Chapter 67 - Pledge
Bai Mo looked at him with a very gentle expression. “Well, I can only rest assured if you do the extraction yourself.”
Fu Yucheng smiled and said, “What if I’m not careful and I accidentally cripple you? Wouldn’t you hate me for the rest of your life?”
Bai Mo whispered, “I wouldn’t hate you… but you would have to support me for the rest of your life and make it up to me.”
“Tsk tsk, look at you, so hopeless.” Fu Yucheng couldn’t help but laugh.
After a while, he gradually stopped smiling, looked at Bai Mo quietly for a while, and then reached out and touched the back of the other’s neck. “The edges of this piece of tape are a little twisted, I’ll change it for you.”
“Yeah.” Bai Mo nodded. He opened a hidden compartment at the head of the bed, took out a small roll of silver-gray electrical tape, and handed it to Fu Yucheng.
He sat back on the edge of the bed and quietly lowered his head, exposing his vulnerable neck.
Fu Yucheng pulled away some of the slightly longer strands of Bai Mo’s hair, revealing a pale area of skin at the back of his neck with a small piece of electrical tape on it.
He hesitated a little, and slowly tore off the piece of tape as gently as possible.
Under the silver-gray tape, there was a rose-shaped brand, the size of a fingernail. Because of its age, the edges looked a bit blurred. The brand didn’t just cover the scar of the implant operation; it also showed that the power of the Empire couldn’t be challenged.
The White Rose Laboratory belonged to the Royal Family. All the experiments in the laboratory were implanted with a metal control chip in their infancy, to ensure that they would fully obey the orders of the Empire upon reaching adulthood.
And the knights who were not born in the laboratory had to accept such a chip before swearing allegiance to become knights, otherwise they would lose their qualifications to do so.
After they were implanted with the control chip, they would only be able to obey unconditionally when facing the powers of the Empire—meaning the Emperor or the Prince Regent.
Fu Yucheng fell silent for a while and touched the mark. “Does it hurt?”
Bai Mo shook his head. “I was too young when I got the implant to remember anything.”
He hesitated for a moment, and then said, “And four years ago, after the mental breakdown, I was in a coma in the laboratory for a year… While I slept, they already figured out that I had been an experiment abandoned on Earth. After waking up, I no longer had the electrical tape… But I refused the position of Captain of the Knights of the White Rose Palace.” He paused for a moment before continuing, “When I was appointed, Rong Yuan was far away from me, but I was able to feel him trying to use his psionic power to try to get me to accept the appointment… but I still refused.” At that point, Bai Mo couldn’t help but question, “Yu-ge, according to what you told me before, without this electrical tape attached, I should have no way to resist Imperial orders, right?”
“I also wondered about that, but I’m not that surprised.” Fu Yucheng smiled. “Both you and Rong Yuan are S-class psionic manipulators, you’re equal. It’s obvious that you’re younger and your control over your psionic power is less stable, and since you got that implant, the balance would fall in his favor. However, Rong Yuan’s psionic field has a certain flaw… an extremely fatal one. Therefore, he can control A-class and super A-class knights, but he has no way to command you.”
Bai Mo frowned. “Then, when he discovered that he couldn’t give me orders, why didn’t he have me arrested?”
Fu Yucheng snorted softly. “If I were in his position, naturally, I wouldn’t want to let anyone discover this flaw in my powers, so I’d let you go and act like nothing happened.”
Bai Mo wondered, “What sort of psionic field defect could it be? Can’t it be fixed? Isn’t he afraid of other people exploiting it?”
“This defect is something nobody else can use,” Fu Yucheng said, without adding, except for me.
He paused and then rubbed the other’s soft, thick hair. “You’ll find out soon. Just in case, keep this tape attached until… Until I can help you remove that chip.”
Bai Mo nodded. “Alright, I’ll do that.”
Fu Yucheng cut out a small piece of electrical tape, set it carefully, and smoothed down the edges. “There you go.”
Bai Mo turned around, touched the smooth tape on the back of his neck, and whispered, “Thank you.”
Fu Yucheng turned his gaze awkwardly and looked out the window.
After a while, he said, “You have to be careful at the Ceremonial Hunt during the Oath… Rong Yuan might try to deal with you. But you don’t have to worry too much, because I… I will protect you.”
Bai Mo didn’t ask, since you’ve lost your psionic power, how can you protect me, an S-class knight? He simply nodded, trusting him completely. “Alright.”
Seeing his ignorant affection, Fu Yucheng’s heart went soft and he couldn’t help but let out a sigh. He stretched out his arms to embrace the other and reassured him softly, “Don’t be afraid, I won’t let him touch you.”
Bai Mo leaned into his neck, then lowered his eyes with a cold look.
He thought, if Rong Yuan moves first, that’ll be perfect. That way, no matter how I fight back and no matter how far I go, Fu Yucheng won’t blame me for it.
For the next few days, Fu Yucheng immersed himself in the study of all the information Yao Ning gave him.
Among the six knights of the Light Domain, Fu Yucheng was unfamiliar with the other five knights apart from Yao Ning.
Tallinn,1 male, 29 years old, A-class Electrical system, has the ability to instantly release ten thousand high intensity volts.
Chiba Meisa,2 female, unknown age, A-class Special system, specific abilities unknown.
Alyosha, male, 27 years old, super A-class Light system (could be promoted to S-class). This Super A-class manipulator can create extremely realistic illusions using light and shadow. Once, he produced an illusion to trap a Heat system manipulator of the same class in a space of two or three square meters and made him starve to death.
Until his death, the manipulator believed that he was wandering in an uninhabited desert.
Yun Yang, 26 years old, female, Super A-class Hybrid system (could be promoted to S-class), has a dual Strength and Heat psionic field, good at large-scale incineration and destruction.
