Translator: Mukyuu
Editor: Mokyuu
QC: Mukyuu
If at first people didn’t believe what Zuo Feng said, nobody doubted the veracity of the claim after Zuo Zhihuan cheerfully and happily confirmed that his son was indeed getting married.
Marshal Zuo was quite happy these days!
Though his future daughter-in-law was a bit special and might randomly turn into a little tree human at home, to the point where you couldn’t find him, what did that matter? Compared to a good wood natural element user and in the face of the extreme fertility, nothing mattered!
Di Lin’s status in the Zuo family rose by leaps and bounds. Before, Zuo Feng and Zuo Nian had it best at home, but now everyone had to come after Di Lin.
Di Lin got everything delicious. Do we still have enough of the nutrient liquid that Di Lin likes? If not, go get a couple of cases!
— That was Zuo Qiu. Because Di Lin’s appearance restored his brother to his old personality and had actually improved it. So he liked his “sister-in-law” very much.
How’s the light in the second young master’s room? Is Di Lin satisfied? If not, tear it down and remodel it.
— That was Marshal Zuo.
He thought it was most important for his daughter-in-law to be happy.
Zuo Yan saw how his father and older brother acted. While he remained expressionless, his heart winced in sympathy for Zuo Feng.
Lei Jue saw how much fun his Uncle was having and how healthy he and the Offspring Tree both were, so he and Xiao Lingyu took the children back to the Northern Ling district. The grandparents missed their grandchildren very much.
Before they left, they made a special trip to visit Xiao Lei and discovered that the guy was doing pretty well despite being back in the wild. The female lions hunted for the pride, and the male lion was responsible for guarding the territory and producing the next generation with the female lions.
When Xiao Lingyu and Lei Jue arrived with the children, Xiao Lei was napping on the ground. When it hurt the sound of the flightcraft, it jerked upright and roared twice at the sky.
When Lei Jue landed on the ground, he was almost knocked to the ground by Xiao Lei, but luckily, Xiao Lei stopped just in time.
“Xiao Lei, you sure have it good here,” Xiao Lingyu had a special photo computer in his hands as he gently patted Xiao Lei.
Xiao Lei nudged Xiao Lingyu and “told” Lei Jue that it missed him.
Though Lei Jue would really miss him, this might be the best choice for Xiao Lei to say here.
The special photon computer that Xiao Lingyu brought was made especially for Xiao Lei. Not only was it super resistant against physical force, water, and high temperature, it was also very intelligent. Most importantly, Carrera could control it from afar.
Xiao Lingyu tapped on the voice identification system and told Xiao Lei, “Xiao Lei, come, give us a few roars.”
Though Xiao Lei didn’t understand, it did as it was told. After a few times, the program in the photo computer learned Xiao Lei’s voice. After Xiao Lingyu confirmed the settings, Xiao Lei could unlock the photon computer by roaring three times, and that would also activate an AI program that could reach Carrera.
Xiao Lingyu activated the connection, and Xiao Lei saw Xiao Lingyu’s image on the photon computer and also heard the voice.
Lei Jue patted Xiao Lei, “If you miss us, or get injured and need help or something, roar at it. Three roars, and we’ll know.”
Xiao Lei practiced twice and, once it learned the trick, howled excitedly a few times and picked up the photon computer to hide it away in its own territory.
Lei Jue patted its head and made sure there were no injured lions in the pride and that they were all pretty healthy. Then he followed Xiang Lingyu into the flightcraft.
Pipi pressed up against the window and looked down. Kangkang crawled onto his brother’s shoulder and also looked down. As for Qiuqiu, she played with a little blue flower that her dad had given her. She pointed at the petals with her tiny fingers and said, “Flo.”
Xiao Lingyu corrected, “Flower.”
Qiuqiu insisted, “Floooo!”
Lei Jue tired, “Flo-wer.”
Qiuqiu, once again, “Flooo!”
Xiao Lingyu decided, “Yes! Floo! If our little princess says it’s ‘floo’ then it’s ‘floo’.”
Lei Jue had nothing to say.
He had wanted to say that it wasn’t good to teach kids like that, but then he remembered something Xiao Lingyu said to him all the time, “Sure, whatever my darling says is right!”
There wasn’t a difference between how he treated his loved ones.
Lei Jue curved his lips upward and said nothing more.
The grandparents really did miss their grandchildren. Before Xiao Lingyu and his family arrived back home, his parents were already waiting in the yard. Even his grandmother would step out and take a peek occasionally. As soon as Lei Jue and Xiao Lingyu brought the children off the flightcraft, Qiuqiu was immediately embraced by her grandmother, and Pipi got picked up by his grandfather. Kangkang had turned himself into a tree person and sprawled on his older brother, so he also got picked up by his grandfather.
