The Wicked Old Emperor

The Woodpecker family’s private clinic was called a clinic, but its scale rivaled that of a public hospital. Not only did it feature state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment, but it also collaborated with other Class-A hospitals, allowing for expert consultations at a moment’s notice.

Experiencing it firsthand, Bai Ling finally understood just how important wealth was.

As it turned out, the old nobility didn’t have to wait in lines at all to see a doctor. Getting an X-ray taken was as quick and easy as using a roadside photo booth, available instantly. Furthermore, the clinic serviced only him for the entire morning, with a nurse accompanying him through every step of the process with meticulous and earnest care.

This made Bai Ling, who in his past life was entirely accustomed to ICU nurses chatting and slacking off, feel deeply uncomfortable.

After witnessing the old Dr. Woodpecker bow 90 degrees to Yu Chen, nearly dropping to his knees in excitement, this discomfort deepened.

…This wicked old Emperor!

It was entirely Yu Chen’s fault for having such diverse and elegant pastimes; constantly planting flowers and rearing birds easily blurred his image as a ruthless monarch.

Even the nurse commented with envy: “That gentleman has such an aristocratic aura. His presence is so much more powerful than any Great Noble I’ve seen before. Who is he to you?”

Bai Ling said casually: “My guardian.”

He poked at the mango sticky rice in his bowl, digging out a spoonful to stuff into his mouth, chewing and swallowing mechanically. Having been escorted to the hospital early in the morning, Yu Chen mentioned it was the perfect time for a blood test, so he hadn’t let him eat. Now that his checks were complete, the nurse brought over a light breakfast to fill his stomach.

But he wasn’t used to this food. There was no meat.

The nurse had an epiphany: “Oh, your guardian! No wonder I saw him carrying you in. He carried you all the way up to the sixth floor without letting go once. Responsible alphas are rare these days; if I didn’t know better, I’d think you two were married.”

Holding his burning forehead, Bai Ling muttered: “Married…”

The nurse offered a gentle smile: “A guardian can always transition into a spouse. As long as the pheromone compatibility is high, the system will approve the union. Have you two taken the test yet? With how close you are, it might be higher than 80%.”

Bai Ling said calmly: “We haven’t tested it.”

Why waste time testing that? It wasn’t as if Yu Chen couldn’t get it up for him. As for himself, he was habitually detached, but that didn’t matter. As long as his mind was satisfied, it was fine.

The nurse looked somewhat surprised and bewildered: “But if an alpha and omega don’t test their compatibility, how will they know if they suit each other? If the compatibility isn’t high enough, it might—”

Right then, a mature voice cut in: “Are the checks finished?”

Bai Ling turned his head. Yu Chen was standing by the door, carefully looking at him, his tone softening slightly: “Your complexion looks a bit better.”

Bai Ling patted his leg, causing the IV line connected to his indwelling needle to sway, his expression entirely detached: “I’m on an anti-inflammatory drip. How could it not look better?”

Yu Chen glanced at the overbed table, noting that the mango sticky rice and spinach soup were mostly untouched. He arched an eyebrow: “A picky eater?”

Bai Ling set down his spoon and leaned back listlessly: “I’m sick. No appetite.”

Yu Chen didn’t say anything this time, but Bai Ling instinctively looked over and found the man reaching into his coat. From the pocket of his warm, mocha-colored overcoat, which looked stuffed to the brim, he pulled out a large package of silver tin foil like a magician.

Walking over with an elegant, flowing grace, he handed it to the younger man, not forgetting to massage his fluffy white head as he teased: “No appetite? It seems to me you just want to eat meat.”

Unfolding the tin foil, he found crispy, toasted bread sandwiching thick layers of smoked ham.

This must be magic!

Bai Ling felt a quiet leap of joy in his heart, taking small bites of the bread as the savory ham instantly reawakened his taste buds. Suddenly remembering something, he turned back to ask the nurse:

“By the way, you just said if the compatibility isn’t high enough, what happens?”

The nurse snapped out of her daze and hurriedly said: “Oh, nothing, nothing! Nothing would happen. The lab results should be out, I’ll go fetch them.”

She had originally wanted to say that if the compatibility was too low, a mark couldn’t be established. But looking at how seamlessly aligned the two were, they didn’t look like a low-compatibility match at all, so she naturally wouldn’t say anything to spoil the mood.

Zhuo Liangmu held the test results and invited The One into the consultation room alone.

Once Yu Chen was seated, he asked calmly: “How is his leg?”

Bai Ling refused to let him look at the injury, but he had to know all the details.

Zhuo Liangmu strove to remain as objective as possible: “It’s not very ideal. His right leg was traumatically amputated, and the injury occurred less than half a year ago, which is why he experiences frequent phantom limb pain.”

