Chapter 195 - Stardust Cup
Chapter 195 - Stardust Cup
translator: xiin
editors: apricot & juurensha
The lighting was ambiguous.
The cat ears quivered beneath the light.
Wu Jin reacted suddenly and turned around to close the door, acting like nothing had happened––but was blocked by Wei Shi’s elbow against the door frame.
He cut off Wu Jin’s retreat.
The door slammed shut.
On the big king-sized bed, the cat-eared youth jumped off with the bath towel around his waist, coming over to help its owner with his things. Wu Jin was momentarily distracted, and the plastic bag holding two bamboo shoots in his hand was taken away by the cat-eared youth.
Wu Jin lowered his head in shock: He was really strong!!
The cat-eared youth skillfully tossed the bamboo shoots onto the desk and nodded to Wei Shi, “There’s nothing else for you to do here. I’ll take over serving the master from here on.”
Wei Shi: “......”
Wu Jin: “......”
Wu Jin shivered, “No, no, no, that’s not it!”
The genetically modified youth was at a loss for two seconds, and his ears pricked up as he went on alert, “Three people?!”
Wei Shi observed Wu Jin’s ‘little cat’ expressionlessly. A corner of the transaction receipt could be seen sticking out from the leather receipt holder on the table, and the evidence was piled up as high as a mountain. After opening it, there was proof that this ‘genetically modified/housekeeping/loneliness relief/multi-functional/primate wild cat’ was actually worth 2.6 million credits.
And it had all been paid for with his own card.
The management of the castle clearly understood how these things went. In order to make it convenient for the aristocrats to get ‘reimbursement’ for their ‘expenses’, they’d specifically placed this commodity item into the ‘food and entertainment’ category, and the sub category was filled in with ‘sashimi’. It was filled with very ambiguous hints.
Wei Shi slammed the receipt holder back onto the table.
The cat-eared youth finally came back to his senses after the shock and quickly started to sell himself, “It’s not that three people together is bad. Master, I can do anything, I can be in the middle, or just remain in the corner...”
The genetically modified youth looked pitiful as he spoke, deliberately widening his eyes and deliberately huddling in a position that made others feel heartache. He wanted to make himself appear more attractive than Wei Shi, but unexpectedly, Wu Jin’s eyes were also wide open––in fright.
The cat-eared teenager continued to open his eyes wide.
Wu Jin continued to open his eyes even wider.
The cat eared youth: “......” This wasn’t logical! However, in the next second, he recovered his professionalism and attempted to solve Wu Jin’s problems by saying to Wei Shi, “Did you bring a physical examination report with you? You have to show it to my master before we begin. Let me check the security code again...”
Wei Shi sneered.
The cat-eared youth was suddenly, inexplicably scared stiff. His velvety ears flattened down like the wings of an airplane, and he watched as the tall, long-legged bodyguard casually removed his coat, revealing muscled arms that contained powerful explosive force. The man cracked his knuckles, his face gloomy and cold as he slowly gave off a chilling aura––
The cat-eared youth quickly darted over and pasted himself next to Wu Jin’s side, “Master, he’s bullying me!”
Wu Jin jumped up in fright and ran towards the furthest part of the room, “It’s a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding! Brother Wei, he was picked up at the auction––”
The chilling aura Wei Shi was giving off lessened slightly.
The cat-eared youth quickly chased after Wu Jin and ran all over the room. He was frightened into meowing, “Master, he’s very scary! Master, my safe word is ‘orange cat’, master, he wants to beat me up! Orange cat! Master! Orange cat, orange cat!”
“Master, you personally fed me salad, and I will be your cat forever! Master, save me––”
Wei Shi paused, and the chilling aura began to strengthen again.
Wu Jin hastened to explain himself, “No, no, no! Brother Wei, I’m innocent––” I’m a pure and innocent Little Witch!
The cat-eared youth: “Master, master!”
Wei Shi bit off the words, “Get-the-hell-out.”
The cat-eared youth felt aggrieved and wronged.
Wu Jin rushed over and dodged behind the big boss, opening up the door for the cat-eared youth. The genetically modified youth was still putting on an act of rubbing his tears, “There’s a self destruct program written into the control chip attached to my neurons. If there’s no sleeping together tonight, I’ll become a series of bubbles. Master, have you watched the little mermaid? I’m a little catmaid...”
Wu Jin was dazed by all this noise and lifted his head up, pulling out the chip that the auction house had sent over through his terminal, “Hey, don’t call me master.”
The cat eared youth: “Master~”
Wei Shi suddenly reached out and pressed Wu Jin into his embrace with one arm. His dark eyes were cold, and the man obviously had no patience when it came to dealing with the cat-eared youth’s nonsense. He held Wu Jin’s arm and declared his sovereignty, and the other hand acted like a knife, wanting to use force to clear the room.
At the same time, the cat-eared youth’s pupils contracted abruptly.
