Chapter 60: Trading Names

By the time night came and Wen Yuzhi returned to his room, he lay on the bed and turned on his light-brain.

A few unread messages popped up immediately.

They were sent during the day.

[For me?]

[Thank you. I really like it.]

As if to show just how satisfied this “gift” truly was, the other party even—miraculously—sent a cute sticker.

An adorable little shark offering a heart, paired with the other party’s usual short, cool messages, made the contrast almost jarring.

Wen Yuzhi stared at the sticker for a long while, feeling oddly fascinated, and without realizing it, the corners of his mouth lifted.

How to describe this feeling...

Mm. Like a cool, always-serious guy suddenly deciding to act cute?

The moment that thought surfaced, Wen Yuzhi cracked himself up with how random it was.

Smiling with his eyes, he sent over a photo of the tree they’d planted during the day.

—

At the same time, Xi Heyan was moving through the underground black market in the slums’ garbage district.

The bounty he’d taken earlier was already completed. He’d come today to turn in what he’d found, and collect the payment that was due.

Only... maybe his luck wasn’t great. On the way to the main hall, Xi Heyan ran into a drunk.

The drunk reeked of alcohol. Hair in a mess. From face to neck, the skin was flushed a sloppy, tipsy red.

Xi Heyan didn’t plan to get into it, but the drunk seemed to sense something and started sizing him up, eyes raking him from head to toe, muttering under the breath.

“Hey. You’re a military academy student, aren’t you?”

“I can tell. The way you walk, the look in your eyes... you’re exactly like that pack of smug hunting dogs. Just looking at you makes me sick...”

The drunk kept talking.

Xi Heyan didn’t react at all. He didn’t slow down, didn’t even bother glancing to the side.

Picking fights like this was nothing unusual in the underground black market.

This place was a lawless forbidden zone—every kind of person mixed together. Whoever had the bigger fist got to walk wherever they wanted.

And because of that, people here felt free to let their ugliest desires spill out.

A drunk who had a little too much and started spewing nonsense, provoking everyone in sight—there were plenty like that.

Xi Heyan didn’t take it seriously.

But that total indifference made the drunk feel like this pretty-boy had humiliated him in public.

Irritation spiked. The drunk stepped in front of Xi Heyan, blocking the path.

“You deaf? You didn’t hear me talking to you?!”

With his way blocked, Xi Heyan finally spared a little attention and looked at the drunk.

The drunk saw that look and thought the kid had finally gotten scared.

Eyes narrowing smugly, the drunk opened the mouth—and it was pure malice.

“Listen up. This isn’t some noble lord’s territory. We don’t welcome Hoffmann’s lapdogs. If you’ve got any sense, get the hell out!”

Xi Heyan hadn’t wanted to bother with him. But the drunk just had to bring up Hoffmann.

A word that disgusted him.

And to top it off, he still hadn’t gotten his money yet today. His mood wasn’t good.

Xi Heyan calmly put on gloves. Under messy black hair, those dark eyes lifted slightly, the emotion in them lazy and casual.

“You want me to get out? Why don’t you show me how first?”

The drunk was instantly enraged by that arrogant look.

That kind of look—smug, high and mighty—made the drunk think of the days when he’d been so poor he couldn’t even afford bread, chased all over the streets by patrols like a stray.

Old humiliations. Anger at the world. With alcohol fueling it, the last shred of reason evaporated.

All the drunk could think about now was putting this kid on the ground.

The commotion quickly drew attention.

No one stepped in to stop it. Instead, people crowded around, shouting and cheering.

“Get him! Big guy! Smash him with your fists!”

Some were rooting for the drunk. Others were more interested in Xi Heyan.

“Hey, black clothes—what are you waiting for?! If it were me, I’d have already knocked his teeth all over the floor!”

Xi Heyan didn’t get swept up by the mood at all.

He barely moved—just a clean shoulder throw, and the drunk hit the ground hard.

The drunk tried to scramble up, but in the next second—

A boot with metal buckles pinned his neck.

The drunk slammed back down. He couldn’t get up. Breathing was hard.

The moment they saw that, the cheers got even louder.

This was the rule of the underground black market.

Approval and abandonment could flip in an instant.

