ABRIWMTHM Chapter 127

Lu Lu’s head was buzzing.

That punch had considerable force. Although it was thrown by a Blue Star human, his education at the Nest made Lu Lu understand their race and realize that this was not a restrained effort.

He felt as if he had been momentarily stunned, but also as if he had been jolted awake.

White noise appeared in his mind, and Lu Lu tilted his head to gaze into the void for a long time before slowly focusing and straightening his head.

Lu Lu: “So that day… you were there.”

Lu Lu: “That day was when you were matched, right?”

Upon hearing these two sentences, Shi Xing’s mood became complicated.

He didn’t really want to see Lu Lu, and the reason was simple: he felt it was unnecessary.

Let the past stay in the past.

He had already achieved a good present life, and everything unpleasant from before, Shi Xing chose to bury and start anew.

While at the Nest, he would occasionally have nightmares filled with pain and struggle.

But after being matched with His Highness and leaving the Nest again, having seen a wider world, he had indeed attained the new life he desired.

Not only did he get what he wanted, but everything he had stopped fantasizing about, like a new stable relationship, fate had also once again generously bestowed upon him a life that was fulfilling and secure.

He had moved on.

In contrast, Lu Lu seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper.

In just a year and a half, Lu Lu’s appearance and demeanor had changed significantly, transforming from the sunny and cheerful boy in the Nest into the obsessive and somewhat abnormal young man before him.

Shi Xing had seen this version of Lu Lu.

In his previous life.

During the time he was entangled with Tan Shao, during the painful family issues, Lu Lu would occasionally expose such manic expressions behind his back.

He sighed lightly in his heart.

He thought a lot, yet it really was just the blink of an eye.

Shi Xing said calmly, “What does this have to do with you finding me?”

Lu Lu’s emotions surged violently in his eyes, his chest rising and falling a few times, and instinctively, he moved closer.

The old Shi Xing would have been unable to shake him off.

But now, it was impossible for Lu Lu to cross that line.

As soon as Lu Lu made a move, Shi Xing’s mental power immediately pushed him back by over a meter, completing the action in an instant and leaving no room for resistance. Under the suppression of such high-level mental power, Lu Lu almost stumbled.

Shi Xing: “Speak if you have something to say; no need to get too close.”

Lu Lu sarcastically replied, “Is His Majesty not allowing others to get too close to you?”

After a brief silence, Shi Xing said straightforwardly, “I don’t want you to get too close.”

The words were blunt and naked, tearing away the last layer of shame between the two.

Since Lu Lu did not wish to communicate properly, Shi Xing felt there was no need to give him any leeway.

“Is that so? I thought it was Your Majesty…”

Before Lu Lu could finish speaking, he received a punch to his stomach, bending over and unable to utter any sound.

Shi Xing hadn’t used his hands; instead, he had used his mental power to inflict the damage, but Shi Xing’s mental power was far more terrifying than his personal strike could ever be.

Shi Xing coldly said, “Choose your words wisely.”

“You came here to talk, so it’s definitely about us.”

“If you want to talk, then do it properly.”

“If you don’t want to talk properly, my officers wouldn’t mind throwing you out of the palace again.”

After pausing for a moment, he added, “You should know what crime it is to insult the royal family; your family must have taught you that, so I don’t need to remind you.”

Lu Lu could say anything he wanted about Shi Xing, but he did not want to hear Lu Lu randomly dragging His Highness into their conversation.

He didn’t like it; it made him unhappy.

This time, the strike was rather heavy, and Lu Lu felt a bit of pain, taking a long time to straighten up, mockingly saying, “Sounds like you really like His Majesty.”

Shi Xing remained silent in response.

This had nothing to do with Lu Lu.

With cold sweat on his forehead, Lu Lu managed to squeeze a smile toward Shi Xing, bittersweet and helpless. “Long time no see.”

A belated greeting.

Shi Xing nodded. “Long time no see.”

Polite yet distant.

Lu Lu looked at Shi Xing with a complicated expression, while Shi Xing’s gaze toward Lu Lu was particularly vacant, looking at Lu Lu while Lu Lu was not really in his eyes.

