Interstellar Power Couple
Translator: Mukyuu
Quality Check: Mukyuu
Editor: Lala
First Published on Chaleuria
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Chapter 80 Setting Out
In just two days, all the servants of the Zuo family realized that Second Young Master, whose temperament had just been improving, seemed to revert back to his old self. However, it wasn’t like before when he seemed like a bomb ready to go off at any second; now he exerted silent pressure on everyone. Regardless, he seemed to find something wrong at every turn, usually for the weirdest reasons.
Zuo Yan walked out of his own wine cellar, holding two wines that looked expensive just by their packaging. He nodded towards Zuo Feng, “Brother.”
Zuo Feng looked at what he was holding and demanded, “I thought you really liked those? Why are you giving them away?”
Though this wasn’t said in a gentle tone, Zuo Yan could detect a hint of concern. He stopped and answered, “Song Fan keeps annoying me about it. I need to shut him up.”
Zuo Feng responded snarkily, “You’re using such fine wine to do it?”
Then he said to the communicator, “Contact Song Fan.”
Song Fan thought it was Zuo Yan, and just as he was about to celebrate, he turned fearful when he heard Zuo Feng’s voice. “Big brother Feng?”
“Great, you didn’t forget who took care of you before. I’m telling you to stop harassing my younger brother. You keep it up and the next time I won’t just take your wine, I’ll make sure you quit drinking all together.” Zuo Feng hung up and tossed the communicator onto the sofa.
He turned around and glanced at Zuo Yan. “You act like you’d love to sleep in the cellar. If you treasure those things so much, why would you give them away whenever someone pressures you? Don’t give them away the next time. If anyone dares harass you over them, sew their mouths shut.”
“Okay.” Zuo Yan looked confused but thanked his brother. “Thanks, Zuo Feng.”
“You can go now.” Zuo Feng waved his hand and kept staring at the potted plant in the room. After a while, without knowing it, he’d dug out all the stuffing from the sofa. The butler frowned but didn’t dare venture forth and say anything. He could only look towards the Third Young Master for help.
“Buy a new one, it’s broken anyway.” Zuo Yan smiled calmly after saying so. He returned the wine to the cellar. It was no longer important what Song Fan thought, what was important was that his second older brother seemed to have gone back to how he had been years before, nice to him despite acting like he didn’t care.He looked vicious, but he had a gentle heart and treated him well, though you’d never know it by looking at his expression.
When Song Feng heard the dial tone from the communicator, he was still utterly confused. If he didn’t know what Zuo Yan was like, he’d have assumed the brat tattled on him to Zuo Feng. But they have been friends since birth and he knew Zuo Yan wasn’t that kind of person.
Zuo Feng was the weird one. He’d been at odds with Zuo Yan for so many years, how come he suddenly…???
Recalling the voice on the phone, Song Fan shivered violently. When they were kids, Zuo Feng had watched out for all of them. Zuo Feng had a strong sense of justice and was also strong, so they all called him “big brother”. Everyone in their group of playmates knew what Zuo Feng was capable of. Later on however, a few incidents happened and Zuo Feng rarely hung out with them anymore. It seemed like his entire personality had changed. They hadn’t dared to ask for details, they just knew it had something to do with Zuo Feng’s first love.
Zuo Feng’s first love had died in an accident. Ever since then, he had turned cold. Everyone, whether they were of the family or not. thought it had something to do with that first love. Even Zuo Feng himself had always thought so. But now, he had many questions.
In the last few days a strange feeling grew stronger and stronger within him. Whenever he recalled what he had done in the last few years, he ’couldn’t help but feel that he had been ridiculously unreasonable
Why had he been so obstinate in insisting that Lele’s death definitely had something to do with Zuo Yan? Even though Lele’s body did have burn marks, Zuo Yan had explained that he didn’t have anything to do with them. Did he just assume that it was Zuo Yan simply because Zuo Yan was present?
How could he have been so… hasty in passing judgment?
Zuo Feng massaged his temples, feeling a headache. Just then, something moved around in his pocket. In a few seconds, he felt a tickling sensation come from his abdomen, as if a tiny bug was crawling from his abdomen towards his chest. He looked down and didn’t even have the energy to roll his eyes when he saw the little green figure.
