thank you to an anonymous reader for the ko-fi ♡＼(￣▽￣)／♡
It took everyone a long time to react. Immediately, they sucked in a breath of cold air, almost suspecting that they had developed hearing problems.
General Wiley was one of, if not the most, renowned and powerful people in the modern empire, yet Prince Latiao, a newbie who appeared on the internet, wanted to try and challenge him? Even if he had successfully won against Augustine, he was being too arrogant by making this kind of declaration, wasn’t he?
General Wiley, who was watching the screen from the lounge, nearly crushed his teacup in his hand. He had never received such humiliation since he had become famous.
A mere greenhorn of a brat wanted to challenge him? Where did his courage come from? They were already at this point, so he couldn’t be at fault for being too ruthless. General Wiley snorted.
In the next moment, General Wiley’s stern face appeared on the screen in the competition arena. His expression was filled with disdain. He spoke as though he was giving alms. “I accept your challenge.”
The crowd rose up in an uproar. The people in the outside world were also given a huge shock.
Even if Prince Latiao had never lost ever since he appeared and even if he had successfully defeated Augustine this time, the distance between him and General Wiley wasn’t something that could be closed in an instant.
As soon as he got General Wiley’s response, Prince Latiao set a time to battle next week and immediately logged off.
Afterwards, all kinds of social media featuring these news exploded. It trended significantly more than when Prince Latiao and Time were about to battle.
Countless people were shocked by Prince Latiao’s arrogance, and also by his courage. Many people knew that if they were in that position, they would never be able to say the same words.
At first, the people who had been mocking Prince Latiao were ashamed after the match finished. Now that they saw he was challenging General Wiley, many of them scolded him online, saying that Prince Latiao didn’t understand how to respect his elders and he was just too arrogant.
After all, General Wiley was so strong that he was right no matter what he did. Even when he had said that Prince Latiao was no good he was simply giving guidance to a newbie. But Prince Latiao going so far as to challenge General Wiley was just showing that he couldn’t tell good from bad. There were even people who said Prince Latiao wanted to use General Wiley for hype.
But there were also some people who were inspired by Prince Latiao’s spirit and became his fans. There were also some die-hard fans online who said, “Who doesn’t know Prince Latiao will win?” He had won so many battles that everyone thought he would lose. It wasn’t necessarily hopeless this time.
Of course, people like that were being mocked and called brainless fanboys and fangirls, but after the previous fight, even though everyone knew clearly that it was impossible, they couldn’t help from considering the possibility. If Prince Latiao really won, what would happen?
–
Meanwhile, General Wiley’s subordinates didn’t understand why he had accepted Prince Latiao’s challenge.
“Sir, why did you accept?”
“Regardless of whether you win or not, that brat will be famous.”
“Besides, isn’t it fine for us to deal with trash like that?”
General Wiley frowned. “Even Augustine lost. Are you all sure you yourselves can win?”
Immediately, they went quiet. Although they were confident in their strength, Augustine was in no way an easy opponent. It was clear that Prince Latiao wasn’t so simple.
When Augustine remembered how he had lost to that Prince Latiao guy, he spat, “If it wasn’t for that brat being so underhanded and making it so that I didn’t get the chance to use my spiritual energy, how would I have lost so easily?” As he spoke, he hammered a fist into the wall, sinking a depression in the sturdy wall.
Augustine remembered something. He quickly said, “Sir, as long as you use your spiritual energy to attack that Prince Latiao, his spirit energy will immediately collapse.”
After a spiritual energy collapse, a person would typically become disabled.
“You’re correct,” General Wiley said calmly. “I was thinking of the same thing. I knew Prince Latiao had potential when I saw him. If I keep letting him develop on his own, it will most certainly bring us disaster. I might as well act now.”
At his words, they all saw the light. One after the other, they began to praise General Wiley’s resourcefulness.
–
In the meantime, Shao Ci practiced mecha maneuvers on the virtual net every day. He pretty much understood the movements and principles behind mechas now. What he was missing was practice with spiritual energy.
