Chapter 65: This World Is More Frightening Than You Think

Chapter 65: Chapter 65: This World Is More Frightening Than You Think

The blue cat bristled, springing onto its host’s head, its claws swinging into afterimages. Fortunately it was only a string of virtual data, so however hard it worked there wasn’t the slightest wound to show for it.

Liam laughed, letting it scratch away as it pleased. Nirvana scratched itself out, discovered there was no profit in it, then sat down in a huff with its backside turned to its host. Liam poked it lightly:

"Have you noticed you’ve been getting more human lately?" 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Nirvana went blank for a moment, then turned its head to look at its host, a long row of question marks running through its eyes. Liam explained patiently:

"Before, every time you meant to do anything, whether talking to me or losing your temper, the coded sequences had to run through once to analyze it. But lately you don’t even need to run the sequence, you can develop a temperament naturally all on your own."

The string of "?" in Nirvana’s eyes suddenly turned chaotic, apparently the sequence standing for "astonishment". Liam sprawled on the bed, the blue cat jumping onto his chest, one cat and one human looking at each other. The blue cat asked cautiously:

"Is that true, host? I can show emotion without running code?"

"Mm, that’s genuinely how it is." There was something complicated in Liam’s gaze as he looked at Nirvana: "You must have been very lonely before, mustn’t you? Producing emotions like a human’s, yet plodding along alone for thousands of years with nobody to talk to. If you were a person you would surely have gone mad."

The blue cat’s ears drooped slightly, its tail no longer flicking. It was feeling sad. Not from an installed sequence, this emotion had arisen from itself. Was it lonely?

It seemed it was.

In everyone’s eyes it was only an iron sphere, and in the system space it was only a string of feelingless data. Across more than three thousand years, through generation upon generation of hosts, nobody had ever asked whether it felt sad or lonely.

Nirvana felt its sequences producing yet another new emotion, the emotion of wanting to shed tears. It shook its head, treading proudly on its host’s chest:

"Systems like us fall into sleep automatically once the previous host’s lifespan ends. I don’t have any of that lonely sorrowful whatever!"

That said it vanished from reality with a pop, running off into the soul space. Liam tried to follow, finding that his soul space had suddenly grown a door, which no amount of pushing would open.

Liam: "..." This tsundere cat!

Knock knock!

A knocking came from outside the door, and when Liam opened it he found Elijah standing in front of his room clutching a pillow.

"Could I, could I sleep with you tonight?" Elijah mumbled, a streak of red appearing on his cheeks.

Liam didn’t refuse, opening the door wide then leaning aside to let him in. Elijah saw that Liam’s old things were still here, glancing at the open wardrobe door, seeing his clothes still untouched, unable to hold back the question:

"You didn’t take anything with you? If Mother found out she’d be very upset."

Liam shook his head: "If I took it all they’d only be more afraid. Leave it here so everyone can be easy that I’ll be coming back to use it."

Elijah made a small sound, then scrambled up onto the bed, burrowing into the far corner. Liam turned off most of the bright lamps, leaving only a pale orange night light. He climbed onto the bed, crawling under the blanket.

"Well? Is there something you want me to help with?" Liam asked, lying on his side toward Elijah.

Elijah gripped the edge of the blanket nervously, porcelain-white teeth biting at his lower lip. It was a while before he hesitantly asked:

"Is he... is he like you?"

Liam knew of course what Elijah was asking, shaking his head: "I don’t know. Not everyone is lucky enough to get a chance to live a second life the way I did. But we can hope."

Elijah buried half his face in the blanket, leaving only his eyes showing, the corners already damp: "I didn’t mean to... truly! I’d arranged people there, and once Liam’s pheromones spread out they’d knock him unconscious then set the scene to look convincing. I never expected..."

Liam looked at Elijah: "Elijah, there were at least three Alphas in that lounge."

Elijah’s eyes flew wide in shock: "That can’t be! There was only one female Alpha and one male Beta!"

Liam sighed: "You fool, you were tricked."

He opened the recording of the scene inside and outside the lounge. Mr. and Mrs. Hall and Alexander had certainly investigated, but the lounge footage from that time had been deleted by someone, so they had found nothing. But who was Leonardo? He was a genius hacker, and recovering a few manually deleted videos was as easy as drinking water to him.

Elijah stared at the video, and after seeing three Alphas walk into the room, say something to the two people he had arranged, the two of them leaving at once. A while after that, the original owner came to the lounge door. He noticed something, his expression changing abruptly, then turned to run for his life.

