Buy The Marshal Omega Chapter 5
byGive the Flower a Chance (1)
The Second Galaxy, Memphis Starport.
Shortly after Eros departed, a massive vessel sailed into the port. Carved onto its pitch-black hull was the name of the craft: Lutes. Lu Rong watched quietly as the ship that belonged to him came to a halt in the harbor.
The Lutes was a mothership-class interstellar vessel. The main ship had a capacity in the tens of thousands, and when combined with its countless auxiliary ships—escorts, patrol ships, life-support vessels, and more—it was practically a large city-state when fully loaded.
Consequently, people often joked that the Lutes was a mobile Broken Star City, saying that no matter where Lu Rong went, he had to carry his Broken Star in the palm of his hand.
The Lutes had been hovering in the endless starry sky for a week, waiting for its master to return. Upon receiving the rendezvous command, it had proceeded at full speed, heading straight for Lu Rong.
Lu Rong operated his shuttle to dock with the Lutes and boarded successfully. As he stepped out of the craft, he was met by a surge of people. Everyone looked at him tensely. With a cursory glance, Lu Rong saw that not only had the medical department arrived, but even the starship guard was present. To those who knew better, he was simply returning; to those who didn’t, it looked as if he were about to lead an expedition into war.
He froze for a moment. “I don’t believe I notified this many people to come here.”
The woman leading the group wore a light blue signal uniform. The nameplate on her chest bore her name and title: “Medical Director Shen Danshi.” Her deep green hair was tied tightly behind her head, giving her a sharp, capable appearance. Her gaze swept over Lu Rong like a diagnostic scanner, accurately grasping the core of the issue. “You aren’t the one injured?”
“Even if I were, I wouldn’t need this many people,” Lu Rong said with a smile. “But I do indeed need some hands.”
He scanned the crowd, his gaze landing on a young man in a gray signal uniform at the very back. “Niyin, I’ve brought the Universal Compass back for you. Have someone send it to the lab later. For now, help me activate the treatment room in the L5-C3 shuttle and prepare a large-scale transport device for me.”
Niyin was leaning against the wall. Upon receiving the order, he gave a wave. “No problem.” A faint light flashed in his grayish-green right eye as he transmitted the command.
Then, Lu Rong spoke to the remaining people. “Everyone else may leave. Nothing has happened to me, so there is no need to worry. Only the medical department needs to stay.”
The crowd greeted Lu Rong one after another before dispersing. After returning their greetings, Lu Rong looked at Shen Danshi. “The patient’s condition might not be very good.”
Shen Danshi nodded slightly, her expression unruffled. “What is the situation?”
“Have you heard of the ‘Eternal Flower’?” As Lu Rong spoke, he led Shen Danshi and her most trusted assistant into the shuttle. When they saw the scene in the aft cabin, the interior of the shuttle fell into silence.
“If I’m not mistaken, this is a Winged Serpent?” Shen Danshi almost doubted she was hallucinating.
“Yes,” Lu Rong confirmed her “hallucination.”
“I couldn’t tell you had such hobbies,” Shen Danshi said, her tone puzzled.
Lu Rong tilted his head slightly. “This is clearly not a hobby of mine. We need to get him down first.”
“Of course.” Shen Danshi nodded. She and her assistant, Yu Xiazhi, had already put on gloves. Lu Rong used a key to open the gaps in the metal cage, and the two of them simultaneously deployed medical eyes. The medical eyes took flight steadily, entering the cage to begin a preliminary examination of Feinier.
“Patient is male, Omega.”
“Race: Winged Serpent. Tail length 8+ meters, wingspan 3 meters.”
“Vital signs… um…” Yu Xiazhi reported while calibrating the data, then fell into silence as he looked at the vitals displayed on the terminal. These were clearly not the signs a living person should have. He looked at Shen Danshi.
Shen Danshi was studying the structure of the chains passing through the collarbones, her brow furrowed. “Clearly, this was done by a very old-fashioned sadist. Mechanical locks, perfectly caught on the collarbones.”
Lu Rong watched Feinier closely. He noticed that Shen Danshi had moved very close, yet Feinier showed no reaction, like a corpse.
Lu Rong couldn’t help but ask, “How is he?”
