The Emperor’s Runaway Lover

TW: mild gore

 

 

The vehicle slowly drove ahead through the thick white fog.

Gradually, the distant gray ship silhouettes grew closer and closer. They were tall and majestic, like a group of giants standing alone on a vast ice field.

Fu Yucheng turned the steering wheel and the vehicle slowly passed between the huge freighters and passenger ships, like a man who had arrived in the land of the giants.

The snow chains on the tires scratched against the ice, making an unpleasant screeching sound. Apart from that, no other sound could be heard. Everything was as silent as a huge tomb.

Or, to be precise, perhaps it was already a huge tomb.

Bai Mo whispered, “Why is it so quiet here? Is there no one around?”

Fu Yucheng drove the car in silence, and after a while, he slowly said, “At least, people did live here at some point.”

Some of the huge boats on either side of the vehicle had been significantly modified to make them suitable for long term inhabitation. There were even clothes hanging on the masts of some of the ships—though, of course, they had now become stiff frozen fabric.

After driving the vehicle for a long time, their eyes suddenly flew open.

Apparently, all these numerous ships had been spread around in a huge circle, and at the very center of the circle there was a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

Currently, the behemoth was tilted, and half of its hull was frozen under the ice.

Next to the aircraft carrier, the off-road vehicle looked no bigger than a sad matchbox.

Fu Yucheng stopped the car and stared blankly at the huge ship in front of them.

“What is it?” Bai Mo whispered.

Fu Yucheng looked at the gigantic aircraft carrier and muttered, “It seems that the nuclear-powered ship has been out of service for a long time.”

Bai Mo nodded. “Yes, that’s obvious.”

“On this ice sheet, there is no oil, no coal, no solar energy, and no windmill generators… and this modified nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was the equivalent to a small nuclear power plant. This ship colony and all its residents that needed food, clothing, shelter, and transportation, relied on this aircraft carrier to supply the power they needed.”

Fu Yucheng paused before adding, “One day, it stopped running.”

Bai Mo took a breath of cold air. “Yu-ge, do you mean that the nuclear power plant in this aircraft carrier was damaged, and so… all the people here froze and starved to death?”

“However, we got all the way here and we haven’t seen any bodies… They may be dead, but they may have just gone somewhere else.” Fu Yucheng shook his head. “I’m just speculating here, let’s go and take a look.”

The two changed into thick coats, got off the vehicle, and boarded the huge aircraft carrier that stood in front of them.

After they went in through a door on the side of the hull, the interior turned out to be dark, and they couldn’t see anything clearly.

“Noob, turn on the light,” Fu Yucheng whispered. His voice echoed repeatedly in the empty, deep hull.

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“Beep beep beep lights are on.” The quantum computer, Noob, flashed, and its body began to glow with a faint blue light. However, this shining ball could only illuminate a few meters of space around itself.

Fu Yucheng and Bai Mo walked side by side. Although the aircraft carrier was very large, the interior had been divided into several sections, so there was no big open space. The interior of the ship was made up of multiple layers of ladders and corridors, complex heavy hatches, and various abandoned missiles.

Some of the cabins had obviously been converted into residences.

The two of them walked forward in silence, and, soon, they reached the cockpit.

The cockpit was equally empty, and the complicated console was covered in a thin layer of frost as well. When Bai Mo pressed a hand against it, the frost instantly melted and evaporated, revealing a large dial that had long stopped moving and a dark electronic screen.

A record book was lying next to the main helm. Fu Yucheng picked it up casually and flipped through the pages.

The initial section was densely packed with standard data. After flipping some more pages, there were a few that were left empty, and then a variety of maintenance related information had been written down in the next ones.

“2381, April 3, first repair failed.”

“2381, April 15, second repair failed.”

“2381, May…”

“2381, August 29, twenty second repair failed. The leader notified all residents to prepare for a major evacuation.”

The final pages were blank.

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Fu Yucheng set down the record book. “It seems that they are all gone.”

Puzzled, Bai Mo said, “If there was a problem with the nuclear power plant, they would have lost their power supply and they would have no choice but to head to the Twilight Belt. However, over the last few years, there haven’t been big groups of refugees coming there.”

