IPC Chapter 52 Part 2: The Fruit Has Ripened!

Interstellar Power Couple

Translator: Leslie

Quality Check: Lala

Editor: Lala

First Published on Chaleuria

Chapter 52 Part 2: The Fruit Has Ripened!

The people at the back kept crying that they couldn’t take it anymore. Fortunately for them, they were only a few steps away from the medical bay. It was only then that the shameless couple toned down their PDA.

 

Zuo Yan was still the same as ever—tanned and solemn. Bai Yujiang, on the other hand, was exactly like Xiao Lingyu had described—extremely pale, and hiding his sly streak behind a simple-minded exterior.

 

There were a total of over 60 subordinates across the two military zones, and each of them required healing in some form. No matter how much of a whiz Lei Jue was, he could not possibly heal them all in one go, and so a problem presented itself: just who should he heal first?

 

Zuo Yan spoke up. “Treat those in the Western Moon District first. We can wait.”

 

The Xiao family were on better terms with the Zuos, not to mention that they owed Lei Jue a debt of gratitude. They couldn’t just put the ones who had helped them in an awkward spot.

 

However, Bai Yujiang laughed. “You should get treated first. After all, you guys arrived earlier.”

 

They had to be kidding—those ingrates from the Feng family had brought the Western Moon military’s name down with them and into Lei Jue’s bad books. What kind of idiots would they be to fight with the Zuos for treatment and make Lei Jue’s impression of them worse?

 

Seeing that they were all being cordial, Lei Jue smiled. “Then both troops should come in. Six at a time, with three from each district. Sit in a line in front of me and explain your conditions, from left to right.”

 

If it were only light injuries or minor illnesses, they wouldn’t have come looking for Lei Jue’s help. A hospital would have taken care of it. So the people who did come to seek out Lei Jue were all afflicted with problems that current medical advancements hadn’t been able to fix, or aftereffects from a past injury.

 

“Can’t this be regrown with cell regeneration treatment?” asked Lei Jue hesitantly when he saw a man with a missing leg.

 

Although the time needed for the treatment was a little long, it should still be doable.

 

This person was from the Southern Clearwater District. “He’s allergic to the medication used in cell regeneration.” Replied Zuo Yan.

 

Lei Jue nodded in understanding. “Alright. Then, all of you, link hands with each other.”

 

The six people glanced at each other for a moment, before doing as told. Although they were strangers from different districts, they all knew right then not to waste Lei Jue’s time.

 

Lei Jue placed his hands upon the man with the missing leg’s arm, and then rapidly released his healing energy. Lei Jue cast his green net over the six, like casting a net over fish. However, with each ‘fish’ in this net sitting straighter than the next, they resembled a stick of green grape tanghulu[1] too. 

 

Everyone had already heard about how amazing Lei Jue’s healing abilities were these days. Despite that, they were flabbergasted beyond words to see it in action. Such abundant wood elemental energy! The patient with the missing limb, a full-grown man, nearly cried in joy. He hadn’t been too devastated about the amputation at first—it was inevitable for a soldier to get hurt in the line of duty after all, and he could always regrow it via cell regeneration treatments. Even if the treatment was costly, since he had gotten injured while serving his country, the government would cover it. However, he had never thought that, when he entered the hospital with a heart filled with hope, the doctors would tell him that he was allergic to the necessary medications for the cell regeneration procedure—he couldn’t undergo the procedure at all!

 

Since he couldn’t go through with the cell regeneration treatment, he could only settle for a prosthetic leg. This meant that while he could freely move about by himself, he could never be a soldier again.

 

But being a soldier was what he took pride in the most.

 

He had gone to find his commander several times in hopes of being able to remain in the army. The commander had later approved his request, but had him transferred to an office position. He didn’t want a paper-pushing role though, even if that was the only job left for him.

 

“You’ll need a bit more time than the others to heal. Sit still and don’t move for now.” After Lei Jue had spoken to the man with no leg, he signalled to the healed patients to make way for the next batch. He then continued to heal the man as he told the next five people, “Just tell me the basics of your injuries, like your comrades did before you.”

 

“Doctor Lei, it’s nice to meet you. My eyes contracted the P6 virus while I was out on the field. Meds can control it, but even though I’ve been taking them for a while, my eyesight is still worsening.”

 

“Nice to meet you, Doctor Lei. My…”

 

The five newcomers finished their introductions and sat down to await treatment.

