Chapter 084. Omen
Back then when Ling Yu was a soldier in the Vanguard Battalion, he had suffered countless injuries piloting his mech to launch an assault on the enemy. Being injured has long-since become commonplace for him. He had nearly thrown away his life on the battlefield, he was not the slightest bit worried over such a small injury today, but it was, however, a completely different story for Rosen—
Because this was the first time that Ling Yu was injured right in front of him.
In these past few years, even though he was very worried every time he found out that Ling Yu was injured, he has never felt so distressed that it put him on the verge of suffocation like at this moment.
The dense thorns are pierced through Ling Yu's feet, flesh and blood were indistinguishable, it was if Rosen's heart was pierced through with sharp needles like a pincushion.
Rosen lifted his head up and looked at Ling Yu, his deep and low voice was incomparably soft and tender, "Can you still move your feet?"
Ling Yu slightly moved his ankle and calmly assessed the condition of his injury: "I can move it, it shouldn't be serious. There's no fracture, just some flesh wounds."
Rosen was silent for a moment and said in a low voice," I'll bandage it for you. "
After he finished speaking the words from his mouth, he got up and looked around for the medicine box in the mech lounge. He walked in front of Ling Yu and crouched down, gently holding his foot with his left hand, picking up a pair of pliers in his right hand, and began to carefully pluck the thorns remaining in his flesh out.
The thorns were black in color and as sinister as rusty iron nails. Dozens of thorns are thickly dotted, numerously pierced into his flesh and skin, it looks like a ghastly sight, even more dreadful is the fine barbs protruding from those thorns.
Rosen's hand pauses for a moment and he hardened his heart and determinately pulled it out— a small sliver of flesh was ripped out in wake of the barbed tip being pulled out from his originally badly mangled ankle. Stains of blood instantly dyed the surface under his feet a bright red.
"......" Ling Yu's whole body abruptly trembled and he immediately bit down on his lower lip harshly in order to avoid breathing out in pain.
Rosen looked up at Ling Yu, asking with heartache: "Does it hurt a lot......?"
"......" Ling Yu took in a deep breath and said in a low voice, "I'm fine."
Rosen lightly put his hand down, lowering his head, he cautiously and solemnly takes out the barbs in Ling's Yu's feet for him.
Ling Yu's body was as stiff as a statue. Every time a thorn was taken out, the flesh hooked by the barbed tips made Ling Yu shake in pain. Even now, he is still the prideful Ling Yu, he rigidly bites down on his lips without saying a word.
He never said that it hurt, he only clenched his teeth and endured it, but Rosen nevertheless knew how much pain Ling Yu was in......
The thorns of this plant were thick and hard and the threatening barbs were settled extremely securely in the flesh. Every time he got hold of the barbs with the pliers and pulled them out, it was just as if he was tearing the flesh off with his own two hands......
That moment when the blood came pouring out, Rosen even felt his breathing grow rougher and harder......
Looking at the baldly mutilated flesh and blood on his ankle, the pain in Rosen's heart was nearly driving him insane, but he could only take in a deep breath to do his utmost to maintain a cool head and keep his hands from shaking as much as he possibly could.
More and more barbs piled up on the tray and the cotton dyed red from blood soon fell scattered on the ground......
He didn't know how long had passed when the last thorn was successfully pulled out, Rosen's back had long-since been soaked thoroughly with sweat, there was a layer of cold sweat that had also been exuding from the palms of his hands.
Rosen put as much gentleness as he could in setting it down and carefully disinfecting the wound for Ling Yu, he then attentively applied a layer of ointment to the wound, carefully bandaging both of his feet with gauze.
Rosen said in a hushed tone: "Black Dragon, test it and see whether this kind of thorn carries any toxins."
Black Dragon immediately conducted an examination and quickly reported the end results: "Master, I didn't find any harmful components.
Rosen only then relinquished his worries and raised his head to look up at Ling Yu.
