Chapter 134
A stool only as tall as a kettle, like the one a pool safety guard sits on, was placed at one end of the table. Pea sat on it, his chin supported by his hands, his brows furrowed, as he stared at the chessboard on the table in deep thought.
After a long while, its eyes lit up, and it jumped off the stool. It picked up a black chess piece with both hands and walked to the chessboard. It looked left and right to measure the distance, put it down with a "pop", and then turned around and climbed back onto the stool.
Rong Yuan picked up a white chess piece and casually placed it on another place on the chessboard without even thinking about it. Wandou frowned again, looking at the chess game where the black and white pieces were sometimes entangled and sometimes scattered, and began to think for a long time.
Rong Yuan's eyes were not on the chess game. Most of the time, he was looking at Wandou, with a faint smile always on his lips.
These days, Pea is really much better, and can stay awake most of the day. And since it woke up from its cocoon after decades of sleep, it has undergone some wonderful changes. In other words, it is more like a human.
In the past, Pea had very few facial expressions and seldom showed his likes and dislikes towards things in the outside world. His tone was more like that of a robot than a life. Even his voice was mechanical without any emotional ups and downs. Sometimes, emoticons would appear in his eyes to simulate various emotional expressions.
But now, it has begun to have preferences and express its own opinions. Sometimes it will lie in its small lounge chair to bask in the sun like a retired old man, and sometimes it will play some meaningless entertainment games.
It's like the game of Go.
In the past, Rong Yuan would not play chess with Wandou, because there is a light computer in Wandou's mustard seed space. In this kind of chess game, it will not hesitate to use the light computer to assist, and beat Rong Yuan a hundred times in a minute. Unlike now, Wandou only relies on himself. As a beginner, he has to think carefully about each move for a long time before he will give up with trepidation. Although he always loses, he can truly experience the fun of playing chess.
Halfway through the game, Alpha came in.
"Master, Master Pea."
It greeted the two of them like a human butler, placed a cup of steaming black tea and a few plates of snacks next to Rong Yuan, and then placed miniature snacks on the small table next to Pea, and then said: "Lacini's whereabouts have been found."
"Yeah." Rong Yuan responded without saying much.
Instead, Pea's eyes lit up, as if he had finally escaped from a game in which he was destined to lose. He swung his feet, picked up a piece of pastry that was slightly larger than a soybean, and while chewing it he looked at Alpha expectantly.
Alpha waved his hand, and a fly flew in from the window and stopped in the air. A beam of light was cast above the table, forming a projection of Lacini and several people around it. The picture was so real that there was almost no sign of projection, as if these people were shrunk ten times and appeared in front of him.
"Your Highness ?" Lacini said in astonishment.
The centaur Rotstein sighed deeply, "How pathetic! A descendant of the royal family doesn't even know his own identity?"
"Is this the Centaur from Earth's Greek mythology?" Pea asked in a low voice as he looked at Rotstein in the projection.
"No, this is a native race of Zhongwu Star, or rather, a phenomenon of incomplete mutation." Rong Yuan said, "Zhongwu Star experienced a great explosion of life more than two thousand years ago. Many wild beasts began to evolve into intelligent creatures almost at the same time, and some of them gradually lost their wild characteristics in appearance and began to evolve into upright human forms. Some have evolved more completely, such as the sub-humans like the Moon Wolf Clan; there are also those whose wisdom has greatly improved but whose biological form has basically not changed, such as the bright beasts like Lacini. But most of them are half-human and half-beast, with characteristics of both sides, that is, bi-humans. But like this, half of them are almost indistinguishable from humans, and the other half is completely beastly. In fact, it is very rare, and no matter which side looks at it, they will think it is a deformed child."
When Rong Yuan was speaking, the projection was paused and only started playing again after he finished speaking.
Rotstein said to the surprised Lacini, "You are a descendant of the royal family that once ruled this land - the Thunder Beast, and you have shown extremely rare signs of reversion to pure blood. Although your parents' blood has been mixed with the blood of many other races over a long period of time, resulting in great differences in your appearance, you and your siblings, but you - you are the most special! Your blood is extremely pure, very close to the real Thunder Beast of ancient times, so you can control lightning! If you were in this situation three hundred years ago, you would be the only choice for the throne!"
Lacini's expression vividly illustrates what it means to be confused.
Rotstein looked at him lovingly and said, "I understand that you find it hard to accept now and even don't want to believe me. After all..." He touched Lacini's head and said with some sadness, "The glory is gone. The environment you once lived in did not allow you to have such fantasies. Because of this, your parents should have never told you about your true identity, right?"
Lacini shook his head blankly, his heart full of doubts.
——Could it be... He really... No, no, no, how is this possible? I have never heard of such a thing... But he realized that there is indeed no one else in the alien race who has such ability as him, and he has never even heard of it... But his parents are ordinary people, how can they feel like a descendant of the royal family? I don’t think they are hiding any secrets... But... There is no need for these people to lie to him like this! He has nothing at all, and there is no value that is worth others spending so much energy on... The attitude of this old man... doesn’t seem like a liar... What’s more, they assassinated Cain when they rescued him... Oh, Cain!
Lacini immediately struggled, and Rotstein quickly held him down, saying, "Kid, your injuries are still very serious, you can't move around. Calm down, kid! Calm down."
"What's wrong with you? Do you need to go to the bathroom?" a doctor in white uniform asked with concern.
"I, my mother... my family..." Lacini said hurriedly. His movement pulled the wound and he gasped in pain, but he was still too anxious to lie down peacefully as they said.
As soon as he finished speaking, the surroundings suddenly became quiet. Everyone looked at each other, some looking at him with embarrassment and some with pity.