 

Lei Jue liked well-behaved patients. “Link hands with the person next to you. If you don’t feel well at any time during the procedure, you have to speak up.”

 

They nodded, and then Lei Jue began the healing process.

 

And so he repeated this process, over and over, releasing his healing energy. By noon, he had already treated over half the soldiers. Someone saw him shaking his hand, and, thinking that his hand was tired or something, asked, “Dr Lei, why don’t you switch to your left hand? Wouldn’t that give your other hand some time to rest?”

 

Lei Jue smiled. “My left hand is not for healing, only for fighting.”

 

“Surely not, I’d believe it if you had told me that Lieutenant Colonel Xiao can rough people up, but you? Are you joking?”

 

The guy obviously didn’t believe him.

 

Although Lei Jue was indeed top-notch in the field of healing, with his E-rank physique, the only thing he could fight was probably a bird.

 

Qi Yu felt irked by people like him. “Bro, don’t judge a book by its cover. I’m not kidding here. If you two fought, you might not actually win..”

 

Cheng He heard this when he came over to check on them. He l aughed, clearly enjoying the chaos. “Since there’s only a few patients left, and it’s nearly lunchtime already, how about this? Once treatments are all done, Si Qing, you and the others can take our friends here over to the cafeteria to eat and give them a taste of the Northern Ling military zone’s cuisine. After lunch, we can engage in some friendly sparring. What do you think?”

 

The babyfaced instructor secretly rolled his eyes at Cheng He. Despite sugar-coating his words so nicely, in the end, Cheng He just wanted to see some action. Friendly joint training his foot.

 

However, everyone’s interests were piqued. It was just sparring after all—they were young and full of energy, and it was just a game. What’s the worst that could happen? It was the chief commander who had suggested this anyways, it wasn’t like they were trying to compete or anything.

 

A loud and orderly chorus of ‘Yessir!’ resounded around the medical bay.

 

Lei Jue looked at Cheng He, and could not repress a cold chuckle.

 

Lei Jue finished the rest of the treatments as fast as he could before following the troops to the cafeteria. Once he had eaten his fill, he went over to the training grounds with the other soldiers.

 

Among the sea of giants, Lei Jue was like a little chick. Despite that, his presence was quite strong.

 

In truth, Lei Jue was the one that everyone wanted to see the most in this ‘friendly joint training’—after all, the Holy Eagles Mecha Corps members were pansies, and it was clear at a glance that they were strong. Lei Jue was the only one who looked as weak as a bunny, but in spite of that, they had been told that they might not necessarily win against him in a fight. 

 

The guy who hadn’t believed that Lei Jue could fight was from the Western Moon District. Everyone called him Bullethead, because the top of his head was rather pointed. It really did somewhat resemble a bullet.

 

Bullethead stood surrounded by his fellow soldiers. He was already regretting being such a loudmouth earlier, but now that it had come to this, he couldn’t talk his way out of fighting anymore. He looked at Lei Jue. “Doctor Lei, if you were to get hurt, you can heal yourself up quickly, right?”

 

Bullethead was praying that Lei Jue wouldn’t end up healing slowly, otherwise, his chief commander would strangle him when they got back to the base. His own chief commander! Oh, wait, Bai Yujiang would probably strangle him first before they managed to return to their base.

 

“Relax, your ability to hurt me can’t possibly outpace my ability to self-regenerate.” Lei Jue then asked, “Are we going with pure physical combat, or are we going to battle it out with mechs?”

 

“You decide.”

 

“Mechs then, since you’re also in a mecha corps.” Lei Jue thought that since he had too much wisdom energy stored now, he wasn’t sure how much destruction he might wreck upon the other person. Although he could just heal him up, if Lei Jue couldn’t control the output properly and end up severely injuring Bullethead, then that would be bad.

 

“Alright then. Good for me too since I’ll feel less pressured if I can’t see your face.” Bullethead entered a mech once he had finished speaking, and followed Lei Jue out to the field. “It’s only a friendly battle anyway, so how about this, from the moment that we leave the ground, whoever hits the ground first loses?”

 

“Sure.” Lei Jue nodded.

 

Xiao Lingyu was watching this from outside, with Bai Yujiang and Zuo Yan not far away.

 

“Can your husband really fight?” asked Bai Yujiang.

 

“He’s quite a pro.” Xiao Lingyu was delighted upon hearing those words. It was evident that hearing the words ‘your husband’ was especially pleasing to him.