Ling Yu's complexion was a bit pale, he had made deep teeth marks on his lower lip from biting down, and cold sweat unceasingly poured out in torrents on his forehead, it was clearly extremely painful...... Rosen quickly got up and poured a glass of water, sitting next to Ling Yu's body, he said softly, "Come, drink a bit of water first."
Ling Yu took the water from his hand and drank a mouthful, enduring the piercing pain sourcing from his ankle, he changed the topic in a feigned nonchalance, saying: "Oh, that's right, don't you think the plants that attacked me today seemed like they had their own consciousness?"
Rosen was also very puzzled by this, he turned his head around to look at Ling Yu and said: " Yes, I think so. This is also the first time I've seen plants that actively attack humans."
Ling Yu thoughtfully spoke: "In the legends, there is a man-eating plant that could use humans as its food. I think the same is true of the trees we met today. Logically speaking, since there is habitability for life and vegetation on this planet, there should be animals too, but there were no animals whatsoever in this forest. Could it be that because of the existence of those carnivorous trees that none of the other animals dare to venture into this forest?"
Rosen's line of thought just so happened to coincide with Ling Yu's, he nodded and said: "Indeed, there is a possibility. The trees in this forest are so densely grown that if these trees are really able to use flesh as food, animals would naturally not dare to approach."
Putting two and two together with the large amount of blood that came pouring out from the tree vine from when the tree vine was chopped off from just a moment ago, the two looked at each other face to face and immediately gave a mutual look of dismay.
Ling Yu faintly creased his brows and said: "If that's the case, we can't chance to enter that forest again. It looks like the biscuit reserves you have won't last two days...... What do we do now?"
Rosen said with a smile: "No need to worry, we still have Black Dragon. Those trees like eating meat, they shouldn't like eating metal, now should they?"
Being mentioned by name, Black Dragon's golden eyes softly flickered, it came forward and said calmly: "Correct, Master, they didn't seem to have any interest in using my metal body as food."
Rosen nodded, calmly saying: "Then I'll give you a mission. Go circle around the inside of the forest, scan a 3D panoramic view simulation map of this forest, record the details of those plants and then see if there is anything edible along the way."
Black Dragon compliantly said: "Understood."
Looking on as Black Dragon flew straight out of the cave, Ling Yu was suddenly left lost for words.
This mech's intelligence was no longer lost to mankind. It could even autonomously move about without its Master piloting it.
***
Ling Feng has been sleeping uneasily these past few days. The premonition of something bad happening to his younger brother along with the mental connection between twins being broken off have made his state of mind extremely disturbed. There was a theory that said twins affected one another and their lives are linked. If one died, the other would not live long either. Ling Feng did not know if this legend was true or not. All he knew was that he hadn't been able to sleep well all day long ever since the connection with his brother was cut off.
Waking up from a dream again in the middle of the night, Ling Feng sat up from the bed, fear covering his whole body from head to toe in cold sweat.
He dreamt of an extremely terrible scene— Ling Yu was carried away by a strange tree vine, those tree vines wildly danced like menacing tentacles. The barbs thickly dotting the vines stuck right into Ling Yu's body, brutally piercing his flesh bloody and raw.
Blood stains a vast stretch of the ground red, Ling Yu's entire body was tightly intertwined, wrapped up......
Until he was completely engulfed.
"No—!"
Ling Feng held his hand against his chest, violently gasping for breath. The scenes in the dream were too realistic, it was as if he had seen it with his own eyes and felt as if he experienced it himself. He always had the feeling that Ling Yu hadn't died yet and it was highly likely that he had gotten caught up in a formidable plight.
They are twins and regardless of the circumstances, as his big brother, he cannot abandon Ling Yu no matter what.
Ling Feng made a firm resolution in his mind and immediately got up and changed into a set of clothes, he frugally packed his luggage, and snuck out of his residence.
At this moment, Udir was in the General resting quarters, having a secret conversation with an old friend—
The man with a serious face in front of him was the neurosurgery specialist at the Imperial Central Hospital: Dr. Kent.
