Yin Chen had no idea that the legion commander who was nominally his direct superior had quietly done something so bold and reckless without telling anyone.
Both he and Chi Yan suspected that the Eldest Princess had very likely been missing for quite some time, with the truth tightly concealed by the trusted people around her.
They seriously discussed every possibility they could think of.
The Eldest Princess might have deliberately hidden herself to lure enemies deeper into a trap. She might have fallen seriously ill and remained unconscious. Or perhaps she had accidentally entered some dangerous restricted zone and become trapped in a crisis she could not escape.
There was even a possibility that she had lost the struggle for power ahead of schedule and been secretly confined in prison by the current emperor.
Chi Yan rejected that last hypothesis outright.
“My cheap old dad doesn’t have that kind of ability. You might as well suspect the federal president instead.”
Mentioning the “Rheingold Emperor,” who had long since lost the ability to govern, naturally led Chi Yan into the background of her personal mission.
Some details had been inconvenient to explain at length in the group chat, but now she could finally go through them one by one.
His Majesty the Emperor was mentally unstable. He frequently sleepwalked, was emaciated to the bone, and was suspected of suffering from dementia, yet all information about his condition had been sealed off by the ministers closest to him.
Besides that, among the royal secrets Chi Yan had learned, there was another piece of history that deserved particular attention.
The mother of the three royal siblings, the Sapphire Rose Empress, had died horribly.
She had died from complications during childbirth while giving birth to Prince Arthur.
In this world, where basic medical technology was extraordinarily advanced, practically everyone delivered by cesarean section.
It was a simple minor surgery. With proper care afterward, the body could slowly return to normal, and even scars and stretch marks could be removed with ease.
Difficult labor in the ordinary sense was extremely rare. Of course, the Empress had not suffered from anything so simple as a single complication.
During that terrifying night of widespread panic, every conceivable kind of acute illness somehow took root in her frail body at once and ran rampant.
The first symptom to erupt was a mental-power disorder in the Empress, an A-rank Omega.
Omegas truly were unsuited to combat, but their mental power was still nothing to underestimate.
An invisible force field carrying a faint floral fragrance suddenly went violently out of control without warning. It killed an entire room full of doctors and guards on the spot, and even pierced the robots’ energy cores, leaving them unable to continue caring for the patient.
Once all the medical staff had fallen, the Empress’s heat arrived half a year early. Wave after wave of feverish desire battered her already muddled mind until she could barely maintain her sanity.
Her burning gland recklessly poured out pheromones, smashing through the isolation barrier and causing every Alpha in the imperial palace to lose their reason at once. Some even began attacking the doors of the maternity ward like rioters.
By then, the Empress was already in critical condition. If her pheromones were allowed to keep pouring out unchecked, her body was very likely to degenerate into that of a weak, powerless Beta while leaving her plagued by countless lasting complications.
Prince Arthur, not yet safely born, thrashed restlessly inside her womb in pain and distress, making the Empress herself grow even more agitated and tormented.
She urgently needed soothing from her Alpha partner.
Unfortunately, her husband happened to be unavailable during those few days.
That month, as the due date approached, the emperor was conducting an inspection tour in Zone B. He was locked in fierce political conflict with the federal president, who was then at the height of his influence, while also comforting the people of Zone B who were being indiscriminately slaughtered by insectoids…
There was too much happening. The emperor truly was busy, and besides, this was not the Empress’s first child.
Nothing had gone wrong before, so nothing should go wrong now. That was what the emperor thought. He never even received the emergency communications, much less had any chance to rush back in time and soothe her with his pheromones.
Even if she really did enter heat, the imperial palace had enough suppressants and short-acting soothing fragrances stockpiled to last the Empress until the end of time…
But disasters came one after another. When the backup medical robots rushed into the delivery room carrying the strongest suppressants available, yet another illness suddenly appeared in the Empress.
Her immune system went mad, abruptly entering an extremely hypersensitive and disordered state. Her body rejected every anesthetic, antibiotic, and anti-inflammatory drug, and she developed severe allergic reactions to every suppressant on the market, making them impossible to use.
