Chapter 42

His body had reached its limit. After enduring the pain for so long, it became difficult to distinguish between fatigue and pain.

Just standing there had drained all his strength.

Yet he still held her tightly, gently rubbing her shoulder, continuously calling out to her, “Afu, Afu…”

The embrace behind her was scorching hot, and Ji Fu gently squeezed his fingers, softly saying, “I’m here.”

Turning around, she realized that he was no longer fully conscious.

In a daze, he continued to call out her name over and over again.

Ji Fu wanted to put him in the nearby medical compartment, but he had already fallen into unconsciousness, his hands still tightly around her waist.

She tried to pry his tightly clasped hands apart, but even with some effort, she couldn’t do it.

His physical condition was too poor. In the end, she didn’t push him away. After a moment of silence, she simply lay down with him in the medical compartment.

A regular medical compartment could only accommodate one person. With two people, the space was too small and felt very cramped.

His hand around her waist remained tight, so she used this position to perform emergency treatment on him.

It wasn’t until dawn that the person in front of her slowly recovered from the dangerous state.

When Ji Fu opened her eyes, it was already bright outside.

She didn’t know when she had turned around, her head resting under the chin of the person in front of her.

She looked up and met the deep gaze of Wei Lan.

He had just been rescued in the early hours of the morning, yet he had already awakened so quickly.

Wei Lan had a pair of particularly beautiful eyes, but when he was not emotional, these deep gray pupils always seemed to carry a sense of hostility.

At this moment, however, his eyelids were drooping as he obediently looked at her, without speaking.

Ji Fu moved slightly and found that a night had passed, but his hand still hadn’t loosened.

She raised an eyebrow, “Still not letting go? Isn’t your hand hurting?”

He chuckled at her words, lowering his head to rub against her cheek and neck.

Having just escaped from danger, his body was very weak at the moment, his voice also very low, he asked her, “Are you angry?”

Ji Fu lifted her head, meeting his bright gaze.

He nuzzled against her like a puppy, his tail brushing against her neck, causing a slight itch. He kept his eyes on her, as if waiting for her response.

What anger could she possibly have?

She could only ask him, “Why didn’t you listen?”

He hesitated for a moment, his eyes heavy. He wouldn’t hide anything from her, so he told her about what the Si family had done.

Ji Fu had thought that he must have had a hard time during the years of his imprisonment, but she hadn’t expected that even when they clearly knew he was useful to the family, the Si family would still dare to treat him like this.

Even if he glossed over what he had experienced in the black cell three years ago, she could imagine what methods they would come up with to force him to comply.

The final battle three years ago should have buried the entire Si family.

What Wei Lan didn’t say was that, compared to the endless means of the Si family, what he found most unacceptable was their attempt to erase his memories.

They tortured him, and he could endure it.

But once he thought about their attempt to make him forget everything, to forget the person in front of him, he couldn’t bear it.

Emotions surged in his eyes. When he looked at Ji Fu, all emotions faded away, leaving only a pair of clear, bright, and drooping eyes.

He looked at her, “And you, are you okay?”

Compared to his situation, he was more concerned about her condition over the past few years.

Unknown to anyone, when he was first imprisoned, he had tried countless ways to escape.

But because he was also seriously injured during the final battle, he could never escape to find her.

Before being imprisoned, her Cloud Faction was destroyed, losing both the Cloud Faction and the Black Mecha. Her situation would only be worse than his.

He could survive in the dark cell, but he couldn’t imagine her enduring such torture.

So he killed many guards in the cell, was injured many times, and every time he lost control, it was all to see her.

His current physical condition was still very poor. After speaking only a few words, he fell into a deep sleep again.

After he fell asleep again, Ji Fu finally managed to break free from his embrace.

The medical compartments in the school were too low-grade. They could temporarily stabilize Wei Lan’s condition, but for proper treatment, they needed a higher-grade medical compartment.