Previously, in order to perform a memory recovery operation for Udir, Dr. Kent hastily made a special trip from Cepheus to the Po Military Starfield. Udir handed two hair samples over to him for him to bring back and do a genetic identification. Him contacting Udir today was also precisely because the gene sequencing has already produced results.
Kent looked at Udir on the screen and said with a grave expression: "General, I sequenced the two hair samples you gave to me. According to the genetic sequence, they are not biological father and son, but they do have an extremely close phylogenetic relationship. Since the degree of genetic matching exceeds the expected value of ordinary closely related relatives, I suspect that the father of this child may have been one out of a pair of fraternal twins."
Udir lightly stroked his chin.
Twins, this was something he didn't foresee.
The first time he saw Lin Yuan, he thought that he looked very familiar right off the bat, so he asked Lin Yuan to come back on his own and question him whether he had seen the necklace. A few days ago, he saw Lin Yuan once more at Ling Feng's place. Udir felt utterly perplexed— Didn't Lin Yuan say he didn't recognize the name on the necklace? Why did he show up at Ling Feng's place a few days after the fact? What was this all about?
Under suspicion, Udir then secretly collected Lin Yuan and Ling Feng's hair for genetic identification, but the conclusion that was reached was like this— fraternal twins.
Ling Feng has a fraternal twin brother and Lin Yuan is the child of that person. Was the reason why Ling Feng was concealing his identity and changed his name to Sander related to his twin brother? The surname Ling is not commonly seen all that much......
—Suddenly, a formidable guess shot through his mind!
Udir pursed his eyebrows and immediately enabled the military's highest access privileges to initiate the secret database, he inputs a search keyword on the big screen before his eyes— Ling Yu.
Soon, a file with the highest access passcode slowly emerged from within the vast sea of information. When he went through his account with the authority of a General, he could open all the secret records of the three-star rank in the military department or higher. Udir stretched his finger out towards the screen and lightly tapped on a file. Sure enough, the file opened— there was a whole bunch of information inside the file, including a detailed written account of Ling Yu's life ever since attending the military academy, the whole process of the military's punishment of him, a large number of photos and imaging data, as well as blood samples and gene sequencing.
Udir's deep gaze slowly swept across the information within the file, and then he looked up: "Thanks, Kent. By the way, I'll trouble you to send the entire gene sequences from those two samples to me."
Kent nodded and said: "Okay. "
The gene sequences were sent over the wireless network and Udir soon received it on his side.
After ending the call with Kent, Udir then enquired into the gene sequences of the two people and called his S-Class mech out, "Silver Snow, compare these two gene sequences with the one in the database and give me the most accurate results as fast as possible. "
"Understood, Master.'' Silver Snow carefully analyzed the three gene sequences, and finally issued the analysis results on the screen.
"Specimen No. 1 and the database specimen are fraternal twins. Specimen No. 2 and the database specimen, the parent-child matching degree has attained 99.9%......"
Udir silently looked at the data in front of him.
This kind of result has gone way beyond his expectations. He had thought that Ling Feng and Ling Yu might have been related, after all, their names are too similar. But he never expected that Ling Feng and Ling Yu were actually a pair of twin brothers! Lin Yuan was actually Ling Yu's biological son— that is to say, Ling Yu didn't die back then?! He even gave birth to that child?
Udir, as a high-ranked general of the military, knew very well how much hatred a number of Legion commanders held for Ling Yu. Ling Yu, as an Omega, in violation of military regulations served in the army as an Omega. He even time and time again established meritious military service and led the Dark Night Legion to fight countless heavenly victories, it was practically just like a slap to those Alpha's faces. The name Ling Yu had even grown to be a cancerous tumor at the bottom of their hearts.
If they found out that Ling Yu hadn't died in those days, the consequences would certainly be inconceivable!