Even nutrient solution for replenishing energy could not be infused. It would make the Empress’s tongue and throat swell, compress her airway, and potentially suffocate her to death.
After a scientific assessment, the medical robots decided to stop all medication, cancel the cesarean procedure, and have the Empress deliver naturally at once.
It was the safest path. There truly was no other option. If the baby was not delivered immediately, both mother and child would die.
Clinging to the last shred of her sanity, the Empress successfully gave birth to Prince Arthur, a perfectly healthy Alpha baby boy.
That terrifying night should have finally reached a happy ending. Yet just as Arthur let out a loud first cry, and just as the medical robot severed the umbilical cord with a clean surgical blade, the Empress suddenly began convulsing in a daze. Her gland rapidly developed a purulent infection, and she abruptly developed sepsis together with a dangerous coagulation disorder.
She died.
Resuscitation failed.
The delivery room was littered with the bodies of the people she had killed, all slowly stiffening alongside the Empress.
Only the blond, blue-eyed Prince Arthur remained, curled in the medical robot’s cold arms and wailing at the top of his lungs.
Later, during the death investigation and incident review, guards stationed outside the delivery room reported that just before the Empress died, they had smelled an overwhelmingly strong, suffocating stench of rotting decay.
One guard had such a sensitive nose that the smell knocked him unconscious on the spot.
After a meticulous investigation and careful reasoning, the Inspection Division of the Zone A police department gave its answer.
The stench came from the Omega’s gland.
The smell was exactly the same as the odor released when a sapphire rose rotted and decayed, only inexplicably amplified several times over.
In the end, that was all the investigation could report. The Empress’s gland had rotted. Within seconds of giving birth to the prince, it had literally decayed while still inside her living body. The reason was unknown, the pathology impossible to identify, and to this day it remained an unsolved mystery.
This 【major scandal】 was sealed away under the strictest royal secrecy. Even the current federal president knew nothing about it.
The emperor’s initial favoritism toward Prince Arthur had also come from guilt.
According to the background Chi Yan had received, the Rheingold Emperor had once been an extremely capable ruler.
He had been strong and healthy, enthusiastic about governing, occupied with political struggle against the Federation, and highly attentive to insectoid movements. He had vigorously expanded military-weapons development and industrial economic zones, creating many jobs for lower-class residents of Zones B and C.
But after his wife died, the emperor arrived too late and collapsed completely. He spent an entire night sleeping while holding the Empress’s corpse and gradually, step by step, became a rigid shell with no soul left inside.
From that day onward, the Rose Empire officially began sliding downhill economically.
He became increasingly indifferent to political affairs. The apathy and inaction of those years had an inseparable causal relationship with the increasingly chaotic rule of law in Zone C.
The Empire’s ability to maintain even the appearance of stability owed far more to dependable ministers and patriotic military commanders than to the emperor himself.
As Song Zang listened to Chi Yan’s story, he finished his icy piña colada and unconsciously touched the back of his neck.
“So if an Alpha or Omega’s gland develops a purulent infection and then they get sepsis, it produces a strong smell of decay?”
Chi Yan waved a hand. “No. My mother was the only case in history. Nothing this bizarre has ever happened before. Researchers have been investigating in secret for years and repeatedly trying to reproduce the phenomenon, but every attempt has failed. They still have no idea what actually happened.”
Experts from the medical department had once proposed cutting out and preserving the Empress’s gland for deeper testing and analysis, but the emperor had firmly rejected the idea long ago.
Her cheap old dad had said sadly at the time, “She cared about beauty more than anything. She would never want to remain in this world in such a miserable state.”
So the Empress’s body was cremated, and her ashes were placed inside exquisite pendants, gemstones, and canes that the emperor carried with him everywhere and even kept beside him in bed.
The only case in all of history?
Not necessarily.
Song Zang’s suspicions were growing stranger by the second.
