That gaze was so intense that for the first time, Su Yuyun averted his eyes first when meeting Ming Ruan’s look.
Su Yuyun led Ming Ruan inside Clarence Garden. The walking nobles and the garden staff all paused to bow when they saw the two.
The Boss was really very important.
“No need to mind these things,” Su Yuyun said.
“Oh,” Ming Ruan whispered.
Actually, he didn’t mind that much. It was just that he felt too underdressed.
As they spoke, the two crossed the ten-meter-tall gates of the garden’s main hall. Inside the golden hall, figures mingled, fine food was arrayed.
Seeing Ming Ruan and Su Yuyun step through the door, everyone stopped their conversations and actions and bowed.
Su Yuyun took the lead, pausing a step to let Ming Ruan walk ahead.
“They are clothed in gold and jade, yet they are here to apologize to you,” Su Yuyun said suddenly.
Ming Ruan was startled.
In the distance, a figure walked through the still crowd to stand before the two.
He bowed first, then said:
“As the Adjudicator said, esteemed Mr. Ming, first, please forgive my impertinent greeting, and accept my sincerest apologies.”
It was a calm, refined middle-aged man. Time had left few marks on him, instead brewing a mellow charm like aged wine.
“This is Duke Clarence,” Su Yuyun introduced to Ming Ruan.
“Hello?” Ming Ruan tested.
“Hello,” the Duke smiled. “It seems you prefer this style of conversation.”
Heavens, he’d instantly switched to a normal mode.
Ming Ruan felt much more comfortable immediately.
Following that, no more pleasantries were wasted, nor did today’s apology fall short of its name.
Duke Clarence directly had several nobles pulled onto the high platform on the second floor, making them recount the entire process of events, then sincerely engage in self-criticism.
This method, like high schoolers giving a public self-review, truly made Ming Ruan cringe in second-hand embarrassment for them.
He hadn’t expected the Duke’s way of handling things to be so… blunt.
The last minor noble finished his self-criticism, walked off the platform, and met Duke Clarence’s eyes.
The Duke nodded gently.
This seemingly mild attitude made the minor noble tremble uncontrollably.
Yesterday, the nobles’ mansions had been surrounded by citizens just as Duke Clarence returned to the Main Star from the Outer Galaxy.
He swiftly pacified and dispersed the crowds, helping the nobles out of their predicament.
Then he laid out all the nobles’ secrets.
Seated high in the main seat, with just a tap of his fingertips, the High Nobles who had been acting tyrannically just days before saw their assets dissolved. A single letter, and the Royal Family erased that noble’s title.
He said: If you don’t go to Clarence Garden tomorrow to apologize to Ming Ruan, all involved will share this fate.
But the minor noble couldn’t believe, no matter what, that the Duke’s grand mobilization was truly just to apologize to Ming Ruan.
He must have other motives.
After this part concluded, it was purely a reception banquet.
Although the Boss was pulled aside by the Duke to talk, the people here were indeed exceptionally respectful to Ming Ruan. Ming Ruan, a fluffy little creamy-orange figure, shuttled among the delicious food, ate his fill at leisure, then started wandering around out of boredom.
Wandering, wandering, Ming Ruan left the main hall and turned into the garden.
Turning, turning, Ming Ruan suddenly collided head-on with a lion around a corner!
Ming Ruan: ?
Man and lion were both startled and stepped back.
The lion before him had sleek fur and a faintly visible bow tied in its mane.
Encountering wild beasts anywhere in the interstellar era was no longer worth Ming Ruan’s shock.
He subconsciously assessed the fluffy fellow before him.
Not actively attacking people. Eyes held spirit. Fur, though neatly groomed, was dry and rough like weeds, lacking shine and smoothness. The entire lion also looked very tired and listless.
What was going on?
Ming Ruan’s occupational instincts flared up instantly. His previous boredom vanished, and he put on a big, bright smile. “Hi!”
The lion stood in place, mustering its energy to size up Ming Ruan.
“Why are you unhappy, baby?” Ming Ruan tentatively extended his hand to the lion.
