“Miss Song, we haven’t seen each other since graduation. I thought you would be staying on Cang Xing from now on.”
A man and a woman walked slowly through the famous hanging gardens of the Imperial Capital Star. This garden was the epitome of the Empire’s biotechnology. It stood in the second ring of A-District, supported by a giant tree as tall as a skyscraper. Its branches held up the entire garden. There were no traces of artificiality in this garden; glass, plastic, and steel—things ubiquitous outside the garden—were nowhere to be found.
But the garden itself was a form of artifice. After all, whether it was the glowing morning glories overhead or the soft moss carpet underfoot, everything was specially created for this magnificent garden.
In the age of the Empire, not only were inorganic materials raw materials for industry, but life itself was often a part of industry as well.
The man and woman eventually stopped beside a patch of roses. These roses had been artificially fixed at the peak of their bloom. Their vibrant petals unfurled flamboyantly, as if tirelessly releasing their beauty for onlookers. A few pink and white butterflies flitted perfectly among the flowers.
“Aside from the Titan Garden, I have never seen such splendid roses anywhere else. Since seeing them, all other roses have lost the right to be called roses,” the woman—Miss Song—sighed.
The man beside her, Clarence, offered a faint smile upon hearing her words. He said softly, “Professor Sharma and I are on good terms. I’m sure he would be willing to give a few of his carefully cultivated roses to a flower lover like Miss Song.”
Miss Song shook her head, her tone hinting at a deeper meaning. “Thank you for your kindness, Your Highness, but sometimes, acquiring a flower for its beauty causes that beauty to vanish. I have unfortunately experienced this firsthand. I once went to great lengths to obtain a few roses from the Titan Garden and planted them carefully in my own garden. But before long, they became ordinary, losing that stunning vibrancy that turned heads. Aside from having slightly larger petals, they were no different from the roses outside the Titan Garden.”
“It was then I understood that a rose’s beauty comes not just from the flower itself; often, the environment plays an indispensable role.”
“So, is that why you decided to leave the Imperial Capital Star, Miss Song?” Clarence asked with a smile.
Song Yue, one of his former pursuers and a candidate for his fiancée. Clarence had originally favored her because she was from the Song family, and the Song family held considerable power in the alpha military.
If he had married into the Song family, they would have undoubtedly helped him secure the support of a group of key alpha officials, providing precious assistance in the struggle for the throne. But for some unknown reason, Song Yue had suddenly given up her pursuit of him. After some arrangements by her family, she became an alpha officer stationed on Cang Xing.
That was why Clarence had settled for Li Xiuyuan.
As far as he knew, Song Yue already had a fiancé. Logically, she should have put her past on the Imperial Capital Star behind her and focused on her career on Cang Xing. But three days ago, upon returning to the Imperial Capital Star to report on her duties, she had suddenly extended an invitation to him.
Such inexplicable invitations were not uncommon these days, and he knew whose hand was behind them. But he couldn’t refuse, and the other party was certain he wouldn’t.
Song Yue shifted her gaze from the roses to the omega before her, who was no less stunning. After several years in the military, she was no longer the flamboyant, high-spirited noble girl of the Imperial Capital Star. Her skin had tanned from pale to a healthy wheat color. With her eyelashes slightly lowered, her true thoughts were unreadable. She answered calmly, “Partly, yes.”
“Back then, I was unwilling to let the Song family become a stepping stone for your ambition. But I realize now that even without Your Highness, as long as the Song family wants to maintain its current position, it will always have to choose someone’s ambition to back.”
The Song family had previously chosen the Third Princess, but Song Yue’s cousin was now in an imperial prison, awaiting a long trial and an even longer sentence.
And her uncle, after the Glory incident came to light, had suddenly chosen to retire, thereby withdrawing from the Song family’s inner circle.
The Song family had chosen the wrong person and done the wrong thing. This was the price, and there was nothing more to be said.
But the Song family still needed to choose someone. Or rather, it wasn’t as simple as choosing one person. The country could still function well without the imperial family, but only on the condition that its internal factions were not in conflict. Therefore, those within the system had to declare their stance, and power had to be distributed according to stance and ability, driving the vast machine of the Empire to lurch forward.
The struggle for the throne was the largest and most unavoidable stage for declaring one’s stance.
