Inside the study.
Mansendis leaned back in his chair, his slightly curled knuckles tapping against the wooden armrest, one slow beat after another.
Beside him, Mond, the old chief affairs officer, stood silently with his head lowered.
As for Alvin and Selet, each had brought their own subordinates and stood on the left and right sides below, the two groups clearly divided.
The usually quiet study had rarely been this lively.
Of the Saint Clan members who had accompanied Mansendis and Wen Yuzhi on this trip, more than half of the Hemers were gathered here.
And the reason they had gathered was also related to Bai Yi, the royal-blood who had suddenly appeared.
A royal-blood who had been imprisoned and controlled by the research institute all this time, whose bloodline and origins were both mysteries. No one knew whether his arrival was a good thing or a bad thing for the current Saint Clan.
The Saint Clan members present had all lived through the previous turmoil of the royal-blood struggle for power.
To be fair, they did not dislike this newly emerged royal-blood.
The Saint Clan followed a collective law. By nature, they were willing to accept every member of their own race.
But the premise was that this fellow clansman would not bring harm to the clan.
Almost none of the Saint Clan members present had interacted with this new royal-blood little highness.
And the information they had obtained showed that he seemed to be an experimental product of the research institute. Previously, he had always worked for the research institute as a weapon and possessed an extremely high degree of loyalty toward Dan, the person in charge.
There was no need to think to know that, as an experimental subject, this royal-blood little highness had grown up receiving massive amounts of brainwashing training and emotional deprivation from the laboratory.
His sense of identity was almost equivalent to nothing. As for the Saint Clan, blood relatives he had never interacted with before, he naturally had even less feeling for them.
If Bai Yi were only an ordinary Saint Clan member, then whether his attitude toward the Saint Clan was cold or close would not matter. But unfortunately, his identity was Salileno, a royal-blood who could influence the Saint Clan’s situation.
That instantly made matters troublesome.
How to arrange this royal-blood little highness had become the greatest headache for these Hemers.
In the middle of the discussion, Mond stepped out.
When the old chief affairs officer returned, there was already an additional examination report in his hand.
Without question, this examination report belonged to Bai Yi.
When they brought him back, Mond had immediately had Mu Luo conduct a detailed examination on Bai Yi.
Bai Yi had no objection to this.
He seemed long used to undergoing all sorts of examinations. Whether it was drawing blood or checking his body, he cooperated very well.
Only, this sort of unconditional cooperation required Wen Yuzhi to be beside him.
From the moment they first met, Mond had noticed that Bai Yi seemed to recognize only little highness in his eyes.
His gaze almost never left the young man. Whatever Wen Yuzhi said, he would do. Wherever the young man went, he would follow.
Aside from that, he did not care about anything or anyone around him.
Even with Mond and the other Saint Clan members present, he treated them as empty air and ignored them completely.
And in this report, the genetic test results showed that he was indeed royal-blood. As for the column listing his direct blood relatives...
“Brand?”
Mansendis read out that long-absent name.
The study, which had originally been somewhat noisy, instantly fell into silence.
Although the Saint Clan members present had more or less already prepared themselves mentally for Bai Yi’s bloodline, when they truly heard that name, the room still quieted down.
Brand.
The child of Batoni, the Saint Clan sovereign before the previous one. If not for Mansendis and Tacia, the Saint Clan throne would most likely have been inherited by him.
Unfortunately, Tacia was even more decisive. She directly launched a palace coup, killed Batoni, and completely severed Brand’s possibility of succession.
But Brand had not simply resigned himself to that.
He had his own advantage. He was Batoni’s child, and in terms of blood relation with the other royal-blood, he was much closer than Tacia and Mansendis, the two Salilenos who had been directly granted blood by the Mother Goddess.
To a large extent, the struggle between him and Tacia had actually been a contest between the old and new factions of royal-blood.
But their struggle over royal authority had pushed the entire Saint Clan toward the abyss.
It was not until Mansendis killed every royal-blood who had participated in the power struggle that all of it ended.
And every Saint Clan member present remembered very clearly that before Brand died, he had no child.
But Bai Yi’s examination report showed that his bloodline compatibility with Brand was the highest.
And judging by Bai Yi’s age, Brand had not yet died when he was born.
Mansendis thought of how Kasha and the others had watched over the royal cocoon hidden in Ersoris under Tacia’s orders, only for the royal cocoon to be stolen by star pirates.
