They didn’t stay on Star One for long. Each harbored their own thoughts. Although Bai Ruonian kept insisting he was fine, Lu Mingjin had something on his mind and insisted on heading back after just a couple of days.
The whole way, Bai Ruonian kept complaining, “I told you, it’s nothing.”
As he spoke, he kicked his legs restlessly, accidentally—or perhaps not so accidentally—nudging Lu Mingjin.
Lu Mingjin glanced at him. The latter stuck his tongue out at him.
These past few days together, Bai Ruonian had been growing more and more unbridled.
Lu Mingjin took a deep breath. “If you hadn’t sneaked off to fight in the Arena, none of this would have happened.”
Bai Ruonian pulled his neck in and fell silent.
Even if he couldn’t play, he didn’t regret it. Uncle Cao was okay. Master stepped in to handle things for his daughter. He himself even got a seed. Just thinking about it, he couldn’t help feeling happy, his eyes darting around cunningly—
Speaking of which, what exactly could that seed do?
Plant it in the garden?
Seemed like that wouldn’t work. He felt the little garden’s environment wasn’t great; the soil hadn’t been turned, and the moisture was insufficient. Last time, he’d struggled mightily just to save a patch of Catgrass.
Sigh.
Master told him to keep it, but didn’t tell him how to use it. And he couldn’t possibly feed the seed to someone else.
He might just have to go ask Ji Shiyu one of these days. That guy was fanatically obsessed with these things.
Lu Mingjin was also thinking about Ji Shiyu.
The blood sample analysis—logically, it should have been fast. But for some reason, that guy had been dragging his feet the whole time. Unusual.
They arrived back at the 10th Division.
Song Hanshan and the others were surprised to see Lu Mingjin return so soon, but also found it reasonable. The massive underground gene black market chain uncovered through Jes, that “big fish,” was putting increased pressure on the Marshal’s side. It was inevitable that Boss would come back to take charge.
It was just a pity he couldn’t spend more time with Little Bai.
Song Hanshan was quite nosy by nature. Banking on his meritorious support this time, he shamelessly sidled over.
“Boss, how’s Little Bai?”
He was actually quite worried about Little Bai too. He’d clearly gone into heat that day. Going out to play and running into something like that, and the husband didn’t even spend more time comforting him, just came straight back like this. Such a shame.
Lu Mingjin looked at him, letting out an ambiguous, sarcastic chuckle. “You’re quite concerned about him.”
Seems like the last one, Zhao Lixin, who asked for his terminal contact, wasn’t enough.
Song Hanshan choked, finally tasting the implication.
What the hell.
What was he worrying about here?
Back then, he’d insisted on not calling the guy a spy. Now it’s turned into this. Not only was he not digging deeper into Little Bai’s background, but he was this guarded against them.
You’d think they were the spies.
Absolutely ridiculous.
Song Hanshan grumbled inwardly, but his words took a detour. “I was just concerned about why you didn’t spend more time with Little Bai. Boss, you still don’t trust us, insisting on coming back to personally lead the charge.”
Lu Mingjin cut off his banter and asked, “Did the test results you were asked to check on come back?”
Song Hanshan was stunned for a moment. “Jes’ test results? Those are still with Major General Ji.”
Lu Mingjin paused, his voice sinking deeper. “I’m asking about the thing I told you to have tested last time.”
Song Hanshan: ….
After half a second of silence, under the Boss’s increasingly cold stare, he finally remembered. He smacked his own forehead.
“Are you talking about… the, um… sample I was given last time?”
Cat fur?
….
“Yes.” Lu Mingjin responded swiftly, without blinking.
Song Hanshan clearly lacked the ability to react that fast and fell silent for another two seconds.
So…
The Boss didn’t come back to check their work progress, nor to personally lead the charge, but to…
Ah?
He still didn’t understand.
Never mind, no need to understand. The Boss definitely had his reasons.
Song Hanshan stood at attention. “Tested!”
“The results are already out. I’ll send them to your terminal shortly. Confirmed… to be feline fur… identified as a Chinese Lion Cat. And—”
He furtively observed Lu Mingjin’s expression, hesitating.
“And what?” Lu Mingjin spoke.
Song Hanshan organized his wording. “And its Gene Sequence bears some resemblance to the one you used to keep at home… could it be a relative… well, of course, feline base pairs are all very similar, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”
At the time, he’d also overthought it. The Boss bringing a tuft of cat fur for testing—his first reaction was that Lu Mingjin had lost his mind, like he was missing the cat so much he was seeing things, or maybe he’d cloned an identical one.
So he’d immediately matched it against the gene library data from that previous little cat.
The reason there was data in the gene library was because two years ago, when the A-2 Star System was bombed, Lu Mingjin had held the little cat’s body, refusing to let go. He was like a madman, his eyes filled with boiling blood. No one could get close, nor could they attempt to.
At the time, he remembered the Marshal coaxing him by saying they’d heal it. After much persuasion, they finally got the remains handed over.
The final result, everyone knew, was that it couldn’t be saved. But the gene library had the data. Song Hanshan had gone an extra step and matched it.
Uh, saying it was similar was already being conservative. The base pair distribution…
It was practically identical.
But there were still subtle differences. Could be a side effect of cloning? Could be integration with other genes. Anyway, it was hard to say.
He secretly watched Lu Mingjin’s expression, hoping his words hadn’t triggered Lu Mingjin, and also hoping he wouldn’t be beaten up for exposing the Boss’s attempt to clone the cat.
Lu Mingjin’s expression remained unchanged. He merely repeated, “Just similar?”
His face showed no ripples, but only he could hear the sound of his own heartbeat, pounding, almost bursting through his chest. His emotions hadn’t surged like this in a long time.
