Chapter 54: Plush Keychain

Today was the day the military academy went on break.

To celebrate the Hoffmann royal family founding the empire a thousand years ago, the entire capital planet took time off during the anniversary period—and the military academy was no exception.

Xi Heyan packed up everything in the dorm, refused Zhuo Haoyu’s invitation, and left the school with nothing but a backpack.

As soon as he stepped out of the campus gates, the streets were overflowing with festivity.

On a giant electronic screen, a female host with golden, wavy curls smiled as she read the day’s news.

“This morning, the royal family issued their anniversary greetings as a group. And in a pleasant surprise, His Majesty Bernard has clearly stated he will attend this year’s celebration ceremony...”

“Great Hoffmann! Great His Majesty Bernard!”

Under a wall, a line of street performers—faces thick with makeup and dressed in flashy outfits—shouted in unison.

Nearby, a few young people passed by, laughing as they talked about where to go for the holiday.

“Let’s go to Haiwei Star. It’s the best for vacation—sun, beaches, and there’s even mermaid shows. Don’t you want to see mermaids at least once?”

“Wait, what? It’s the anniversary—aren’t we staying to watch the ceremony?”

“Ugh... watching the ceremony is so lame.”

“But His Majesty Bernard will be there this year. Ever since the empress passed away, His Majesty hasn’t shown up in public for a long time.”

“Still sounds boring...”

All those street-corner scenes wove together like the opening montage of a movie about to begin. Xi Heyan walked past without slowing at all—only when he heard the words “the empress” did his figure pause, just slightly.

But he didn’t turn back. He didn’t stop. He just shifted his backpack and slipped into the station, avoiding the flow of people.

The place he was going was a bit far. Xi Heyan transferred several times along the way. Only when the car had emptied out did he get off at the very last stop.

And what awaited him there was a world completely different from the lively streets he’d just left.

Crowded houses. Narrow streets. Mountains of stinking garbage piled high to one side. Even the river pressed up against them had been polluted black.

Facing that kind of environment, Xi Heyan didn’t so much as wrinkle his brow.

The deeper he went, the tighter the roads became, and the more broken-down the buildings looked.

If you hadn’t seen it with your own eyes, it would be hard to believe a filthy, chaotic place like this could exist inside the glittering, glamorous capital planet.

But it did—solidly, undeniably.

A place like this... even someone like Zhuo Haoyu, who claimed to be a commoner, probably had never been here.

While the wealthy, prosperous capital planet drew countless people’s longing, it also cruelly carved everyone into levels.

Zhuo Haoyu’s family background only counted as “lower-tier” within the military academy. But beneath the lower-tier, there was an even more despised layer—

“trash-class.”

They were people from other, remote planets. They came to the capital planet to make a living, but were always pushed out and excluded, forced to huddle in fringe corners. The places they lived were jokingly called “the garbage station.”

Because in the eyes of capital-planet residents, people from remote planets were garbage, too.

It was already close to dark, but there wasn’t a single streetlight. The outlines of the buildings blurred in the dimness, turning into looming black shadows.

Xi Heyan walked into a place that looked like a bar.

Someone handed him a card. Using it, he opened a hidden passage deep inside the bar.

It was a staircase leading underground.

He didn’t know how long he walked. Then his view suddenly opened up.

Under dim lights, heavy metal music was loud enough to rattle the eardrums. What came into view were tangled, interlocking streets—so many twisting turns that a first-timer might get dizzy just looking.

But Xi Heyan seemed extremely familiar with this place.

“Hey, wanna grab a drink?”

“Fresh stock just came in—don’t you want to take a look?”

Shouts and hawking calls hit his ears from all sides. If you ignored the surroundings, it looked like a massive underground market.

Only here, what could be sold came in every variety, outside the law. All kinds of contraband that was banned on the surface was everywhere.

Sometimes, staying out of sight was the best camouflage of all. The capital planet’s largest black market had been built right beneath the garbage station.

But Xi Heyan hadn’t come to buy illegal goods.

He’d come to make money.