That emotionless gaze was not lost on Lu Lu, and he naturally knew what it represented.

A little over a year had passed, yet the two felt as if they were no longer in the same world.

Oh right, Shi Xing was now His Majesty’s partner, they truly were no longer from the same world.

Lu Lu wanted to resist but found it impossible.

Cognition did not allow him to pretend to be confused when he understood everything.

“You… have grown taller, and your features have matured a bit.”

Clearly just stating a fact, yet Lu Lu felt that his words were especially pale, as if he were trying to find some minute intersection in two entirely different worlds.

“You too.”

Seeing Lu Lu calm down a bit, Shi Xing cut to the chase.

“When I was at the boundary line, I kept going in circles around the mothership. Since you’ve wanted to see me for so long, just say what you want to say directly.”

After a brief pause, he continued, “Next time you seek an audience, I may not give you that chance again.”

Lu Lu: “You’ve changed a lot.”

Shi Xing: “No one is unchanging, and you’ve changed considerably too.”

Shi Xing: “At least the Lu Lu I knew before didn’t cling on so desperately.”

This statement seemed to touch a sore spot for Lu Lu, making his expression darken for a moment before quickly returning to normal.

Lu Lu closed his eyes. “You’re right.”

The emphasis held a weight; aside from the matter of Shi Xing, it also contained deep feelings about Lu Lu’s family troubles.

For a while, neither of them spoke.

The wind floated through the air, lingering gently on Shi Xing’s cheek before quietly drifting away.

Thinking of someone, Shi Xing felt particularly steady.

“How did you know about my family matters?”

After a long moment, Lu Lu asked.

He had wanted to ask this when he was at the Nest, but the overwhelming sense of helplessness from his family back then had nearly driven him mad. Now, a year and a half later, he was no longer impulsive; his emotions had become numb. He asked it now simply because he had once been too fixated, wanting to uncover a once-hidden desire.

The answer was not important to Lu Lu.

At certain moments, both of them thought alike.

Lu Lu carried a sense of resigned pessimism.

Shi Xing was treating the matter as just that.

“Is it important?”

Shi Xing returned the question indifferently.

For a moment or two, Lu Lu felt a pressure he had never experienced before in front of Shi Xing. The latter merely looked at him quietly, yet it gave him a strong sense of being looked down upon.

Shi Xing was speaking from a high position, even if he himself didn’t realize it.

Lu Lu’s throat tightened, “I want to know clearly.”

This statement moved Shi Xing.

This was the same thing Lu Lu had said to Tan Shao when the issues surrounding the Lu family erupted.

However, that conversation had nearly destroyed Lu Lu’s perception of his family.

Casting a side glance at the scenery between the palaces, Shi Xing exhaled lightly.

“Tan Shao, your mother, is nominally the youngest daughter of the Tan family, but the Tan family actually has another younger daughter who passed away at an early age. The contemporaries know, but the elders of your generation, who are five years younger than Tan Shao, are not aware.”

“Compared to your eldest brother, your second sister actually enjoys military life more, relishing the strategies and killings on the battlefield. Her mental power is one level lower than yours and your elder brother’s, but she knows how to leverage weapons to achieve greater levels of suppression. The team she leads is equipped with the weapons she taught them to use.”

“Lastly, your elder brother has a small burn on his arm, a very tiny one, which he never treated at the hospital. It’s a mark left from when he shielded you from scalding water as a child.”

“Wen Xi has nothing much to say. He has a good character, and even if he is not favored by Tan Shao, he still attempts to mediate the relationship between your elder brother and your mother, but your elder brother sees it quite clearly—his mediation has little effect.”

With each sentence Shi Xing uttered, the shock and storm it brought into Lu Lu’s heart multiplied exponentially.

These were all private matters of the Lu family; those who had not come into contact with them would never know.

Lu Lu’s voice became hoarse, stunned. “You…”

“Why do you know?”

Shi Xing turned to face him.

At the moment he saw Shi Xing’s expression, Lu Lu felt as if he’d been doused with cold water, waking him up.

