Evolution - Chapter 124
Chapter 124
Ji Changqing truly hadn’t expected Adonis to risk coming to meet her.
Back then, a strange twist of fate had led her to connect Adonis with the Alliance for some clandestine cooperation. She certainly wasn’t privy to the specific details, but seeing as Adonis was able to leave the Alliance quietly with his people, she could guess a deal had been struck.
Adonis had given her a way to contact him, joking at the time that if she were as unlucky as Xie'er and got into trouble in the Empire, she wouldn’t be left without a lifeline.
And now, she was using it!
Since fate had brought them together again, both stirring up trouble in the Empire, it was only natural to team up!
Adonis was quite decent. He provided detailed intelligence on everything she wanted that he knew about, down to the last particular.
It all had a price, of course! There’s no such thing as free intelligence in this world, but he could offer a discount.
“That’s about as far as our friendship goes,” Adonis said righteously. Trying to get it for free? What a pipe dream!
Ji Changqing raised an eyebrow. “Hmm, if you value yourself so cheaply, what if I post a mission for you? Will you take it?”
Adonis smiled, his expression gentle and indulgent, his eyes holding a subtle glint as if watching a mischievous child. “Missions, of course, are charged at market rates.”
No one would take it if the price was too low, so you can save your breath.
His eyes and expression conveyed this message perfectly.
Ji Changqing sighed with great regret. It was truly heartbreaking not to be able to take advantage of him.
Adonis remained completely unmoved. He’d used the “playing pitiful” trick far too many times himself to be fooled by it.
However, he was still quite generous. “This identity you’re using… hmm, here’s her list of enemies.” He handed over a very detailed list, including those who had acted directly and those who had only subtly hinted for others to make a move from behind the scenes.
The incident had been widely circulated in the military back then, with everyone quietly gossiping about it. What’s more, Zhao Qingci’s subsequent, relentless campaign of revenge had kept the story’s popularity soaring.
Every time Zhao Qingci successfully took revenge on someone, those high-ranking officers with deep backgrounds couldn’t help but mock all the idiots who had gotten involved. With his years in the military, Adonis could compile the list without breaking a sweat.
It made him feel almost too embarrassed to charge for it! He feigned generosity and offered it for free. “I won’t charge you for this intel!”
Ji Changqing didn’t believe for a second he was that generous and mercilessly exposed him. “Which ones on this list do you want to get rid of?”
Adonis shot her a reproachful glance. You see it, but you don’t have to say it! He calmly recited two names, then openly mocked the others on the list. “Only these two are of any value. Getting rid of the others would be doing the Imperial military a favor.”
His words made it clear to Ji Changqing: those not even worthy of a mention by Adonis were just riffraff, or more accurately, parasites on the military.
But she had a different take on it. “Only those spoiled by their families have the qualifications to be parasites.”
She was supposed to follow the script and pretend to be “Zhao Qingci” seeking revenge against these people, but who said she had to do it like the real Zhao Qingci, making a huge spectacle so the whole world would know she was the killer? She was only concerned with one question: “Are there any bounties on them on the black market?”
Adonis looked at her with a smile full of approval. “A few.” He was also quick to give Ji Changqing several black market identities. They had been used by his subordinates before, but those people had moved on to new targets, leaving this line of work behind.
To take jobs on the black market, one naturally needed a complete set of forged documents. The more missions completed, the greater one’s access to new jobs.
Ji Changqing didn’t refuse, accepting this favor from Adonis. She thought to herself that she would have Saiweiyala look into Zhao Qingci’s assets later. As an outrageously arrogant space pirate who had been sneaking into the Empire for years to exact revenge, she must have maintained some black market side accounts.
When causing trouble on someone else’s turf, the more aliases, the better. If one gets burned, you have countless more.
Ji Changqing’s meeting with Adonis wasn’t long. After exchanging the intelligence they wanted, she asked about the various routes for smuggling people from the Empire to the Alliance, including those controlled by Adonis’s group and other reliable routes controlled by different factions.
Adonis assumed she was planning her safe return to the Alliance after completing her mission and told her everything he knew. He even teased her with a smile, “Are you this confident you’ll finish the mission soon, or are you just planning ahead?”
Ji Changqing smiled and replied nonchalantly, “As you know, many of the people with us this time are Alliance citizens who were captured by space pirates.”
They could be partners who cooperated where their interests aligned, but they weren’t companions who would entrust their lives to each other. It was best to hold some things back. If the other party knew all your movements, what if they needed to sell you out one day?
Adonis was somewhat surprised. His eyes widened, and he swallowed. “You want to take them all back?”
His face practically screamed: My god, there are several thousand of them. Is this woman made of money?
“Of course, whoever wants to go back has to pay their own way,” Ji Changqing said indifferently. “It’s good enough that I’m connecting them with some reliable routes.”
Expecting her to cover everything? What a daydream!
The meeting was brief. After they left the room separately, someone came by with a cart to clean and tidy up, clearing away the pheromones and the scent of a certain adult activity.
The cleanup was quite meticulous.
But Ji Changqing felt very uncomfortable.
As a country bumpkin who had never been baptized by pheromones, she had been taking suppressants according to Alliance regulations ever since her evolution. Under the pressure of technology, this primitive, bestial thing had been suppressed to near nonexistence—mainly because she had never experienced an Alpha-Omega romance, so she had no idea that just the scent of fake post-coital pheromones would be enough to make someone feel like a teenager watching a dirty movie for the first time—a little thrilling, with an unavoidable physiological reaction.
Yes, it must be because the effects of the ten-year military-grade suppressants were fading too quickly!
Ji Changqing, ever the master of excuses, silently comforted herself.
The next day, she was summoned by the trusted subordinate who was burning with jealousy and given a mission.
