Interstellar Power Couple
Translator: Leslie
Quality Check: Lala
First Published on Chaleuria
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Chapter 60: The Advantage Lies in Striking First
Under normal circumstances, each one of the golden fruit tree’s seeds would develop with the child, and when the child is born, the seed would be left behind in the cracked child fruit, like a pearl in an oyster shell.
However, not only could the seed not be found, the fruit’s shell was missing as well.
Lei Jue and Xiao Lingyu had already roughly searched three times around Little Odd Flower, but such a tiny seed could not be easily found at the drop of a hat when the search perimeter was so large. Lei Jue had even combed through Xiao Lei’s fur, but there was no sign of it either. They continued to search until Xiao Xiao fell asleep in Xiao Lingyu’s arms.
Xiao Lingyu could not take this anymore, so he ordered Carrera to scan the area in bits, and filter each search layer by layer to see if there were any round seeds lying around. Carrera’s efforts, however, were more than incredible as she displayed over 2000 targets which were all on Little Odd Flower. Carrera had scanned every single one of the little round seeds that had been left behind after the flowers had fallen. If they were to search the tree, Xiao Lingyu and Lei Jue could end up searching until they went blind.
“Our son couldn’t have fried it into nothing, right?!” Xiao Lingyu stared at his eldest son, who was sleeping soundly on the bed. “Why don’t we use a fluoroscope on him to see whether he ate it?”
“No need for that first.” Lei Jue looked intently at his child’s fist, when he suddenly stretched a hand out. However, just as he was about to grab his hand, Lei Jue retracted it. “See if he’s holding it in his hand. I have a feeling that he hasn’t uncurled that fist of his even once.”
“Xiao Xiao, Papa is going to see whether you’re hiding something in your hand.” Xiao Lingyu was worried that he might startle his son awake. As he spoke, he reached out and touched his son’s hand with the utmost care. He gently placed his son’s little hand onto his own palm, and then like he was tickling him, he gently uncurled his son’s soft fingers.
“Tsk, naughty kid.” With a glance, Lei Jue saw that the seed was indeed in his son’s palm. He swiftly plucked it out, and when he touched it, he realized that the seed was damp from the sweat on Mr. Pikachu’s hand.
“I think it’s best if you kept it safe for him.” Xiao Lingyu picked up his communicator. “Now, I’m going to give grandma and mum and dad a surprise.” With that, he aimed his communicator at his son and activated the video camera. He filmed for about 30 seconds before he sent the video off to his family via an encrypted messaging channel. Attached was the message, ‘Great-grandma, grandma, grandpa, look at how soundly I’m sleeping.”
And so, shortly after that, when Luo Yuling saw the video as she was ascending the stairs after she had sent her husband off, she accidentally fell flat on her front. Her nose nearly broke from this fall. When her wits returned to her, she hurriedly grabbed onto the stair rails and hoisted herself up, before turning around and screaming. “Mum, mum? Where are you?”
Grandma had not heard her daughter-in-law scream this frantically in ages. “I’m in the flower room, what is it?” she yelled back.
Luo Yuling hurriedly showed the video to grandma. “Your great-grandson!”
The old lady instantly put down the sewing she had in her hands. “Dear lord, he’s already born? What about the other two?”
Luo Yuling immediately went to contact Xiao Lingyu. “What about the other children?”
Xiao Lingyu was currently looking at the larger child fruit hanging motionless on the tree. “They aren’t born yet. Currently, only Xiao Xiao is here.” As he finished speaking, he saw that he had a video call request from his father, so Xiao Lingyu activated full hologram mode chat.
Xiao Zhicheng was naturally overjoyed at the birth of his first grandchild. He got Xiao Lingyu to aim the camera at Xiao Xiao. “I’ll go over to your place later, you two have to take good care of him. By the way, since the younger ones still aren’t born yet, you two should carefully consider how you want to announce this to the world. Also, if any of you need anything, make a list. I’ll just bring them over when I arrive,” said Xiao Zhicheng after he had looked at Xiao Xiao for a while.
Since Che Heng and Yu Le had been pretending that Xiao Lingyu and Lei Jue were living at the Xiao residence, to make outsiders falsely think that Xiao Lingyu and Lei Jue didn’t need to remain with the Holy Eagles Mecha Corps’. So, on the surface, Xiao Lingyu and Lei Jue appeared not to exist within the mecha crops. At first, Xiao Zhicheng had thought about letting them keep up the pretense for a few more days, but now that Xiao Xiao had arrived, some things had to be prepared beforehand.
