The Emperor’s Runaway Lover

Their eyes met, and the bald man, Aaron, looked surprised.

Seemingly sensing something, He Lei raised his gaze, following Aaron’s eyes and spotting the boy. “Aaron, what’s wrong?”

“Lei-ge, that’s the kid I told you about yesterday.” Aaron lowered his voice. “The one living in Fu Yucheng’s place.”

“Oh, so that’s him.” He Lei looked at the boy with interest, slowly revealing a malicious smile. “Fu Yucheng, that pretty boy. He doesn’t have enough to eat and relies on his face to get women to take care of him. How can he have such a good heart to pick up a little kid and bring him back from the desert? As I see it, this brat has a skin as smooth as a baby, white and tender… Fu Yucheng, that rascal, don’t tell me he’s into this type?”

His tone rose slightly at the end of the sentences, and it sounded very strange, full of contempt and even a bit of schadenfreude.1

The boy didn’t understand what He Lei meant. Coldly glancing at the man, he was about to leave with the cardboard box in his arms.

“Hold on,” He Lei said slowly.

Two sturdy men standing outside the carriage’s door reached out to stop the boy.

The boy paused in his step. Seemingly realizing something, he turned his head slightly, raising his eyes towards He Lei.

His complexion was naturally very fair, almost like a doll’s, carved from snow and jade. His eyes were almost as cold as ice, devoid of any emotion.

When he saw such an unfeeling gaze, He Lei’s heart missed a beat and his hair stood on end. Immediately, he had to scoff at himself, thinking ‘it’s just a little kid, what’s there be to be afraid of?’

“Young friend, why are you trying to leave so quickly? Do I seem scary?” He smiled. “The cardboard box you are holding seems to have some good stuff. Bring it over, let this uncle2 check them out.”

Xu Nana couldn’t help but interject, “Lei-ge, I asked him to bring those to Fu-”

“Nana.” He Lei raised his hand, stopping the proprietress from speaking. “You’re always helping Fu Yucheng. It makes me really unhappy.”

“But…” Xu Nana glanced at the boy anxiously.

The boy pursed his lips and carefully placed the cardboard box on the ground.

Quietly, he slipped his left hand into his trouser pocket, touching tendrils of cold, hard metal. It was a small stainless steel fork that he had secretly brought with him when he went out.

Noob, hovering over his shoulder, made a slight “beep beep”. It was asking the boy if he wanted to inform Fu Yucheng. He shook his head almost imperceptibly.

“Brat, come here.” He Lei beckoned.

The boy did not move.

“Didn’t you hear me? I’m telling you to come over.” He Lei narrowed his eyes, raising his voice.

The boy looked at him coldly, and tightened his hold on the fork in his pocket in secret.

He Lei, practically furious, smiled. “You still won’t listen?”

“Sister, look at them.” Xu Youyou, biting her lip, couldn’t help but look at her older sister. She muttered, “What’s their problem?”

Xu Nana stood behind the bar, unconsciously clutching a rag in her hand. She looked at the situation between He Lei and the kid, and couldn’t help but furrow her beautiful, slender eyebrows.

After hesitating for a while, she suddenly laughed out loud, turned around with her willowy waist and walked out from behind the bar. “Lei-ge, it’s just a kid, why are you teasing him? He’s all messy, I don’t want you to get my sofa dirty. It’s made of calfskin.”

He Lei looked up at her with an unhappy expression. “Nana, don’t think I can’t tell. You’re trying to help this kid get out. The reason he’s holding that box is because Fu Yucheng is borrowing stuff again.”

“You’re right,” Xu Nana pushed Aaron away and sat down next to He Lei, topping off the glass of beer in his hand. “If it weren’t for that rascal Fu Yucheng starving to death, I wouldn’t even have let this kid walk through the door.”

“Even if that pretty boy is starving to death, what is it to you?” He Lei sneered. “After so long, with how  I treat you, don’t you realize in your heart that Fu Yucheng is just a pretty face?”

“Lei-ge, haven’t I said it enough times? The matter between you and me has nothing to do with Fu Yucheng. I just treat him as a younger brother. As you know, my poor brother got drunk several years ago, and got stabbed in a fight and couldn’t be saved.”

Her voice got a little hoarse and, after pausing for a while, she continued, “Not long after he was buried, Fu Yucheng also got drunk at my bar. I didn’t know him back then, I just thought that he resembled him. Such a poor thing, coming to the bar alone to drink glass after glass.

“So he drank and drank, grabbed a beer bottle and fought against a group of gangsters, even taking out a knife. At the end the group of gangsters all ran away and he passed out in the yard. I squatted by him and when I touched him my hand got covered in blood. I thought of my unlucky brother at the time.” The proprietress’s voice sounded a bit choked when she got to the emotional part.

The boy next to them was shocked.

She was talking about Fu Yucheng.

However, the man he knew was indifferent to everything. He really didn’t look like a sad drunk. He wondered what might have happened back then, to push the heartless Fu Yucheng into such a state.