The lion glanced at Ming Ruan’s hand, unmoved.
So Ming Ruan, very forwardly, started petting. While petting, he talked.
However, after petting for a very long time, the lion remained unmoved.
No refusal, no response.
Like petting a giant plush doll.
“…” Ming Ruan hadn’t encountered such a completely unresponsive fluffy-petting experience in a long time.
He couldn’t help pushing aside the mane to find the lion’s ear and squeezed it, demanding, “Pay attention to me.”
The immovable-as-a-mountain lion rolled its eyes and glanced at him. Ming Ruan actually saw surprise, amusement, and even… malicious intent in the lion’s eyes.
Uh oh.
Sure enough, the next second, a massive shove came from his shoulder. Ming Ruan’s vision spun!
His back slammed hard onto the ground, his head also bumped against the hard surface. Then a shadow lunged over him, and a low lion’s roar exploded by his ear.
Ming Ruan felt a moment of panic, but before he could react, the lion retreated. Standing to the side, it flicked its tail nonchalantly and looked at Ming Ruan meaningfully.
Like a Husky.
You can’t just go along with this kind of fluffy.
After thinking for a moment, Ming Ruan suddenly rubbed the back of his head painfully and hissed, “Ugh, that hurts.”
Just as expected, the lion before him stopped flicking its tail.
It looked Ming Ruan up and down twice more, then suddenly turned and ran away.
Leaving Ming Ruan there, bewildered.
Why did it run off? Shouldn’t it have stayed?
His back and the back of his head truly hurt. Ming Ruan didn’t rush to stand up; he just sat there resting.
Not long after, however, an attendant hurried over to the garden.
Seeing Ming Ruan sitting on the ground, the attendant quickly guided him back to the main hall and brought a Medical Machine and a clothes-cleaning device, thoroughly attending to him.
Ming Ruan was so occupied being fussed over that he had no time to think about the fluffball he’d just run into.
Inside the hall, the Duke, who had been talking with the Adjudicator, suddenly glanced toward Ming Ruan’s direction. He smiled and nodded. “Look at me, keeping you so long. Go stay with him.”
Su Yuyun nodded once. Without another word, he walked directly toward Ming Ruan.
“Boss.” Ming Ruan, just cleaned up, looked up at Su Yuyun. Like a brand-new little kitten fresh from a bath.
“Did you run into someone just now?” Su Yuyun asked.
Ming Ruan: “Yes! I met a lion in the back garden!”
As expected.
Su Yuyun reached out and pressed gently on Ming Ruan’s head. “Want to go back?”
Suddenly having his head patted by the Boss, Ming Ruan felt some nameless fluster. But hearing about going back, he obediently nodded: “Alright.”
“Let’s go.” Su Yuyun, as usual, didn’t wait for anyone and walked out first.
“Don’t we need to say goodbye to the Duke?”
“No need.”
Whether to come or not, to leave or stay, he would always preserve the right for Ming Ruan to choose.
On the high level of the main hall, by the window of the large flat area designated for rest, Duke Clarence watched the figures of Su Yuyun and Ming Ruan receding into the distance, silent.
Behind him, a lion approached.
“How do you feel?” Duke Clarence asked.
The lion looked at that small creamy-orange dot in the distance. Its neck seemed to tingle again with the sensation of being carefully groomed and stroked by those hands. Those gentle, coaxing words to cheer him up replayed in its mind. The lion shook its head. The Light Brain hidden beneath the bow on its neck emitted a voice: “He’s not bad.”
“…” The Duke gently tapped the lion’s head. “I meant you. How do you feel?”
The lion paused, repeated: “He’s not bad.”
Spending time with Ming Ruan felt quite pleasant. Unexpectedly, even now, he still felt quite pleasant.
“Fine.” The Duke smiled. “Then let’s talk about him. Ming Ruan.”
“He’s an Outworlder. No doubt about it.” The lion’s words were final.
Outworlder.
That was the term the Alpha Galaxy used for people like Ming Ruan.