His excellently hidden ‘original nature’ was called to the forefront by this murderous intent. The youth’s mind went blank with sudden fear, and he was almost certain that Wei Shi would kill him for no reason. He closed his eyes––
Wu Jin finally found the chip and breathed a sigh of relief, “Stretch out your hand.”
“Your hand.” Wu Jin repeated himself.
The cat eared genetically modified youth paused.
Wu Jin gave the chip back to him, “Alright. Take it and go. Your transformation type is quite rare, and the follow-up support drugs are expensive. If you want medical insurance, go outside and turn right to find room B8823 and ask for Mr. Song. He has a paying experimental drug project...”
The cat-eared teenager slowly accepted the chip.
For the genetically modified people in the castle, the chip was like the emotional lock for the human-shaped weapons from R-Code Base.
Wu Jin hadn’t finished speaking when suddenly, a strong wind blew by. The cat-eared youth took the chip and jumped out the door as fast as he could, running until he was over ten steps away.
He was still holding tight to the chip, refusing to let go of any chance at regaining his freedom.
The cat-eared youth was expressionless, but his pupils were erect as he stood in the shadows in the distance. He looked the way he had when Wu Jin first saw him in the cage.
“Hey, what’s your name. Why did you let me go?” The cat-eared youth asked.
Wu Jin: “I––”
There was a bang.
Wei Shi was cruel and merciless as he slammed the door shut.
The cat-eared genetically modified youth who’d just started feeling a bit of gratefulness, “......” He then jumped up in anger, “You closed the door! Screw you and your door!”
Inside.
Wu Jin’s mouth was dry after he finished explaining the matter of the ‘auction items’. Wei Shi raised his head and looked up from the list of purchased items.
“Master?” The man’s tone was unclear.
Wu Jin quickly turned well-behaved and obedient, “It never happened! Brother Wei, you’re the master...”
Wei Shi: “Remember it.”
Wu Jin, “Ah?”
Wei Shi: “Remember it and use it next time.”
After taking a bath, they lay down together in the comfortable, soft bed. Wu Jin shifted left and right and delayed to the end before finally tossing down the pillow and running off to clean up. When he came back, walking around on damp feet, the big boss was communicating with someone over the terminal.
Wu Jin peeled back the quilt and was quickly caught by the big boss.
During their regular communication call meeting, the Floating City Research Institute was giving a passionate report on the results of their raid. Wei Shi’s voice was low as he occasionally made sounds of acknowledgement. His voice remained calm and steady––
But his right hand moved rhythmically along Wu Jin’s spine.
Wu Jin was lying down on the soft, white pillows, and barely managed to refrain from calling out at the touch.
Once in a while, when he pressed too hard, he would bury himself into the pillows.
The suite was on the 17th floor of the castle, and the half-open window led out to the terrace and endless starlight––
There was a crash.
A hole appeared in the window.
“!!!” Wu Jin was shocked out of his salted fish state on the bed.
Wei Shi put the call on hold, “Mm. Wait a minute.”
He turned and got out of bed.
On the terrace, the cat ears that had popped out suddenly retreated in a panic, and the youth called out loudly, “What? I can go wherever I want in this damned castle...”
Wei Shi’s expression was cold, “Get lost.”
The cat-eared youth climbed away from the terrace along the external piping. Wu Jin poked his head out of the window and saw several anonymous cards tied together with a rubber band. There was a white note on top.
“1.2/170.”
The cat had actually come over to pay off his debt.
1.7 million. He’d cobbled together 12,000 to repay the debt. In fact, just when Wu Jin had finished swiping the big boss’s credit card, the castle had come under the Floating City’s control, and all the money had already been returned back to them. The cat eared youth probably didn’t know yet––
Wu Jin hadn’t yet opened his mouth to speak, but the youth had already disappeared into the night.
In nearby suits, the people from Floating City had stepped out onto the terrace to check the situation. “Is that a modified cat?”, “It’s a genetically modified human, right?”, “Why did he break Brother Wei’s window?!”, “What a temper, he’s going to scare people to death.” ...
In a small, suspended garden a few meters away.
When the black cat who was licking its own fur saw Wei Shi, it immediately picked up the ‘little brother’ that it had tossed to the side and pretended to be a friendly brother, licking its fur tenderly. It wasn’t until Wei Shi closed the balcony door that it tossed the little black cat away again and continued to play on its own.
The heavy curtains cut off the view of the old castle garden that was full of cats.
The lights remained dim until the meeting was over.
Wu Jin was already sleeping soundly on the pillow.
Wei Shi bowed his head, gave him a good night kiss, and turned off the lights.
At three o’clock in the morning, rain came in through the hole that had been smashed in the window, waking Wu Jin up.
The cat-eared genetically modified youth, the tombstones holding the experiments, and the neuron locks in the private castle had suddenly brought back old memories. In his dream, he was back in the R-Code Base again, and it was filled with cold snow and ice.
Wei Shi never needed much sleep. Wu Jin looked up through the dim light and saw the big boss wearing a pair of glasses as he reviewed a few documents that hadn’t yet been processed.
