Applaud for Happiness - Chapter 47

 

Chapter 47: Applaud for the Crown Prince

Note: Welcome to a new arc. This is also my favorite arc for this book ♡⸜(˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶)⸝♡

This place was a wasteland.

Or rather, it was a deserted planet.

No matter where you stood or from which angle you looked, all you could see were desolate, cracked lands, dried-up riverbeds, and bare mountains devoid of any trace of greenery.

The once-thriving cities were now buried under dust, with collapsed skyscrapers everywhere, as if they had experienced the apocalypse. There was not a hint of life in sight.

On the edge of one desolate city, in an open square, there used to be a fountain at the center. Now the pool was surrounded by countless unfamiliar electronic devices. Sitting in the middle of the now sunken pool was a young man wearing light clothes. His head was covered with messy silver hair, his legs were bent on the chair, and his bare feet rested on the chair's edge, with his chin propped against his knees.

The young man's pale skin indicated he had not seen sunlight for a long time. His delicate facial features were sculpted as if by a master craftsman, making him unbelievably handsome. However, his half-closed eyes, listless expression, and lazy posture gave his otherwise beautiful face a touch of decadence and gloom.

But soon, the devices in front of him suddenly began to beep. The young man quickly opened his eyes wide, and his slender, pale fingers danced rapidly across the virtual keyboard like a fluttering butterfly. A strange glow flickered in his eyes, illuminating his entire face and making it hard for anyone to look away.

The young man hummed an inexplicable tune: "A spaceship will fall down, fall down, fall down... it will fall down soon, fall down, fall down..."

As he was singing, a black dot suddenly appeared in the sky. The dot descended rapidly, getting faster and clearer. In the virtual screen in front of the young man, it was unequivocally a small spacecraft.

Soon a loud thud was heard followed by a large dust cloud rising from a distance.

A spaceship had indeed fallen down.

Success!

The young man, known as Shen Qi, excitedly pressed the last key, ending his operation. He casually tapped the chair he was sitting on. This dilapidated chair, which no one would even take as a second-hand item, suddenly took off, carrying him toward the location where the spaceship had landed.

"Gou Dan, keep up!" (Note: 狗蛋 [Gǒu dàn] = literally, dog testicles T_T Shen Qi probably named it this way because of its round shape)

Shen Qi called out, and a round object resembling a ball rolled out on the ground. While rolling, it extended eight slender hooks, like a spider's legs. With a simple swipe on the ground, it rapidly followed him.

The spot where the spaceship had landed was not far from Shen Qi's base, in another square of the city. The spaceship alternated between silver and black. Its clean lines were full of vigor. Even though it had damaged parts due to the crash, it remained majestic.

"Wow, an AR latest model, this design, this material..." He admired the spaceship with sparkling eyes, just like an old-timer admiring a classic car in the interstellar era. He touched the body of the spaceship with enthusiasm.

After his admiration, he found the emergency button of the spaceship and opened the cabin door.

It was a small, single-person spaceship, not large. It was a standard living space with a living room, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a cockpit at the front of the cabin. Due to the gravity during the fall, the sturdy spacecraft had plunged head-first into the ground, breaking open the wasteland and was half-buried in the ground.

So Shen Qi pressed the button at the stern of the spaceship, opening the door at the rear.

"Is anyone there?" he squinted and cautiously called out a few times. He then sent Gou Dan inside for a quick look. Gou Dan soon came out, its round belly opened to reveal a screen, replaying the recorded scenes for Shen Qi to see.

The spaceship had fallen upside down, and the items inside were shaken messy. Gou Dan went in from the back door and only managed to record the bedroom. There was a door obstructing the way to the living area. A man was seen sitting against the door -- to be precise, he was sitting on the door, leaning against the cabin wall, his head drooped motionless, as if he was dead.

However, excitement shone in Shen Qi's eyes: "I've found it!"

He found his mission target in this world!

This was the interstellar era. The empire ruled over five star systems. The young and vital king of the empire suffered an accident while fighting the Zerg thirty years ago and has been in a coma ever since. To prevent chaos in the empire, the queen without a successor had no choice but to adopt a prince born to a maidservant and support him to ascend to the throne.

Because the king was still alive, the prince could only be regarded as crown prince.

At the time of the king's accident, the crown prince was still in his swaddling clothes. The queen, as the legal wife, became the queen dowager, while the maidservant who gave birth to the crown prince was sealed as a royal concubine.

Under the upbringing of the queen dowager and the royal concubine, the crown prince gradually grew up, intelligent, brave, kindhearted, possessing all the excellent qualities of an empire prince, until he went to choose his consort.

The empire's marriage system was split into two forms. The first involves genetic comparison through a database to check the gene compatibility rate. The higher the compatibility rate, the better, especially for those with B-level psychic power or above.

The other one is free love. The empire does not force people to choose partners based on genetic compatibility rate. There are many who give up matching rates and follow their feelings. However, to those with B-level psychic power or above, most would choose to match partners based on compatibility. The higher the psychic power, the potentially severe subsequent effects would be. Only by pairing with a higher gene compatibility partner can this pain be fully relieved, far better than any medication.