“What took you so long?” XIao Zhicheng asked.
“We dropped by to see Xiao Lei.” Xiao Lingyu answered. “Dad, Jue and I are heading out for a bit; we’ll be back in maybe two hours.”
“Where are you going so late?” Luo Yuling asked offhandedly.
“They rarely get a chance to be alone. Let’s not ask questions,” Xiao Zhicheng gave his youngest son a glance and then played with his oldest grandson.
Pipi was older now and highly intelligent. He’s now stopped randomly electrocuting family members, though they still didn’t dare have his grandmother or great-grandmother hold him, it was no problem for his grandfather to watch both him and his brother at the same time.
Xiao Lingyu and Lei Jue boarded the flightcraft once again and flew toward Mount Mao, which had once been the headquarters for Emperor Suron’s experiments.
Lei Jue had never been here, but he did feel something strange as they got closer.
“Is Emperor Suron dying?” Lei Jue asked as the flightcraft hovered in the same spot.
“Yeah, he never got the blood he wanted since he’s been locked up. He hasn’t been able to get out of bed since yesterday,” The experiment headquarters had been a secret of the royal family for centuries, and now they’ve taken it over. Emperor Suron was locked up there along with Lei Jianying and his family, and Wei Li. Currently, Emperor Suron was bedridden, Lei Jianying and his family were out of their minds, and only Wei Li had a bit of sanity left.
“Why are you bringing me here suddenly when you didn’t want me to come before?” When it came to dealing with Emperor Suron, Xiao Lingyu didn’t let him touch any of this aside from dealing with the problem at the zoo since Xiao Lingyu didn’t want him to see these ugly images and deal with these evil people.
“We’ve discovered some new… problems. I think we should listen to you.” Xiao Lingyu brought Lei Jue through a long corridor and down several levels until they reached the lowest level, the super-secret room. He indicated Lu Xian and Yu Le, who were guarding the door to open it and then walked in with Lei Jue.
Lei Jue immediately felt the low temperature inside and shivered involuntarily. In response, Xiao Lingyu held him as they walked further inside until they stood in front of a transparent box that looked like a multi-chamber cold box.
A red vertical line in the middle of the coldbox divided the box into a left and right side. Boxes on either side had various woodblocks, but the ones on the left were about the size of an adult fist, while the ones on the right were the size of a baby’s fist. They all emitted a gentle fragrance. These weren’t foreign to Lei Jue because he had just seen something similar a few days ago.
These were the origin wood left behind after the death of a Golden Fruit Tree Clan person.
A rough estimate counted several dozens.
Lei Jue instinctively reached out a hand but stopped his hand in mid-air. He didn’t know what he could do.
“You want to know if I can revive them?” Lei Jue glanced at those fist-sized origin woods and asked Xiao Lingyu.
“No, I mostly want your opinion,” Xiao Lingyu brought Lei Jue out, and they found a place to sit, “We used the same ‘fertilizer’ from Pipi, but mother-in-law’s origin wood only sprouted and retained some memories. But Uncle was revived. You said that was because Uncle’s Offspring Tree was still alive, and mother-in-law’s Offspring Tree was gone. We can now be sure that the big origin woods can’t be revived because their Offspring Trees are gone. But for the smaller ones, their Offspring Tree seeds are still there and even in a good state. So maybe they still have a chance to be revived.”
“But only the tree host can make the seeds sprout. Now the tree host is dead, and even if the seeds were saved like this, it’d be hard to get them to sprout. Also, have you considered the possibility that even if they were successfully revived, living might not be that much better than being dead if they still retained the memories of torture?” Lei Jue paused, “Someone wants them to be revived?”
“I’m going to show you some videos. The images might not be pleasant to look at. Please feel free to ask for a break at any moment,” Xiao Lingyu saw Lei Jue nod and opened his own communicator, then directed Carerra to find and play a video named “Tiannian.”
Carerra’s habit was to use a large wall to project the contents of a video, but this time her projected screen was tiny.
Lei Jue had been confused at first until he saw the important scenes after a series of dates and realized why.
It was just too bloody!
Though this had been shot many years ago, he could still very clearly see that someone had locked children with green sprouts on their hands into cages, sucked their blood, and used their blood to water those seeds that shouldn’t be forced to grow by an outsider.
Naturally, those seeds would not sprout, but that made it worse for the children. A lot of their blood got taken every day to do various kinds of “experiments” to figure out how to give humans immortality…
The cruelest scene was when someone who looked like a young Emperor Suron intentionally wounded children because he was dissatisfied with the results. He repeatedly injured them and then watched as the wounds gradually healed. That damned insane man!