That had seemed like only a coincidence.
But when too many coincidences came together, they were no longer coincidences.
Kasha and the others had suspected that there might have been a traitor within the Saint Clan back then. They had simply been unable to find evidence.
And now, Bai Yi’s appearance seemed to confirm their original suspicion—the Saint Clan had indeed had a traitor within it.
Brand wanted to ascend the throne. That alone was not enough.
Moreover, the theft of the royal cocoon and the disappearance of many Saint Clan members were not things that could have been smoothly accomplished without the authority of a royal-blood.
But if Brand had colluded with external forces, then many things would have become much easier.
There was no need to think to guess that Brand had wanted to use those people to help him ascend the throne, while what Dan and Kegso wanted were Saint Clan members they could use for experiments.
They hit it off immediately.
That was why, back then, quite a few low-level Saint Clan soldiers disappeared, and some Saint Clan experimental subjects appeared inside the research institute.
Bai Yi might also have been born at that time.
It was only unclear whether Brand had known about this matter, or whether he had been involved in part of it from the beginning.
But no matter what, to the Saint Clan members present, Brand colluding with outsiders undoubtedly left them with extremely complicated feelings.
On one hand, they felt, deep down, that they were not too surprised Brand would do something like this.
On the other hand, they had also never imagined there would truly be a Saint Clan member who chose to betray the clan and commit such an act—colluding with outside forces to harm his own people.
Within the Saint Clan, whose sense of belonging to their race was extraordinarily strong, this was practically unimaginable.
They silently cursed Brand in their hearts.
But in the end, the matter of Bai Yi’s identity still needed Mansendis to make the final decision.
The silver-haired sovereign would confirm whether the Saint Clan would accept this third royal-blood little highness.
Under the gazes of the gathered Saint Clan members, Mansendis’s suspended fingertip suddenly came down.
..........
After Mansendis left the study, Mond seemed to understand what the silver-haired sovereign was thinking. He smiled and said, “Little highness is in the dining room. This old servant also saw little highness in the kitchen just now.”
“Mm.”
Mansendis gave a low hum, but his steps had already turned toward the dining room.
As soon as he entered, the air was filled with a sweet fragrance.
Wen Yuzhi was pulling Bai Yi along as they stood before the dining table. The young man gestured something with his fingers, and after seeing it, Bai Yi silently used mental energy to cut the fruit into the shape Wen Yuzhi wanted.
“Wow! You cut it so neatly!”
Wen Yuzhi exclaimed in amazement.
Bai Yi pressed his lips together tightly. He still seemed a little unused to being praised.
Perhaps to him, it was only cutting fruit. There was no skill involved, nor was it anything worthy of praise.
If Wen Yuzhi wanted, the young man could simply give him a name, and he would go bring that person’s head back for him.
Wen Yuzhi still had no idea Bai Yi was already thinking about killing someone. He placed the fruit Bai Yi had cut onto the cake.
As soon as he raised his head, he saw Mansendis walking toward them with Mond.
“Dad.”
Wen Yuzhi’s eyes lit up. He raised the cake in his hands and said with delight, “I made this cake for you!”
He had promised before that after coming out, he would make little cakes for Dad. Wen Yuzhi had not forgotten. It just so happened that Bai Yi could help him with things like flour.
He had made cupcakes, and there were even portions for the Saint Clan members who had just been meeting in the study.
The sweet fragrance also made the heavily solemn Hemers gradually relax their furrowed brows.
“Thank you, little highness.”
Putting the complicated affairs aside, these Hemers wished they could enter the palace every day to report on matters. First, they could see little highness. Second, if they were lucky, they might even receive small desserts personally made by little highness.
This was a special honor.
They thanked him, and they also saw Bai Yi standing behind Wen Yuzhi, looking even more like a personal guard than an actual personal guard.
While they had been in the study, these Hemers had already learned that Bai Yi was Brand’s child.
Now, their gazes fell on him as well.
But honestly speaking, although they were father and son, he and Brand had almost nothing alike from head to toe.
Prince Brand’s personality had been flamboyant and violent. If he were the one here today, he absolutely would never stand behind someone in the posture of a follower.
No matter where he was, Brand always wanted to be the center everyone followed, just as he had yearned for that throne.
Unfortunately, he had been born at the wrong time and encountered Tacia, who was even more dazzling and flamboyant than he was. Wherever Tacia was, Brand would always be forced to stand half a step below her.