Udir logged out from the military's information network, picked up the white military cap set down next to his hand and put it on. He turned around and walked toward the room where Ling Feng resided without the slightest hesitation.
The moment Ling Feng stealthily slipped out from the door, he saw Udir standing right at the doorway, as if he had been waiting for a very long time.
Udir looked at Ling Feng with a deep gaze and said with a low voice: "Where are you going?"
Ling Feng hurriedly shifted his line of sight away and said: "I couldn't get to sleep, I'm going out for a walk."
Udir frowned, saying: "I just so happen to not be feeling well, come over give me an examination. "
As soon as he finished speaking, he turned around and walked straight over to the General lounging area. Ling Feng was worried about causing suspicions to arise from the others in the Legion. He was forced to go back into his room and pick up his medical kit. Putting on his white overcoat, he immediately caught up with Udir's footsteps.
The two walked in a single-file line back to Udir's room in silence. Udir opened the door and stood beside it, inviting Ling Feng to enter.
Right when Ling Feng entered the room, he heard the heavy sound of the door being locked behind him. That dull sound makes his eardrums lightly shake, a bit of uneasiness suddenly rises from the bottom of his heart. He turned his head around and said with a feigned calmness: "Udir, did you call me over for something?"
Udir looked at him quietly, then after a long while, said in a hushed voice: "Where are you going?"
The question he had just asked a moment ago had been asked once more, it gives one an imperceptible strange sense of oppression.
Ling Feng wordlessly turned his head away, not knowing how to respond.
Udir suddenly reached out and unexpectedly pulled Ling Feng into his embrace. As Ling Feng's cried out in surprise, he threw him directly onto the bed and subsequently pressed his body down, soon followed by an earth-shattering wild kiss.
"Wha...... Uh...... Udir...... Mmn......"
He was ruthlessly kissed by the man with scarlet-red eyes, Ling Feng wanted to resist but his hands were contained and fastened over his head. His clothes were also quickly peeled off and thrown to the ground without a care.
Udir turned Ling Feng's body over, nearly swallowing him whole with his overbearing kiss, trailing the kisses from the back of his neck all the way down his spine, kissing his lower back, and even pervertedly biting down several teeth marks on the tender flesh of his rear.
"Wha......" Ling Feng's whole body suddenly froze when he lightly touched a certain unspeakable place with his tongue. Covering his mouth with his hands, his eyes widened in shock, "No...... Udir...... Don't......"
Ling Feng's frantic struggle made Udir stop in his movements, Udir turned Ling Feng's body back over, staring at his glossy black eyes. After a long time went by, he said softly: "Ling Feng, I've loved you for more than twenty years and I've only just found out today that you have a younger twin brother......"
Ling Feng shot his eyes open wide and incredulously looked at him.
"I didn't have the ability to protect you back then, I let you and our son be driven to a tight spot by the Shaman Family...... Now, I have the ability to protect you, but you no longer trust me......" Udir looked at Ling Feng and said word by word: "You have many secrets that you don't wish to let me know about. You don't think that I could help you if you run into difficulties either. Ling Yu and Lin Yuan are some of the closest relatives to you...... As someone who loves you, I can't believe that I've only known of their existence today. If I didn't notice your abnormalities and stand guard at your doorway today, you probably would have snuck out and run away again, wouldn't you? "
Udir looked away and self-deprecatingly laughed at himself, "In your eyes, have I, Udir, always been such an untrustworthy person?"
Ling Feng: "......... "
Looking at the man's seldom seen expression of frustration exposed, Ling Feng abruptly felt his heart going a bit soft.
Udir loved him so deeply, yet he always hides things from him and never tells him anything. He knows that it's only expected for him to feel hurt like that after he found out.
How did he find out about Ling Yu's existence? Oh, that's right, the military has Ling Yu's genetic information. If he had any doubt, he just needs to do some genetic identification......
