Truly be together?

Looking at Li Xiao’s face close at hand, Song Jin’s heartbeat went completely out of control. “What’s the difference between that and before?”

“If you choose to be with me, it means that every single one of your future susceptibility periods will be just like this one—you won’t get any Omega comfort, and you will have to spend your entire life fighting against an Alpha’s pheromones.”

Li Xiao stroked the back of Song Jin’s neck, dropping a light kiss by his ear. “Furthermore, I might do some things to you—things I’ve never done to anyone else, and things I’ve never done to you before.”

Song Jin’s hand resting on Li Xiao’s shoulder tightened, his breathing growing erratic. “What things?”

Taking his reaction into his eyes, Li Xiao asked back in a low voice, “Do you really want to know?”

The deep voice vibrated until his ears went numb. Song Jin’s gaze flickered around, forcing a display of composure. “Are you going to tell me or not?”

Li Xiao: “This part of the content costs a fee. Consider it carefully first; I’m not in a hurry.”

Song Jin knitted his brows. “Intentionally teasing my appetite?”

Li Xiao put on a helpless act. “But some things cannot be said casually; it would draw suspicion of sexual harassment.”

Being told this, Song Jin wanted to know even more. Grabbing Li Xiao by his collar, he pulled him over. “Let me listen to a 50% trial first, and then I’ll consider what you proposed.”

Li Xiao thought about it with an air of absolute gravity. “At most 10%. The rest can only be spoken to a true partner.”

Song Jin arched an eyebrow. “10% it is.”

Li Xiao leaned close to his ear, telling him in a volume that only the two of them could hear.

Song Jin’s eyes flashed, shifting away somewhat unnaturally before looking back at Li Xiao again, his expression gradually filling with confusion.

After a brief moment, Li Xiao backed away. “How is it?”

Leisuredly bending his fingers to count, Song Jin said, “Raising a pet together, traveling, watching the aurora, watching the sunrise and sunset… which one of those things can’t be spoken out loud casually, hmm?”

Li Xiao: “But we indeed haven’t done them together.”

Song Jin gritted his teeth. “What about the sexual harassment part?”

Li Xiao looked entirely innocent. “That part is in the 90% that costs a fee.”

“You dare play me.” Song Jin cupped his face and leaned in to bite him.

Li Xiao dodged backward but ultimately couldn’t hold it in, laughing uncontrollably.

“Do you want to hear it that badly?”

“Not anymore.” Mortified into anger, Song Jin bit a tooth mark onto Li Xiao’s chin.

Afraid that he would fall, Li Xiao supported him by the waist to let him sit on his lap, pulling his own bitten ear free.

“Then consider it carefully, I’ll wait for your answer.”

The frolicking movements of Song Jin paused. Wrapping his arms around Li Xiao with a sense of attachment, he nuzzled against the side of his neck, finding a comfortable position for himself to curl up and stop moving. “What is there to consider about this? I can give you an answer right now.”

Li Xiao stroked his head. “I hope you answer me under conditions of absolute wakefulness and reason.”

Song Jin tightened his arms, burying his face in his shoulder. “Alright.”

Li Xiao was always full of lies, with not a single word to be trusted, but he knew that this time, he was serious.

The consequence of the violent suppression was that Song Jin developed a high fever of 40°C, burning until smoke practically rose from the top of his head as he lost consciousness.

Li Xiao had 07 perform emergency cooling treatment on Song Jin, opening up his collar to dissipate the heat.

This kid insisted on being strong; unless he endured until the very final moment before collapsing, he would absolutely never expose his fragile side.

Even in his deep slumber, Song Jin held onto him without letting go. Li Xiao sat leaning against the wall, relaxing his muscles as much as possible to make the person in his arms more comfortable.

The rescue and clearing operations in East District 4 had clearly run into issues. Li Xiao felt no sleepiness whatsoever, so he simply swiped open his terminal to check the situation on all sides.

