Chapter 102: Eldest Uncle’s First Great Shock in Life

Chapter 102: Chapter 102: Eldest Uncle’s First Great Shock in Life

Julian had barely left Sirius for less than two days when the eco-tourism planet welcomed another unannounced guest.

This time it was the eldest maternal uncle of the Vance family, Theodore Vance.

Theodore completed escorting the hibernation pod of that person to transfer to the top-secret underground base station outside the belt and handed it over to the incoming medical team, then immediately requested five days of leave. Throughout the past several months, ever since the call cut short by that heart-wrenching weeping that day, even though Lincoln had sent a message reporting that the nephews, the niece were all safe and even prospering greatly, Theodore’s heart still felt as though it were burning with fire.

He was the eldest brother in the house; back then when his father was still alive, his father had strictly ordered a ban on his children contacting the Martinez family after that uproar. Because Theodore shouldered the top-secret military medical responsibilities of the Royal Family, remaining far away beyond the frontier all year round, he had left his younger brothers to handle family matters on their own.

The paternal Martinez family had robbed the three children’s property clean, yet the three children had never once opened their mouths to ask the maternal family for help, so Theodore did not know what to do to make things right.

His guilt toward his nephews, his niece caused this man over fifty years old, who always maintained a stern expression on the battlefield, to toss, turn restlessly.

Theodore’s spaceship had already had its identity information updated into the family member system by Liam beforehand, so it smoothly flew straight into the internal dedicated spaceship parking pad without encountering any hindrance whatsoever.

When he stepped off the electric vehicle in front of the door of the central villa, Benjamin and Isabella were out in the yard drying flat baskets of dried bamboo shoots under the morning sun.

"Eldest Uncle?!"

Benjamin dropped the bamboo flat basket right out of his hands, while Isabella covered her mouth in stun. In the memories of the two siblings, Eldest Uncle Theodore was always a military medical general wearing a white blouse over his military uniform, his face always so stern that children would fall dead silent without daring to cry upon seeing him.

However, the man standing in front of them at this moment wore a simple set of casual clothes, his chestnut-brown hair already streaked with no few silver threads at both temples, the corners of his eyes etched deep with lines of exhaustion after a long string of sleepless days at the research station.

"Benjamin, Isabella..." Theodore’s voice grew hoarse. He strode quickly forward, spreading both arms wide to pull his nephew, his niece, who had already grown tall, mature, into his embrace, his rough hand patting hard on Benjamin’s back: "You have both grown up... Being healthy is good. Over these past years, the two of you have suffered a great deal."

With only that brief sentence, all the grievances and resilient endurance Benjamin, Isabella had shouldered throughout the past nine years seemed to find a pillar of support. The two siblings hugged their eldest maternal uncle, their eye rims turning bright red.

Right when the atmosphere of the reunion was exceedingly moving, the wooden door of the villa opened.

"Brother, Sister, have the two of you seen where my small watering can was left..."

Liam walked while bowing his head to look at his round belly that had entered the end of the fifth month, one hand braced against his hip as he stepped out onto the porch steps. When he raised his head to see that out in the yard there was another tall, broad middle-aged man standing hugging his older siblings, the question on his lips was immediately swallowed back down inside.

Theodore simultaneously raised his head to look toward the porch steps as well.

The moment their four eyes met, Theodore’s entire body shook violently. If Lincoln and Julian only saw Liam resembling their late mother through old photographs, then Theodore, the eldest brother who had personally carried and cared for his Omega younger brother Asher since birth, felt as though he were seeing Asher step across time out of the past.

"Asher..." Theodore unconsciously murmured, his footsteps staggering as he advanced toward the porch steps.

"Eldest Uncle, this is Liam, our biological youngest brother!" Isabella wiped her tears while smiling to introduce him.

Theodore’s gaze slowly slid downward from Liam’s delicate, gentle face... then stopped at the belly protruding distinctly beneath the loose, baggy wool sweater.

The air out in the yard suddenly froze solid.

A massive crack appeared across the stern face of the top military doctor of the Empire. He blinked twice, then rubbed his eyes once, his stammering voice losing its pitch completely:

"Belly... what is with this belly?! Lincoln told me the boy is only eighteen years old?!"

Lincoln had spoken of everything under the sun, yet had clean forgotten the matter of their newly found youngest nephew being pregnant. Or perhaps because Lincoln had left in too much of a rush that day to ask thoroughly, leaving the information incomplete, he had felt that not telling his eldest brother would not affect anything either. Benjamin and Isabella felt guilty in unison, glancing at each other before simultaneously coughing dryly, looking up at the sky to admire the clouds.

Liam was already far too used to this reaction from everyone. He calmly stepped down the porch steps, politely bowing in greeting to his eldest maternal uncle before smiling as he patted lightly on his own belly:

"Hello, Eldest Uncle. To be exact, this year I have just turned nineteen, while the little one inside my belly is over five months along now."

Theodore drew in a breath of cold air; the occupational habit of a doctor combined with the hot blood of a family elder immediately surged to the top of his head. He hurriedly stepped forward to support Liam’s arm, firing off questions in rapid succession: "When did you get married? Why did Lincoln not say anything to me? Where is your husband?! You were only eighteen years old, your gland has not even fully matured yet, how could he let you get pregnant this early?!"

Benjamin’s complexion immediately turned as black as the bottom of a pot, his teeth gritting as he said: "There has been no wedding whatsoever. Who knows what corner that bastard died in; if I find him, I will chop him up to make fertilizer for the fields!"

