After Encountering My Deceased Wife, I Became the Male Lead's Love Rival - Chapter 61

Chapter 61: Mercenaries

On the westernmost edge of the Desolate Planet lies a desert plateau shrouded in shifting sands. The outskirts of this Gobi are littered with bleached bones, and the further one ventures inward, the more one can feel the chaotic, terrifying surges of rioting spiritual power.

These violent energies crash against and wear each other down incessantly until they are completely exhausted. Fang Ziyue’s spiritual power was wrapped tightly around her, acting as a constant shield against the onslaught of other energies.

“Boom!”

When dozens of spiritual tentacles lunged at her, Fang Ziyue struck back instantly. The resulting shockwave kicked up a massive cloud of yellow sand, obscuring all vision in a hazy gloom.

“Cough! Cough!!” From behind a massive rock ahead came a heart-wrenching sound of coughing.

This place was the burial ground chosen by “Rioters” with exceptionally high spiritual levels. Some who held onto their sense of justice did not want to turn into powerful, mindless monsters after death and kill indiscriminately. Thus, they gathered here in silence, letting their violent spiritual powers attack one another until they eventually killed each other off.

The higher the spiritual level, the more destructive the riot; similarly, the longer they could resist falling into total chaos. Those who relied on sheer willpower to remain lucid would drag the dead to the edge of the desert—at least there, the bodies wouldn’t be ground into dust by the clashing energies of others, allowing them to remain somewhat intact.

This was exactly the group of people Fang Ziyue wanted.

Rounding the giant rock, Fang Ziyue saw a tall woman with blonde hair and blue eyes. Her face possessed an aggressive, iconic beauty. This was a face recognized by everyone outside: the Deputy Commander of “Mirror Star,” the largest mercenary group on the Desolate Planet—a woman with A-level spiritual power.

Ingrid of Mirror Star was originally the eldest daughter of a local official’s family, but she had been exiled because her spiritual riot exceeded Mirror Star’s safety standards. She wandered until she settled on the Desolate Planet, where she co-founded the Mirror Star mercenary group with another exile to earn a living. But a month ago, she had vanished.

Fang Ziyue hadn’t expected to find her here, let alone that she could hold out for so long in such a place. However, her condition was dire. Fresh blood soaked the front of her clothes; as soon as it dried, it was dampened again by new blood. The cycle had repeated until her white collar was dyed black, reeking of thick gore.

It was a painful and desperate process: waiting for death while fully conscious, yet using restraint to suppress the urge to flee this tomb. Truly, those who choose this place as their final rest are heroes.

But a certain someone wasn’t about to go easy on these heroes. A large tube of newly formulated nutrient solution was crudely poured into Ingrid’s mouth. Because Ingrid’s jaw was clenched shut, Fang Ziyue had to pinch her cheeks hard to force them open. Had it not been for Ingrid’s superior constitution, her jaw might have actually broken.

This new nutrient solution was effective, but it wasn’t a miracle drug; it needed time to soothe the rioting spiritual power. Taking advantage of the wait, Fang Ziyue traversed the Gobi, occasionally catching some unlucky soul and forcibly administering a tube of the solution.

Naturally, she spent the rest of her time helping to inter many of the remains. The bodies she handled belonged to people who were mostly famous in life—at least on the Desolate Planet, they had great and honorable reputations.

A group of good people dying one after another, while the wicked lived long lives, getting whatever they desired. The Star Alliance had “woodworms”—parasites wearing human faces who exiled the soldiers and generals whose spirits rioted after defending against star beast tides. No matter how much they had contributed, in the eyes of those woodworms, they were merely monsters-in-waiting. They were no longer heroes, but omens of death.

But the reality was that those in power never considered that these righteous people would likely have left on their own anyway. They would have found a quiet, uninhabited place to die in peace, never harming a sliver of the homeland they had risked their lives to protect.

Fang Ziyue frowned as she placed a military medal on a body that was almost nothing but bone. She disliked this kind of “noble sacrifice.” Heroes who fought all their lives deserved to live well and witness the peace they protected. At the very least, they shouldn’t die in such a wretched state.

This was why Fang Ziyue intended to distribute “seeds” to everyone from the start—not just to avoid being the “tallest tree” targeted by the wind, but because of these injustices. With the system’s help, she had countless seeds. Combined with proper cultivation methods, the current interstellar soil was actually quite suitable for Earth’s plants. Time had washed away the impurities, taking away the seeds but also the factors that had made growth impossible.

However, giving seeds and knowledge to the public for free would inevitably infringe on the interests of certain parties. To block someone’s path to wealth is a death sentence. She wasn’t alone; she had her little mermaid to protect. Therefore, she needed a “righteous army.”

The sun of the Desolate Planet hid behind the curtains, brightening the room and then staining it black, a cycle that repeated for fourteen days.

