Chapter 33: Every Villain Has Their Match Part 2

After retrieving the paper, Yan Xinfeng’s expression darkened further, though he seemed steadier. He left the bedroom once more.

By then, Wei Tingxia had returned to the Border Military District.

Aboard the mecha, he injected another dose of disguise agent.

Yan Xinfeng’s pheromones had perfectly filled the void in him. Wei Tingxia had gotten what he needed most right now, so even with the heavy toll of the disguise pheromones, his complexion was ruddy, his movements far more agile than before.

The mecha landed. At the entrance, Wei Tingxia spotted Lin Wensi.

“General Lin!” He jumped down. “So glad to see you.”

Lin Wensi didn’t smile. After a regulation salute and greeting, he asked directly, “Where were you?”

“Just wandering around,” Wei Tingxia casually tossed the mecha startup key to a waiting adjutant in the distance. “It’s been ages since I’ve been to the Border Military District. Wanted to look around.”

“Even so, Your Highness should have activated location tracking.”

Lin Wensi’s tone was even but firm. “This is a war zone. Any mishap could happen. Keeping tracking on is basic protocol for your safety and swift rescue.”

It sounded advisory, but the subtext clearly chided Wei Tingxia for slipping surveillance and leaving the district.

Wei Tingxia’s lips curved slightly. “Don’t worry. If there’s trouble, I’ll send a distress signal.” After all, all the Empire’s cutting-edge tech combined couldn’t match System 0188.

But Lin Wensi didn’t know that, so it came off as defiance. Not wanting to dwell, he said directly,

“Can we talk now?”

Wei Tingxia blinked, his habitual smile unchanged. “About what?”

“The Blue Nail Ship.”

Lin Wensi’s voice was taut like a fully drawn bowstring, every word carrying heavy pressure. “I followed your request and released the fake video. I swapped you in here to the military district and even turned a blind eye to that blatantly wanted blacklisted Beta you brought along. Second Highness, my sincerity is laid out on the table. Now, it’s your turn.”

Lin Tao’s identity had indeed been exposed the moment she landed. Lin Wensi chose to turn a blind eye, nothing more than because Wei Tingxia held that intelligence chip he couldn’t refuse—information concerning the truth behind the Blue Nail Ship explosion.

Upon hearing this, Wei Tingxia slowly sized up Lin Wensi’s tense expression.

To be frank, the man before him, whose influence could shake the Empire’s political landscape, wasn’t particularly outstanding in appearance. Yet there was an unmistakable air of a seasoned soldier in his speech and demeanor, tempered by wind and sand. He adhered to principles but knew how to adapt, cherishing his soldiers like his own arms.

Wei Tingxia said softly, “General Lin really cares about what happened back then, doesn’t he?”

Lin Wensi’s jawline tightened even more, his Adam’s apple bobbing as his expression grew tenser. He said, “I have to take responsibility for them.”

“What about the others? The ones who survived, still serving under you?” Wei Tingxia countered, his tone carrying a subtle probe. “By choosing to swap me here, you’ve essentially sided with me. How do you take responsibility for the risks that choice brings them?”

Lin Wensi’s mouth twitched. He said, “If I didn’t want to take sides, no one could set their sights on the Border Military District.”

This was his confidence in his own abilities and resolve.

Very well, then. Wei Tingxia had to ensure the information he provided was enough to change Lin Wensi’s mind, making him willingly shoulder all the risks and responsibilities of taking sides.

“Let’s find a more convenient place to talk,” he said, glancing at the adjutant waiting in the distance. “And have someone prepare food and water for that wanted fugitive lady. Tell her not to worry—I’m still alive.”

Lin Wensi finally took him to the office.

The Border Military District appeared extremely impoverished, but its infrastructure was built quite solidly. The entire Command Headquarters had a cold, steely hardness to it, evoking thoughts of indestructibility.

Wei Tingxia looked around once, then sat down across from the desk like a grand lord. A faint glow emanated from his wrist, and a small storage device dropped onto the desk with a click, drawing all of Lin Wensi’s attention.

His gaze darkened, his body tensing. “What is this?”

“A pre-incident flight log record,” Wei Tingxia said. “This is a photocopy of the copy.”

“What about the original?”

Wei Tingxia didn’t answer. Instead, he crossed his arms and leaned back in the chair, staring intently at the storage device. After a while, he slowly said, “This photocopy is something I obtained by chance two years ago—pure serendipity. I won’t comment on its contents. Listen to it yourself and judge.”

With that, without waiting for Lin Wensi’s reaction, he stood up, left the room, closed the door, and leaned against the left side of it.

Yan Xinfeng’s pheromones gently filled the void of hunger in his body. Wei Tingxia took a deep breath and heard System 0188 speak: [Are you considering telling Yan Xinfeng?]

“Tell him what?”

[You know,] as if afraid of angering Wei Tingxia, System 0188 was vague, [that matter.]