Although his spiritual energy was strong, it didn’t have enough offensive power. As soon as Shao Ci remembered how Pei Shijian’s spiritual energy had nearly peered into his heart, he shivered again.
But there were few books about spiritual attacks, and even fewer about how to fight with spiritual energy. Shao Ci just kept trying different ways of using his spiritual energy as practice, recalling what Pei Shijian had done that day and slowly fumbling his way through the principles.
Soon, the day of the match arrived.
This match had caused a bigger commotion than the previous ones. Many people, and even members of the imperial family, were paying attention. Even if the winner was already clear, they still wanted to see the legendary General Wiley’s grace on the battlefield.
The government officials were especially shameless and adopted an auction format to sell tickets. In the end, the prices were sky-high.
Many of Prince Latiao’s die-hard fans were young. Naturally, they couldn’t get their hands on these tickets, but Edwin bought several tickets in one swoop and gave them away to his fans.
When Shao Ci entered the arena, he spotted the high-grade mecha that General Wiley was using on the other side of the battlefield. His heart rate spiked.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Although General Wiley had shielded his people to the point it was unreasonable, he was truly powerful. Even though he had strong spiritual energy, Shao Ci still wasn’t confident.
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Just as I expected, General Wiley thought. Prince Latiao is a genius. If he was left to grow on his own, in the future he would certainly have a boundless future… He might even be able to surpass me.
If he had brought a genius like this under his wing from the beginning, it would be fine. It was a pity that he hadn’t thought anything of Prince Latiao at the start. Now, they had no relationship. He couldn’t let Prince Latiao continue to grow.
“It’s just a pity that plenty of geniuses have faced defeat at my hand. I’ll make you into a complete cripple right here and now.”
General Wiley sneered, directing his spiritual energy at Prince Latiao across the battlefield. His spiritual energy was SS-grade, and it had incredible offensive power. Even many of the people who had decades of battle experience couldn’t match up to him, much less a young newbie like Prince Latiao.
Even though Shao Ci had incredibly strong spiritual energy, he just barely dodged General Wiley’s attacks. After all, there was a chasm between their fighting abilities.
Many of General Wiley’s guesses were accurate, but he was mistaken about exactly how strong Prince Latiao’s spiritual energy was.
“This is the most crucial moment.” Shao Ci took a deep breath. Imitating what Pei Shijian had done, he concentrated his spiritual energy, forming it into a razor-sharp knife. Ruthlessly, he stabbed at the body of General Wiley’s mecha.
In the split second their spiritual energies connected, General Wiley was stunned.
How strong was this? It was a terrifying spiritual energy just like an endless sea.
If he continued, he would die. General Wiley barely thought for another second. He retracted his spiritual energy with the help of his years of experience. Despite his quick reaction, a sharp pain stabbed through his head like an explosion.
In that moment, General Wiley even recalled the terror he felt when he encountered the Zerg Queen in the Zerg nest years ago.
He had never said it, but in fact he didn’t kill the Zerg queen. Instead, under the crushing pressure of her spiritual energy, he had fled in panic.
Back then, General Wiley thought that it was over, but unexpectedly the Zerg withdrew, and everyone called him a hero. Naturally, General Wiley didn’t explain the truth. But now Prince Latiao’s spiritual energy was as strong as the Zerg Queen’s. He had lost all of his fighting spirit and sank into terror. He didn’t have the courage to move a single inch. The Zerg Queen was a slightly different from what the data had said, but he didn’t have the extra energy to take notice either.
With these circumstances, Shao Ci’s weapon easily stabbed through General Wiley’s cockpit.
The arena went silent. Even the MC couldn’t say a word. They all wondered if they were dreaming.
When the system announced the winner, everyone finally woke up from their daze. Prince Latiao’s fans erupted in shocked cheers, almost afraid to believe their eyes. They began to cry, hugging each other in tears and in laughter. But this time there was nobody giving them any stares.
Nobody else could believe it. When Prince Latiao defeated Augustine, they could say that he had more talent, but he had won against General Wiley? Who was he? How old was he? He could do something like this?
