Andrew Uriufis

Another spacetime jump, and this time Xu Lingqu didn't have to pretend. She stood at the center of the starship, surrounded by the Ares people. Among them, You Sun lingered in a corner, his feelings tangled.

Just a month ago, he had swaggered up to Xu Lingqu, scheming about what rank of inspector she might reach, concocting a foolproof plan to win her over. Now, watching the chief treat her with such deference, You Sun wanted to slap himself hard across the face.

Back then, when she'd easily snatched his gun, she really could have killed him, couldn't she? But afterward, he'd taken that gun and handed it to Chief Imperial Physician Li Jingcheng to extract her biological information and verify her identity... Would Xu Lingqu come looking for him to settle the score?

Suddenly, her white cotton-ball dog appeared in front of You Sun. He forced a stiff smile. The dog sniffed at him, then turned and walked away.

Luminous scampered excitedly around the starship. Before coming to the arena, Xu Lingqu had withdrawn its life force back into her ring. Once aboard the Stalker, Luminous insisted on coming out to play, so she'd let it.

The Ares people had no idea how Xu Lingqu had inexplicably produced a dog out of thin air, but no one dared ask.

After the league finals, Emperor Andrew had directly dispatched the chief to Yuheng Star to personally protect her, showing just how much he valued her. Now, Xu Lingqu's psychic power was definitely above S-level. If it were S+...

The Stalker made two spacetime jumps before landing on Capital Star. Xu Lingqu walked out of the starship and, under the Ares chief's guidance, entered the imperial palace. Passing through the council hall in the front courtyard, she arrived at a back garden.

Inside the garden, within a transparent greenhouse, a tall figure moved about. A head of fiery red hair—identical in shade to Jin's—was highly conspicuous.

The Ares chief bowed. "Your Majesty."

The greenhouse opened, and Andrew Uriufis stepped out. He was tall and imposing, though his hair color wasn't as vivid and bright as Jin's—it was a dark red. His complexion was sallow, but his black eyes burned with a startling intensity, like a seasoned lion king enduring the ravages of illness, his dignity and presence still fully intact.

Xu Lingqu stood and met his gaze. Andrew stared at her for about five seconds, then waved his hand to dismiss the Ares chief.

"Xu Lingqu, or should I call you Liu Lingqu? No, that's not right either. You are simply you—Lingqu." Andrew spoke, his voice deep and resonant, like a bell tolling. As he talked, he watched Xu Lingqu's expression.

He'd already investigated her background thoroughly. Before Xu Lingqu could react, he looked down at Luminous by her feet. "If I'm not mistaken, you must be Luminous."

Luminous crouched low, staring at the man warily, looking ready to bite at any moment.

Andrew chuckled. Then the greenhouse door opened again, and a Bernese Mountain Dog walked out. It trotted over to Emperor Andrew's feet, sat down, and addressed Luminous: "Long time no see. Why are you still in such a foolish state?"

"Chi Ren! You're still so sharp-tongued!" Luminous huffed angrily.

"Back then, where did the Galaxy Admiral take you, and where did your main body go? I couldn't sense it at all." Chi Ren titled its head, then glanced up at Xu Lingqu. "And where did you find a new master with an SS+ psychic power level? Where's Yin He?"

Chi Ren's main body was intact, and it sensed Xu Lingqu's psychic power far faster than any detection instrument.

Luminous's ears perked up, and it happily said to Xu Lingqu: "See! I told you! You're still growing stronger! You'll reach SSS in no time, hehehe."

"What use is her strength? Where's your main body?" Chi Ren kept pressing on that point.

"If I knew, I'd tell you! Alright?!" Luminous turned huffy again in the face of Chi Ren.

Xu Lingqu didn't bother mediating the quarrel between the two dogs on the spot. Instead, she responded to Andrew Uriufis: "It seems you've already thoroughly investigated my identity. You say I shouldn't be called Xu Lingqu or Liu Lingqu, just Lingqu—meaning your findings show I have no relatives in the Interstellar Empire. You can't find my biological parents with my biological information, nor even any close relatives, is that right?"

"Indeed. Even Yin He's biological information has nothing to do with yours." Andrew Uriufis stared at the young woman before him. He'd once suspected Xu Lingqu was Yin He's descendant, or even Yin He himself, who had lived all this way and reappeared with a new identity. But after a thorough investigation of Xu Lingqu, he'd abandoned that notion.

Xu Lingqu and Yin He shared the same constitution, yet the two had no kinship whatsoever. The most interesting point was that their biological information existed as unique specimens in the Empire's database. Neither of them had any blood relatives in this world.

"What about my birth records? Did you look into that?" Xu Lingqu pressed.

In the Interstellar Empire, due to the advent of artificial wombs, natural conception was gradually being phased out. Eighty percent of women chose to use artificial wombs entirely for bearing offspring. Of the remaining women, some wanted to carry their children themselves, but the Empire had decreed a maximum gestation period of five months, after which the child must be surgically transferred to an artificial womb for further development. First, because childbirth inflicted severe damage on women's bodies; second, because children nurtured in artificial wombs had a nearly one hundred percent survival rate, far higher than those conceived through natural birth.

