The Emperor’s Runaway Lover

He Lei brushed off the ashes on his hand, and provocatively raised the corners of his mouth at Fu Yucheng. “Oh, I’m sorry, it seems I scarred this beautiful car.”

Fu Yucheng loved his car very much. This custom vehicle had been with him for several years, and he’d sprayed the entire bodywork with his own hands. It’d be impossible to not get upset by it.

He stared at He Lei for a moment, then turned his head and glanced at Old Sun, who was being firmly held in place by the thugs. “He Lei, tell them to let him go. Old Sun is too old to endure getting tossed around like this.”

He Lei smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes at all. “At first, since I got a bag of coins from this old man I was going to let him go and move on to the next tower. What were the odds of us running into each other? I’ve heard you have a good relationship with this old man and come here often to get water.”

“He Lei, I know you don’t like seeing my face, but there’s no reason to get others involved,” Fu Yucheng said solemnly.

He Lei squinted. “If you want to protect him, you’ll have to agree to one condition.”

“What condition?”

“It’s going to be Nana’s birthday a week from now. I’ve been planning to organize a birthday party for her, with fireworks, at the bar. However, it felt too old-fashioned and plain. But, just now, I suddenly got inspired.”

He Lei raised a corner of his mouth. “Why don’t we use this opportunity to do a nice gesture, and create a good atmosphere at the party?”

Fu Yucheng was speechless.

Of course, he understood that He Lei’s intention wasn’t just to crush him in front of the proprietress and humiliate his ‘rival in love’, but also to show off and win over the beauty’s heart. To be honest, it was a stupid move.

He couldn’t avoid rolling his eyes discreetly. “Okay, I promise you. But let him go first.”

He Lei shook his head. “Fu Yucheng, it’s not that I don’t believe you, but what am I going to do if you miss our appointment and run away when the time comes? I’ll take this old man for the time being, and release him in a week.”

Fu Yucheng glanced at the skinny Old Sun, who was coughing and wheezing, and he feared he wouldn’t last even a few days in He Lei’s territory.

After pondering for a moment, he simply untied the scimitar that hung at the back of his waist, and then threw it onto the ground, still inside its sheath.

“I’ll trade him for this knife. Remember to give it back when the week is up.”

He Lei was taken aback for a moment, and slightly jerked his chin at the thug next to him.

The thug picked up the scimitar and respectfully handed it to his boss.

He Lei stroked the old deerskin scabbard and sneered. “This knife is a bit too shabby to use as collateral.”

In one smooth move, he casually drew the scimitar. He felt stunned immediately.

The blade had a bizarre shape, like a crescent moon. It was thin as paper, and it seemed to emit a dark blue light, making people’s hair stand on end.

“Blue gold, this knife is laced with blue gold,” he murmured, and then shook his head. “There’s no way. Mr. Wei, take a look at it.”

Next to him, Mr. Wei also frowned. “It does look like it, but blue gold is extremely rare. After the Dyson cloud’s Fisher laboratory explosion, no one has been able to synthesize it. Moreover, blue gold is a psionic sensitive metal; it’s only useful as a manipulator’s weapon. To Fu Yucheng, who is just an ordinary person, it’s useless. Why would he carry it around instead of selling it?”

He Lei took a deep breath and tried to activate his psionic power. He was a D-level psionic manipulator. It was pretty good, and it would be considered mid-level.

The scimitar was unresponsive.

“Just as I said. How could it be blue gold?” He sheathed the scimitar again, disappointed. “However, it is indeed a good knife.”

Fu Yucheng smiled. “Of course it is a good knife.”

“Alright, I’ll release the old man in exchange for this knife. You can come pick it up at the bar in a week.”

He Lei jumped off the car’s hood and waved to his people. “Let’s go.”

Then, a cold voice was heard. “Put the blade down.”

He Lei paused and turned around, very slowly.

When he spotted who had arrived, he couldn’t help but smile. “So it’s you, you brat. I should have taught you a lesson the other time at the bar, my bad.”

Fu Yucheng glared at Bai Mo and lowered his voice. “Didn’t I tell you to stay inside?”

Bai Mo frowned, saying, “That’s your scimitar, how can you hand it over to him?”

He knew that the man clearly treasured this razor-sharp blade.1 Despite being a lazy slob, he still would clean and maintain it carefully every night. How could he give it to someone else so casually?

He Lei had already walked over. He tilted his head to look at Bai Mo, and raised his hand, about to pat the kid’s face with the scabbard.