The little mermaid was huddled on the bed hugging a quilt, surrounded by a “nest” built from a mountain of scattered clothes. She had covered herself with Fang Ziyue’s clothes, humming with dissatisfaction as the scent on them faded day by day. A thin mist of water gathered in her dark blue eyes, but she wouldn’t cry yet.

Because humans said that the crying child gets the candy, she was going to wait for that “big liar” who abandoned their home to return, and then she would grab her collar and cry loudly. She had to cry very, very loudly!

The little mermaid piteously counted her fingers. Each time she finished a count, the mist in her eyes grew thicker. She had promised to return by the time all ten fingers were counted, hadn’t she?

“Liar…”

A smooth, small pearl fell onto the pillow, rolling aside as the little mermaid buried her head into the clothes. Looking from afar, the clean floor was dotted with scattered pearls. It turned out the little mermaid who promised not to cry was a bit of a liar too.

“Fine, just one sentence: are you coming with me or not?” Fang Ziyue was losing her patience with these guys. She had planned to be home with her wife within ten days, but look at the result—it had been nearly half a month!

“Come with me and the nutrient solution is unlimited. We’ll discuss the rest of the plan back home; I won’t make you do anything against your conscience. My wife and I are together legitimately and openly—I’m just short of a grand wedding and formal betrothal gifts to marry her properly. We haven’t broken any laws.”

“So, in a word: I’m hiring you to protect the two of us. Are you in or out?”

Fang Ziyue knitted her brows, full of helplessness. These people were terrified she was up to no good. If the conditions allowed it, that former Star Alliance Secretary-General sitting in the corner probably would have dug up her ancestry for eight generations. She really hadn’t expected a group of such prominent figures to be nesting in this Gobi, nor had she expected them to be such expert hagglers.

“Now, don’t be like that. Little girl, we’re asking so many questions because we sincerely want to cooperate with you, right?” a scruffy former Major General drawled with a mix of sincerity and deception. Behind his burly frame, his assistant was huddled over a funeral-gift light-computer, trying to dig up Fang Ziyue’s background.

Fang Ziyue sighed. She stepped forward, snapped the computer shut, and sat down in the center of the dozens of people. “Ask me.”

What was the point of searching? Some things they wouldn’t find even if they had a lifetime.

“Cough…” Her bluntness made the others feel a bit embarrassed. But they still had to ask.

“Are you sure your nutrient solution has no side effects?” “You can feel that for yourself. Once you agree to cooperate, I’ll show you the ingredient ratios.” Fang Ziyue didn’t intend to make money off this; there was no need to hide it. It was better to let more good people live.

“I found that you were exiled from the Imperial Star for counterfeiting nutrient solutions. Do you have anything to say about that?” They still found it hard to believe a person could change so much in a few years, let alone develop such a high-quality solution. Most importantly… it actually tasted good. Well, no one wants to drink sewer vomit, right?

“The Imperial Star is a place that eats people without spitting out the bones. You all should know that better than I,” Fang Ziyue lied without batting an eye. “My teacher passed away, I didn’t know how to socialize, and I was all alone. If I produced a nutrient solution of this quality there, what would my fate have been?”

She didn’t need to ask; no one here was a fool. Either Fang Ziyue would have been controlled by those woodworms to become a money-making machine, or she would have been silenced and her formula stolen. This reason convinced most of them, but one still questioned: “You don’t seem like someone who’s ‘bad with words’ now.”

“If I hadn’t made some progress after living on the Desolate Planet for so long, I would have been robbed of everything ages ago.”

On the Imperial Star, people were fickle and hypocritical. On the Desolate Planet, fists did the talking, and violence reigned. But someone who was both eloquent and capable could always rise to a high position here. Just like Fang Ziyue now; after convincing everyone, her status rose vertically. She didn’t care if these people were truly sincere; as long as they completed the tasks she gave them, it was fine. As for their personal schemes, she didn’t mind.

“I’ve already arranged a place for you to stay. In a while, I’ll need you to protect me and my lover as we leave the Desolate Planet.”

Through the system’s protection, the lower-quality nutrient solutions she sold anonymously had earned her quite a lot of money. It was enough to secretly buy materials and parts to build a starship. Fang Ziyue hadn’t expected that after designing clothes and jewelry, she would one day have to learn to design a starship.

Fortunately, the system was there. The starship’s control center would be linked to the system, providing stealth functions, though it couldn’t open higher permissions. When the time came to stay in the vast sea of stars and distribute seeds, they wouldn’t be found too quickly.

As for their destination…

It was a planet filled with water. The legendary birthplace of the Quanxian (merfolks), a planet belonging to the mermaids that had disappeared for tens of thousands of years—Planet Ruize.

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