Lucia Hall was raging at her subordinates. How was it that the damned live stream couldn’t be interrupted? Had the Tang family lost their minds? How dare they oppose the imperial family so brazenly?
So what if they were connected to the Chu family by marriage? Once Chu Meng retired, they would be nothing but fish thrown on the shore, waiting to die.
But she soon discovered that the one waiting to die was her.
Before the live stream had even ended, the Empress’s most trusted Imperial Guard came to her door personally and brought her before the highest authority in the Empire—the alpha mother she both respected and feared.
Lucia stood rigidly beneath a wall of books. From her mother’s grim expression, she sensed a change in the situation. The entire bookshelf seemed ready to collapse at any moment and crush her to pieces.
The Empire’s most arrogant princess reined in her pride, trembling like a cat before a tiger. “Mother,” she asked respectfully, “has something happened?”
The reigning Empress of the Empire, Ophelia Hall, kept her eyes half-lidded, her gaze, which had been the subject of decades of speculation, hidden in shadow. She and Lucia looked remarkably similar, which was why Lucia had always believed herself to be deeply favored.
“Chu Meng has made her move,” the Empress said calmly. “The Omega Legion is on full combat alert, and the starship Empire is powering up.”
Lucia’s mouth fell open. She tried to speak, but no words came out, like a duck with a scalded throat.
After a long moment, she managed to force out, “Are they going to war?”
The Empress called up a report, her expression unreadable. “It’s a military exercise. Preparations began half a month ago. Hmm, right around the time rumors started spreading that your Warm-O was affecting omegas’ physical health.”
“But-but they can negotiate! There’s no need to deploy a starship,” Lucia stammered, her legs shaking uncontrollably. She knew her fate was sealed, but she still wanted to struggle.
Ophelia chuckled softly at her words. She finally raised her eyes to look directly at her daughter, a hint of mockery in her tone. “Do you think mere talk would have been enough to make you stop?”
“Of course, Warm-O alone wouldn’t be enough for them to deploy the Empire. But add the auction to it, and that covers the cost of the starship’s energy.”
“Lucia, what do you think we should do?”
Sweat beaded on Lucia’s face, and her pheromones leaked out in her terror. But meeting her mother’s displeased gaze, she forced herself to suppress them. Lucia desperately tried to find a way out of this hopeless situation. “Even if it’s war,” she ventured, “we wouldn’t necessarily lose, would we?”
Having started, Lucia gained confidence. With the kind of delusional joy common to desperate people, she said, “That’s right! This way, we can solve the problem of those meddling omegas once and for all. We’ll no longer have to carefully test their boundaries. The Empire will be an empire of alphas!”
The more she spoke, the more excited she became, failing to notice the deepening mockery on her mother’s face. When Lucia finished her utterly foolish speech, the Empress calmly reminded her, “Over fifty-five percent of the Empire’s population is beta. They are willing to accept the massive annual budget the Empire spends on the physiological special needs of alphas and omegas because we hold absolute superiority in terms of military strength. Do you think a war would be the end of it?”
“Once the alphas have dealt with the omegas, it will be the betas’ turn to deal with the alphas. You should know that quite a few betas think returning to the Federation era wouldn’t be so bad.”
In the ABO biological system, the probability of an AO pairing producing a beta was less than one in twenty. The probability of a beta pairing producing an AO was less than one in ten. When an AO and a beta paired, the fertility rate was no different from a typical beta pairing due to the beta’s lack of glands, though the probability of producing an AO offspring increased by at most fifty percent.
During the Activation War, relying on the existing social structures and power institutions, the omegas had pulled the betas to their side to fight the alphas, intending to use their alliance to push alphas out of the gender hierarchy. However, as the effects of pheromones became more prominent, the betas were repeatedly betrayed or ignored in the midst of the frantic AO entanglements. Over time, they began to favor beta partners and withdrew from the center of the conflict.
While the AOs fought to the death for gender dominance, the betas developed steadily. By the time the AOs looked back, a beta resistance army had already emerged, flying the banner of reviving the Federation and eliminating “sexual deviants.” The AOs were forced to shake hands and make peace, turning to suppress the betas with their absolute military might, thus barely maintaining a tripartite balance. So, strictly speaking, the Activation War never truly ended. It was merely forced to a halt.
