Chapter 82
Snar Star.
Although he had gone without rest for a very long time, the man in the imperial bedchamber still could not close his eyes in peace.
He looked haggard, every second stretched taut to the limit.
Public opinion online was already completely beyond control.
If the one behind the scenes had merely thrown out proof that he and the Phizhi prince had cooperated back then, perhaps the consequences would not have become this severe. After all, documents could be forged… but Yosef’s reaction at the time had practically stamped the whole thing as true!
At the same time, a name unrelated to the imperial family entered the emperor’s field of vision.
Yomi.
Three years ago, one of the innocents who had died in that attack was Yomi.
Yomi had become explosively popular back then, with fans spread across all of Snar. After his death, countless documentaries and films had been made about him, and innumerable writers used him as the inspiration for novels… Thus, in the three years since his disappearance, not only had Yomi’s fandom not faded, under the weight of everyone’s remembrance, he had instead become a name known to all of Snar.
More and more people began demanding an explanation, including Yomi’s fans. They could not accept that Yomi, whose life had only just started to get better, had actually died because of the emperor’s conspiracy.
And the little stars who had risen to fame through It’s Okay to Be Different had also begun reposting related content to express their anger.
Soon, someone on a forum dropped a bombshell: the Louis who had appeared on that variety show back then was Crown Prince Anxius.
[Anonymous Crocodile: The Crown Prince liked Yomi even before the show. Back then Yomi was still the streamer Mimi Daily, and the Crown Prince was his top donor. Later, the reason he joined the show was for Yomi too. By then, the Crown Prince’s berserk episodes had already become very rare… Yomi’s death back then was absolutely not an accident! And the Crown Prince absolutely did not die from losing control during a berserk episode!]
[???]
[Insider above?]
[“For real?”]
[Obviously fake!]
[…It’s true. I don’t know the original poster, but I was one of the staff on that show back then. I won’t say my exact job, but I swear Louis really was Anxius. Changing the format into a live broadcast was also his idea, all so Yomi wouldn’t be maliciously edited… I originally thought this secret would rot in my stomach forever, but since someone else has said it first, I also want to do my part to help investigate the truth behind the people who died back then… I hope the truth about their deaths can finally be uncovered…]
[Oh my god!]
[I just went to check the surveillance footage from back then. When Anxius got into trouble, he wasn’t far from the mall where Yomi was!]
[Actually Yosef’s reaction and all that evidence are already enough to prove it!]
[Wuwuwu I can’t take this anymore, give us back our Yomi!]
[I want Yomi, I want Yomi…]
[Anxius brought so much glory to the Empire, and yet the emperor colluded with the enemy and got him killed? This is too absurd! I’d rather believe it’s a rumor!]
[This is treason against the planet. Even if he’s the emperor, he should still be sent to the guillotine!]
……
On the other side of the optical screen, the emperor stared gloomily at those comments, gritting his teeth at the name that kept appearing with such frequency—Yomi.
So the reason Anxius insisted on undergoing the human-form surgery back then was because of him…
He was just one tiny little thing. How could he stir up such a huge commotion even after death?!
…And they wanted to send him to the guillotine? Ridiculous!
Fortunately, he had a way to deal with this.
That afternoon, just as the internet was boiling over, the emperor, who had remained inside the palace this entire time, suddenly did something completely out of character—he opened a global livestream.
To everyone’s surprise, the kindly and benevolent-looking emperor was silent before the camera for a long time before finally speaking. He first spoke of his fury over Phizhi Star’s latest attack. As for the rebels who had seized the chance to provoke the royal family and spread rumors by kidnapping a prince, he had no time left to deal with them…
“As Emperor of Snar, I will personally lead the fleet against Phizhi Star. If we are defeated, I will not return alive!”
That expression of readiness for death, that sonorous and forceful voice, made many people instantly feel they might truly have misunderstood their emperor.
The ministers were stunned as well. One after another, they rushed into the palace to protest that now was not the right time. Phizhi Star now possessed an abnormally powerful S-rank mech, something even the Marshal could not deal with… wasn’t this simply throwing himself to his death?
Yet the emperor seemed to have made up his mind and insisted on it.
His actions were so decisive that by the next morning, before Snar’s citizens had even had time to digest the matter, the emperor had already personally led troops out under the filming of countless media outlets.
The speed was astonishing.
If they had not clearly seen the warships heading straight for the battlefield, people would have thought the emperor was taking the opportunity to run away.