If humans were not supposed to be capable of producing that kind of foul stench, then the rotten odor the Empress released just before death had a far more unbelievable possible source.
Yet the three royal siblings were clearly all pure humans.
He secretly exchanged a glance with Yin Chen, then looked at Chi Yan. “How old is Prince Arthur this year?”
“Hm? Let me check. He’s almost twenty-three.”
“…I’m almost twenty-three too.”
Song Zang’s expression changed slightly. The already bizarre suspicion in his mind immediately spiraled even further out of control.
Could he really be related by blood to this Empress?
Before today, Song Zang had never once imagined his role’s background in that direction, but… before his insectoid bloodline awakened, as a perfectly ordinary black-haired, black-eyed human, Song Zang could easily have claimed to be a descendant of Rose Empire nobility.
Even saying he might be a prince who had somehow been lost outside the palace did not seem unreasonable.
Yin Chen glanced at Song Zang and made the decision without hesitation. “We’re doing two DNA tests right now. You and Chi Yan. Arthur and Chi Yan.”
“…Huh? What?” Chi Yan, who had no idea what was going on, stared with her pupils practically shaking.
When the DNA results appeared on the floating screen, Chi Yan suffered a second massive shock.
Prince Arthur and Chi Yan were not close blood relatives. They were distant cousins.
According to the intelligent database match, Arthur’s closest blood relation was a noble from a collateral branch of the royal family, with the result suggesting a possible father-son relationship.
As for Song Zang and Chi Yan, the two of them effortlessly became siblings.
Their DNA similarity was as high as sixty percent, an astonishing result.
It was difficult to imagine how a baby-swap case could possibly have happened inside such a heavily guarded imperial palace.
But the robot that had delivered Prince Arthur all those years ago had long since been retired and destroyed, reduced to a pile of scrap metal. Combined with the royal family’s deliberate information lockdown, the surveillance footage outside the delivery room might also have disappeared long ago. Trying to reconstruct the details of that night would be nearly impossible.
At this point, all they could do was follow whatever traces they could find from the facts in front of them.
Chi Yan stared at the test report and said darkly, “Hello there, Your Highness the Prince… Don’t you dare fight me for the throne. I’m going to become the Purple-Robed, Jade-Belt Emperor.”
Song Zang looked perfectly obedient. “Of course I won’t fight you. I’ll support my sister unconditionally. Is your pheromone a rose too? That’s such a cool name.”
“Obviously. The mainstream pheromone among the royal family is climbing rose. Yours probably is too, right? So, Song-Song, do you want to publicly return to your ancestors and acknowledge the royal family?”
Song Zang shook his head. “Arthur is more suited to being a prince than I am, and my personal mission is almost complete anyway. More importantly, I’m a human-insectoid hybrid. My identity is pretty sensitive.”
“…Huh? My mother’s romantic history was that wild?” Chi Yan’s hand jerked, nearly spilling the white wine in her glass.
“If she was a pure human but developed a foul pheromone odor right before she died, then there’s a very real possibility the insectoids killed her.”
Song Zang’s expression was serious.
Insectoid methods were even stranger than human ones. They had developed countless sinister ways of targeting pheromones and mental power, just like the bizarre pathogen deployed specifically against Alphas on the mining planet… Humanity could barely defend against such things, much less identify effective countermeasures.
Chi Yan sighed. “Fine. I’ll go sound out Father later, but stay out of it yourself. If someone deliberately provokes you and you expose your insectoid markings in broad daylight, let’s see how you plan to clean that mess up.”
“I was quietly switched out of the imperial palace, didn’t die on the garbage planet, and even received a monthly welfare allowance. That means my existence has some purpose.” Song Zang grew thoughtful, and the doubts he had carried for so long became increasingly clear. “There’s probably always been someone on the insectoid side assigned to watch me, maybe even protect me, because they want to use me to accomplish something in the future.”
For example, the existence of Little Star AI was becoming increasingly suspicious.
After the three of them finished exchanging information, they laid out their next plan.
