It was clearly too late.
Yun Xunlan had indeed been concerned about this matter before, after all, Yu Chen’s “oath” was certainly not mainstream from a public perspective.
Military orders were like mountains—if Dike ordered Yu Chen to speak, he would definitely speak. But whether he was willing to speak or wanted to speak was another question altogether. So when he summoned Yu Chen tonight, it was actually to reassure him.
“Major Yu Chen, you don’t need to feel embarrassed,” Yun Xunlan honestly told Yu Chen what was in his heart. “I really like your oath. It’s very special.”
However, Yu Chen couldn’t feel any sincerity from Yun Xunlan. He only felt that he had been ambushed by the chief examiner’s question.
The last question in the royal guard interview was: What strengths do you think you have that would allow you to stay by the Third Prince’s side?
So Yu Chen had answered that his strength was his fighting ability—just expressed in a slightly arrogant way.
He thought: All that talk of “loyalty” and “devotion” from others was just lip service, invisible and intangible. How could it compare to his first-place ranking in combat? They could fake their superficial loyalty, but his ability to take down one opponent after another, or ten at once, was a solid skill that couldn’t be faked. His answer was so logical and well-founded, perfect like a full-score exam paper—what could go wrong?
But something did go wrong—no matter how strong Yu Chen’s psychological resilience was, he wasn’t thick-skinned. When he heard Yun Xunlan repeatedly praise him against normal thinking, his embarrassment was about to solidify into something visible and tangible.
Yet the Prince could maintain a straight face.
With such psychological resilience, how could he score less than 30 points in War Psychology?
At first, Yu Chen thought Yun Xunlan was comforting him against his conscience to brainwash him. Now, Yu Chen began to suspect that Yun Xunlan was punishing him.
After all, if Yun Xunlan, like Pei Xingting, felt that his “oath” had too broad an attack radius and felt offended, it wasn’t impossible that he would make him repeatedly recite that embarrassing “oath” in front of all his elite guard colleagues as punishment.
Yu Chen really wanted to say, “Your Highness, let’s both stop pretending and be honest.”
But with the lesson learned, Yu Chen chose a less direct approach and apologized to Yun Xunlan: “Your Highness, you don’t need to comfort me anymore. I know that the words I said must have been very uncomfortable for you to hear—”
Before he could finish, Yu Chen saw genuine surprise in the Prince’s golden eyes: “Not at all. I would feel uncomfortable all day if I didn’t hear it.”
Yu Chen: “…”
But he would feel uncomfortable for an entire day after saying it.
However, since Yun Xunlan had been so forthright, Yu Chen could only swallow the rest of his words, finally accepting that this was retribution for his unfiltered speech: “…Thank you for your appreciation, Your Highness.”
Seeing this, the system was greatly pleased: “Ah, it seems he has once again deeply felt your admiration.”
Yun Xunlan also felt that the development of their brotherhood was progressing well.
“Then we’ll see each other tomorrow,” he said goodnight to Yu Chen. “Major Yu Chen, may you have pleasant dreams tonight.”
“Goodnight, Your Highness.”
Yu Chen couldn’t bear to stay any longer either, so he saluted, bid farewell, and withdrew.
At exactly twelve o’clock that night, during the peak time for depression, Yu Chen’s silent galactic web profile suddenly featured a new update—
[Blue: From now on, I’ll throw a punch at the air every morning when I wake up. Not for any reason, just to give this world a punch.]
Yun Xunlan only saw Yu Chen’s post the next morning when he was changing into his formal attire and received a notification from his light brain that a specially followed account had updated.
After reading it, he was quite surprised, not understanding what had stimulated Yu Chen after leaving. He had seemed fine when he left his sleeping palace.
The system was also alarmed: “Goodness, now he wants to punch even non-humans? This is bad, I’m in trouble!”
Even Fu Yanxi, who had never gotten along with Yu Chen and would always argue and nitpick whenever Yu Chen posted something new, viewing Yu Chen as a mortal enemy, didn’t mock him this time. Instead, he commented below: [Forever Guarding the Third Prince: I can understand you, sigh…]
Following that was a comment from an unfamiliar account Yun Xunlan hadn’t seen before: [Longan Planted by the Third Prince: I can understand you too, sigh…]
Looking at these comments, Yun Xunlan felt somewhat at a loss: “Why can they all understand Yu Chen, but I can’t?”
If his future intimate friend’s thoughts could be understood by his sworn enemy and others, but not by himself as a future good brother, how could their friendship develop further?
Yun Xunlan frowned, and even after changing into his formal attire, he didn’t leave his sleeping palace. Instead, he sat on the edge of the bed, carefully analyzing with the system.
“Yu Chen is introverted and doesn’t wear his emotions on his face. We can’t guess what he’s thinking, and we might guess wrong like last time,” the system advised him. “Why not find someone else who is similarly introverted and ask them what such introverted people might be thinking?”
Yun Xunlan nodded: “Alright, I know who to ask.”
Of course, he would ask his other good brother—Jian Wenxi.
When it came to introversion, no one in the world could surpass Jian Wenxi.
How introverted was he?
There were no living people in his home, only mechanical servants; he always wore gloves when going out to prevent skin contact with humans; he basically never answered any calls or video chats; he couldn’t accept more than ten people existing within a ten-meter radius around him at the same time—if there were, there was a high probability he would immediately pretend to faint, then have his light brain summon an unmanned intelligent ambulance to drag him away.