But if someone were to restart it, the AOs would continue to slaughter each other in their entanglement, the Empire would revert to the Federation era, the ABO system would be abolished, and the Hall imperial family would become the Empire’s coffin.
Lucia was not so foolish that she couldn’t understand the situation now that her mother had laid the answer before her. She was certain now: this war could not be fought. The Empire couldn’t mobilize beta soldiers to attack omegas, and it couldn’t even mobilize alpha soldiers. After all, the ones who committed the sins and reaped the benefits were the alpha nobility.
Therefore, if the alphas wanted to surrender to the omegas, the best war reparation would be Glory.
And, of course, her.
Lucia said bitterly, “Mother, must we really go to such lengths?”
This involved sixty percent of the Empire’s noble families.
Ophelia sighed. The Empress of the Empire looked wistfully at the Hall family tree on her desk. “I thought a hundred years was enough time to domesticate these omegas, but I forgot that as long as people possess weapons, they will never extinguish their ambition.”
The Empress waved a hand. “From now on, you will represent the imperial family and be stationed on Golden Phoenix Star.”
“As for the others…” The Empress didn’t continue.
But they both understood. The others would not meet a good end, either. This was also the imperial family’s covert counterattack. In this way, the Omega Legion would offend sixty percent of the Empire’s nobility. Although the alphas who participated in the auction were not necessarily the most important scions of their families, as long as a few of them were, it was enough to breed hatred.
She was her mother’s bait, used to test the Omega Legion’s bottom line. No wonder all her actions had gone so smoothly. Lucia finally understood her role, but it was too late. For the last time in her life, she bowed to her mother, the leader of the Empire, then turned and left for Golden Phoenix Star, to spend the rest of her life under the Omega Legion’s surveillance, never again to approach the center of power.
By then, the starship had already left Golden Phoenix Star.
The Empress picked up the communicator beside her and expertly made a call. An omega’s clear voice came from the other end, still retaining a trace of its youthful flair. “Ophelia, is it war or peace?”
As expected, still the same direct personality. The Empress lowered her gaze and said softly, “Peace.”
Chu Meng clicked her tongue, then immediately became serious, as if she hadn’t been the one to make the sound. Her voice was firm. “Your Majesty, today the Empire will coordinate with the Omega Third and Fifth Legions to carry out an operation to exterminate the Black Star pirates.”
The Empress looked at a speck of dust floating in the air. It wavered delicately but never truly fell. She replied, “I hope to hear good news from Marshal Chu.”
February 17th of Imperial Year 368 was destined to be remembered by history. In the morning, a massive scandal broke about imperial noble alphas buying and selling omegas. By noon, the Empress had issued a special decree to detain all persons involved, to be sentenced severely and strictly according to imperial law. In the afternoon, the Omega Third and Fifth Legions, aboard the Empire, blasted the pirates’ stronghold to smithereens with a single shot. Black Star would be uninhabitable for the next five hundred years. Of the pirates on it, all died on the spot, save for a few who escaped in smaller vessels and were immediately apprehended by the legion.
Only then did people realize that it wasn’t just low-level gangs involved in human trafficking, but also the notorious star pirates.
That evening, Warm-O announced its bankruptcy. In the past, this might have been a major event that shocked the Empire, but today, it barely made a ripple. Everyone was discussing how the Omega Legion’s single shot didn’t just destroy Black Star, but also the pride of those alphas who abused their power.
From that day forward, the term “omega trafficking” became an inviolable red line in the memory of the Empire’s people.
A purge began throughout the Empire. Tang Jianshen submitted the evidence he had accumulated, and as a result, a prolonged tremor shook the Empire from its highest echelons to its lowest depths.
Of course, some fish slipped through the net. The Glory system was shut down the moment the live stream began. Beyond the list jointly compiled by Johansen and Yun Chuji, many alphas lurking in the shadows managed to escape the storm. However, the Omega Legion later used DNA information retrieval technology from a series of missing omega cases to catch many of those who had slipped through, but that was a story for another time.
For now, Yun Chuji still had not exposed her identity as an undercover agent for Glory. She and Tang Jianxi had a feeling the Third Princess wouldn’t give up so easily, so they simply told Chu Meng to cross Yun Chuji’s name off the list.
