Breaking Free

Facing this‌‍​​‍⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠‍‍​‌​⁠‌‌⁠‌​‌‍‌ blood-feud again but becoming helpless and trapped in a cage for the second time, even Huo Xianfeng, who was always calm and composed, lost his rationality.

Or, more accurately, he was on the verge of collapse.

Even the strongest individuals have limits to their psychological endurance. The hatred he had been born into which lasted three hundred years, finally crushed him.

When Jiang Ci embraced Huo Xianfeng, he realized just how long—so very long—he had been suppressing himself.

From the moment Huo Xianfeng regained his memories—or perhaps even earlier, when he saw the suffering of so many of his kin in the White Solitude City—the hatred buried by his lost memories was reawakened.

But he had endured, relentlessly suppressing his emotions and rationally planning his actions. Yet that unspoken, blood-soaked feud had become an invisible shackle, binding his hands and feet and dragging him into the darkest abyss.

The Huo Xianfeng trapped in the cage was the same as he had been three hundred years ago.

He appeared to be only eleven or twelve, with golden vertical pupils that lacked their usual brilliance and instead reflected a dim twilight. Most of his body had succumbed to degeneration, barely maintaining a humanoid form.

Even his beloved tail, the weapon he took the most pride in, had only partially formed, curling like a withered branch.

He kept repeating:

“Kill them…”
“Kill them all…”
“KILL THEM ALL!!!”

This frenzied creature bore no resemblance to the carefree, commanding Huo Xianfeng Jiang Ci knew. Yet Jiang Ci recognized him at a glance.

He wasn’t afraid. He only felt an overwhelming ache in his heart, a pain so profound it nearly stole his breath.

Now he understood why Huo Xianfeng had never wanted to talk about his past. The prouder someone is, the less willing they are to show their scars.

“Huo Xianfeng… Huo Xianfeng…”

At that moment, Jiang Ci felt a deep sense of regret. Why hadn’t he realized sooner? Why hadn’t he noticed that the person he loved most had been suffering so much, for so long?

“It’s okay now…”

Jiang Ci hugged the young man’s cold, trembling body tightly, as though trying to warm him with everything he had.

“I’m here… I’ve come to find you…”

The young man in his arms trembled. Leaning against Jiang Ci’s shoulder, his vacant eyes finally focused.

In that instant, the whirlwind of fragments around them crashed to the ground in a symphony of shattering sounds.

Huo Xianfeng looked past Jiang Ci and into the darkness. There, a tiny star began to shine.

Then came the second light, the third… In the next moment, it was as if the entire galaxy poured out across the world.

The dim golden pupils widened, reflecting a sea of stars. Tiny lights flickered in the darkness, and a dazzling starry sky surged toward him.

—It was the Zergs’ spiritual network.

“…”

Huo Xianfeng stared blankly for several seconds and finally stopped repeating his words resentfully.

At last… he had found a way back.

The young man closed his eyes and spoke in a hoarse voice.

“It hurts so much…”
“It hurts so much…”

The pain was almost unbearable.

Ultimately, Huo Xianfeng reached out and wrapped his arms around Jiang Ci.

“A-Ci… I thought Huo Chao had come back…”
“But no, it wasn’t him. It was a fake…”
“I was trapped again… No matter what, I couldn’t find my way back…”

He buried his face in Jiang Ci’s neck and his voice, for the first time, revealed vulnerability and dependence.

Read at Mizushi Novels

Visit Mizushi Novels

Jiang Ci wanted to apologize, to comfort him, but before he could, he heard Huo Xianfeng say,

Support the original translation

Read on Mizushi Novels

“Thank goodness you came.”

Don't scrape

Don't copy

Boom!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Read at Mizushi Novels

Breaking a cage from the inside was difficult, but from the outside, it was much easier.

Visit Mizushi Novels

Support the original translation

As chaos engulfed the Holy Relic White Tower, Huo Xianfeng opened his eyes in the cockpit of the Forbidden Abyss Depths. He saw everything familiar and felt the presence of his kin waiting outside.

Read on Mizushi Novels

Don't scrape

At long last, he had broken free from that fathomless nightmare.

Don't copy

Read at Mizushi Novels

“Huo Xianfeng—!”