Shen Danshi glanced at the data transmitted to her by the medical eyes and looked at Lu Rong. “The good news is that his body seems to have fallen into some kind of hibernation state for unknown reasons. The bad news is that he isn’t a true serpent; hibernation for a beastman signifies being on the verge of death. It’s very likely he won’t wake up again, similar to a person in a vegetative state.”
Lu Rong nodded. “Treatment plan?”
Shen Danshi hesitated. She thought the term “vegetative state” was already quite blunt; at this stage, even treatment had lost its inherent meaning. But since Lu Rong asked, her gaze swept over the Winged Serpent’s entire frame, and she sighed. “If you are certain you want to proceed with treatment, we must first find a treatment pod large enough. We can decide the rest after a detailed examination. But we don’t seem to have a pod of this size; we might need to go to a nearby planet for supplies.”
“No need,” Lu Rong said, walking slowly to stand before Feinier, looking up at the suspended Winged Serpent. “He already prepared it for himself in advance.”
Shen Danshi: “?”
*
Taking Feinier down from the golden cage took quite a bit of effort.
Because Feinier’s body was too massive for an ordinary person to carry, and Lu Rong didn’t want too many people to know about this, the three of them had to work together.
A lift raised Lu Rong behind Feinier. He held Feinier half-embraced in his arms to prevent him from falling, while Shen Danshi and Yu Xiazhi first established a sterile zone around Feinier. Then, using cutters, tweezers, and scalpels, they slowly separated and removed the chains from the flesh.
Perhaps because he had been at the top of the tower for so long, Lu Rong smelled the scent of ice and snow on Feinier—a very simple, cold aura, a chill born of natural climates rather than the coolness brought by mint. It carried no other scents; the aura on his body was as clean as a Beta’s. Lu Rong looked at the back of Feinier’s neck, which was covered by a shock of snow-white long hair.
Lu Rong guessed that Feinier had already washed away the permanent mark he had given him—that inexplicable mark. After all, he was supposed to marry Gourmet. Although it ended in failure and disastrous consequences, it was unlikely he would have gone into the marriage carrying someone else’s mark at the start.
The surgery to remove the chains lasted for eight standard cosmic hours. The wings and collarbones, stripped of the chains, became a bloody mess, yet Feinier showed no reaction. He seemed unable to even feel pain anymore.
Lu Rong held the heavy Feinier, feeling as if a giant stone were resting in his arms. The man’s face was pale, his features gaunt, his lips purple, and his body cold. There wasn’t a trace of life in him; he was like a sculpture made of plaster.
Shen Danshi and Yu Xiazhi exchanged a glance. Neither spoke, but the data in their hands indicated that this was essentially the shell of a deceased person.
Lu Rong seemed oblivious to this. He coiled the serpent tail around his forearm several times, adjusted his posture, and stepped off the lift. He weighed the body in his hands and compared it in his mind; Feinier seemed much lighter than the last time he had held him.
Niyin had already prepared the transport corridor, connecting it directly to the shuttle. Lu Rong carried Feinier straight into the shuttle in the L5-C3 district.
If Feinier were still awake, if he could open his eyes and look at this shuttle in the L5-C3 district, he would discover that this shuttle actually belonged to him. It was the one he had left for Lu Rong when the two of them first met.
At this moment, the treatment pod hidden in the medical room was filled with nutrient fluid, perfectly accommodating the sleeping Winged Serpent.
Lu Rong surveyed this place he hadn’t visited in a long time.
It was both familiar and strange.
Back then, after he was rescued by Feinier, he had also been lying in a treatment pod like this when he woke up. However, that pod had been a bit smaller and located at the other end of the shuttle. At that time, he didn’t know it was a treatment pod; he only knew he was naked, lying in a transparent container surrounded by thick liquid. His body had been restored to its original state, and the open wounds on his abdomen and lower limbs had completely vanished as if they had never existed.
When he sat up, the transparent cover sensed him and opened the exit. On a nearby shelf, a set of clean clothes happened to be draped, seemingly prepared for him in advance.
Lu Rong tried to summon his spiritual body, but after several failed attempts, he had no choice but to give up and get up to dress.
While dressing, Lu Rong noticed that the material of the clothes was different from what he usually encountered. It was thin and soft, yet not cold to wear. The style was simple but uncommon.
