Chapter 86

Chapter 86

Honestly, when Lu Wei first encountered and began to understand this world, he had no sense of reality at all.

The Zerg genes, the insectoid transformation of the female caste, the complete lack of women, burly men giving birth... these inconceivable things seemed like sheer nonsense to Lu Wei.

But the conveniences brought by the advanced technology here, along with many creative products, a dazzling array of games and delicious food, were all things he really liked.

For Lu Wei, this world was like a dream—both absurd and beautiful.

With this mindset, coupled with the exhaustion from his previous world, he just wanted to treat this place like a vacation, never once thinking to take the initiative and do anything for this world.

Of course, when his back was against the wall, he would still make some effort, however passive, like that time he commanded the Alliance fleet to successfully escape the Imperial fleet's encirclement.

But once the crisis passed, he would revert to his old self, dead set against taking on any responsibility.

However, the baby that shared his blood and An Xin's death drove home the realization that this world was no beautiful, illusory dream.

That golden badge was the same one An Xin had used before to jog his memory, hidden inside a jewelry box and given to him as a gift. Fearing exposure, he had kept it in a hidden pocket of his clothes.

Only after he was drugged unconscious did it inexplicably go missing.

Since it wasn't important, he hadn't given it another thought.

Turns out, it wasn't lost; An Xin had taken it back.

With An Xin's intelligence, how could he not know that this execution would be broadcast across the entire star network? How could he not guess that Lu Wei might come to bid him a final farewell?

An Xin's actions before his death were clearly a performance for Lu Wei's benefit.

Just like the Six Gentlemen of the Hundred Days' Reform, who intended to awaken their countrymen with their blood.

An Xin was the same, using the last of his strength to hold that golden badge high, which had once been used to awaken Lu Wei's memories. The meaning behind it was self-evident.

Although Lu Wei liked An Xin, he didn't make this decision out of pity, sorrow, or grief.

He was shaken to his core.

In this absurd yet beautiful world, there were people who gave their lives for their cause, unwavering right up to the very end.

Lu Wei could be reborn again and again until his energy was depleted... but they only had one life to live.

This world was neither absurd nor illusory.

An Xin was real, everyone was real, each with their own beliefs, stances, lives, and emotions.

And the baby placed in his arms made Lu Wei realize that, even for the sake of this child's future, he couldn't keep running from his responsibilities.

He'd always had a soft spot for kids, let alone his own flesh and blood.

"Yes, begin the repair."

After receiving Lu Wei's command, the system replied in an emotionless, mechanical voice.

"Repair complete. Will you begin memory reception, Host?" Five minutes later, the system spoke again.

"Receive."

Lu Wei leaned back in the armchair and closed his eyes.

Immediately, all of the original host's memories came flooding into Lu Wei's mind.

Over two thousand years ago, the Empire and the Alliance were originally a single entity, with a territory much larger than it is now. Centered on the "Bloodline Inheritance Nest," humanity occupied more than 200 star systems and was constantly expanding outward.

The "Bloodline Inheritance Nest" was a large planet inhabited by approximately 30 billion people, and every person living there could become a "Nest Warrior."

For every human-inhabited planet, depending on its size and population, the required number of "Nest Warriors" ranged from 3,000 to 40,000. The "Bloodline Inheritance Nest" could fully support the bloodline purification for over five thousand star systems.

Where the Bloodline Inheritance Nest existed, the Zerg's ability to devour the galaxy and reproduce was no empty boast.

However, as the territory expanded, conflicts of interest arose. Coupled with the fact that the Emperor of Chao at the time failed to handle certain matters properly, it bred dissatisfaction and desire among the powerful.

They believed that the Church did not engage in production and had no combat capability of its own, yet it received the best resources from all star systems and held supreme power over life and death. Therefore, the Church should be abolished, and power should be returned to the truly powerful who expanded territories and contributed to the world.

