Chapter 101: Deep Affection and Clouds Lifting

Chapter 101: Deep Affection and Clouds Lifting

Picking up where the last chapter left off — I accepted the gift from Yaomei Star’s garrison commander and boarded the ship.

I knew it was a mass of cosmic energy, the kind that would help me push my abilities further still. My cosmic abilities were already considerable, true enough — but who ever complains about growing stronger?

Showing him both kinds of green jade disk had been deliberate. I wanted him to understand exactly where I stood with Survey Inspector Xuan — and, more quietly, to remind him not to try any games with me.

That garrison commander struck me from the start as a pure martial brute. His combat strength might have run high, but when it came to command and management, there was frankly nothing to praise. If I hadn’t caught the problem when I did, Yaomei Star’s interstellar dock would already have ceased to exist — and he’d have died along with it.

HD Star would have been dragged into disaster too. Faced with an attack of that scale, HD Star could hardly have avoided rushing headlong into war with Tengshe Star. Both sides would have paid for it in blood.

When I returned to Bixian Star, Silver Pearl was standing alone at the aerospace base, waiting for me.

As I stepped down the gangway and saw her beautiful face, the deep affection welling in her eyes, something in me stirred at once.

She had transformed all the land around the base into a sweeping sea of brilliant color — flowers as far as the eye could reach, their fragrance drifting everywhere.

I had only been gone ten days, and yet she still looked as though the parting had been unbearable.

I ended up staying another ten-odd days in the Crystal Palace, mostly following Silver Pearl as she taught me new ways of mastering cosmic abilities — along with whatever tenderness the reader might imagine.

Since gaining cosmic energy, I’d mostly wielded it by combining it with martial techniques learned on Earth, or with the methods for using force of consciousness I’d once absorbed through the Akashic Records. But Silver Pearl believed the wider reach of cosmic power was never limited to living things. Cosmic energy, she said, could just as easily reorganize inorganic matter at the molecular level, or set phase differences into motion. In fact, when I’d used phase-dislocation to merge that nuclear bomb into the Tengshe Star man’s body, I’d stumbled onto exactly that method — unknowingly, in a moment of desperation.

So Silver Pearl taught me, hand over hand, the methods of using cosmic energy unique to Cassiopeia, and our bond deepened further for it.

In all my time with her after that, I stopped wearing the face of the code-body Song Chenfeng and let her see me as I truly was — so she could grow familiar with my real appearance.

Of course, even if I hadn’t changed anything, Silver Pearl, Xuanze’s father, and Mother Han could all see straight through to my true form regardless. They simply never said so. None of them would have mistaken Song Chenfeng’s face for mine — their level was far beyond my own. The reason I chose to show Silver Pearl my true face directly was that I didn’t want to make her work to see through the disguise. Offering it myself simply spared us both the trouble.

Silver Pearl was a wonderfully simple crystal being. She had none of the tangled complications that came with human emotion. In love, she was utterly single-minded — bold in loving, bold in hating, never hiding a single thought or feeling. Everything about her was like crystal itself: transparent, clear straight through.

I loved that clean, uncomplicated quality in her.

In front of her, I never had to posture, never had to pretend, never had to calculate or second-guess anything.

I found myself deeply moved by the depth of devotion in her gaze — that searching, bottomless look that held no trace of performance, that never once weighed what I might be thinking. It was simply pure feeling, expressed without filter.

The body…