Reinvestigate the truth behind the Empress’s death, locate Eldest Princess Fiona, win over the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Military, assemble whatever warships they could use, and get Chi Yan onto the throne as quickly as possible so the players could act with greater freedom.
After all, the Side Mission was not complete. They still had to exterminate insectoids on a large scale and badly needed the support of the Empire’s heavy weaponry.
As for the Imperial restricted zones Catherine had mentioned, Chi Yan combined them with the top-secret information she could access and selected several of the most suspicious locations.
The open grasslands on the outskirts of the capital.
Endless public lawns stretched into the distance, suitable for golf, racing, and horseback competition. People often drove out to camp and picnic there. The scenery was beautiful and the air was fresh.
There were no buildings to hide anything and no rolling mountain terrain. A drone could survey the entire area clearly, right down to the ants between the blades of grass.
Yet this strange grassland had seen more than a thousand mysterious disappearances over the past century, and no one had ever uncovered the truth behind them.
It had now become a popular social-media check-in spot and gathering place for enthusiasts of paranormal legends.
The Zone B Ancient Fossil Museum.
If the continuously expanding black hole truly existed, it would be a security threat to every citizen of the Empire. Chi Yan waved a hand and ordered Xie Chun Ye to hurry over and investigate, report immediately if there was danger, and wait for support.
Those two restricted zones were now their highest-priority investigation targets.
For safety, Chi Yan had no intention of exploring the grassland alone. She planned to drag Yin Chen and Xie Chun Ye along and make them take point.
But the timing was wrong at the moment. Song Zang’s susceptible period was erupting badly, and several Alphas sharing the same room could easily influence one another. If their emotions spiked, they might even start fighting… It was better to go home and rest for a while first.
Yin Chen finished the pale-colored El Diablo cocktail and looked meaningfully at Chi Yan, raising a brow. “Your special ability is very good.”
“How did you figure it out? What ability is it?” Song Zang was intensely curious. He drank one of her cocktails before every dungeon, but he had never felt anything unusual at all.
“It’s holy water that revives you from the brink of death. I earned the skill from a boss in a Western-fantasy dungeon.” Chi Yan curled her lips. “If you almost die inside a dungeon, you’ll get one chance to escape death. Remember how miserable Lu Xing You was in that dating-show dungeon?
“He provoked your fake little lover and even had his intestines ripped out by an Aberrant… The only reason that reckless idiot is still alive is because one drink before bed has been carrying the burden for him all this time. Just an ordinary employee benefit. Nothing worth mentioning.”
Song Zang suddenly understood.
No wonder none of the players from the Future Research Institute had died even now!
He had met plenty of players during the closed beta. No matter how strong they were, bad luck and accidental traps could still kill them, so Song Zang had long since prepared himself to lose friends.
But almost half a year had passed, and Helin Estate had suffered no casualties at all.
So Chi Yan had been quietly supporting everyone by herself the entire time… She had not exactly lost out either. Every employee now owed her their life, making them much easier to command.
Once Yin Chen learned that Song Zang received a cocktail before every dungeon, his attitude toward Chi Yan seemed to improve instantly. At the very least, he no longer maintained the stiff, chilly distance of nothing more than a business partner.
“What exactly does your Future Research Institute want to research?” he asked Chi Yan of his own accord. “I can help with equipment development and employee safety.”
Chi Yan froze, then a sharp light suddenly flared in her lazily half-lidded eyes. “I want to make the Infinite Game system usable by humanity, understand the algorithms behind player rewards and the principles by which they are reproduced in the real world, and solve the threat of intense radiation that extraterrestrial meteorites could create over the next hundred years.”
“Give me a detailed proposal.” Yin Chen looked thoughtful.
“Yes, boss!”
The two of them launched into an animated discussion while Song Zang listened in utter confusion. What extraterrestrial meteorites? What intense radiation threat?