From that familiar face, he saw absolute calmness.

Shi Xing spoke of his family matters, yet it was not about his own—he was using an outsider’s perspective and tone to narrate these events.

These matters had nothing to do with him at all.

Shi Xing: “Lu Lu, I had a dream.”

“I chose you.”

Sensing something, Lu Lu felt flustered. “What do you mean?”

Shi Xing looked directly at Lu Lu, his clear blue eyes reminiscent of the past; however, this time, Lu Lu sensed a piercing coldness emanating from them.

“The literal meaning.”

“I don’t believe it’s fake.”

“What I said, I also learned from the dream.”

After coming out of the Senate and on the way to the spaceship, Chi Yao suddenly lifted his head and caught a breeze blowing towards him.

Chi Yao sensed the presence of Shi Xing.

A glance at a communicator confirmed that today, the wind in the Imperial Capital was indeed blowing from the palace to the Senate.

What could make Shi Xing use his mental power?

It must be related to healing mental power.

The intensity of the wind had blown quite far but hadn’t dissipated that strand of presence.

“Full speed return to the palace.”

Once aboard the spaceship, Chi Yao ordered.

Xu Jin complied with Chi Yao’s request and later reported, “Fu Qing said a classmate of Xing Xing’s has come looking for him.”

“Classmate?”

Chi Yao instinctively blurted out, “Shi Ran?”

In his memory, there was only this one classmate of Shi Xing who was close to him.

Xu Jin paused briefly, bent down to confirm, and shook his head after realizing it was indeed someone else.

“It’s Lu Guangyu’s youngest son, Lu Lu.”

Chi Yao frowned for a moment before recalling, “He previously had issues with his mental sea and applied to go to the Nest to receive Mother Tree’s mental power, right?”

Otherwise, why would he be a classmate of Shi Xing?

Xu Jin nodded, “That’s right.”

Chi Yao always felt something was off, but he couldn’t recall what it was.

From the beautiful beginning of the story to its eventual decay, Lu Lu felt nearly unable to stand.

“What happened in the end, how did it end?”

After the wedding, Lu Lu hoped to hear some different conclusions.

But Shi Xing did not satisfy him.

“I died.”

“In the snow.”

“When I opened my eyes again, I woke up.”

Lu Lu felt a suffocating sensation, deeply closing his eyes, struggling to breathe.

Even if he had not experienced it firsthand, each person’s actions and each family’s reactions Shi Xing described aligned perfectly with his real character, including some detailed aspects of their lives; everything matched, it was all precisely the same.

How could it be, how could it ever……

Lu Lu raised his head again.

Knowing what he wanted to ask, Shi Xing spoke up first. “Perhaps it is a world I truly experienced.”

“No way!” Lu Lu instinctively denied it.

The denial felt pale and powerless.

The gentle wind caressed his face as Shi Xing said, “Blue Star humans possess the power to manipulate the laws of time. We are energy-based life forms; it’s possible that when I died, I absorbed too much crystal energy that could not be released, and thus, unwillingly started over again?”

Shi Xing: “If I remember correctly, you have a gem the same color as my eyes, not an energy stone, but one with special significance. You originally intended to give it to me after I agreed, right?”

Lu Lu fell silent for a long time.

There was indeed such a thing.

Moreover, he was very sure, only he knew.

So……

Shi Xing: “Whether it’s a dream or an unknown timeline, that’s not the key point.”

“The key point is, Lu Lu, we are not suitable.”

“What do you think?”

The last four words felt like a brand deeply seared into Lu Lu’s heart, burning yet unable to voice even half a word in rebuttal.

Lu Lu was dazed, muttering, “But everything hasn’t…”

Shi Xing: “Not long after I left the Nest, I could no longer absorb ordinary crystals.”

Shi Xing waved his hand toward the air, and the wind followed his request, causing a piece of Red Ore displayed on the desk to float down and gently land in his palm.

Shi Xing toyed with it for a moment before tossing it to Lu Lu.

Lu Lu recognized it immediately, “Campbell Red Ore.”

Shi Xing: “This is a crystal I absorbed during the first phase of my maturity period.”

