The Imperial Marshal’s Darling at the Tip of His Heart - Chapter 31

Inside the bridge’s main control room, the atmosphere was starkly different from the brilliant light and colors of the outside world. It was solemn, silent, and carried a trace of persistent oppression that was difficult to dispel. Military officers and technical staff of all ranks performed their duties with high efficiency, but everyone’s movements were instinctively lightened. Their conversations were conducted in lowered voices, as if they were afraid of disturbing something.

Ling Yao sat in the highest command seat, his posture still as straight as a pine tree. His ink-black Marshal’s uniform was meticulous. On the massive light screen before him, data flowed incessantly like a waterfall: starship status reports, preliminary summaries of the Wuyin Star exploration, arrangements for casualties, follow-up suggestions for the Tartarus alerts, and several highly encrypted inquiries from the highest levels of the Empire. The sheer volume of complex affairs was enough to overwhelm even the most elite mind.

His fingers occasionally brushed across the console, issuing brief and clear instructions. His voice was steady, cold, and hard, betraying no emotional fluctuations whatsoever. However, those deep, sharp eyes were not constantly focused on the important matters concerning the Empire’s interests. His gaze would, intentionally or otherwise, glance toward an inconspicuous auxiliary screen on the side of the command seat at regular intervals.

The light screen was divided into several windows, one of which displayed the real-time conditions inside the medical prison cell. In the footage, Yun Shu lay quietly on a pure white medical bed. He was even thinner and more fragile than when they had left Wuyin Star, looking like a crystal skeleton gently placed there, terrifyingly delicate.

There was almost no color in his pale face, save for the heavy dark circles under his eyelids. These bore witness to the mental trauma and physical backlash caused by the previous forced cracking of “Omega” level data. Various sensor patches were attached to his exposed neck and wrists. Thin wires, like silken threads of life, connected him to the cold life-support system. His breathing was extremely weak, his chest showing only undetectable rises and falls. Most of the numbers jumping on the monitor were at the edge of critical values, stubbornly maintaining a faint lifeline.

Ling Yao’s gaze lingered on that face a little longer each time. An extremely strange and complex emotion cast a tiny stone into the depths of his cold, hard heart, rippling into layers of indescribable waves. This was not sympathy; an Imperial Marshal never had a need for such useless emotions. Nor was it guilt. He had issued the orders, the risks had been calculated, and the results were within expectations. The person was not dead, and the data had been obtained; therefore, it was a successful transaction.

Then what was it?

It was inquiry. It was confusion. It was even a very faint touch of being moved, something he himself had not yet noticed.

He had seen countless brave warriors and had executed countless cowards and traitors. He was familiar with the madness, despair, resentment, or hysterical begging for mercy when facing a dead end. But he had never seen this kind of calm tenacity.

Yes, calmness. Even at the most painful moment when the data was being cracked and his consciousness was nearly torn apart, the instructions issued by that Xilan man remained clear and steady. Even now, while deep in a coma and hanging by a thread, his brow showed no trace of pain or fear. There was only a kind of exhaustion and silence that seemed like resignation, yet was by no means surrender. It was as if he had long accepted his own fate, yet in every inch of flesh and every strand of consciousness, a flame that refused to bow its head continued to burn.

For what? Ling Yao’s fingertips tapped unconsciously on the armrest.

For Xilan? That country on the other side of the sea of stars, impoverished and weak, being slowly devoured by Crystal-Erosion? Just for those so-called “compatriots”?

He could not understand it. In his worldview, power was truth, and the law of the universe was that the strong preyed on the weak. Loyalty and devotion certainly existed, but they had to be built upon sufficient exchange of interests or absolute suppression of strength. Someone like Yun Shu, a national treasure level genius, pushing himself to such a desperate end for billions of strangers—most of whom were destined to be beyond saving—even to the point of lowering his head to cooperate with a mortal enemy, exceeded Ling Yao’s scope of understanding.

Did a belief truly exist in this world that was selfless to such an extent? Or was it just an ultimate form of stupidity?

His gaze once again swept over Yun Shu’s pale face, passing over the eyelashes that appeared particularly distinct due to his thinness, and his pale lips. This face was handsome yet sickly, fragile yet stubborn, entirely different from all the strong, shrewd, or flattering faces in his memory.

He suddenly remembered the first time he truly saw this person at the abandoned shipyard in Broken Star City. Those eyes, even hidden under the brim of a ridiculous work hat, were still startlingly clear and sharp. He remembered the moment at the Wuyin Star ruins when Yun Shu, while coughing up blood, accurately pointed out the precursors to the energy eruption. He remembered his near-mad calmness and analytical power when facing the threat of death at the control core.