Ling Feng sat up in a complicated mood and gently hugged Udir with his bare body. He rested his head on his shoulder and spoke softly in his ear: "It's not that I don't trust you, I'm just afraid it would make things difficult for you after I say everything...... Ling Yu is my little brother, but to an awful lot of people in the military, he is a thorn on their side. As a high-ranked general of the military, if you knew that he hadn't died, what would you do?"
Udir was silent for a moment before he gently stroked the soft black hair of his spouse in his embrace, "Ling Yu was buried alive amongst the interstellar ruins nineteen years ago. Just continue to let them think so...... Rest assured, I won't tell a single soul about this."
Udir lifted Ling Feng 's lower jaw up and earnestly looked at him and said: "I love you. I am not just a General of the military, I am still your Alpha and Snow's father...... Don't keep everything all bottled up inside you. If you're in trouble, let me take a bit of the burden on for you, alright?"
Ling Feng tightly hugged Udir's waist and lightly nodded in his arms.
Only then did Udir loosen his expression, he gave a small smile and gently caressed Ling Feng's smooth back, saying softly: "Then you haven't been sleeping well these days because of Ling Yu?
Ling Feng nodded again.
Udir proceeded to say: "Rosen led the Glory Legion a few days ago to attack Naomi Star. He was piloting Black Dragon and was drawn into the Isville Cosmic Wormhole. I contacted Lieutenant General Victor of the Glory Legion today. They still haven't found Rosen's whereabouts. According to Lieutenant General Victor's account, at that time, it seems that another Black Dragon was also drawn into the wormhole, many people in the Legion thought they were seeing things— if I've guessed correctly, that would have been the replica body of Black Dragon, right? The one Ling Yu took back then as he escaped from Cepheus."
Ling Feng looked up in surprise: "Cosmic wormhole? You mean, Ling Yu, he was......"
Udir nodded, "He and Rosen were drawn into the cosmic wormhole together. I believe that if those had found each other in the wormhole, they should have a fairly high chance of surviving. Both Ling Yu and Rosen are the generals with the highest levels of mech piloting in the Empire. It's indeed a tall order for someone to deal with a wormhole alone, but if two S-Class level mechs act in concert, they could make use of the highest-level light energy cannon's large recoil and simultaneously breakthrough the wormhole."
Ling Feng fell into silence in a complicated frame of mind.
As his elder brother, Ling Feng knows for sure that his brother has never forgotten Rosen as the years went by. No matter what his feelings are, he went so far as to brave such a big risk for Rosen this time. He perhaps couldn't help but act at the critical moment.
Udir's interpretation made Ling Feng slightly more reassured. He always had the feeling that Ling Yu was not dead. Plus, if he was together with Rosen, the chances of those two surviving without mishap should be very great.
Seeing Ling Feng's complexion was a little pale, Udir lowered his head and placed a gentle kiss on his lips, saying: "Don't worry, the Hydra Legion has already been mobilized to provide assistance. Drew will find Rosen and Ling Yu."
Udir discards his military uniform, he draws himself towards Ling Feng and lies down on the bed, he softly pulls him into his embrace, "Set your mind to rest and go to sleep, don't let your imagination run rampant. Leave this matter to me. If there is any news, I will tell you immediately. "
Ling Feng was silent for a moment before finally closing his eyes and leaning into the strong chest of that man.
***
These past few days, Black Dragon has very diligently and responsibly acted as its two Master's "Little Food Scouting Expert".
The plants inside the forest will attack humans because they can use human flesh as food, but they have no interest whatsoever in the ultra-hard metal of the mech. At first, Black Dragon cautiously sounded out the tree vines, poking them, touching them, stepping on them......
Some of the trees were really annoyed by it. A few trees coordinated with each other to brandish their tree vines and tie it up. It's hands, feet, chest, and head were all tightly tied up and soon they were going to strangle this foreign life form. As a result, Black Dragon transformed and its body size was instantly halved in size. Those tree vines that were rolled up became empty all of a sudden, momentarily stupefied, the tree vines once again tightly tied up the shrunken Black Dragon. In the end, Black Dragon quite patiently continued to shrink down by half again.
