While Ji Chenxi and Chi Zhuo were busy talking, the Red Scorpion pirates—who had been completely ignored—suddenly fired a shot at their starship.
But honestly, that single blast was nothing against a ship this advanced. Especially since Bai Han had already raised the shields—the impact didn’t even make the ship tremble.
“How’s it looking?” Chi Zhuo walked over to the big display.
Bai Han, working on the data panel, pointed at the cluster of light dots closing in on them. “Not great. A lot of ships are heading this way.”
Chi Zhuo glanced at the screen, then shot a look at Ji Chenxi.
Ji Chenxi: “…”
Seriously? They’d just agreed to work together—no way this guy was thinking about tossing him out already, right?
“Guess His Highness sure knows how to piss people off.”
Ji Chenxi let out a short laugh. “If you hadn’t wasted my time earlier, I’d already be long gone.”
Chi Zhuo shot back without missing a beat, “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be caught up in this mess at all.”
Whatever slight goodwill Ji Chenxi had just felt toward him evaporated in an instant. ‘Yep, this guy really is unbearable.’
“How about a jump?” the middle-aged man suggested.
And he wasn’t wrong. In this situation, they could totally jump. The ship was top-class; even if it took a few hits during the brief seconds before warp, it could handle it.
But before Chi Zhuo could answer, Bai Han cut in. “Jumping won’t be that easy. Right now, the ship’s completely stationary. And the system was just interfered with. If we want to jump, we’ll have to restart and build up speed first.”
Ji Chenxi was about to volunteer to pilot the ship, but the middle-aged man had already slid into the cockpit and started working the controls with practiced ease. By now, four pirate ships had boxed them in, surrounding them from all sides. But to a real master, even if the enemy blocked every direction—including above and below—they could still maneuver a starship like a firefly darting through the night.
And sure enough, under his steady hands, their not-so-small “small ship” slipped right past the blockade, smooth as silk.
As for enemy fire? He didn’t even bother dodging it directly. By the time their shots landed, he’d already steered the ship out of range. All the pirates could do was chase after them like frustrated hounds.
‘Damn. That was some seriously slick flying.’
They had underestimated this man. He was definitely an S-class alpha.
“Any idea who’s actually after your head?” Chi Zhuo asked casually, sipping his water.
Ji Chenxi had already guessed the answer earlier. But royal feuds weren’t exactly the kind of thing you shared with outsiders. So he just put on a smile and played dumb. “Isn’t it obvious? Right now, isn’t it the Red Scorpions?”
“Of course it’s them. But what I’m asking is—how did His Highness manage to piss off the Red Scorpions in the first place?”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” Ji Chenxi said with a faint smile on his lips, though his eyes carried a chill.
Chi Zhuo didn’t press further about who was backing the Red Scorpions. Instead, he stepped up to the console, pushed the ship’s speed even higher with one hand—while still holding his drink in the other.
Not only that, he casually fired off two photon blasts behind them. Each one landed perfectly. The first hit the pirate ship that was pressing the hardest, and the one right behind it smashed straight into the wreck. In just a heartbeat, the collision left both ships wobbling and out of control. The second blast finished them off, blowing them to pieces—and the explosion even slowed down the other two ships chasing after them.
The smoothness of that whole move lit up Ji Chenxi’s eyes.
‘Single-handed, and pulling that off? Now that’s interesting.’
The book hadn’t mentioned that Chi Zhuo was good at piloting too. After all, bastard son or not, he was still the only heir of the Chi family. Normally, he had people doing everything for him.
Chi Zhuo didn’t push for a head-on fight though. Sure, their ship’s equipment was solid, but against an entire pirate crew it was still risky. So after those two beautiful shots, he let go of the controls and left the flying back to the middle-aged man.
“Can we call in help from the nearest fleet?” the younger man asked while tapping on his wrist console.
Chi Zhuo brushed that aside. “Contact my men nearby first.”
But not far from them, more and more light dots lit up the radar—ships closing in fast. Whoever wanted Ji Chenxi dead wasn’t about to let this go.
Chi Zhuo, having just given one order, quickly changed his mind. “Forget that. Reach out to the nearby systems, all of them. Make it quick.”
“Yes!” the young man answered, sending out messages at once.
Meanwhile, Bai Han was assisting the middle-aged pilot. Compared to Chi Zhuo’s sharp, flashy moves, her support seemed steady but plain.
Ji Chenxi walked over and pointed at the man on the floor who was still twitching. “Hey, shouldn’t you take a look at him?”
Bai Han glanced back at Chi Zhuo, waiting for her master’s call.
Chi Zhuo swirled the glowing glass in his hand, voice cold. “Give him the antidote.”
Bai Han didn’t hesitate after that. She crouched down beside Shadow and injected him with another dose.
The young man who had finished sending out messages joined Nether in watching the screen. Neither of them relaxed just because the two groups were working together for now. On the contrary, they kept their guard up, watching each other closely for any slip.
Ji Chenxi also had his eyes on the display. The swarm of dots behind them was closing in fast, pressing closer and closer. To him, they looked like death marks. Compared to that massive fleet, their “top-class” ship suddenly felt like nothing more than a tiny leaf drifting on water.
And yet, after a glance, he still had the mood to ask Chi Zhuo, “By the way, how did you figure out I’d be here so precisely?”
Ji Chenxi honestly couldn’t wrap his head around it. Sure, it made sense that the Red Scorpions had figured out his jump coordinates—but how did Chi Zhuo know? Was the guy really so well-connected that nothing in the empire slipped past him? After all, if his eldest brother truly wanted him dead, there shouldn’t have been even a whisper of a leak.
“Luck.”
“Hm?”
