter 52 Part 1: The Fruit Has Ripened!

Interstellar Power Couple

Translator: Lala

Quality Check: Asuka

Editor: Chesh

First Published on Chaleuria

Chapter 52 Part 1: The Fruit Has Ripened!

With the interference of the Elemental User Council, along with the pressure exerted by some of the members of parliament, Lei Jianying and Lei Haige’s abuse of Lei Jue could no longer go unpunished. On the second day of Xiao Lingyu and Lei Jue’s return to the Central District, the Elemental User Council worked with the Interplanetary Police to begin investigating Lei Haige and Lei Jianying. 

Although ability users could receive special treatment while pregnant, wherein all punishments were put on hold until the child was born or transferred to an incubator, they still had to comply with the law enforcers during the investigation period. That was how Lei Haige, who had originally wanted to use his pregnancy as an excuse to enjoy some peace and quiet, completely lost his peace and quiet. 

On the topic of pregnancy in a same-sex marriage, because men lacked wombs, the party to be impregnated needed to undergo a pre-pregnancy operation before uniting with their partner and getting pregnant. The eggs needed in the process would be artificially made from the cells of the pregnant party. After they were successfully impregnated, the child could stay within the ‘mother’s body’ for roughly two months before ‘moving homes’. Their new home would be a surrogacy capsule. This way, the resulting child would have genes from both parents. All of this was contrary to Lei Jue’s original expectations, which involved the fertilization of sperm and eggs from their respective banks before incubation. 

Of course, all of this now had nothing to do with Lei Jue and Xiao Lingyu. But Lei Haige was currently in the pregnancy stage, so he was experiencing quite a bit of stress. 

On his third time being called to court by the Interplanetary Police and being asked whether or not he had forcibly erased Lei Jue’s memories, Lei Haige could finally no longer resist shouting, “Haven’t I already answered this question?! I didn’t! Does he look like he’s lost his memory to you? He’s clearly just envious of the fact that Feng Gu and I now have a child, so he’s taking the opportunity to take revenge on us! He’s just a b*tch whose only skill is to pretend he’s all weak and pitiful in public! Yet you guys are still protecting him.” 

“It’s not that we’re protecting him, it’s just that your attitude is a bit suspicious,” the investigating officer said angrily. “You said that you didn’t order anybody to erase his memories. If that’s true, then where did this come from?”

“How would I know?” Lei Haige needed only a glance to know that it was a record of ‘treatment’ from the hospital where Lei Jue had had his memory wiped. But he couldn’t admit that right now, no matter what. The fact was that, apart from the things he couldn’t hide anymore, he couldn’t afford to admit to anything. 

“Mister Lei, there’s no use in avoiding the question. The fact that we’re showing you these things proves that they are real in and of themselves, and that we have already looked into and confirmed their circumstances,” another policeman said. “Su Erman has already confessed  that it was you who told him to do those things. You guys erased lei Jue’s memories, and implanted ‘Plan A3’ into the nerves of his brain.”

“What ‘Plan A3’? If there was really something like that, do you think Lei Jue would still be as lively as he is now? Don’t kid around.” Lei Haige gave a mocking laugh. “Surely you guys wouldn’t believe whatever he says just because he’s a high-level wood element user right?”

“Of course we wouldn’t.” The policeman smiled. “Wouldn’t so many more crimes be piled on your head if we did?” He opened up another video of Lei Jue being punched and kicked by Lei Haige at school.

This video was something Xiao Lingyu had found. Because Lei Haige had been quite cautious, Xiao Lingyu had never found much, despite searching for proof that he had hurt Lei Jue before. This time, it was when he had seen Feng Gu and Lei Haige showing off their unborn child all day that he suddenly got the idea to see whether looking into Feng Gu would give him anything. At first, he had only wanted to test his luck, but in the end, he really had found something pretty annoying in Feng Gu’s communicator. That disgusting man had kept videos of his dates with Lei Jue!

Feng Gu had always had special feelings for Lei Jue. He knew that he liked Lei Jue more right from the start, but because of certain profits that he would have gotten, he abandoned Lei Jue for Lei Haige. This was probably the thing he regretted the most, the thing that he loathed the most out of everything he had done in his life up until now. So despite considering deleting the records of his meetings with Lei Jue after getting together with Lei Haige, in the end, he couldn’t bear to part with them. And so it was that he had kept them all this time, taking them out every once in a while and looking at Lei Jue. 

