Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“Rest assured. I have nothing to do with you at all!”

From the young man’s round eyes that had turned yellow, tears that were emitting vague gold brilliance flowed out. He lost control of himself and shouted, “You are not my mother, and I am not your son. If possible, I would rather mince myself into pieces and return all the genes back to you!”

“Very good. If you can always remember your identity and your declaration, we will get along with each other much easier.”

The queen said coldly, “I will not kill you… for now, but I will not allow such a giant bomb that carries my genes to run loose outside either. You have to stay by my side under my close watch, and you are not to say or do anything without my permission.

“Of course, I will not keep you forever. If everything goes well, nobody will be able to stop me in a few years. When the four Kurfürsten and other noble families are no longer a problem, I will give you a starship, find a warless world at the edge of the Imperium’s territory, and let you fulfill your wish. You can live a carefree and unrestrained life there.

“You may consider it a deal. After all, you have spent so many years under Li Lingfeng’s shelter. You’ll be given real freedom if you stay by my side for a couple of years more. How does it sound? Or do you want me to destroy you right now and take back all the genes that I granted you?”

“You—”

The young man who looked like a gold lion or a yellow cat gnashed his teeth again. He was about to mock back when his shoulder was pressed hard by Li Yao.

“Yes. He said yes. A very fair deal!”

Li Yao said in a hurry. He then turned around and persuaded the young man, “Don’t be rash. Despite her cold face and her foul mouth, the key point of her words is that she is not killing you now! What does it mean? It means that, although she has just killed her biological brother, is making certain schemes against the entire Imperium, threatens to kill you multiple times, and is a cold, heartless, and ruthless monster for power, she is essentially a good woman and a good mother, isn’t she?”

Li Jialing’s face was brimming with suspicion. “… Is she?”

Li Yao: “Fine. I may have exaggerated a bit. She is indeed not exactly a good mother. But the important thing—the important thing is that I jumped to the Imperium through the entire sea of stars and found you two by sheer luck. Would you please take your own life slightly more seriously? Even if it is not for your own sake, you should at least consider it for your deceased father’s sake. At least, he did you nothing wrong, and he would’ve been overjoyed if he learned of your existence! Take a guess. When your soul goes to the other world and he learns that it was your mother who killed you, what will he think?

“Let’s repeat what I said. Give yourself an opportunity, and give her an opportunity, alright? Chances are that if you give each other an opportunity and spend some time together, you will discover that the queen actually has her reasons and she is forced to do what she is doing now, right?”

“I am not forced by anyone.”

The queen interjected coldly, “Li Lingfeng was not wrong about at least one thing. I do enjoy the ecstasy brought by power. In any case, I have to get the supreme power. Things like son are not within my consideration at all.”

Li Yao felt that his head was exploding. “Can we talk nicely, Your Grace? As a sophisticated schemer, why can’t you lie to him for now?”

“Forget it.”

Li Jialing bit his lower lip with his small canine teeth. “This is good, talking everything through at the very beginning. When there is no hope, there will be no disappointment. When there is no deception, there will be no pain. Instead of being covered in lies right now and suffering excruciating pain when the truth is revealed, this is perhaps for the best.

“Alright. I… I agree to your terms. Rest assured. I’ll bear my identity in mind at all times. You are the high and mighty queen, while I am just an abnormal monster. I do not dare to be related to you at all. Even if I am caught by the enemy, I will not admit that you are my… gene provider no matter how they interrogate me.”

“That seems… all we can do for now.”

Li Yao looked at the queen helplessly and asked, “Right. Can he still resume his original appearance? Well, don’t overthink. I’m not saying that you look terrible right now. In fact, it is rather… adorable. I’m just asking by the way.”

“As long as you can advance to the level where you can control all the cells over your body freely at will, you will naturally be able to suppress the agitating cells and resume your original look.”

The queen said casually, “This is also sort of a small training for you to remind you of the strengthening of your cells.

“Wuying Lan and Li Lingfeng were two irresponsible and whimsical scumbags. They have injected an assortment of drugs into your body, turning your cells and your blood into a mess. It is almost a terrible disaster. This is a good opportunity for you to polish your own body.

“After we return to the Deep Sea Fleet, I will naturally teach you some body-polishing techniques of higher levels. I hope that you can fully carry out the potentials of the unique body.

“Make no mistake. I just don’t want to bring a pure burden with me, which will definitely jeopardize my cause. At the very least, if you are caught by the enemy, I hope that you will at least have the ability to end yourself.”

“I understand you perfectly.”

Li Jialing said sullenly, “There will be absolutely no misunderstanding or unnecessary hope.”

The three of them looked at each other somewhat in embarrassment.

“Great!”

Li Yao suddenly clapped his hands and said, “All the dark clouds in the sky are gone. We have talked everything through, and the family is reunited. Today truly calls for celebration, does it?”

