Chapter 40: Ghostfire Girl Yukong (Patreon)

It wasn't that Gusttave didn't trust anyone else. It was that nobody could keep up with him.

Apart from the top scientists of the Way of Great Peace, who could just barely serve as his assistants, everyone else would only get in the way.

Lan Yan and Yaoguang had wanted to pitch in at first, but after one look at the experiment reports, which might as well have been scripture from heaven, they decisively bolted.

They recognized every single character on those pages. Put together, though, they couldn't understand a word.

[March 7th: Holy crap!!! Is this the limit of the human brain?! How many projects is he running at once?! My eyes are going crossed!]

[Screwllum: Analysis: Research spanning multiple cutting-edge fields, carried out by a single individual, is extraordinarily rare even by the standards of an interstellar civilization. Conclusion: this gentleman's cerebral development has likely exceeded the limits of ordinary living beings.]

[Mobius: Heh. The Ultimate Life Form's brain development really didn't disappoint me.]

[Mobius: But why is this guy's lab so huge?!]

Watching Gusttave flatten an entire mountain range to build his own laboratory, Mobius turned green with envy.

Back in the previous civilization, she'd been the top scientist on the entire planet, yet her lab had never been anywhere near that big. And she'd had her funding squeezed by the higher-ups more times than she could count.

Seeing that Gusttave had such a vast laboratory and an unlimited budget, Mobius was seething with envy.

While Gusttave buried himself in research, the situation in their circle was quietly shifting.

Tushan, beneath the Bitter Love Tree.

Feixiao stood in the tree's shadow amid the drifting petals, a secret report in her hand. Her ice-blue eyes swept over the densely packed lines of writing, her face utterly blank.

But Tingyun, standing behind her, noticed that the fingertips gripping the paper had gone slightly white.

Ever since Gusttave's "death," Feixiao had become a completely different person from the fluffed-up little fox she used to be.

She was now the ruler of Tushan, and her cultivation at the peak of the Greater Yao Sovereign realm was enough to cow anyone harboring ill intent. But the lively, vivid expressions of old were gone from her face, leaving only a frozen severity.

"Nanguo... Has the Empress made any moves since her enthronement?" Feixiao's voice was so flat it gave away no emotion at all.

Tingyun fanned herself with her folding fan and answered carefully. "Since Lan Yan took the throne, Nanguo's political situation has been stable, and the Yao Kings seem well-behaved for now. However, a man called 'Wang Hongwu' has appeared in Nanguo. He's said to be the husband of her savior, and the two are already married. And this Wang Hongwu..."

"Go on."

"He's enclosed a mountain range in Nanguo's northeast for research and has just declared the whole area forbidden. No one may approach. I managed to obtain some intelligence. All sorts of cutting-edge research are being carried out there with great efficiency, at speeds far beyond reason. One person, in a very short time, pushing forward projects in multiple fields of technology at once. In the entire world, only that gentleman could do such a thing."

The fingers holding the paper finally stopped going white.

She slowly lifted her head and gazed at the far horizon. In those ice-blue eyes stirred an emotion that couldn't quite be put into words.

Looking at Feixiao's profile, Tingyun sighed inwardly. Eldest Sister never mentioned that name, yet whenever news that might be about him arrived, she always dropped everything else to confirm it first.

"Pass the word down: strengthen intelligence gathering toward Nanguo. If you find anything unusual, report it immediately."

"Yes." Tingyun accepted the order.

Feixiao turned back to the secret report. Her gaze settled on one inconspicuous detail: the exact date of the coronation of Nanguo's new empress, Lan Yan.

She vaguely remembered that on that day her heart had faltered for no reason. She'd always assumed it was only because she'd been too busy. Thinking back now, perhaps it wasn't so simple.

Back to Nanguo.

That day, an unexpected guest arrived at Gusttave's laboratory.

"What wind blew you all the way out here?" Gusttave asked, working at his system while he looked over at Yukong, who'd come to the site.

Yukong didn't bother with pleasantries and got straight to the point. "I've fully digested your research on space travel. I should be able to work as your assistant now."

Gusttave didn't rush to turn her down. Instead he asked curiously, "Why would you want to be my assistant?"

"Why else?" Yukong said as if it were obvious. "In this age, only yao who keep striving and pushing themselves can stay on top to the very end."

"And what you're researching, Daoist of Great Peace, is definitely worth striving and pushing myself for."

Gusttave raised an eyebrow, turned around, and looked at Yukong squarely.

After sizing her up for a moment, he said, "You're not telling the truth."

At his words, Yukong's face froze. In the end she had no choice but to confess her real goal.

"Actually, I want to be the first to try out that spaceship you're building. A voice in my heart tells me that if I can't fly that ship, I'll regret it for the rest of my life."

Understanding dawned on Gusttave at once. So this was the real Yukong coming out.

Out in the world, Yukong in her youth had been a genuine speed demon, a girl who loved tearing around everywhere in her Starskiff.

A Starskiff was the Xianzhou's means of transport, and also a small spaceship.

That was why the Yukong before him had such a keen interest in spaceships.

She'd even gone so far as to fully master the research on space travel for it.

Honestly, his impression of this second-strongest fighter in Nanguo had always been stuck on two labels: "Huandu Xingzhen's bestie" and "the single woman being nagged to marry."

Now that she'd suddenly turned up saying she wanted to be his assistant, the contrast was rather sharp.

"You're sure?" Gusttave leaned against the console, arms crossed. "I'll tell you up front, this is no easy job. When you came to look around with Senior Xingzhen last time, you said you had a headache after three minutes of reading an experiment report."

"That was last time." Yukong tossed her hair, unconcerned, with the air of someone who'd seen it all. "I haven't been idle these past few months. I've chewed through every one of those foundational theory papers you published."

Gusttave wrote down a few problems and handed them to Yukong. "Fine. As long as you can solve these, you can stay here."

Yukong took a single glance and her eyes lit up at once, like a street racer spotting a top-tier tuning part. She snatched the stylus from beside her, pulled the light screen over, and started writing and sketching.

Her movements were astonishingly fast. Her usually untamed features were now completely focused, and she didn't even notice the stray hair falling across her forehead and blocking her view. The stylus traced smooth formulas across the light screen.

In under ten minutes, Yukong had finished all the problems, with an accuracy rate of eighty-five percent.

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