Lacini had a bad feeling in his heart. He looked at the people around him, searching for the answer on their faces. He stared at Rotstein, his lips trembling slightly: "Did they...did something happen to them? Tell me! Tell me!"
Rotstein sighed, took out a photo from his clothes, and handed it to Lacini face down. Lacini took it with trembling hands, and did not dare to turn it over to take a look for a long time.
Rotstein said: "Child, I'm sorry... our people... our people arrived too late... the incident happened suddenly, and we had to rescue you first. When I arrived at your house, it was already..."
Lacini's tears rolled down and he finally turned over the photo.
On the familiar street, the house that, although narrow and dilapidated, had sheltered him and brought him countless happiness had turned into a charred ruin, but burnt limbs could still be seen among the furniture and wood.
His eyes suddenly widened and then he fainted.
The projection ended, the light beam shrank and disappeared, and the fly flew out again.
"That Centaur lied! Aren't Lacini's family members all safe on our spaceship?" Pea said with a puffed face, and then added: "Lacini is really a bit stupid!"
"No, from Mr. Rotstein's perspective , he didn't lie, and that's the fact they saw." Alpha said, "Mr. Lacini's house was burned down, and the several charred bodies in the room were actually the work of Master Lin Qingge, in order to provide time for Madam Dana and others to move. Now the Tulip officials have discovered that the bodies are fake, and the conflict between Mr. Lacini and His Highness Cain was not accidental, so they are vigorously tracking down the whereabouts of Madam Dana and others. In addition, with the information collection capabilities of Mr. Rotstein's resistance army, I think they should not have received this information yet."
"Oh..." Wandou thought for a moment and asked Rong Yuan again: "Then... what he said about Lacini being the descendant of the thunder beast of the King's Clan three hundred years ago, is that true?"
"Three hundred years ago..." Rong Yuan thought about it for a moment, and before his mind was swallowed by the whirlpool of the past again, he came back to his senses and said with a smile: "Do you know the fairy tale circulated on Zhongwu Star - The Legend of the Emperor?"
"The Legend of the Emperor?" Pea had never heard of it, but it quickly used its optical computer to hack into the wireless network. Although the story of The Legend of the Emperor had long been listed as a banned book and there was almost no trace of it on the Internet, it did not bother Pea. It quickly turned out the original text, quickly read it, and asked, "Well, I know it now. What next?"
“There’s a cow in the story, right?”
"Oh, here it is." Pea blinked and flipped through the book again in his brain: "After being rejected by the fox, the god met the ox again. He begged the ox for help, but the tall and strong ox said in a deep voice: 'Get out! Dirty human, if you dare to step into my house, I will use the horns on my head to make a hole in you!' Is this the ox? Is this referring to the thunder beast?"
Rong Yuan nodded approvingly and said, "Yes, this is the Thunder Beast. But at that time, there were countless tribes on Zhongwu Star, and most of them were independent of each other and did not obey each other, so they could not be said to respect the Thunder Beast as the king. However, the Thunder Beast tribe was the largest and most powerful on land, and occupied the most fertile land. It was one of the four strongest tribes at that time. Lacini does have the blood of the Thunder Beast, but he is still far from the Thunder Beast of that time."
Rong Yuan couldn't help but recall the scene when he first met the Thunder Beast. Of course, there was no begging or threatening. They met on the battlefield. He met Senduo, the eldest son of the Thunder Beast King at that time. He was known as the invincible god of war and the strongest creature on earth. Rong Yuan remembered that Senduo's body was like a small mountain, surrounded by lightning, and black clouds were always around him. The lightning gathered on the horns on his head was so strong that people couldn't look directly at his face. Every word he said was accompanied by deafening thunder, like the roar of a god from above the clouds.
At that time, Rong Yuan was alone facing this terrifying beast. He was so small in front of it that it seemed that the beast could crush him with just one toe. No one believed that he could win. People at that time did not worship Rong Yuan as a god. In their eyes, beings like Senduo were the representatives of gods walking on earth. Countless human soldiers were so scared behind him that they couldn't even pick up their weapons. Many of them even wet their pants or fainted. The bravest soldiers mustered up the courage to fire at Senduo, but the shells were detonated by lightning far away from him. Even those who finally got close only burned his thick fur at most - it was like a farce performed with their lives.
Such a war would have been a foregone conclusion. The only variable was that compared to Sendo, who only instinctively attracted lightning in the air and clouds, Rong Yuan was the one who truly understood the nature of lightning and made it work as he pleased.
So in the end, the thunder beasts that had been powerful for thousands of years were defeated and even almost became extinct, and the originally weak humans actually won and ruled this land.
Looking back now, Rong Yuan actually felt a little regretful. Sendo fought to the last moment and never gave up. He was a respectable opponent, and the Thunder Beast was not a bad guy. It was just a race war, both sides were fighting for survival, and there was no right or wrong. It was a pity that such a powerful race was not remembered by many people now. Rotstein might have learned from some old documents or legends that the Thunder Beast could control lightning, so he regarded Lacini, whose bloodline was actually very rare, as a real Thunder Beast.
Rong Yuan was silent for a moment, and Wandou shook his finger and asked anxiously, "The four strongest tribes? What are there besides the Thunder Beasts? What are the other three?"
"Oh." Rong Yuan thought for a moment and said, "It's the elephant, shark, and vulture in the story. Of course, this is just a reflection. They are not actually called these names."
"Aren't there lions? Doesn't the lion count?" asked the pea.
"No, lions are just something that story writers use to make up the numbers. Lions in the past are similar to lions today. They are not a big threat to armed human soldiers."
"Then tell me, what is so special about those three tribes?"
"Well, they..."
