The Emperor’s Runaway Lover

 Chapter 68 - Hunt

The voice of the master of ceremonies cut through these low, terrible roars, chanting loudly, “The Pledge is complete, begin the Ceremonial Hunt—”

Following the announcement, the heavy fence covering the entrances rose slowly.

After one of the gates had just gone up slightly past the halfway point, a mutant Androctonus scorpion,1 several meters long, sprang out of the ground in a flash!

It raised its glossy tail and quickly circled the center of the sunken square.

The giant scorpion was an extremely beautiful golden color, but the more beautiful the scorpion is, the more venomous it usually is. The mutant Androctonus scorpion came from a type of extremely venomous Middle Eastern scorpion with a very high mortality rate, which was known as ‘walking death’.

Then, with a flutter, a cloud of dark brown vampire bats, each the size of a millstone, swarmed out of another dark doorway, rushing into the air. They hovered in the air like a black mist above the square.

“Damn, what kind of freaky creatures are these?!” a fat middle aged man murmured.

“It seems that there’s something there that has yet to come out…,” whispered a young man next to him as he stared at another dark doorway.

“Fuck me, what else is there?” The fat man couldn’t resist looking around.

Something was coming out of the doorway accompanied by low-pitched hissing.

The entire area around the sunken square fell silent for a while.

Unconsciously, everyone held their breath in silence, and their palms became slightly sweaty. Once they could see what it was clearly, they all cried out in unison.

“Oh my god, what the hell is that?!”

“That’s a giant viper! But its head…!”

It was a bizarre, immense two-headed viper!

The mutant viper was about 30 to 35 meters long. Its dark brown body was covered in oval markings, and its small scales shone like black gold.

Its neck was split, forming a Y shape ending in two huge triangular heads, each of which was the size of a water tank. Its golden, icy vertical eyes made everyone’s hair stand on end, and it had bright red tongues, several meters long, flitting and emitting a terrible hiss.

Fu Yucheng couldn’t help but lift his eyebrows slightly.

He had also encountered giant mutant vipers in the desert inside the Twilight Belt, but a double-headed mutant viper… Fu Yucheng couldn’t resist glancing at Rong Yuan. This sort of freaky creature is most likely the result of genetic experiments in the laboratory.

The killer scorpion and vampire bats are probably just distractions. The giant double-headed viper is the real star.

The Light Knights have yet to arrive. Could it be that Rong Yuan plans to use this giant mutant viper to deal with Bai Mo?

Or… the viper, plus the other five Dark Knights?

Fu Yucheng frowned, deep in thought. The six Dark Knights that stood under the statue on the high platform had slowly risen from their mechanical horses and, under the anti-grav field, slowly descended to the sunken square.

Liang glanced at Xie Ling and said quietly, “Ling-jie.”2

Xie Ling and Reid exchanged glances, then Xie Ling turned her head and nodded gently to Liang.

Liang, Xie Ling and Reid formed a semicircle and slowly pushed the golden mutant scorpion towards the stone wall.

As for the twin loli knights, Xiao Mei and Xiao Hua, they looked at each other and one of them grabbed onto a fat vampire bat. The bat flapped its wings in horror, and took the two small bodies into the air with it. They wanted to fight the cloud of vampire bats!

At that moment, only Bai Mo was left.

He stood alone in the middle of the sunken square, with his eyes lowered and his snow-pale face devoid of any expression.

After a while, he slowly raised his face and looked at the giant viper, which was not too far ahead. The viper’s golden eyes were also staring straight at him.

Bai Mo couldn’t help but sneer internally. It seems that Rong Yuan already planned that I’d be facing this mutant double-headed viper on my own.

Does the Prince think that I’ve never seen a mutant viper before?

Ridiculous.

Faster than it could be described, the giant double-headed viper suddenly let out a loud hiss that echoed across the sky, and its immense dark brown body suddenly threw itself against the wall of the sunken square.

It moved against the wall in a semicircle like dark lightning, swift and unstoppable, and suddenly struck at Bai Mo’s back!