Not saying anything, the queen groped on the ground with the electric arcs on her fingertips, picking up the three Cosmos Rings left by Li Lingfeng. Then, she retrieved a smaller armor from her own Cosmos Ring and tossed it to the ground before she turned around and left quickly, as if she did not want to talk anything more to Li Jialing.

“Let’s go too.”

Li Yao stuffed the armor into the young man’s arms and watched him put it on. Then, they followed the queen to move forward. He said, “Don’t be so stubborn. Try to get in touch with her more and let her have the fun of being a mother. My intuitions tell me that her heart is not as mean as her tongue, and that she can take adulations but not insults. If you can just play cute, I bet her heart will be softened!”

Li Jialing stared at Li Yao solemnly for a while, before he lowered his head and walked in silence. It was not until a long time later that he squeezed out a sentence. “I would rather die right now than play cute to her.”

“You…”

A strong sense of helplessness filled Li Yao’s chest. He complained to the mental devil, “I remember that I have jumped to the Imperium to facilitate the diplomatic relation of the two countries, overthrow the regime of the Imperium, resist the scourge of the Covenant Alliance, and to maintain the universe peace. But why do I feel that I am a nanny right now?”

That being said, it was certainly not going to work out if everybody was so cold and indifferent to one another. There were still a lot of secrets that Li Yao intended to find out from Li Linghai.

Now that Li Jialing refused to break the ice, Li Yao had to take action in person.

Thinking for a moment, Li Yao walked faster and caught up to Li Linghai. “Your Grace, well, I’m very curious about my foster father’s name. Could you tell me?”

Stepping on a lotus flower of lightning, Li Linghai moved fast and replied without looking back at all, “No.”

Li Yao was not frustrated at all. He went on asking, “Was the world fragment that you and my pop explored together really the ‘Empyreal Transcendence Sector’ where the Supreme Emperor was buried in the legends?”

Li Linghai’s footsteps slowed down, but then she drifted forward again as if nothing happened. “Do not mention that thing to anybody. You should understand the graveness of the issue. Should it be known by somebody else, a lot of people would be coming to kill you even if I don’t.

“Also, nobody knows that I am so strong. Even my subordinates in the Deep Sea Fleet know that I am in the Divinity Transformation Stage at best, but they do not have any clue about ‘Dragon Over The Sky’. Do not spill out anything that shouldn’t be said to them.”

“Understood.”

Li Yao knew that Li Linghai definitely would not expose her greatest trump card so easily. But after all, he still had the half key, and he could deal with her slowly. Thinking for a moment, he smiled again. “Right. Can I ask you a personal question?”

Li Linghai said, “I vaguely have a feeling that you are going to ask me something that will make me want to kill someone.”

“No, no, absolutely not.”

Li Yao hurried to wave his hands. “I am really not asking anything too sensitive but only interested in how I should address you in private in the future. I called my foster father ‘Pop’. So, when there are no outsiders, should I call you ‘Mother’ as a way to show respect?”

The queen came to an abrupt halt and turned around rigidly, staring at Li Yao in disbelief.

“I truly… find it a wonder.”

The queen mumbled, “How did such a guy like you advance all the way into the Divinity Transformation Stage without being beaten to death?”

Li Yao returned to Li Jialing, looking crestfallen.

“Did you see?”

Under the cover of the thunderstorm, Li Yao said to the young man in a low voice, “In fact, the queen is rather easy to get along with. I just had a pleasant conversation with her, didn’t I?”

After a brief silence, Li Jialing said, “Brother Yao, in fact, my hearing has always been keen, and it seems even keener after I turned into this. I heard everything you and the queen said.

“Although I thank you for everything you did in the past two days, I have to agree with the queen on this one. Sometimes, you do seem to be lacking some beating.”

“What are you talking about?”

Li Yao felt that he was wronged. “I’m just trying to resolve the misunderstandings between you!”

“You can stop wasting your time. I think it is great now.”

The young man smiled. “I’m already satisfied to have met such a ‘brother’ like you and to know my birth father. Really. One can’t be too greedy. I can live a good life even without a mother.

“However, just rest assured. I’ll forever remember everything you’ve done, Brother Yao, and I won’t do anything rashly for your sake.”

Li Yao was silent. After a long time, he sighed. “Forget it. You won’t believe it whatever I say right now. Let me just prove it to you gradually!”

The young man was slightly dazed. “Prove what?”

“Prove that there are a lot of bright and beautiful things in the world despite the coldness and the darkness.”

Raising his head, Li Yao looked at the murky, dark, and erratic sky of the Sand Primitive Sector through the lightning and the clouds and said softly, “In both the profound space and in the unpredictable hearts of humans… you can definitely find them!”