Th-This is...?

Raymond An was clearly a little bewildered.

His gaze kept sneaking back to the “big white cocoon.”

...Was this a pet?

A little uncertain, Raymond An wondered that to himself.

It was no wonder he was so curious.

The Saint Clan sovereign before him radiated a cold, powerful chill from head to toe so openly that every cell in Raymond An’s body was screaming with the instinctive terror to flee.

And yet this same terrifying existence was holding a soft “big white cocoon” in his arms.

That “big white cocoon” clashed so completely with Mansendis’s whole aura.

But the silver-haired sovereign had chosen to keep it in his arms and carry it with him the entire way, which clearly meant he valued it very highly.

So what exactly was wrapped inside?

Raymond An’s first thought was, naturally, a pet.

After all, no matter who looked at it, seeing that bit of fluff and those cute, childish-looking little ear tips, there was no way they would connect it with the Saint Clan, whose beast forms looked like monstrous creatures.

Naturally, there was even less chance he would guess that what was wrapped inside that “big white cocoon” was not some pet, but the treasure the Saint Clan held with the utmost care in their palms.

And also the child of the sovereign standing before him—the newly emerged royal-blood little highness of the Saint Clan spoken of in the rumors.

Meanwhile, Raymond An was still wondering.

Why had none of the intelligence officers below ever told him the Saint Clan sovereign kept a pet?

And besides...

Raymond An glanced at the “big white cocoon” again and estimated that this pet was probably only about the size of a cat.

That made him even more puzzled.

...Given this Saint Clan sovereign’s status, if he were going to keep a pet, should it not be some enormous, exceptionally ferocious beast?

At that very moment, the creature that perfectly matched Raymond An’s image of a ferocious beast—the white wolf—was walking listlessly at the very rear of the procession.

It looked dejected, lowering its head, and every now and then it opened its jaws in a huge yawn, clearly looking as though it had not slept well.

A beast that had not slept well was generally in a terrible mood, and the white wolf was no exception. At the moment, its temper was not good.

When it noticed that ugly-looking creature in front of it repeatedly glancing toward its little master, the white wolf stopped yawning. Its ice-blue beast eyes narrowed slightly.

Bar­ing its sharp teeth, it strode two or three steps right up to Raymond An and let out a low, warning growl from its throat.

Raymond An was also startled by the giant wolf that had suddenly appeared in front of him.

The white wolf was large. Having eaten and lived well among the Saint Clan, and fattened up a little, it looked extraordinarily sturdy, practically as if the words not to be messed with were written on its forehead.

At the moment, it only let out two low growls, but the intimidation was obvious.

All around them, the Alliance troops responsible for security and lockdown instinctively moved their hands to the laser particle guns at their waists, ready to draw at any time.

And the expressions on the faces of the Alliance officials all turned rather ugly.

They did not know that they had merely happened to collide ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) with the white wolf’s bad mood after waking up. They thought this was a display of force from the Saint Clan. To let a pet they kept—yes, they had also mistaken the white wolf for one of Mansendis’s pets—show such disrespect to Lord Raymond An, the highest-ranking official of the Alliance, in public...

Saint Clan... this attitude was simply outrageous!

What they did not know was that the Saint Clan were even more outrageous than that.

After Raymond An came to his senses, realizing that he had been disgraced in front of so many people by some beast that clearly did not know its place—especially in a formal occasion like this—he frowned and immediately intended to demand an explanation from Mansendis.

But he had only just opened his mouth, before he had the chance to say even a single word, when the Saint Clan sovereign seemed to have already seen that he was about to speak.

Mansendis lifted his eyes and cast an offhand glance his way.

This was the first time in all the while Raymond An had been standing there that Mansendis had truly looked at him.

And yet that one casual glance instantly transformed all the anger that had just risen in Raymond An’s heart into a nameless chill.

That chill was like a bucket of cold water poured over him from head to toe.

Raymond An shivered. His throat felt blocked, and he could only stand there with his mouth foolishly hanging open, unable to force out even the slightest sound.

On the other side, the white wolf also got a light pat on the head from Mond.

The white wolf was far smarter than Raymond An.