“Little Mo, at your back!” Fu Yucheng closed his hands in fists without thinking, his palms covered in sticky cold sweat.

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Bai Mo didn’t look behind himself at all and instead, relying on his hearing and intuition, he suddenly jumped and landed exactly on the neck of the viper’s right head.

“Yeah!”

“So amazing!”

“Kill it! Kill it!”

A burst of cheers rose around the square.

As if he didn’t hear anything, Bai Mo clamped his slender, strong legs around the viper’s neck, suddenly extending his right arm at the same time, and a sharp, crystal clear ice blade sprung from his fingers.

He raised his right hand high into the air and readied himself to insert the blade of the ice sword straight into the viper’s heart.3 Suddenly, a gust of wind struck his back. It was the viper’s other head, which had opened its bloody mouth behind Bai Mo, a pungent smell reaching his nose.

Caught off-guard, Bai Mo had to roll over.

When he rolled away, he fell heavily onto the marble floor from a height of over ten meters, producing a dull bang.

Fu Yucheng’s heart trembled. “Quickly, dodge!”

The heavy fall had made Bai Mo feel dazed, and he could taste blood at the back of his throat. But he didn’t dare to hesitate for even a moment and, forcing himself to swallow down the warm blood, he continued rolling and just barely avoided the viper’s jaws that were descending upon him!

As he rolled, Bai Mo threw out a few sharp icicles with his hand.

Two of them struck directly inside the viper’s giant mouth!

Feeling the pain, the double-headed viper became furious. It opened its two big mouths at the same time and lunged towards Bai Mo recklessly.

Bai Mo didn’t retreat, but instead he clung to the ground and threw himself forward just in time.

Thanks to that bold move, he managed to barely avoid the two big mouths and also latch himself onto one of the viper’s necks.

The viper suddenly raised its upper body with a hiss, struggling violently.

Bai Mo hung from it, his whole body shaking with the movement.

At that moment, the other huge head suddenly turned around to bite him.

An unavoidable result.

And Bai Mo had been precisely waiting for it.

Mid air, he turned in a graceful spin and pushed his entire body upwards! The huge head chased after him, closing its jaws fiercely and actually biting its other neck!

The viper’s bite was so vicious that it broke its own neck. For a moment, blood sprayed as if it were a fountain with a terrible stench.

The giant viper thrashed around in pain, its huge, heavy tail striking the wall of the sunken square, breaking the masonry and making dust fly up in the air!

Bai Mo lay in the corner, caught his breath, and then, using the wall as support, he strenuously stood up.

“I’ll make it quick,” he said softly, staring at the thrashing viper.

At some point, countless tiny icicles condensed in the air. They shook and quickly became thinner and sharper, and suddenly, they shot out like a thousand arrows!

With a muffled sound, the body of the huge mutant viper was nailed to the ground by the sharp icicles.

Everyone fell silent.

After an undefined length of time, the entire Rosebud Square suddenly burst into a huge burst of applause.

“Shit! That was fucking awesome!”

“That’s amazing, Sir White Knight!”

“Incredible!”

Amidst this mountainous roar of applause, Bai Mo closed his eyes and softly breathed a sigh of relief. And then, he glanced to the side, off into the distance.

Suddenly, the cold White Knight froze, and his expression showed some confusion. Fu Yucheng is gone.

Just a moment ago, he was clearly there, looking at me worriedly…

Bai Mo suddenly realized something and turned his head to look at Rong Yuan, who was on the high platform.

Rong Yuan looked down at him, his lips curled up in a playful smile, and then raised his eyes to the sky. “Don’t worry, he’s up there.”

Unexpectedly, just a moment prior, a few mutant vampire bats had carried Fu Yucheng up, hundreds of meters high! The only thing visible in the sky at that moment was the cloud of bats hiding the sun. It was impossible to glimpse even half of a human figure!

Bai Mo felt so anxious that he grabbed fiercely onto an exceptionally large bat. The mutant bat gave out a strangled cry of pain and flew Bai Mo straight up to the sky!

With the crack of their wings, bats of different sizes kept striking against Bai Mo. As he shot down these bats without effort, he tried to spot Fu Yucheng.

