The little short-legged cat walked off, but the colleagues’ souls followed. After taking a few bites at their own table, they all shifted over to the kids’ table one after another. Shamelessly holding their not-so-small children, they occupied seats and kept coaxing the little cat to talk nonstop.
The kindergarten little sun was just too adorable. The adults’ faces bloomed like chrysanthemums in smiles, while tears streamed in their hearts. They all earnestly hoped: His Highness Leo must stay this cute forever—don’t end up like His Highness Ryan, so steady and mature like an adult, no fun at all.
“Ryan—” Reniya’s beautiful face couldn’t hide her urgency. “I disagree. You’re only sixteen. At the very least, you should wait until you’re of age before making a choice based on your physical condition.”
“Uncle Isiris started using the Crystal of Delphi at ten. I’m already sixteen—I can do it.” Ryan looked at his mother. Their very similar faces both showed the same stubbornness. “Mom, I can do it.”
“Isiris implanted the Crystal of Delphi so early because—” Reniya’s face showed pain. “Because… your grandparents left this world too soon.”
When her parents died, she was only six. The outside world eyed them covetously, but her life didn’t change much. Because her brother had shouldered the entire kingdom on his young shoulders—that was a past that broke her heart.
“What was your uncle working so hard for?” She squatted down, gripping Ryan’s hands. “It was so you all wouldn’t repeat his mistakes.”
Whether Leo or Ryan, Zane or Reniya—under the sky Isiris could hold up, none of them had to force themselves to implant that thing. Even if the little cat’s planted fruits and veggies could alleviate crystallization, it was still implanted in the body. How could it possibly recover to normal?
“Mom.” Stubbornness remained on Ryan’s handsome face. “What about you then? Since Uncle Isiris is still alive, why did you implant the Crystal of Delphi?”
“…” Reniya looked at Ryan’s tense jaw, words she wanted to say stuck in her throat. Her child was so much like her. Back then, she’d stubbornly insisted on giving birth to him, and for sixteen years, she’d timidly wanted to keep him by her side.
They were mother and son—equally stubborn.
She couldn’t refute it. Even if the Empire was at peace, they still harbored worries. The Delphians were all admirers of the strong, let alone their leader Regalis.
Reniya opened her mouth several times, words on the tip of her tongue, but hesitated. Just as she was at a loss, she heard a voice from outside calling, “Little Lion, you there?”
Ryan’s amber eyes flickered, and his fists clenched at his sides loosened.
Reniya squeezed her son’s palm, then stood up with a smile, calling out to the courtyard, “Leo, he’s here. Come on in.”
Before her words even finished, a little cat with a round bulging belly poked his head in from the doorway. “Auntie~”
Reniya went up and picked him up, naturally rubbing his unusually protruding belly. “Where’d you go play? You’ve eaten yourself into a little barrel.”
“Machine took me to eat.” The little cat rarely interacted with young women and felt embarrassed being held by his aunt. His short paws dangled obediently in the air, not daring to move. Awkwardly, he lifted a paw to hand the small bag he’d been clutching to Ryan. “Little Lion, this is for you. It’s bobble milk.”
What was bobble milk? Reniya listened to his pronunciation, amused and exasperated. Looking down, she saw the bag had double-skin milk printed on it. It was in Delphian, so the little guy had transliterated it as bobble milk.
Ryan’s pale ear tips turned red. He took the thing from the little cat’s paw, carefully touching his round belly too—though embarrassed, he didn’t dare touch too long. He pulled a one-yuan coin from his pocket that he always carried.
You give me something, I give you a yuan. I give you something, you give me a yuan. All these days, the two of them had been exchanging back and forth, but it was always that same familiar one-yuan coin.
A stuffed cat was lazy. Li Ao listlessly clutched the coin, already drowsy and yawning.
“How about not leaving tonight? Stay here and sleep with big brother Little Lion.”
Ryan, who had just lowered his gaze to place the dessert, nearly tripped over nothing. When he looked up again, his face was redder than the lotuses in the courtyard.
Li Ao shook his head, rubbing his eyes with a paw. “Machine and Xun are still waiting for me.” Daytime was fine, but at night, the little guy still needed to stay with the robot and the puppy. Only then could he relax and curl up in his cat bed.
The flush on Ryan’s face gradually faded. Reniya glanced at her child, then suddenly placed the little cat on the table and squatted down to ask, “Leo, can Auntie ask you a question?”
Li Ao blanked for a moment, then dumbly nodded.
“Do you know about the Crystal of Delphi?”
Of course he did. He not only knew its effects but also its consequences—he’d cleaned them off Xixi before. Those colorful patterns were even harder to deal with than Xun’s colorful wool.