When Di Lin climbed up, he saw that Zuo Feng wasn’t doing so well. He healed him a bit with his healing energy. He remained inside Zuo Feng’s clothes the entire time, and afterwards, he grabbed onto the part of Zuo Feng that stuck out and played with it.
Zuo Feng was about to die of anger. This damned lech! He acted so weak usually and whenever something didn’t go his way, he’d go in a corner. But when it came to ‘doing the deed’, it was like he changed into a completely different person! Strong and big and demanding! Absolutely batsh*t crazy!
Zuo Feng wanted to tear the little liar from his body, but the guy remained sprawled out on his nipples. Not only that, but he also rubbed against them lasciviously with his leaves.
What a shameless nymph.
Di Lin gently teased Zuo Feng with his fresh leaves the size of a baby’s fingernail. He laughed whenever he thought about how Zuo Feng looked when he was frustrated.
Afterwards, they returned to the bedroom and Di Lin changed back to his human form. “Are you still mad?”
Zuo Feng ignored him.
Di Lin walked over and held Zuo Feng from behind. “You started seducing me first. And you touched my flower. You little tease.”
Zuo Feng regretted touching the flower. He must have been blind to think the guy was a cute beauty! Who would have thought he would be so good at being a wolf in sheep’s clothing?! But now he could only swallow the insults; after all, he couldn’t resist the guy.
Besides, this guy may be infuriating, but it was true that the guy was good to him. Zuo Feng got a strange sense of fulfillment from the fact that the guy only turned into his human form in front of him too, so he turned a blind eye and let things go.
Zuo Feng glared at Di Lin with a complicated look in his eyes, “Why did you heal me that day?”
“I’m afraid you got hurt. I was quite fierce…” Di Lin touched Zuo Feng’s butt.
“You!” Zuo Feng slapped Di Lin’s hand away. “I’m asking you why you healed me that time when I caught you!”
“That’s because the balai tree you were growing was poisonous.” Di Lin poked at Zuo Feng’s cheeks with his forefinger. “You thought it was a shilah tree, but it was a balai tree. It would release a special kind of scent at night, undetectable to most people. But it was definitely poisonous. Inhale it for too long and it’ll start impacting your mental state. Your body had built up a store of balai tree toxin, so I was just detoxifying you. Don’t you think you had been acting strangely these last few years? Your darling first love was definitely problematic.”
Zuo Feng didn’t say anything more, because in the past few days he had already begun to realize that something wasn’t right, he just couldn’t figure out why.
But if Lele really had given him a balai tree, what for?
It’s been too long and Zuo Feng didn’t really have any ideas.
Three days later, Zuo Feng sent Mr. Single a message anonymously, asking if Mr. Single could help investigate something.
Just then, Mr. Single was in the middle of giving his children a bath. When he heard Carrera read out the question, he responded without thinking, “I don’t have time right now.”
“But Sir, a message just arrived from Uncle, hoping you could help.” Carrera responded. “That anonymous client could very well be related to Mr. Zuo Feng.”
“Go take a look. I can take care of the rest.” Lei Jue indicated behind him with his chin and looked at the kids sitting in a circle in the big round washbasin behind them. He poked at one, then prodded at another. Lately, the kids had been growing so fast and they didn’t need to be extra careful around them like they did before. They sat there and looked like little chubby cherubs, each one plumper than the next.
Other triplets may be hard to tell apart, but that would never happen with theirs. That was because their oldest had a sprout on their head, looked the biggest, and also looked like Xiao Lingyu. Those eyes in particular, were dark and full of life. He was also the strongest. Their second child didn’t have a sprout on his head but liked to turn himself into a tree. When he wasn’t a tree, he, like his sister, had a pair of eyes that turned slightly upwards at the corners. Xiao Lingyu described those eyes as being naturally expressive and especially enchanting.
Nobody could deny that all three siblings were extremely beautiful. Take any one of them out, and they’d be a sight worth seeing.
Lei Jue finished washing up their fair-skinned daughter, dried her off, and then placed her in the crib not far from them. Then he continued washing the two other little demons.