The Empire currently had eight princes and princesses, all of whom theoretically had a right to the throne. In reality, however, the overly timid First Prince, after being reprimanded by the Empress multiple times, had been tacitly removed from the list of candidates, despite being favored by the Prince Consort. The Second Prince was too foolish, busy entangling himself with omegas and causing scandals that even the imperial family couldn’t clean up. He had long been regarded as a good-for-nothing just waiting to die. The Third Princess, once a rising star, had not only been exiled from the Empire’s center of power after the Glory incident but had also dragged down a large number of nobles who had bet on her, causing them severe losses. But now, she had staged a stunning comeback by leveraging A-Virtue, gathering a new group of followers. Combined with those who hadn’t broken with her, she had once again become a major force in the succession struggle.
But as a member of the Song family, which had suffered greatly, Song Yue naturally knew that Glory was the princess’s creation. Although no one dared to expose this for the sake of the imperial family’s dignity, it also meant that Glory had become the Third Princess’s Sword of Damocles. If the truth ever came out, the A-Virtue she now championed would undoubtedly turn into suicidal ammunition, blowing her and all her followers to smithereens.
Therefore, even though the Third Princess had been making many moves on the Imperial Capital Star recently, in reality, few new people were willing to bet on her besides the followers she had brought with her. Not unless the Third Princess could obtain a solid guarantee that her connection to Glory was not just buried in a grave, but that the tombstone and the grave itself had been burned to ashes. Only then would the cautious key alpha officials choose to follow her. But the only person in the entire Empire who could do that was Her Majesty the Empress.
And based on the current situation, Her Majesty the Empress undoubtedly favored the Eighth Prince, even though he was just a young boy who had recently presented.
Thus, guided by the Empress’s attitude, many key alpha officials on the Imperial Capital Star had thrown their support behind Prince Emile’s camp.
As for the omegas in power, most of them had flocked to the banner of the man standing before her.
The remaining Fourth Princess was an omega who had married early. She was the epitome of a virtuous and gentle imperial omega, and it would be absurd for her to contend for the throne. The Fifth Prince, an alpha, had no interest in power and currently worked at the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Compared to being an emperor who led the nation spiritually, he seemed more willing to bring about change for the Empire on a material level through science. It was said he was researching wormhole technology. With such technology, the Empire could open up new territories. Although the Empire’s current territory was already vast enough, journeying to new worlds would surely bring some vitality to its currently stagnant environment.
If they could find and communicate with civilizations outside the Empire, perhaps they could learn from them how to resolve the internal gender conflicts.
However, that was a matter too grand and distant. Song Yue was more concerned with the Empire’s direction over the next few decades.
And in the coming decades, neither the science-obsessed Fifth Prince nor the seventh-ranked omega princess, Fina, who was fiercely loyal to Clarence, would be the protagonists in this grand imperial drama.
This Sixth Prince, who had ridden the momentum of the Glory incident to rapidly recruit followers throughout the Empire—Song Yue had faintly sensed his ambition back when she was pursuing him. But at the time, he hadn’t shown sufficient capability. No, to be fair, the environment back then didn’t allow him to display any ability that didn’t conform to the norms for a noble omega.
So, persuaded by her family, Song Yue had given up on him. She didn’t want to choose the other path: using marriage to bind Clarence firmly under the Song family’s control, suppressing his power and crushing his ambition.
By doing so, she might have obtained a flawless physical shell, but she would have undoubtedly lost the soul that truly attracted her—one that possessed both vibrant petals and sharp thorns. Given Song Yue’s pride at the time, she disdained to do such a thing.
Song Yue turned and looked at the roses again. “Your Highness, you are a rose, and I am a rose. Everyone in the upper echelons of the Empire is a rose. We receive the best care and possess ranks and resources the lower classes can’t even dream of. But the moment we leave this Titan Garden of power, we are no different from anyone else.”
“It seems your years on Cang Xing have allowed you to mature quite a bit, Miss Song.” Clarence raised an eyebrow, then leaned down and plucked a rose. The instant he picked it, the rose’s vibrant color faded rapidly, and it quickly turned into a withered, yellowed twig. Brown petals fell from the corolla like flakes of dried mud. And in its place, a new rose completed its growth and bloomed, just as vibrant as the one before.
Clarence smiled faintly and offered the twig to Song Yue. “I think that rather than a beautiful rose, Miss Song might prefer a remnant like this. After all, it holds a symbolic meaning that you seem to appreciate very much.”
Song Yue took the twig and placed it in her breast pocket. Her skin could feel the thorns on the stick. As the moisture evaporated from it, it transformed from the remnant of an ornament into a purely aggressive object.
“Thank you, Your Highness. I do like it very much.”
“To a pleasant cooperation.”
“To a pleasant cooperation.”
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