But even so, these children wanted to live. They were clearly afraid, but they didn’t want to die.
Those eager looks, so desperately hoping for someone to rescue them, hit Lei Jue’s heart like a hammer.
Those cries for help seemed carved into Lei Jue’s brain. He took a deep breath, and his expression was as bad as it could be. He stood up, “That’s enough, Carerra. Turn it off.”
Xiao Lingyu almost regretted it. Of course, he hadn’t wanted to upset Lei Jue, but he thought Lei Jue needed to know about this.
“Up until now, only my people know the exact details about what’s going on here. So we can decide how to ‘place’ these children. If you think this is best for them, then we’ll find a place and give them a decent burial. If not, we’ll give reviving them a shot.”
“Let’s take them back,” After a long while, Lei Jue pressed against his temples, “But don’t let Uncle know about this. And that video. Don’t let him see it.”
Though he had most of Lei Jue’s memories, he wasn’t really of the Golden Fruit Tree Clan. Most importantly, the memories of living in the land of the Golden Fruit Tree have become vague, so his feelings towards the Golden Fruit Tree clan were mostly academic. But it was different for Uncle. Uncle has lived with the clanspeople for many years. His uncle’s feelings toward the clan were so much deeper than his own. If he saw the videos, wouldn’t it be like tearing his heart out?!
“Are you hoping to revive them after you saw how much they wanted to live?” Xiao Lingyu asked Lei Jue.
“No,” Lei Jue answered, “I just suddenly realized that their seeds are so perfectly preserved till now, not because someone did their job, but because they – like you said – want to live,” Otherwise, these seeds would have “died” so many years ago.
“Tell Yu Le and the others to prepare. You come with me,” Xiao Lingyu brought Lei Jue to see Emperor Suron.
The old jerk, just like Xiao Lingyu said, was unable to get out of bed. Nobody came by to give him food or water, but every day someone would come and read to him news of the royal family about to become a thing of the past. Zuo Feng would occasionally come by and burn him a little bit to get back at having been treated like a tool. He was only alive till now because the children’s blood changed his physique.
Xiao Lingyu indicated for the guard to leave.
Emperor Suron heard someone talking and struggled to open his eyes. He saw that it was Lei Jue and seemed to gain strength. He pointed a finger at Lei Jue but couldn’t say a word even after a long while. In the end, he could only frantically produce hissing sounds.
“Never thought you’d be afraid of seeing someone one day, right?” Lei Jue used wisdom energy to draw a round circle right in front of Emperor Suron. It had the same effect as a chandelier, just stronger. The color of his natural energy had always been much lighter than Xiao Lingyu’s. When Emperor Suron looked at that circle of light, he felt like the light was so piercing he could cry from it.
“Blood…” Emperor Suron trembled and used all of his strength, only to utter that one word.
Lei Jue immediately thought of those children with bites on their flesh and their terrified cries.
He turned around to give Xiao Lingyu a look. His eyes were filled with a hatred that he rarely let show.
Xiao Lingyu nodded.
Lei Jue condensed the pale golden circle of light into a ball. That ball of light was like a ball of yarn. Once it started, it drifted over to Emperor Suron bit by bit and circled around Emperor Suron’s neck.
The feeling of finding it hard to breathe immediately invaded this evil-filled old thing. His eyes opened wide, and he struggled to breathe, his voice sounding like bellows.
Lei Jue slowly tightened the “rope” and watched as Emperor Suron’s neck slowly separated from his body right in front of himself and Xiao Lingyu.
Xiao Lingyu saw the black blood and frowned. He used his natural abilities to shock the body into a crisp until there was nothing left. A robot then came over on its own and cleaned away all traces of Emperor Suron.
Lei Jue looked at the time, “Can we go back?”
Xiao Lingyu asked how Yu Le was doing and learned that they had put all the origin wood inside portable cold storage boxes. He hugged Lei Jue and said, “Let’s go.”
Lei Jue followed the path he took here, and when they passed the prison area, they unexpectedly heard someone call out, “Lei Jue!”
It was Wei Li. He had just been to the bathroom. so he didn’t see Lei Jue arriving. Now that he saw, he slapped the safety barrier crazily. “Lei Jue! You tell them to let me go! I can trade you a secret! Lei Jue!!!”
Xiao Lingyu’s footsteps halted, and he said, “What do you want to say?”
Lei Jue also paused and squinted his eyes as he examined Wei Li.
In his anxious state, the frequency of Lei Jue’s breathing changed. He stared wide-eyed and pressed up against the safety barrier. “The A3 plan! The first A3 plan! The first command that Lei Jianying told me to give you! I can tell you! Let me out!”