Given her ferocious reputation as a space pirate and the widely circulated tale of her sea-deep hatred and revenge, the person who came to fetch her repeatedly warned her, “Just gather information and intelligence. Don’t do anything extra!”
What did “extra things” mean?
It meant if you’re told to be a paparazzo, don’t think about moonlighting as an assassin!
Ji Changqing scoffed inwardly. As if I’m so eager to work for you. If I didn’t have my own responsibilities, I’d be happy to just go through the motions!
She diligently staked out various locations and gathered a ton of gossip, then compiled the various rumors into a report and submitted it.
She mixed in some hardcore intelligence that Saiweiyala had quietly obtained by hacking into people’s optical computers.
To others, it looked like she had put in a great deal of effort and gathered a significant amount of valuable information. At least, after reading the report, the Klopp Family Head knew which nobles he could approach in his current situation without overstepping, and who could genuinely help him establish a foothold in the Empire. Naturally, he also knew how to best connect with these nobles.
As for whether some of his flattery might backfire, well, only heaven and earth would know.
But her expenses were also enormous!
As the big boss who saw both the final report and the bill, he had only one thought: aside from being expensive, it was flawless.
The Klopp Family Head, feeling a pang in his chest after seeing the bill, quickly reread the fruitful report to console himself. As he read, he noticed something he had missed before.
His finger tapped on a short passage tucked among the other data. It briefly mentioned that a carefully cultivated scion from one family on Baoling Planet and an especially spoiled wastrel from another had happened to be at the same club. Coincidentally, an Omega there was drugged, inducing an early heat.
Both men fell for the trap and got into a massive fight at the club. The wastrel was beaten to death on the spot by the elite scion. Then, as the badly injured elite was about to do this and that to the Omega, the Omega fought back and… incapacitated him.
Now, the two noble families were at each other’s throats.
The Klopp Family Head felt something was off for a reason.
This high-end club was known to have an incredibly powerful backer, and its main selling points were safety and privacy. Any noble or high-ranking official on Baoling Planet who truly wanted to relax and enjoy themselves would choose that place.
To prevent anyone from causing trouble with malicious intent, the club was fully equipped with pheromone fluctuation detectors. The moment the Omega’s intense heat pheromones began to spread, a piercing alarm would have sounded.
Logically, no sane person would try to pull something like that there. Not only was the risk of exposure high, but it would also easily offend the club’s owner.
Too many coincidences always aroused suspicion. He suspected Ji Changqing had a hand in it.
After a long moment of contemplation, he made his decision. Closing the file, he called someone in and began methodically arranging matters.
As for Ji Changqing, she was quite useful for now, even if she didn’t seem very obedient. But for people like him who had long been in positions of power, ability was all that mattered. When holding a sharp weapon, one should use it. If it becomes uncontrollable and risks harming oneself, then one should simply break it.
On another planet, Adonis looked at the message from Ji Changqing that had been passed along to him. It brazenly claimed to be a great gift for him, and this “great gift” was the personal information of an Omega.
Adonis smiled faintly and casually gave an order. “Have our people on Baoling Planet check this person out. If there are no issues, find an opportunity to make contact.”
He Qingzhi, who had been sent to Baoling Planet to attend an exclusive “bride” school for Omegas, felt the world go dark and a headache pound in his skull the moment he heard the surreptitiously circulating news.
When he finally found a chance to contact Ji Changqing, he heard her grand ambition: she was discussing with Adonis how to safely send the Alliance citizens captured by space pirates back to the Alliance in batches.
He Qingzhi exploded on the spot. Though he tried to keep his voice down, his fury was unmistakable. “Have you forgotten what we’re here to do? Don’t do anything extra!”
Ji Changqing placated him with a good-natured tone. “It’s not extra.”
“Are you insane?” He Qingzhi wasn’t buying it. He ran his hands frantically through his hair, looking utterly crazed and on the verge of collapse, all his previous composure gone. He gritted his teeth. “Sending people to Adonis is one thing, but helping a cornered Omega fight back? Playing the hero, are we? And sending people back in batches? Nearly three thousand people! Do you think everyone else is an idiot?”
In recent months, people had been trickling out of Wendeli Planet, choosing to go to Hading Planet to settle in the Klopp fiefdom. A considerable number of those who had been accepted into the base they established on Wendeli Planet were, after some observation, recommended by Ji Changqing for Adonis to consider recruiting into his organization.
He Qingzhi didn’t object to this. In his view, it was a simple exchange of benefits with Adonis’s organization, an effortless task for them with no risk of exposure.
As for the Omega incident, he knew immediately that Ji Changqing had interfered. They had both learned from the same place which hallucinogenic drugs, when used with certain other agents and in specific doses, could induce heat but would also very likely destroy an Omega’s glands and severely damage their fertility.
But sending people back in batches was just too crazy! It was nearly three thousand people, not three or thirty. It would be easily noticed.
He looked at Ji Changqing, his anger gradually fading, replaced by a wave of sorrow. “Forget your old identity. We are no longer…”
We are no longer Alliance soldiers.
Faced with He Qingzhi’s expression, which screamed, “I understand you, but times have changed, and if you keep this up, you’ll make things very difficult for us,” Ji Changqing blinked.
Looking completely innocent, she couldn’t quite understand why he was suddenly looking at her with such pity. She asked sincerely, “For a space pirate, doing a little human trafficking… isn’t that perfectly normal?”
He Qingzhi stared at her, utterly bewildered.
Ji Changqing continued her curious questioning, “For a space pirate, conveniently causing some trouble for old enemies… isn’t that perfectly normal?”
He Qingzhi’s expression twisted.
That rare sliver of pity he’d felt had been fed to the dogs!
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