Evolution - Chapter 110
Chapter 110
“My uncle is Sith!”
The two of them darted over, and just as they pinned the person down, that sentence hit them right in the face.
Ji Changqing’s scalp tingled.
This “My dad is so-and-so” type of phrase… it meant trouble.
She didn’t know who Sith was. The person before her was small and thin, malnourished like a refugee, and looked to be about thirteen or fourteen. They had the ferocity of a wolf cub.
But from the moment they appeared and pounced, the person hadn’t struggled at all, aside from shouting that one sentence.
She turned her head slightly to look at He Qingzhi.
There was nothing for it; with a phrase like that, she could only rely on He Qingzhi to make a judgment.
He Qingzhi’s expression was dark and uncertain, as if he might erupt and silence them permanently in the next moment.
“The leader of the Weiruixing rebellion was Oliver Fairman. Major General Andre died for his country.” The malnourished person who claimed, “My uncle is Sith,” trembled while speaking, their eyes filled with fear, anger, and pain.
This was subversive news! Ji Changqing and He Qingzhi were so shocked that they unconsciously loosened their grip.
The Alliance’s official report stated that Major General Andre had committed treason, taking Weiruixing’s governor, Oliver Fairman, hostage. In the end, his adjutant, Charles Klopp, shot and killed Andre, seized control of part of the military, and rescued Governor Oliver Fairman.
The rebellion was finally quelled with the help of Alliance reinforcements.
But before the rebellion was suppressed, many high-ranking military and political officials had fled, and just as many mid-to-high-level officials were purged.
“Klopp?” Ji Changqing asked He Qingzhi thoughtfully, turning her head. “Is that the same Klopp we killed by mistake?”
He Qingzhi nodded, his face grim.
So this was the ultimate source of all their suffering.
This Charles Klopp was the elder brother of the marriage partner his family had chosen for him. After the Weiruixing rebellion was suppressed, Charles Klopp was promoted to Brigadier General, taking over Major General Andre’s position. A year later, he was promoted to Major General, joining the ranks of high-level command.
It was precisely because of this that the He family had chosen the Klopp family for a marriage alliance.
He Qingzhi slowly released his grip, his voice like chips of ice. “Do you have proof?”
“I know where the evidence is hidden,” the youth said in a hoarse voice. “Oliver Fairman and his beast of an eldest son forcibly marked an Omega. My sister told me where the evidence was and arranged for someone to get me away. Then… she killed herself.”
That family of beasts had committed treason; it was almost a certainty that they would throw themselves into the Empire’s embrace. A marked Omega could hardly defy their Alpha as long as he was nearby. With her sister’s pride, losing her independence of thought and being forced to obey that scoundrel’s every whim with utter devotion was a fate worse than death.
But for him, whose parents had already died in the line of duty, his sister was his only remaining family, and in the end, she too was gone.
He hated the Fairman family to his very bones.
For the ordinary citizens of Weiruixing, that rebellion was nothing more than a period of disconnected star-nets and planet-wide martial law. The real turmoil occurred among the mid-to-high echelons of the military and government, and their families who happened to be on Weiruixing.
And then there were the journalists who had keenly sensed something was wrong and tried every means possible to get the information out.
All these people had silently become just another number in the death toll.
Some even bore the weight of crimes that were not their own.
“How did you evade our search just now?” He Qingzhi discreetly scanned the surroundings. The person must have been hiding in the long, narrow crack in the middle of that weathered rock, which was backed by a small earthen slope. The crack was dark and cramped, but long. An adult’s body definitely couldn’t fit inside.
This little one was thin and frail enough to hide in there, but it made no sense that they hadn’t detected the slightest movement. Even if the person could remain perfectly still, what about breathing and heartbeat? Could a child be that well-trained?
“A little gift my uncle gave me a while back. For playing hide-and-seek.”
Ji Changqing and He Qingzhi, having been flexed on, wore impassive expressions.
Fine. You must have had a ridiculously wealthy childhood if a casual little gift was military-grade hardware.
Then the kid dropped a bombshell on them. “I can make little things like this, too.”
Ji Changqing and He Qingzhi finally gave her a proper look.
Before that sentence, the kid’s value lay in the alternate version of the Weiruixing rebellion she knew, and the fact that she even had evidence. But overall, that was the value of the information, not her own personal value.
The two of them were in a terrible situation, living day to day and needing to plan carefully to struggle their way out. But if they had to bring along an undifferentiated child, the level of danger would skyrocket.
To be honest, they weren’t very confident.
Now, the kid had shown them that she herself possessed considerable value, conveying something along the lines of, “I can help, I won’t be a burden that drags you down.”
“The Weiruixing rebellion was six years ago, and it’s been over four years since it was suppressed. Have you been on the run this whole time?” Ji Changqing did some quick math. A seven or eight-year-old child, whose sister had arranged for an escort, ended up in this state?
What on earth had happened in between?
The kid was silent for a moment, then asked in return, “You really don’t know who my uncle is, do you?”
Feeling like she’d been hit with the “My dad is so-and-so” line again, Ji Changqing thought, If your uncle is so amazing, how is it that you’re still a missing person years after the rebellion was quelled?
However, upholding the fine tradition of respecting the old and cherishing the young, she didn’t voice her retort and instead turned to look at He Qingzhi.
He Qingzhi calmly filled her in. “Sith is one of the three giants of the Academy of Sciences. His only sister was a military officer who died in the line of duty forty-two years ago. She had only one daughter, Poli, who was previously serving in the Weiruixing government. The rebels stormed the wedding of her and Oliver Fairman’s eldest son, launching the rebellion and capturing all the high-ranking political and military officials in attendance.”
The rest didn’t need to be said for Ji Changqing to understand.