Xiao Lingyu hadn’t thought much about it when he had dug up the video, but afterward, he found that every time Feng Gu met up with Lei Jue, Lei Haige would butt in; that was when he couldn’t help but think that there was something else to it—what would Lei Haige, who had intentions towards Feng Gu, and was so insanely jealous of Lei Jue, do after seeing the two meet?

At this thought, Xiao Lingyu took down every date that Feng Gu had met up with Lei Jue in his school, and collected all the surveillance videos from those days, getting Carrera to go over them one by one. Although this was obviously very tedious, the results didn’t disappoint, and he had actually found something useful. 

Lei Haige had interrupted Feng Gu and Lei Jue’s meetings many times, directly bringing Lei Jue away. One of those times, he had hit Lei Jue. It had been quite dark at that time, and no one was really around. Lei Haige was already an arrogant person by nature, and didn’t think Lei Jue would fight back at the time or blabber about it at all, so he naturally hadn’t let the opportunity slip by—he had specifically chosen a spot that other people couldn’t see and given Lei Jue a vicious beating. 

The quality of the surveillance camera was amazing. Although the footage was taken from quite a distance, it had still recorded everything very clearly. Lei Haige couldn’t deny it no matter how he tried. 

“Lei Haige surely never would’ve ever dreamed that this would be dug up one day. But we really must thank him for this.” Lei Jue looked at the video Xiao Lingyu gave him. “If it weren’t for him, I would surely have had memories of sleeping with Feng Gu. If that happened, wouldn’t I just die of disgust thinking about it?”

“That’s about the only good thing Lei Haige’s ever done,” Xiao Lingyu said, frowning.

‘What’s wrong?” Lei Jue looked at Xiao Lingyu’s photon computer after asking, and, after seeing what was on there, laughter twinkled in his eyes. “He really will resort to anything in order to get some sympathy.” Lei Haige had actually put on a pitiful act. 

Ever since Lei Haige had gone home from the Interplanetary Police Headquarters, he had begun playing the part of a saint. The basic gist of it was that, although he had done bad things in the past, he had been ignorant and young back then. Everything was his fault, and he wanted to apologize to Lei Jue. 

Of course, it was hard to say whether it actually was Lei Haige who said they would apologize, but that wasn’t important; what was important was that as long as the netizens felt that he was being sincere, then all was well, which was why the fans on Feng Gu and Lei Haige’s side were publicly wondering whether or not ‘a certain someone’ could stop holding onto the past so tightly.

Netizen A: What an ungrateful person, didn’t the Lei family at least provide you with food and clothes and let you go to school? Also, didn’t they apologize to you already? Why are you being so petty?

Netizen B: You didn’t bring it up all those times before, yet you choose now to do that? It can’t be because you’re jealous that our little pigeon [1] is going to have a water-natured baby, right?

Netizen C: One must learn to forgive and forget. Be wary that, by being so petty, you’ll get even further away from achieving your goals. 

Netizen D: You look so cheap, like you’re asking for a beating, yet you’re shameless enough to point your finger at others.

Lei Jue saw these posts and almost laughed out loud. He was suddenly reminded of a news report that he had seen in his previous life. There was a girl who had been r*ped, and there were actually people who said ‘she deserved it, isn’t she asking for it since she’s wearing so little?’. He had really, really wanted to roast those people to death at the time; what kind of mammoth-sized holes in their brain did they have to come up with something like that? It was as stupid as blaming the earth’s lack of gravity when they were constipated.

But, luckily, there were still relatively more people who weren’t that stupid. 

Netizen E: Sure, it’s generous that they provided clothes and food, but if I had to live in fear every single day of my life, then I wouldn’t dare to accept this generosity. 

Netizen F: If typing an apology could solve the problem, what’s the use of having laws? How about we have a certain someone come out and let us beat him up? We’ll apologize when we’re done!

Netizen G: The only thing you do in any argument is bring up your child. Have you ever thought that the child might not be willing to be involved in such malicious deeds?

Both sides battled viciously. Xiao Lingyu gave it a quick once-over and put the photo computer aside. “When Lei Haige’s child is transferred to the surrogacy capsule, he’ll definitely be punished. As for Lei Jianying, however…”

Originally, Xiao Zhicheng had thought that it was, for now, not a good time to reveal the circumstances surrounding Maikalun, because there was currently no way of knowing how it would affect Lei Jue, as well as the consequences for the entire Golden Fruit Clan. Therefore, they had first planned to dig around a bit under the cover of the publicity provided by the news of Lei family’s abuse of Lei Jue, then find a suitable time to bring it slowly into the light. Their plans were overturned, however, when someone brought up the subject of Lei Jianwei being sent out on that mission at Parliament. 

