TCPUAAV Chapter 149

 

When Ruan Shiqing returned from the research institute, he found the room dark. He’d assumed Rong Heng was still busy. He flipped on the lights, intending to wash up and change clothes first—but then he spotted a shadowy figure out on the terrace.

 

He paused, changed direction, and walked toward the terrace. Only then did he realize the blurry silhouette was Rong Heng.

 

The tall man was slumped against the wall, reeking of alcohol, looking utterly defeated. Scattered around him were five or six empty liquor bottles, along with a smart terminal.

 

Rong Heng had never looked so despondent.

 

“What happened?”

 

A wave of unease surged through Ruan Shiqing. He picked up the smart device and summoned the household robot to clean up the terrace. Then, he crouched down to help Rong Heng off the ground.

 

At first, the drunk man struggled against him. But perhaps upon catching a familiar scent, he stopped pushing and instead pulled him into an embrace.

 

He clung to Ruan Shiqing tightly, burying his face in the crook of his neck. His voice came out hoarse, raw with pain: “Siyan is dead.”

 

Ruan Shiqing was stunned by the sudden news, rendered speechless. Before he could find the right words, Rong Heng lifted his head drunkenly, a twisted smirk curling his lips, though his eyes were bloodshot. “He went and got himself killed, and now he has the nerve to ask me to clean up after him.” He let out a cold laugh. “What a joke.”

 

He seemed consumed by hatred, jaw clenched so hard it creaked. “He never once acted like a father. Why the hell should I fulfill his dying wish? From the moment my mother died, I stopped having a father.” His voice cracked slightly, gravelly and bitter.

 

Ruan Shiqing didn’t know the full backstory, but given Siyan’s recent disappearance and his reckless, headstrong nature, he could piece together a rough idea.

 

He let out a quiet sigh, but didn’t know how to comfort him.

 

To Rong Heng, Siyan had never been a responsible father. And he’d been a poor excuse for an emperor, too… Violent, war-hungry—such descriptors weren’t exaggerations in his case.

 

While he was alive, Rong Heng resented him, hated him, and never found a way to reconcile. But now that he was gone, just like that, even Rong Heng couldn’t fully accept it.

 

After all, that had still been his father.

 

When they returned to Sikkim, the two had even argued. So many unresolved issues still hung between them. Ruan Shiqing had thought that once the dust settled, perhaps father and son could sit down and have an honest talk.

 

Rong Heng had likely thought the same.

 

But now, there was no more chance.

 

Or rather, Siyan had never intended to leave one.

 

He had wrapped everything up cleanly, decisively ended his life, leaving behind only a mess for Rong Heng to deal with—and the grief of losing a father.

 

In that moment, Ruan Shiqing couldn’t help but feel a trace of resentment toward Siyan.

 

He had planned everything to perfection—except for how Rong Heng would feel.

 

Ruan Shiqing wrapped his arms around Rong Heng and gently rubbed his arched back over and over again. “You still have me,” he murmured.

 

“I still have you.”

 

Those words were like a single lifeline, and Rong Heng latched onto them with all his might. His arms tightened, and he kept repeating the phrase, again and again, almost mechanically: “I still have you. I still have you…”

 

Each time he said it, Ruan Shiqing responded with a soft “Mm,” patient and unwavering.

 

They clung to each other tightly on the terrace. Rong Heng leaned into Ruan Shiqing with the full weight of his body, holding him so tightly it was as if he wanted to crush him into himself. It was painful—but Ruan Shiqing never tried to pull away or resist. He simply held him back with calm and quiet acceptance, like a tree standing firm in the storm, offering a place of shelter for a lost and weary falcon.

 

Only after a long time did Rong Heng finally calm down.

 

They had been standing too long, so the two of them sat down side by side against the wall, shoulders touching, arms brushing.

 

“He took twenty thousand modified soldiers and attacked the heart of the Holy Legion and the Zerg, went out in a blaze of glory,” Rong Heng said hoarsely. His voice no longer carried the same sharp edge, but there was still a trace of bitterness. “Right before he died, he sent me the coordinates, told me to go retrieve his body.”

 

He took the smart terminal from Ruan Shiqing, opened the message, and showed it to him.

 

Ruan Shiqing read it in silence, at a loss for how to judge Siyan’s actions.

 

Those twenty thousand modified soldiers were also citizens of the Empire. Even if they had volunteered to join the so-called “Holy Augmentation Program,” none of them knew it was a sham. What Siyan had done was heartless—cruel, even.

 

But at the same time, he had led those modified soldiers himself and destroyed both the Holy Legion’s stronghold and the Zerg hive, eliminating a major threat to the Empire and saving countless lives.

 

It was like the classic ethical dilemma: the trolley problem. There was no simple way to define right and wrong.

 

“If you don’t want to go, I’ll go in your place,” Ruan Shiqing offered with another sigh.

 

Rong Heng stared down at their interlocked fingers, fidgeting with them for a while before answering, “Forget it. I’ll go with you.”

 

He wasn’t the kind of person who avoided things. After a brief moment of vulnerability, he would always pick himself back up to face reality.

 

*

 

The next day, Rong Heng handed over the affairs and defense of Sikkim to Merrell and Dares, then boarded the Orient with Ruan Shiqing and set course for the coordinates Siyan had sent.

 

The moment that gray-blue planet came into view, Rong Heng’s expression tightened. Ruan Shiqing stood beside him and gripped his hand firmly.

 

Once the Orient pierced the atmosphere, its sensors relayed visuals of the surface.

 

At the center of a mountain of corpses was an oddly empty clearing. At its heart stood a statue of Queen Farah. Not far away hovered a black battleship, backlit by the warm hues of dawn.