Lu Lu’s pupils vibrated.

“His Majesty purchased from Campbell…”

Shi Xing: “Bought a Red Ore mining star.”

Lu Lu raised his head again. Each word was comprehensible to him, but the meaning seemed to elude him, leaving his face filled with confusion.

A mining… star?!

Shi Xing: “The royal family cannot be limited by others.”

“If it were just about purchasing a large quantity of Red Ore over time, Campbell Star would surely not remain unaware. So, to ensure I have enough crystal supply and to avoid any mishaps during my maturity, His Highness ultimately bought a mining star.”

“Now this mining star has been placed into the Empire’s satellite orbit. I’ve completed my maturity period, but the mining star’s energy has not yet been fully extracted. I talked it over with His Highness, and after this, the Red Ore will be distributed to high-ranking matured Blue Star humans in the name of the Empire.”

As if viewing a landscape, looking at the flowers and plants outside the palace, Shi Xing took a step aside and continued.

“Since entering my maturity period, the star beasts I’ve attracted have mostly been above the 2S level, with many being mutated star beasts.”

“I previously encountered a spatially mutated star beast in the Northern Territory.”

“Recently, you were also there; you saw the situation at the border.”

“Even in the star network videos, those star beasts were all coming for me.”

“Even if the dream is fake, these situations must be real. Under these conditions, where do you think we are suitable?”

Shi Xing looked back at Lu Lu.

His sea-blue eyes no longer held warmth for Lu Lu; instead, they emanated a bone-chilling coldness, piercing through him.

Shi Xing walked toward Lu Lu.

“Do you think the Lu family could buy me a mining star, or could Tan Shao ever let you venture into such a dangerous environment?”

“Or do you need me to lower my rank, as if in that dream, disregarding your own body for the sake of this relationship?”

“Lu Lu, what do you think?”

With each step Shi Xing took forward, his questions made Lu Lu unconsciously take a step back.

Cold sweat drenched his forehead and back.

Again, those four words.

This time, Shi Xing placed the choice in his hands.

But…

Lu Lu clenched his fist, the veins on his hand bulging, the ones on his forehead pulsing.

Shi Xing clearly spoke of a dream, yet Lu Lu found himself unable to stop confusing it with reality.

As if the long-lost, missing piece of a puzzle he had been searching for was finally complete, Lu Lu envisioned his “what if.”

What if they had truly been together…

But the desolation of the ending was something he could not accept.

Lu Lu was now disoriented, repeatedly breaking down and saying, “It’s just a dream, Xing Xing, perhaps…”

“Lu Lu!”

Shi Xing suddenly raised his voice, shattering Lu Lu’s thoughts.

“What I’m asking you about is reality. The Red Ore, and the star beasts’ problems—how do you plan to solve them? Can you even resolve them for me?”

Lu Lu opened his mouth but found himself speechless.

Shi Xing stood right in front of him, with firm eyebrows, yet Lu Lu once again felt the gap between them.

A year and a half had passed—had it really been that long?

……It had already been that long.

Long enough for Shi Xing to have grown powerful enough to give him a sense of pressure as a peer.

Rationality had crumbled.

Emotions, however, were still suffering and could not find release; Lu Lu felt as if he was about to be torn apart.

Shi Xing noticed this too.

Most of what Lu Lu heard had sunk in; however, acceptance would still require some time.

But he did not have that much time to give Lu Lu.

Shi Xing ruthlessly chose the most direct approach.

Clarifying Lu Lu’s intentions.

“With my current identity and the power I possess, I don’t want to see you; you won’t even be able to enter the palace and get close to me.”

“Sure, you can find ways around it, but what if I asked Lu Li to have you transferred away?”

“Lu Guangyu might resist my suggestions, but what do you think of your elder brother? A calm and rational person; if I were to reveal all your actions and our relationship, how can’t I send you to the border, or even farther?”

“If one year doesn’t work, then two years; if two years doesn’t work, then four years.”

“Year after year, day after day, you will eventually come around.”

“Of course, if you never come to your senses, that’s fine too. The Empire is not your only way out. Your coming back or not makes little difference to me.”

