Song Zang was deeply shocked.
He still had not figured out what exactly had happened to him, and this wild rose was already healthy because of him?
The fire outside grew fiercer and fiercer, but inside the flower’s central chamber, Song Zang was extremely well protected. The increasingly scarce, scorching oxygen beyond the petals did not affect his breathing in the slightest.
It was a safe space he could trust. Breathing in the fresh floral fragrance, Song Zang’s mood, which had come close to becoming agitated several times, slowly settled again.
Even though his eyes were bloodshot and aching, a strange growing pain spread through the gaps around his shoulder blades, and somewhere in his heart he felt an especially strong urge to eat insectoids.
Something was wrong. He was clearly a hybrid of insectoid and human blood, so why did he crave eating his own kind so badly? If he wanted to eat something, should he not be craving tender humans instead?
Song Zang fell into thought. Maybe he really was hungry again. Once they got out tonight, he absolutely had to get an emergency late-night meal. He would eat the rich, dripping roast lamb Yin Chen had recommended.
Meanwhile, outside the flower chamber, not a single exotic-beast larva desperately struggling to survive managed to be born. They vanished into the flames along with the dense excess branches.
Only the strongest, most essential part remained.
The main stem of the wild rose, once buried deep underground, was finally exposed in full.
Above the soil, it looked utterly ordinary, no different from a common, low-growing single-clump shrub.
Below the soil, its roots twisted and tangled together, tightly embracing rich flower fields that extended so far into the distance they seemed endless.
Song Zang narrowed his strange new vision. It looked like taking the flower away would be extremely difficult. Pulling it out by the roots would only weaken its terrifying strength by a huge amount.
Not taking it away was actually fine too.
Song Zang understood better than anyone that this wild rose, raised on his blood, now belonged only to him and would only form a connection with him. The soft presence released by its pink-white petals was extraordinarily peaceful and calm.
It gently wrapped around him and comforted him, showing not the slightest hostility, but rather a few traces of undisguised closeness and friendliness.
If Song Zang had not objected, it would even have wanted to keep raising him forever and feed its nourishment back into him… It was a strange feeling of seamless harmony and shared understanding.
Once things settled down in the future, if there were no longer excess offshoots rampaging everywhere, the wild rose could remain rooted alone beneath the ground and live out the rest of its life in peace.
But there was a more important question: why was such a powerful and bizarre wild rose growing at the deepest point of the mine?
This single-petaled rose was a plant unique to the Rose Empire, ancient beyond measure, with a history stretching back ten thousand years.
In truth, Song Zang could faintly sense the odor of contamination and mutation from it.
Even though it looked like a gentle pink-white rose, the power it unconsciously radiated would inflict terrifying mental trauma on an ordinary person.
Fine, dense pollen clung to the center of the chamber. Song Zang had to look several times before he noticed the invisible killing intent hidden within it.
Every grain of pollen capable of spreading carried endless knowledge and secret brilliance. That knowledge could reproduce life and create a future, yet it also contained an indescribably lethal threat.
It was like something born together with this mining planet, terrifying yet gentle… a mother. After returning to life on the verge of death, it unfurled its petals and branches with nothing but love, tolerance, and the tender hope of protecting its children as they grew up happily.
Song Zang tried to communicate with it for more information, and the mystery surrounding the rose only deepened.
Only this one mine on the entire mining planet could produce radiant iron.
The smaller mining planet five hundred thousand kilometers away was actually a satellite of the larger one. The two were mysteriously connected through the pollen’s power of transmission, and the radiant iron produced in both mines came from exactly the same source.
“So that means… radiant iron is a unique mineral jointly nurtured after the wild rose combines with the soil of these two planets.”
The instant he said those words, an indescribable suffocating sensation suddenly spread through Song Zang’s heart, as though some invisible rule were suppressing him and repeatedly attempting to erase him.
Yes, erase him.