Similar to the concept of “Transmigrators” mentioned in ancient times.
But in this era, not every Transmigrator was human or near-human.
Interstellar people defined ‘Outworlder’ during a disaster caused by an invasion of Incorporeal Alien Races.
Those alien races existed in a state akin to what the ancients called “souls.” They could silently occupy the bodies of people in the Alpha Galaxy and possessed extremely high abilities for division, replication, and infection.
That war was brutally fierce. Since then, Outworlders have always been subjects of strict surveillance.
Duke Clarence looked at the lion’s conclusive, certain expression, as if seeing through this ferocious beast’s shell to the once high-spirited Eldest Son of Clarence.
“So sure?”
The Flying Sedan carrying Ming Ruan and Su Yuyun had already turned into a tiny speck and disappeared into the sky.
The lion turned its head, walked to the handcrafted woven rug, and lazily sprawled down. “Father, you, who once wanted to align with the Ming family, know best. I could be considered childhood friends with that former Ming Ruan. I tolerated him since childhood. What kind of person he was, no one knows better than me.”
“Are you planning to expose him?”
The lion, who had just praised Ming Ruan, answered matter-of-factly, “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
The voice transmitted through the Light Brain carried an extra note of ruthlessness and indifference.
–
Back at the Executor’s Residence, Ming Ruan immediately threw himself into researching the lecture script without a moment’s pause. The week passed quickly. Once today ended, discounting the start and end days, only five days remained!
Eventually, Ming Ruan, too tired, fell asleep at the table.
In the evening, Xie Gewen, having finished the prosecution, and Shi Huai, having cooperated with two days of examinations, originally wanted to return to Ming Ruan’s side and try interacting with him in human form.
But their Flying Sedan was intercepted in the airspace outside the Sanatorium Zone.
“Apologies, Mr. Shi. You temporarily cannot enter Sanatorium Zone 12.”
“My residency qualification for the Sanatorium Zone hasn’t been revoked, has it? Why can’t I enter?”
…
“Apologies, Former Council Speaker. You temporarily cannot enter Sanatorium Zone 12.”
“No need to address me that way. I am not the Council Speaker.” Xie Gewen was calm, but the two wolf ears atop his head swiveled forward, as if sensing a crisis.
In different locations, Shi Huai and Xie Gewen asked in unison, “What happened?”
The Light Mecha Soldiers blocking them simply bowed slightly, remaining silent. Just then, a new notification popped up on both Shi Huai’s and Xie Gewen’s Light Brains.
“This message is sent by the Alpha Galaxy Central Authority’s Central Intelligence Brain… Following verified reporting and preliminary investigation… it is deemed that the current Ming Ruan (Citizen ID No.) is possibly an Outworlder. Relevant personnel, please cooperate with departmental contact investigations… Please instruct relevant departments to suspend Ming Ruan (Citizen ID No.) from all current social activities, for detention and further investigation…”
Shi Huai scanned the information rapidly.
As expected.
He had suspected it all along.
Presumably, both the Adjudicator and the Council Speaker had also noticed. After all, that little fool Ming Ruan practically radiated clues.
But Shi Huai hadn’t expected Ming Ruan to be reported to the authorities so quickly.
The same message was also sent to many individuals’ Light Brains tonight.
The Ming family, Ming Ji, Zhuo Yunqi, even Su Yuyun.
Late at night, outside the 12th District Executor’s Residence, Light Mecha Soldiers equipped with special isolation devices and five Heavy Mecha following closely surrounded the little house, its warm, soft light still glowing.
One Mecha Soldier stepped forward, intending to knock on the door.
Suddenly, a white figure swooped down from the rooftop.
The White Tiger leaped down, and by the time it landed, it was a fully dressed human form.
Su Yuyun held a Longsword in his hand, the blade reflecting moonlight. “Hold.”
The Mecha Soldier stepped back. The atmosphere instantly tensed.
The Mecha Soldier had no choice but to remind him: “Sheltering an Outworlder carries the same crime, Adjudicator.”