“Then do you think big brother Ryan should implant it in his body?” Reniya asked this, fully expecting the little guy to say no. Because it hurt so much, and he was the one who hated seeing others hurt the most.
But Li Ao didn’t answer her. Instead, he lifted his head to look at Ryan and asked dumbly, “That’s Little Lion’s own business. Why ask me?”
Childish words, yet they hammered into Reniya’s heart like a heavy blow.
She was stunned.
Yeah… Ryan wasn’t a kid anymore. He was only sixteen, but his mind was more resolute than adults’. Any decision he made must have been deeply considered.
Reniya’s hands trembled slightly. She pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose, and only after a long while did she murmur, “Y-You’re right.”
This was Ryan’s own matter, his own life. Even as his mother, she shouldn’t make the decision for him.
Li Ao looked at her, then suddenly tiptoed up and hugged her slender neck. He didn’t know what happened, but he knew she was a little sad.
Warm body heat transmitted from her neck. Being comforted by such a soft child, Reniya nearly teared up. She closed her eyes, turned her head, and kissed the little cat’s ear. “You’re really… an amazing little guy.”
So small, yet living so transparently.
Auntie praised me… The little cat shyly shifted his feet until the robot picked him up, his bashful expression finally receding.
It was a full moon tonight. Across the starry night sky, Li Ao pointed at the moon and shouted, “It’s Little Blue! It’s out for a stroll.”
The robot immediately looked over. Even with the machine’s high-precision pixels, it was hard to make out things on another planet dozens of thousands of kilometers away. It had no idea how this short-legged cat could see it.
Li Ao couldn’t explain what it was—just a vague feeling.
Just like how he could communicate wordlessly with Xun. As time passed, those Xenoids he’d traded with had unknowingly formed some deeper connection with him.
Unlike the mental link between superiors and low-level Xenoids, this wasn’t domination—it was more like an echo. No one could explain what was happening to this short-legged cat: why did he possess such vast, surging Spiritual Power that instruments couldn’t even detect it?
Perhaps once they found the short-legged cat’s homeworld, everything would become clear.
Aliya’s prophecy board was carried by Isiris. The man’s fingertip traced the two illusory words, pondering where exactly Earth might be.
“Sun.” Shen Que bent down. “We’re about to enter a signal dead zone.”
“Mm.” The golden-haired Monarch came back to himself, opened his terminal to leave a message for the little cat—explaining he wouldn’t be able to call for the next few days—then stood and walked out of the porthole, looking toward the Federation warships trailing behind them. “Descend.”
Shen Que pursed his lips. “Sun, could it be a trap? A Federation scheme?” He didn’t trust Fitt—that was a siren seducer who would do anything for power.
Isiris glanced sideways at him and patted his shoulder. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here.”
Shen Que’s body trembled. His violet eyes hastily lowered, hiding the worry and surging affection within.
Mandjet and the Federation warships descended onto a planet at the frontline near The Abyss. Whispers from there drilled into the eardrums and brain. Without proper isolation gear, just a few minutes was enough to drive one mad.
But the Delphians wore nothing. The Monarch’s Spiritual Power enveloped over ten thousand people, automatically shielding those polluting sounds.
“Monster……” Fitt’s confidant gritted his molars, “Just how much Spiritual Power does he have? Can a value of 100 really achieve this level?”
From the moment Isiris descended from the warship, Fitt’s gaze had coiled around Isiris’s body like a snake. Hearing his confidant’s words, he chuckled lightly, his slender fingers stroking the corner of his eye. “100 is the instrument’s detection limit, not his limit.”
“Ah——” Fitt’s voice rang out bright and clear with barely contained delight: “He’s so strong——” Such surging, powerful Spiritual Power, such a cold and alluring appearance—it simply left him at a loss for what to do. “If I’d known he would stop for pitiful weaklings, I should’ve followed Shen Que back then.”
His scarlet tongue licked the corner of his mouth, purple eyes brimming with unconcealed desire.
This gaze burned so fiercely that Shen Que couldn’t ignore it. How dare he fix such a disgusting stare on the sun? Shen Que gripped the Tang saber in his hand tightly, his Adam’s apple bobbing several times to suppress the urge to hack at the man.
Isiris sensed it but didn’t even spare the other a glance. Human admiration and desire meant nothing to him—not as much as a kitten’s eager little look.
The Sun God Sword whistled through the air, its tip aimed at the massive Xenoid Variant surging from the deep crevice ahead. “Delphi people, follow me—we’re charging in.”
“Yes——”
White wings unfurled abruptly as he leaped into the air, cold and direct. No flashy moves—just sword qi slashing straight into the surging insect tide.
End it quick, head home early to keep the cat company.
