The sun grew ever more scorching, the earth like a giant steamer, capable of cooking a person alive. Wang Luan walked across the sun-baked gravel wasteland, feeling her entire body soaked through with sweat.
Because of the experience accumulated yesterday, she had modified an umbrella. The umbrella was made from the airship’s hidden wind wing, very lightweight. Holding it wasn’t tiring, and with it propped over her head, it could at least block the sun’s direct rays.
Yesterday, because walking under the blazing sun was too exhausting, and because she was worried about the unconscious Yan Qiongyu, she had only checked the area within a two-kilometer radius.
Today she had made up her mind to go a bit farther, to look for anything that could be burned—wood, for example—so she could use it for warmth during the cold night.
After walking for more than three hours, the surrounding scenery was still completely unchanged. Wang Luan almost began to suspect that this planet was made of nothing but rocks.
Just as she was considering whether to turn back, she suddenly discovered some messy traces on the ground, and her whole spirit lifted.
Following the traces on the ground, she found a sinkhole.
This sinkhole had been formed by an impact, very similar to the one their airship had created when it crashed. Judging from the traces, it was also very new, probably formed within the past couple of days.
“No way… could the Fifth Prince really have crashed here as well?” Wang Luan stood at the edge of the pit and murmured to herself.
The Fifth Prince had been piloting a mecha in pursuit of them. Now that there were no mecha wreckage remains inside the sinkhole, it meant that the Fifth Prince and his mecha were in pretty good condition. As for where he had gone now, nobody knew.
Wang Luan hesitated only briefly before getting up and starting to search the surrounding area. She needed to confirm whether the Fifth Prince was still nearby.
“Boom, boom, boom!”
Sitting behind a large boulder, Wang Luan took a sip of water and tilted her head to look out.
She hadn’t searched for long before she spotted the Fifth Prince not far away, in a stone forest, piloting his mecha and blasting rocks.
He really did look not quite clear-headed, inexplicably venting his rage on a pile of rocks, even more irritable than the sun in the sky.
A whole day had already passed—could it be that he had been messing around in this place for an entire day?
Wang Luan pondered whether she should wait until he finished venting and was utterly exhausted, then take the opportunity to step forward and subdue him.
Comparing their conditions, it was unlikely that the Fifth Prince, with double-S aptitude, had suffered any serious injuries during the crash. Moreover, his mecha looked far sturdier than their airship and should have protected him quite well.
However, the Fifth Prince’s mental state was unstable. According to Yan Qiongyu, he suffered from berserk syndrome. On top of that, over the past day and night he probably hadn’t eaten or drunk anything, and had uselessly expended a great deal of physical strength, so she should still have a chance of winning, right?
Wang Luan didn’t really want to fight. She had been born into a civilized society, where people were like domesticated sheep, and violent behaviors like fighting were not encouraged.
Moreover, she had grown up as a woman. Just as the mainstream view in this world believed that omegas should be gentle and family-oriented, with their only responsibility being to bear children, in her own world people also felt that girls were weaker and needed more protection.
When men fought, people might say they had spirit or grit, but if a girl fought, she definitely wouldn’t be considered a normal girl.
Thus she was more accustomed to avoiding conflict. This was a personality shaped by her environment.
But now it was a special situation. She was really craving the energy inside the Fifth Prince’s mecha.
These expensive large-scale mecha were all equipped with a great deal of energy. Watching him randomly blasting rocks, Wang Luan began to feel heartache over the wasted energy. With that much energy, any difficulty could be solved!
If she wanted to obtain the energy, the simplest way was to seize it. Robbing this violent maniac who had, not long ago, yanked her hair and kicked her—Wang Luan felt absolutely no psychological burden about that.
For some reason, as she stared at the mecha over there, besides a bit of nervousness, she also felt a subtle hint of excitement.
She thought of the exhibitionist she had encountered in her youth, the one who had left her with psychological shadows.
When she was chased, when she was grabbed, when she was forced to see that ugly body, in addition to fear and disgust, her chest had also been filled with anger.