Suddenly, his eyes went dark.

The cacophony disappeared and his surroundings became completely quiet.

In the middle of that strange, quiet darkness, a clear voice spoke up. “Mo, you’re really careless. You actually got caught in my fragmented space, haha.”

Bai Mo’s heart sank slightly.

His surroundings gradually lit up.

He was in a vast space, nothingness surrounding him up and down, left and right. Bai Mo was suspended in the center, the other five Dark Knights standing around him in an obvious encirclement maneuver.

Liang said with a smile, “Originally, His Highness had wanted to use the Light Knights to kill you directly, but it would have been too obvious. By the way, this space is extremely dry, and there’s no weapons you can use. You’ll die here, and your corpse will fall to the vampire bats, and then it’ll fall to the ground in pieces. The public will be shocked and then they’ll feel really heartbroken… This script is simply perfect.”

Fu Yucheng had been careless and he had been taken into the air by a number of vampire bats. He understood almost immediately—Rong Yuan wants to use me as bait to distract Bai Mo.

He didn’t panic. He smoothly took out his blade from his back and stabbed at the bats indiscriminately. “Move, move! To the side!”

Several of the bats loosened their grip in pain and they flew away one after another, letting out bizarre screams.

Suddenly, like a kite with a broken string, Fu Yucheng began falling from several hundred meters high to the square below!

He listened to the wind whistling in his ears, wondering how to slow himself down, when suddenly the scenery around him changed.

The quiet and desolate White Rose Palace, my younger self playing in the mud alone in the garden… A crazy maid slashing at my neck with a glass shard, blood gushing out like water from a spring… The ornamented white ceiling swaying and falling away, and my brother holding me, running desperately back to the corridor. “Yuan’er,4 don’t fall asleep! Don’t fall asleep!”

The image was like a kaleidoscope, changing constantly.

My gravely ill mother whispering, “We5 can’t do anything about it, it’s about your and your brother’s life.” …My uncle, staring at me and my brother with a fierce expression on his face. “Rong Fu,6 think clearly about this. You can’t get the arrow back after you’ve shot the bow.” …My brother, hiding me behind his back, speaking calmly. “Mother, uncle, Yuan’er is still young, let me enter the tower.”

“Give me back my brother! I hate you!” My younger self yelled at my mother and uncle.

Piles of garbage in an Industrial Region, sewage everywhere… I stumbled around the dirty alleys with my bare feet until I finally fell down… A lot of rats, so disgusting…

The teacher leaned down over me. “Child, where are your parents?”

…My teacher sighed softly. “Ah, you’re so talented. I don’t know whether it’s a blessing or a curse. Since you don’t want to tell me your identity, I’ll give you another name… How about ‘cleansing this mortal world, the city after the rain’?7 Let’s change your surname too.”8 …My  teacher introducing me in a quiet voice. “This is your oldest senior, Lin Su, and this is your second senior Yu Jingqiu… Su’er, Qiu’er, this is your junior Fu Yucheng.9 Su’er, go and find Cheng’er some clean clothes.”

…A dirty slum boy staring at me like a ruthless wolf cub. “I, Lu Sheng, don’t need anyone’s pity! Get out! Get out!” …My teacher, shaking his head helplessly. “Cheng’er, why did you pick up another junior? I can’t afford to feed him. Ah, forget it, let him in.”

Lu Sheng, staring at me very happily with bright eyes. “Senior, is my psionic power really great? I’ll follow you for the rest of my life and help you, alright?” …”The nobles at the White Rose Palace are all damn vampires and parasites. Senior, we can definitely succeed… We can build a new world, the sort of world that you want…”

“You liar! You lied to me!” …”The so-called ideal doesn’t exist at all, there’s no new world at all… You are just using me! You liar!” …”You took me back just thinking of my psionic power, planning to have me work for you, help you get rid of your uncle, recover your power and get back to the White Rose Palace… didn’t you?!”  …“I won’t believe you again… I don’t care what you say, I will never believe it! You liar, liar…!”