On one side was Sith’s own niece, whose mother was a decorated officer who had died in service. Most military personnel who weren’t on duty would have attended to show their respects. On the other side was the eldest son of Weiruixing’s highest-ranking governor, so political figures would also be present to curry favor.
There could be no better time to strike!
He looked down at the kid. “However, I only ever heard that Poli had a half-sister. I never heard anything about a brother.”
Ji Changqing also looked down at the kid who kept saying, “My uncle is Sith.” Just a moment ago it was all political intrigue, but who knew He Qingzhi would suddenly switch channels to a family drama.
So, was this an attempt to fake a connection?
The kid pouted. “Who told you I was a boy? I’m Saiweiyala!”
The look in her eyes seemed to say, Are you blind?
Ji Changqing had little interest in the complex genealogies of the Alliance’s interstellar era. After He Qingzhi confirmed that Saiweiyala’s identity was real, she gestured for him to hurry up and ask the key questions. They didn’t have much time to waste.
According to Saiweiyala, her family of three had gone to the wedding. When the rebellion broke out, Major General Andre and his adjutant happened to be with her family of four and the Fairman father-son duo.
The major general’s personal guards arrived quickly, getting them out of there before the rebels did.
When they discovered that both the police system and the city garrison had been compromised, the major general had to rush back to deploy his own troops, so the two groups separated. The major general arranged for a squad of his guards to escort her family of four along with the Fairmans to the planetary governor’s official residence.
After most of the pursuing rebels went after the major general’s group, her parents were killed one after another on the way to the residence. In the end, it was just her and her sister, the Fairmans, and two of the major general’s heavily injured guards.
Back at the government building, if she hadn’t been meddlesome at the time, curious as to why the adults were in such a frantic hurry, and hacked into the residence’s system, she would have overheard the Fairmans’ conversation.
They might have died without ever knowing the truth.
The nightmare began at that moment.
When she found her sister and repeated the conversation she’d heard, her sister’s expression changed instantly.
They didn’t know if Major General Andre was involved and didn’t dare to act rashly. They only saved several copies of the video and audio of the Fairmans’ conversation and then slowly began to gather other evidence.
Shortly after, they “heard” someone report to the Fairmans that Major General Andre had been killed by Klopp.
Poli immediately arranged for people she trusted to send Saiweiyala away. She knew that as Sith’s only known blood relative in the eyes of the world, she would be constantly watched. But the world mistakenly believed Saiweiyala was merely her half-sister with no relation to Sith, so they would be less guarded with her, using her more as a means to control Poli herself.
Not long after, Saiweiyala received a message from Poli in the secret language the sisters had used in games since childhood. She had been marked. Rather than be controlled and forced into treason, she would rather die for her country.
The entire planet was locked down, and Saiweiyala couldn’t get any information out. And ever since her sister’s suicide, the efforts to capture her had suddenly intensified.
They constantly tried to contact the Alliance, and were constantly tracked by the enemy’s technicians, hunted all the way.
Their numbers dwindled, and morale grew increasingly unstable.
After more than eight months of hiding, some of the people her sister had entrusted her to began to waver, wanting to turn her in for a reward. In the end, it was the two guards of the major general, who had been left at the residence due to their injuries, who held onto the belief that they must clear General Andre’s name. They took a desperate gamble and smuggled her onto a rebel freighter transporting ore.
After drifting in space for over three months, the freighter was plundered by audacious space pirates, and they all fell into the pirates’ hands.
Among the three of them, two wanted to clear the major general’s name, and one wanted to avenge her family. They didn’t care if they joined the pirates or worked as their thugs; they just needed to stay alive. She held the evidence, and the two guards took decent care of her.
The three of them lived among the space pirates for more than four years. As she gradually approached the age of differentiation, they worried her situation would become even worse if she differentiated into an Omega. To delay it, they had been trying to find ways to inject her with growth-inhibiting drugs.
She was now seventeen, but she still looked thirteen or fourteen, all because she had been receiving growth-inhibiting injections since she was twelve.
Two years ago, one of the guards died in battle. A little over half a year ago, the other one died as well.
Having lost her protectors, and having been repeatedly warned not to reveal her talents, her life became miserable.
Her stumbling upon Ji Changqing and He Qingzhi’s conversation this time was because she had been sent out by the pirates to screen for suitable recruits from Huantu Prison.
This was not a good assignment. On a desolate planet, one careless mistake could cost you your life.
After hearing Saiweiyala’s story, Ji Changqing and He Qingzhi fell into a bewildered silence.
Why did she have such a fateful connection with treason?
“Do you know which power is backing this pirate crew?”
“No idea. We never dared to mix with the core members,” Saiweiyala said frankly.
She phrased that very skillfully: they dared not, not that they could not.
Ji Changqing and He Qingzhi could understand that. After all, not everyone was a monster.
“A pirate crew secretly supported by the Klopp family hijacked an ore freighter that was being moved out by Oliver Fairman, the man who led the rebellion?” Ji Changqing smiled. It seemed these traitors weren’t very united, each with their own agenda. “Looks like we can set our sights a little higher.”
If the Klopp family was pressured like this, would the Fairmans continue to lie low in the Alliance, or would they finally drop the pretense this time?
The moment she heard that the pirate crew she’d been with for over four years was connected to the Klopps, Saiweiyala eagerly offered a suggestion. “While I don’t know the full extent of the powers behind this pirate crew, I do know the perfect person for you to choose to… die in your place.”
Ji Changqing and He Qingzhi silently retracted their earlier thought that “not everyone is a psycho, after all.”
Look at her. This one was actually quite twisted; perhaps she’d just been suppressed by two upright and loyal officers before and couldn’t fully let loose.
Comments
Post a Comment