Next to the stack of clothes lay a bracelet. Lu Rong couldn’t tell what kind of bracelet it was, but when he picked it up to look, the object seemed to automatically recognize something. Before Lu Rong could react, it shifted its shape and snapped onto his wrist, becoming a thin, snug layer.
Lu Rong studied it for a few minutes. He couldn’t understand the characters displayed on the bracelet, but after his vision blurred a few times, he gradually began to understand the text. For a moment, he couldn’t comprehend how he was able to read these characters, but from the information he gathered, he realized that this was a bracelet for suppressing pheromones.
This bracelet could flexibly control the release level of pheromones and even had an option for whether to receive Omega pheromones. It was more convenient and intelligent than any bracelet he had encountered before, and it looked like it would never fall off or suffer any accidents.
He was amazed, wondering where exactly he had landed and who had saved him. He looked around with doubt and soon discovered he was on a peculiar object that was likely a flying craft.
Just like the suppressant ring, the technological level of this thing seemed to exceed that of Planet Astar.
Furthermore, although Lu Rong didn’t know how long he had been unconscious, the disemboweling wounds on his body were clearly not something that could heal after a single nap—the medical level here was also surprising.
He had many guesses in his heart but didn’t know how to verify them. He walked a distance down the corridor after leaving the room. The wind and snow outside the shuttle windows had stopped, and the snowy landscape made the world look empty and strange. It was currently night, and the starry sky was brilliant.
During the time he spent suppressing the civil war on Planet Astar, Lu Rong had been to many places on the planet and remembered the star charts of its night sky. He stared at the quiet starry sky for a while and gradually realized that this was not the sky belonging to Planet Astar.
It was as warm as spring inside the shuttle, yet Lu Rong felt a chill in his heart. He told himself that everything before him was a dream, trying to force himself to wake up. Usually, when he did this, he could quickly wake from all sorts of strange dreams.
But this time, Lu Rong failed. He understood that this was not a dream.
He had seen those third-rate novels on Planet Astar where someone travels to another world after an accident, but he never thought such an absurd thing would happen to him.
He didn’t want to stay in a strange place; he wanted to return to Astar to confirm the status of his adoptive parents. He had left too hastily, and that wedding had been too chaotic.
Planet Astar had not yet researched technology for free space exploration. Lu Rong guessed that this might be another planet in the universe where life existed. The urgent priority was to find a way back to Astar.
He hoped the technology here was advanced enough.
But…
“Mr. Lu, something seems wrong with his tail.” X01 suddenly spoke, pulling Lu Rong back to reality.
Shen Danshi was crouching by the treatment pod. The medical eyes were scanning the middle and lower sections of Feinier’s tail layer by layer. The results showed that while the interior of the middle and lower sections of the tail was the original spine, the exterior was a prosthetic body made of highly adaptive bionic materials.
Lu Rong’s gaze shifted over, staring fixedly for a while. He leaned down and lifted the scanned portion of the serpent tail from the treatment fluid. Looking closely, he could see a very obvious incision mark in that area. The bionic craftsmanship was so realistic that Lu Rong hadn’t noticed it when he was holding Feinier earlier. After careful feeling and observation, subtle differences became apparent. Although the bionic tail would bend with movement, it was slightly stiffer, and the luster of the scales was very dull.
Scanning information summarized in front of Shen Danshi’s goggles. After reading it, she concluded, “He has been modified. It’s speculated that the original flesh and scales were scraped off, leaving the nerves and bone. The tail was reconstructed on the foundation of those nerves and bones, and then the scales were pasted back on.”
Lu Rong remained silent, looking at Feinier once more. This time he was meticulous, following from the crystalline long hair down the pale skin, all the way to the chest. It was as if he himself had begun to doubt, forced to face questions he didn’t quite want to face. He asked hesitantly, “Can you monitor his heartbeat?”
“It’s very slow, 5 beats per minute,” Shen Danshi replied. She looked up, her gaze calm and restrained, though her tone was as soft as possible. “What are your plans? Among existing cases of this ‘Eternal Flower’ state, I have never heard of anyone recovering. His condition… perhaps, if you don’t mind, you could consider euthanasia.”