Hou Dingfeng took the communicator. He even deliberately adjusted his voice, making it steady and forceful before speaking. “Your Highness, are you well today?”
The corner of Gu Heng’s mouth curved slightly. “Doing quite well.”
Beneath Hou Dingfeng’s slightly long, curly black hair, his gaze was sharp and calculating as he continued with polite greetings. “Then does Your Highness require us to send people to welcome you, as well as your new lover?”
A look of understanding flashed through Gu Heng’s dark eyes. He gave a light laugh and said, “That’s enough. Hou Dingfeng, what you really want to ask isn’t that, is it?”
Hou Dingfeng pretended not to understand the Crown Prince’s meaning and lowered his voice, asking in confusion, “Your Highness, we’ve simply gone too long without receiving your instructions or messages, so we wished to inquire about your current situation. Is there anything inappropriate about that?”
Gu Heng’s dark eyes curved slightly as he smiled. “Indeed, there’s nothing inappropriate. Oh, by the way, let me inform you while I’m at it. I’ve already decided to stay in the Federation for a rather long period of time. If there’s nothing important, I won’t be returning to the Empire anymore. You can have people prepare for that.”
The person on the other end of the communicator immediately fell into a deathly silence.
After a long time, a prolonged stillness that lasted a full half minute.
Suddenly, an extremely pleasant male voice came through, the words respectful, yet the attitude exceptionally serious and cold.
“Your Highness, you’re merely joking with this subordinate, aren’t you?”
Gu Heng narrowed his dark eyes slightly and smiled maliciously as he said, “Do I look like someone who enjoys joking?”
Minister Hou’s face immediately darkened. His expression was so stern he couldn’t smile at all. His gloomy, smooth voice, however, remained magnetic and pleasing to the ear. “Your Highness is indeed someone who greatly enjoys joking, isn’t that so?”
Gu Heng smiled without speaking.
When the person on the other end was nearing the limits of his patience, even the heavy, hurried breathing could be heard through the communicator’s microphone, revealing how he was suppressing his anger.
Only then did a trace of cool, thin amusement pass through Gu Heng’s dark eyes as he spoke unhurriedly, “You could say so. After all, I learned it from you, Teacher Hou…”
At this moment, Hou Dingfeng truly couldn’t laugh. His face was overcast, dark enough to drip water. His facial muscles were taut and trembling, just a hair’s breadth away from snapping and cursing.
His mind was in turmoil, thinking,
If the Crown Prince wasn’t joking, if he truly had been bewitched by the beauty of that detestable Federation Alpha man and from then on abandoned the Empire and ignored it… then he would have no face left to return to the Empire in the future!
Hou Dingfeng sucked in a breath and ground his teeth as he said, “Your Highness, how could I possibly be qualified to be your teacher? I only taught you for a week or two, please don’t overpraise me!”
Gu Heng’s dark eyes were sly. Propping his chin with his hand, he smiled and said, “Once a teacher for a day, a teacher for life. I’m very grateful for your past guidance, Teacher Hou. For example, you taught me the art of reading people: what intentions those who approach me truly harbor, whether they are beauties, or beauties hiding knives…”
Now Hou Dingfeng understood that the Crown Prince had been deliberately teasing him. In his heart, he felt both stifled and indignant, yet at the same time heaved a great sigh of relief.
At least the Crown Prince’s mind was clear. Being able to take the opportunity to toy with and provoke him showed that His Highness hadn’t been completely bewitched by the Federation’s honey trap.
But recalling how he had almost been frightened into cardiac arrest just now, if the Crown Prince really refused to return to the Empire for that Federation beauty…
He truly would have had the urge to atone with his life!
After all, it had been he who had personally instructed the Crown Prince on certain aspects of adult sexual knowledge, the art of reading people, identifying spies and agents, honey traps, and how to reverse and exploit honey traps.
If those colleagues in the Empire found out that the Crown Prince had been lost under his watch, he would lose all face!
Yet the person before him was absolutely not someone he could scold.
Not only could he not scold him, he had to coax him.
Even Hou Dingfeng couldn’t help but wear a bitter expression, thinking to himself that this was the retribution for the sins of his youthful recklessness,
With a sorrowful, miserable look, Hou Dingfeng sighed and said, “Your Highness, please stop playing with me. I’m already getting on in years, my heart can’t take this kind of stimulation.”
Gu Heng raised his brows and smiled. “How could Teacher be old? You’re in the prime of your brilliance, a universally acknowledged peerless beauty, with admirers spread across all races in the universe; a textbook-level classic example of a honey trap, praised as the walking ‘Mist-Colored Succubus.’”
It had been a long time since he had heard that embarrassing moniker.
Hou Dingfeng’s body trembled at once, yet he did not refute it.
He merely lazily and casually flicked through his unkempt, decadent black curly long hair a few times, faintly revealing a pair of misty blue eyes, hazy and gentle like moonlit fog, and like a pool of tranquil, melancholy, languid galaxy of stars.