With the emperor marching out and the prince’s whereabouts unknown, all affairs in the main city fell into the empress’s hands as acting authority.
But before one wave could settle, another rose. On the second day of the empress’s regency, news suddenly spread through the main city that the Marshal had returned.
The empress nearly lost the ability to breathe after hearing the ministers relay the message.
“The only one who came back is the Marshal. He says someone rescued him, and when he woke up he was already back on Snar. Right now he’s demanding to see His Majesty… It seems he still doesn’t know His Majesty has already gone to the battlefield.”
“He came back alone?”
“Yes.”
“Lock him up! If this man had not betrayed His Majesty, how could he possibly have made it back?!”
“But—”
“Lock him up!”
The empress was practically losing all composure. The mere thought that under enemy torture the Marshal might have given in and already brought in a number of hidden Phizhi operatives preparing to storm the palace made her legs go weak. She dismissed the ministers, pressed a hand to her forehead, and returned to her room.
A moment later, after driving all the servants out as well, she hurriedly opened the hidden door leading to the cellar, ran down the passage, and ripped off the human-skin suit she was wearing. When she raised her head again, what appeared was a man’s face.
It was none other than the emperor, who by all rights should already have left Snar.
The man’s face was pale, his gaze gloomy. He cursed several times in a row.
If not for wanting to capture Bruller, he would never have stayed here any longer. He had thought Phizhi Star would not move so quickly, but the Marshal’s bizarre return had proved that everything was already abnormal—the Marshal’s insistence on seeing him clearly meant he was after his head.
Whether the Marshal had defected or had truly fought his way back to seek aid, the emperor did not believe for a second that the man wanted to reminisce.
If it was the former, he wanted to kill him. If it was the latter, he would never let him escape.
Fortunately, the emperor had prepared everything in advance.
The Federation had already abandoned them, and before long Snar would fall into the hands of the Phizhi people. As for the empress who had taken his place aboard the warship, she ought to be dead soon as well.
And he…
The emperor walked to a cabinet in the cellar and quickly took out the human-skin suit stored inside. He put it on with calm, efficient movements.
The Phizhi people would track down members of the royal family, but they would never bother pursuing an unknown foot soldier.
From now on, with this entirely new identity, he would spend the rest of his days on a private planet stocked with immense wealth.
Thinking of how he would never again be able to show his true face, the emperor could not help sighing.
But that was not all bad.
He would forever remain the Emperor of Snar.
He would remain in Snar’s history as one who had fallen in battle.
However, a moment later, that beautiful illusion ended beneath the muzzle of a gun.
The one holding the gun on him was Anxius, who ought to have long since died.
How could Anxius possibly still be alive?!
The emperor’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets.
No—if Anxius were alive, then Yosef’s kidnapping with no traceable leads, the Marshal’s safe return—everything suddenly made sense…
And Anxius, who possessed reconnaissance abilities, could not possibly fail to see through who he really was!
The emperor’s face turned deathly white. A fear unlike anything he had ever known made him sway on the spot. He was almost trembling.
His lips shook as he tried to say something—anything. To explain, to argue, to beg for mercy, any of it would do.
But the other man’s voice came faster than his:
“Stealing royal documents. Summary execution on the spot.”
Execution?
Who dared execute an emperor?
Even if Anxius hated him, it should not be this arbitrary…
At the instant the gun went off, disbelief was still written all over his face.
He stared fixedly at the unfamiliar mask reflected in the monster’s pupils, and as his life ebbed away, he understood everything.
It was not arbitrary.
This was the ending Anxius had carefully prepared for him, step by step.
An ending in which he would die with his eyes open.
—That day, the Crown Prince of the Empire “returned from the dead” and executed on the spot a thief attempting to flee Snar with vital royal documents.
……
While Snar was turning upside down, Yomi was still diligently practicing his shooting. Gousheng had volunteered to act as the target, and Yomi had sprayed him from head to toe with the water gun until he was completely soaked.
One person and one wolf were having a great time when a miserable howl suddenly came from the little castle.
It was Satan!
Yomi thought something must have happened to him, so he hurried back toward the castle. The instant he charged into Satan’s room, he anxiously asked, “What happened? What happened?”
Inside the room, Satan was in tears, staring at his optical brain. He looked at the screen, then at Yomi, and for a moment could not speak at all.
?
