The Imperial Marshal’s Darling at the Tip of His Heart - Chapter 13

The ship’s hull shuddered violently again, more fiercely than before. A sharp alarm pierced through layers of bulkheads, pounding against everyone’s nerves. The lights flickered frantically, casting a strobing glow over the momentary flash of pain on Yun Shu’s pale face.

He was slammed hard against the cold metal edge of the desk by the inertia. A sharp, stabbing pain flared in his ribs, nearly knocking the wind out of him. The two Obsidian soldiers at the door swayed but instantly stabilized their footing with practiced discipline. They raised their energy rifles, aiming warily at the door and the bulkheads where a breach might occur. Data streams scrolled rapidly across their tactical visors as they received updates on the battle outside.

“Report! Engine Room Three has been hit! Shield energy has dropped to forty percent!” “The enemy attack ship is exceptionally agile and is equipped with non-standard energy weapons! The escort ship Blade has been heavily damaged!”

Fragments of chaotic communication leaked sporadically from the soldiers’ tactical channels, which had not been fully closed.

An opportunity. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Amidst the agony and dizziness, this thought struck Yun Shu’s chaotic consciousness like a bolt of lightning. Ling Yao was pinned down by the emergency combat situation, and the soldiers’ attention was significantly divided. That desk, the very light-computer console Ling Yao had just been using, likely still held an active high-level session. It was within arm’s reach.

The instinct for survival and an extreme hunger for information overwhelmed his physical pain and weakness. He did not hesitate. Taking advantage of the moment another explosion caused the soldiers to instinctively look toward the source of the vibration, he used every ounce of his remaining strength.

He lunged forward, his body nearly collapsing onto the cold desk. His fingers, though trembling, pressed accurately against a discreet physical induction zone on the side of the light screen used for waking the system and rapid privilege switching.

It worked. A faint sensation of successful authentication pulsed through his fingertips.

The light screen interface jumped from a standby Imperial fleet emblem to a complex operating interface filled with encrypted data streams. It seemed that because of Ling Yao’s hurried departure, the session had not been fully logged out. Or perhaps the starship’s system defaulted to keeping the Marshal’s quarters in a high-level open state.

“What are you doing?!” one soldier finally noticed the anomaly and shouted, instantly swiveling his weapon to aim at Yun Shu.

Yun Shu had no time to check the specific content; he might only have a single second. Relying on his staggering memory and deep understanding of the Imperial system architecture, his fingers danced across the virtual keyboard so fast they became a blur.

He was not browsing; he was performing a near-instinctive act of extreme blind operation based on his anticipation of Ling Yao’s thought patterns and current mission. He rapidly filtered and located the encrypted blocks with the highest correlation to “Turbid Core,” “Tartarus,” and the “Primal Sequence.” He then attempted to forcibly compress and encrypt their core index markers and path information, sending them to a pre-set, highly concealed cloud cache point.

He could not copy everything that would require too much time and processing power. He could only steal a potential “key” or “map.”

“Bang!”

The other soldier fired without hesitation. However, he did not use a lethal energy beam, but rather a high-intensity sedative dart commonly used by the Imperial military. Ling Yao wanted him alive. The cold needle grazed Yun Shu’s arm and embedded itself into the desk, bursting into a small cloud of blue condensation.

Yun Shu let out a muffled groan, but his movements did not stop for a second. He finally slammed the confirmation key.

Almost simultaneously, the other soldier reached the desk. He grabbed Yun Shu’s shoulder roughly, dragged him off the console, and threw him onto the floor.

“Ugh!”

Yun Shu curled up on the ground and coughed up a bit of blood. His vision went dark in waves, and a sensation of numbness spread from the graze on his arm. Yet, the corner of his mouth could not help but curve into a faint, almost manic smile.

He had succeeded. Although he was unsure exactly what he had obtained, he had completed one last theft right under the Imperial Marshal’s nose in his own command room. He was a ghost in the truest sense.

“Reporting to the Marshal! The target attempted to operate your workstation!” the soldier reported urgently into his communicator, his voice carrying a hint of lingering fear and tension.

Violent explosions sounded from the other end of the communicator, followed by Ling Yao’s icy, nearly murderous command. “At any cost, blow that damned bug into dust! What?” He had clearly heard the soldier’s report, and his tone became even more dangerous. “Secure him! I am coming back immediately!”

A few minutes later, the explosions and vibrations outside gradually weakened and subsided as the Empire’s military force gained the absolute upper hand. The sliding door burst open, and Ling Yao strode in. His service uniform was still crisp, but it carried the scent of gunpowder. His handsome face was covered in a layer of frost, and his gaze was as sharp as a blade that had just been unsheathed and tasted blood.

He first glanced at the light screen. The interface had already been switched back to standby by the alert soldiers. Then, his cold gaze pinned itself like a physical weight onto the disheveled Yun Shu, who was being held down on the floor.