Liam also nodded along to echo Benjamin: "Yes, the baby’s Daddy met with an unexpected accident so he has ’passed on’ already. However, you can rest assured, I can prepare pheromone-stabilizing food myself; the two of us, father, child, are very healthy."

Theodore felt his head spin upon hearing that. His youngest maternal nephew had barely been found without even having time to recognize the relatives, yet at merely eighteen years old the boy was already pregnant out of wedlock, even having become a widower outright?!

Theodore ached boundlessly for his nephew; throughout his five days of leave on Sirius, he completely transformed into a full-time male nanny. He even pushed Auntie Camila aside, personally holding a medical scanner to check Liam’s readings three times every day; from the dietary menu down to every single footstep of Liam’s, everything was strictly supervised by Theodore.

Before Theodore left Sirius to return to the top-secret base, he even carefully took a small tube of blood and an epidermal sample for fetal gene analysis from Liam to bring along, instructing over and over:

"In here there is a lack of specialized analytical equipment. Let me bring the samples back to my laboratory to scan the genetic map to see if the little one is at risk of any latent genetic defects due to lacking its Daddy’s pheromones, then I will draw up the best prenatal care regimen to send back to you."

Liam was moved by the devotion of his eldest maternal uncle, obediently waving his hand to see Theodore off onto the spaceship.

Five days later, at the underground base outside the meteor belt.

Theodore had barely stepped off the spaceship when he walked straight into the medical command room. Thanks to the solution extracted from Grass Worms via ultrasonic waves secretly delivered by the Mason family last month, the collapsing condition of the mental sea of Crown Prince Noah had stopped worsening, while the cracks inside the hibernation pod had stabilized as well.

The secretary wearing glasses saw Theodore return, hurriedly carrying a dossier stamped with an SS-grade top-secret seal along with the old smart watch whose data had been completely recovered to place on the desk:

"Mr. Vance, the technical department on the inner lines has just sent back the data recovered from your old watch chip. In addition, after more than five months of tracing, the hidden guards of Mr. Mason and our people have finally finished compiling the detailed report on the identity of the Omega who stayed with His Highness at the Royal City Hotel on the night of August 23rd."

Theodore took off his outer coat while reaching out a hand to open the automatic gene analyzer in the corner of the room, placing Liam’s sample tube into the scanning tray, his mouth speaking nonchalantly:

"Found them already? Very good. Previously Mr. Mason kept beating around the bush endlessly, refusing to send the detailed file over to me. Let me see which family’s young lady or young master the Omega who saved His Highness’s life that night is, so that later when His Highness wakes up, he will know the way to go straight to their door to take responsibility."

He picked up a cup of warm water to drink a large mouthful, his other hand flipping open the top-secret dossier on the desk.

The first page of the dossier came into view.

What met Theodore’s eyes was a sharp portrait photograph of a youth with soft chestnut-brown hair, crystal-clear eyes, along with a gentle, kind smile so familiar it could not possibly be any more familiar.

Right beneath the photograph were lines of information printed in bold:

[Full name: Liam Hall (Currently changed to Liam Martinez)]

[Background: Biological youngest son of the late young master Asher Vance and Joseph Martinez. Accidentally switched at birth with the third young master of the Hall family.]

[Special note: On the night of 23/08 in the 3rd-floor VIP room of the Royal City Hotel, due to being drugged with a stimulant, the subject engaged in unexpected physical relations and was temporarily marked by Crown Prince Noah Coronado. Currently residing on planet Sirius, Polaris star system.]

At that exact same moment, the gene analyzer in the corner of the room rang out with a crisp "Ting!". The computer screen automatically cross-referenced the fetal gene sample from inside Liam’s belly against the original genetic database of the sole patient currently stored in the research station.

[Analysis in progress... Direct bloodline compatibility detected: 99.99% with Specimen No. 01, Noah Coronado!]

"Pfft!!!"

The mouthful of warm water in Theodore’s mouth sprayed straight out across the desktop. The glass cup in his hand slipped from his fingers, dropping with a thud onto the carpeted floor before rolling away.

The secretary jumped in fright, hurriedly pulling out tissues as he ran over: "Mr. Vance! Are you alright?!"

Theodore did not hear the secretary’s voice at all. His entire body turned to stone on the spot, his two eyes widening as he stared fixedly at the photograph of his obedient, gentle maternal nephew on the dossier, before turning to look at the line of text "Bloodline compatibility 99.99%, Noah Coronado" flashing blazing red on the analyzer screen, finally turning his head to look through the thick layer of meteorite glass toward the hibernation pod in the room next door.

Inside the hibernation pod, the noble Crown Prince of the Empire still had his eyes shut tight in a deep sleep, both hands placed neatly across his chest, looking exceedingly "gentle" and "innocent".

Theodore’s hands began to tremble.

The bastard who had eaten his maternal nephew clean before dusting off his backside to run away...

The bastard who had caused his nephew at merely eighteen years old to have to carry a pregnant belly alone, getting slapped into the hospital by family members, suffering from a psychophysiological disorder to the point of crying until his eyes were swollen...

The bastard whom Benjamin had sworn to chop up into fertilizer for the fields, while Theodore himself just a few days ago had also beaten his chest promising Liam that if he caught that bastard alive, he would personally castrate the man...

Turned out to be the exact same guy for whom he had been staying up night after night, getting beaten black, blue all over his body to save his life throughout the past five months?!

"Damn it..."

For the first time in his life of over fifty years maintaining the refined, exemplary image of an aristocratic gentleman, military doctor Theodore Vance stared fixedly at the hibernation pod of the Crown Prince of the Empire, gritting his teeth to spit out a curse word.