It was the first time Yomi had ever seen Satan like this. It was far too abnormal. Forgetting all concerns about privacy, he immediately stepped over and looked at the screen of Satan’s optical brain.
The moment he saw it, he froze too.
It was a news report about the royal scandal on Snar.
The rough content was as follows:
A few days ago, the emperor of Snar, who had loudly proclaimed that he would personally lead troops into battle, had actually just been the empress in a human-skin suit.
And aboard the empress’s warship, poison had been mixed into all the food.
It was obvious that the emperor had never intended for any of them to return alive. If the Marshal had not rushed over with troops in time and discovered the warship drifting without control, that ship and everyone inside would likely have all died in the endless universe, only to be blown apart by the enemy afterward…
At present, the criminal emperor was still nowhere to be found.
Clearly, Satan was not in this state because of the article itself. Yomi pressed his lips together and then looked down at the comments beneath it.
[That dog emperor definitely ran away! Damn…]
[I heard the Marshal and the others were saved by the Crown Prince and a group of interstellar mercenaries. So it really is Crown Prince Anxius?]
[It’s true, he didn’t die! Phizhi Star is done for hahaha!]
[Wuwuwu Teacher Mi… where’s our Teacher Mi then… so Teacher Mi really was killed by that dog emperor?]
[God, please bring Yomi back to life too, I’m begging you!]
[Yomi has already been gone for three years. Stop saying that…]
……
Even though his original identity had already been exposed in front of his foster father, Yomi could not calm down over another matter entirely:
Anxius had shown himself over there.
That meant he had avenged himself, right…?
Was everything finally about to end?
Was Anxius all right?
Though after all that training, Yomi still had not even gotten his chance to make an appearance… sigh, Assassin Yomi had exited the stage before he could even debut.
While Yomi, dazed, scratched his head and let his imagination run wild, Satan was in agony.
It was through this very news that Satan had today discovered Anxius’s true identity. And from there he had also learned Yomi’s past: heavens, little sheep had been a superstar on Snar! And before becoming a star, it seemed he had lived a hard life…
In truth, before Yomi came in, Satan had already clicked into a memorial video for Yomi, and it had made his heart ache terribly. Wuwu, that tiny coffin… even if the death had been fake, just imagining it made his chest hurt!
And also—Little Sheep’s real name was Yomi. Such a beautiful name!
As Satan wiped away his savage tears, he kept glancing at Yomi.
He really wanted to call him by it…
“Yo…mi… Mi…”
“Mm.” Yomi lowered his head and began thinking about how to explain himself to Satan.
As the father and son looked at each other in silence, a series of thudding footsteps suddenly came rushing from afar.
“Mimi! Mimi!”
Lin En rushed in so fast that he stumbled and fell. Before Yomi could even move to help him up, Lin En had already scrambled back to his feet and shouted, “Snar! News from Snar! Meikai and Harvey saw the Snar news while on a business trip in Skull State! It worked… Meikai and the others are already on their way back! I… I…” He seemed unable to express his excitement properly. Just as he was still struggling with his words, he saw the little person in front of him staring blankly at him. Then, at last, some tautly wound thread inside Yomi snapped. His lashes trembled, and he bit his lip hard, trying not to let his tears fall.
Yomi was not crying because he was sad.
He was crying because he was too happy.
Lin En, however, was startled. One of his tentacles immediately reached out to wipe Yomi’s eyes, and then he lifted him up. The more he lifted him, the more emotional he himself became, until his own eyes were shining with tears.
“Mimi! It’s good news! You’re not dreaming!”
He was so excited that he tossed Yomi upward.
Satan saw his son flying and nearly threw himself over to catch him, only to see the upturned corners of Yomi’s mouth while he was in midair:
“Mm, it’s good news!”
When Bruller, Carl, Yexi, and the others came hurrying over after hearing the news, the first thing they heard was a burst of joyous laughter. The moment they pushed open the door, they saw the little figure being tossed high into the air. Under the support of two monsters, he was like a flying doll, lifted higher and higher…
A little while later, two monsters became three, then four… until every last one of them wanted to help him “fly” a few times.
Outside, the sunlight was brilliant and the sky stretched endlessly. When he “flew” up again, Yomi’s view suddenly opened wide, stretching along with the sky far, far into the distance.
In the flickering blur of light and shadow, he saw scenery unlike anything he had seen before.
And he also saw a brand-new life.
