The Emperor’s Runaway Lover

Four years later, 2396 AD.

Dyson Cloud, Central Empire.

Ninth Industrial Zone, Fourteenth Block, Owl Nightclub.

The street lights were just about to turn on, and the nightclub was packed with people.

The music volume was making everyone feel excited. The skimpily dressed bunny girls were weaving back and forth between the crowd and the playing booths carrying drinks. The characteristic smell of cheap weed hung in the air like smoke, and all sorts of drunken laughs, curses and heckling mixed up chaotically.

A young man walked into the nightclub and glanced around.

In contrast to the men and women wearing fancy clothes, the young man was wearing a very low-key light gray T-shirt, a brown leather jacket, jeans, and a black baseball cap.

He wore the brim of his hat very low, making it impossible to see his eyes clearly. The only thing visible was the straight bridge of his nose and his pale lips.

“A-Cheng, here, here!” A fat man raised his arm high, calling out a loud greeting at the same time.

The young man named A-Cheng1 responded and walked to a seat at the fat man’s table and sat down.

With him at the table, there were a total of four young people there. The three beside him were the fat man, a thin man, and a girl with short hair.

“Lu Na, pour me a glass of water.” A-Cheng sat down, waved to the bar, and said loudly.

A girl, about eighteen or nineteen years old, pouted and walked over with an unhappy expression.

This girl named Lu Na, who had long, wavy brown hair, was wearing a halter top with sequins and a pair of tight short leather pants. She was wearing heavy makeup that didn’t suit her age, and she looked childish and stubborn.

Reluctantly, she poured a glass of lemonade and placed it in front of A-Cheng with a bang. “What are you doing here again? Did grandpa ask you to keep an eye on me? I’m already eighteen years old, I don’t need you to be supervising me!”

A-Cheng shrugged indifferently. “If you can come to the nightclub to work, why can’t I come here to play mahjong2 and earn some pocket money to spend?”

Lu Na snorted coldly. “Are you actually here to play mahjong, or did grandpa send you to monitor me? You know the truth. You’ve been living in our house without paying rent for so long, if you have this much time to spare you might as well help with the laundry and the cooking, or help grandpa at the watch shop!”

She grumbled a few more words and gave A-Cheng a fierce look before leaving with a huff, almost falling over because of her ill-fitting high heels.

A-Cheng shook his head in amusement. “Tsk, little girls these days.”

“A-Cheng, your distant cousin has a big temper, but her looks are really something else.” The thin man stared at Lu Na as she walked away and blinked. “Why don’t you introduce us?”

A-Cheng drank the lemonade indifferently, without answering.

“Come on, Lu Na doesn’t like you.” The fat man next to him reordered his tiles casually.

The short-haired girl nodded as well. “Just give up.”

“Hey, Fatty,3 Little Green, how would you two know that girls look down on me? Besides, although I might not have much money, I have two rooms and a long term legal job. Why would they look down on me?” The thin man said without conviction.

Fatty laughed and said, “A-Cheng’s cousin has no interest in money or houses. She’s an avid fangirl, and she’s especially obsessed with psionic manipulators. She came here to work part time not to make money, but to meet more of them.”

Fans, a term from centuries ago, referred to people who were obsessed with various idols. Currently, in the huge underground industrial zone, people no longer obsessed over singers, stars, or even athletes, but over manipulators.

Manipulators, what a fascinating word.

“Tsk, another cursed manipulator fangirl.” The thin man grimaced. “But after passing the four-year test, those arrogant manipulators will be sent to the Tower of Light in the Ninth Ecoregion. What will those rabid fans do then? A-Cheng, I think your cousin should forget about them, it’d be better to introduce her to me.”

“You can talk to her yourself.” A-Cheng smiled and threw a card on the table. “Does anyone want it?”

Fatty shrugged as he took the card. “Not all manipulators end up going to the Tower of Light. Only manipulators above F class can go there. Manipulators from the three lowest classes, G, H, and I, can’t. Moreover, manipulators are structured in a pyramid shape. The further up you go, the less of them there are. Low level manipulators such as the G, H, and I classes account for the vast majority… Well, look, there’s one right there.”

The four of them looked towards the bar and just saw the rebellious young girl, Lu Na, looking at a middle-aged bearded man with admiration on her face, her eyes shining.

The bearded man held a stainless steel spoon in his hand, staring at it, his expression focused. After a while, the handle of the spoon slowly bent down.

Lu Na covered her mouth. “So cool!”

The bearded man smiled triumphantly. “This is nothing, I can do much more.”

A-Cheng turned his head slightly and rolled his eyes, unable to bear it.