“The winner of this match…” The MC’s voice was trembling. “The winner is Prince Latiao. He managed to be victorious… He managed to win against General Wiley. Perhaps I had always underestimated his strength.”
The MC suddenly felt that he seemed to be witnessing the meteoric rise of the genius of a new age.
The people in the stands were quiet for a moment, as though they were processing the results. One by one, they began to cheer, and the name that they were shouting loud enough to deafen the heavens was Prince Latiao. No matter how they had thought of Prince Latiao before the match, they had been completely persuaded by his strength and turned thoroughly into his fans.
–
In the empire, the strong were respected. Even though General Wiley had so many honors, his brilliance had dimmed significantly the moment he lost to Prince Latiao.
In some sense, Prince Latiao had stepped on General Wiley to succeed. Moreover, something like this was something only he alone could do. Many people had attempted it before, but they didn’t have the same strength.
Nearly the moment after the match ended, the number of views on articles about Prince Latiao skyrocketed crazily, causing many sites to go down. All the news sites were changing their tunes, hurrying to make their apologies one by one and praising Prince Latiao madly.
Similarly, the people who had mocked Prince Latiao quickly deleted their old messages. Some people were slow to delete their messages and discovered that there were already several hundred thousand comments cursing them. They apologized speedily, saying that they had also become Prince Latiao’s fan.
Nobody expected that a newbie who had began to show their skills in the virtual mecha competition a few months ago would defeat General Wiley today.
Now, the people who thought Prince Latiao had remained undefeated through luck were stunned by the discovery that in fact it had nothing to do with luck. It was all because Prince Latiao had enough strength to crush everyone.
And the people who lost to Prince Latiao in the beginning were no longer upset. Instead, they felt honored from the bottom of their hearts. They even pulled up videos of their fights with Prince Latiao to flaunt to the people around them..
Everyone was guessing Prince Latiao’s identity. As long as he revealed himself, even if he was the ugliest coal miner who lived on the most remote planet, there would be plenty of people worshipping his face and throwing money at him.
Sadly, Prince Latiao was extremely low-key. Even if they racked their brains, they had no way to figure out exactly who he was.
It was fine if they couldn’t figure out his identity. It was all the same online, anyway. The night the match ended, there were millions of people online showering their love on Prince Latiao. There were even all kinds of attractive, highly-ranked nobles who were willing to spend their entire family fortune to arrange a single meeting with Prince Latiao. It didn’t matter even if the meeting was just ten minutes long.
Everyone had heard that Prince Latiao had once agreed to fight one-on-one with someone for a million empire coins. Immediately, many people sent letters saying that they were willing to give ten million empire coins or a hundred million empire coins; they just wanted Prince Latiao to fight one match with them.
The companies that had gotten Prince Latiao to advertise for them saw their sales jump up by several times and celebrated their foresight, while the companies that didn’t think of Prince Latiao regretted everything.
Overnight, Prince Latiao became the entire empire’s favorite celebrity. If he had any social media accounts, he might gain hundreds of millions of fans in the blink of an eye.
But Ji Zhaoyun, who knew Shao Ci’s identity, gritted his teeth and cut down on his daily rest time. Even if he couldn’t catch up, he had to try his hardest.
–
Because of his exhaustion, after the competition Shao Ci rested the entire night. When he logged into the virtual net the next day, he was given a huge shock by the volume of mail in his inbox. Because there were such a crazy amount of emails, Shao Ci was frozen and booted offline.
“…I just won’t look at my mail this time.” Shao Ci logged into the virtual net again with lingering fear.
But why was there so much mail? Was Shao Ci being cursed out by General Wiley’s fans?
Then Shao Ci glanced casually at the forum and was stupefied.
Although he knew he was pretty strong to be able to defeat General Wiley, this should be too much of an exaggeration… He didn’t expect that he would go from being cursed out to this kind of treatment.