Back when they held meetings at Helin Estate, aside from discussions about Codename X, Chi Yan and the others did seem to mention biological remains from outer space… Could they really pose a serious danger to humanity? Song Zang thought about it gravely. He could actually try dealing with the meteorite problem himself.
If he simply ate them raw, perhaps they would add some special attributes.
Using the special properties of his iron wok, he might even be able to make several cups of fresh-cheese meteorite latte.
Noticing that Song Zang had drifted off, Yin Chen rubbed his head. “Sleepy? Want to go home and sleep?”
Warm fingertips threaded through his hair, carrying a gentle rose fragrance with them. Song Zang stiffened for a moment, and the corners of his eyes involuntarily turned red.
He turned and straddled Yin Chen’s lap, lowered his head into the man’s neck, and bit him viciously. “Don’t be so gentle with me. I’ll suddenly get emotional. I wasn’t even like this a second ago. It’s all your fault for bullying me again… I’m going to hang myself outside your front door!”
Yin Chen: ?
“I’m caring about you. Is that against the laws of heaven?”
His voice turned ominous. Half smiling, half not, he wrapped his arms around Song Zang’s waist, kneaded him a few times, then pinched him hard.
The pinch snapped Song Zang back to his senses. He drew a deep breath. “Baby, you’re right. I need to go home and lie down. This state I’m in is not normal.”
What if they encountered danger halfway home, Yin Chen was preparing to draw his blade and fight, and Song Zang suddenly became emotional, clung to him, and started crying in grief… The image was terrifying.
And if Yin Chen could not break free from Song Zang’s full-strength arms, hard as iron, wouldn’t the two of them die in the most ridiculous pose imaginable? Song Zang sucked in a breath and decided to force himself to calm down. He had to behave sensibly.
Chi Yan had silently watched them for a long time. Now she revealed a strange smile. “So that’s how the two of you get along. Good. Now I can stop worrying.”
She picked up an ornate gold-inlaid teapot, poured each of them a cup of tea to sober up, and made a show of sending them on their way.
Song Zang linked his arm through Yin Chen’s, drank the hot tea, and obediently said goodbye.
Before they left, Chi Yan remembered something. “There’s definitely something off about Lin Wen Jing. You have a decent relationship with her, right? Feel her out a little. She’s holding a concert in Zone B this morning, so she definitely has time to check her messages, but she hasn’t responded to our invitation at all. That’s not normal.”
Song Zang thought it was strange too.
He opened the system panel and stared at the chat window that had remained silent for so long, when a question suddenly occurred to him.
Who was Lin Wen Jing’s teammate in this dungeon?
Qiu Shuang was dead, so shouldn’t Lin Wen Jing have teamed up with Xiao Li Li?
Then where had Xiao Li Li gone?
Sitting aboard the aircraft carrying them home, Song Zang could not stop himself from sending a second message.
After such a long silence, Lin Wen Jing finally answered him this time.
【Lin Wen Jing: She’s dead too.】
【Song Zang: What… I’m sorry. My condolences.】
【Lin Wen Jing: I’m not in the mood to study the dungeon details right now. Sorry. If there’s a task you need me to do, just tell me and I’ll do it. I’m pretty good in a fight now. Anything is fine.】
【Song Zang: Brother Xie is also in Zone B. If possible, it would be safer if the two of you acted together so you can watch each other’s backs.】
【Lin Wen Jing: Okay.】
Song Zang did not ask anything further about Xiao Li Li. He knew Lin Wen Jing did not want to talk about it.
Lin Wen Jing had not completely given up on everything, though. She briefly summarized her personal mission and sent it to Song Zang privately.
She was an orphaned Omega adopted by a wealthy businessman from childhood and raised to “entertain” special guests. Through her own intelligence, she caught the eye of a talent scout, escaped the nightmare of illegal sex work, and became a rapidly rising superstar.
But her contract was controlled by the wealthy businessman, and almost every cent she had earned since debuting had continuously flowed into his account.
To escape the fate of remaining his money-making machine, she turned her attention to Xie Chun Ye, attempting to kidnap this pampered young Omega master and even steal away his promising future marriage as revenge.