Zhuo Liangmu pulled up the X-ray film, pointing it out to him: “Please look here. Normally, after an amputation surgery, scar tissue will completely enclose the bone inside, leaving no open wounds to prevent infection. But at the cross-section of his residual limb, there is a short piece of bone measuring 3.5 centimeters. This is not his original bone, but rather…”

Yu Chen sat up straight, watching as Zhuo Liangmu paused before saying: “…It is a newly grown bone hyperplasia.”

Like a broken tree branch sprouting a new bud, the bone hyperplasia had grown from the site of the fracture, piercing through the muscle tissue.

Yu Chen lowered his eyes, slowly turning the gemstone signet ring on his finger, his expression unreadable.

Zhuo Liangmu instinctively softened his tone, becoming even more cautious: “Actually, you don’t need to worry excessively. An avian’s physique is just engineered that way. Little birds, you know, give them a bit of beef and they flourish. You must supplement his calcium and nutrition frequently, right?”

Seeing Yu Chen offer a slight nod of confirmation, Zhuo Liangmu continued:

“Bai Ling is still young, an adolescent bird, and is actually at an age where his bones are still developing. Many old birds have their beaks clipped, and within half a year, they can grow a new one. For a little bird like him, having ample nutrition after an amputation makes it entirely unsurprising that he quietly grew some bone.”

“This is an avian instinct. He wants to live, desperately fighting to grow a new leg. But his physical mechanisms don’t realize that he no longer has any thigh muscle left.”

Saying it out loud sounded incredibly cruel. But Yu Chen knew this was the reality; no one understood the strength of the Little Bird’s survival instinct better than he did.

Forcing down the sharp, prickling ache in his heart, he steadied his breath and asked: “In Bai Ling’s case, what are the odds of success for a limb regeneration surgery?”

“Very low.”

Zhuo Liangmu didn’t dare look at his expression, keeping his head down as he explained with difficulty: “The difficulty of limb regeneration is calculated based on the amputation surface area. If it’s just a missing foot, the regeneration surgery has a 90% success rate. The more that is missing, the lower the success rate. Bai Ling’s right leg only retains the mid-section of the thigh; replicating the original state involves multiple times the nerves, muscles, and skin tissues required for single-organ regeneration. Historically, the success rate is only 6% to 15%.”

“Furthermore, if a single data point is off, it could easily regenerate a deformed, defective leg. That would cause a secondary psychological trauma to Bai Ling…”

Such an outcome was something Yu Chen was absolutely unwilling to see. Yet the Little Bird’s yearning to grow a leg was something he couldn’t ignore either.

Yu Chen lifted his deep green eyes: “Are there any means to increase the success rate? Regardless of the financial cost or the technical requirements, no expense will be spared.”

Zhuo Liangmu pondered deeply for a while, then said: “If we could locate the severed leg that was cut off at the time and perform an ultra-precision modular 3D scan, incorporating that dataset should bring the odds up to 30%.”

Yu Chen frowned: “30% is still too low.”

If possible, he wanted to push the success rate past 95%.

Zhuo Liangmu wiped his sweat-soaked red hair, feeling a lingering anxiety. When he previously met the Little White Bird, he had assumed the young man belonged to the Old Emperor’s imperial guard. He never expected that the Old Emperor would take him in as a ward and be so entirely inseparable from him, even accompanying him to a doctor’s appointment.

Could this be a case of parched seedlings receiving rain, or a withered tree encountering spring?

Zhuo Liangmu had spent his entire life serving the Old Emperor, and his family’s prosperity today was entirely due to Yu Chen’s patronage. He knew the Old Emperor had long been plagued by excessively high mental pressure, and from the bottom of his heart, he hoped this man could relax his mind and body. After all, no matter how good medicine was, it couldn’t compare to emotional regulation. Even cancer patients have been known to defeat cancer cells through an optimistic spirit. With the Little White Bird’s company, the Old Emperor might just slowly recover.

Thinking up to this point, Zhuo Liangmu decided he ought to leave some hope.

Weighing his words carefully, he said: “Actually… the only two successful cases of full right-leg regeneration in the medical world were performed by a stem cell biologist. If we could get him to personally operate, the success rate would definitely not be low. However, he hasn’t appeared since the collapse of the Old Empire.”

Yu Chen was succinct: “What is his name?”

“Miao Ben.”

“Miao Ben?” Yu Chen looked thoughtful.

Zhuo Liangmu nodded: “Yes. He is also a Go master.”

---

Bai Ling’s bone hyperplasia had to be amputated once more to halt the infection. However, the surgery required advanced preparation and today was clearly unsuitable, so the clinic wrapped his leg in anti-infection materials and temporarily let him go.