But her family members held her in their arms and told her again and again, “That was really scary, wasn’t it? It’s okay now. Next time we just won’t go that way, we’ll avoid it. In the future, we’ll have your dad protect you. With an adult man around, that madman definitely wouldn’t dare come scare you again!”
Her friends held her hands and comforted her, saying, “That’s really too scary. Just hearing you talk about it makes me afraid. I don’t dare go that way either. Let’s walk together in groups from now on.”
After hearing it so many times, the clearest feeling she had toward that incident became fear and avoidance, gradually forgetting that other kind of anger she had felt back then.
Forgetting that she had once thought of charging forward fiercely, smashing that pervert’s stomach with her schoolbag, kicking his legs, slapping his face.
Just like when the Fifth Prince kicked and beat her, she had also thought of punching his upturned nose flat in one blow. This thought, after leaving the crowd and coming to this desolate planet, with only the two of them present, grew more and more intense.
The sky gradually darkened, and everything around suddenly fell quiet. Wang Luan saw that the mecha over there stopped moving, remaining motionless for a long time.
She tightened her grip on the multifunctional knife she had modified herself and silently approached from behind the mecha.
At this moment, the Fifth Prince was probably resting inside the cockpit, unable to pay attention to his surroundings—this was her chance.
Wang Luan’s body was light and agile. Stepping on the broken gravel smashed by the mecha’s rampage, she reached the mecha’s leg, wedged the multifunctional knife into a gap, and climbed upward.
After a period of training, her movements had become nimble, her hands and feet strong.
At a speed that even surprised herself, she reached the cockpit door and quickly pried it open.
Mecha were generally suited for combat, not for space flight. The twisted space and impacts of the cosmos hadn’t caused the mecha to disintegrate, but they had still left some damage on the exterior—this cockpit door was slightly deformed.
Having studied mecha models and pondered mecha before, Wang Luan smoothly removed a section of the cockpit door and slipped inside.
The Fifth Prince, whose berserk syndrome was flaring up and whose head was aching, having not rested long before realizing someone had intruded, flew into another rage and threw a punch straight at Wang Luan.
Wang Luan dodged awkwardly. After all, her combat awareness was weak; no matter what, she couldn’t compare to the fight-addicted Fifth Prince. But she had no intention of running—she continued to circle and contend with him within the cramped space.
She took a punch to the mouth. Licking the bloody sweetness spilling from her lips, she kicked the pilot’s seat apart. As the Fifth Prince dodged with reddened eyes, she lunged forward and seized the chance to smash a punch into his nose.
The sensation of fist colliding with nasal bone was distinct. Seeing blood gush from the Fifth Prince’s nose, Wang Luan felt a faint trace of pleasure.
Inside the mecha cockpit, she made use of everything she could.
She could pull out the neural interface lines inside the mecha to bind the Fifth Prince’s hands and feet; she could smash the display screens and use the shards to slash his face.
The Fifth Prince would feel heartache for his precious mecha, but she wouldn’t—she dismantled the mecha with practiced ease.
Wang Luan deliberately sliced open the clothing wrapped around the Fifth Prince during the fight. After the entire cockpit was beaten into a complete mess, the clothes on the Fifth Prince’s body were also torn to shreds. Seeing this, Wang Luan took out the final trump card she had prepared long ago and fired it at the exposed skin.
This trump card was also a weapon Wang Luan had modified herself. Small in size, it could be filled with liquid, which would then be condensed by a converter into needles as fine as cow hair. After piercing the skin, the needles would instantly liquefy.
If filled with a highly toxic liquid, a person would die of poisoning within a short while. But what Wang Luan had loaded inside was a powerful sedative, an exclusive improved version provided by Yan Qiongyu out of friendship.
The Fifth Prince collapsed at once. Wang Luan casually dismantled several neural conduction lines inside the mecha and bound the Fifth Prince tightly.
After tying up the Fifth Prince, she twisted around and pounced toward the mecha’s energy compartment. In a few swift moves, she removed the hatch, letting out a shrill squeal of joy like a hamster suddenly harvesting a huge stash of pine nuts.