Thus, Xiao Zhicheng simply changed his plans. He did not go to the base. Meanwhile, Xiao Lingyu and Lei Jue determined the supplies that they needed. Once they had compiled the list, they sent it to Xiao Lingyu’s father. Once this was done, it was only then that Xiao Lingyu remembered that both he and Lei Jue hadn’t even eaten breakfast yet due to how busy they were. Xiao Lingyu grabbed two packets of nutrient drinks, sloppily fixing their breakfast problem with Lei Jue.
No matter what, it was a good thing indeed for the child to arrive this early, yet appear to be in such good health. If the two younger ones could arrive sooner, then they wouldn’t need to get too worked up over the Casweiran leaders’ visitation.
Ever since Si Wannian ‘sneaked’ that Golden Fruit Tree, which Lei Jue had grafted, to the Azure Ocean Naval Fleet, they’d managed to move the top brass’ attention away somewhat. When they found out that the tree that the Azure Ocean Naval Fleet had been transporting was a golden fruit tree from Maikalun, they became heavily interested in it. However, the Northern Ling soldiers under Xiao Zhicheng weren’t just there for decoration; It would definitely not be feasible to just forcefully take the golden fruit tree from the naval fleet, but prior to confirming the value of the tree, giving up was also an impossibility.
And so, Lei Jianying, as one of the very few people in the know, had visitors once again.
He was still shut in a prison cell. When he saw that someone had come, his cold expression darkened even further. He wondered who the old man before him was. From the way he spoke, this was clearly a person of high status. He had seen and met all the Casweirans of high rank, but he had certainly not seen this face before.
The old man seemed to read Lei Jianying’s mind as he sat down before him and laughed. “Lei Jianying, it’s not that difficult to find out who I am. As long as you stand with me, I can tell you who I am right now.”
Hell if Lei Jianying would believe this. He curled his hands up and picked at his frozen fingers, not making a peep.
The old man was unperturbed by Lei Jianying ignoring him. Slowly, he flipped to a picture of a golden fruit tree on his communicator. “Look, this is the precious thing that Lei Jue and the others have in their hands. I reckon you know what this is?”
Lei Jianying knew that it was the golden fruit tree the moment he saw its leaves. He squinted. “You have it now?”
The old man was surprisingly frank. “Nope. It’s a tall order to just take whatever the Azure Ocean Naval Fleet is hiding.”
If Lei Jue had stored it out in the open, it might have been feasible. As it was, the tree was hidden away within the deepest, most secretive storage point within the fleet.
Lei Jianying gave a cold snort. “Since Xiao Zhicheng has no intention of handing it over, I’m curious how you plan to get your hands on it.”
The old man gave a long sigh. “Isn’t that why I came to see you?”
Lei Jianying’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What do you mean?”
The old man handed Lei Jianying an offense report letter. “You only need to sign this.”
Lei Jianying slowly read through every word on the page. “You want me to report Lei Jue and the Xiaos?”
The letter stated clearly that Lei Jue’s identity as someone who was not from Casweir would be reported, along with Xiao Zhicheng’s plans to work alongside these aliens to conquer Casweir.
“Do you have a better idea that allows us to investigate them openly?” asked the old man. “With the Xiao family’s current status and prestige, it would be impossible to legitimately confirm these crimes. However, we don’t need to have them incriminated for long, all we need is to get our hands on that tree they have. Of course, any unexpected surprises would be welcome.”
“What will I get out of this?” Lei Jianying asked.
“I can let you see Yu Fenglai and Lei Haige. As for whether you’ll get more, that will depend on your performance,” the old man said, smiling malevolently. “All we need to do is to foster suspicion towards the Xiao family and Lei Jue amongst the public.”
Lei Jianying hesitated somewhat, before he signed his name on the paper. It wasn’t like he didn’t know that the old man outside was likely using him, but he had no other choice. He had been locked away for so many days already, and he hadn’t even seen the people under the Vice Party Leader’s thumb, never mind the Vice Party Leader himself. What did that mean? It meant that this old man was most likely more powerful than the Vice Party Leader.
On Casweir, the parliament was the leadership organization with the most public trust in them. The Vice Party Leader had helped run it for many years, and while his temper was not the best, his abilities could not be underestimated. And this person had the power to throw a curveball in the Vice Party Leader’s way.
Could he be one of the older Parliament members, who were high ranking ability users?
Or perhaps… was it someone working under the Party Leader himself?!
Lei Jianying rubbed his forehead, while the old man before him opened his cell door.