She contacted Qin Chu Yue.

That night, she rushed to the asteroid with Wei Lan.

Qin Chu Yue was waiting outside the academy in her starship. When she saw Ji Fu bringing Wei Lan over in a deep sleep, she finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Using the materials in her hands, Ji Fu made a portable small medical compartment for Wei Lan to sit in.

After boarding the starship and confirming that Wei Lan was still alive, Qin Chu Yue finally asked, “Wasn’t anyone suspicious?”

Recalling yesterday’s events, Ji Fu still felt excited.

Before, Ji Fu had said that Wei Lan would come to the Interstellar Academy to find her, so she returned to the academy early, covered the school’s systems, and directly synchronized Wei Lan’s information into the school’s academic network.

…using the photo from the wanted poster.

After synchronizing the information, as long as Wei Lan entered the Interstellar Academy through the main gate, he would be recognized smoothly by the intelligent system.

Qin Chu Yue waited outside, in case of any accidents, they could leave the Interstellar Academy directly.

After all, they couldn’t guarantee that everyone coming to the Interstellar Academy wouldn’t recognize Wei Lan.

Fortunately, even though Wei Lan was severely injured, he still retained his reason.

Before boarding the Emperor Star to arrive at the Interstellar Academy, he took off his conspicuous prison guard uniform and wore a cap.

Probably no one tracking him across the stars would have expected him to appear on the Emperor Star and even ride public free transportation so openly.

Because it was the holiday period before the joint exam, few people were taking the free starship, and with so much recent excitement, everyone’s attention was on the star network and forums, so no one noticed the fugitive on the starship.

When they safely arrived at the academy, with the information Ji Fu had inserted in advance, as long as Wei Lan walked through the intelligent gate, he would be able to enter smoothly.

“No.” Before leaving the Interstellar Academy, Ji Fu deleted all the inserted information and restored the system to normal operation.

Only then did Qin Chu Yue truly let go of her worries.

Yesterday’s continuous events were indeed meant to convey a message to Wei Lan, but they both understood.

Given the situation in the Interstellar Prison, if Wei Lan really escaped, he must have been seriously injured.

In such a critical condition, if the message to be conveyed was hidden in a document, he might not have had time to decode it before his body gave out.

But Ji Fu still released the information.

Just saying that Wei Lan could understand her meaning. Now it seems that even after three years, they still have an understanding.

If any link in yesterday’s sequence of events had gone wrong, they wouldn’t have been able to reach Wei Lan.

“Do you know why Wei Lan suddenly escaped?” Qin Chu Yue asked.

Ji Fu replied coldly, “It’s the Si family.”

“Si Xun wanted to implant a memory chip into Wei Lan’s body to make him obedient.”

Even though Qin Chu Yue was prepared, hearing this still caused her expression to change involuntarily. She immediately cursed, “Damn it, do they have any shame left? Didn’t they abandon Wei Lan voluntarily in the first place?”

Wei Lan’s original name was Si Chen.

He was the biological son of Si Houyu, the third son of the former head of the Si family.

It seemed like he had a good background, but Wei Lan was different from normal aristocratic descendants.

His biological mother was not from an aristocratic family, just an ordinary interstellar citizen.

He was actually just Si Houyu’s illegitimate child, but because Si Houyu didn’t have any children at the time, he was brought back to the Si family to be raised.

Originally, the Si family paid considerable attention to this unusually beautiful child.

Unfortunately, the good times didn’t last long. After being brought back to the Si family for three months, Wei Lan was tested and found to have a low-grade talent.

It wasn’t just any low-grade talent, but an F-.

Talents with a + sign in front of their talent level were known to be above average, but talents with a – sign were very rare.

This indicated that although he had talent, it was only a tiny bit, barely better than ordinary low-grade strains.

After receiving the same result in three consecutive tests, the Si family and Si Houyu’s attitude towards him changed.