Wu Jin held up his pillow and leaned back against the bed.
Wei Shi soothed him silently.
Wu Jin spoke disjointedly about the nightmare he’d just had and finally felt a lot better. He then asked the big boss, “Did you dream just now!”
Wei Shi made a sound of acknowledgement.
In his dream, the little white rabbit was bullied until it was soft and full of tears, crying and chirping and calling out ‘master’.
Wu Jin saw that the big boss was nodding and was very moved.
Sure enough, memories surfaced easily when it rained at night––Wu Jin: “What are you looking at me for!”
Wei Shi turned his head back and continued to read the documents in his hand.
Wu Jin took out his terminal and started to play games.
Wei Shi: “Go back to sleep.”
Wu Jin: “Can’t sleep!”
Wei Shi gave him a stack of test paper. “Count rabbits. Stick one on yourself for every 100 rabbits.”
Two minutes later, Wu Jin stuck a piece of test paper on himself.
Six minutes later, he stuck on another one.
Sixteen minutes, another one.
Twenty minutes.
The sound of rain was soft and gentle. Wu Jin fell asleep.
The next morning, the two of them checked out at the front desk of the castle.
The rumor that ‘three people entered the room but only two of them came out, the window was broken, and nobody knew if the last person was dead or alive’ soon spread out across the castle. When the staff member handed the luggage over to Wei Shi, his arms and elbows were shaking in fear.
It was very possible that this man would kill for the noble young master’s favor!
Though, the one who’d been killed was a genetically modified human and weren’t regarded the same way as natural humans who were protected by the laws of the Empire...
The bodyguard held his hand up, palm up, and the noble young master who’d purchased every auction item last night got into the car.
The suspension car disappeared from view.
Star of Bliss, Star Harbor. Countless cages were carried into the star ship as the captain of the Floating City bodyguard watched on. The young soldier who’d just joined the team was struggling to write an ‘application to adopt the snow leopard’ in the cabin. When the door closed, the leopard cat walked slowly to the docking bay, holding his little brother in his mouth.
Finally, Researcher Song said goodbye to Wei Shi and waved to Wu Jin with a smile on his face.
“Have fun!”
Wu Jin waved happily.
After sending off the Floating City group, Wu Jin and Wei Shi stayed at the Star of Bliss for another two days.
On the first day, they went to the snack street and ate seven meals.
The next day, in the training area of an underground boxing arena, Wu Jin almost collapsed from the high-level training.
On the evening of that same day, many large screens in the main urban areas were replaced with new color schemes. Against a dark blue galactic background, there was a short sword and a longsword overlapped together.
The Stardust Cup, a professional survival show championship competition.
The Stardust Cup finals would be held one month after the Crosson Show finals. The group competitions had slowly been heating up, and these two days were filled with entertainment events such as performance competitions and rookie competitions.
Wu Jin was actually able to find a support poster for White Moonlight in a corner of the Star of Bliss––
As a reserve player for the professional team, Caesar stood at the very edges.
Yet even being in the corner was enough to make Wu Jin’s blood boil.
It was a real professional league, just within his reach.
Evening, 17:00.
With the big boss’s guidance, Wu Jin peeled off the most superficial level of the skin camouflage and boarded the star ship with the second layer of camouflage, completely cutting off all links with the Star of Bliss.
At 18:00, the star ship docked.
Two VIP tickets for the performance competition were checked in at the entrance to the Stardust Cup arena. Wu Jin stepped into the bowl shaped arena––
The arena, which could hold 200,000 people, was majestic and dazzling. The bottom of the bowl was a killing paradise for the survival players. The audience was densely packed along the walls of the bowl, and dozens of virtual support banners spanning dozens of meters long were stacked up one on top of the other by the fans that had gathered to watch the competition.
Wu Jin could even see a chibi version of Caesar nearby.
From the audience seating, they could see the ‘bottom of the bowl’ arena at a glance.
Each seat was equipped with an optical, self focusing telescope and an AI support system that helped control the lens, switching between direct shots of each contestant and the view from cameras numbered 1-25.
To the right of each seat was a canvas gift bag.
It held sponsor brochures, background introductions for the performance competition, contestant information, and a free, beautifully packaged souvenir that came with the ticket.
There was a stir on the stage!
The audience stood up like the tide, saluting the warriors who were about to appear. In the host seating, the area behind the microphones were temporarily vacant, but a symphony orchestra sat in the middle of the slowly rising water platform to play for the players who were about to fight bravely for victory!
The Imperial competition zone’s first seed team, Northern Wolf’s seven official members came out draped in their team pennants.
There were cheers, a brief pause in the applause, followed by a magical frenzy––
Wu Jin was dazzled by the scene, and his blood was boiling with passion.
He heard Wei Shi speak into his ear.
“One day, it’ll be you.”
Juurensha: Good luck catboy! And hahaha the cutie soldier applying to own a snow leopard.