The thin man couldn’t help but snort coldly. “This kind of trick has been around for centuries. Who knows if he’s even a manipulator or just a con man who tricks little girls.”

Fatty shrugged. “Who cares? Girls just eat these tricks up.”

The thin man sighed. “These low-level manipulators are so rampant… Fortunately, the A B C D E F manipulators all go to the Ecoregions and join the pioneer program. Otherwise, what would happen to us ordinary people? Should we just die?”

A-Cheng threw another card. “Is it so serious?”

The thin man shook his head and said, “Eh, A-Cheng, you are handsome, so naturally you can’t understand us. People like you, even without psionic power, will have a lot of girls flocking at them. Me and Fatty are different. Nobody wants to play with us except manly women like Little Green.”

The fat man said, dissatisfied, “Don’t pull me into this, I have a girlfriend.”

The short-haired girl sitting across opened her eyes as well. “Skinny guy, who did you call a manly woman?”

The thin man hurriedly raised his hands and said, “Madam Green, I was wrong, I sincerely apologize!”

Little Green snorted and ignored him.

The thin man lowered his hand and couldn’t help but sigh. “But then again, they really are something else. These manipulators have been born superior to others. They’re really popular, they can go train to the Tower of Light, they’re received by the Imperial Prince at the White Rose Palace and get sent to be pioneers at a new Ecoregion… life is really unfair.”

“Ecoregions, Tower of Light, White Rose Palace, whatever… they might not be good places to go to,” A-Cheng said casually.

Fatty shook his head and said, “A-Cheng, while Skinny isn’t always in the right, aren’t you just looking down on something you can’t have? Although I’ve never gone to an Ecoregion, I’ve heard others talk about it. They have four seasons, green grass, even the sky canopy is a holographic screen that simulates the blue sky and white clouds from a few centuries ago… And when it comes to the Tower of Light, located just behind the famous White Rose Palace, I’ve been told that it’s so beautiful that it doesn’t seem like a real building… Ah, I really want to go see them with my own two eyes!” His face was full of yearning. “Why the hell was I not born a manipulator? If I were one, I would be able to pass the psionic power assessment and enter the training camp in the Tower of Light. A few years later, I’d join the pioneer program to establish a new Ecoregion, and I wouldn’t need to remain in this underground Industrial Region, being held back, for the rest of my life,” He muttered, lowering his head, but then he came back to his senses. “Damn it! A-Cheng, how come you won again?”4

“A-Cheng, you can’t be serious, you’ve won thrice in a row!” The thin man cried out in bewilderment.

A-Cheng shrugged and put all the tiles on the table in front of him expressionlessly. “You’re all getting envious of this and that, and aren’t concentrating on playing the game.”

“No way, another round, another round!”

The group continued to gossip while shuffling the tiles.

Little Green dealt the tiles. “Speaking of which, in a few months it’ll be time for the psionic power test that happens every four years… A-Cheng, I heard that you also signed up.”

A-Cheng smiled. “Yeah, I want to try my luck, see if I can go to the Ecoregion for a change.”

Little Green curled her lips. “Hey, I wanted to go before as well. But I went there last time and they didn’t measure anything. I wasted the registration fee. 500 coins… My dad beat me up. This time, no matter what I say, he won’t let me go.”

The thin man interjected and said, “I heard that the White Rose Palace is sending an Imperial Knight to supervise this psionic power test and overhaul the Ninth Industrial Zone. They’ll be arriving in a few days.”

Fatty wondered out loud, “An Imperial Knight? Don’t those Knights follow His Imperial Highness all the time? How would they come to the Industrial Zones?”

Little Green couldn’t resist rolling her eyes. “Come on, I didn’t say it was a Light Knight, it’s a Dark Knight!”

Fatty was not convinced. “We can’t even get close to people as important as that, what does the difference matter? Since you know so much about it, you can explain it then.”

“It’s just basic knowledge, yeah?” Little Green glanced at the fat man with contempt and said, “There are twelve Imperial Knights, all of them manipulators above A class. These twelve persons are divided into two teams, each team consisting of six people. The first team, called the Light Knights, are in charge of protecting the Ecoregions, and they take orders from the White Rose Palace directly.

“The second team is responsible for the stability of the Industrial Zones, and they’re called the Dark Knights. They choose their own actions depending on the situation and they have a lot of freedom. I also heard that the young Dark Knight coming this time to the Ninth Industrial Region is the only S class Knight — the White Knight.”5

The hand A-Cheng was holding his glass with suddenly twitched.

However, he quickly calmed down and took a sip casually. “Is he that amazing?”