The Si family revoked all the privileges they had previously given to him and his father. Si Houyu himself didn’t have high talent and was not highly valued within the family. Seeing this, he vented all his anger on the young Wei Lan.

Wei Lan was just a child back then. He thought that as long as he performed well, the next thing that beeped would give him a high score, and his father would treat him better.

But unfortunately, changes in talent were not something ordinary people could understand, nor could they be changed through effort alone.

He obeyed and behaved well in school, but the better he performed, the more his father, Si Houyu, disliked him.

Later, Si Houyu even blamed Wei Lan for all his own misfortunes.

As a young Wei Lan was bullied within the noble school and subjected to his father’s constant violence.

For a long time, he could hardly speak normally.

Until one day, his mother learned about his mistreatment at the Si family and came to take him back.

The Si family’s threshold was too high, they couldn’t afford to climb it, so they returned to being ordinary people.

Wei Lan agreed too. He wanted to be an ordinary person and didn’t want to stay at the Si family anymore.

But that night, after school, when the agreed time passed, his mother never showed up.

He worried and feared that something had happened to his mother.

He wanted to go back home to ask his father for help.

As soon as he arrived home, he saw his mother lying in a pool of blood, and his father, with a look of panic and confusion on his face, holding a knife…

Wei Lan guarded his mother’s body for seven days.

The stench emitted after the body decayed made everyone avoid it.

Si Houyu fled, and no one from the Si family cared about him. Unable to bear the stench, Si Houyu’s men tried to forcibly drag the body away, but Wei Lan lunged forward and directly tore at them.

Later, he was pinned to the ground by people from the Si family. With just a few light words from them, his mother’s death was dismissed, and Si Houyu, seemingly unaffected, was easily taken back.

…No matter how unacceptable it seemed, the child of the head of the Si family was still a member of the Si family.

Even though he killed his mother, Si Houyu could still escape blame.

As for him…

He was just a useless waste.

No one cared whether he lived or died, let alone sought justice for his mother.

So, when Si Houyu once again laid hands on him, he bit off one of Si Houyu’s fingers.

That night, he was almost beaten to death by the insane Si Houyu.

He bit off Si Houyu’s finger, and Si Houyu was about to chop off his hand.

So he ran away.

Dragging his injuries, he collapsed in a garbage heap.

Those children from the Si family came to find him after hearing about the incident.

They played around and threw dirty things at him.

Using scrap machinery found in the garbage heap, he smashed the leader’s head in, leaving a large hole.

The child was escorted back like a star surrounded by planets, and what awaited him was complete abandonment by the Si family.

The Si family said he was violent and uncontrollable and removed his name from the Si family system.

The child who had regained consciousness electrocuted him.

Thrown into the wilderness.

He thought he would die there.

He still remembered sleeping in the silent, desolate land that day, looking at the moon above.

He didn’t know what death tasted like, but what he could feel was the strength fading from his body little by little.

He might meet his mother soon.

Although he didn’t have a deep impression of that woman, he only remembered her beautiful face, contrasting sharply with her cowardice and humility.

When she was alive, she always cowered before Si Houyu.

When Si Houyu came to take him away, scrutinizing and evaluating him repeatedly, treating him like a commodity.

The woman repeatedly told Si Houyu that Xiao Chen was very obedient, that he was a good child.

And then, on that last day, she twisted her hands and told him, “Your father doesn’t like you. I’m taking you away.”

He knew she had received an exceptionally generous ‘bonus’ from Si Houyu, and he knew she came to pick him up because Si Houyu had lost patience with him and wanted him to disappear.

Si Houyu said that if she didn’t come to pick him up, he would kill Xiao Chen sooner or later.

But he was very grateful that she didn’t want him to die.

So she came to pick him up.

He was still very happy.

But suddenly, everything disappeared.

He lay in the wilderness, his whole body aching, watching the moon set and the sun rise.