“Are you sure?” Lu Mingjin asked again.
Song Hanshan hemmed and hawed for a while.
This… if it were identical, wouldn’t that be a ghostly occurrence??
“Just similar,” Song Hanshan insisted.
Lu Mingjin fixed his gaze on him, his expression unfathomable.
Song Hanshan thought to himself, good, good. Boss was still wearing that usual iceberg face. But just as he breathed a sigh of relief, he saw Lu Mingjin suddenly smile.
“It doesn’t matter.”
???
Song Hanshan was starting to panic.
Even though his Boss smiled very handsomely with that face, why did he always feel that beneath this smile surged so much, like just the tip of an iceberg?
In short, inscrutable and mysterious, coupled with those silver pupils, truly unsettling.
Song Hanshan couldn’t parse it anymore.
If it weren’t for the Boss’s recent decisions still being brilliant and spot-on every time, he’d truly think Lu Mingjin had gone crazy.
Surely he wasn’t really trying to clone?
Song Hanshan’s heart was drumming, but he didn’t dare ask. He could only find an excuse to slip away. “I’ll go see if Major General Ji needs any help!”
Logically, mentioning another general officer in front of his own Boss and saying he wanted to help was a major taboo in the Military Command. But Song Hanshan really had no other choice, because the Boss’s entire aura at this moment was bizarrely strange.
Restrained, undercurrents raging, like the eve of the Titanic hitting the iceberg.
It was truly terrifying.
Lu Mingjin was noncommittal about Song Hanshan’s fickle behavior.
He also needed to find Ji Shiyu.
The moment Song Hanshan ran off, he sent the test report. The gene match and cellular details were clear.
Similarity proved nothing. Now he just needed Ji Shiyu’s blood report. Once it matched, everything would be clear.
His heart was pounding wildly.
Just then, his terminal rang. Lu Mingjin looked immediately, only to find it was Gu Changde. His expression instantly turned cold.
“Something the matter, Marshal?”
“Something.” Gu Changde’s tone was unlike usual—no joking around, no casual ease. He was rarely serious. “Come to my office for a moment.”
The Starship originally bound for the General Hospital had to change course.
Lu Mingjin pushed open the office door, frowning. “Marshal?”
He was in a hurry right now.
Gu Changde, however, gestured for him to sit, carrying an air of feigned nonchalance. “Yo, you’re here, Mingjin. How was the trip?”
“It was fine. I brought the report back.”
Lu Mingjin didn’t want to bring up the Arena incident again.
Gu Changde took a deep breath, pretending to be relatively relaxed.
“Need reimbursement?”
Lu Mingjin looked at him and sat down directly. “If you have something to say, just say it. I can afford this much.”
As he spoke, he remembered something and pulled out the license he’d won at the auction.
Gu Changde, whose face had been full of worry, showed a faint glimmer in his eyes for a second. “You bid for this?”
“Mm, for fun.” Lu Mingjin said. “Just a heads-up, this territory belongs to the 10th Division now.”
So it wasn’t for him. Gu Changde let out a quiet, mournful sigh.
Forget it. Giving it to the 10th Division was giving it to the Military Command anyway.
Each division in the Military Command had a certain degree of self-governance, a bit weaker than the warlords of Ancient Blue Planet’s era, but roughly the same.
Route opening rights, along with the mining rights for the star systems along it, meant a steady stream of mineral resources and economic benefits. If planned properly, with their personnel, territory, and Starships, the military funding it could generate might rival an entire sector.
Their 10th Division was famous for elite and special operations, relying heavily on Young Master Lu’s astonishing ability to generate money. A single piece of paper in his hand, and the 10th Division suddenly gained so many mining rights and economic benefits. It would probably make the other divisions green with envy.
But this clearly wasn’t the main point. His face returned to that previous worried expression. He glanced at Lu Mingjin, spoke, and lowered his voice, as if even in an office with just the two of them, there could be a fucking mole.
“Chief Engineer Li from the Academy of Sciences contacted me.”
“You need to go there as soon as possible. He said the heat source is dropping. If you go too late, there won’t be anything left.” Gu Changde paused. “The only one who can enter the Imperial Star System and not be relentlessly pursued is you. Consider whether you want to help them with this.”
In contrast to the Marshal’s troubled thoughts, Lu Mingjin showed no expression. He responded flatly, “Understood. I’ll make arrangements.”
He stood up, but Gu Changde stopped him.
“Don’t rush. Clean out the internal moles first.”
Just mentioning this gave him a headache. Rubbing his brow, he couldn’t help but curse. “Damn, the Military Command is like a sieve right now.”
“I know,” Lu Mingjin replied. He turned his head, his tone cryptic. “Whether or not I clean them up, any method goes?”
Gu Changde froze for a second.
“Don’t make too big a scene. Keep it secret. Most of them have some connections.”
“Fine.”
Coming out of the Marshal’s office, Lu Mingjin first checked his terminal and issued a task execution notice, scheduled for next week.
The always proactive Ji Shiyu still hadn’t replied to him.
Lu Mingjin frowned and called him directly. Ji Shiyu picked up after a long delay on the other end.
“Are the blood test results ready or not?”
Lu Mingjin’s voice carried a rare trace of impatience.
He’d deliberately separated the tests to prevent anyone from connecting the whole matter, but he hadn’t expected Ji Shiyu to be this slow.
Ji Shiyu didn’t speak for a moment. After a long pause, “Not yet. Jes’ body was shipped back recently. The instruments here haven’t been freed up.”
At the other end of the terminal, Lu Mingjin’s tone was flat but brooked no argument. “I’m coming back the day after tomorrow. I want the results.”
Ji Shiyu took a deep breath. “Fine.”
There was a problem with the blood test results.
Bai Ruonian had a huge problem.