It guessed at once that its little master was probably still asleep.

Mansendis would not care that it had run over to provoke that ugly creature, but if it dared wake its little master while he was sleeping...

The white wolf instinctively shivered all over, as if recalling something terrifying.

It immediately shut its mouth. The tail that had just been sticking high in the air drooped down as well, and its earlier posture of a wolf flaunting Saint Clan backing instantly turned into the look of a tame, obedient good wolf.

Mansendis paid no attention to the white wolf, which was practically turning into a spirit, and he paid no attention to the Alliance officials either.

The silver-haired sovereign never even slowed his steps. Mansendis had not the slightest intention of greeting these Alliance officials.

Let alone shaking hands—throughout the entire exchange, Mansendis did not say a single word to Raymond An.

By the time Raymond An raised his head, all he could see was the retreating back of a cloak.

One after another, the Saint Clan, with their proud, indifferent expressions, walked straight past them without a sideways glance.

Just like their sovereign, these Saint Clan thoroughly ignored the Alliance officials as though they did not exist.

Only one among them paused briefly in front of them midway through. He was a refined-looking Saint Clan member, and all he did was push up the lenses on his face and give a light—

Walking beside him, another Saint Clan member with a stiff, expressionless face swept a completely emotionless, cold gaze across the Alliance troops who had their hands on their guns.

The Alliance troops caught in that look instantly felt their scalps go numb, so much so that some of them could barely keep their grip on their weapons.

Arrogant...

This was far too arrogant!

Watching the Saint Clan behave this way, the Alliance officials who had come to receive them all turned green with anger.

When had they ever been treated like this?

Because of the authority and special standing of the Alliance as an institution, no matter what race it was, people always treated them politely.

After all, whenever several races were involved, many major interstellar affairs had to pass through their council for discussion. No one wanted to offend such a group of officials who held real speaking power.

That had also given Alliance officials a natural sense of being above others.

As time passed, they had long since grown used to being sought after and fawned over.

For weaker races with lower status, even seeing these Alliance officials face-to-face could be difficult.

If it had not been for the Saint Clan’s overwhelming power, and for the fact that not long ago they had thoroughly dealt with the races that had jointly sent out troops, and if the combat strength the Saint Clan fleet had revealed had not made so many races feel wary, then how could these Alliance officials—who were usually only courted by others—possibly have lowered themselves and come all the way to the port to receive them? Ordinarily, this kind of errand was something they would make subordinates run for them.

And yet who could have expected that after they had so rarely humbled themselves and lowered their status, the Saint Clan would give them so little face?

Lord Raymond An had personally stepped forward to greet them, yet the Saint Clan sovereign had not even extended a hand. It was obvious he was deliberately humiliating them!

These Saint Clan were simply too arrogant!

The Alliance officials left standing there ignored were furious.

In truth, Mansendis was not deliberately targeting these Alliance officials. He had not even put these Alliance officials in his eyes in the first place.

His patience was reserved only for the Saint Clan.

Anything that was not Saint Clan, Mansendis simply did not care about.

He did not need Raymond An and the others to receive him, nor did he need to deal with these Alliance officials.

Would a lion bother to notice ants on the ground?

Sometimes reality was just that cruel.

These Alliance officials looked down on the weaker, lower-status small races. In their eyes, they were lions, and those smaller races were ants.

What they had never imagined was that one day they themselves would become ants in someone else’s eyes.

And these Alliance officials ought to be grateful for that fact, because the Saint Clan would not trouble ants. They would merely ignore them.

Otherwise, if the Saint Clan behaved the way these officials did, the humiliation the Alliance officials suffered today would have been far worse.

Of course, looking on the bright side, they were not the only ants. In the Saint Clan’s eyes, probably every race in the whole interstellar world, apart from the Saint Clan themselves, were ants.

Even so, these high-and-mighty officials still felt deeply insulted.

But the Saint Clan did not care what they thought.

Mansendis had already led the Saint Clan to a parcel of open land they had rented.

Yes, open land.

It had originally been the site of an abandoned amusement park. After the park’s rides and facilities were dismantled, the remaining land had not yet been redeveloped.

The Saint Clan had spent money to lease it.