So much energy!
ততততততততততত
Yan Qiongyu waited for an entire day. His rut state was gradually becoming more severe, and the hot weather and high temperatures intensified his suffering.
He kept replenishing fluids. Sweat overflowed from his overheated body, leaving him like someone fished out of water, even his hair and eyelashes damp.
Even with no one else around, he did not let out any panting. He merely pressed his lips tightly together, closed his eyes, and gripped the rough curtain hard. His hands bulged with veins from restraint, yet he refused to make any weak sound.
Rut had an enormous impact on omegas. Just as an alpha’s sensitive period could drastically change their temperament and render them unable to resist, omegas during rut would desperately crave intimate contact with their favored alpha, even losing their rationality. Yet in the moments when Yan Qiongyu occasionally opened his pitch-black eyes, they were still clear.
He silently counted the time, checking every so often to see whether Wang Luan had returned.
By his estimate, Wang Luan should have come back before nightfall. But he waited all the way until the sun set, the temperature dropped sharply, and the wind blowing past grew cold, yet he still didn’t see Wang Luan’s returning figure.
Many questions ran through his mind. From time to time, they would be interrupted by his body’s intense reactions; after enduring for a moment, he would resume thinking again.
As time passed, the questions in his mind gradually began to revolve around Wang Luan.
He guessed that she might have run into something—perhaps she had encountered the Fifth Prince.
Wang Luan was not someone skilled at handling conflict. She had a gentle temperament and a kind of peculiar naivety. Facing off against the violent and cold-blooded Fifth Prince, she would be at an even greater disadvantage.
If she truly had the misfortune of encountering the Fifth Prince, or even worse, was killed by him, then what should he do?
Yan Qiongyu thought about this problem with a cold-blooded calm. Yet, perhaps because of the effects of his rut, which made his mind sluggish and muddled, or perhaps for some other reason, he failed to come up with any answer after a long while.
He then turned to thinking that Wang Luan might simply have gone too far and thus failed to make it back before dark. After all, in some respects she really was rather foolish—even getting lost and being unable to find her way back was possible.
Then suddenly, Yan Qiongyu realized that he seemed to be avoiding the possibility that Wang Luan might die. His brow creased slightly.
Before he could think it through carefully, a tremor transmitted through the ground made him abruptly open his eyes. He propped himself up and looked toward the distance.
Such a commotion couldn’t have been caused by Wang Luan—this was the sound of a mecha.
Sure enough, a mecha appeared in his line of sight. It was the Fifth Prince’s mecha.
Yan Qiongyu watched as the mecha approached, and soon noticed something was off.
The mecha’s running movements were not very smooth, occasionally swaying a bit, like a child. This meant that the person piloting the mecha hadn’t fully mastered it, which was why it looked so uncoordinated.
A guess rose in his mind, and Yan Qiongyu lifted his brows in surprise.
The mecha ran up close and stopped. At the unshielded cockpit entrance, Wang Luan’s head appeared, and she waved excitedly at him.
“Yan Qiongyu, look at this!”
Like a child eager to share a toy with a playmate, Wang Luan dragged her spoils along. The Fifth Prince, bound into a tight bundle, was hauled down from the mecha.
“Look, the Fifth Prince!”
Wang Luan’s excitement hadn’t faded yet. She moved closer, and at a glance Yan Qiongyu saw that half of her face was swollen. Lowering his gaze to the Fifth Prince, he saw that the entire head was swollen.
Yan Qiongyu was, for once, momentarily speechless.
Then he met Wang Luan’s smiling face and said calmly, “Not bad. If we can’t find food next, we can still eat him.”
Wang Luan’s smile gradually turned fearful.
The most terrifying thing wasn’t that Yan Qiongyu had said to eat a person—the most terrifying thing was that Wang Luan couldn’t tell whether he was joking or not.
“Ah?”
Hearing Wang Luan let out this hesitant sound, Yan Qiongyu finally smiled slightly. “I’m joking.”