It was a sunny day, and the sun drove away all the cold from his body, making him warm.

He thought it would be a good thing to die on such a grand sunny day.

And then, just before he closed his eyes, he saw her.

At that time, Ji Fu was only in her teens, having escaped from Purgatory Star, covered in wounds.

After hiding on this remote planet, she looked up and saw him.

She could clearly see that he was covered in wounds and almost dying, yet she asked him, “Are you a puppy? Why are you basking in the sun?”

After that day, the sun in his world never set again.

Wei Lan didn’t know why he dreamed of those events from so long ago.

Later, many things happened, and he returned to the Si family once again, killing Si Houyu with his own hands.

He also crushed the neck of that child from back then and trampled him underfoot.

The people from the Si family saw him and said he was crazy and twisted, able to kill even his own father.

In a semi-dream state, he seemed to see Ji Fu again, her face always swaying before him, making his heart sway along with it.

On the asteroid, Qin Chu Yue looked at Wei Lan lying in the medical compartment and suddenly grabbed Ji Fu’s hand, gently rubbing it against her own face.

She couldn’t help but say, “People are confused. They still remember his Afu.”

Ji Fu: …

Wei Lan’s physical condition was extremely poor.

There was an old injury from three years ago that had never fully healed from the great battle, new injuries accumulated over the years, and the fatal injury he received this time.

Qin Chu Yue looked at the results given by the medical compartment and gasped in shock.

With injuries like these, it’s a wonder he’s still alive, truly surviving on sheer willpower alone.

The only good news was that the pile of potions left by the Li family was still there. Although Ji Fu had nearly depleted them initially, the talent-enhancing potions were different from the wound-healing ones.

Many of the potions left behind were top-grade wound healers.

Ji Fu combined the potions and switched to warm water medication baths.

This could maximize the effectiveness of the medicines, combined with the medical compartment, to treat Wei Lan.

…But to maximize the medicine’s effects, they needed to undress him.

Without a second thought, Qin Chu Yue turned and left, leaving her alone, listening to Wei Lan calling out her name in his unconscious state.

When the medication bath started and the medical compartment door closed, Qin Chu Yue returned.

“How long will it take for a complete recovery?”

Because of unlocking Li’s core technology, top-grade potions, and her special medications, the recovery time for Wei Lan had been greatly reduced. However, due to the severity of his injuries, the expected recovery time was still long.

“At least six months,” Ji Fu said with deep eyes, this was a conservative estimate even with the continuous use of top-grade potions.

If the potions were interrupted halfway, it would take even longer.

Based on the current amount of medication being used, it couldn’t last for six months. The potions left behind by the Li family could only last for a maximum of three months.

But after three months, Wei Lan would at least be able to recover halfway.

Compared to the situation where Fang Yanli rested for three years after the great battle, it was much better, but time-wise, it was still quite tight.

“Is there any way to speed up the treatment?”

Normally, there wasn’t. Treatment was treatment, and seeking quick results wasn’t possible, just like repairing machinery wouldn’t be immediately effective.

But Ji Fu wasn’t a traditional doctor, and Wei Lan’s physical condition was different from normal people.

Without saying a word, Ji Fu opened the operation page of the medical compartment, motioning for Qin Chu Yue to look up.

Before Qin Chu Yue entered, she had conducted a comprehensive physical examination of Wei Lan. The page displayed on the screen was Wei Lan’s complete body data.

Apart from the injured parts, the numbers were exaggerated, surpassing Qin Chu Yue’s understanding of the body of a normal mech soldier.

She couldn’t help but sigh, “With such physical fitness, if he hadn’t been injured, he might have been able to see us.”

As the page scrolled and the second prompt appeared, she was taken aback, “This is…”

Ji Fu looked at the specially marked content on the screen and said in a deep voice, “This is the reason why the Si family wants to control him no matter what.”