It seemed the matter had reached a relatively satisfactory conclusion.
If not for Tang Ji’s sudden arrival.
Tang Jianxi never would have imagined that her mother had been so influenced by her father’s sense of ceremony that she even insisted on scolding her child in person. Tang Ji was originally supposed to be at a meeting on Qinglan Star, but she had her ship make a stop midway and knocked on her daughter’s door in the middle of the night.
Tang Jianxi stood before Tang Ji, feeling very guilty. Beside her stood an equally guilty Yun Chuji.
After all, they had done something so monumental without ever breathing a word to the Tang couple.
Tang Ji swept her gaze over them and remained silent for a long time. Just as Tang Jianxi was beginning to think her mother was drafting a three-thousand-word dissertation scolding her, Tang Ji spoke. “Next time, you can tell me what’s going on.”
“I will help you.”
Tang Jianxi looked up in shock, her eyes welling up. She hadn’t expected her mother to forgive her so easily. After all, on some level, she couldn’t even forgive herself for using the Tang family in this way.
From the very beginning, Tang Jianxi knew what she was doing was outrageous and would bring all sorts of negative consequences for the Tang family. That was why she hadn’t dared to say anything, thinking that since she had told Tang Jianshen, perhaps he would tell them.
But he hadn’t said anything either.
“I’m sorry.”
In the end, that was all she could manage to say.
Tang Ji sighed and stroked her head.
“It’s alright. You were doing the right thing.”
Tang Jianxi shook her head. She knew it was more than that. Tang Jianshen had told her many times, so she understood that doing the right thing came at a price. But her price was being paid by the Tang family.
She bit her lip and finally said it aloud. “The Tang family will be targeted from now on.”
Tang Ji seemed rather unconcerned. “Not all the nobles participated. Besides, our Tang family earns its keep through skill, and we cater to omegas. We don’t need to be afraid of those shameless alphas.”
“…Mom, you’re an alpha too,” Tang Jianxi reminded her weakly.
“…” Tang Ji fell silent for a moment. This child had had a sharp tongue since she was little. “Anyway, you don’t need to worry. No matter how big the problem, you have your brother to handle it.”
“Oh, but he yelled at me.”
“…”
“Tang Jianxi, do you really want me to yell at you?”
Tang Jianxi shrank back and said no more.
“In any case,” Tang Ji said, trying to get the conversation back on track, “this isn’t a huge deal. Don’t be so scared you don’t dare to come home. Your father and I both think you did well. Your two grandmothers think you’re a treasure. And you don’t need to worry about your grandparents on your father’s side. They’re old; they can’t scold you for long.”
Her thoughts exposed, Tang Jianxi shrank back again.
Finally, Tang Ji looked at her daughter, and a gentle smile appeared on her frozen face, looking both eerie and warm. “Jianxi, I am proud of you.”
At these words, the tears that had been welling in Tang Jianxi’s eyes finally fell. Just as she was about to share a rare hug with her mother, Tang Ji turned her head, her expression changing in an instant, like a loving mother turning into a wicked stepmother. She ground her teeth at Yun Chuji. “I’m telling you, if you dare abandon our Jianxi, I’ll make sure you suffer the consequences.”
“Don’t think you can take advantage of my precious daughter just because no one in the Empire would dare marry her now. Our Tang family has plenty of money. We can always find another good alpha.”
Tang Jianxi’s tears of emotion immediately dried up, and the corner of her mouth twitched. As expected of the mother who loved to push for marriage. The main purpose of her trip was probably to intimidate Yun Chuji.
Heh, just how afraid was she that her daughter wouldn’t be able to get married?
Yun Chuji was completely stunned by this barrage, unsure how the topic had suddenly jumped from a heroic ethical drama to the subject of marriage. But the core concept of abandoning one’s partner struck a chord with her not-yet-eradicated A-Virtue instincts. She replied subconsciously, “Only Jianxi would ever leave me; I would never leave Jianxi.”
Tang Ji smiled with satisfaction. “I’ve recorded that.”
Tang Jianxi still felt a little embarrassed, but that didn’t stop her from deciding to ask her mom for a backup copy of the recording later.
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