But the pink-white rose, which had taken the initiative to shelter him, blocked all that blatant killing intent outside Song Zang.
Its seemingly fragile petals swayed lightly and casually brushed away the 【Erasure Process】 itself. The feeling that he was about to die vanished instantly.
Song Zang took several deep breaths in relief, deeply shaken.
If he had not personally raised this flower, then the instant he pieced together the truth, he might have fallen straight into a lethal situation without warning and been caught completely unprepared.
Even more frightening was how strangely familiar that drowning-like suffocation felt.
He seemed to have experienced something extremely similar before.
His heart stopped beating on its own. His airway tightened and closed little by little. Healthy, moist lungs dried and shriveled as though crushed flat by an invisible hand. Flowing blood turned into clots and congealed inside vessels throughout his body, cutting off the continuation of life.
The brain was the final barrier. It could barely grit its teeth and hold on, preserving only a thin, dazed thread of consciousness under severe oxygen deprivation.
He could hear movement around him, but he could not raise a single finger, save himself, or call out.
It was essentially certain death unless his brain was powerful enough to forcibly command his heart to beat again, pumping a huge amount of fresh, hot blood throughout his body and reopening every path that had been maliciously blocked.
But who could do that? Almost no one.
What an utterly despairing and terrifying experience. Song Zang had no idea how he knew any of this, but somehow he imagined it with such vivid immersion that a chill ran down his back. At the same time, the scorching insectoid markings left him unbearably hot and restless, his stomach gnawing with hunger.
That heat reminded Song Zang once again that he had to find a way to hide his markings.
According to the Rose Encyclopedia, insectoid markings were an identifying trait unique to male insectoids, and the darker their color, the rarer they were. The markings surfaced whenever emotions fluctuated, and even male insectoids themselves found them difficult to control perfectly.
Song Zang was very worried that if he got inexplicably excited one day and those elaborate, shimmering black-and-gold markings appeared in the middle of the street where someone from the Empire happened to notice… not only might he be identified as a male insectoid and locked up, he might also drag Yin Chen’s career path down with him.
It was time to leave. They had learned too much tonight, and he needed to sit down with Yin Chen and sort through everything carefully.
Song Zang reluctantly stroked the soft petals.
What a pity. So many transport conveyors on the lowest underground level had been damaged now that Song Zang had even less right to selfishly take the rose away.
Otherwise, the Rose Empire’s aerospace-material supply chain would suffer an even more painful blow. He could only leave the chaotic wreckage behind for the wild rose to absorb slowly while it recuperated.
“Hello. Could you please send me and that man out together? Thank you.”
After a brief pause, he seemed to feel the wild rose tremble faintly.
Its voice was as young as a little child’s as it answered softly, “Okay, Mommy.”
Song Zang: ?
Great. Now he was a mother too. Wearing an odd expression, Song Zang quietly had the wild rose separate one petal.
The translucent pink-white petal slowly lowered, and crimson light suddenly flooded his vision as a terrifying sea of flames surged toward him on waves of heat.
Yin Chen stood right in the middle of that blazing inferno.
He wore the white-and-gold shirt reserved for Imperial officers. The fabric was crisp and fitted, cut closely along the lines of his body. Mud, blood, and plant fluids stained parts of it, only emphasizing the smooth, tight contours of his muscles. On the left side of his chest was the legion’s distinctive emblem: understated yet ornate gilded thorns.
The gilded thread was made from a special material capable of protecting against an accidental shot to the heart. Against the surrounding flames, it shone even more brilliantly, looking almost indestructible.
Yin Chen looked relaxed, his posture careless. He lazily carried his blade across the burning ground, casually stirring the charred remains of branches beneath his boots and crushing the tiny insectoid eggs that still clung stubbornly to life one by one.
Song Zang stared at him for several seconds and realized the back of his neck was growing hotter and hotter, the heat spreading in fine strands down his back… He immediately forced himself to stop thinking and waved at Yin Chen.