Wei Tingxia understood.

“I haven’t decided,” he said irritably. “What good would telling him do?”

[It might improve his mood,] System 0188 guessed, [and stabilize the world a bit.]

System 0188 always believed that honesty would make everything better. Wei Tingxia found it hard to deal with such naivety.

Thus, he fell silent for a moment before saying, “I doubt that.”

System 0188 stated flatly: [You’re angry right now.]

Wei Tingxia tugged at the corner of his mouth in a mirthless smile.

Angry? He wanted to stuff Yan Xinfeng into the Bug Mother’s mouth right now, let him taste what real misfortune was like. A thousand Yan Xinfengs put together weren’t as innocent as he, Wei Tingxia. He was the one fate had precisely targeted.

System 0188 tried to defend Yan Xinfeng: [He doesn’t know.]

“You’re saying he’s innocent?” Wei Tingxia was sensitive to it. “Look closely—I’m the innocent one here!”

System 0188: [……]

“Forget it, no more on this,” After a standoff, Wei Tingxia changed the subject first. “When we returned to base this time, did you detect anything else?”

System 0188’s tone was steady as ever: [Captured some encrypted data fragments, currently integrating and analyzing. Estimated completion in 16 hours.]

“Related to the Blue Nail Ship too?” Wei Tingxia pressed.

[Over ninety percent of Deep Blue Base’s top-secret files are linked to the Blue Nail Ship at their core,] System 0188 confirmed.

Even the photocopy of the flight log record Wei Tingxia had given Lin Wensi was something System 0188 had captured from deep within Deep Blue Base two years ago—and behind it all was Yan Xinfeng secretly pursuing every lead related to the Blue Nail Ship.

A space pirate so obsessively investigating an Imperial scout ship long fallen— it was bizarre in itself. Wei Tingxia was certain Yan Xinfeng had nothing to do with the Blue Nail Ship’s explosion, but that only made the whole affair more enigmatic.

Yan Xinfeng blamed him for hiding things, but hadn’t he himself been keeping a body full of secrets?

He might not even be a real space pirate.

Wei Tingxia let his mind wander idly, thinking more and more that Yan Xinfeng was a real bastard, not giving a damn about his own Omega. So what if he was mad at him? He deserved it.

At that moment, System 0188’s report interrupted Wei Tingxia’s thoughts: Lin Wensi in the office had smashed the desk to pieces.

Seeing this, Wei Tingxia pushed away from the wall, stretched lazily, though his eyes held a deep, cold pool of gloom.

In truth, most of the record itself was mundane. The real key lay in those final few seconds—

In the last moments before the Blue Nail Ship vanished, the recorder captured an extremely abrupt signal, intense enough to pierce standard channels: a distress call.

The signal itself was eerie. It wasn’t on standard Imperial military frequencies, its source location was blurry, the marked direction completely unparseable, as if distorted by some powerful interference at its origin. But its content was exceptionally clear and urgent—the highest-level distress call, pulsing with near-desperate repetition, instantly covering the Blue Nail Ship’s bridge and all key comm nodes.

The higher-ups on the ship clearly received it. The record showed a brief but fierce internal comm exchange, after which the main person in charge reached a consensus: the Blue Nail Ship altered its preset course, heading at full speed toward the coordinates of that unknown signal source.

This was the penultimate valid record sent before the Blue Nail Ship went completely silent. For the next full nineteen hours, the scout ship seemed swallowed by the universe, sending no further information to the outside.

The next news about this scout ship came nineteen hours later: the Blue Nail Ship had exploded.

And the most chilling part was that in all official Imperial reports, classified files, and even incident briefs on the Blue Nail Ship disaster, this distress signal never existed—as if erased by an invisible hand.

Wei Tingxia idly tapped his shoe heel against the wall, lowering his gaze slightly to mask the surging thoughts in his eyes.

The Blue Nail Ship was unremarkable among the Border Military District’s many scout ships, with no big shots aboard. Perhaps the crew hadn’t understood it at the time, but Lin Wensi, from Capital Star, certainly would: that garbled code was actually an encrypted identity code from a Capital Star noble.

This meant the scout ship’s explosion was inextricably linked to Capital Star.

That explained all the difficulties and hardships in the subsequent investigations.

Some big shot didn’t want them digging, and that big shot was likely connected to the imperial family.

No wonder Lin Wensi was so furious.

But the clouds of doubt in Wei Tingxia’s heart didn’t dissipate; they grew thicker: What did all this have to do with Yan Xinfeng, that space pirate leader?

As an enemy of the Empire, for a space pirate to pursue the Blue Nail Ship so doggedly, even setting up his base dozens of light-years from the explosion site—it reeked of deep intentions.

One could only say heaven had its reasons for letting them mark each other. It was hard to find another AO pair in the world who could hide from each other so thoroughly—truly, a villain for every villain.