Fu Yucheng shook his head. “The Devil’s Antarctic is too big. Without a vehicle, and while evacuating in a mass panic, it’s very likely that they…”

“You mean that they died on the road?” Bai Mo questioned. “However, judging by the size of this settlement, their population could not have been small. How could it have been annihilated?”

“Maybe they took a wrong turn, maybe there was an ice storm that lasted several days, or maybe there was a massive breach on the ice… who knows?” Fu Yucheng murmured. “In the wild, humans are just too fragile.”

The two stayed in the cockpit for a while, then walked over to the deck.

A thick layer of ice had long since formed on the wide deck of the aircraft carrier. The turrets and the two rows of fighter jets next to them were all hidden under a thick layer of ice.

Standing at the front of the deck, Fu Yucheng looked at the deadly silent ships around them, unable to suppress a sigh. “Back then, the real Mo Ziwei wanted to find the inhabitants of the nuclear civilization and jointly build a new civilization on Earth… but he never expected this place to be such a sight.”

Bai Mo stood on the bow and looked down.

He was taken aback for a moment, and then he frowned. “Yu-ge, there seems to be something in the ice below.”

Fu Yucheng also looked down. He spotted a few faint, dark shadows in the otherwise crystal clear ice below the bow, but he couldn’t see what they were exactly.

For some reason, a strange, ominous feeling gripped his heart. He raised his eyebrows slightly. “Little Mo, let’s go down and take a look.”

The two got off the aircraft carrier and walked to the ice in front of the bow.

The surface of the ice in that area was covered in a thin layer of ice slag and snow, and the only thing that could be seen underneath were some vague black shadows.

“What the hell is…” Fu Yucheng frowned and wiped away a small pile of ice with the sole of his shoe.

Suddenly, he jumped two steps back. “Fuck!”

Bai Mo stepped forward warily, and without thinking, he muttered, “Christ, that’s a…”

Inside the ice, there was a pale face.

After taking two steps back, Fu Yucheng was enveloped in an extremely strange feeling. After thinking for a while, he walked forward again, and carefully looked at the face in the ice.

It was the head of a young man, with half-open, half-closed bloodshot eyes that seemed to be blankly looking back at them through the ice.

The deceased man seemed to have been very good looking before his death, but it was obvious that he had been dead for a long time at that point, his skin tinted a lifeless blue-gray.

After staring at this face carefully for some time, Fu Yucheng finally understood where his weird feeling was coming from- this person looked a bit familiar.

However, he was quite sure that he had never met this man.

Suddenly, a thought struck his mind like lightning across the dark night sky, instantly lighting up Fu Yucheng’s mind.

He stayed still for a moment and then gulped. “This face… this man is the real Mo Ziwei.”

He had once seen this face in Mo Ziwei’s study, in the oil painting. Unexpectedly, the only thing that was left of the young master of Fort Hurricane now was a head.

Fu Yucheng shook his head without thinking. “This is really…”

Bai Mo thought for a while, then he took off his coat again and wiped away the scum and snow covering the ice.

A large section of clear ice was revealed underneath.

Besides the head, there were many frozen bones stuck in this piece of ice. All the bones were broken into pieces, not a single one was whole.

Bai Mo frowned and asked, “How can this be? It’s all bones?”

Fu Yucheng didn’t say a word.

It took a long time before he slowly began to speak. “I’m guessing that, when Mo Ziwei arrived at this ship colony with his group, the inhabitants had already evacuated. But, for some reason, that fake Mo Ziwei didn’t follow along.

“Then, Mo Ziwei met that man.” He paused for a moment and then spoke again. “I believe they were all killed by the false Mo Ziwei.”

Bai Mo wondered, “Even if the false Mo Ziwei killed all these people, how come that there are only bones left? In such cold weather, it would be hard for the corpses to decompose and become bones… Besides, Mo Ziwei’s head is well preserved.”

Fu Yucheng was silent for a long time before adding, “You forgot one thing.”

His voice was a little hoarse. “In this ship colony, all the residents’ food, clothing, shelter and transportation were relying on the nuclear power of the aircraft carrier. I believe that their food source would be genetically modified indoor crops, which also required nuclear power for their light source. Since this power source was damaged and they were unable to continue to grow food, when they left, they must have taken away all the remaining stores.”