 

The Orient descended slowly into the clearing. As they stepped down the boarding ramp, they saw someone leaning motionlessly against the base of the statue.

 

His head drooped low. His white military uniform was torn, exposing parts of a cybernetic body that caught and reflected the morning light.

 

It was Siyan.

 

Ruan Shiqing stopped in his tracks and looked toward Rong Heng.

 

Rong Heng stepped forward, staring silently at the figure for a long time before returning with a flat tone: “He was ruthless to others—but even more ruthless to himself.”

 

He had never imagined that Siyan had subjected himself to cybernetic modification as well.

 

“What now?” Ruan Shiqing asked.

 

“We follow his last wishes,” Rong Heng replied calmly.

 

In the end, they followed the instructions left behind and cremated Siyan’s body, scattering the ashes around the base of the statue.

 

The tens of thousands of Zerg corpses were loaded onto transport ships by soldiers and robots. Their chitinous shells, once stripped, could still be repurposed later. As for the twenty thousand modified soldiers, their identities were verified and registered one by one. Their remains were cremated, and their ashes would be returned to Sikkim to be delivered to their families. Compensation would be issued to them as fallen warriors.

 

By the time all these arrangements were completed, half a month had passed.

 

The battlefield was cleared. All Zerg remains had been transported away, and every last modified soldier laid to rest. Only the ruined fortress and scorched earth bore witness to the brutal battle that had once unfolded here.

 

And yet, the statue of Queen Farah still stood tall. Rong Heng personally installed a signal transmitter at its base.

 

The signal it emitted marked the planet as now belonging to the Galactic Empire.

 

Perhaps that was why Siyan had transported the statue all this way.

 

Wherever Queen Farah set foot—was Imperial territory.

 

When the Orient returned to Sikkim, the little ones who had gone off to battle had just arrived home as well.

 

The three-month civil war had finally come to an end. Tutar and Sijialan had fully submitted.

 

Nota had used absolute strength to subdue the Nine-Tailed Fox Clan, becoming their rightful ruler. Meanwhile, with inside help from Lansing, Ruan Yuebai captured the scheming Merman Clan Chief and his confidants. Taking advantage of the clan’s unrest, Lansing took up the role of chieftain to restore stability, and Ruan Yuebai naturally assumed the position of the new Grand Elder.

 

With everything settled, Nota, representing the Nine-Tailed Fox Clan and Tutar, and Ruan Yuebai, representing the Mermen and Sijialan, had rushed back to Sikkim.

 

Rong Heng, who had been silently brooding for days, finally showed a faint smile upon seeing the victorious cubs return.

 

They had been away for a long time and were clearly thrilled to see their dad again. But with the weight of their new responsibilities, they managed to maintain a composed and steady front, trailing behind Rong Heng and Ruan Shiqing into the Palka Palace for their formal debrief.

 

Once all official matters were reported and the outsiders had departed, the cubs relaxed, reverting to their playful selves as they swarmed around Ruan Shiqing, vying for affection.

 

Ruan Shiqing cast a sidelong glance at Rong Heng, still engrossed in paperwork, and gave the cubs a subtle poke. He tilted his chin slightly in Rong Heng’s direction and silently mouthed:

 

—Snowball’s in a bad mood.

 

The little dragon cub’s eyes widened. He looked at Rong Heng, hesitated a moment, then cautiously approached. Climbing up Rong Heng’s leg and flapping his wings, he forcefully wriggled his way into his lap.

 

Rong Heng paused and looked down at him. “What is it?”

 

The dragon cub frowned, puffing out his cheeks. After struggling for a while, he finally blurted out in a loud voice:

 

“Papa[mfn]he called him little dad in the raws, I chose Papa to showcase the cuteness of the term he used lol[/mfn]!”

 

——！！！！

 

The sudden “Papa” nearly made Rong Heng choke on his breath. He stared at the dragon cub with an indescribable look, brows slowly knitting. “Out with it. What mischief have you gotten into?”

 

Seeing his affectionate gesture met with suspicion, the dragon cub instantly pouted.

 

But remembering that Dad said Snowball was upset, he held back his temper and instead signaled frantically to the others.

 

Come help. I don’t want to deal with this guy anymore!

 

The little merman shrugged, clearly not skilled at cheering people up, and stayed where he was. Ruan Jiao blinked his red eyes, his tentacles waving in confusion as he stared blankly back.

 

Finally, it was the little fox who couldn’t resist the pleading look. She reluctantly crawled onto Rong Heng’s lap and sat down, racking her brain before blurting out:

 

“We… beat up the Fox King and the Merman Clan Chief and… locked them in a cell together…”

 

Both of them—once proud and arrogant leaders—had now been reduced to prisoners of the state for treason.

 

But that wasn’t all. Out of petty revenge and sheer mischief, the cubs had deliberately locked the two ex-allies, now sworn enemies, in the same cell.

 

As expected, they immediately tore into each other—fighting tooth and nail, leaving each other bruised and battered, in a comically tragic state.

 

Imagining the scene, Rong Heng couldn’t help but let the corners of his mouth curl up. He let out a soft snort and flicked the dragon cub’s forehead. “And what’s there to feel guilty about[mfn]He’s basically saying this because he thinks Heli called him Papa because he felt guilty about what they “did” to those two and is trying to act cute so he gets “forgiven” lol[/mfn]?”

 

The dragon cub covered his forehead in protest and secretly rolled his eyes. Guilty? Me? I was thrilled!

 

If it weren’t for cheering you up, I wouldn’t even be talking to you!

 

 

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I was crying at the start of the chapter and at the end from two different reasons lol (the end was so cute, our cute little cubs!!)

 

Thanks for reading!

For every three ko-fis, I will upload a bonus chapter~