Chapter Eighty-Eight: The Princess of the Medicine Clan

Seven years old then, sixteen now. From first to last, she had never once seen that heartless father of hers, the man who could not protect her mother and left her to weep alone.

“I asked Mother where Father was. She said, ‘Your father has his own affairs. Do not disturb him.’”

With that brief explanation, Yeoling went more than ten years without seeing her father. Worse still was her mother, who spent the best years of her youth waiting, waiting for a man she herself had scarcely even seen.

Ye Bai and Cao Xiaosen listened in silence. No one interrupted her. They simply let her speak, quietly hearing the story of her life from childhood onward.

Clink. Clink. Clink.

The hard soles of protective boots struck the cracked earth of the radiation zone, sounding over and over again. For the first time, Ye Bai felt that the distance between the guard post and the radiation zone was so small.

So small that those inside the guard post had no time to return and see their parents; so small that they seemed to forget their kin entirely and become a living barrier between humanity and the alien kind.

Yeoling’s voice gradually faded. Her story had come to an end, but within the Dark Age, the tale had only just begun.

Only after she finished did Yeoling realize that Cao Xiaosen had actually been holding her in his arms. Her face flushed scarlet in an instant, and she quickly broke free, while Cao Xiaosen remained as languid as ever, not the least bit embarrassed. Looking at Yeoling, red-faced and faintly adorable, his gaze changed for the first time.

“Captain, someone has come out of the radiation zone.”

At the boundary between the radiation zone and the guard post, every movement was displayed on the enormous screen before them. Lao Zhu spoke to the captain, who had already fallen asleep behind him. By rights, no one should be coming out of the radiation zone at this hour. Or had the drifter squad gone in to search for resources?

Lao Zhu enlarged the image of the three people who had just walked out of the radiation zone and into the guard-post perimeter. Then his face filled with disbelief. Three people who had only just broken through to the entry level had survived in the radiation zone for so long?

“Captain. Captain!!” Lao Zhu cried out, hurrying toward the still-sleeping captain.

“They’re out. They actually came out alive. After all that time, how did they manage to survive?”

Two days earlier, Lao Zhu had already written up the report and prepared to submit it to Violet Star Academy, but after reading it, the captain had said, “What do you mean, they fought an unknown alien kind, did their utmost in a desperate battle, and perished together with it? Do any of them look like they’re fated for an early death? Even if one of the three died, that girl still wouldn’t be in trouble.”

Lao Zhu had been stunned by the captain’s scolding. In the past, hadn’t reports always been submitted whenever someone failed to emerge from the radiation zone for more than five days? And now how many days had it been? Why was it still not being reported? Why was it being suppressed?

“Leave the report with you for now. If they still haven’t come out after another week, then submit it upward. I simply refuse to believe she’ll die in some little radiation district. If she really did die, the whole Greenwood Central City would probably be shaken by a storm, and our tiny guard post would be nothing more than duckweed in a downpour—sinking the moment the water rose.”

When the captain left Lao Zhu’s room that day, he kept murmuring, “She can’t die. She mustn’t die...”

Lao Zhu walked over and tugged at the captain’s arm. The captain’s “fleshy” body trembled first, and after a long while the thunderous snoring finally subsided. Only then did his eyes slowly open. Looking at Zhu Neng before him, he asked, “What happened?”

“They’re back.”

“Who’s back? Be clear!” The captain was thoroughly baffled by Lao Zhu’s words.

Only then did Lao Zhu remember that the captain had just woken up and knew nothing. He hurriedly explained, “The ones from Violet Star Academy. They’ve come out of the radiation zone.”

The captain shifted his “fleshy” body, making the iron chair creak and groan beneath him.

“Oh? Is that so?” The captain’s expression showed a trace of surprise, then quickly returned to normal. “What’s so strange about that? Anyone can die, except she could never die in a place this small.”

Lao Zhu, who had worked with the captain for nearly fifty years, saw the change in his expression and said nothing. He pressed all his questions deep into his heart. It was just as it had always been when the ten brothers were together: what the eldest brother ought to say, he would say; what ought not to be asked, no one could pry out. But whether spoken or unspoken, it was all for their good.

The captain appeared very calm, but in truth his own heart was also strung taut. By the old timetable, anyone entering the radiation zone would at most have a week—either they lived and came out, or they died and remained in the radiation zone forever.

Ye Bai and the others had long since exceeded that one-week limit. They should already have reported back to Violet Star Academy. But the captain had inquired about the three in Greenwood Central City: Ye Bai and Cao Xiaosen were both common-born, with no major background to speak of.

But when he produced Yeoling’s photograph, the informant who had given him the intelligence was startled and asked how he had gotten the girl’s picture.

The captain explained the situation.

Only then did the informant let out a breath and say, “That’s a dragon crossing the river. Her origins are terrifyingly grand. She can lift you up, but she can also swallow you whole without leaving so much as a bone.”