While this was happening, Xiao Lingyu had not been sitting around idly either. His father had brought Che Heng and Yu Le – who were disguised as him and Lei Jue – to the Holy Eagles Mecha Corps. With this switch in identity, ‘Lei Jue’ and ‘Xiao Lingyu’ made their ‘return’ to base, while Lei Jue and Xiao Lingyu could openly slip in and out of the armory. The only difference was that there would always be at least one person watching the kids underground.
It was rather nerve-wracking though. While the eldest had already been born, the other two were still. They hadn’t even moved yet, let alone broken the shell.
While fruits from the same tree may not necessarily ripen at the same time, Xiao Lingyu and Lei Jue were getting rather worried at the big difference in time. How the two of them wished they could help by cutting a slit through the shell of the fruit.
Xiao Lingyu was holding Xiao Xiao in one arm while circling the base of Little Odd Flower. “Good boy, why don’t you tell your siblings to hurry on down?”
Xiao Xiao pointed a tiny index finger at his father’s face. It was evident that he had no idea what Xiao Lingyu was saying. Playing with electricity was more fun!
Xiao Lingyu sensed the numbing feeling that came from his son’s finger, before he hurriedly pulled down the offending finger and kissed it. “No playing with electricity.”
Xiao Xiao’s face screwed itself up, as if he was about to cry, but before he could burst into tears, a sudden voice cut into their father-son time.
“Sir, we’ve got a problem.” There was a seriousness to Carrera’s voice that he had not heard before. “The time of the leaders’ visit of the Holy Eagles Mecha Corps has been arranged for three days later.”
“Isn’t this within our plans?” Xiao Lingyu wrinkled his forehead.
“Yes, but this is just the start of it. When you had Lu Xian check the place where Lei Jianying was locked up in, we initially found out that Lei Jianying was… was… was…” Carrera repeated that last word painfully.
“Gagaga!” Xiao Xiao laughed when he heard Carrera’s halting words as he curiously looked at the communicator on his father’s wrist.
“Xiao Xiao! Don’t be naughty!” Xiao Lingyu wreathed his finger with a little bit of electricity and gently poked his son’s mischievous hand. “You can’t interrupt people’s conversations like that, got it?”
“Uh, ah?” Xiao Xiao uttered in his childish voice, but just as Xiao Lingyu thought that his son might have really understood him, the electric supply to the underground room suddenly destabilized. All of the lights and other light-emitting appliances flickered, like they were in a horror movie.
“Tsk, you little demon!” Xiao Lingyu hurriedly used his own energy to stabilize the voltage. Only after he had done so did he go back to listening to Carrera.
“Initially, we found out that Lei Jianying was being held in a detainment center for animal type users, but a few days later, someone transferred him out of the facility while a fake Lei Jianyin was left behind in the animal type user detainment center. The real Lei Jianying is currently in a research lab’s basement, and he had signed a letter to report you not long ago. The letter said that he was reporting Lei Jue and the entire Xiao Family. Their motives for this might be to figure out Lei Jue’s origins thoroughly. Lu Xian and the others are currently looking for the mastermind, so they got me to remind you to find a way to get the real Lei Jianying back.” She was the one to report the news to him because no matter how fast an aircraft could fly, it could not surpass the speed at which a program like her could ‘travel’.
“Man, we really need to get to the root of this.” Lei Jue heard Carrera’s words when coming out after he had warmed some milk in preparation for feeding time. He turned towards Xiao Lingyu. “Since things are like this, we should just make sure we’re one step ahead, what do you think?”
“We’ll go with what you said.” Xiao Lingyu laughed. He took the milk and began to feed his son while playing with him. Weren’t those people just trying to get an excuse to investigate them thoroughly? In their dreams.
That night, Xiao Lingyu and Lei Jue published a single photo on their official website. In the photo, Xiao Lingyu could be seen holding his son, who had a tiny cap on, while kissing Lei Jue’s forehead. Attached was the description, ‘I thank the god of nature for blessing us with such a precious, tiny life.’
The netizens, who had thought that Xiao Lingyu and Lei Jue’s child would be born in a few more months, were whipped into a frenzy.
Metal_Wood_Shipper: AHHHHHHHHH!!! Is my eyesight failing me?!
Breeze_beneath_a_treet: If your eyesight is failing, then mine must be too…
Largetree: I’d like to ask, what elemental ability does the baby have? I’m so curious!
Lightning: Does the baby have a name? When is he going to be named? Man, I’m super curious.