“Come here, come here. We’re leaving. The little flower can handle the rest by itself.”
“Little flower?”
Yin Chen repeated the words with a faint smile. He said nothing more, put away his blade, stepped onto a green sepal that had lowered itself for him, and quickly entered the flower’s central chamber.
The petals slowly closed again, sheltering the two of them as the flower carried them steadily out of the mine.
The wild rose was smarter than they had imagined. It did not continue destroying the mine’s completed structure. Instead, it stretched its branches up through the collapsed elevator shaft and rapidly carried them back to the surface.
When the chamber opened again, the night outside had already deepened until it seemed like dark water.
The moonlight was bright and pale. It did not disturb Song Zang in the slightest, but it maliciously locked onto Yin Chen like a ghost and suddenly released an eerie, scorching heat.
Just as it had cruelly slaughtered the two soldiers, the moon was openly targeting Yin Chen and trying to repeat the process, torturing him to death because he now knew too many secrets of the mine.
But it had no effect at all. Yin Chen’s body did not melt in fire. He looked inexplicably at the crescent moon in the sky and remained completely unharmed.
The wild rose seemed to realize its oversight. It hurriedly shook pollen from its center, scattering it over their heads like a glittering rain of starlight. The visual effect was almost dreamlike.
The moon’s hostility disappeared instantly.
“Bye-bye. Thank you!” Song Zang held Yin Chen’s hand and smiled brightly as he said goodbye to the wild rose.
The wild rose hesitated for a moment, then awkwardly raised an enormous green leaf and copied Song Zang’s motion, waving it with force. It accidentally stirred up powerful gusts of wind, so strong they nearly uprooted the nearby plants and trees.
Realizing it had done something foolish again, the pale petals of the pretty flower suddenly flushed with a faint pink. It fled back into the depths of the mine in a panic.
“So cute.” Song Zang closed his eyes. “Super cute.”
A cold smile hung at the corner of Yin Chen’s lips as he lowered his voice and said slowly, “If your resistance stats had never undergone a qualitative improvement, it would have played you until blood poured from every opening in your face and you immediately fell into a severely injured coma.
“Even worse, male insectoids are naturally frail and have extremely poor recovery ability. Once you suffered a severe injury, your mental sea would never recover to a healthy state again.”
“…Baby, your true form isn’t much better.”
Yin Chen raised an eyebrow without the slightest guilt. “When have I ever actually hurt you?”
“You stabbed straight through my heart. That doesn’t count?”
“That was foreplay.”
“…Fair enough.”
Song Zang was convinced.
In truth, Yin Chen had a point. He ought to be cautious.
Ignoring rules and acting however one pleased was a style of play reserved for absolute powerhouses. Song Zang did not believe he was strong enough to do whatever he wanted yet. At the very least, he had not reached the upper limit of his strength.
Remembering the terrifying impression left by the 【Erasure Mechanism】, Song Zang became even more certain that he could still become stronger than he was now.
Only by becoming strong enough could he date however he pleased and casually sweep aside every potential, unknown danger in his way.
The first step toward becoming stronger was eating a late-night meal.
＊
The lights in the military camp had already gone out.
After several extreme murder cases in succession, Lieutenant Colonel Hall ordered a mandatory curfew beginning that night. No one was allowed in or out after dark, and violators would be shot on sight.
The atmosphere inside the camp was solemn, but three kilometers away, the mining planet’s sleepless city was bustling with activity.
The commercial buildings lining both sides of the streets favored a cold, austere silver-gray palette.
During the day it looked oppressive, but once night fell… multicolored light spheres floating along the streets and laser beams could paint those silver-gray walls any color imaginable.
At least it looked much cooler than Song Zang’s sheet-metal shipping container.
There were no cleaners nearby. The snow-sweeping robots had been reported broken two years ago, and the municipal authorities still had not repaired them.