The reason the gunmen could target Jian Wenxi so quickly during the auction attack was because they figured that the only person who would stop fleeing and hiding at a critical moment due to seeing too many people would be Jian Wenxi.
Yun Xunlan also thought that perhaps he had spent too much time with Jian Wenxi, which was why he previously didn’t think Yu Chen was introverted.
But the world is so vast, it’s impossible for every introverted person to behave exactly the same way. And while their behaviors might not be identical, there must be commonalities.
Conveniently, Jian Wenxi would be coming to tonight’s banquet, giving him an opportunity to learn from Jian Wenxi. Once he understood the commonalities among all introverted personalities, he would likely be able to accurately decode Yu Chen’s thoughts.
Due to his preoccupation with this matter, even though tonight’s banquet was his own coming-of-age celebration, Yun Xunlan didn’t focus much on himself, frequently checking his light brain—
[Yun Xunlan: Wenxi, where are you now?]
[Jian Wenxi: Yu Hai Boulevard. Should be there in about ten minutes.]
[Yun Xunlan: Alright, I’ll come to the entrance to meet you.]
That’s what he said, but in reality, as the protagonist of this grand banquet, Yun Xunlan had barely left Yun Xunguang’s side, retreating from the social circles of high-ranking military officials and business celebrities from the Galactic Empire, Corona Empire, and Nebula Federation. He had just found a less crowded place to send a message to Jian Wenxi when he was surrounded by layers of young, beautiful omegas from wealthy families.
But the emergence of this situation was actually understandable. Among the current main members of the Galactic Empire’s royal family, Crown Princess Yun Xunguang solely controlled political power, the Second Prince and the Emperor jointly controlled military power, while the Third Prince Yun Xunlan had neither political nor military power and couldn’t make decisions about anything. So in the eyes of high-level officials from various countries, wasn’t his main value just for a political marriage?
Moreover, the Third Prince was tall and exceptionally handsome. Even if one couldn’t marry him as the Third Prince’s consort, spending a night with him or having a brief romantic encounter would still be considered a gain. Therefore, whether under family orders or not, these omegas were using all their skills, hoping to get close to the silver-haired alpha.
If not for Ni Chun and Major Lou Di (disguised as the second attendant) beside him, Yun Xunlan might have been carried away by this group of omegas.
He should be grateful that he wasn’t the central figure of the banquet like Yun Xunguang, who was busy exchanging pleasantries with various political figures from the Corona Empire and Nebula Federation, her mouth never stopping. Otherwise, even with Ni Chun and Major Lou Di’s help, he would have had difficulty breaking free to go to the banquet hall entrance.
“Ah, our Third Prince is so popular…”
Gui Yan, who was also a royal guard disguised as a banquet server, first sighed dreamily at this scene, then stared sourly at Lou Di who could stay close to Yun Xunlan: “Why did I have to grow to 188 cm? If I were only 175 cm like Lou Di, I could stay by the Third Prince’s side too. This height is really unlucky.”
Fu Yanxi beside him was also expressing his triply jealous and envious resentment: “Exactly! My cursed 192 cm height has ruined me.”
Unfortunately grouped with these two Versailles complainers, the 195 cm tall Yu Chen: “…”
“Yu Chen, why aren’t you saying anything? Are you already too pained to speak?” Fu Yanxi and Gui Yan, competing in melancholy, apparently weren’t satisfied and wanted Yu Chen to join their sorrow. “Makes sense, you’re even a tiny bit taller than us, no wonder you’re so miserable.”
Yu Chen’s expression was cold: “What nonsense are you talking?”
“Stop pretending to be tough.” Fu Yanxi sighed deeply. “Today we’re all fellow sufferers. Even if you cry, we won’t laugh at you.”
Gui Yan nodded: “We’ll just cry with you.”
Fu Yanxi quickly clarified: “Well, I wouldn’t go that far. You can cry with him yourself.”
“Are you sick?” Yu Chen frowned. “You two can have your mental breakdown without me.”
Fu Yanxi shook his head and clicked his tongue: “Ah, you’re just too proud to admit your suffering, still pretending to be strong.”
Gui Yan chimed in with him: “Yeah, didn’t you post that late-night melancholy update yesterday? We all saw it. There’s no use in pretending to be tough.”
Hearing this and connecting it to what they had said earlier, Yu Chen finally understood. He asked: “You think I posted that update because I can’t stand by the Third Prince’s side today?”
Fu Yanxi countered: “What else could it be?”
The security plan for Yun Xunlan’s coming-of-age birthday banquet had been released yesterday noon. Originally, Commander Dike had wanted to arrange for Yu Chen, who adapted best to the Prince’s pheromone pressure, to closely follow Yun Xunlan. However, Yu Chen’s height and build really didn’t resemble a beta’s, so in the end, they chose the more suitable-looking Major Lou Di, having her disguise herself as the second attendant to stay by Yun Xunlan’s side along with Ni Chun. The remaining guards would follow Dike, working in groups of three mixed among the banquet servers, keeping a close eye on the movements around Yun Xunlan.
As soon as this news came out at noon, by the afternoon, all the guards except Lou Di were howling with envy and jealousy. And Yu Chen, who had “missed” the opportunity to closely follow the Prince, appeared calm and unaffected during the day, but posted a melancholy update late at night. Now he was saying it was purely due to a sour mood and had nothing to do with the Third Prince—who would believe that?
At least Fu Yanxi and Gui Yan didn’t.
Yu Chen: “…”