… Lu Xing laughed mockingly. “Senior, you’ve gone missing for so long, and your uncle always claimed to the public that you have been recovering in seclusion in the palace. Your guards and retainers from back in the day have all died or scattered… Nobody knows what you look like now, and nobody will believe you. As long as your uncle is on my side, I’m the real Crown Prince. Of course, after all is done, your uncle will die as well.”

…“Why would I do this? I simply… hate you, Fu Yucheng. I want everything you worked so hard for, to have all your efforts be for naught. I want you to regret it all, the way you deceived me, the way you used me… the way you gave me such a beautiful dream just to shatter it with your own hands.

“Fu Yucheng, I hate you.” Lu Sheng repeated softly. “Your identity, your psionic power, I want it all. You owe me.”

“Lu Sheng, I promise to cooperate with the cerebral cortex transplant. You can get my identity, you can get my psionic power, and control all the Royal Knights. However, I have three conditions. The first one is that I get to leave this place and return to Earth. Second, let our teacher go. After all, he also took care of you. And third, I want the blade my brother Rong Fu used to have—‘Silent Blue Moon’.”

The illusion changed rapidly. Fu Yucheng gritted his teeth and closed his eyes tightly.

He repeatedly told himself that these things had happened a long time ago… All of this is just an illusion, an illusion… This is the light and shadow manipulation skill of the super A class Light Knight, Alyosha. He wants to use these scenes from the past to defeat me psychologically…

Suddenly, he felt lighter.

All the illusions completely disappeared.

Under the white clouds and the clear blue sky, Rong Yuan caught him effortlessly. The two slowly rotated and fell gently from the air.

Fu Yucheng stared at the other, and finally said the name from times long past. “Lu Xing… what are you trying to do?”

Rong Yuan—or Lu Xing, as he perhaps should be called, suddenly smiled slightly. “Senior brother, I’m just helping you reconsider all those things you have done.

“No, you are not worthy of being called ‘senior brother’. You’re just a liar.” He was extremely close, forcing Fu Yucheng to look at him. “For so many years, you hid your identity to lower your rank and us, the pariahs, and you, treated each other like brothers. It’s really a great disservice to you… My noble Royal Prince.”

 

 

Apologies for the delay, I’ve had morning and afternoon classes this past two weeks (and the current one too…). Well, how about that plot twist? I hope it was worth the wait!!!

Also, two extra notes!

I have re-edited chapter 1, I’m considering going through some of the earlier chapters to smooth down some expressions since this was my first translated novel.Rereading chapter 1, I’ve realized the neck cut scene was actually described by fu yucheng in chapter 1. Author plans ahead O_O. His family situation is also described in a paraphrased way in chapter 24!

That’s all for now! I hope I’ll be able to translate smoothly this week, but I might have to update my schedule if my classes continue as they have now u.u

Footnotes

A type of desert scorpion from arid African regions, and one of the most dangerous in the world, its common name is fattail. The Latin (and Chinese) names mean man-killer, and it causes several human deaths per year.Literally “older sister Ling”, I might’ve mentioned this in the past but it’s a form of address to people who are older yet within your generation. When they’re not actually related I keep the pinyin, because otherwise it gets extremely confusing in English, same as Bai Mo’s Yu-ge.The raws expression refers to piercing 7 寸 into the snake, a 寸 measuring 3.3 centimeters/1.3 inches. That’s where, according to a traditional proverb, a snake’s heart is, so I’m guessing that’s what the goal is and not an accurate measurement.Same character for Yuan as in Rong Yuan’s name, ‘er as a term of endearment, does not necessarily require family ties.Singular royal We, in Chinese 朕Same Rong as the Rong family mentioned so far.涤净凡尘，雨后之城, the first and last character of the second half of the poem form the name Yucheng, literally ‘city rain’.傅, Fu, is part of the 100 surnames, so I never thought of mentioning it, but it also means ‘teacher’.Referred as senior brother/junior brother in the raws but with a term that implies no blood relation. The seniority order is Lin Su, Yu Jingqiu and Fu Yucheng.