Bai Mo didn’t try to dodge, and instead stared at the other coldly. He had already planned out the moves he should use to grab hold of the knife and then slit He Lei’s throat with a reverse grip.

Right in the nick of time, Fu Yucheng squeezed He Lei’s wrist.

With a smile that wasn’t quite a smile, he said, “He Lei, we’ve already agreed to go at it at the bar in a week. What need is there to embarrass a child?”

Fu Yucheng’s hand twisted cleverly. He used a traditional wrist lock, placing two fingers on the other’s joints. With just a bit of force, it’d dislocate his wrist.

He Lei reflexively struggled, but he didn’t manage to escape.

He stared at Fu Yucheng, and, after a long time, he sneered. “Okay, in a week. You better be there.”

“I will.” Fu Yucheng nodded and released his hold just slightly.

He Lei pulled out his arm with force, gave a cold snort, and walked away without looking back, followed by his men.

Bai Mo, still looking very upset, stared at He Lei’s back as he walked away. “Yu-ge, why did you give him the scimitar?”

Fu Yucheng shrugged. “It’s just leaving it with him for now and getting it back in a week. Besides, people are always more important than inanimate objects.”

He gently helped Old Sun up. “Old Sun, are you okay?”

“Cough, cough cough.” Old man Sun waved his trembling hands, unable to even speak.

Fu Yucheng had to take Old Sun back to the tower. After returning to the vehicle, he saw Bai Mo sitting in the passenger’s seat, with his small face pale, dull and silent.

While starting the off-road vehicle, Fu Yucheng glanced sideways at Bai Mo. “Brat, you’re still not happy eh? You’re so small, yet your temper is so big.”

Bai Mo stared out of the window without saying a word.

His heart felt tight. He didn’t have the ability to help Fu Yucheng keep the scimitar that had killed the sandworm and saved his life.

Seeing Bai Mo’s brooding appearance, Fu Yucheng shook his head helplessly. “Little Mo, as the saying goes, he who laughs last laughs best. Life is long, there’s no need to worry about temporary wins and loses.”

For a moment, Bai Mo felt taken aback. After mulling Fu Yucheng’s words over, he seemed to understand them a bit more.

When they got back to the parking lot, it was getting late.

Bai Mo made something simple to eat. After the two of them had dinner, Fu Yucheng told Noob, the quantum brain, to turn on night mode. The two of them washed up and went to sleep.

Bai Mo turned on a small lamp on the bedside table and lay on the bed, flipping through a bunch of comics Fu Yucheng had given him earlier. He turned a few pages, but he didn’t feel like reading.

After a while, he looked at the sofa below. Fu Yucheng wasn’t asleep either. Seemingly bored, he was fiddling with a small rubik’s cube by the night light next to the sofa.

The man seemed to notice his gaze, and looked up. “What’s wrong? Can’t sleep?”

Bai Mo pursed his mouth and whispered, “He Lei, is he strong?”

“Well,” Fu Yucheng pondered for a moment. “I heard that he is a D-level manipulator, he should be decent.”

“How strong is a D-level?”

Fu Yucheng scratched his head. It felt felt a bit awkward to be a natural S-level manipulator that had completely lost his mental power. To use an analogy, he knew wealth and poverty well, but he wouldn’t know how to describe what the middle class is like.

“How should I put it…” he pondered for a while. “Little Mo, do you know about psionic manipulators?”

Bai Mo nodded. “I know a little, but not much.”

“Psionic manipulation sounds quite mysterious, doesn’t it? Well, to put it simply, as human brains evolved, consciousness and matter began to interact, like with the double-slit experiment: the experiment will be affected by observation.2 As a result, Schrodinger’s cat3 finally defeated Laplace’s demon.4

“As early as the 21st century, some people were noticing that, on occasion, when they thought about something, people around them would mention it, or it would show up on their search engine autofill. At the time, that stuff would usually be seen as a coincidence, and it didn’t attract any attention. It was in the middle of the 21st century that the scientific community confirmed that there was an interaction between consciousness and matter.

“Some selected individuals have a particularly powerful interaction. Such people are called psionic manipulators, or manipulators for short.”

Bai Mo frowned and said, “So, those so-called psionic manipulators use their own consciousness to influence matter.”

“Correct.” Fu Yucheng nodded. “Specifically, manipulators can use their consciousness to influence matter within a certain space-time range, and even change the laws of thermodynamics. This manipulation range is their psionic field.

Manipulators are divided into four categories depending on the size of their psionic field, the strength and duration of the effects, and the type of interference with the laws of physics. There’s S-class, and first class, which are the A B and C levels, then there’s second class, which are levels D E and F, and third class, with levels G H and I.