Yan Qing had sent a video call an hour ago, followed by several consecutive text messages.

【Where are you guys, are you safe right now?】

【Where are you now, are you safe?】

【I have already contacted Jiang Hao. For now, don’t move from that spot over there; a rescue unit will contact you later on.】

Li Xiao switched out the virtual keyboard, replying with one hand.

【Alright, thank you for your hard work.】

09’s voice echoed by his ear.

【There is quite a bit of news on the internet regarding this rescue operation.】

Li Xiao casually opened one of the major media platforms, and as expected, the hot search rankings down the line were entirely filled with #SecondPrinceRescuingOnTheFrontLinesThroughTheNight#, #PersonallyEscortedToRefugePointBySecondPrince#, #CraneEaglesAttackingS80!#, #S80EastDistrict4Falling#, and #S80GarrisonLateToRescue#.

Li Xiao clicked open the first hot topic; the volume of discussion was nearing a hundred billion.

Pinned to the front was a string of videos, all taken by some of the refugees during the rescue process last night.

【Bad news: hit by a Crane Eagle attack. Good news: the Second Highness personally came to rescue us!】

【Ahhhh the Second Prince’s squad is too amazing! The Crane Eagles that broke into my house were dealt with in just a couple of moves! I only found out from hearing the neighbors talk that that youth is named Qin Le, thank you so much!】

【Met Song Jin by chance at the refuge point while he was escorting the neighbors down. I must say, the person himself is both beautiful and dashing; having him around gives such a sense of security!】

【My foot was injured and I couldn’t run; I was carried to the refuge point on the back of Jiang Hao from the Second Prince’s squad, I caused him trouble wuu wuu wuu】

【My grandpa was attacked by a Crane Eagle and was saved by Qian Can from the Second Prince’s squad. The thing Grandpa said most during the night was that Saint Ah people turn out to be so kind, hahahaha】

【Huh? Why was my previous post thanking the Second Highness deleted?】

As Li Xiao read through, the videos seemed authentic, but for them to be hung at the top of the hot searches, it was impossible without someone pushing them from behind.

Flipping through a few comment sections, the top few hot comments were all praising him and the Royal Family; he could roughly guess who the pusher was.

If this were ordinary times, this content would have been cleanly cut off by the Meng family long ago.

To subvert the political regime, the Meng family would bound to never give the Royal Family a chance to reshape its image.

Now it just depended on how long the Yi family could hold out.

Li Xiao read down the hot topics one by one. Clicking open the hot topic about the garrison’s late rescue, the voices of discussion became sharp and fierce.

“The Crane Eagles were already active in East District 4 past twelve o’clock, yet the garrison actually came an hour later! Were you all riding bicycles in the middle of the night to exercise your bodies, or were you out for a night run?!”

“It really is so strange; the air defense alarm sounded, yet the garrison actually didn’t know! If you want to say the Fifth Legion turned it on, their fighter jets only arrived past three o’clock!”

“Don’t mention the Fifth Legion, you’ll get deleted! Some people have already started shutting our mouths!”

“How hilarious, the military only came three hours after the main body of the bird flock arrived. Are you guys here to clear out mutant species? If it were for collecting corpses, only bone fragments would be left!”

“I watched the news all night long. During the timeframe in the early morning when the Crane Eagles just arrived, the military actually only had five people from the Second Prince’s team performing rescue work! Garrison, what were you doing?! Fifth Legion, where the hell were your people?!”

“Fun fact, the Second Prince’s squad drives a material transport vehicle, which belongs to the logistics unit. Rescuing wasn’t their mission at all!”

“Don’t you find it very strange? Ever since the Second Highness started delivering materials a few days ago, I haven’t seen the military officer leading them in any of the videos, not a single video has him!”

“A lot of high-upvoted posts under the topic have been deleted, the heat is constantly being suppressed. What do certain people want to do?!”