Inexplicably, the boy felt a little bit uncomfortable at the idea.

“I know all of what you said already.” He Lei interrupted Xu Nana’s words angrily. “Afterwards, you took him in for a few days, and you got him a crappy doctor. It turned out that the brat didn’t have a dime in his pocket, a real pauper, and you had to pay his medical expenses.”

“Actually, he’s really pitiful.”3 Xu Nana softened her voice as much as she could, almost coaxing the other. “Lei-ge, you’re great and prosperous, just don’t mind him.”

“Heh.” He Lei’s expression relaxed a little. “I guess, just for today, I’ll listen to your kind words.”

“Okay, just don’t pay attention to that stuff.” Xu Nana smiled. “Lei-ge, try this new cigar, Ivan just delivered it last week. I heard him say that the underground factory of Fort Hurricane only produced this one small box in a whole month.”

He Lei seemed persuaded by her, and with a “huh” he bowed his head and began to exhale the cigar’s smoke.

Standing at the kitchen’s door, Xu Youyou secretly winked at the boy and pointed with her chin towards the door.

The boy glanced at her, and his left hand slowly let go of the cold stainless steel fork in his trouser pocket. He bent down to pick up the cardboard box and walked out without a sound.

Xu Nana glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes, and then quietly breathed a sigh of relief.

“What, were you afraid that I would make things difficult for the kid? I might have a bad reputation, but I’d never do anything to a child.”

He Lei slowly let out a ring of smoke, and said blankly, “Anyway, I just don’t fucking understand him. Fu Yucheng, that pretty boy, he just arrived at the parking lot and he’s been running around the desert for years now. That’s how people end up for not doing what they should, just look at him now.”

Xu Nana couldn’t help but quietly roll her eyes. “I’ve told you already, he’s just like my poor brother. Moreover, although Fu Yucheng is not very reliable, he has helped me out several times. Last month, when several punks got drunk and smashed up the shop, he helped to drive them away.”

“Did he?”” He Lei’s mouth twitched with a smile. “By the way, that kid just now, which slave trader did Fu Yucheng buy him from?”

“Since when does he have that sort of money to spare? He picked up the child from the desert. It’s probably a refugee from another parking lot. You know, Fu Yucheng is really lazy, and he most likely intends to treat this child as the slave you said him to be.” Xu Nana shrugged.

He Lei hummed coldly, and slowly leaned back on the sofa. Dangling a cigar between his fingers, he stared at the ceiling with falcon-like eyes. It was impossible to know what he was thinking.

“What’s wrong?” Xu Nana raised her eyebrows. “I keep thinking you’re acting weird today, Lei-ge.”

He Lei bit his cigar and took a deep breath. “Last month, I sent 300 workers to the underground factory of Fort Hurricane, following the orders of the Mo family.”

“Yeah, I remember.” Xu Nana nodded. “All parking lots must send a group of workers to Fort Hurricane to work every month, following the quotas, and they will return after a year. Isn’t it always like this?”

He Lei slowly released a puff of smoke. “The day before yesterday one of the workers I sent, a 17-year-old girl, died. I heard that both of her legs had been broken and her eyeballs had been dug out. Her mother went to identify the body. She fainted on the spot.”

“Heavens,” Xu Nana involuntarily exclaimed in a low voice, covering her mouth. “What happened?”

“I asked someone to find out. Turns out that the little girl accidentally broke into the mourning hall of the castle lord’s wife, breaking Lord Mobao’s rules. She was beaten like that by Mo Ziwei himself.”4

“Simply going to the mourning hall by mistake, and she paid with her life.” Xu Nana suddenly remembered something, feeling a chill down her back. “Youyou is sixteen years old, it’s her turn in two months to go to Fort Hurricane. She’s got a hot temper and it’s her first time going, there’s a possibility she’ll do something careless.”

He Lei took a puff from the cigar. “Just tell your sister to be sensible. If anything goes wrong, no one can guarantee her safety since Fort Hurricane belongs to the Mo family. Who dares to make irresponsible remarks about Mo Ziwei’s actions?”

“Who cares about the Mo family?” Xu Nana was furious and raised her voice without thinking. “Even if it’s Mo Ziwei, he can’t do something so reckless unless he’s wrong in the head.”

“Hush, don’t talk nonsense.” He Lei covered her mouth.

Xu Nana pushed him away hard. “Why can’t it be said? Mo Ziwei is the owner of Fort Hurricane, yes, but he should still listen to reason.”

He Lei sneered. “If you try reasoning with a psionic manipulator of Mo Ziwei’s skill, he might just squeeze a big guy like Aaron to death as easily as he’d crush a fly.”

Aaron, the innocent bystander, scratched his bright bald head. “Lei-ge, Lord Mobao doesn’t want to crush me, I don’t even know him.”

“It’s just an analogy.” He Lei turned his head and glared at him. “Do you want me to say that he’d crush me to death like a fly instead?”