“Third classes are basically useless, just a bit more sensitive than ordinary people. Second class is notably stronger than a normal person, but has limited strength. First class manipulators are completely different from ordinary people. And as for S-class, they’re practically a walking weapon of mass destruction.”

Fu Yucheng smiled. “Of course, since we’re in a pretty much peaceful age, psionic force is more used in other areas. For example, the Dyson cloud, a huge man-made celestial body, has always been under the control of the best manipulator of the Rong family. That’s why Rong Qian restored the monarchy so smoothly.”

Bai Mo thoughtfully said, “When you talked to Fatty Wu, you mentioned that Crown Prince Rong Yuan, and the green ghost, are both S-level controllers.”

Fu Yucheng lay on the sofa, silently playing with the rubik’s cube in his hand, without answering.

After a long time, he nodded. “That’s right.”

Bai Mo hesitated for a moment, then suddenly said, “What about you?”

Fu Yucheng got startled for a moment. His hand slipped, and the cube fell to the ground.

“What ideas are you getting now? I’m just an ordinary person.” He leaned over and picked up the rubik’s cube, shaking his head with a smile.

Bai Mo lay on his stomach for a while, and said softly, “Have you always lived like this? On your own, making a living by looking for things and selling them to the recycling station?”

Suddenly, Fu Yucheng became a little irritated. He threw the rubik’s cube towards the workbench. “Regardless of whether or not I’m a manipulator, or whether or not I’ve been alone, I still ended up like this. Kid, why are you annoying me with so many questions today?”5

Bai Mo didn’t take offense. He turned over and lay on his back on the bed, staring blankly at the dark ceiling above him.

After a while, he suddenly whispered, “Me too.”

“You what?” Fu Yucheng didn’t react.

“I don’t have psionic powers either, and I have always been alone,” Bai Mo said softly. “Ever since I remember, I lived in the separate isolation wing in the laboratory.

“In that isolation area I would train, eat, take medication, sleep, and get blood samples collected regularly, always under the supervision of the people conducting the experiments. On occasion I’d fight against other subjects. I can’t remember how many I killed.

“My performance in fights was very good, but I didn’t awaken any psionic power. At the start of this year, the laboratory deemed me to be a failure. The spacecraft that was transporting me to the incineration center crashed into the desert. You know the rest.”

Fu Yucheng didn’t speak for a long time.

Bai Mo felt his heavy heart sink straight down.

Does he hate me for being a failed experiment with blood on my hands?

Will he chase me away?

If he really decides to drive me away, what should I do?

I shouldn’t have told him.

Just when Bai Mo was about to get frantic, Fu Yucheng suddenly sighed. “I thought the Rong family’s laboratory had been out of commission for many years now.”

Bai Mo was shocked. “You know of the laboratory?”

Fu Yucheng nodded. “The notorious White Rose Palace laboratory. Specialized in producing loyal and powerful royal knights, who get a command chip implanted when they’re young and obey any orders from those in power in the Rong family.”

Bai Mo touched the nape of his neck, where his hair ended. There was a rose flower the size of a fingernail underneath.

The symbol covered up the scars caused by the implant operation.

As if he knew what he was thinking, Fu Yucheng slowly said, “The White Rose Palace microchip is very close to the nerves. Without professional surgical equipment, it’s difficult to take them out. However, if you want, Fatty Wu has a type of metal tape that makes for an excellent shielding material. As long as it is attached to the skin on the back of your neck, it can completely shield you from any commands.”

“Do you know the White Rose Palace well?” Bai Mo couldn’t stop himself from asking.

For a moment, Fu Yucheng was silent. “I used to think I did.”

Exposition! But we’re back to shenanigans next chapter. Also, am I the only one picking up some sexual tension between Fu Yucheng and He Lei? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

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Footnotes

削铁如泥 literally “slices iron as if it were mud”, it’s an exaggeration though.From wikipedia: In physics, the observer effect is the disturbance of an observed system by the act of observation. […] An especially unusual version of the observer effect occurs in quantum mechanics, as best demonstrated by the double-slit experiment. Physicists have found that even passive observation of quantum phenomena (by changing the test apparatus and passively “ruling out” all but one possibility) can actually change the measured result.Originally Schrodinger’s cat was presented as a thought experiment linked to quantum randomness, which is a manifestation of indeterminacy.Laplace’s demon was the first published articulation of causal or scientific determinism.Literally calls him 婆婆妈妈, it’s hard to translate, something like a nagging mother+mother in law combo.