Li Ji had watched the “father-son” squabble unfold with an extremely complex mood. Once Wei Feng calmed down, he asked Li Xiao, “How is the investigation going?”

Li Xiao walked over to Li Ji’s office desk. Passing by the sofa, he noticed Song Jin eating desserts again and rubbed his head: “Eat less, or you’ll grow a little belly.”

Song Jin: “…”

With his level of physical activity, he’d be lucky not to starve to death.

Old Liu pulled out a chair for Li Xiao to sit down and turned around to pour tea.

Li Xiao opened up some useful clues he had on hand and projected them in front of the two: “The evidence isn’t sufficient enough yet, but it can basically be confirmed that the entity that bombed Sector 68 was Viper.”

While Li Ji watched the video recordings, he listened to Li Xiao report the things he had heard and seen over the past few days.

In the small hall, Song Jin leisurely checked the frontline battle reports, while Wei Feng stood there with a sour expression, thinking about who knows what. Only Jiang Chi was filled with fear and trembling, feeling that he knew too many secrets and might be bumped off.

Wei Feng’s face had undergone disguise, but Jiang Chi could recognize his voice.

It was already ridiculous enough for the boss of Raven to be here, but he was actually the Second Prince’s dad?! He must have misheard.

Seeing that Li Xiao and Li Ji had entered official work mode, Jiang Chi really didn’t want to know any more secrets. Scanning the entire room, he found that only Wei Feng gave off a sense of familiarity, so he threw an arm over his shoulder: “Brother, want to go outside for a smoke?”

Wei Feng felt restless and irritated, and happened to want a smoke as well.

The two hit it off immediately and went arm-in-arm to the large terrace in the outer hall.

Wei Feng sat on the steps, biting a thin cigarette and lighting it. After exhaling a puff of white smoke, he finally looked at Jiang Chi crouching beside him: “By the way, who are you?”

Jiang Chi: “…”

Jiang Chi didn’t like smoking; he just wanted to find an excuse to slip out. Holding the lit cigarette between his fingers, he had a sorrowful face: “You couldn’t even tell?”

Wei Feng: “…”

Wei Feng leaned in close to scrutinize him: “It can’t be Xue—”

“Shh!” Jiang Chi looked left and right vigilantly. “I’m currently an errand runner under His Second Highness.”

Wei Feng smiled brightly: “You’re doing pretty well for yourself.”

Jiang Chi: “Not as good as you, getting to be someone’s dad.”

Wei Feng: “…”

Neither was in the mood to chat; after exchanging a couple of polite pleasantries, both fell silent to think about their own affairs.

Wei Feng opened his network platform to take a look. Li Ji’s post about restarting the investigation had failed to quell the public opinion; instead, it showed a trend of gradually losing control. Most of the real-time comments refreshing under the topic were cursing the Golden Finch, calling them things like “an evil legion,” “sinners of Danse,” and “nailed to the pillar of shame,” using extremely harsh language.

Thinking of the exposed video, Wei Feng smashed his fist against the wall in anger. The ash on his cigarette broke from the middle due to the impact of his action and scattered down.

Jiang Chi: “It’s useless even if you smash your fist to pieces. You’d better wait for His Second Highness and the others to handle it.”

Wei Feng had experienced too much and considered himself to have taken many things lightly, but this time he couldn’t calm down.

As long as the image of those soldiers nailed to the stone pillars flashed before his eyes, he wished he could rush to the Capital Star and skin Meng Jian alive!

Jiang Chi crouched in the corner watching the sunset glow at the horizon and casually said, “Rather than being angry, why not think about doing something useful to solve this matter earlier?”

Wei Feng was just about to scoff at his sarcastic remark when he suddenly remembered the facial puzzle Li Xiao had asked him to make. He opened his terminal and sent a message to Hu Jiang.

【A-Jiang, help me ask who has been to that underground base, especially those of your father’s generation. Report back to me as soon as there are results.】

Hu Jiang: 【Okay. My dad is furious; a group of old guys in the regiment want to go dig up the Meng family’s ancestral graves and refuse to settle down even now.】

Wei Feng: 【Stop all actions and tell them to stay put. Whoever refuses to comply can come directly to me.】

Hu Jiang: 【Got it.】

By the time Wei Feng finished his third cigarette, Hu Jiang replied, but it wasn’t the investigation results. Instead, it was a list of persons in charge who had filed reports to various local governments over the past few decades on behalf of the Pique clan.