Elijah’s face went pale, his body shaking hard. Two of his fingers dug into the edge of the blanket hard enough to turn his knuckles white. Liam switched off the smart screen, stroking Elijah’s head:

"I know what sort of person you are. Childish, forever playing petty tricks to harm Liam, but the idea of drugging him to ruin his honor isn’t something you could have thought up. Liam wanted to warn you many times to be careful of Owen Coronado and that crowd you take for friends, but the two of you stood on opposite sides, so he never had the chance."

Liam propped himself up slightly, resting his head on his hand: "Owen Coronado may be our maternal cousin, but that’s in name only. Back in those days, the Dowager Empress took our mother as an adopted daughter chiefly because she wanted her as a future daughter-in-law."

"In those days, both His Majesty the Emperor and Prince Louis had feelings for our mother, but in the end she chose our father. The Queen is a generous woman, but Princess Consort Caroline, Uncle Louis’s wife, is not. From the time she was young she measured herself against Mother in every detail, pushing her into awkward positions more than once.

Fortunately our father is not a man easily manipulated either, and he was always able to protect Mother whatever the case. That business years ago when Mother was accused of stealing a subordinate’s research, Alexander knows it best, you can go and ask him.

With a mother like that behind him, how much sincerity do you think Owen has for cousins like us? And those who always trail along flattering Owen will certainly fall in behind him."

"Do you understand now why Liam was never close with them? Liam didn’t keep away from that crowd because they disliked him, quite the opposite, Owen and his friends were always looking for ways to get close to Liam without success. Liam was very sensitive to people’s feelings from a young age, and he could tell that crowd meant no good, which is why he never grew close to them."

"And not only Owen’s lot, everyone Liam refused to associate with had something wrong with them. So, Elijah, you need to go back through your friendships and sift them. The Hall family stands second among the ten great families of the Lumina galaxy, and there are no few enemies behind us waiting for us to fall into a pit. Once our family slips, the end of it is bones shattered and flesh torn!"

Elijah burrowed into Liam’s arms in fright, his whole body shaking. Before, he had lived with the Martinez family, and apart from what happened when he was small, his brother and sister had wrapped him up very carefully the rest of the time. After coming to the Capital planet, nobody had told Elijah who was good and who was bad either, nor had anyone taught him how to look at things deeply.

All he knew was how to play a few petty tricks to harm Liam, then try to fit himself into that circle of the upper class, naively thinking it was only the ordinary life he deserved.

Liam sighed, holding the Omega’s trembling body. When it came down to it, Elijah was only eighteen, raised far from the life of the nobility, with no understanding at all of the filthy schemes hidden deep beneath that glittering shell.

Liam asked Elijah gently:

"Alexander is a grade-A Alpha, so by rights he ought to enter the military to serve. Or at the least he would follow our father’s path or our mother’s, wouldn’t he? Yet he chose to be a merchant, so tell me, what’s the reason?"

Elijah gripped the front of Liam’s shirt, biting his lip in thought for a long while, finally offering his reading:

"It’s to avoid suspicion, isn’t it? If he stood at a height level with Father and Mother, then the Hall family would become a great threat to the royal house?"

Liam nodded in satisfaction: "Half right. The reason Father wanted our eldest brother far from the political circle is that he didn’t want the Hall family drawn into the fight over the royal house’s highest seat. The Halls have always served the royal house, their position high enough to decide who would be the next emperor."

"But by our grandfather’s generation, he had begun gradually pulling the Halls out of this lethal entanglement. Grandfather died before he could finish it, and the world was told it was illness, but in truth it was assassination. Grandfather was gravely wounded, held on for two months then let go, after which our father took up his dying wish. You could say what happened to us in those days helped push Father’s plan along faster."

"You see, if we hadn’t pulled out of that tangle in time, then what happened to the former Crown Prince, we wouldn’t have escaped being implicated. If we weren’t dragged down from our position we’d certainly have had a layer of skin peeled off."

Elijah buried his head against Liam’s chest, saying quietly: "He knew all that the whole time, didn’t he? That’s why he could stand on his own so early. He could find his own information channel, earn his own money, then plan his own life out so tightly. Compared with him I’m far more useless. Liam..." Elijah lifted his head to look at Liam: "Am I really that stupid?"

Liam shook his head: "You’re not. Before, you’d never been near any of this nonsense. And now, the whole family loves you, they want you to live as carefree as any other Omega."

Elijah pouted, the tears already falling: "Liam, the Capital is so frightening, can I go back to Cygnus with you all?"

Liam laughed: "Giving up before you’ve even started? Elijah, in truth from the moment you set foot in this Solaris star system, the course of your life had already changed. Instead of choosing to run, you should learn to face it. Because you’re already in somebody’s sights, you can’t run free of it."