On the large screen, there was a bold red line, which read:

[Talent level, super stellar]

The peak talent of ordinary people stops at the S level, while geniuses reach the stellar level.

Very few people know that beyond the stellar level, there is still the super stellar level.

Talents at the super stellar level have surpassed the realm that ordinary people can understand.

Throughout the interstellar era, there are probably only dozens of such individuals.

And according to Ji Fu’s knowledge, among the three major families currently, only the Si family’s young generation has not produced a single super stellar talent.

It was highly likely that it was Zhou Lu Hai from the Zhou family, and apart from Fang Yanli, there was someone from the Fang family.

Even in the recent collection of information, it seemed that there were also top talents appearing among the four juniors below.

Only the Si family remained.

Three years ago, the Si family suffered a heavy blow, losing a large number of stellar mechs, which had already put them at a disadvantage compared to the other two major families, the Zhou and Fang families.

If no one among the younger generation could stand out.

Then the Si family’s position would probably be replaced very soon.

But Ji Fu didn’t expect that the Si family had such a close relationship with the Li family, and they must have been involved in the extraction of talents.

But after so long, they still hadn’t raised a true super stellar talent.

To some extent, the Si family’s desperate measures were also because of the destruction of the Li family.

But ultimately, it was the Si family’s own fault.

Back then, no one in the Si family cared about Si Chen with his low talent, so they probably never imagined that Si Houyu, with his A-level talent, would produce a child with an upgraded talent.

At first, Wei Lan was indeed only F-, but as time went on, he began to display exceptional talent.

By the eve of the great battle three years ago, his talent had already reached the stellar level.

At that time, Ji Fu could also create stellar mechs using Yunfang’s technology, so the mech she tailored for him.

At that time, whether it was talent or mech, they were weaker than Fang Yanli’s.

The black mech she created using Yunfang’s technology was at most a stellar level, so in the final battle, they were completely defeated.

Unexpectedly, three years later, under the premise of not fully recovering from the injuries, Wei Lan’s talent had still advanced.

Qin Chu Yue coldly said, “No wonder even the stupid idea of implanting memory chips was considered.”

Indeed, the value that a super stellar talent brings to the Si family is immense.

At the very least, it can ensure the prosperity and wealth of the Si family for hundreds of years, and secure the position of the Si family among the three major families.

However, Ji Fu said, “Wei Lan’s talent advancement is related to the mech energy stone.”

This time, even in a dying state, Wei Lan was able to hold on for so long because he dismantled a mech energy stone.

Energy stones are extremely precious top-grade materials.

Currently, they can only be used as energy sources for mechs.

But the nature of human physiology is difficult to determine, and Wei Lan is naturally able to absorb energy stone materials.

“If we can find enough energy stones… then his recovery time should be able to be shortened by at least half.”

However, Qin Chu Yue suddenly realized, “I remember several star systems that produce energy stones are controlled by the Si family, right?”

“Yes,” Ji Fu said, her eyes deep.

The materials prepared for rescuing Wei Lan were not prepared in vain.

Even if the Si family tortured Wei Lan like this, even if they couldn’t completely destroy the other party now, she would make them pay the price.

After discussing, Ji Fu went to the experimental base on the asteroid, and she stayed until late at night before coming out of the base and heading to the medical compartment.

Just as she entered, before she had a chance to check Wei Lan’s condition, she received a call from Zhou Lu Hai.

Ji Fu opened the hologram and answered the call.

Zhou Lu Hai on the other side seemed to be sitting somewhere, with a rolling sea of grass behind him.

He chuckled, “The joint exam is about to start soon, where are you?”

The S-class group has been very lively these days, but Ji Fu has been silent.

Before Ji Fu could answer, Zhou Lu Hai raised his eyes and suddenly saw a hand appear in the field of view.

It was a very obvious man’s arm, and it looked like he wasn’t wearing clothes. It reached out from behind and directly wrapped around Ji Fu’s waist.