Hu Jiang: 【My dad said this is all that can be inquired about at present. Many clan members have lost contact, and information can no longer be obtained.】

Wei Feng opened it to look; there were 207 reporting records, more than he had imagined.

Jiang Chi was wracking his brain trying to remember the thing in the wall crack when he saw Wei Feng suddenly get up to leave, hurriedly following him: “Hey, wait for me!”

Wei Feng: “You keep smoking.”

Jiang Chi: “If you don’t keep me company, I’m scared!”

In the office, Li Ji fell into silence after listening to Li Xiao’s report.

Li Xiao was somewhat puzzled: “Did you ever hear Royal Father mention anything back then? Why did Grandfather want to destroy the data?”

Li Ji shook his head: “If it really is the situation you described, I can probably make a few guesses.”

Hearing this, Song Jin, who was working in the small hall, leaned against the back of the sofa and looked over, waiting for Li Ji to continue.

“Leaving aside why the Golden Finch went to the Zufu Constellation for now, the Golden Finch stopped the Meng family from attacking Sector 68, was ultimately besieged by the Meng family, and suffered defeat.”

Li Ji held his hand to his chin, his gaze resting on the photos. “Seventy-six years ago, the Meng family’s power was far inferior to what it is now, but their family foundation was there, much more stable than the Golden Finch’s foundation. Grandfather might have considered stabilizing the domestic situation and decided to sacrifice the Golden Finch in exchange for temporary peace.”

Li Xiao: “What kind of peace could be gained by shielding the Meng family like this?”

Li Ji: “Judging from the outcome, he felt that suppressing it was better than continuing to pursue it.”

Li Xiao pondered over this sentence repeatedly: “You mean, it’s possible that the Royal Family was already no match for the Meng family at that time?”

Otherwise, it was difficult to explain how a King could shield the culprit who bombed millions of people.

Li Ji nodded: “It’s possible. Of course, it doesn’t rule out that Grandfather had other considerations—being purely deceived by the Meng family, or sitting on the mountain to watch the tigers fight, letting the then-thriving Golden Finch and the Meng family slaughter each other to wear down each other’s strength, keeping whichever side won. If the Golden Finch had won, it would have been a different scenario.”

If it were really the latter situation, then the destruction of the Golden Finch was a massive conspiracy, a trap set by a monarch to balance various forces.

Wei Feng and the other Golden Finch warriors became sacrifices manipulated by the monarch’s political maneuvers.

Li Xiao had also once sat in that position; it wasn’t that he couldn’t understand this method of checks and balances, but he hoped this wasn’t the truth.

Song Jin sneered: “You understand all these principles, so how did you get held in the palm of the Meng family’s hand for so many years? If you had let him and the Zheng family slaughter each other, wouldn’t you have been able to sit back and watch the show?”

Li Ji: “…”

Li Ji picked up his teacup, took a sip, and replied indifferently: “Do you think I haven’t tried? Their bond is as firm as gold and stone; they simply can’t be pulled apart.”

Song Jin: “…”

Was “firm as gold and stone” used like this?

“When my brother succeeded to the throne, it was indeed already difficult to pull them apart,” Li Xiao said calmly. “They had developed deeper ties of mutual interest between them.”

Song Jin: “The Cybernetic Humans?”

Li Xiao nodded.

Back then, Grandfather’s choice to shield the Meng family had buried a huge hidden danger for the Royal Family, perhaps directly leading to the Meng family acting increasingly rampant over the following decades, creating a situation where the Royal Family was held hostage by others.

The stronger the Meng family became, the tighter the three families—Meng, Zheng, and Qi—bound themselves together.

If his brother’s tactics of sowing discord weren’t harsh enough, they wouldn’t work; if they were too harsh, they might directly force the three families into rebellion. Coupled with the extremely limited information obtained, things would only become increasingly passive.

Song Jin thought for a moment and returned to the topic of the Golden Finch coup: “Regarding the events of seventy-six years ago, is even the data in the Royal Database gone?”

Li Ji: “Gone. It was destroyed very thoroughly.”

Song Jin: “If the intention was merely to suppress the matter, deleting external data to eliminate social impact would suffice; there would be no need to delete internal data.”

Li Xiao tapped his fingers on the armrest: “Could it be that the data in the Royal Database wasn’t deleted by Grandfather?”