That was because the wealthy businessman who had raised her was not only the cruel adoptive father who drained her resources, but also the doting father who spoiled Xie Chun Ye.
The apparently ordinary wealthy family was actually descended from a fallen branch of the Rose royal family.
After reading her background, Song Zang suddenly felt as though he had just read the opening setup of a potentially erotic novel.
No wonder Lin Wen Jing had ignored Chi Yan and Xie Chun Ye’s messages. She was probably mortified right now, as uncomfortable as if she had swallowed a fly, and could only use Song Zang as a go-between.
So Song Zang awkwardly relayed the matter to Xie Chun Ye, adding special emphasis to one point: your biological father is not a good person.
【Xie Chun Ye: He’s not my biological father.】
【Song Zang: Huh?】
【Xie Chun Ye: I secretly did a paternity test. I found out I was adopted too. My mental-power rank is high, so he can use me to marry into the upper class through an Alpha. That’s why he’s always “spoiled” me.】
【Xie Chun Ye: Tell Lin Wen Jing not to worry. I can cooperate with her to kill that disgusting old man.】
Song Zang was thoroughly stunned.
The successive reversals left him speechless. He even found himself wondering whether Prince Arthur’s true identity… might somehow make him Xie Chun Ye’s brother too.
There were too many messy things to think about. Song Zang felt as though smoke was about to start pouring out of his brain.
Yin Chen led him by the hand, and Song Zang drifted home like a wandering ghost.
The luxurious Zone A villa belonging to an A-9 commander of the First Legion.
It occupied an entire mountaintop by itself and was even more spacious than Chi Yan’s private residence.
Brilliant red and white roses bloomed all across the mountain. Dark-green climbing shrubs from the rose family blocked every surrounding line of sight. The entire residence had been custom-built, with exceptionally high privacy.
The problem was that land in Zone A could not be freely bought and sold. Someone capable of breaking through the land-purchase restrictions was certainly not an ordinary Alpha from a middle-class background like Yin Chen.
In reality, this mansion counted as a villa personally gifted to a subordinate by the Eldest Princess.
Song Zang lay on the cloud-soft sofa for half a minute, then abruptly sat up and splashed his face with cold water.
He simply did not trust a gift from the Eldest Princess, so he decided to fight poison with poison.
He disabled the signal blocker and summoned Little Star AI, ordering it to scan for suspicious signals and electronic devices.
“Mr. Song, as long as Little Star is still useful to you, that’s enough for me.”
The boy’s voice was pitiful and soft, overflowing with manipulative sweetness.
Song Zang: …
As speechless as he was, he had to admit that Little Star AI was extremely capable.
Inside the enormous villa registered under Yin Chen’s name, it discovered a dense web of listening devices and hidden cameras, more than five hundred in total.
The rice-grain-sized compressed devices were hidden inside the two-hundred-square-meter walk-in closet, the swimming pool’s water-return vents, the kitchen sink, the bathroom ventilation fan… Song Zang dragged Yin Chen around checking them one by one until his scalp tingled.
If he had not been cautious enough to investigate first, if Yin Chen had returned home and casually undressed for a shower, the princess could have seen Yin Chen’s body at any time!
“I’m jealous,” Song Zang said expressionlessly. “I have now reached transcendent levels of rage. I’m going to kill her and then hang myself outside your front door.”
“…Mm. It’s all my fault.”
Yin Chen coaxed him with exceptionally good temper, pulled a silver-gray dagger made of radiant iron from his pocket, and stuffed it into Song Zang’s hand.
“What do you mean?”
“Song Zang, stab me.”
“That doesn’t seem very appropriate.”
“You’re jealous. Wanting to stab me is normal.” Yin Chen wrapped an arm around him, curved his lips, and explained in a gentle voice.
Song Zang tightened his grip around the hilt and stared at him in disbelief. “Every time you got jealous before, you wanted to stab me, didn’t you?”
“Hm? I only thought about it.”