Inside a rundown hall, countless electronic screens played one bounty after another—assassinating some noble, taking revenge on an enemy, stealing rare valuables, and all sorts of others.

As long as the price was right, any kind of job could be posted.

And there were plenty of desperate people here willing to risk everything for money.

Xi Heyan usually only took exploration-type jobs. Those didn’t require dealing with people, the payouts were higher, and most importantly, he didn’t like partnering up. Exploration work could be completed alone.

But while scanning jobs, Xi Heyan still noticed the largest screen.

On it—

was an egg.

The amount [N O V E L I G H T] beneath it was already a dense, eye-hurting string of astronomical digits, marked in a bright red font. And when Xi Heyan looked over, that bounty price was still climbing.

Because of that outrageous number, the hall—

“...People have lost their minds, huh?!”

“You don’t get it. Rich nobles love collecting pretty, rare stuff like this. The more the price gets inflated, the more they want it. If that egg weren’t in the Saint Clan’s hands, someone would’ve taken the job already.”

With a bounty that high, pulling off this one job would mean never worrying for the rest of your life.

Then, suddenly, the bounty number jumped again.

This time, it doubled outright.

The hall went dead silent.

Everyone stared at the digits with fever-bright eyes, like the numbers themselves were casting a spell.

Xi Heyan stood among them, expression still calm.

He didn’t stay in the hall long. After taking the job he’d picked, he went against the flow and headed out.

But at the moment he was about to leave, he glanced back at the party offering the bounty.

Under “Name,” it clearly read—

Polaris Life Research Institute.

......

Catching the last train, Xi Heyan returned to the lively city district.

Compared to the garbage station, this place was practically paradise.

Passing a shop, Xi Heyan stopped.

It was a small store selling handmade goods, and what caught his attention was a fluffy little keychain hanging up by the owner.

“Excuse me—are you buying Little Baby?”

The shop owner was a woman. Seeing Xi Heyan standing by the display, she hurried over to ask.

“Little Baby?”

Xi Heyan spoke, confused.

The owner explained, “Yeah. The one you’re looking at. We don’t know its real name, so online everyone calls it Little Baby. Because it’s cute, isn’t it?”

...Cute?

Xi Heyan stared at the keychain for a while.

Maybe... it really did count as cute.

But the reason Xi Heyan had stopped wasn’t because it was cute.

It was because he’d just seen it at the black market.

The original model for this fluffy keychain—at the exact moment he’d left—had become the most expensive bounty in the black market’s history.

Without even thinking, he knew the people down there were probably going completely insane over it.

Xi Heyan didn’t want any part of that mess. He’d left early precisely to avoid trouble.

And while he was thinking, the owner kept pushing, working hard to sell it. “This is our best-selling design. And what you’re looking at is the very last one.”

“And it’s weird—before, you could still find Little Baby’s photos online, but now they’ve all been taken down. Good thing I have a great memory...”

Xi Heyan snapped back to himself. The owner was still chattering, but he cut in directly.

“What did you just say?”

“...That my memory is great?”

“The sentence before that.”

“This is the last one.”

“Mm. Ring it up.”

“.........”

When Xi Heyan walked back out of the shop, he was now holding a fluffy keychain that didn’t match his style at all.

A snow-white baby egg—milky-soft, chubby, and round.

Xi Heyan didn’t even know why he’d bought it. He’d never been interested in plush things.

But...

The image of that silver-haired boy flickered through his mind.

...That person would probably like something like this, wouldn’t he?

Xi Heyan thought, distracted.

And as he was thinking that, a long-unheard light-brain notification sound chimed again.

The moment he heard it, Xi Heyan almost thought he’d imagined it.

After all, the other person seemed to have been offline for a long time. There had been no new messages in the chat window.

But seeing that sudden red dot, Xi Heyan realized it wasn’t his imagination.

That long-lost online friend really had come back online.

On the other side, Wen Yuzhi typed for a long time, roughly explaining that something had happened recently, and on top of that his light-brain had suddenly broken and had to be repaired, so he hadn’t been able to reply in time.