Bai Yi, however, had a personality completely different from those two flamboyant Salilenos.
He did not like being watched, nor did he want to draw attention to himself.
As a weapon, he had long since grown used to living hidden in the dark.
Fortunately, these Hemers did not study him for too long. They had no intention of disturbing the afternoon tea time of the three royal-bloods, so after taking the boxes containing cakes, they each bowed and withdrew.
“Dad.”
Wen Yuzhi sat down beside Mansendis’s right hand.
He vaguely guessed that those Hemers had probably come because of Bai Yi’s matter.
Wen Yuzhi did not know what everyone had discussed in the study, so he was a little curious and wanted to probe Mansendis for information.
But Mansendis asked, “Zhizhi likes him?”
There was no doubt that “him” referred to Bai Yi.
Wen Yuzhi nodded. Actually, the first time he had seen Bai Yi, he had felt a kind of closeness from the other man.
Not to mention, when the escape pod fell, Bai Yi had protected him. Afterward, he had also sent him back to the Saint Clan.
To say he especially, especially liked him, the way he liked Dad and Mond and the others, certainly was not at that level yet. But Wen Yuzhi still liked him in an ordinary way.
Thinking of this, Wen Yuzhi hesitated slightly before speaking.
“Dad... Bai Yi is a little different from those experimental subjects...”
“I know.”
That examination report was sitting on the desk. Mansendis naturally knew Bai Yi was different from those genetically modified experimental subjects. The other man’s body was not mixed with any of those messy genes.
Perhaps the research institute had wanted an experimental subject who had completely inherited Saint Clan genes. Bai Yi had not undergone any modification surgery.
The collar he had worn around his neck had already been removed, while the chip implanted in his brain was still being studied by Mu Luo, who was figuring out how to take it out.
Privately, Wen Yuzhi actually wanted Bai Yi to stay with the Saint Clan.
But he also knew Bai Yi’s situation was rather special. Dad and the others still needed to discuss it before deciding whether Bai Yi could stay.
However, Wen Yuzhi had already thought it through.
If it truly did not work, the president of the Pat race had previously given him a planet. He could let Bai Yi live on that planet.
That way, it would be relatively far from the Saint Clan, and no one else would come disturb him. It would be very suitable for Bai Yi and those experimental subjects who had left the research institute.
Mansendis could see almost exactly what the cub was thinking.
The silver-haired sovereign lifted his brow and shifted the topic to something else.
“I heard from Mond that you called him older brother?”
The topic changed a little suddenly, and Wen Yuzhi was still somewhat dazed. But he had already instinctively answered, “In terms of relationship... is that wrong?”
By the time he spoke the last three words, Wen Yuzhi’s voice had already become very small.
Mansendis reached out and pinched the cub’s cheek. The silver-haired sovereign’s tone was calm, yet it sounded as though he were stating a fact.
“I have only one child.”
As he spoke, under the cub’s bewildered gaze, Mansendis added, “He is Brand’s bloodline.”
Brand...
Wen Yuzhi had also heard that name before. In the end, that person seemed to have been killed by Dad.
So...
To Bai Yi, wouldn’t he and Dad be the man who killed his father, and the son of the man who killed his father?
Even Wen Yuzhi was briefly stunned dizzy by this messy relationship.
Mansendis had already looked toward the Saint Clan member standing behind the cub.
“What are your thoughts?”
When Mansendis looked over, Bai Yi’s body tensed. An instinctive wariness toward danger rose in his heart.
But what Bai Yi had not expected was that Mansendis did not ask him about the research institute, nor did he seem to care about his identity. Instead, he directly asked him—
What were his thoughts?
And his thoughts...
“I want to stay.”
This was the first sentence Bai Yi spoke to Mansendis.
He wanted to stay with the Saint Clan.
More precisely, he wanted to stay by Wen Yuzhi’s side.
Hearing this, Mansendis rarely looked at him properly.
Bai Yi lowered his head slightly.
This was his submission to this sovereign.
Bai Yi understood very clearly that if he wanted to join this clan, he had to obtain the clan leader’s recognition.
“Have you thought of your own name?”
Mansendis asked him.
This name, of course, was not a number like Experimental Subject Number One.
It was Bai Yi’s true name.
Since he was going to break away from the past, he needed a new name.
After a moment of silence, Bai Yi said, “Gallorans.”
In the language of the Saint Clan, Gallorans meant a devoted protector.