Led by the founding emperor of the Qingtian Dynasty, these people secretly organized armies and launched attacks against the Church and its defenders.

It was a long and brutal conflict, a clash of interests and a battle of beliefs and ideals, with neither side willing to yield.

In the end, after the population sharply declined and contracted, with only 65 of the original over 200 star systems from the peak period still inhabited by humans, the outcome remained undecided.

At this point, both sides knew they could not continue fighting.

Thus, the 65 star systems were divided—37 to the Empire and 28 to the Alliance. Both sides ceased hostilities and faced off against each other, forming the interstellar landscape of that time.

The Empire was originally composed of the powerful who intended to overthrow the Church, so they had always been stronger, which was also the basis of their confidence in rebelling.

But without the support of the Bloodline Inheritance Nest, the Empire's drawbacks gradually became apparent.

As time passed, bloodlines diluted, and the birth ratio between male and female castes became increasingly disproportionate. Consequently, the Empire had to introduce and implement the "Shared Husband" and "Breeding Center" systems. By sacrificing the lives of a minority of male caste individuals, they could appease most of the agitated female caste to continue social activities and ensure the Empire's population base would not collapse.

Because of this, over the past two thousand years, the Empire's territory had not expanded significantly and still maintained its structure of 37 star systems.

Although the Alliance had the support of the Church and did not face bloodline purification issues, its power had always been weaker, making it difficult to develop under the Empire's suppression.

In this world, Lu Wei was born in the "Bloodline Inheritance Nest."

As one of the Emperor of Chao's only two children, his identity was extraordinary from birth. Wherever he went, he was like the moon surrounded by stars—proud in temperament and ambitious.

Before becoming the Lord of the Confounding Star, Lu Wei had vowed to eliminate the Empire and achieve the unification of the Empire and the Alliance within his own hands.

Of course, due to his exceptional intelligence and the elite education he received from childhood, Lu Wei's excellence matched that pride and ambition.

Because his appearance was excessively gorgeous, after taking charge of a star system and becoming the Lord of the Confounding Star, Lu Wei felt that his looks undermined his authority as a leader. He also feared that he would not gain public trust and would be mocked and looked down upon by enemies on the battlefield. Therefore, he wore a blue cloak and a mask in public and on the battlefield.

After all, it wasn't a problem for a leader to be handsome or beautiful, but looking like a seductive enchantress was clearly a major issue.

When Lu Wei was twenty-three years old, on Zichen Star, in the Star Lord's Mansion, he encountered the calamity of his life.

It was an ordinary female caste individual, said to be from a remote, impoverished planet, with a slender build and an unremarkable appearance.

The female caste individual was named Liang Shi and was only a low-ranking servant in the Star Lord's Mansion.

Liang Shi was the same age as Lu Wei, doing odd jobs in the Star Lord's Mansion. He lived a relatively shabby life, was quite inconspicuous, and not highly regarded.

But several chance encounters allowed Lu Wei to discover that Liang Shi was a meticulous person. Despite his humble and poor status, he could arrange everything around him in an orderly manner, handling matters both above and below appropriately, with his own way of survival.

Though in a low position, he possessed a cool, aloof temperament—neither fawning nor servile, neither humble nor arrogant. Lu Wei had never seen a female caste like him before and thus became interested in him.

Moreover, although Liang Shi had a plain appearance, he had a pair of melancholy, glass-gray eyes that Lu Wei found utterly captivating.

Given Liang Shi's status, he had never seen the true face of the Lord of the Confounding Star. So Lu Wei removed his mask, concealed his identity, and approached Liang Shi with a teasing intent.

Lu Wei was well aware of the devastating allure of his appearance; with just a little effort on his part, no female could resist being utterly captivated by him.

He had no intention of actually marrying Liang Shi and staying together; he just wanted to see what Liang Shi would become after falling in love with someone.