At times deeply affectionate and melancholic, at times tenderly lingering and decadently beautiful.
With every movement and gesture, every frown and smile, he lured one lost soul after another to sink deep into that bewitching, false affection, unable to extricate themselves, willingly falling into ruin.
A trace of casual, languid light flashed through the mist-blue eyes that Minister Hou kept hidden. His fingers toyed with the black hair that blocked his line of sight. Androgynous and indistinct in gender, the slightest reveal of his true appearance made one understand what it meant to be a peerless beauty full of allure.
Not to mention those rose-petal-pink lips, slightly pursed into a smile.
Even Ji Shenwen, sharing the same space, was stunned into a daze, unable to control his flustered reactions. His face flushed red bit by bit, his senses overstimulated, adrenaline surging, blood flow accelerating.
Even knowing full well that Minister Hou was a Beta with no pheromones at all, he was still instinctively drawn in, unable to tear his gaze away, his breathing quickened, his heartbeat thrown into chaos.
There truly are people whose splendor reaches such a level.
The sheer shock of their beauty alone is enough to make one cross race, gender, and conflicts, to feel one’s heart race, like beholding the legendary goddess of beauty, Aphrodite.
A walking hormone.
Ji Shenwen was so shocked he couldn’t close his mouth.
A peerless beauty acknowledged even by the Crown Prince was indeed no ordinary person.
The Crown Prince was already the most handsome person he had ever seen, but Minister Hou was an entirely different type. If Helen, whose beauty on ancient Blue Star had sparked wars between nations, had looked like this, it wouldn’t have been strange at all.
In the past, he had never once seen Minister Hou reveal his true appearance. He always seemed to be a dispirited, sloppy middle-aged uncle.
Hou Dingfeng didn’t care and sighed as he said, “Your Highness, that’s all in the past. Now I’m just an ordinary, unambitious middle-aged uncle.”
A glint flashed through Gu Heng’s eyes as he stroked his chin and said, “Teacher, I can’t agree with that. If even a bit of your information were leaked, countless admirers would swarm in, cramming and bursting a mere planet wouldn’t be difficult at all.”
Hou Dingfeng stiffened at once and said dryly, “Your Highness, that’s exaggerating.”
Gu Heng said slyly, “How is that an exaggeration? Back when Teacher took the initiative to defect to the Empire, your admirers nearly turned the Empire upside down. You know very well that quite a few were great nobles of the Empire, as well as high-ranking officers of the Federation, and even people of other races and skin colors, Alphas, Omegas, Betas, of all different genders and ages.”
“Teacher, you really didn’t discriminate at all. I truly wonder whether among your admirers there were even high-level insect races?”
Hou Dingfeng replied awkwardly, “I tend to prefer humanoid races.”
Gu Heng said, “But among the high-level insect races, there are also some that can mimic humanoid forms. What do you think, Teacher?”
Hou Dingfeng, feeling guilty, didn’t dare speak. His mist-blue eyes drifted about, still like dazzling, radiant glass beads.
In his youth, he had been ignorant and had played with far too many hearts.
Including the hearts of many powerful figures, leading to a final disaster, where he was nearly imprisoned and locked away in a dark cell by ex-boyfriends scattered across the universe.
Those ex-boyfriends had previously fought each other to the death, competing and jealously bickering. Yet upon seeing him attempt a sudden retreat and escape, they astonishingly set aside old grudges and joined forces to capture him.
Fortunately, he had sensed the danger in advance and proactively defected to certain special departments of the Empire, thus escaping calamity.
Even now, having completely changed his appearance and even his name, burying his dark past for good, and finding a new career suited to him, steadily rising through the ranks in the Empire’s Intelligence Department, whenever he recalled those perilous past events…
Hou Dingfeng still felt a chill run down his spine, shivering in fear.
It had truly been a close call, he had nearly never seen the sun again.
Finding it amusing, Gu Heng continued to tease him. “Teacher, you should know your admirers still refuse to give up. They’re offering high prices on the market to seek information about you. Being completely abandoned by you, yet still unable to let you go, how pitiful.”
Yet in Gu Heng’s sly gaze, there wasn’t the slightest trace of sympathy or pity, only full-blown interest and mockery.
Gu Heng dragged out his words and said, “Teacher, would you count as a love swindler?”
Hou Dingfeng shut his eyes in annoyance and begged for mercy. “Your Highness, stop it. Why don’t we go back to talking about you and your Federation lover instead? My old, sesame-seed-sized affairs aren’t worth mentioning.”
He did not admit that he was a love swindler.
He had never two-timed anyone. Every relationship began with wholehearted devotion, only that his passionate love also faded very quickly.
Because he had been showered with admiration and pursuit since childhood, simple adoration felt as bland and uninteresting as plain boiled water.
Only when he saw that someone’s gaze did not admire him would he feel novelty and attraction, and such people were often extraordinary figures, heaven-favored elites with exceptional backgrounds and abilities.
Every time he pursued such people, he was sincere. When he loved, he loved deeply, never stingy with money or expressions of affection, feeling his heart race at their cold, indifferent gazes.