Riding in the hover-ship toward the arena, Bai Ling feared they would be late and changed into his combat suit ahead of time.

The fabric at the back of the combat suit was completely hollowed out, exposing his exquisite shoulder blades, slightly indented spinal groove, and the smooth vertebral line that curved gently just beneath his waist dimples. Looking further down, the tight, quick-drying fabric outlined a perfect waist-to-hip ratio; a taut, athletic contour that could be entirely encompassed by a single hand.

For Yu Chen, it was just right.

He allowed himself to admire it for a moment before methodically picking up the wool overcoat and wrapping Bai Ling into a towel roll.

Bai Ling attempted to protest: “It’s so hot, I’m still sweating out the fever.”

Yu Chen tied the two sleeves together like straps, leaving only a lone bird head peeking out from the top. He tapped the bridge of the younger man’s nose: “A Little Bird sandwich.”

Bai Ling came incredibly close to biting him.

Yu Chen easily retracted his hand, preventing him from getting a bite in, and let out a soft laugh. “They say that when rescue stations feed or medicate falcons, they wrap them up into a bundle exactly like this to keep them from biting hands. It seems that’s actually true.”

A little falcon bouquet.

Wrapped up like this, that fluffy white head really did resemble a little dandelion.

With his upper body bound, Bai Ling’s lower half was still free. He lifted his left leg, resting it across Yu Chen’s thighs, and hooked his body forward a fraction to stare expressionlessly at the merman.

“If you want to warm me up, you should be holding me.”

Yu Chen said softly, “My body temperature is lower than yours.”

Bai Ling pursed his lips, a wave of inexplicable annoyance washing over him. After a long, conflicted pause, he finally blurted out, “Then I’ll warm you up, alright?”

The moment the words left his mouth, the Rolled-Over Little Bird tipped over, forcefully and possessively hijacking more than half of the seat.

Yu Chen caught him with a touch of helplessness, smoothing down his small feathers. “What’s wrong, baby?”

Bai Ling closed his eyes and said coldly, “The last time I went to the hospital, I saw your medical charts. It was a massive, thick stack.”

“And?”

“You need to take good care of yourself too, don’t just worry about me. When you can’t hold back anymore, take what you need from me. Don’t worry about an alpha’s pride.”

Bai Ling was not at all adept at such considerate words, so his toes curled inside his shoes as he spoke. He hadn’t brought this up on a sudden whim.

When they left the clinic, Bai Ling had keenly noticed that the look in the old Dr. Woodpecker’s eyes had changed. It had turned into something full of regret, hope, and a hidden tinge of sorrow. He didn’t know what Yu Chen had said to the doctor, but the old man had clearly realized their relationship was far from ordinary.

Yu Chen’s mental state was fragile, yet he happened to be paired with someone with a broken leg like his.

Bai Ling didn’t indulge in self-pity; he simply said calmly and quietly, “We both need to stay alive and take good care of each other.”

Yu Chen fondly promised him, “Alright.”

Seeing the Little Bird pull his shoulders in, Yu Chen added with a smile, “Actually, you don’t need to fret. My physical constitution is extremely resilient; almost nothing can cause irreversible damage to me.”

Bai Ling noted coolly, “You said it yourself: ‘almost.’ There’s still a possibility. You’d better not be so conceited. Caution is key; I have no desire to weep over your grave.”

Yu Chen stroked his jaw. “Put that way, I’d actually quite like to see it.”

Bai Ling clamped his jaws onto a fistful of that golden hair, chewing fiercely: “Don’t even dream about it!”

As noon approached, it began to rain. The sea breeze whipped the raindrops across the sky, leaving slanted watery tracks across the windows. Looking through them, it looked as though the hover-ship was weeping.

Winter on the Capital was long and grueling, bringing either blizzards or freezing rain.

Yu Chen’s ancestors had lived near the Scandinavian Peninsula on Ancient Earth, a place of beautiful auroras, endless herring, and winters so cold that one had to constantly shake their tail to stay warm. The jellyfish would gather along the ice-free shores. Stepping off a ship, one could look down and see those plastic-bag-like creatures lined up row after row, looking like marine debris washed ashore.

Yu Chen inherited portions of his merman ancestors’ memories, and to his senses, today’s temperature was entirely tolerable.

But when he saw the message on his terminal, a chill rising from the depths of his soul instantly dragged him down into an ice cave.

Heinz was reporting to him.

[Mixed Juice]: Respected The One, good afternoon. I regret to inform you that His Majesty Kaide has discovered the culprit who destroyed his space palace and caused him to lose his tentacles. He will deploy snipers today to carry out his retaliation. Please be advised.

Kaide wanted to kill his Little Bird.