Visit Mizushi Novels

Support the original translation

“…”

Read on Mizushi Novels

Don't scrape

He even shook them and added,

Don't copy

Read at Mizushi Novels

The young man glanced at his hand indifferently, then suddenly grabbed the back of Jiang Ci’s head and tilted upward to kiss him.

Visit Mizushi Novels

Support the original translation

Since Huo Xianfeng was seated and Jiang Ci was standing, even though Huo Xianfeng initiated, it looked more like Jiang Ci was pinning him against the pilot’s seat to kiss him.

Read on Mizushi Novels

Don't scrape

The three mechas deleted a string of pre-prepared congratulatory phrases from their language systems and quietly switched to their communication channel.

Bai Ze: “What happened? Why did they start kissing???”

Xiao X: “Tsk, tsk, tsk. You wouldn’t understand. This is what they call ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder.’”

Forbidden Abyss: “… Aren’t you a childcare system? How do you even know phrases like that?”

Xiao X said confidently: “A-Ci is grown now and has an alpha. Of course, I need to keep up and download some adult-related resource packs. You don’t get it. As the best childcare system, I also have to prepare for A-Ci’s future child. Their happiness and harmony in that area are very important!”

At this, both the Forbidden Abyss and Bai Ze fell silent.

Bai Ze: “Did it really derive from your program?”

In the world of mechas, this question was equivalent to asking, “Is it really your biological child?”

The Forbidden Abyss felt deeply embarrassed. Its reputation as the elder mecha had just taken a serious hit.

“… That was Jiang Jinsheng’s programming for his son. How would I know?”

Translation: Yes, it’s biologically mine, but Jiang Jinsheng raised it, so it’s not my fault.

<hr>

Meanwhile, Huo Xianfeng reached out to hook his arm behind Jiang Ci’s knee, pulling him into his lap. Their position became even closer.

Jiang Ci gasped for breath, and was about to speak, when Huo Xianfeng grabbed the back of his neck and deepened the kiss once more.

“A-Ci……A-Ci……”

“Mm…”

They kissed each other urgently and passionately, with no trace of desire—just a desperate expression of boundless longing and love.

“A-Ci… A-Ci…”

“Mm.”

This time, it was Jiang Ci who responded. Just as Huo Xianfeng had done before, he echoed the other’s words over and over.

“I’m here… I’m here…”

Huo Xianfeng had never shown fear or any other vulnerable emotion, but when confronting those unbearable memories from the past, he realized for the first time that he, too, could be afraid. He could feel pain—so much pain it was nearly unbearable and he was crushed under such hatred until it drove him mad.

At last, Huo Xianfeng understood why he had lost his memory when he woke up on Earth.

When pain became severe enough to threaten life, the body’s genetic self-protection mechanism would activate. So, when the newly reborn King awoke, he had lost all memories of hatred.

Yet, when every memory tied to hatred was forcibly buried, only one name remained in his mind.

Huo Xianfeng forgot everything, as if he had nothing at all. But in losing everything, he welcomed his new life—a true beginning. At long last, he finally lived the life he was supposed to have.

Without hatred, though he felt lost, lonely, and empty, his eyes and heart were finally free to hold something else.

And it was at this precise moment that Jiang Ci appeared.

Now, as Huo Xianfeng kissed the flower he cherished most deeply, he felt that person filling his once-empty heart, bit by bit.

Huo Xianfeng’s connection with Huo Chao had been built on guilt and compensation, hatred and exploitation. At first, he saw Huo Chao only as a tool for revenge, a channel to peer into the outside world. That was why it was always Huo Chao chasing after him, trying hard to make amends, to atone.

But Huo Xianfeng’s relationship with Jiang Ci was untouched by the distortions of hatred. What they saw in each other was simply one another.

That night in the underground city, from the moment Huo Xianfeng first saw him, it wasn’t quite love. But one thing was certain: that peculiar omega stood out to him as someone entirely unique.

What Huo Xianfeng saw in Jiang Ci was a coldly elegant, striking omega, but also a lonely, sensitive soul who refused to bow to fate.

They were attracted to each other from the beginning.

Both from genetic and from the soul.