Especially the people who were willing to spend a hundred million empire coins as long as they could get a thrashing from him. Shao Ci even had the urge to agree. In the beginning, he had agreed to fight with Ji Zhaoyun for a mere million empire coins. Why wouldn’t he agree for this many coins now? Besides, it wasn’t for a match. It was just to give a beating.
Then Shao Ci received a message from Edwin. He arrived at Edwin’s virtual home… Although he obviously lived in a house, he still had to do something like this for a chat.
“You mustn’t agree to their requests.” Edwin spoke almost without waiting for Shao Ci to sit down. “If you need money, I’ll provide you as much as you need. I just ask that you don’t agree to fight.”
“Why?” Shao Ci didn’t really understand.
Although Edwin was ecstatic that Prince Latiao had achieved such accomplishments, hundreds of thousands love rivals had appeared. Edwin couldn’t help worrying that Shao Ci would get stolen away.
“At the moment, everyone has a strong desire to discover your true identity,” Edwin said. “I myself have received several inquiries. Even my elders have come to ask me.”
After all, Edwin was the president of Prince Latiao’s fan club. If someone couldn’t reach Prince Latiao directly, they would naturally wonder if Edwin knew what was going on.
Shao Ci: “!”
“Of course, I would never say anything about you,” Edwin said quickly. “This will slowly calm down as well. These people will give up as soon as they realize it’s impossible. But if you agree to someone, whoever can bring out a hundred million empire coins can’t be ordinary. They’ll certainly go in a frenzy to discover your identity.”
Shao Ci: “!”
He was right. Although the system had been able to maintain secrecy so far, who knew when something would happen.
“Alright then.” Shao Ci had no choice but to give up unwillingly.
–
After General Wiley was defeated, he was completely dumbfounded. He was almost unable to accept that he had somehow lost to a greenhorn brat. But he was very clear how strong Prince Latiao’s spiritual energy was.
If he had stubbornly fought against it, he would been left off with a spiritual energy collapse. He was doomed to lose, but it was still hard to take the jeers from his enemies the Heimann family.
General Wiley’s subordinates were afraid to say a word for fear of making General Wiley angry.
“Who in the world is that person?” General Wiley gritted his teeth. “How can it be that he’s so strong, but there’s not a shred of information about him?”
At first, he thought things would pass, but soon something nobody had expected happened.
Several people began to speak up on behalf of Prince Latiao, snidely taunting certain people for trying to crush a newbie without being aware of their own power. They were practically pointing their fingers right at General Wiley.
Someone who had the mind to investigate a bit further would discover that these people were all backed by the Heimann family. It looked like Prince Latiao was relying on the Heimann family. Still, that made sense. The Heimann family was the strongest clan in the empire.
But when all was said and done, General Wiley still had some influence. There were only a few people who mocked him quietly. There was nobody who had the courage to say it boldly in the open.
Later, there were people who suddenly posted threads digging up information about how Augustine, Prince Latiao’s previous opponent, had gone so far as to kill someone from his own troops in the past. His personality was also disgusting. He would even force omegas from other families to serve him and then throw them aside.
But all of these offenses had been hidden away by General Wiley. He even had his subordinates beat the people who reported the crime until they were bruised and bloody, and silenced the witnesses.
Normally, General Wiley would be able to use his influence to delete the discussion in an instant, but the other person had the Heimann family supporting them from behind. The topic grew increasingly intense. Moreover, Augustine had made a name for himself throughout the empire when he fought with Prince Latiao last time.
But this wasn’t the end. Perhaps because they gained courage after the first thread, more and more threads that exposed General Wiley’s subordinates’ sins began to appear.
Quickly, everyone’s image of General Wiley crumbled. They began to doubt the way they thought in the past.
After all, everyone was in a panic when the Zerg made their surprise attack. The empire needed a hero to stabilize the populace. Because General Wiley had real strength, and because he was close with the emperor, he was the natural choice to be promoted. But he was the kind of person who would shield another’s shortcomings unconditionally. In these few years, he had completely covered up the messes his subordinates had caused. He had absolute confidence in his own strength and never thought there would be one day that someone caught hold of his weak point.