He paused before continuing. “So, when Mo Ziwei and the others came here, there was probably no food left in this place. However, everybody needs to eat, the false Mo Ziwei is no exception.”

Bai Mo was momentarily stunned before he understood what Fu Yucheng meant. “Yu-ge, so you mean… that false Mo Ziwei, he… he ate…”

Fu Yucheng did not reply, but he gave him a slow nod.

The two of them remained somewhat speechless for a while, feeling both horrified and cold all over.

The deep chill they felt inside was even colder than the minus 20 degrees temperature at the Eternal Night face.

After a long time, Fu Yucheng whispered, “Little Mo, can you melt this mass of ice? Be careful not to damage the weight bearing layer.”

Bai Mo nodded, and then he leaned over, pressing his hands on the ice.

With a slight crack, a large cloud of white smoke suddenly appeared over the ice, and, soon after, the ice had melted into clear water.

Fu Yucheng took a deep breath, picked up the young man’s head from the ice cold water, and set it aside carefully.

Then, he picked up a white rib and carefully examined it.

His slender fingers moved slowly along this rib, and he felt some rough unevenness against his fingertips. “These are… tooth marks. Human tooth marks.”

Fu Yucheng held onto the rib for a minute with a heavy heart. After a long while, he let out a long breath.

Next, he carefully counted the bones in the ice pit. “Back then, Mo Ziwei brought a total of thirteen people with him in his expedition to the Devil’s Antarctic. If we count him as well, that’s fourteen people. They’re now… all here, all of them.”

Bai Mo frowned and said, “The false Mo Ziwei is just one person. How did he manage to kill over ten people? According to your previous guess, this false Mo Ziwei is Mo Hanchuan’s biological descendant, and he has a perfect duplication power. However, even if he replicates Mo Ziwei’s time control ability, Mo Ziwei should still be more skilled at using his own ability. If they fought against each other, he wouldn’t lose to that imposter, would he?”

Fu Yucheng pondered for a moment. “I don’t know either. However, this place, after all, is the false Mo Ziwei’s home turf. If the real Mo Ziwei has the same innocent personality as his brother, Mo Ziran, then he could easily be tricked. It wouldn’t be surprising for the impostor to cheat and kill him.”

After debating for a while, Bai Mo froze the head again, carefully wrapped it in a plastic bag, and placed it in their vehicle. It was an important piece of evidence.

They returned the remaining bones back to the pit, froze them again, and then bowed deeply at them.

The two returned to the off-road vehicle and sat there for a while.

Bai Mo hesitated and then said, “Yu-ge, what now? You don’t look too good. Would you like to rest for a while?”

Fu Yucheng rubbed at his face tiredly, and then he slammed the accelerator pedal. “Let’s go back to the Twilight Belt. This cursed place, I don’t want to stay here for a minute… no, for even a second longer.”

 

 

Author’s note1

I feel like the process of my writing is:

Me: I’m looking for novels where the shou is the older one and he raises up the gong, you have to give me recommendations.

Close friend:2 Well, what requirements do you have?

Me: I want it to have a melodramatic relationship!

Close friend: Well, what else?

Me: Both the gong and the shou should be good looking and powerful.

Close friend: Well, what else?

Me: Lately I’ve been liking the idea of a futuristic wasteland as a setting. Something like Tatooine or Mad Max, where people have a very difficult life. It’d be good to also have a central empire with nobility and emperors. By the way, I like big lizards that can breathe fire…

Close friend: Get out of here.

In the end, I had to cut my own leg.3

I have a short memory anyway. And, after a few months, the leg meat is dried and ready to eat. _(:з」∠)_

 

 

Whew, that got dark. Thank you everyone for reading!

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Footnotes

Most author notes are very very short and in 95% of the chapters they’re just thanking readers and donors. However, this one had some extra content so I decided to translate it in full.The term used can mean either “same sex close friend” or literally “romantic partner in an homosexual relationship”, who knows what applies here? I went for the more literal translation to be safe ah.It refers to having to feed oneself due to not having any other resources. What’s with the cannibalism today?