Having read through, Li Xiao used his mind to order 09: 【Interfere with this hot topic.】

09: 【Do you need me to act as an internet troll army?】

Li Xiao: 【Can you manage that?】

09: 【This daddy is totally capable!】

Li Xiao: “…”

Li Xiao: 【No need. Just restore the deleted posts and ensure no one tampers with it.】

09: 【How disappointing, I can’t even spend my energy. I’ve grown a whole round fatter.】

Li Xiao: “…”

Li Xiao: 【As long as you aren’t discovered, play however you like.】

09: 【I’m off!】

At half past five in the morning, the sky was just turning slightly bright.

Li Xiao lifted his head. Through the skylight, he could see the Crane Eagles rampaging outside. Occasionally, heavy obstacle-clearing fighter jets flew past, but this clearing intensity was still not enough.

Large birds possessed high destructive power, especially a species like the Crane Eagle that could hunt both day and night. If the number of lingering birds was too vast, the transport of materials and rescue work for the refugees would both become problematic.

The person in his arms moved a bit. Li Xiao tested the temperature of his forehead; Song Jin’s high fever had already receded.

“You didn’t sleep?” Song Jin opened his eyes in a blur, his voice weary and raspy. “Let’s go back to the vehicle to rest.”

Li Xiao: “Are you alright?”

“Recovered long ago.” Song Jin stood up. When he lowered his head, he inadvertently caught sight of his collar open all the way to his chest, looking at Li Xiao. “You stripped it?”

Li Xiao: “…”

This kid doesn’t remember that he had a fever?

Li Xiao followed him up, sweeping a glance across Song Jin’s half-concealed collarbone and pectoral muscles, flashing a wicked grin. “The feel wasn’t bad.”

Song Jin: “…”

Seeing Li Xiao walking outward, Song Jin chased after him. “I want to feel you back.”

Li Xiao: “No way.”

Song Jin: “Don’t force me to strip your clothes.”

Li Xiao: “I only let my wife touch.”

Song Jin: “…”

Inside the vehicle, Qin Le caught the subtle sound of the car door opening and woke up first. Seeing it was Li Xiao and Song Jin, he sat up light-footedly, looking at Song Jin as he asked softly, “Boss, how is your body?”

“It’s fine now.” Song Jin turned his head to scan the back seat. “What about your injuries?”

Qin Le touched his scratched back of the hand. “I basked under the therapeutic light for a few hours, it’s pretty much healed up.”

Jiang Hao and Qian Can woke up one after the other.

Jiang Hao rubbed his eyes, looking through the car window at the situation outside.

“How come it feels like the density of the bird flock hasn’t dropped down at all?”

Li Xiao had 09 fly out from the car window, and a monitoring screen instantly popped up above the console.

“The Crane Eagles are lingering.”

The bird flock hadn’t directly passed through East District 4 to head to District 3; instead, they were hovering and staying within this area. Compounded by the Legion’s clearing intensity failing to keep pace, it caused the disaster duration to stretch out substantially.

“For every extra hour they linger, the degree of building destruction increases by 2% to 5%.” Song Jin still felt a bit dizzy, leaning against the backrest of the front passenger seat. “Under this density, the logistics units and rescue units have no way to operate normally. The refugees can’t be relocated and can’t get food either, causing the panic to intensify further. The entire disaster relief system is facing a collapse.”

“The garrison has issued a notice.” From the back seat, Qian Can projected his terminal screen.

The S80 garrison offered an explanation regarding the issue raised online about the untimely rescue in East District 4.

The reason given was that the Crane Eagles’ infrasound had destroyed the monitoring and air defense systems, causing the garrison to fail to discover the situation occurring in East District 4 at the first moment. They were already rushing emergency repairs.

“Bullshit!” Qian Can cursed under his breath. “When we delivered the first batch of people to the residential district’s garage, someone had already contacted the garrison. Didn’t they still fail to show up?”

Jiang Hao flipped through the real-time comments. “Some people have already brought that point up.”