They only applauded the strong. The weak were meant to be eliminated here.

Only now did the drunk’s alcohol-soaked brain snap awake.

Hearing the crowd roar, fear crawled up his spine.

He was scared.

He knew he’d kicked a steel plate.

But it was too late to regret it. He’d already lost. If the other party wanted to kill him, it would be perfectly “justified.”

In the underground black market, losers were usually killed on the spot. Murder wasn’t illegal here. And no one wanted to leave behind a future threat.

Pinned down longer and longer, the drunk’s face shifted from flushed red to a bruised purple.

He knew he was going to die.

He couldn’t breathe.

But just as the drunk was certain this was the end, a notification sound—bright as a bell—suddenly rang out.

Amid the surrounding noise, it was faint. Easy to miss if you weren’t paying attention.

Only the two closest—Xi Heyan and the drunk—heard it.

Half-delirious, the drunk even had time to think: I’m about to die, and someone’s still sending messages right now?!

Then the pressure on his neck eased.

Not caring why, the drunk gulped down fresh air in huge, desperate breaths.

The relief of surviving flooded him. Tears and snot smeared his face.

Through blurred vision, the drunk saw the kid in black glance at the light-brain on his wrist. Whatever was on it seemed to melt that icy expression for a split second.

Before the drunk could process it, the kid said coldly, “Get lost.”

The drunk got lost.

After this, he’d probably behave for a while.

With the show over, the surrounding crowd started to disperse too.

—

Not far away, on the second floor of a bar, someone in a vest and button-up sat near the window.

From that angle, the street was clearly visible.

And the conflict just now had been seen from start to finish.

“What are you watching?”

Another person walked over and sat down across from the one by the window.

The person by the window turned back with a light laugh. “Nothing. Just killing time.”

The newcomer raised a brow, but didn’t seem to care about the brush-off.

“I heard His Majesty Bernard has been looking for you lately.”

“His mental sea is about to give out,” the person by the window replied slowly.

“A little faster than I expected.”

“There are plenty of people around him who want him dead sooner.”

The Hoffmann royal family had ruled the Pers Empire for a full thousand years. Those ambitious nobles beneath them had long been eyeing the throne, restless to move.

And beyond the capital star, rebel groups were growing louder, resentment boiling everywhere—internal troubles and external threats. There were countless people who wanted His Majesty Bernard dead.

So it wasn’t surprising if someone had found a way to tamper with His Majesty Bernard’s mental sea.

What truly interested the person by the window was the method.

This kind of subtle neurotoxin... it was something never seen before.

If only it could be observed up close.

Too bad that old thing was afraid of dying and hid in the palace, refusing to come out. It made things difficult.

The person across poured a drink and swirled the glass gently.

“Still haven’t found those materials in Xi Yuelin’s hands?”

“That woman’s sharp. She probably sensed something was off and moved everything ahead of time,” the person by the window said.

“Besides, I suspect those materials might not even be in Bernard’s hands. Otherwise, with his mental sea rotting this badly, there’s no way he’d keep hiding them.”

The other person’s hand paused mid-swish.

“...Not with Bernard? Then who has them?”

“How many people do you think Xi Yuelin had back then—people she could actually trust?” The person by the window didn’t answer directly, instead rolling something like a die between the fingers as the question came back.

“You mean the Xi family? But didn’t the Xi family already get wiped out?”

“It’s just a guess. That purge killed so many people, and the Xi family was a primary target. They might not have been lucky enough for a single survivor. But those things can’t just vanish into thin air—and there’s also that ‘cocoon’ that was never dealt with...”

The person by the window frowned.

The one across scoffed. “A defective piece that was born incomplete. Maybe it got blown into scraps a long time ago.”

The person by the window sighed. “What a waste. If it had been preserved, we’d have had more experimental samples. These days, catching a Saint Clan isn’t as easy as it used to be.”

The Ninth Star Sector was sealed off. The people sent in before had all died there, and the ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) plan to gather intel failed along with them.

All that could be said was that the Padar people were even more useless than expected.

A complete waste of all those doses.

...

—

Elsewhere, Xi Heyan also sensed that someone was watching.

