IMAO Chapter 132.2

“Just say it directly! Which family is it?” Someone noticed O’Carl’s unusual behavior. Seeing how scared he was, they realized this probably wasn’t some minor noble, but rather a very prestigious one. But surely it couldn’t be bad enough to be this frightened?

O’Carl’s lips trembled slightly: “It’s… Berkeley.”

At this name, everyone sucked in a cold breath, their backs going cold.

“Berkeley? The Golden Eagle… Berkeley?”

O’Carl nodded, “That’s the one.”

“Damn… how is that possible? Are you sure you didn’t see wrong? How could the Berkeley family appear on our small planet?”

“I couldn’t have mistaken it!” O’Carl clenched his fists and said, “It was definitely Berkeley. Those mechanical guards had the Berkeley family crest carved on them.”

“This, this, we should go back and pretend this never happened!” A young officer trembled, his legs shaking with nervousness.

Even Jiang Tianze couldn’t stay calm now. If it was the Berkeley family, even the Federation would struggle to negotiate with them.

Golden Eagle Berkeley, foremost of the Rick Empire’s four noble families. Even the Ripper Basil Gallop’s Gallop family had to show them respect!

They were the true uncrowned kings of the Rick Empire!

Due to the war between the Federation and Rick, Jiang Tianze, as a major general, knew quite a bit about Rick. He was very familiar with the power dynamics of Rick’s noble families.

When his son Jiang Yuan first went to school, the Federation passenger ship Destiny was attacked by Basil because of this Berkeley family.

At that time, Ferdinand of the Berkeley family led troops to harass the Federation’s border planet Noth, was defeated and captured by War God Ji Chong. The Ripper Basil Gallop attacked the Destiny to rescue him.

However, for some unknown reason, their plot didn’t succeed. Instead, under the Federation Fearless Vanguard’s attack, Basil’s Shadow Hunter Legion activated space jump and fled the Federation territory.

Thinking of this, Jiang Tianze’s mood grew heavy.

“You should give up. Going against the Berkeley family is like throwing eggs at a stone.” After a while, O’Carl finally calmed down. He patted Jiang Yuan’s shoulder and advised, “The Berkeley family is Rick’s first noble family. That bastard was right… giving up is the best choice.”

The other police officers’ hearts were still trembling uncontrollably. They all regretted coming. Had they known it was the Berkeley family, they wouldn’t have dared come even with a hundred times more courage!

That was the Empire’s most powerful noble family. Making them disappear would be as simple as crushing ants.

The powerful noble family was intertwined with the entire Rick Empire, with countless family members holding positions throughout Rick! This massive war machine was like a meat grinder that could instantly crush people like them to dust!

Of course, there were families in Rick who didn’t fear Berkeley – the other three noble families. Although they were slightly less powerful than the Berkeley family, they were still very powerful. Now the four great families in Rick had formed a delicate balance. The three noble families wouldn’t possibly move against the Berkeley family unless they had all gone mad!

“Berkeley…” Jiang Tianze murmured.

Hearing this, Jiang Yuan turned to look at his father, who wore a bitter smile, seeming to have aged several years in an instant.

“It’s all my fault. If I had trusted you more back then, trusted that you could accept Jingming, I wouldn’t have made up that lie, and Jingming wouldn’t have… wouldn’t have run here! He wouldn’t have encountered this situation!

“I regret it so much… why did it turn out like this…”

Jiang Tianze’s voice choked up. He covered his face with both hands, not wanting his son and his son’s boyfriend to see his vulnerable side. But he felt too awful. The previous events at home had already made him regret and blame himself for lying. If not for that lie, their family would never have ended up like this!

The two children could have grown up well together, but because of his one lie, too many things had happened. He had hurt Jingming!

And now, as a father, he couldn’t even save Jingming, and had to watch helplessly as his adopted son was sold by traffickers!

The despair of his own powerlessness felt like drowning, making it impossible to breathe, like being tangled by seaweed. He struggled desperately but to no avail and could only watch himself sink to the bottom of the ocean.

Jiang Yuan patted Jiang Tianze’s shoulder and said to O’Carl, “Officer, please take my father back first. I need time to think.”

Hearing this, Ji Rong was surprised and looked at Jiang Yuan, who made a silencing gesture, telling him not to speak. Without asking more, Ji Rong remained quiet.

Hearing Jiang Yuan’s words, O’Carl immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

It seemed the young man was rational and understood the gravity of the situation. He knew what kind of behemoth the Berkeley family was. O’Carl quickly ordered everyone to return to the police station, and said to Jiang Yuan and Ji Rong as they got out, “Staying here won’t help either….” He sighed.

With that, O’Carl left with everyone else.