So the snow drifting down everywhere was trampled hard and compact by passing crowds, its surface always coated in a layer of gray-black filthy water, food scraps, and sticky chili oil.
The alley corners between restaurants and bars were even worse. Deep yellow-stained pits used as urinals could be seen everywhere. Thick-furred black rats often nested inside them and bit toes from drunken homeless people.
All of that filth and squalor was dressed up and concealed by the dreamlike neon atmosphere. Business in the sleepless city was prosperous enough that nobody cared.
Deafening waves of sound poured from the bars, making loose windows and doors shake with the rhythm. Men and women laughed as their mingled pheromones grew richer and stronger beneath the deepening night, like an enormous transparent glass bowl turned upside down over the buildings.
The bitter, impoverished Alphas spent all the star coins they had after work on alcohol and food. If they could not afford paid entertainment, they could at least beat up a few ordinary Betas in a bar or harass a few pretty ones for a little excitement.
If the bar’s security guards dragged them out and beat them instead, or if a pretty Beta sweet-talked them into trying illegal drugs until they sank completely… then they could only consider themselves unlucky.
Compared with the chaotic mixture of nightclubs and bars, the clusters of barbecue stalls and open-air eateries smelled wonderful, and the overall atmosphere was somewhat better.
Forced sales and malicious price gouging were not exactly rare, but villains willing to use brute force tended to be more perceptive than ordinary people about who they could and could not offend.
Song Zang put on his round, puffy down jacket and wrapped half his face in a fluffy cashmere scarf, just enough to hide the black-and-gold markings that had not yet faded. Yin Chen was still wearing the military-issue shirt, his sidearm hanging discreetly at his waist, black boots crunching softly through the snow.
The gilded thorns on the left side of his chest looked especially conspicuous beneath the shifting, colorful lights outside the bars.
He held Song Zang’s hand as they walked through the sleepless city’s noisy streets. Even heavily built security guards did not dare make a sound, silently turning their heads and avoiding eye contact.
The barbecue-stall owner grabbed a broom and hurriedly cleared the dirty snow from the entrance while wiping cold sweat from his forehead. For efficiency, he even used mental power.
If an Imperial soldier reported him for food-safety problems… the municipal authorities suddenly became very fast indeed, and the punishment would arrive swiftly and harshly.
The owner found them the cleanest table and brought over a freshly roasted whole lamb.
He did not dare handle it himself and summoned a chef robot to carve it for them.
The crisp, golden skin gleamed with oil. A steel knife cut through it with precision, revealing rich, tender, milky-white lamb beneath.
Both the texture and seasoning were distinctive. An indescribably wild flavor collided with the soft, tender meat. There was not the slightest gaminess, yet it tasted nothing like barbecue from Earth.
Naturally, Song Zang was fascinated by roast lamb in space. He ate half of it by himself.
Yin Chen said he looked as though he had not eaten in months. Song Zang did not care at all, still marveling that Zone C truly deserved its reputation as the Rose Empire’s main meat-producing region.
The mining planet had vast natural grasslands. Because the government had no money for public-benefit development projects, animal husbandry across the mountains and plains had instead become the most developed industry.
Cattle, sheep, and pigs could multiply wildly at almost no cost. There were also plump mutant rabbits Song Zang did not recognize, which were reportedly responsible for severe soil erosion.
For only one hundred star coins, they were all cheap delicacies you could eat until you were full.
To keep from choking, Song Zang ordered an acidic [X-99] Stellar Special, supposedly inspired by the X-series nebulae of Zone B.
The bartender had come from an underground bar in the slums and had once been so envious of middle-class life that he practically turned into a lemon. So he invented this cocktail: dreamlike and colorful like shifting quicksand, yet so sour and astringent it hit absurdly hard.
A blue-violet flame was lit around the rim and a crystal-clear rock-candy straw inserted into the glass, creating an extremely striking visual effect.