Next to him, Mr. Wei5 couldn’t help but snort in derision, and Aaron simply shut his mouth.

Xu Nana felt a little confused. “But I heard that Mo Ziwei is only a C-level psionic manipulator. Of course, C-level is very powerful, but Lei-ge, you are a D-level as well. You’re just one level away from him. You shouldn’t have anything to be afraid of.”

“Heh, how could he be just a C-class? It’d be good for the Mo family to hide the truth.” He Lei sneered. “Nana, remember how Mo Ziwei went missing for three years?”

“Yes, I remember. Eight years ago, when Mo Ziwei was still the young master6 of the Mo family, he went with a group of people to the Devil’s Antarctic to find something. No one heard from them, and everyone thought he was dead.”

Xu Nana struggled to remember. “Then, he suddenly returned five years ago. When the old Lord of the Fort saw his son, he ended paralyzed due to a cerebral hemorrhage from the overexcitement, and so Mo Ziwei took over. Wasn’t it something like that?”

“That’s right.” Mr. Wei pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses. “It’s quite a coincidence that, during the time when Mo Ziwei was missing, a major event happened in the Dyson Cloud colony.”

“The Great Rebellion.” He Lei crushed the cigar into the ashtray. “A large-scale rebellion broke out in the Ninth Ecoregion of the Dyson Cloud Colony. Mr. Wei, you are from the Ecoregions, you’re the one most familiar with it. ”

Mr. Wei nodded. “Back then, the rebels from the Industrial District almost captured the entire Ninth Ecoregion, except for the White Rose Palace. The queen had been languishing in the palace for a long time, and her older brother was just an ordinary person and could not stop the rebellion. The rebels came close to storming the White Rose Palace.

" "

“At that very moment, the crown prince, Rong Yuan, who had lived in seclusion for many years, showed up and managed to turn the tide on his own, suppressing the rebellion by force.”

Mr. Wei looked at some spot far away, seemingly immersed in his own memories. “In order to survive, the leader of the rebel army surrendered to the royal family, giving them a list of the rebellion’s members. Using this list, Rong Yuan spent over half a year leading a brutal eradication campaign, and the remaining rebels were practically wiped out.

“And the leader of the rebel army, the one who betrayed his teammates, managed to save his life and was exiled to Earth.”

“I have also heard bits and pieces of gossip about the Great Rebellion. But what does this have to do with Mo Ziwei?” Xu Nana asked, a little puzzled.

“Miss Xu, think about it carefully,” Mr. Wei said solemnly. “Mo Ziwei left Fort Hurricane eight years ago, and returned here five years ago. It was precisely during the three years he disappeared that the rebellion happened. Where exactly was he?”

“I have met Mo Ziwei once. The sense of oppression he gives out is far greater than that of a C-level, or even a B-level.” He Lei unconsciously sloshed the beer in the glass he was holding. “I heard that the leader of the rebel army who got exiled to Earth is the sole S-level psionic manipulator in this world, besides Crown Prince Rongyuan.”

Xu Nana stayed still for a while, and then suddenly understood. “Lei-ge, Mr. Wei, what you are trying to say is that Mo Ziwei infiltrated the rebellion of the Dyson Cloud colony during the three years he was missing, and that he also initiated it.

“So, Mo Ziwei was the leader of the rebel army that was exiled to Earth.” She shook her head incredulously. “But why would he do this?”

“The Mo family from Fort Hurricane and the Rong royal family have an ongoing feud because of General Mo Hanchuan, one that is hard to resolve. It’s possible that Mo Ziwei planned such a rebellion deliberately. Unfortunately, the rebellion failed, so he had to turn his teammates in in exchange for the chance to be exiled and to be able to return to Earth and Fort Hurricane.” Mr. Wei sighed.

“There’s one more thing,” He Lei whispered. “After Mo Ziwei returned to Fort Hurricane, it was said that his face was injured, so he has worn a green ghost mask ever since.”

“The leader of the rebel army also wore a ghost mask for many years. Although no one knows his name or what he looked like, practically everyone knows his famous nickname.” After a pause, Mr. Wei raised his eyes towards Xu Nana. “Miss Xu, you should have heard of it.”

Xu Nana muttered, “The fallen green ghost.”

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Footnotes

The specific term 幸灾乐祸 taking pleasure on someone else’s misfortune.Specifically he addresses himself as 叔叔 which is your father’s younger brother. Yep, there’s no way to be that specific in English.他也怪可怜的 I confess I have doubts about this line, I’ve been told it’s meant to be more derogatory but I can’t think of anything more suitable.莫子巍, name literally means something like lofty son. I don’t usually bring up name meanings, but this one seems a bit loaded.It might be worth mentioning (or not) that his name is really close to the wei in Ziwei 魏. I don’t know how common these characters are.大少爷 eldest son, is also used to talk about spendthrift spoiled rich kids.