Fu Yucheng looked through the information while taking notes, roughly assessing their strength in his mind and pondering about the easiest way to deal with them at the same time.
He flipped to the last page and frowned.
Su Lin, 31 years old, male, A-class Special system.
The system and class were nothing special, but Su Lin’s resume from before he started working for the Royal family was practically blank.
Yao Ning always did things seriously and thoroughly. The resumes of the first four knights were very clear, some even too detailed. Su Lin was the only one that had no information available.
Also, his record over the past few years was quite good, but not brilliant. At least, it wasn’t as good as Alyosha’s or Yun Yang’s.
For a moment, Fu Yucheng thought about what the cause might be, but to no avail.
However, that Light3 system knight was just A-class, not even super A, so Fu Yucheng didn’t take him too seriously.
In the blink of an eye, the day of the Pledge arrived.
The White Rose Palace stretched over a huge area. In front of its main entrance was the grand Rosebud Square.
In the middle of the square, there was a three-story-high platform, and on it stood a white marble statue, several meters tall. It was the statue of the first S-class psionic manipulator in human history, former Commander-in-chief of the Deep Space Fleet and the first Emperor of the Empire—Rong Qian.
The statue, the color of jade, had a handsome face with downcast eyes and a solemn yet compassionate expression. It didn’t look like that of a famous tyrant.
Past the statue there was a white tower that soared into the sky.
The snow white tower was like a sword plunged into the blue sky. The entire building was flawlessly white, without a single door, window, or superfluous decoration, and it was surrounded by pale radiant light. It was the renowned Tower of Light.
The pledge assembly would be performed on the Rosebud Square.
After the assembly, the Empire would send the last batch of manipulators to the Tower of Light. And soon, the Empire would send hundreds of thousands of manipulators recruited over the last twenty years from the Tower of Light to space together, to start a new Pioneer Project.
On that day, there was a huge crowd at the Rosebud Square.
Forty thousand manipulators who had passed the tests quietly lined up in dozens of sets, standing solemnly at the foot of the high platform.
The six Dark Knights, riding six black mechanical horses, stood still at the feet of Rong Qian’s statue.
The Light Knights had yet to appear.
Standing among the hustle and bustle of the crowd, Fu Yucheng stared blankly at the White Rose Palace’s two silver metal gates.
“His Highness, the Prince Regent—!”
At last, after an unknown amount of time, accompanied by the announcement from the master of ceremonies, the two heavy gates opened slowly.
The huge square suddenly fell silent, to the point that it would have been possible to hear a pin drop.
Riding atop a tall, dark gold mechanical horse, Rong Yuan advanced slowly and solemnly out of the White Rose Palace’s gates, preceded by eight ceremony officials.
The only thing that could be heard throughout Rosebud Square were the sound of its horseshoes.
Unlike the garments he had worn in the past, that day the Prince Regent wore an extremely complex black robe made of expensive, heavy fabrics with a large dark gold rose trim, and buttons at the collar and cuffs made of priceless black diamond. He looked very distinguished, arrogant and cruel at the same time.
Slowly, Rong Yuan rode the mechanical horse to the high platform in the center of the square.
Underneath the platform stood a big group of manipulators close together—the best picks from the nine Ecoregions and Industrial Regions over the last four years, all across the Dyson Cloud.
Rong Yuan lowered his eyes and looked at them quietly.
On the square, almost no one dared to even breathe out loud.
After a long time, the noble Prince Regent spoke slowly. “Everyone, today is your day of glory.”
The square was terribly quiet, and Rong Yuan’s low voice echoed overhead. Everyone was able to hear it clearly.
“…Glory?” Fu Yucheng lowered his head and chuckled.
A beautiful noble lady stood beside him. The lady seemed to hear his mutter and couldn’t help but glance at him in surprise.
She just gave him a fleeting look, then lowered her head shyly. Quietly covering her slightly flushed cheeks with a fan, she said in a quiet voice, “We are at the White Rose Palace… Don’t– don’t say nonsense.”
Fu Yucheng smiled at her and said nothing.
Rong Yuan continued to speak, but Fu Yucheng was no longer paying attention. He went through his plan once more in his mind.
According to the schedule Yao Ning had given him, once Rong Yuan finished speaking the representatives of the psionic manipulators would lead them to take the pledge.
Then, the ceremonial hunt would begin.
During the hunt, all six Light Knights would show up.
And then…
While Fu Yucheng was thinking with his head lowered, Rong Yuan finished speaking and he looked at the master of ceremonies next to him, nodding slightly.
The master of ceremonies bowed deeply to him, and then announced in a loud voice, “I call the representative of the psionic manipulators, Zhuang Heng, to the stage—”
A young manipulator stepped out of the crowd and hurried up to the high platform. He stood right below the statue of Rong Qian motionlessly and directed the tens of thousands of manipulators underneath to pledge before the white, flawless statue, to pledge their undying loyalty to the Rong Royal Family and to the Pioneer Project.
A thunderous roar of feverish pledges echoed across the White Rose Palace.
During this pledge, Rong Yuan closed his eyes slowly. A deep, extremely strong wave of psionic force rippled across the crowd with him in the center. The psionic fluctuations were so strong that common people and weaker manipulators could barely remain standing.
With that powerful psionic wave, the large open area at the center of the Rosebud Square sank slowly, forming a huge circular sunken plaza.
And on the round wall surrounding the sunken plaza were dozens of dark doorways.
Low roars and high-pitched hissing could be heard coming from them. The indescribable cacophony seemed to cross through time and space, accompanied by an unsettling scent of decay and cold blood.
Fu Yucheng’s heart thumped slightly. Finally, it’s time.
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