More and more people began to curse out General Wiley online. Soon, it was so bad his influence took a hit. He even received a message from the emperor.
If it wasn’t for the fact that General Wiley’s strength was universally acknowledged, he might be drowning in the people’s disdain.
When Augustine found out about the news, he was furious. He smashed a fist into the wall. “Isn’t the reason we worked long and hard to protect those useless peasants just to get some omegas? Besides, it’s the honor of a lifetime for omegas as ugly as that to service me. Do they need to make such a big fuss?”
“That’s not the problem right now.” General Wiley’s brows were deeply furrowed. “It’s the Heimann family that wants to take the chance to take us down. It’s not something we can deal with easily.”
“In the end, it’s all because of that damn Prince Latiao. If he wasn’t so arrogance, how would he have pushed us to this point?” Augustine was furious.
But Augustine didn’t have the guts to fight another round with Prince Latiao. Even General Wiley had lost; what else could he do?
His other subordinates began to swear up a storm at the Heimann family.
General Wiley sighed. He knew things couldn’t be dealt with so easily. “You guys go out first.”
When the people in the room were pretty much gone, there was still one other person who remained.
The person was someone who had just been added in: Pei Shijian.
“Is there something you want to say?” When General Wiley saw the youth, someone who looked incredibly similar to his first love, his heart softened. It was as though the person in front of him was his own child with Amelia.
“Sir, I have some thoughts about this situation.” Pei Shijian had a harmless smile on his face. He said softly, “I think that we can turn Augustine in.”
Since Pei Shijian joined them, he discovered that his treatment was significantly better than the other newbies. He was also promoted rapidly.
There were people who could barely see General Wiley after trying with all their might, but he would meet him by chance again and again. General Wiley also looked at him with incredible affection.
Pei Shijian was too suspicious to let this go without notice. He investigated himself, and because nobody had thought to hide it, he quickly discovered the relationship between General Wiley and his mother. He pretty much understood what had happened in the past.
Pei Shijian could make use of anything regardless of what it was. He pretended that he didn’t know anything, and when he ran into General Wiley, he put on an act of an obedient younger junior. He even made several useful suggestions. Naturally, his position rose quickly.
Later, Pei Shijian pretended to happen upon the relationship between General Wiley and his mother by coincidence. He hurried to ask the general, even asking if he was the general’s child.
At first, General Wiley, who was well aware of Pei Shijian’s identity, had no way to explain the truth, and he shook his head. Finally, he sighed, saying that he would treat Pei Shijian as his own child.
General Wiley didn’t dare to tell Pei Shijian his true identity. He was afraid that if the Heimann family discovered it, then Pei Shijian’s life would be in danger.
Pei Shijian similarly hid the fact that he knew about his identity long ago. Now, he took advantage of their relationship to speak about turning Augustine in without any restraints.
“What did you say?” General Wiley looked at Pei Shijian in shock before flying into a rage. “This isn’t something you should be saying. Augustine is a brother who has been by my side for so many years. How could I turn him in just because you say so?!”
But Pei Shijian spoke with complete sincerity. “I’m truly saying this for you, sir, from the bottom of my heart.”
In truth, Augustine had blocked Pei Shijian from moving forward. Besides, Augustine had humiliated Prince Latiao several times in the past. Pei Shijian didn’t have a high opinion of him.
“Sir, look, out of all of your subordinates only Augustine is so arrogant. He doesn’t have any merits other than his strength. Moreover, he’s brought you so much trouble…” Pei Shijian looked like he was thinking whole-heartedly of General Wiley. “We can say that what happened this time is what he’s caused. Now, the situation is so serious, but he still doesn’t know his problem. If you keep someone like this, he’ll definitely cause another problem.”
If this was coming from someone else, General Wiley would have them dragged out and beaten to death, but this was coming from Pei Shijian. It was crystal clear who out of Pei Shijian or Augustine was closer to him.
How could a subordinate like Augustine compare to the child of the woman he had loved deeply for years?
“And you’re just like my father. Would I lie to you?” Pei Shijian’s words made General Wiley’s entire body stiffen in shock.