“It seems my expectations for your ‘good behavior’ were too high,” Ling Yao’s voice was terrifyingly low, carrying a calm that preceded a storm. “Even in this state, you still refuse to give up your thieving heart?”

Yun Shu struggled to lift his head, gasping for air. His voice was weak but carried a strange defiance. “The Marshal’s starship protection seems not as reliable as your ‘Iron Curtain’ network.”

Ling Yao’s eyes sharpened. He suddenly leaned down and grabbed Yun Shu’s jaw, forcing him to look up. The force was so great that Yun Shu did not doubt his bones might shatter.

“What did you touch?” Ling Yao pressed, squeezing the words through his teeth as his cold breath brushed against Yun Shu’s face.

“I was just… curious… and took a look,” Yun Shu said haltingly, forced to endure the other man’s towering rage. “Unfortunately… the Marshal returned… too quickly.”

“Curious?” Ling Yao sneered and flung him aside as if he had touched something filthy.

He walked to the console and quickly pulled up the operation logs and system access records. However, Yun Shu’s methods were extremely cunning and sophisticated; all operations were masked beneath a massive flow of system self-checks and wartime error messages. It would be impossible to identify valid leads in a short time, let alone track the cloud cache point that had already self-destructed.

Ling Yao stared at the seemingly chaotic data scrolling across the screen, his expression darkening further. He knew this invalid had definitely tampered with the system, but he could find no evidence. The feeling of being played within his own territory and under his very eyes made his anger burn more than a direct attack would have.

He turned abruptly, his gaze like a cold probe focusing on Yun Shu again. “Do you think your little tricks can change anything? No matter what you took, it will only make you die faster and more painfully.”

Yun Shu only coughed weakly and stopped responding, adopting an air of total resignation. But to Ling Yao, this silence felt more like a silent declaration of victory.

Just then, the adjutant’s voice came through the communicator, breaking the tense silence in the room. “Marshal, the attackers have been completely eliminated. It is confirmed to be an elite squad of ‘Extractors,’ well-equipped and highly purposeful. Additionally, we found something interesting in the wreckage of their attack ship.”

“Speak,” Ling Yao said, his voice still cold, though his gaze did not leave Yun Shu.

“They do not seem to have been motivated purely by plunder or revenge. Analysis of the ship’s log fragments suggests they received an encrypted command. The core content was ‘Capture or destroy the Xilan Architect Yun Shu at any cost.’ Furthermore, the encryption method of the command source bears characteristics of the old Imperial noble factions.”

The old Imperial noble factions? Ling Yao’s pupils contracted almost imperceptibly. Those entrenched, old-money families who were dissatisfied with the current royalty and military? Why would they be involved with underground rats like the “Extractors”? And why was their target so clearly pointed at Yun Shu?

Things were far more complicated than he had imagined. Yun Shu’s value, or rather the trouble he brought, seemed to have attracted too many eyes that should not have been watching.

He looked at Yun Shu again. The rage in his eyes was gradually replaced by a deeper, cold calculation. This ghost of Xilan was not only the key to his investigation of the “Turbid Core,” but had also become the center of a vortex attracting various forces. Destroying him directly no longer seemed like the optimal solution.

“Take him back,” Ling Yao finally ordered, his voice returning to its usual cold hardness. “Have the medical team follow up. Do not let him die. Increase the security level to maximum.”

“Yes, sir!” the soldiers replied, hoisting Yun Shu, who could barely stand on his own, back up.

At the moment he was about to be led out of the room, Yun Shu turned his head with great difficulty and looked at Ling Yao. That gaze was still weak, but it held a faint, all-knowing mockery, as if saying: “See? You are not the only one who wants me dead.”

Ling Yao watched him disappear behind the heavy sliding door without expression. Silence returned to the room, leaving only the faint scent of smoke and the low hum of the instruments.

Ling Yao stood alone at the console, his gaze falling once more on the chaotic system logs. What had Yun Shu stolen? Why did the old noble factions intervene? How did the Extractors connect with them?

One mystery after another became entangled. He opened another encrypted channel, his voice cold as ice. “Thoroughly investigate all recent movements and communication records of the Old Noble Council, especially those related to border forces and underground organizations. Report any anomalies directly to me.”

“Yes, Marshal.”

Ending the communication, Ling Yao walked to the large observation window and ordered the system to deactivate the shield. Outside, the sea of stars met his eyes once more, vast and profound, yet hiding countless undercurrents and murderous intent.

That sickly ghost of Xilan had muddied the originally clear situation. Perhaps he truly needed to find a different way to “use” this dangerous “tool.”

Ling Yao’s fingertips tapped lightly against the window frame, his eyes flashing with a cold and piercing light.