There were toys in the tub for the kids to play with during bath time. Among them was a little wooden bucket. Originally, Kangkang had turned himself into a tree-person and was having great fun paddling around in the tub. Then Pipi grabbed him and put him in the toy bucket. Kangkang got out, Pipi grabbed him and put him in again, Kangkang escaped, and Pipi put him back.
Lei Jue watched speechlessly.
His second child was a really patient person. Someone impatient wouldn’t go so far away after turning into a tree-person just to bask in the sunlight. Someone impatient also wouldn’t try escaping again after being caught dozens of times — you could call him the King of Persistence.
“Dad!” Pipi suddenly called out in his baby voice. Lei Jue was just about to smile when he realized the kid wasn’t looking at him!
“Good boy, such a good child.” Xiao Ling reached out a hand from behind Lei Jue and pinched Pipi’s cheeks. “Don’t bully your brother.”
Pipi giggled. When his brother crawled out again, he didn’t catch him and put him back.
“Zuo Feng probably wants to investigate if there was something he didn’t know about regarding what happened that year. But it’s been so long, it’s probably not gonna be easy, so Uncle wants us to give him a hand.” Xiao Lingyu crouched down next to Lei Jue as he finished explaining. He wanted to help, but he waited a time without a response from Lei Jue. He turned around quizzically and got a face full of water.
Lei Jue messed with Xiao Lingyu’s face with his wet hands and also took the opportunity to mess up Xiao Lingyu’s hairstyle.
Xiao Lingyu closed his eyes and shut his mouth until he was done being tortured. He opened his eyes then and, when he realized why his face was being crumpled, he pressed Lei Jue’s face down and kissed him hard so that Lei Jue’s face also got wet.
Lei Jue wasn’t as strong as Xiao Lingyu and had no choice but to be kissed. He wiped at his face and said with distaste, “The kids are still watching, can’t you behave yourself?”
Xiao Lingyu licked his lips. “That’s why I only kissed you once. I didn’t do anything else.”
Pipi and Kangkang watched in amazement and even Qiuqiu kept glancing towards her parents.
If they were normal kids, they probably wouldn’t remember anything their parents did when they were this young. But Xiao Lingyu and Lei Jue’s kids were different. They could very well copy their parents’ actions or remember it.
“Just be careful. Nevermind the two brats, but our daughter’s still here.” Lei Jue looked at their daughter looking at them uncomprehendingly. He smiled and then put their tree-human son upon his palm and gave him a once over.
“I thought you were jealous because Pipi called me ‘dad’ first. Turns out it’s because our daughter … “ Xiao Lingyu poured water over Pipi. “Wait, no, you got my face wet first.”
“Your fault for coming in at the wrong time.” He had thought that their little demon had done a 180. This brat, as if calling him Pepe’ wasn’t enough, now he would frequently call him ‘Peboo’. He couldn’t pronounce ‘precious’ or ‘babe’ and thus combined them into ‘peboo. Sometimes he wanted to look down and make sure he hadn’t developed ‘big boobs’.
TN: Dabo, which are the original characters in the raw, translates to “big boobs” and could be the sound a baby makes when trying to pronounce “da bao bei” (precious), which is Xiao Lingyu’s nickname for Lei Jue. The translator has combined “precious” and “babe” into a muffled “peeboo”, which might possibly be a slurred version of “big boobs” to try and keep as much of the original intent as possible.
“Fine, fine, fine. I’m wrong, I’m sorry. I’ll make sure to scout out the situation before coming in next time.” Xiao Lingyu covered their son with bubbles and said as he scrubbed his son’s body, “I did ask Uncle how to bring Kangkang to the birthday celebrations. Uncle gave me a… not very good suggestions, but there probably isn’t anything better. He said if we don’t want to risk Kangkang changing form on the spot, we’ll have to make him fall asleep in his normal form.”
“That means using drugs right?” Lei Jue had considered that before, but if there was a chance of using another way, he’d rather not use drugs. After all, even if he could help their child recover, it still wasn’t a good choice.
“No other way about it. If he fell asleep naturally, he could wake up at any moment. But we also can’t not bring him.” They didn’t dare give the child to anyone outside the family, and Kangkang’s grandfather, the only one who could watch him, had to be present as well. So their only choice was to make Kangkang fall asleep and then bring him over.