 

Lei Jue activated the mind link once he had clambered inside his mech. When someone yelled for the battle to start, he charged forward instantly, like a bolt of lightning. All that everyone could see was Lei Jue shooting forwards like an arrow and attacking his opponent with all his might. Clang! Sparks flew from the metal-on-metal contact, and Bullethead, who had taken the punch, had no idea at all that Lei Jue would possess such speeds. Although he did his best to avoid that first hit, in the end, he still took a punch to the chest.

 

Bullethead was now a little interested in the fight. He immediately gathered his wits about him and struck back at Lei Jue.

 

These days, Lei Jue trains for two hours every day, and he basically uses all that time to fool around with the mechas. By now he was quite skilled at piloting them.

 

Xiao Lingyu was watching Lei Jue’s mecha fixedly. Suddenly, his communicator let out a strange sound. After checking it, he narrowed his eyes, and gestured at Lu Xian with his chin.

 

Seeing this, Lu Xian and Si Qing left. Qi Yu saw this too but he didn’t ask, merely yelling out “Go Lei Jue!”, so excited that sweat was beading on his forehead.

 

If anyone had thought that Qi Yu was exaggerating at the beginning of the fight, they truly believed by now that Lei Jue was not as weak as he looked.

 

After Lei Jue and Bullethead had wrestled with each other in the air for a while, Lei Jue knocked the latter to the ground with a punch. 

 

With a ‘crash’, he won. Although he had only knocked his opponent down and hadn’t crippled his opponent’s ability to keep fighting, according to the rules, he had won.

 

Bai Yujiang had a complicated expression on his face. Zuo Yan’s eyes too were filled with utter bewilderment. Only Xiao Lingyu was limited to mild surprise. This was way quicker than he had originally thought it would be; he had thought that Lei Jue would fight with Bullethead for a while longer.

 

At that moment, Lei Jue emerged from his mecha, a sheen of sweat covering his forehead. He first walked over and sent a wave of healing energy in Bullethead’s way—he had gotten a concussion—before returning to Xiao Lingyu’s side.

 

“How was it?” Lei Jue asked Xiao Lingyu. “Have I improved, Teacher Xiao?”

 

“Sure did. You’re improving every day.” Xiao Lingyu smiled. He really did like Lei Jue sweetly indulging in these little romantic gestures with him.

 

“Then, Doctor Lei, if there are no mechas around, can your wood elemental powers be used for combat?” asked Bullethead. “I’m just curious.”

 

“Naturally, wood elemental abilities don’t have much attack power.” Lei Jue smiled. “However, even without a mech, I can still do this…” He began to gather wisdom energy with his left hand, before launching the energy violently into a tree nearby. That tree, so thick that the arms of a full-grown man was only just enough to circle it, was instantly blasted into smithereens.

 

However, Lei Jue did not wait for his audience to snap out of their shock before he slowly released another beam of energy to return that tree to its original state.

 

The people around him were shocked into silence.

 

Xiao Lingyu ignored the horde of flabbergasted people and brought Lei Jue back, who was covered in sweat. He peeled Lei Jue’s clothes off him. “Normal people stink when they sweat, but you smell even better when you sweat. I don’t even dare to leave you among a crowd anymore.”

 

Lei Jue bit Xiao Lingyu’s chin, and put on a seductive smile. “Is that so? And here I thought that you realized it too.”

 

“Realized what?” Xiao Lingyu’s heart suddenly skipped a beat as he felt all the blood in his body rushing to a certain body part. He hurriedly forced himself to calm down. “Don’t look at me like that. I need to learn how to control myself better, otherwise when the primary fruit ripens, you might die a horrible death… Babe, I’m really, seriously warning you now, do not test my limits.”

 

However, Lei Jue did not tone it down upon hearing his words. On the contrary, he did the opposite of what he would usually do, wrapping his arms around Xiao Lingyu’s neck and passionately kissing his lips.

 

Xiao Lingyu felt like he was going to go insane. Right then, an alarm suddenly blared from Carrera. With much difficulty, Xiao Lingyu peeled Lei Jue off of him and raised his communicator to check it. When he did, he saw that the originally smooth surface of the golden fruit had grown a flap on it, with a slightly curled border.

 

“We… should go down.” Xiao Lingyu heard Lei Jue murmur by his ear, his own thoughts a muddled mess.

 

[1] Tanghulu is a sweet snack consisting of a skewer of fruits coated in hardened clear syrup.