Tree Vines: "........."
Black Dragon bullied those tree vines in the forest, it was enough to bully them. It ascertained that there was nothing they could do to a mech that could change its shape at any time, so it calmly waved its hand back and forth, in its mind thinking that it would no longer stick around to mess around with them. After that, it headed into the forest and found some wild mushrooms in the underbrush and some pretty strange-looking fruits.
When Black Dragon returned to the cave, Rosen was crouched down on the ground, holding a stone and patiently drawing something. Ling Yu was sitting on the bedside with gauze wrapped around his feet, his hand was resting under his chin, earnestly watching.
Rosen said in a quiet voice: "You mean, here?" Rosen pointed to a coordinate position on the Pavo star Atlus on the ground.
Ling Yu gave it some thought, saying: "Go one point further to the left, the distance from which to jump from there should be the shortest."
Rosen nodded, marking the location.
Black Dragon stood at the entrance of the cave and looked for a while. Its Master and Ling Yu were obviously right in the middle of looking into the air route of the space jump. The two of them were both completely absorbed into it. That feeling of mutual understanding with no gap between them was just like a pair of husband and wife who had been together for many years. The rays of light from outside were cast into the cave, making the perpetually ice-cold expression on Ling Yu's face appear to melt.
Pretending not to see it, Black Dragon walked calmly and collectively walked off to the side and placed the food it gathered today on the dining table.
Ling Yu noticed it and looked up to ask: "Black Dragon, your harvest today seems pretty good?"
Black Dragon said: "I found this wild fruit in the forest. I ran a test on it, the sugar and vitamin content is very high. There are no toxins and it's edible. I just don't know how it tastes. Masters, please try it and see."
Rosen smiled and stood up, saying: "You've worked hard."
He walked up to the table and picked up a few blue-green fruits, he peeled the skin back and took a bite. It tastes really sour. Fortunately, this kind of fruit has a lot of nutrients, their biscuits have already been eaten up, having anything at all to eat is pretty good. There is no rationale to be picky about the flavor.
Rosen picked a few and handed them over to Ling Yu. Ling Yu ate a couple. When he got tired, he laid down and rested.
The injuries on his feet were really serious, luckily for him, Rosen had treated it without delay at that time and he didn't get an infection. Rosen has helped him change the medicine on his wounds every day for the past few days and new skin has already begun to make strides growing there, feeling a bit itchy.
Ling Yu didn't mind and covered himself under the quilt, laying his body down sideways to go to sleep.
A scene that would make one's heart beat and face blush appeared in his dreams out of nowhere. He dreamed of many year years ago inside of that sealed prisoner cell, Rosen held him sitting on top of his body, repeatedly entering his body from top to bottom, his sensitive hole was stretched to the brim, the inside of his body was forcibly opened and the pleasure caused by the fierce friction between his hard length and the surrounding walls made his whole face go red in shame.
"Mmn......" Ling Yu couldn't help letting a moan slip out, his body suddenly became very warm as if his body was inside a steamer. His skin exuded a fine sweat and the strange feeling of emptiness in the depths of his body made him restlessly curl up into a ball.
A short while later, Rosen suddenly sat up from the bed.
A hint of Omega pheromones gradually began to spread in the air, and that sweet and rich scent could nearly drive someone insane!
In the darkness, Rosen's deep gaze was filled with extreme shock!
He incredulously turned his head around, looking at Ling Yu as he lay with his body curled up beside him, his breathing was erratic and he tightly clenched his hand into a fist.
He didn't realize until now that the estrus of this Omega beside him would be coming very soon.
(TN: It's slowly but surely creeping on. Sigh... My poor self has to translate it, hopefully I don't die in vain lmao~! Oh. And also Merry Christmas, at least it's still Christmas here. I got a new laptop, no more lagging! I'm off to play the video game I got, Devil May Cry 5!!! No clue what it's about but I guess I'll find out~)