Qin Le was puzzled. “Can the Crane Eagles’ infrasound really destroy monitoring systems?”

“It’s possible,” Li Xiao took up the words. “The Crane Eagle is a very intelligent mutant species. The frequency range of the infrasound it emits can destroy smart equipment. Fortunately, it doesn’t have a major impact on humans.”

Jiang Hao asked, “Then what do we do next? It’s not easy for us to go out right now either, do we just wait around dryly?”

Song Jin looked toward Li Xiao. “You don’t have any usable people within the Fifth Legion?”

Li Xiao shook his head, having 09 dial the communication number of the Fifth Legion’s commander, Qi Sen.

The pop-up interface kept displaying that it was connecting, remaining unanswered for a long time.

Li Xiao: “Force the connection.”

09: “Alrighty!”

The screen flashed, displaying a luxurious dining room. The frame shifted, and Qi Sen was currently eating a meal.

Seemingly finally noticing the video call frame, Qi Sen caught a fright, instinctively reaching to shut the video.

“Major General Qi,” Li Xiao spoke indifferently. “How many combat teams were allocated to East District 4? Why is the clearing efficiency so low?”

Seeing that Li Xiao’s first words out of his mouth were a accusation, Qi Sen’s brows knitted in displeasure, pulling back his hand that was about to hang up. “This has nothing to do with you. You are just a trainee, please perform your own duty well.”

“Then please perform your own duty well too, Major General Qi.” Li Xiao looked straight at Qi Sen on the other side of the screen. “I am a trainee, but at the same time, I am also the Second Prince of Danse. I have an obligation and responsibility to safeguard the interests of the refugees. If you have any non-compliant operations during the execution of your mission, I will report them one by one according to the facts.”

Qi Sen kept a stiff face, the disdain in the depths of his eyes completely unhideable. “The military executing a mission is not a child’s game of house. If there is nothing else, I am hanging up, I am very busy.”

Li Xiao: “Last night at twelve eighteen, I contacted the combat units, but you all only deployed fighter jets past three o’clock. What were you doing during the three hours in between? I imagine Major General Qi already knows how to explain this to His Majesty?”

Qi Sen narrowed his eyes slightly.

Li Xiao continued, “The internet is overwhelmingly filled with crusades against the Fifth Legion. This matter blowing up big won’t benefit anyone.”

Qi Sen was somewhat astonished, turning his head to look at his adjutant.

The adjutant frantically opened the media platforms, discovering it was truly as Li Xiao said—the heat that had originally been suppressed had exploded and surged in a blowout style. The top five hot searches were entirely filled with hot topics related to the Fifth Legion’s untimely rescue.

Qi Sen’s face darkened, suppressing his anger as he said, “I didn’t expect such a thing to happen. Thank you for your reminder, I will go handle it right away.”

With a cold face, Li Xiao hung up the video call first.

“Will that do it?” Jiang Hao asked.

Qian Can took up the words. “Reining in the horse at the edge of the cliff might still save this collapsing public credibility.”

Qi Sen wasn’t stupid. Even if it were purely for the interests of the Fifth Legion, it was impossible for him to stubbornly head down the wrong path.

With the situation developing to this point, it was already impossible to drag the Royal Family down with them anymore. If Qi Sen still didn’t change his strategy, it would be an act of suicide.

His terminal suddenly vibrated. Li Xiao casually swiped it open; it turned out to be his older brother.

Li Ji: 【Are the matters on the internet true? No one has been leading you these past few days?】

Li Xiao: 【True.】

The Royal Family of Danse.

Li Ji received the message. The answer was within expectations, yet he was still so angry he smashed his teacup.

“Call Qi Shoude over!”

Old Liu: “Yes!”

Half an hour later, Qi Shoude stepped into the King’s office.

“Your Majesty.”

Li Ji looked over with a darkened face. “The matters on the internet—how do you plan to clean them up?”