But once those cold gazes changed, turning into the same kind of fervent yet bland affection as everyone else’s, he would lose that fluttering feeling.
He would unilaterally propose a breakup, and when leaving, he was always decisive.
So many years had passed.
In order to live under an assumed name, Hou Dingfeng had even deliberately chosen a steady, ordinary name. No one would imagine that this now-ordinary middle-aged man was once the young, stunning Atis.
Thinking back on his young, ignorant self, he really had been a scumbag.
But as for the Crown Prince accusing him of being a love swindler, he absolutely would not admit it. In every relationship, he had given his true heart, only that his feelings came quickly and left just as quickly.
The tips of Hou Dingfeng’s ears reddened slightly. He still couldn’t help but cover his face in shame.
Gu Heng gave a soft laugh and said, “How could it be a small matter? Back then, the combined forces of your ex-boyfriends nearly pressured the Empire to the point of collapse, forcing it to hand you over. You should know that the bounty on you in the black market is still sky-high, even now, ”
Back then, internal arguments within the Empire had been fierce over whether to withstand the pressure of all sides for such a person, including pressure from the Empire’s great nobles.
Finally, it was Royal Father Gu Fuyan who made the ruling, deciding to protect this kind of special talent.
Because Royal Father Gu Fuyan, for a certain well-known reason, had long been continuously gathering all kinds of talents and had always been broad-minded and inclusive like the sea embracing a hundred rivers.
No matter which country or race they originally came from, as long as their background was verified to be clean with no serious criminal record, and they had special contributions and value to the Empire, they could become a part of the Empire’s glory through the Imperial Talent Introduction Program.
Teacher Hou was one of these special talents, neither an Imperial nor a Federation citizen, who had now become an Imperial citizen.
Gu Heng vaguely remembered Teacher Hou’s file. His father was an unknown merchant who had a brief marriage with his mother. Not many years after he was born, his father left, only sending money back from time to time.
Teacher Hou’s hometown was a small, obscure country located at the crossroads of several nations, a place where many countries and races lived together in a mixed community.
His mother was a tailor, and likewise a locally famous mixed-blood beauty.
After meeting his father, she fell in love at first sight with the equally handsome merchant. Later, due to incompatibilities in lifestyle customs and personality, they divorced, and the child was raised by the mother.
His mother never imagined that her child would grow more and more beautiful, every day the doorway of her home was piled high with flowers and love letters sent to her son. Moreover, her son inherited his merchant father’s adventurous, driven personality, and left his hometown at a young age to venture out into business.
It was just that during his travels in business, he incurred quite a few romantic debts.
In the end, he had no choice but to flee in disgrace and seek refuge with the Empire’s forces.
Originally, many within the Empire suspected that His Majesty intended to take this peerless beauty into the harem. Yet after recruiting him, His Majesty never once showed curiosity or even spared him a glance, remaining fully and fanatically devoted to the war against the Zerg.
The only time he asked about him was because His Highness the Crown Prince had reached the age to study certain espionage-related courses and needed an expert in this field to teach the Crown Prince how to recognize and deal with various enemy methods of temptation, seduction, and honey traps.
Only then did His Majesty, for the first time in history, personally meet this rumored calamity-causing beauty.
In the end, he made this calamity beauty the Crown Prince’s teacher.
Back then, Gu Heng himself had been valued and cultivated by Royal Father in this way. The teachers who taught him were basically all top experts and special talents from the Empire and even the entire universe, personally and carefully selected by Royal Father.
When compared like this, being abandoned by Royal Father was what made the young Gu Heng feel such pain and disbelief.
Gu Heng instantly recalled the past. A layer of gloom surfaced in his eyes, yet the corners of his mouth lifted into a cool, indifferent smile.
The person who taught him the most important lesson was undoubtedly his Royal Father.
Royal Father personally taught him the most important lesson of life: anyone can betray him, including those closest and dearest to him. The only one who would truly never betray him was himself.
Only by becoming strong himself would he not fear any betrayal or harm.
Likewise, only by becoming strong could he protect the person he truly loved, and the person who truly loved him, rather than someone like… Royal Father, who coldly used him and then, once he had no more value, abandoned him without hesitation.
When he thought of Zuo Shihuan waiting for him,
Gu Heng’s originally cold and vicious gaze became calm and warm, and even the corners of his mouth, always harsh and indifferent, could not help but reveal a sincere, radiant smile.
Love surging needed no words.
When one encounters such a person, one understands that all the cold winds and storms of the past were preparation for the day one would meet him and the sunshine would begin.
“So, teacher, you don’t need to test me anymore.”
Gu Heng looked toward Zuo Shihuan not far away, his eyes filled with tender, lingering affection, and said with a curled smile, “Whether he is an Imperial or a Federation citizen, I will love him. He is also the only lover I have acknowledged.”
Hou Dingfeng fell silent.
Only at this moment did his expression truly grow solemn.
This was the worst possible outcome.
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