“Do you think accomplishing all this would be difficult?”

Lu Lu still couldn’t say anything.

But deep down, he understood that given Shi Xing’s capabilities today, it should be easy.

Shi Xing: “It’s just a matter of a few words.”

“I could even delegate it to my General; Fei Chu, who has royal family relations, would find many ways to keep you away from the Imperial Capital. I believe he has countless methods waiting for you that I cannot even think of.”

After taking a pause, Shi Xing sighed again.

The world was vast, feeling the flow of energy in nature, Shi Xing spoke slowly yet firmly, “But I won’t do that.”

“In fact, I wouldn’t do such a thing.”

“Do you know why?”

Lu Lu felt bewildered, his eyes reddening, repeating after Shi Xing, “Why?”

Shi Xing: “Because I don’t want to become the second Tan Shao.”

Those words were shocking.

“Tan Shao’s love is conditional, it has limitations; her children can only live within the realm she can accept, enjoying the maternal love she provides.”

“I have always felt that her way of raising children seemed familiar, yet I could never find the right words to describe it, until I saw a gardener trimming branches, and I understood.”

“You are the saplings she planted, and all your growth must follow the manner she pruned you. Any branch that grows beyond her plans is not permitted; she will forcefully trim you away, without asking if you are willing, if you like it, or if you accept it… or even if it will hurt you.”

“But every person is different; everyone has their own unique form.”

“It’s impossible to be shaped according to someone else’s wishes.”

“Tan Shao believes people can be molded at will, and within her controllable range, everything is at her command.”

“I don’t think that way.”

Shi Xing gazed at Lu Lu; that gaze seemed to carry some kind of magic, making it impossible for Lu Lu to evade.

So he stepped forward to meet it.

Shi Xing continued: “The root of your pain stems from your family; I’m simply the stone that shatters the illusion of harmony within your family, which isn’t as significant as you think.”

“Whether together or apart from me, you need to accept the original state of your family, not feel that by making our relationship solid, everything can return to the starting point.”

“Everything cannot return to the starting point once it has begun.”

“In my dream, I could feel your pain from Tan Shao’s grasp, so from the same position, I don’t want to use the same methods on you; it’s not necessary, and it’s far too cold, it needn’t be so.”

Every word Shi Xing spoke directly targeted Lu Lu’s deepest pain, layer by layer peeling away the facade Lu Lu had buried deep within, hidden from the light.

Cracks splintered all over.

During this year and a half, he had been continuously tormented by the family relations that left deep fissures.

All that harmony was a facade.

All that happiness was constructed.

The Lu family had never been perfect, but he had previously been completely blind to the deep cracks beneath his family’s surface.

“The Lu Lu in my memory was sunny and cheerful, always brimming with life, unafraid of difficulties.”

Before the fallout with Tan Shao, Lu Lu, who was pushed by her step by step to the brink of despair, was at least like that.

“Perhaps a perfect family that cultivated such a Lu Lu is false, but you are not false.”

“It’s entirely up to you whether to be trapped in the unresolvable relationships of the Lu family, or to walk out anew on a path belonging to yourself, Lu Lu.”

Lu Lu fell weakly to the ground, fingers sinking into the flowerbed, tears falling silently.

Shi Xing: “The countdown of three seconds to hit you hasn’t finished; I’ve done my part, and this matter is cleared.”

“From now on, there’s no need to come again, and I won’t see you again.”

“And don’t let me hear you discussing His Highness behind his back; otherwise…”

After a brief pause, Lu Lu felt Shi Xing’s mental power press down on him again, causing his back to cave in, cold sweat pouring down.

“I also wouldn’t mind letting you experience some royal authority.”

Shi Xing left without dragging his feet.

Lu Lu felt as if he had been thoroughly seen through, and completely shattered from the cracks.

Something seeped in through the gaps in his heart, causing him immense pain.

In a daze, Lu Lu gradually realized.

This was reality.

In that moment, he finally felt the irreparable gap between him and Shi Xing.

He felt that… he was not worthy of Shi Xing.