Li Ji raised his eyes to look at him: “It’s not impossible.”

Song Jin: “Electronic files should have deletion records, right?”

Li Xiao: “Let’s go check after returning to the palace.”

In the outer hall, Wei Feng, who had just rushed back, happened to hear Li Ji’s conspiracy theory. His hands hanging by his sides clenched tightly, his expression sinking to the absolute bottom.

Over these past decades, so many clan members had died tragically, living like street rats seeking survival in the cracks. If the events back then were merely a game of power, then those of them living in the shadows would be far too ridiculous.

Seeing that Wei Feng was about to get depressed again, Jiang Chi silently patted his shoulder.

He didn’t know much, but piecing together the fragmented information was enough to get a sense of things.

No matter who this kind of thing happened to, it was impossible to brush it off with a smile.

Wei Feng adjusted his emotions, walked into the office, and sent the document to Li Xiao: “Just compiled.”

Li Xiao’s expression changed slightly. He enlarged the document and projected it in front of him, getting up to walk to the screen to inspect it.

Li Ji and Song Jin also approached.

“So many?” Song Jin was somewhat surprised.

Wei Feng: “The numbers were highest during the first few years after the incident. Many reporting individuals’ families and relatives have completely died out; we only inquired about some situations from people related to them. These are part of the information that can be confirmed.”

Li Ji browsed the names and positions of those persons in charge, quickly circling a few: “These people died decades ago.”

With over two hundred people, confirming them one by one was too slow. Li Xiao awakened 09: “Compile their information.”

Hearing Li Xiao call 09 again, Li Ji looked over with some interest, seeing the silver ring on Li Xiao’s earlobe stretch out countless threads like melting metal, floating into midair and reassembling into a metallic sphere.

Li Ji glanced at the silver ring on Song Jin’s earlobe as well.

Previously, he had thought Xiao Xiao had made an identical one to give to Song Jin; it turned out he had given away his own.

Accessories bestowed by elders, aside from being passed down to children, could only be given to a spouse.

This kid had casually gotten married on the competition field, and it turned out he wasn’t just acting.

09: 【Logging into the Military Civilian Record Query System—Searching—Search complete, summarizing information—】

The next moment, a table popped up in front of their eyes, detailing the circumstances of all the persons in charge.

Song Jin caught sight of many from thirty years ago at a single glance: “So many laid off in the same year?”

Looking down the list, Li Xiao saw that every single one was dismissed due to “gang-related activities,” totaling 39 people, 30 of whom died successively within five years.

The earliest dismissal date was two months after Li Xun finished investigating the Gaofeng clan back then.

Song Jin was lost in thought: “So back then, Li Xun indeed grasped a lot of things and had already acted, which led to him being retaliated against and silenced.”

It was Wei Feng’s first time receiving such a complete list, and also his first time seeing such intuitive data.

The clan had always thought that Li Xun was just going through the motions under pressure back then; they hadn’t expected the other party to be serious, even losing his life as a result.

The Meng family even dared to launch a deadly attack against the Royal Family; no wonder whatever they did was useless.

Li Xiao read down and found several among the survivors who had been promoted to the Capital Star, belonging to both the Meng faction and the Qi faction. The alliance between these two families had been established the earliest.

Li Xiao: “09, continue compiling this data. List out the personnel network of these people when they were working back then.”

09: 【Lacking relevant databases.】

Seeing Li Xiao look over, Li Ji gestured to Old Liu: “Grant Xiao Xiao authorization.”

Old Liu: “Yes.”

Li Ji looked at Li Xiao: “You want to check their political factions?”

Li Xiao nodded: “To see if anyone else was involved besides the Meng, Zheng, and Qi families.”

Li Ji frowned: “Anyone else?”

“Just in case.” Li Xiao brushed it off verbally, thinking of the events from his previous life.

In his previous life, the Meng family was successfully dealt with, but many leftover problems remained. For instance, after the war, who launched the deadly attack against Raven and Wei Feng? Why hadn’t he received any intelligence at all regarding something as major as the Cybernetic Humans?

Individual files wouldn’t explicitly state which faction a person belonged to; they could only confirm them one by one.

Aside from conducting visits, Li Ji had to handle daily affairs as well. Li Xiao told him to focus on his own busy schedule. As a foreigner, Song Jin’s understanding of Danse Empire’s internal political factions was also quite limited, so in the end, Li Xiao had to compile it himself.