This was a collection of contradictions. The ultimate intelligence paired with ultimate fragility; incredible calmness alongside life-risking madness; the status of a foreign prisoner yet possessing secrets that even the Empire craved.

Ling Yao closed the medical monitoring window. His gaze returned to the vast sea of stars ahead, his face as calm as water. However, a new instruction was silently sent to his adjutant through his private channel.

“Retrieve all non-encrypted public information regarding the Xilan Federation’s Chief Architect, Yun Shu. This includes his academic publications, public speeches, and the background reports our Imperial intelligence departments have collected regarding his origins and upbringing. Organize them and send them to me.”

The adjutant’s reply came quickly, carrying a hint of undetectable surprise. “Yes, Marshal. However, regarding Yun Shu’s deep background information, Xilan’s protection is extremely tight. Our intelligence database records may be very limited and fragmented.”

“Take whatever there is,” Ling Yao replied coldly.

“Understood.”

After the order was given, Ling Yao seemed to put the matter out of his mind, refocusing on the mountain of military affairs before him. His speed in processing documents remained startlingly fast, and his decisions were decisive and efficient, as if that moment of distraction had never occurred.

However, when the adjutant quietly transmitted that indeed pitifully thin data package to his private data pad, he clicked on it almost immediately. The information was indeed fragmented.

There were a few blurred screenshots of public images. One was of Yun Shu at a technology awards ceremony in Xilan, wearing a civil official’s ceremonial robe characteristic of Xilan. His thin frame appeared even more slight in the oversized robe. He wore a formulaic, somewhat distant and faint smile as he accepted congratulations from the crowd. At that time, his complexion seemed better than it was now, but the exhaustion deep in his eyes was still faintly visible.

There were abstracts of several papers published in interstellar academic journals. The fields involved high-energy bio-genetics and the transformation of abnormal energy matter. His viewpoints were sharp and cutting-edge, but the core data and methodology sections had clearly been heavily redacted and encrypted. Ling Yao quickly browsed through those complex and profound terms and models. Even he could see the staggering value and unconventional creativity contained within.

Finally, there were a few brief words about his background: both parents were mid-level researchers at the Xilan Federation Academy of Sciences, and both had passed away during his teenage years due to late-stage Crystal-Erosion. He had completed his studies with the support of the federal government. He was exceptionally gifted and his promotion speed broke records, but he lived a secluded life, rarely participated in political activities, and his background was as clean as a blank sheet of paper.

“Both passed away during his teenage years due to late-stage Crystal-Erosion.”

Ling Yao’s gaze paused on this line for a moment. So, it was not only national enmity, but also family grievances?

He closed the file and gently rubbed the space between his eyebrows with his fingertips. Instead of answering his doubts, this information made the image of the Xilan ghost even more blurred and indistinct. A genius whose parents both died of Crystal-Erosion, investing everything including his own life into the fight against the disease, sounded logical and even somewhat tragic.

But Ling Yao always felt it wasn’t that simple. Could mere hatred and a sense of responsibility sustain a person to this point? Could it temper a brain that possessed such ultimate calmness and madness? He recalled every look in Yun Shu’s eyes during negotiations, analysis, and when facing a dead end. In addition to responsibility and persistence, there seemed to be something deeper there.

It was a pure desire for inquiry into the unknown, an instinctive obsession with solving a puzzle, even if that puzzle would devour him. Perhaps, like himself, Yun Shu was a hunter driven by a certain “answer.” It was only the difference in their prey that dictated they stood on opposite sides.

The starship sailed smoothly, and outside the window was the eternal and deep starry sky. Ling Yao suddenly remembered the scene in the stone chamber of the Wuyin Star ruins. When he had thrown the emergency thermal blanket over, the person seemed to pause very slightly, then silently and carefully wrapped himself tightly. Such an insignificant action. And the moment before he lost consciousness, coughing blood yet still clearly conveying the most critical cracking instructions.

Fragile, yet powerfully incomprehensible.

The Imperial Marshal’s cold, hard psychological defenses silently cracked with a microscopic, invisible fissure in a place no one noticed. He opened the medical monitor again and looked at the figure still wrestling with the god of death in his sleep. His gaze was deep and difficult to discern.

“Yun Shu.” He chewed on the name silently, as if trying to see through these two words to all the secrets and persistence behind them.