“Yes… You’re right.” General Wiley immediately remembered all of the annoyances that Augustine had caused and all of the time and energy he had spent to help cover things up. But Augustine had never been regretful. His last shred of attachment disappeared into thin air.
When Pei Shijian saw General Wiley’s expression, he let out a profound smile.
As such, General Wiley turned Augustine straight in. What everyone else had done could be forgiven, but Augustine’s crimes had already incurred the public’s wrath.
Immediately, General Wiley told his subordinates that he had absolutely no idea of what he had done. Although nobody believed him, the situation was settled as such, and General Wiley’s renown declined. He never felt the same glory again.
–
Edwin was always afraid of Ji Zhaoyun. After all, the love rivals who had a few dozen billion coins were completely unaware of Shao Ci’s identity. Even if they were bigger threats, they weren’t strong enough to make a difference. But the only person besides himself who knew Shao Ci’s identity was Ji Zhaoyun. Although Ji Zhaoyun spent all day either in training or in practice, he and Ji Zhaoyun weren’t far at all. If Edwin wanted to meet, he could arrange it in minutes.
The semester just happened to be about to end. After considering it from all kinds of angles, Edwin invited Shao Ci to stay at his home. On the surface, he said he wanted Shao Ci to relax, but in fact he wanted to take Shao Ci to meet his parents…
Since he had already marked Shao Ci, Edwin felt that if they got a fake marriage to hide Shao Ci’s identity, Shao Ci probably wouldn’t reject him… Step by step, sooner or later, he would achieve his goal.
Shao Ci had nothing else to do, so he agreed. Besides, he had become extremely reliant on Edwin recently. If there was nobody to wake him up in the mornings, and nobody to make him breakfast… After experiencing such a happy life, who would want to return to their bitter days!
If Shao Ci had to stay in this world forever, Edwin would probably be able to capture him in a few years.
In the palace, Roris watched the battle video before him, slowly sipping wine from the cup he was holding. A smile crept up into his blue eyes.
“Truly worthy of being the person I’ve taken a fancy to…”
Soon, his personal terminal suddenly buzzed. Roris looked down at it, and his eyes immediately filled with an indecipherable emotion. He said in a low voice, “Oh? I see… It looks like I have to pay a visit to the Heimann family.”
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Thanks for the chapter! ( ^ ^)♡
It’s getting exiting!!
Thank you for the chapter!!
Uuuuugh that general sucks ass
Ooh~ I can smell the blood from the battlefield already
Thank you for the chapter la~~
I smell gunpowder, like a HECC lot of it incoming. Good luck in advance, Shao Ci! XD
tsk that general is so disgusting
thank you for the update!!
I can’t help smiling when Edwin is scheming on how to g et Shao Ci for himself 😂
Thanks for the chapter <3
+1
Hoping at least his parents could exchange a glance with Shao Ci.
GENERAL WILEY LOST.. .
ME BE LIKE; ┬──┬◡ﾉ(° -°ﾉ) GONNA GET BACK DA TABLE.. .
The emoji is so cute 😆
Roris being the fated cannon ball, wrecking a hole into my ship and making it sink until only bubbles that floated up on the surface of the water remained, but only as a fleeting sign that my ship had been true and soon even all of the bubbles are gone.
crying-like-a-peach-blossom.jpg
Thank you for the chapter!!
.
thanks for the chapter! <3
Noooo not my love-hate fan brain rooting for Pei–
I thought I already read this but I remember being frustrated by how long this arc is that I turned to MTL. Certainly a fair easier to read, I adore the work you’ve done. I’ll be camping till the end of the arc
LOL is the prince going to crash their vacation? 😂
Roris: Let me just, sliiiiiiiiide right in that spot between points at Shao Ci you and points at Edwin and YOUThanks for the chapter! 😘
D*ng, so I was thinking since they’ve done it all the way then it should be permanent right?? After all that’s what ABO novels said before, to be permanent is to do it all the way…?
This is getting exciting
Now let the war begin!