The captain had been alarmed at once and urged the informant to speak quickly, not to waste time. He felt that the moment he had waited for over ten years seemed finally to be approaching.

The informant did not hurry. He even took a sip of water before speaking slowly, and at that moment the captain almost could not stop himself from stuffing the man’s head into the toilet.

“It must have been five years ago.”

At last the informant began, and the captain listened in silence to the opening of this “dragon crossing the river” tale.

“I remember that day. I happened to go to the western side of the central city to gather intelligence. When I passed by the gates of the Medicine Manor, do you know who I ran into?”

The baffling question made the captain furious. He could not hold back any longer and said, “If you don’t start talking properly, believe me, I’ll put your head in the toilet, let you calm down, gather your thoughts, and then speak!”

“Uh... heh heh.”

The informant gave an awkward laugh, seemingly satisfied that he had already drawn the captain’s curiosity high enough. If he kept this up, he really would meet the toilet, and so he finally straightened his expression and became serious.

“It was the girl in the photograph. Though five years had passed and her appearance had changed, the spark in her eyes and that tear-shaped mole had not. When I first saw her, I was deeply astonished—why would such a young child have senior Medicine Manor guards accompanying her on an outing? Later I looked into it and understood: she was the little princess of the Medicine Clan, the daughter of the clan leader himself.”

“The little princess of the Medicine Clan... the daughter of the current Medicine Clan chief...” At the time, the captain stroked his chin, feeling the faint sting of stubble, telling himself again and again that this was not a dream, not a dream, it was real. Then he rose and headed for the door.

The informant still called out at an inopportune moment, “You haven’t paid me yet!”

Then a black crystal came flying through the air and struck him on the head. The informant winced in pain, but his face lit up with delight. Black crystal—a product unique to the radiation zone.

“Come, let’s go meet them.” The captain stood, patted Lao Zhu on the shoulder, laughed heartily, and strode out of the operations room first.

The guard post’s ferocious silhouette gradually appeared before the three of them, standing as always at the border between yellow and green. This iron city guarded the radiation zone, leaving only the black, cracked earth to tell of a century of war’s cruelty.

“Xiaosen, Ye Bai, we’re almost at the guard post.”

Looking at the guard post before her, Yeoling felt as though she had suddenly drifted far from the mortal world, as if the last time she left this place had been in another century.

“Yes. We’re almost there!”

The three of them looked toward the guard post, each struck by a feeling they could not quite name. This could be called the first place where they had truly come into contact with the outside world—a world without the protection of the Three Kings, a world of blood-soaked survival of the fittest, and the place where they had begun to grow.

“Hahaha, as expected of the outstanding young talents of Violet Star Academy! To treat the dangers of the radiation zone as nothing at all—you truly have the bearing of the Three Kings, who once led humanity out to carve a path to survival!”

The captain walked ahead, with Lao Zhu following behind. Though he had heard such polite words countless times, the corners of his mouth still twitched. He truly could not imagine that their old chief, once so decisive and terse, could have this side to him.

Though the captain was speaking to all three of them, and even walked toward Ye Bai, his eyes were fixed the whole time on Yeoling beside Cao Xiaosen. The more he looked, the broader his smile became—and the sleazier.

Ye Bai took a step forward and stopped in front of the captain, blocking Yeoling from view, and said with a smile, “Captain!”

“Ah.” The captain’s smile stiffened slightly, but he quickly recovered and laughed, “Heroes come from the young! Heroes come from the young!”

“Haha, there’s no need for us to stand here. Come, come into the guard post, and I’ll personally host you in welcome.”

“There’s no need to trouble the captain or spend anything on us. We’ve come back just to tell you the mission is complete. We’ll be returning to the academy at once.”

The time allotted for each monthly assessment mission could not exceed half a month. If it did, then regardless of whether the mission was completed or not, it would count as a failure.

The captain’s smile froze. After a pause, he said, “No trouble at all, no trouble at all. It won’t take Young Master Ye much time. Could it be that Young Master Ye won’t even spare us this little bit of time?”

And so he half-led and half-dragged Ye Bai toward the guard post, while before turning away he shot Lao Zhu a look, signaling him to take good care of the Medicine Clan’s little princess.

“Captain, really, there’s no need. We still have to return to the academy...”

Being forcibly pulled along, Ye Bai broke into a cold sweat inwardly, still trying to win them the last sliver of opportunity. He truly could not understand why the captain was so warm toward them this time.

Had they not solved the source of the alien riot in District D? But even so, it should not have been like this. By rights, there were alien uprisings every year, and every year the captain went through such matters. At most, the people who came would either fail or succeed in their mission. The captain should already have been used to it. Why would he be so enthusiastic?

And the more Ye Bai looked at the captain’s greasy, bloated face, the more he wanted to tear it off and stomp it into the ground. If you treated a girl like Yeoling that way, fine—after all, she was young, beautiful, and full of life. But why was he smiling so ingratiatingly at him?

Thus Ye Bai was dragged, step by step, into the guard post.