The thin man couldn’t help but interject, “The White Knight? Isn’t it… the monster from the laboratory? The S-class special system manipulator?”

“Yes, it’s him.” Little Green nodded and continued speaking, “I heard he has a very strange personality.”

“Really?” A-Cheng lowered his eyes, absently jostling the ice in his glass.

The fat man asked curiously, “What kind of weird personality?”

Little Green said slowly, “I heard people say that he could have directly become the Captain of the Imperial Knights, just based on his psionic power alone. From then on, he’d be able to climb all the way to the sky and enjoy infinite wealth and glory. However, he actually rejected the appointment in a meeting in person with the Imperial Prince, and he willingly went down to the Industrial Regions and became an independent Dark Knight.”

The thin man shook his head. “He must be crazy. So he gave up on staying in the Ecoregions as a Light Knight and came to the Industrial Regions to be a Dark Knight?”

Little Green shrugged. “Who knows? Rich people are so whimsical.”

A-Cheng lowered his eyes, playing with the glass unconsciously, a little distracted.

“How dare he refuse an appointment from the Imperial Prince! For real?! That’s the Prince Regent!” Fatty blinked.

Little Green said, “I heard more. Three years ago, the White Knight had just awakened, and the White Rose Laboratory made a comprehensive evaluation of his psionic power, classifying him as an S class, special system manipulator. The results of his evaluation caused a commotion throughout the Dyson Cloud, and His Imperial Highness made an exception for him and summoned him. But he turned down the position right in the main hall of the White Rose Palace, and requested to become a Dark Knight.”

After saying this, she shrugged. “You need to know that Light Knights are all basically from noble families and the laboratory. They’re in charge of the safety of the Ecoregions and stay close to the Imperial family. It can be said that they have a very promising future. Dark Knights have complicated backgrounds, and they’re mainly responsible for the stability of the Industrial Regions and, on occasion, they deal with some awful stuff on Earth… Of course, Dark Knights are under relatively less supervision, but their future prospects are much worse than those of Light Knights.”

Fatty couldn’t help but spit out, “Being responsible for the stability of the Industrial Regions is one thing, but to go to a cursed place like Earth too? Isn’t that just asking for trouble?!”

Little Green nodded. “Isn’t that right? When the White Knight just joined his position, he went for a trip to the Earth Twilight Belt. I don’t know what he went to do there, but he stayed for six months.”

Skinny clicked his tongue. “The Earth is now a desert and an ice sheet… Staying in such a hellhole for six months would be really tough. I wonder if this so-called White Knight now regrets not accepting a position with the Light Knights and becoming a Dark Knight instead.”

Little Green shook her head. “Well, I don’t know. After the White Knight returned from Earth, he strengthened the screening of personnel moving between the nine main Industrial Regions. The inspections on various spacecraft passing by became very strict , even garbage transfer ships are not left unsupervised. As a result, the security in the Industrial Regions has improved a lot over the past two or three years.”

“You guys, are you still playing mahjong?” A-Cheng threw the last tile blankly.

The three of them lowered their heads to look intently, and suddenly shouted, “How could you win again?!”

A-Cheng shrugged and took all the chips on the table in front of him without saying anything. “Who told you to gossip so much? Now you’ve made a fool out of yourselves.”

He ignored their yelling, looked down at his watch, got up and walked to the bar area, patting Lu Na on the shoulder. “Time’s up. Let’s go, or grandpa will get anxious.”

Lu Na was leaning on the bar, chatting enthusiastically with the bearded man who had bent the spoon. She turned her head to look at him and scoffed. “If you want to go, go by yourself, I’m not going!”

A-Cheng squinted. “Are you really not coming?”

The bearded man glared at him. “Who are you? Didn’t you hear? Lu Na said she doesn’t want to leave!”

I wonder who these mysterious A-Cheng and White Knight might be. Completely unrelated, wow, 4 years… poor Bai Mo…

If you want to support this translation, check out my ko-fi!

And if you like the story, review it on NU and add it to your reading list here!

Footnotes

阿城, first character 阿 pronounced ah is a generic form of address that denotes closeness, second character is the same in Fu Yucheng’s name. Wonder who it might be.It could be cards or it could be mahjong, however due to some lines later on I believe it’s actually mahjong.99.9% sure this is a generic nickname, not the same man from before. Just like Little Green is a girl and not a parrot now.The term used, 胡, is a completed hand gained when someone else discarded a tile, so it could be due to that player’s carelessness rather than luck, as opposed to drawing from the pile which is more luck based.I should mention that the white in white knight is the same bai as in Bai Mo.