But there were plenty of people looking their way at the time. He couldn’t pinpoint where that gaze—sharp enough to raise a hint of danger—was coming from.

All he could do was speed up: turn in the bounty, take the payment, and leave the underground black market fast.

By the time he entered the station, he’d already changed outfits.

Even his biometric information had been altered.

The people tailing him lost him just like that. Xi Heyan boarded the very last train right in front of them.

He glanced first at a message from Zhuo Haoyu.

[So how was the sticker pack I sent you? It’s ranked number one on the cuteness chart. Tons of people in my department use it. Whether you’re dating someone or flirting with someone you’re not official with yet, I swear it fixes the vibe!]

Same as always—nonsense.

Xi Heyan didn’t even reply. He closed the chat window and ignored it.

Then he opened the picture Wen Yuzhi had sent.

A small sapling with a blank tag hanging from it.

[Because I don’t know your name, I only put a blank tag.]

They chatted online, but the relationship stopped at “online friends.” Topics involving real-life information rarely came up.

So even after knowing each other so long, they’d never exchanged names.

No name. No way to address him.

Maybe, in Wen Yuzhi’s heart, he was just an ordinary online friend.

Xi Heyan thought that, but his fingers were already typing. A few characters. Sent.

When Wen Yuzhi received it, what he saw was—

[Xi Heyan]

Xi Heyan?

Was that his name?

Wen Yuzhi tested the question.

And got a clear answer back.

[Yes.]

A rush of surprise hit Wen Yuzhi.

It was like... you’d known someone forever, and then one day they suddenly invited you over to their place for dinner.

Maybe the comparison didn’t quite fit, but the relationship really had stepped forward.

Wen Yuzhi, a little excited, introduced himself too.

[My name is Wen Yuzhi. My dad and mom gave me that name.]

Wen Yuzhi...

Seeing those words, Xi Heyan didn’t know why, but the name felt like it suited him.

And...

Strangely enough, both their names carried “jade.”

Xi Heyan’s name had also been chosen by family. Only his family knew it. Before the Xi family’s disaster, he’d always used the name his mother Lena’s side had given him.

And yet, by sheer twist of fate, he’d managed to keep the name Xi Heyan.

After trading names, even though the conversation stayed the same as always, Wen Yuzhi couldn’t shake the feeling that they were closer than before.

He added a note to the contact name—“Xi Heyan.”

That way, the profile finally didn’t feel so empty.

Beep-beep—!

The alarm sound snapped Wen Yuzhi out of staring at the light-brain.

He had just turned it off when Mond pushed the door open and came in.

Mond carried the milk Wen Yuzhi drank before bed, and a small comb.

Ever since the day Mansendis had groomed the cub’s feathers, “brushing” had become a required bedtime step.

But today, Wen Yuzhi had planted trees with everyone, then traded names with his friend. He still wasn’t sleepy.

Thinking for a moment, Wen Yuzhi asked Mond, “Where’s Dad?”

“The king is in the study right now.”

Other than Wen Yuzhi, the Saint Clan didn’t really need rest—and Mansendis, especially, often went through the entire night without sleep.

As the sovereign who held the entire Ninth Star Sector, there was almost endless work.

At this hour, Wen Yuzhi would normally already be in bed, but Mansendis would still be in the study, handling one matter after another.

Wen Yuzhi knew Mansendis was busy, but he hadn’t realized Dad was still working this late.

After a short silence, Wen Yuzhi hesitated, then asked quietly, “Can I go see Dad? Will I interrupt?”

Mond confirmed that the cub truly wasn’t sleepy, then nodded. “Of course. This servant believes the king will be very happy to see the little highness as well.”

And that was exactly what happened.

Wen Yuzhi sat on Mond’s shoulder and went into the study together. The silver-haired sovereign behind the desk lifted his head right away.

Mansendis held out a hand toward the cub.

Wen Yuzhi immediately flew over.

He landed in Mansendis’s palm.

The next second, a gentle touch swept through his hair.

Mansendis lowered his head, looking at the cub. “Why are you here so late? Don’t want to sleep?”

“Not sleepy yet.” Wen Yuzhi shook his head, then glanced at Mansendis and spoke in a small voice. “I wanted to keep Dad company.”

“...Is that okay?”