MFDSSR 01

Chapter 01

The Incident

It was a beautiful day, with the contrails left by spacecraft cutting through the sky so smoothly they didn’t even stir a breeze; it was as ordinary as any other sunny day on the Capital Planet.

The Secretary-General of the Council, wearing a crisp waistcoat, walked with hurried steps through the complex, winding corridors of a noble mansion. He appeared ordinary, responsible only for liaison matters, but in reality, he was a capable aide planted in the Council by a great noble, using his political status to submit documents for his benefactor.

The poker-faced Secretary-General thought with irritation about how much extra workload the accident of Council Chairman Meisen would bring him. He stopped in front of the master’s study, feigning composure to suppress the shock in his eyes, and then knocked gently on the door.

Walking into the study, he approached the young man and said in a low voice: “Sir, Meisen Green, the Chairman of the Council, was attacked by space pirates today on his route to the Second Star System Alliance. He has passed away.”

He spoke with the clarity and steady tone of a news broadcast, giving the man no chance to ask, “What did you say?!”

The Secretary-General sighed silently to himself. The gentleman he served was not as fastidious as other stiff, old nobles; he never bothered to hide his emotions in front of his subordinates.

Sure enough, without a second thought, the red-haired noble cursed, not caring who he was aiming at:

“Damn Meisen, couldn’t he have picked a better time to die? The new mining development rules I had you submit have been stuck in the process for days. They were only put on his desk yesterday; couldn’t he have signed the document so it would take effect before dropping dead?”

His project for the new mining star had been stalled for a week, bleeding huge amounts of money every minute, and it would be God-knows-when before a new Chairman took office.

The noble threw his pen down and complained sourly, “The Empire is great in every way, except that since the new Emperor seized power, even the most trivial details have to be processed by both the Council and the Cabinet. It’s simply redundant.”

The Secretary-General waited with the patience required of his profession for his boss’s brain to catch up.

The noble rolled his eyes, his red hair swaying, and just as he had finished venting, he stopped his impatient scrolling through documents. “Wait, Meisen is dead? Then… Ming Shiyu…”

It was as if he had thought of something extremely pleasant; the bad-tempered noble looked as happy as if he had discovered a great bargain:

“You guys will finally have a mistress of the house.”

The great noble said triumphantly, “Although it’s not time yet, it’s never too early to prepare. Schedule some auctions and jewelry exhibitions for me, and have the designers send over some outfits for me to choose from—I don’t need to tell you whose aesthetic preferences to follow, right?”

He spoke boldly, but in truth, he had been unreconciled for a long time. Back when Ming Shiyu was considering marriage, he had clearly been the preferred first choice. It was a pity he had been too young and had let that bastard Meisen lead him by the nose; he had actually given up on his own.

If he could do it all over again, he absolutely would not lose to anyone.

The Secretary-General retreated quietly behind him, turning a blind eye to his master’s “Cao Cao” remarks. In fact, the Secretary was deliberating a reasonable but high-risk question: If he invited the designers Meisen usually used, would his temperamental employer fly into a rage, or would he be harshly insulted in return?

As the core role of the Empire’s political checks and balances, Meisen’s death triggered a chain reaction, and the news of the attack spread rapidly among the high-ranking officials across every star system in the Empire.

The Secretary-General had no choice but to go to Meisen’s home in person to deliver the notification of the accident to the bereaved—the famous Ming Shiyu.

By chance, he ran into Colonel Lin Lin, who was there for the same purpose.

“…That is how it happened. The detailed report of the attack will be transferred to you by the investigation team. Please accept my condolences, Professor Ming.”

Colonel Lin Lin closed the file and handed it over, offering his condolences to Ming Shiyu with an awkward expression.

Ming Shiyu himself was usually pale, but now he was bloodless. He was wearing the crisp, upright uniform of the Tribunal, looking as if his plans to go out had been completely disrupted. The young man looked very refined, yet he possessed a unique aura that could command the uniform of the Empire’s most violent institution.

After a long while, he took the file and opened it. His pale lips were pressed tightly together, his face expressionless, but if one looked closely, the fingers turning the pages were trembling slightly.

No one present could bear to look at his expression; there was a deathly silence in the room.

The Secretary-General had become a master of survival; he quietly handed his own work over to Colonel Lin Lin and stood to the side, not wanting to provoke the famous Professor Ming.

The Secretary kept his head down, trying to minimize his presence. Others might not know it, but although Professor Ming looked quiet now, if he opened his mouth, he could leave people metaphorically “bleeding from three feet away.”

When Ming Shiyu first arrived at the Capital Planet, he was hailed as the “Tulip of the Empire,” not only because of his incomparable beauty and outstanding ability, but also because his sometimes cold and nasty noble personality was difficult to handle.

He was usually easy to get along with, but if one were announcing the death of his husband, the Secretary-General suspected he would be unreasonably lashed out at.

Look, Colonel Lin Lin was the classic negative example of what was to come.

Lin Lin stood in Meisen’s living room, feeling very uncomfortable. To prevent the accident from causing a political coup, protecting the families of high-ranking officials was the duty of the military, so he had rushed here without even having time to change out of his wrinkled military uniform.

As a protector, Lin Lin’s image should have been heroic—if not for the rumors of a scandal between Meisen and himself flying around outside.

Lin Lin could not understand why he had such a “vampire” friend. That damn Meisen had practically ruined him. If he had known it would come to this, he never should have agreed when Meisen approached him to take on space pirates to earn military merit; once on the pirate ship, there was no turning back.

This was the first time Lin Lin and his squad had met Ming Shiyu. He was tall and handsome. According to Meisen, he was a simple scholar who cared for nothing outside his own world and was completely uninterested in politics.

Ming Shiyu, standing opposite them, said nothing. Lin Lin felt as though he were breaking into a cold sweat.

As the pale young man standing like a porcelain lamp grew even paler, the guilt in the hearts of the brothers behind Lin Lin began to solidify, much like brothers accompanying a mistress to provoke the legal wife—their sense of brotherhood and morality were fighting a frantic battle.

Especially since Ming Shiyu, the “legal wife,” looked so pitiful and had no killing intent at all.

It was as if he could not digest the bad news. He cold-facedly unbuttoned the first two buttons of his shirt, then tilted his head back like a dying swan to expose his slender neck, taking a difficult, deep breath.