The person who had brought it up was another deputy minister of the Ministry of Defense. There was quite a bit of competition between him and Lei Jianying, so it wasn’t strange that he would bring it up, but Xiao Zhicheng had no way of confirming whether the person just wanted to investigate what happened that time, or if he had intentions to bring the Golden Fruit Clan into this with other goals in mind. 

Neither Xiao Zhicheng nor Xiao Lingyu felt wary of this. Because it had been so long ago, and because they hadn’t been personally involved in it, they had no way of knowing who else knew about what had happened back then. But they couldn’t deny that, with the increase of people who knew about the Golden Fruit Clan, there would also be an increase in the threat to Lei Jue’s safety. 

And so the security around Lei Jue was tightened even further. 

Originally, besides Xiao Lingyu and Xiao Lei, there were Lu Xian and their group of four constantly around Lei Jue. Now, aside from them, there were another eight elites from the Holy Eagle Mecha Corps protecting Lei Jue. 

Out of concern for his safety, everyone who required treatment could only see Lei Jue within the Holy Eagle Mecha Corps barracks, where nobody could bring any weapons, so Lei Jue hadn’t met any problems since beginning his treatments of patients from outside their territory. In fact, because his healing abilities were so strong and he was so amiable, his reputation had instead grown quite a bit. 

As a result, Lei Jue was basically only training two hours a day, and aside from eating and sleeping, the rest of his time was spent healing. 

There was quite a coincidence today; apparently Zuo Yan and Bai Yujiang had brought people over. Because those who wanted to receive treatment needed to apply beforehand and queue up, Lei Jue and Xiao Lingyu already knew who was in the next batch of people to be treated. 

At the thought of Zuo Yan and Bai Yujiang, Lei Jue was reminded how Xiao Lingyu had called them ‘Black Potato’ and ‘White Wuchang’ respectively. Lei Jue had quite a deep impression of these two fellas, whose luck was so poor they were implicated despite just quietly minding their own business. 

“The people these two are bringing over today are all young wounded soldiers who’ve made a few achievements in the army. It shouldn’t take too long to heal them, but there are quite a few people,” Xiao Lingyu said. “You’ll have to work hard again.”

“It’s fine, I’m getting something out of it anyway.” His wisdom energy had increased by quite a lot. Lei Jue spoke as he walked towards the large treatment room that the Corps had specifically prepared, “It’s strange, though, how come a certain someone hasn’t been getting jealous at all today?” If it had been before, whenever Zuo Yan and Bai Yujiang had come up in conversation, Xiao Lingyu would be reminded of the ‘water helps wood grow, wood helps fire grow’ incident. The jealousy he emanated could be sniffed out from miles away, so how come he was being so quiet today?

“You don’t understand, babe,” Xiao Lingyu put his arms around Lei Jue like they were the only ones around and said, “I didn’t feel very confident when I was with you before, because I felt like the whole world was saying that I wasn’t worthy of you. But things are different now; if even I’m not worthy enough to be with you, then no one is.”

“Because you have S-plus rank metal elemental abilities?” Lei Jue asked. 

“No, because I am confident that you love me, and only me.” Xiao Lingyu couldn’t resist giving a pinch to Lei Jue’s ears after speaking.

“Urgh!” Lu Xian took a step back in disgust. “Can you guys not? You guys have been making single people green with envy all day every day, from the dorms all the way to the treatment room!”

“It’s within our rights as a couple, thank you.” Xiao Lingyu had no intention of correcting his behavior at all. 

“If our Corps ever wants to start up a background business in the future, we can start selling jelly,” Che Heng said. “Xiao-Lei Green Jelly.”

Hearing someone say his name, Xiao Lei gave a small questioning roar. 

“Xiao Lingyu, hear me out—if you keep this up, be careful, or Lei Jue will start walking all over you in the future,” one of the eight elites at the back said. “You’d be so whipped.” 

“What do you mean ‘in the future’? It’s already like that now.” Xiao Lingyu looked at Lei Jue. “Babe, I’ll let you walk on me today after the treatment. You can ride on my head, and I’ll take you for a run around the grounds before heading home to sleep.” 

Lei Jue replied without a change in expression, “‘Kay.”

 

 

[1] 小鸽子: Xiao Ge Zi: Little Pigeon: the third character of Lei Haige’s name is homonymous with the character for pigeon.