Since Li Xiao was rarely around, when Li Ji set off the next morning, he asked Li Xiao to come along.

Li Xiao didn’t mind, but Song Jin had zero desire to go.

“Are you really not going?” Li Xiao changed into the clothes brought over by Old Liu and turned to look at Song Jin, who had just woken up.

Sunlight spilled in from outside the window. Song Jin lay on the soft, large bed, struggling to sit up, rubbing his hair as he let out a yawn: “Who was the one who kept preventing me from sleeping last night?”

Li Xiao: “…I told you to sleep early, but you insisted on staying up with me to organize the information.”

Song Jin flipped off the blanket and got out of bed, walking barefoot up to Li Xiao to help him fix his hair, smiling lazily: “I wanted to sleep with you, okay?”

Li Xiao’s movement of buttoning his cuffs paused.

He’s even learned how to act spoiled now; this rate of evolution is a bit too fast.

Noticing Li Xiao’s gaze darkening, Song Jin touched the silver ring on his earlobe, looking smug: “Are you really happy?”

Li Xiao: “…”

Being close, Li Xiao was surrounded by Song Jin’s spicy yet sweet scent, but smelling closely, it felt as if nothing could be smelled at all.

Li Xiao lowered his head, leaning close to Song Jin’s neck: “You smell very fragrant these past few days.”

Song Jin raised his eyes to look at him: “Flirting with me first thing in the morning? Do you still want to go out the door or not?”

Li Xiao: “Are you about to hit your rut? It’s not safe outside, so be careful.”

Song Jin smelled himself in confusion, but naturally, he couldn’t smell a thing.

“My pheromone levels haven’t had much fluctuation recently.”

A knock sounded on the door, and Old Liu’s respectful voice came faintly from outside.

“Your Highness, are you ready? It’s about time to set off.”

“I’m ready.”

Li Xiao gave Song Jin a kiss and patted his head. “Go back to sleep, and remember to eat.”

Song Jin readily agreed, and by the time he woke up again, it was already lunchtime.

Going downstairs, he happened to see Jiang Chi eating alone, a virtual screen open in front of him playing a livestream of Li Ji’s inspection tour.

With both poster figures of the Royal Family gathered together, such a grand sight was a rare occurrence. The number of viewers in the livestream room exploded to several billion, and the bullet chat and comment sections were packed entirely with looks-obsessed fans.

When Song Jin passed by, he took a casual glance and could no longer move his eyes away from Li Xiao. Seeing a whole row of “husband” in the bullet chat, he let out a soft snort.

Jiang Chi was watching with great enthusiasm. Hearing the commotion behind him, he turned his head. Seeing that it was Song Jin, he poked fun: “So many people are calling the Second Prince ‘husband,’ are you unhappy?”

Song Jin sat down at the main seat, his voice laced with the laziness unique to having just woken up: “Even if they shout their throats raw, he belongs to me alone.”

A group of servants came over, setting the lunch before Song Jin. One of them originally intended to stay behind to serve Song Jin’s meal, but was dismissed by him.

Once all the servants left, Jiang Chi said offhandedly, “But the Royal Family allows taking secondary wives.”

Song Jin’s hand holding the fork paused, and his gaze shifted over gloomily: “What did you say?”

Jiang Chi gulped down a mouthful of meat, watching the livestream while saying, “Danse’s laws don’t mandate monogamy. There are species with polygyny and polyandry alike. The Royal Family used to practice polygyny, though the direct line in recent generations has only taken one spouse. Among the collateral branches, there are still people who marry several.”

Song Jin: “…”

The Old Song family had always been strictly monogamous. He had subconsciously assumed the Li family was the same, having never paid attention to cultural differences in this regard.

Song Jin: 【07!】

07: 【Retrieving information from the intelligence database—Retrieved!】

A virtual screen popped up in Song Jin’s field of vision, displaying the background information of the Li family.

Just as Jiang Chi had said, counting upward from Li Xiao’s great-grandfather’s generation, most of them had more than one wife.

Jiang Chi reached out to grab some dipping sauce and casually raised his head, only to see Song Jin bending a fork with one hand.

“Secondary wives.”

Song Jin nodded, smiling unnaturally fiercely. “Secondary wives are great.”

Jiang Chi: “…”

Why did he suddenly go crazy with rage?

Is it my fault?