After returning, Jiang Tianze immediately went back to the hotel room to contact the Federation government for help, while Jiang Yuan stayed on that road, waiting for a while.

The hover car that had appeared at Berkeley’s gate earlier showed up again.

“What are you doing?” the man in the car asked irritably when forcibly stopped by Jiang Yuan and Ji Rong.

“Just want to ask you something,” Jiang Yuan said with a slight smile after quickly subduing him.

…

After getting information from the man about the ship’s expected docking time tonight, Jiang Yuan tied him up securely and hid the car in the woods by the roadside.

After finishing all this, Jiang Yuan returned to the hotel room. Ji Rong followed him in, frowning as he said, “The ship will dock at Longluo tonight, and Qiu Jingming should be on it. Why not tell Uncle about this?”

Jiang Yuan: “Forget it, telling him would only make him feel worse.”

Ji Rong was silent for two seconds. “Actually, if we asked my father about this, we might be able to get him out.”

Jiang Yuan: “And then what?”

Ji Rong: “Then?”

Jiang Yuan: “Even if we negotiate privately this time and rescue Qiu Jingming, this organization will still exist and more people will be kidnapped.”

Ji Rong nodded. What Jiang Yuan said was true. Private negotiations might save Qiu Jingming, but these people would just continue trafficking humans afterward. “Then what do you want to do?”

Jiang Yuan turned on his communicator and started purchasing items. “If we’re going to do this, let’s do it big. Big enough that the Berkeley family can’t cover it up, so the citizens of Rick learn the truth. So what if they’re nobles? I don’t believe a single noble family can stand against all the citizens of the Rick Empire! Even the Rick royal family couldn’t do that back then!”

“No one has the right to treat people as commodities to be bought and sold.”

Ji Rong looked at Jiang Yuan. “Alright, I’ll follow your lead. What should we do?”

Jiang Yuan smiled. “We’ll do a livestream.”

“A livestream?”

“A rescue livestream. Not just online, but interstellar. But we’ll need your dad’s help for that.”

…

Jiang Yuan watched Ji Rong communicate with Horace. He could hear both of their voices.

Ji Rong briefly explained the situation in detail. After a moment of silence, Horace responded, “I understand the situation now, but with just the two of you, won’t it be dangerous? Why don’t we wait until I bring some people over?”

“Uncle, we don’t know how long that ship will stay in port. We only know it’ll dock tonight, but not when it’ll leave,” Jiang Yuan said in a serious tone.

“I’m worried about sending just you two kids…” Horace said helplessly.

“Don’t worry about that. If we run into real danger after we get in, we can deploy the mechas from our spatial keys. Escaping won’t be a problem,” Ji Rong immediately replied.

Hearing his son’s answer, Horace thought for a moment and nodded slightly. Both kids had mechas in their spatial keys. If they just needed to escape, those people wouldn’t be able to stop them.

“Fine, since you’ve already decided, I’ll go along with your plan. I’ll come in a jump ship and should arrive tomorrow. You need Hoyt’s interstellar broadcast, right? I’ll have them contact you.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Ji Rong said immediately.

“You can kill those scumbags if you need to. Don’t worry, Dad will cover for you. Actually, there’s no need to make it so complicated. I could force Rick to hand over the Berkeley family.”

“That’s not necessary, Uncle,” Jiang Yuan said. “If we did that, the people of Rick would only think Hoyt is bullying their country instead of knowing the truth.”

Hearing this, Horace replied somewhat resignedly, “Alright then, you two just be careful.”

“I’ll handle the rest. I guarantee no one in Rick will dare touch you.”

“Unless they want to see Rick’s capital planet reduced to ashes.”

Ji Rong: “???”

Jiang Yuan: “???”

After the call ended, Jiang Yuan turned to Ji Rong and said after a few seconds of silence, “I’m really jealous you have a dad like that…”

Ji Rong leaned in close to Jiang Yuan and gave him a kiss. “No need to be jealous. He’s your dad too.”

Jiang Yuan: Well, that’s not wrong…

Soon the items Jiang Yuan ordered were delivered to their room by robots. He immediately began modifying them, and finished the modifications in less than half an hour.

“What’s this?” Ji Rong asked, picking up one of the modified laser guns.

“Hmm… a stun gun. I replaced the components in the laser gun. Instead of laser beams, it fires short electrical currents that transform into high voltage when they hit a person’s body, instantly knocking them out without killing them,” Jiang Yuan explained seriously. “Although Uncle said we could kill them outright, showing killing on an interstellar broadcast would be too bloody. Many people couldn’t handle that. Plus, if we kill anyone, Rick would definitely latch onto that point and not let go, which would work against us.”

“So unless it’s absolutely necessary, let’s try not to kill anyone.”

Ji Rong: “Okay.”

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