Lei Jue didn’t say anything else. Xiao Lingyu stroked their son’s tiny leaf lovingly and reassured, “Don’t worry, nothing will happen.”
This was clearly warm water, but the leaf hadn’t drooped at all, and was still vibrantly green.
Lei Jue quickly finished washing Kangkang. This one didn’t even need to be dried off. A few seconds after leaving the water, he absorbed all of the liquid left on him.
Xiao Lingyu saw this and sped up his attempt at giving Pipi a bath. However, Pipi refused to behave and cooperate. He grabbed a fistful of bubbles and smeared it all over his own face. When he was done smearing the bubbles, he reached over and planted a wet kiss on Xiao Lingyu’s cheek, then a similarly big one on Lei Jue’s face.
Lei Jue, face covered with bubbles, directly pushed Xiao Lingyu into the bathtub!
Xiao Lingyu fell silent.
In terms of who was the best at ruining their father’s plans, the eldest grandson of the Xiao family was really in a class of his own.
That night, Xiao Lingyu stretched himself when the kids all fell asleep. He was in the living room watching a new film with Lei Jue when a knock sounded on the door to their house. Xiao Lingyu directed Carerra to open the door.
Xiao Zhicheng only knocked because he saw the lights still in their living room. He noticed they were watching a movie and asked with a smile, “I didn’t interrupt anything, did I?”
Lei Jue turned the movie off. “We can watch that anytime, of course you’re not interrupting. Dad, please sit.”
Xiao Lingyu put his palms out, “Actually, you did interrupt us, just a tiny bit. Dad, couldn’t this have waited until tomorrow—aaaahhhhh! Babe, why did you step on me?!”
Xiao Zhicheng laughed at the interesting way these two behaved with each other. “Well, I won’t take too much of your time. I just wanted to ask how you were bringing Kangkang along. Also, the new house is ready and will be shipped over tomorrow. Be extra careful with the kids tomorrow.”
“Don’t worry dad, we’ll definitely keep our eyes on them.” Kangkang escaping that one time was enough to terrify them. Xiao Lingyu had no desire to let the kids out of his sight. At a minimum, either he and Lei Jue would have to watch them.
“Didn’t Lingqi only just finish running the calculations? How did they finish building it so quickly?” Lei Jue was a little bit surprised. He knew that Casweir was so advanced that 3D-printed houses were everywhere, but it had only been two days and they were building a four-story mansion…
“The second son of the family who owns TechnoBuild Inc. is one of Lingqi’s suitors. Coincidentally, they were helping with the construction. Their technology is new and they use excellent material. As long as they have data, residences can be produced in about three days.” Xiao Lingyu answered. “Besides, it’s easy to make an unfurnished house. It’s the inside decorations that take time.” Especially since he has to re-import all of the exact details into Carrera and then rebuild all the defense mechanisms according to the new house…
“Well, I guess we can’t do anything about it taking a lot of time. Blame it on your little demon.” Xiao Zhicheng thought about his oldest grandson, and still felt delighted despite it all. “Right, you still haven’t answered my question. How are we bringing Kangkang?”
“We have to make him fall asleep.” Lei Jue explained. “Dad, we’ll probably have to find a reason to leave early.”
“Of course. This event is mandatory, but you just have to show your face. Also, anything you do, be careful.” Xiao Zhicheng looked at Lei Jue but in the end, he didn’t continue the topic.
The second day, the people delivered the house as promised. Xiao Lingyu and Lei Jue, along with the children, spent the day as supervisors for the construction workers. They watched as the workers deposited the new house on top of the basement and made sure the two merged without a seam.
The third day, the entire Zuo family got up with the sun. After they got ready separately, they took the invitation and flew towards Haweila Palace.
At the same time, the Zuo family was just waking up. Since they lived closer to the Central District, they could leave a bit later.
Di Lin turned into a different kind of tree today and shrunk himself extra small. He crawled into Zuo Feng’s pocket, but came back out in a bit. “Give me a bottle of nutrients please!”
Zuo Yan obediently handed a bottle to Di Lin and emphasized again, “Don’t you dare come out!”
Di Lin agreed with a laugh, “Sure. I’ll save my energy for tonight. I’ll turn into a tree and tie you up!”
Zuo Feng, “You shut up!”