At the same time, he also wanted to see if, after he abandoned Liang Shi, that layer of cold barrier around Liang Shi would be broken, and if he would still maintain that aloof demeanor.

After all, Lu Wei was still very young at that time, having just assumed great power. Having been pampered and worshipped since childhood, his personality also contained a touch of naive cruelty.

Liang Shi indeed quickly fell in love with Lu Wei and became utterly infatuated with him.

And Lu Wei, instead of abandoning Liang Shi as originally planned, became increasingly obsessed.

Although Liang Shi didn't have much money and couldn't buy expensive gifts for Lu Wei, he won over Lu Wei's stomach with cooking even better than the head chef of the Star Lord's mansion.

In bed, both were virgins, with Liang Shi being even more reserved.

Lu Wei loved Liang Shi's youthful body and reactions, loved seeing those glass-gray eyes forced by him to become teary and breathless with passion.

Even though Liang Shi would take contraceptives afterward, and Lu Wei thought about how he couldn't give him a formal status now, he didn't mind.

After all, they had all the time in the world; there would always be opportunities.

The public knew nothing about the Lord of the Confounding Star's age, name, or appearance.

Seeing Lu Wei so young and possessing such a captivatingly beautiful face, Liang Shi believed Lu Wei's words, truly thinking he was a distant relative of the Lord of the Confounding Star, currently staying at the Star Lord's mansion.

And the people around Lu Wei would only cover for his lies.

So much so that later, when Lu Wei felt sorry for Liang Shi and wanted him to earn some merit to facilitate a future marriage, promoting him step by step from a lowly servant to work by his side, Liang Shi never once thought that the masked Lord of the Confounding Star and his dear Lu Wei were the same person.

Thus, three years passed in this manner.

As mentioned before, Lu Wei was an ambitious person.

Although he loved Liang Shi, he would not indulge in romance and slow his pace.

In three years, he personally led troops into battle against the Empire several times, never suffering a defeat, and completely conquered one of the Empire's star systems, incorporating it into his territory and forming the current configuration of 36 star systems for the Empire and 29 for the Alliance.

This was a great victory the Alliance had not seen in over two thousand years, and the Lord of the Confounding Star's personal prestige consequently reached its peak within the Alliance.

For Lu Wei, this was merely a beginning; naturally, he would not stop here. Instead, he struck while the iron was hot, gathering the forces of twenty Alliance star systems to launch a full-scale attack on the Empire, intending to reclaim even more territory.

But halfway through the fleet's massive journey towards the Empire, Liang Shi, who had always been by Lu Wei's side, disappeared.

Then, they were heavily surrounded by well-prepared Imperial warships.

When Lu Wei first approached Liang Shi, he had thought about abandoning him.

He never expected that in the end, he would be the one abandoned by Liang Shi.

Liang Shi was an Imperial spy. He had leaked Lu Wei's entire planned operation to the Empire.

Currently, Lu Wei had practically mobilized the entire strength of the Alliance for this total assault. If they were defeated, the Alliance would surely be unable to recover, losing all possibility of confronting the Empire. He, Lu Wei, would become an eternal sinner of the Bloodline Nest and the entire Alliance.

Betrayed by Liang Shi, Lu Wei deeply hated himself for loving and trusting the wrong person.

Facing such a desperate situation, he could only choose to lead a small fleet to cover the retreat, allowing the main force to escape back to Alliance territory to preserve their strength.

He was proud and unbending by nature, and in the prime of his youth and pride, he simply could not endure this sudden, major defeat in his life.

Whether in love or on the battlefield, he had lost like a stray dog.

So Lu Wei chose to personally cover the retreat, not only for tactical reasons but also because he had no intention of continuing to live.

His flagship fought to the last moment, finally buying enough time for the main force to escape to safety.

And although Lu Wei was severely wounded, he did not die in battle as he wished. Instead, he was captured by the Empire.