“You really thought I came all this way just to block you?” Chi Zhuo chuckled.
Ji Chenxi went silent, then clicked his tongue in annoyance.
So that explained it. Chi Zhuo hadn’t come looking for him at all. Even knowing the Red Scorpions were around, the guy had only brought three people. Turned out he was just… passing by.
What kind of messed-up, hard-to-explain luck was this?
“So in other words, His Highness dragged a whole mess right onto me.”
“Then what are you here for?” Ji Chenxi asked.
“Business. I did say earlier I was planning to find you, but lately I’ve been too busy to bother. Who knew you’d come deliver yourself to my doorstep first?”
Ji Chenxi raised a brow, giving nothing away—believed him or not, it didn’t really matter.
What mattered was that right now, they were running for their lives. The Red Scorpions clearly feared Ji Chenxi might reach the Empire for backup, so their pursuit was growing fiercer by the second. At first, it seemed like they wanted a survivor or two. Now, they were going all-out—bombardment with no thought of leaving anyone alive.
At the start, Bai Han’s support for the middle-aged pilot had been more than enough. She might look delicate, but the beta was brilliant with system data. Still, Ji Chenxi suddenly offered, “Why don’t I take over?”
Chi Zhuo waved lazily. “Sure.”
Ji Chenxi smoothly swapped places with Bai Han, sliding into the co-pilot seat to help manage the data and assist the pilot.
Honestly, the man’s piloting skills were already top-tier—better than most academy instructors, probably. But after watching Chi Zhuo’s casual, showy move earlier, even that level of skill didn’t seem all that dazzling anymore. Still, for Ji Chenxi, a student, there was a lot to learn from it.
Passive. They were way too passive!
Their position was completely exposed, and pirate ships were swarming from every direction. The sheer numbers alone were crushing.
A starship just wasn’t the same as a mecha—sometimes, the pilot’s individual level didn’t make as much difference.
When the middle-aged man’s first jump attempt failed, Ji Chenxi knew things might be even trickier than he’d thought.
Meanwhile, the man with the golden-rimmed glasses had already arrived in his own ship, his expression growing darker and darker. The piloting on the other side was so sharp, so practiced, that he had the sinking feeling they’d soon be unable to keep up.
“We have to stop them from jumping. Increase firepower!”
“But Deputy Commander, if we go too hard, won’t we risk drawing the military’s attention?” Amis muttered nervously.
“Idiot. Why do you think we’ve been doing so well up to now?”
Amis fell silent and obediently ramped up the firepower.
Just then, the man with the golden-rimmed glasses received a communication—and his face instantly changed.
Amis, firing frantically at the ships ahead, simultaneously relayed her deputy commander’s orders. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the deputy’s grim expression and tried to reassure him. “Deputy Commander, we’ve already called in our best squads. With so many units surrounding them, they won’t hold out long.”
“He’s here.”
“Hm?” Amis’s hand froze for a moment, a clear look of fear spreading across her face.
“He came personally.” The man with the golden-rimmed glasses removed his spectacles to wipe them, his partially closed eyes mirroring the same fear as Amis.
“The one” referred to their captain. Most had only heard of the Red Scorpions’ fearsome reputation, trembling at the name itself, without realizing that the captain was the real nightmare for every villain in the Red Scorpions.
“Amis, chase him!”
The frozen Amis snapped back to full alert, pushing the ship harder and turning the firepower up even more than before.
The news that their captain was arriving sent the Red Scorpions into total frenzy. They began attacking recklessly, without any regard for consequences. Chi Zhuo and Ji Chenxi, the ones being pursued, immediately noticed the change.
“Brother Chi Zhuo, how long until your people get here to save us?” Ji Chenxi asked.
“If it were earlier, they’d probably make it before you die. Now… it’s hard to say.”
“Hm? So that’s why they’re so reckless?” Ji Chenxi probed lightly. He was even starting to regret that the book had been written from Bai Anran’s perspective, only showing him a tiny glimpse of Chi Zhuo’s iceberg-like persona.
“Have you never heard of the Red Scorpions before?” Chi Zhuo asked.
“A bit, in current affairs class,” Ji Chenxi admitted. He wasn’t much interested in military matters, so he’d never studied the structure of pirate fleets in detail.
Chi Zhuo didn’t comment further, probably realizing that Third Prince had only just turned eighteen and hadn’t even started university yet.
He explained simply: “The Red Scorpions were built from scratch by their captain, Poison Scorpion. The Red Scorpions are basically his kingdom, and Poison Scorpion… he’s really something.”
Not many people could be called “really something” by Chi Zhuo—and now even Ji Chenxi felt a little pressure.
The worst part? They still couldn’t jump. The local magnetic field had been completely disrupted, and multiple jump attempts had already failed. Such a large-scale manipulation of the field was noticeable to anyone investigating. Yet even after all this, the enemy was still trying to take Ji Chenxi out.
Ji Chenxi’s hands left afterimages as he tried to ignore the chaotic magnetic field entirely to make a jump, but once again, it failed. Meanwhile, the ship’s display flashed warnings under repeated attacks.
Chi Zhuo coldly muttered, “Maybe I should just hand you over.”
Ji Chenxi checked quickly to see if he was serious or joking, then pouted pitifully. “Don’t! How can our partnership be so fragile?”
“And if I did, what could you do?”
Ji Chenxi smiled, a little innocent in the curve of his lips. “What could I do? At most, I’d just drag Brother Chi Zhuo down with me.”
Hello, everyone ヾ(＾∇＾). I hope you enjoyed the story! If you’re feeling generous, please buy me a coffee, share/comment on my translated works! Check out the link below for early chapters. (๑>ᴗ<๑)