The alcohol content was higher than expected and carried a strong synthetic chemical smell. Song Zang’s face soon flushed red. Bonelessly lazy, he curled up in Yin Chen’s arms and asked softly, “Baby, can we eat all night?”
“I want to change clothes,” Yin Chen replied darkly, shifting half a step without drawing attention so the animal and plant “juices” staining his shirt would not touch Song Zang.
“Nooo. You made my whole body covered in traces of you. I don’t even dare take my clothes off, so you’re not allowed to change either.” Song Zang sounded aggrieved.
“What do you mean, traces of me…”
Under the accusing stare of Song Zang’s ruby-red eyes, Yin Chen stopped mid-retort. After thinking about it more carefully, he fell silent.
The fact that Song Zang’s insectoid markings had turned out like that really did seem to be Yin Chen’s fault.
After all, there could not possibly be such a coincidence in the world.
If Yin Chen had not cut away half of his own gland and forced Song Zang to swallow and digest it… then the mysterious pattern slowly awakening across Song Zang’s body would never have become that ornate dark-red rose.
It was his masterpiece.
Yin Chen suddenly stopped being in any hurry to change clothes. His warm fingertips slipped beneath Song Zang’s scarf, settled against the back of his neck, and gave it a squeeze.
“Then we’ll stay up all night.”
“Yay!” Song Zang turned and kissed him, speaking quickly. “First late-night topic. Baby, why do all of you take petroleum so seriously that even Lieutenant Colonel Hall has to inspect it personally?”
Yin Chen looked somewhat surprised by the abrupt question. He opened the StarNet encyclopedia and projected the virtual display in front of his eyes for Song Zang to see.
“Imperial geologists once analyzed the Zone C star system and concluded that none of its planets could possibly contain naturally formed oil fields today. It’s an obscure old paper ordinary people would rarely notice, but military researchers definitely know about it.”
“…What? How is that possible?”
Song Zang immediately perked up and sat straight, focusing on the encyclopedia entry.
According to the Imperial Encyclopedia, tens of thousands of years ago, humanity’s methods of extracting energy had been so extreme that they completely exhausted the natural resources of the entire star system, triggering a minor apocalyptic era.
That so-called apocalypse lasted almost ten centuries. Humanity was forced to migrate and seek refuge elsewhere while planetary geology was completely restructured. Zone C repeatedly swung between extreme cold and extreme heat, its land became desperately barren, and the air was severely polluted until it was completely unsuitable for human habitation.
“Although the official position today is that the large-scale environmental restoration projects have progressed extremely well and Zone C has become naturally habitable again, I have internal information saying that the grasslands, mountains, and rivers on the mining planet were actually transplanted there afterward.”
Yin Chen took a sip of Song Zang’s special cocktail, bit off a piece of rock candy with a crisp crunch, and continued explaining slowly. “Humanity still has a very long way to go before the natural environment truly returns to its original state. It will take at least tens of millions of years. Oil fields absolutely cannot form that quickly. There is something seriously wrong beneath your spawn point.
“If you were an ordinary Beta, with little social respect and no real voice… reporting the oil field to the military might get you treated as an uncertain risk factor, transferred to higher authorities for forced confinement and violent interrogation until the researchers figured out how the oil field formed.”
Song Zang listened in a daze for a long time, then suddenly understood many things that had confused him before. No wonder Little Star had once warned him that reporting the oil field to the military carried a potentially lethal risk that was 【not to be disclosed】.
That lethal risk did not refer only to the mine itself. It also involved the developmental history of Zone C and even more dangerous secrets that had never been revealed.
Zone C had many official institutions, but only the military camp stationed at the mine was genuinely serious about serving the country and would treat the absurd existence of an oil field on a garbage planet with the gravity it deserved.
If Song Zang took the conservative route and disclosed the information to the Energy Administration instead, that would actually be safest. Those people would probably suppress the entire matter, buy the oil-field land cheaply, secretly excavate and exploit it… then resell the petroleum to Zone A at high prices and continuously make money from the wealthy districts.