At the end, Wen Yuzhi sent a cat “sorry” sticker.

Xi Heyan looked at the little cat with its paws pressed together, but his eyes snagged on the words: light-brain broke.

His brow furrowed.

As the most important communication tool in the galaxy, light-brains didn’t break easily. And situations that could break one were even rarer.

Unable to help himself, he asked:

[Did something happen?]

After sending it, Xi Heyan suddenly realized it might make the other person feel like he was prying into private matters.

So he quickly added:

[If it’s not convenient to say, you don’t have to.]

Wen Yuzhi didn’t think it was inconvenient at all.

He summarized what had happened that night in the council hall in his own words, deliberately blurring the times, places, and people involved.

So to Xi Heyan, it sounded like: bad guys had broken into their home, the young master had been rescued by the household staff, but then even more bad guys broke in—and they’d even tried to hurt the young master’s rich dad.

“......”

What kind of bizarre, over-the-top rich-family kidnapping drama was this?

Xi Heyan’s brow knit even tighter.

Wen Yuzhi was utterly calm:

[Don’t worry. My family is really good at fighting.]

Given the Saint Clan’s combat power, saying “really good at fighting” seemed fair enough.

Xi Heyan knew that on the black market, bounties targeting rich people were practically endless. A large-scale home invasion like that was very likely premeditated.

He warned:

[Be more careful.]

Wen Yuzhi replied:

[I will. My dad... they got me bodyguards.]

Personal guards were basically bodyguards.

That checked out.

And the moment Xi Heyan saw the word “bodyguards,” he thought: so he really is some rich family’s young master.

It looked like that new family treated him pretty well, too. After something happened, they were at least willing to assign protection.

On the other side, Wen Yuzhi hesitated. Even though Mansendis and Mond didn’t want him thinking about anything related to mental energy, he still couldn’t help venting some of the heaviness in his chest to this online friend.

[Do you know about mental sea collapse?]

When Xi Heyan saw that line, his lips pressed slightly together.

[I do.]

Wen Yuzhi had been trying to figure out who to talk to about this. Seeing Xi Heyan’s reply, he immediately followed up:

[Then have you seen someone with mental sea collapse?]

Xi Heyan lowered his gaze and typed two words.

[I’ve seen it.]

Not only had he seen it—he’d watched someone die right in front of him.

[Is there really no saving someone once their mental sea collapses?]

Wen Yuzhi didn’t know what other races were like. He still held onto a faint hope—maybe other races had a way to treat mental seas.

But reality was cruel.

Xi Heyan told him:

[Right now, there’s still no way anywhere in the galaxy to treat the mental sea.]

If there were, Bernard would’ve had himself treated long ago—rather than lying sickly in the palace, unable even to make public appearances.

This rare attendance at the celebration ceremony was probably because if he didn’t show up soon, suspicion would start to rise.

After all, as the empire’s emperor, Bernard could fall ill—but he couldn’t stay ill forever. Otherwise, the nobles eyeing the throne would swarm like hyenas scenting blood, tearing the Hoffmann royal house apart until nothing remained.

A cold glint passed through Xi Heyan’s eyes.

But while chatting with Wen Yuzhi, he didn’t show even the slightest trace of it. He only asked:

[Why are you suddenly curious about this?]

In Xi Heyan’s view, a young master like him should be carefree. Why would he be thinking about mental sea collapse?

And besides, he’d never brought up anything about mental energy before.

So... did someone in that new family have a mental sea problem?

That thought had only just risen in Xi Heyan’s mind when the next message arrived:

[My family has symptoms of mental-energy disorder, so I wanted to understand this stuff.]

Seeing that, Xi Heyan first sent:

[Sorry.]

In any race, symptoms of mental-energy disorder were serious. It just wasn’t like the Saint Clan, where everyone basically had it. In most races, mental-sea problems were rare—so Xi Heyan said sorry.

His wording really had been thoughtless.

Thinking that through, Xi Heyan said:

[If you want to learn about mental energy, I have some materials here. They mention certain mental-energy disorder situations. Maybe you can take a look.]