When he was surrounded by a group of heavily armed Imperial soldiers, forced to kneel on the ground with his hands bound behind his back, someone stepped forward and removed the mask from his face, then revealed a look of awe.

Who would have thought the Lord of the Confounding Star would be such an incomparably beautiful male?

As an important war criminal, Lu Wei was taken to the underground black prison of the military department on the Imperial Capital Star, where he endured six months of relentless interrogation and torture that made him wish for death rather than life.

All kinds of painful yet non-lethal tortures, Lu Wei experienced them multiple times; they also tried injecting various hallucinogens into Lu Wei's body and forcing him to take different truth serums. But as the son of the Hive Emperor, Lu Wei possessed exceptionally strong mental power and willpower, far beyond ordinary people, so in the end, they extracted no intelligence about the Alliance from him.

Of course, as a rare pure-blooded male, Lu Wei's body was also exploited at the same time.

Three times a day, they extracted pheromones from Lu Wei's body on schedule.

Even males who had their pheromones extracted once a month would gradually deteriorate physically because of it, let alone such frequent extraction.

When Lu Wei wanted to starve himself or bite his tongue to commit suicide, they gagged him, injected nutrient solutions mixed with aphrodisiacs into his body, then tied him up and abused him at will.

Over half a year, there was no way of knowing how many people from the military department had used Lu Wei for breeding purposes, or simply slept with him because they wanted to.

The Empire's attitude towards males had always been to make the most of everything. They wouldn't even make exceptions for their own citizens, let alone a war criminal like Lu Wei from an enemy nation.

Half a year later, when Lu Wei's body was on the verge of complete collapse due to various tortures and frequent pheromone extraction, Mu Fenggui, wearing the silver-trimmed uniform of an Imperial general, stepped into the black prison and appeared before Lu Wei.

With reddened eyes, he embraced Lu Wei, who was bound to the torture rack, and murmured, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Then he removed the gag from Lu Wei's mouth and forced a smile towards him: "I am Liang Shi, Lu Wei. From now on, we..."

Lu Wei looked coldly at Mu Fenggui, bit the tip of his tongue, and with a "pfft," spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto his face.

Lu Wei certainly knew Mu Fenggui—the enemy nation's Seventh Prince.

Although the Emperor of Qingtian had over thirty children, Mu Fenggui was not very prominent among them, holding no official position and rarely appearing in public.

He never expected that Mu Fenggui would actually ingest a shape-shifting agent and, as an Imperial mole, had been planted by his side for three years.

Mu Fenggui wiped the bloody saliva from his face with the back of his hand, took two steps back, and gave Lu Wei a pained smile with red eyes: "Lu Wei, I am the one who wronged you... You can hate me, but we will be happy from now on."

After saying this, he waved his hand behind him. Several doctors in white robes, carrying various instruments, walked towards Lu Wei.

After injecting Lu Wei with an anesthetic, the doctors began shaving his head.

Halfway through shaving his hair, Lu Wei's entire body became completely numb.

But he knew the doctors were about to saw open his skull and excise the brain tissue in his memory region.

...

The memories of the original body ended here.

Yet that intense, resentful emotion still surged and churned within Lu Wei's chest, refusing to subside.

Lu Wei pressed a hand to his chest with a bitter smile.

Sure enough, after receiving those memories, there was no turning back.

"031, what's the mission for this world?" Lu Wei asked.

"Unite the Empire and the Alliance," the system replied tersely.

Lu Wei closed his eyes.

The mission was—as always—far from simple... but now that the Emperor of Qingtian was dead, there should be a great opportunity.

Tomorrow, he'd call Lu Zhi and the others together to discuss it.

Author's Note: Something terrifying happened last night.

I had half a bag of sunflower seeds on my computer desk. In the middle of the night, I suddenly heard the plastic bag rustling. When I got up to look, a fat black mouse jumped down from my desk~~~

Yikes, just thinking about it makes my skin crawl~~~