Artificial wombs didn't improve the success rate of sperm and eggs; they merely served as a tool to relieve women of the pains of childbirth, not as a replacement for procreation itself. Thus, this world hadn't devolved into a fully socialized childcare society.

However, whether in the Empire or the Federation, with artificial wombs, the government essentially held records of every life's birth information.

The only reason Xu Chengbi had been able to pull off his deception flawlessly was, first, that Liu Linghui's pregnancy had miscarried in the third month before transfer; second, that the autopsy reports of that batch of fallen soldiers had been stuck at the Military Department, never forwarded to the Imperial Physicians, because Xu Chengbi had colluded with the then-Deputy Minister of the Military Department to embezzle their death benefits. They'd suppressed the autopsy reports of that batch, reported double the number of casualties, and used that as an excuse not to forward the records to the Imperial Physicians, then forced the Ministry of Finance to fork over money under the pretext that the martyrs' families urgently needed compensation.

Back then, Liu Zhi, unable to obtain the death benefits for his granddaughter and her husband, and watching himself grow older while Lingqu remained a sickly child, was left with no choice but to write to Xu Chengbi, lying to ask for money. The money Xu Chengbi had sent was rightfully theirs, and even the cumulative amount he'd sent was no more than a third of the death benefits...

"As for your background, you can discuss it in detail with her." Andrew Uriufis coughed twice, then returned to the greenhouse to sit down and rest.

Chi Ren and Luminous were still staring each other down, looking ready to fight at any moment.

Chief Imperial Physician Li Jingcheng appeared. Her ice-blue hair was the spitting image of Doctor Li, the school physician at Moye Military Academy.

"Haisa covered for you very well. Some of your physical data, she didn't even tell me. Ares recovered those data records through some special means." Li Jingcheng nodded at Xu Lingqu. "Your birth information can't be traced either. You weren't born in an artificial womb. You're as if—you just appeared out of thin air."

"Doctor Li mentioned that the Federation reportedly has cases of people with the same special constitution as the Galaxy Admiral. Could I be from the Federation?" Xu Lingqu asked.

"No. Our research into the Galaxy Admiral's physical data only began in the past thirty years. The Federation, having merely heard about our research, started baselessly spreading rumors that they had such human data too. They might not even know where the special trait lies, but they claim they have it. When asked to provide it, they refuse, waiting for us to let our guard down and publish our findings. They've pulled this boring trick many times."

After refuting Xu Lingqu's first question, Li Jingcheng took a deep breath and continued: "As for whether you're from the Federation, I initially suspected that too. So I traced your earliest appearance in the Empire—at two and a half years old, you were registered at Zhuyun Frontier-X. The record stated your grandfather, Liu Zhi, brought you over from Star System No. 4, Tenth Star. That was in Empire year 79. The reason for your move, like most others, was that a gang of Federation space pirates had bypassed the space fortress defense line and reached the Tenth Star of Star System No. 4, pillaging and killing. That gang of pirates was later wiped out by Xu Chengbi, then in command—no survivors."

"If you're from the Federation, the only possibility is that you're a descendant of those space pirates. But why would they bring a two-year-old child along on a raid? And Liu Zhi wouldn't have raised the descendant of space pirates either—that defies logic. So I lean toward you not being from the Federation."

Li Jingcheng finished and looked at the pensive Xu Lingqu. "Is there anything else you'd like to ask?"

Xu Lingqu looked at her and asked: "When did the technology for artificial wombs first appear?"

Caught off guard by the question, Li Jingcheng froze for a moment, then hesitantly glanced at Andrew Uriufis again: "Around Federation year 120. This technology... I may have access to very few documents, but it gave me the same feeling—it also just suddenly appeared." As she spoke, her heart inexplicably skipped a beat. She felt she'd unconsciously said something momentous. She looked at Xu Lingqu, whose expression remained calm.

"Thank you." Xu Lingqu nodded at her, then turned and entered the greenhouse. Inside was a set of white jade table and chairs. Andrew Uriufis sat there, waiting for her to settle her questions about her origins before she came and sat before him.

Luminous and Chi Ren followed them in. The two dogs had just had an exchange, but Chi Ren had no idea where Luminous's main body had gone—it couldn't sense it at all. It had always guessed that Yin He had taken it to Yuheng and hidden it there, but Luminous had spent so long on Yuheng without ever sensing its own main body.

Both dogs' memories had gaps. They could still recall the fights between the three mechs from before, along with some mundane moments of joy, but the more important content was completely missing. Exchanging words was futile.

Xu Lingqu sat down and looked up at Andrew Uriufis. "You didn't call me here today just to answer my questions, did you?"

"Correct." Andrew Uriufis poured a cup of flower tea and slid it in front of Xu Lingqu. "I want you to become the heir to this Interstellar Empire."