He snatched his cocktail back. “Yin Chen, you know so much. What other secrets haven’t you told me?”
Yin Chen thought for a moment, then said thoughtfully, “There is one more secret I’m not very certain about. Supposedly, the human roots of the Rose Empire were once in Zone C.
“The prosperous and advanced Zone A star system only became humanity’s new home after many years of migration and flight.”
If he compared it with the real world, Zone C was like a fallen Solar System, while Zones B and A were the true unknown frontier. Song Zang became even more interested. “How do you know that?”
“Lieutenant Colonel Hall comes from a fallen noble family and secretly owns a lot of banned books. He’s also a history enthusiast, so he quietly told me plenty of unofficial history and told me not to take it too seriously.”
As Yin Chen answered, he was also thinking that this was probably Hall’s way of deliberately showing goodwill and handing Yin Chen leverage over him.
If Yin Chen wanted to investigate the hidden history of the Rose Empire, bringing Hall under his command would be the simplest and fastest option.
Helping Lieutenant Colonel Hall continue climbing the ranks would not be difficult for Yin Chen either. When the transport ship arrived at the mining planet tomorrow, he could go straight to the legion commander and ask her to help transfer Hall into the First Legion.
Song Zang’s thinking went in a completely different direction. He hooked his fingers around Yin Chen’s hand and swung it, visibly tempted. “Baby, is Lieutenant Colonel Hall’s home in Zone A? Why don’t we sneak in later and steal all his books?”
“…Mm.”
That made sense. But such a crude and illegal plan did not sound like something Song Zang would normally support.
Staring at the drunken flush at the corners of Song Zang’s eyes, Yin Chen frowned slightly. “You’re very excited right now. We’ll talk about serious matters tomorrow.”
“You think I’m drunk, don’t you? No, I’m not drunk. My body is protesting, my blood is boiling… mm.”
Halfway through the sentence, Yin Chen silenced him with a kiss.
This really was the most effective way to shut someone up, Song Zang thought hazily.
He had no idea how much time passed. By the time Yin Chen finally stopped kissing him, Song Zang was dazed and somehow felt even hungrier, like a starving ghost reincarnated into the world.
He opened the floating menu and continued ordering food, his voice slightly low. “Yin Chen, do you have a mother?”
Yin Chen froze for a moment, then answered truthfully, “No.”
“What a coincidence. I don’t either.” Song Zang looked serious. “We can be each other’s mothers.”
Yin Chen: …
＊
Staying up all night turned out to be easier than expected.
Mostly because Song Zang barely remembered the latter half of the night.
Two completely different bloodlines collided inside his body, fought each other, and eventually, with great reluctance, pinched their noses and attempted to merge.
Even the brain controlling his central functions was tortured into something like mush, excited and chaotic at the same time, almost insane.
When he woke again, Song Zang found himself lying inside an unfamiliar examination pod. Beyond the translucent hatch was an equally unfamiliar room, its walls hard and austere in shades of silver-gray.
Yin Chen still had not changed clothes. He stood beside the pod with an expressionless face, keeping watch.
Behind him, incredibly, was a whole line of underage Omegas timidly waiting for their examinations.
Song Zang closed his eyes and refused to remember his deranged behavior from the night before.
He touched the back of his neck and confirmed that the black-and-gold markings had not appeared. Only then did he quietly relax.
Acting a little crazy did not matter as long as his insectoid hybrid identity had not been exposed. All Song Zang wanted now was to pretend nothing had happened, get up quickly, and leave the examination pod.
But just then, a string of cold mechanical tones suddenly sounded beside his ear.
【Enemy attack detected. Examination Pod 024 has been locked. Built-in self-destruct program activated.】
Bang!
A deafening explosion erupted, and scorching tongues of flame rapidly enveloped Song Zang and swallowed him whole.
The examination pod had actually exploded!