Once they arrived, several Tas stepped forward slowly.

Among the Saint Clan, they usually handled lower-level construction work. And with a bit of knocking and assembling on the empty ground, a palace similar to the one on Blue Zither Star appeared in place.

It was quite miraculous.

But in the interstellar age, with the integration of various advanced technologies, building houses was no longer difficult.

As long as there were enough materials, one could put up a beautiful structure in a matter of seconds with ease.

The palace the Saint Clan wanted to live in was somewhat larger, but to these few Tas, it was not a problem at all.

Naturally, the Alliance had already arranged accommodations for the Saint Clan.

For this conference, they had built several guest halls, and every race attending was supposed to stay in those halls.

That was the old custom.

And for most races, with everyone living together, they could communicate with each other more easily and negotiate cooperation more conveniently.

So almost no one refused the Alliance’s arrangement.

Among them, however, the Saint Clan, who were only attending the conference for the first time this year, were obviously an extreme exception.

Not only had they refused to move into the guest halls, they had separately built themselves a palace outside and settled there instead. Every person inside that palace belonged to the Saint Clan themselves.

The Saint Clan had practically written the words do not want to deal with you directly across their faces.

When news of this reached the guest halls, the various races all felt a bit complicated about it.

Some thought the Saint Clan were far too arrogant, some relaxed once they heard the Saint Clan were not moving in with them, and some had even more complicated thoughts.

“Your Majesty, the Saint Clan obviously do not want contact with the other races. Are we still going to seek cooperation with them?”

Inside one room in the guest hall, a woman with seaweed-like curls was soaking in a pool. Her upper body was bare, openly displaying the beautiful lines of a female figure.

But what drew the eye most was her lower body—a fish tail. The huge tail swayed lazily through the water, the thin fins on either side soft as boneless gauze.

And the woman being addressed as Your Majesty also had a fish tail—larger, more magnificent.

She opened her eyes from her feigned rest, and the beauty of her features instantly turned imposing.

She was the Mermaid Queen, Haesena.

The merfolk were a matriarchal race, mostly made up of female merfolk, something that also had to do with the sea goddess they worshipped.

The current mermaid queen had been on the throne for less than three years, and this was also the first time she had attended an interstellar conference as the merfolk’s representative.

In a deep voice, she said, “Recently, more and more of our clansmen have been disappearing. The elders used secret arts and still could not find any trace of them. I suspect their disappearances were not accidents, but that someone is deliberately hunting the isolated members of our race.”

“To dare set their sights on us, and still evade the trail of the secret arts, the power behind those hunters cannot be small.”

What Haesena did not say aloud was that she suspected these people might be connected to the rebel organizations spread across interstellar space.

And those rebel organizations were tangled together like roots and vines, a murky mire extremely difficult to wade into. Even though the merfolk were not weak and could even rank in the top ten, she still did not dare rashly confront them.

“So you want to borrow the Saint Clan’s strength?”

The woman who had spoken at the beginning was the mermaid princess, Lottie. She and the queen were full sisters, and the moment her older sister spoke, she immediately understood what she meant.

Haesena affectionately tapped her younger sister’s forehead with a fingertip.

“Not only the Saint Clan. We can also try befriending other powerful races. This may just be my intuition, but I keep feeling that the future of the major star sectors may not be peaceful.”

As she said this, worry flickered in the depths of her eyes beneath her lashes.

And similar scenes were happening all throughout the guest halls.

Almost every race was privately discussing the Saint Clan.

It could be said that although the Saint Clan had not moved into the guest halls, their presence was everywhere.

And the Saint Clan being so hotly discussed had no idea just how much of a commotion they had stirred up. By now, they had already settled into their palace.

Wen Yuzhi rubbed his eyes and sat up from bed.

Seeing the familiar ceiling, the familiar room, and those familiar sleeping-companion plushies, for one instant Wen Yuzhi almost thought they were still on Blue Zither Star.

When Mond told him they were on Blue Luster Star now, Wen Yuzhi froze on the spot.

“We’re already on Blue Luster Star?”

Hugging the white wolf plush, Wen Yuzhi asked blankly.

Mond smiled and nodded. “Yes.”