Qi Shoude said respectfully, “I have already had people investigate. There is no situation of an untimely rescue. The scope covered by this beast tide is vast, and the combat pressure on the Legion is extremely immense. They already allocated troops to go clear it out at the first moment after receiving the news.”

Li Ji: “The first moment? A whole three hours apart?”

Qi Shoude: “The public opinion on the internet is untruthful.”

Li Ji nodded deliberately. “The garrison’s deployment time was one zero-two. What, they didn’t bring the Legion along to play, and went secretly on their own?”

Qi Shoude paused for a moment before speaking, “The combat units faced great pressure and couldn’t be allocated over.”

“Fine.” Li Ji supported himself against the desktop to stand up, walking around the office desk to stand in front of Qi Shoude. “Then what is the matter with Xiao Xiao being thrown alone in East District 4?”

Qi Shoude lowered his head. “This matter… I am not clear about it.”

Li Ji: “Then contact someone clear about it right now, immediately!”

Qi Shoude said nonchalantly, “Your Majesty, the warfare on the front lines is tight right now. After I understand the situation—”

“The entire network is asking right now why a Prince of Danse is rescuing on the front lines all by himself. How do you want me to explain this to the public?” Li Ji shouted severely. “You’ve followed me for so many years, yet you still don’t know where my bottom line lies?”

Qi Shoude said respectfully, “I will immediately have people investigate.”

“The military officer leading them is dismissed from his post for investigation. As for the warfare on the front lines—” Li Ji continued with a darkened face, “The capability of the Fifth Legion’s commander is insufficient to cope with this beast tide. All subsequent combat deployments will be entirely handed over to the military headquarters for adjudication.”

Qi Shoude’s expression changed slightly.

This was equivalent to a disguised suspension of Qi Sen.

S80, East District 4.

At exactly seven o’clock in the morning, Li Xiao received a video call from Chen Lie.

The moment it connected, the other side started outputting like a machine gun.

Chen Lie: “Delivering materials daily yet you can never be on time! You even took a transport vehicle on your own authority to perform rescues, you simply have no discipline and no rules! I don’t even know how you all learned things at school!”

Chen Lie: “Because you didn’t return on time, today’s plans have all been completely disrupted!”

“What are you clamoring about?” Song Jin’s tone was impatient. “We were originally a team with neither discipline nor rules, is this your first day knowing that?”

Chen Lie choked, not expecting Song Jin to actually admit to it.

“You’re actually proud of it?!”

Song Jin: “What can you do to me?”

Chen Lie: “I am the one responsible for your training scores!”

Song Jin: “Do you see us caring?”

Chen Lie instinctively looked toward the other people in the screen. Sure enough, they all had faces of total indifference. He instantly felt like an iron fist striking cotton, feeling extremely uncomfortable.

Outside the frame, someone suddenly shouted loudly toward Chen Lie, “Officer, people from above have come with a notice saying you’ve been dismissed from your post!”

Chen Lie’s brain went buzzing. “What?!”

Chen Lie pondered for a moment, snapping his gaze toward the video call screen.

How could it be possible.

How could Li Xiao, this prince with neither power nor influence, fight against the people at the top?

He was only acting according to instructions, why was he the one turned into cannon fodder in the end?!

Chen Lie snapped out of it, hurriedly apologizing to Li Xiao on the other end of the screen, “Second Highness, I am sorry! I am a person with a hasty temper, I didn’t mean to make things difficult for you intentionally, please don’t lower yourself to my level—”

“You really take yourself seriously, dumbass,” Qian Can cursed, hanging up the video call directly.

At the exact same time, the five of them received a message notification.

Effective immediately, they were temporarily transferred from the DF965 logistics unit to the DT781 rescue unit.

Song Jin: “Your brother’s speed is quite fast.”

Seeing that Li Xiao was lost in thought, Song Jin asked, “Is there something wrong?”

Li Xiao shook his head. “I can’t put my finger on it. I hope it’s just me overthinking.”