Wen Yuzhi was shocked. “When did we arrive?”

“While you were still asleep.”

“Then I...”

“The King carried you off the warship,” Mond said, the curve at the corner of his mouth already becoming a little hard to suppress.

“Do not worry. You were in beast form at the time. The King wrapped you in a blanket before carrying you down.”

So...

He had been watched all the way here by everyone in the form of a little silkworm cocoon?

Instead of feeling reassured after hearing that, Wen Yuzhi only felt more miserable.

He had so painstakingly been trying lately to style himself after Daddy, and to imitate Daddy’s conduct as much as possible. He had been trying his hardest to shake off the cute image everyone had of him.

What Mond did not tell Wen Yuzhi was that when little highness dressed up like the King and tried to act steady and composed, it actually looked even cuter to them.

Which was to say, not only had Wen Yuzhi failed to get rid of that cute image, but the more frequently he showed himself in front of the Saint Clan, the more their internal assessment of his cuteness kept rising higher and higher.

Wen Yuzhi, however, still believed his efforts had been very effective.

And yet all that hard-won progress had been ruined by sleeping in one time.

Wen Yuzhi did not know that back at the port, it had not only been the Saint Clan there, but also Alliance officials, personnel who had come to receive them, and Alliance troops stationed there...

If Wen Yuzhi knew so many people had seen him oversleeping and refusing to wake up, he probably would not have been so easily soothed by Mond now.

Even after sitting down at the breakfast table, Wen Yuzhi was still softly complaining to Mansendis, “I didn’t mean to be lazy and not get up... I wanted to get up earlier too... It was all Awu’s fault.”

Awu, who was currently lowering its head and eating its third rabbit...

The moment it heard Wen Yuzhi say its name, it lifted its head with a rabbit leg still in its mouth, its ice-blue beast eyes full of clear confusion.

The white wolf had absolutely no idea that its little master had already quietly dumped a big, round black pot of blame right onto its back.

Mansendis, however, could see straight through the cub’s guilty conscience.

“Children who lie lose one little cake. That includes cakes you make yourself.”

The instant he heard that one little cake would be deducted, Wen Yuzhi hurriedly admitted his mistake in alarm. “All right... actually, it was me.”

Dejected, Wen Yuzhi lowered his head. His legs dangling beneath the chair stopped swinging, and he set both hands on his knees, putting on the look of a child obediently admitting fault.

“Yesterday I played with Awu too late, and I didn’t go to bed early.”

Because they were going to Blue Luster Star the very next day, and who knew when they would come back here again, Wen Yuzhi had wanted to take Awu out to play in the snow one more time.

They had gone out secretly. In the dead of night, one wolf and one Saint Clan had slipped out to the snow outside behind Mond’s back and everyone else’s.

And they had played for a very long time. Wen Yuzhi and the white wolf had only come back around dawn.

So naturally, after going to sleep that late, Wen Yuzhi could not get up in the morning.

Mond had called for him several times, but the cub only buried his face in the plushies. Later, when he got too annoyed by being called, he even changed back into beast form and curled up under the blanket, clearly refusing to cooperate and get up.

With no other choice, Mond could only go fetch Mansendis.

Mansendis took one look at the little lump bulging under the blanket and, without a word, simply scooped up the still-sleeping cub together with the blanket, bundled him up, and carried him off in his arms.

The method was very simple and very rough.

But it worked wonderfully.

Was Wen Yuzhi not now already sitting in Blue Luster Star eating his meal?

He woke up from one sleep and arrived at the destination.

How nice.

Mond thought with a smile.

Wen Yuzhi...

Wen Yuzhi instantly wilted.

Looking at the pitiful little face the cub was making, Mansendis reached out and pinched Wen Yuzhi’s slightly puffed-up cheek.

“This time I’ll only deduct one cake. Next time, remember that you’re not allowed to stay up that late again. Mond.”

Mond responded at once, “Please rest assured. From now on, I will certainly supervise little highness properly and make sure he goes to sleep on time.”

Wen Yuzhi: “...”

The cheek he had just puffed up deflated like a balloon with a hole poked in it, and Wen Yuzhi immediately wilted.