So the higher the individual's position in the noble class, the more they value gene compatibility.

Being a crown prince with double S-level psychic power, the choice of his princess must naturally be prioritized from the genetic match rate.

Coincidentally, the one with the highest gene compatibility rate with the crown prince was the queen dowager's nephew, with as high as ninety percent.

From an outsider's perspective, this should be something to be happy about. Firstly, the princess consort comes from nobility and is also a relative of the queen dowager. The position of the crown prince should not be unstable anymore — it should be known that the king had more than one son.

However, the royal concubine was not pleased. She wanted the crown princess to be her own niece.

For the royal concubine, her son was given to others. Although the queen dowager did not prevent her from getting close to the crown prince, the dowager was the de facto mother on the surface. The dowager came from a noble background with a prominent family. To ensure the crown prince's position, she had to endure first, and endured it for eighteen years. She felt the time was ripe and didn't want to endure anymore.

The queen dowager's nephew had a very high gene match rate, but the royal concubine's niece wasn't bad either, hitting eighty-nine percent. Just because she was slightly less compatible, she was sifted out. Although the difference was tiny, its impact was significant.

There was another important reason: the dowager's nephew was too young at just six years old. The crown prince was already eighteen. How could they wait for so long? However, the royal concubine's niece was already fifteen, almost growing up as childhood friends with the crown prince. The two had positive feelings for each other.

At that time, the crown prince was also more willing to stand by his biological mother and cousin's side.

When the situation was at a deadlock, the queen dowager's nephew had an accident. The spaceship traveling to the central galaxy encountered interstellar pirates. Only a small part of the people on the ship were saved, and the queen's nephew disappeared into the chaotic meteorites.

Consequently, the position of the crown princess naturally fell onto the crown prince's cousin.

If things had ended here, it would have been a satisfactory conclusion. The crown prince could avoid the troublesome dilemma between his foster mother and birth mother. The dowager queen and the royal concubine could also avoid excessively intense conflict.

However, things did not end there, otherwise, Shen Qi would not have appeared in this world.

The plot outline did not detail the thoughts and feelings of the queen dowager, the royal concubine, the crown prince, and others. There were only a few lines, and Shen Qi, combining what he had understood from the past and present, supplemented what he saw as a more specific process.

While the king was alive, he had a favorite concubine. The favorite concubine bore a Son before the queen, that is, the eldest prince. After the king's accident, many people supported the eldest prince. But the queen dowager obviously disagreed, and she insisted on choosing the chambermaid's son as the crown prince.

Failing to seize the advantage, the favorite concubine could only take her one-year-old eldest prince to the planet that the king had given her while he was alive. She chose to lie low.

The royal concubine wanted her niece to become the crown princess, but she forgot to inquire about her niece's intentions. She didn't realize that the princess had no romantic feelings for the crown prince; she only saw him as her cousin. The one she liked was the eldest prince.

Whether by coincidence or intention, the princess and the eldest prince fell in love. Nevertheless, she ended up marrying the crown prince.

And that was the beginning of the tragedy for the crown prince.

Three years later, the queen dowager, whose psychic power had been gradually depleted, suddenly fell and died on the spot. Grief-stricken, the crown prince fell ill. When he woke up, nobody knew he had changed into a completely different person.

It was not time travel or rebirth. He was replaced, and the one who replaced him was the eldest prince.

The eldest prince and the crown prince originally looked quite similar. The eldest prince deliberately adjusted his appearance to align more closely with the crown prince. With the princess helping him familiarize himself with all habits of the crown prince and covering up other things, nobody realized the change, including the royal concubine.

At the same time, the favored concubine petitioned that the eldest prince had died accidentally, and she was heartbroken. She wanted to return to the capital city to serve the king by his side. The substitute prince agreed, and soon the mother and son were reunited.

As for the real crown prince, perhaps there were still a shred of feelings left. The princess didn't kill him as instructed by the eldest prince. Instead, she administered a potion to destroy his psychic power, disfigured him, and sent him to the fallen star.

Fallen Star, as the name suggests, is a place for all fallen existences. Located at the far edge of the galaxy, it's a backward, destitute place rife with crime.

The crown prince stayed on Fallen Star for eight years. Nobody knows what he experienced there. When he returned, his psychic power had not only remained but also had transformed from double S to 3S. Unstoppably, he returned to the royal palace and unveiled the conspiracy of the eldest prince.

Shen Qi knew more about this experience than the system provided him because it just happened not too long ago, just last year. He watched the entire process by quietly opening up the royal palace network with his accumulated points.

The crown prince, now wearing a half mask, strangled the eldest prince, the princess, their two sons, one daughter, the beloved concubine, and his own birth mother with his own hands.

The royal concubine clearly guessed the truth long ago, but she pretended not to know. She even chose to betray the prince when he tried to contact her.

For an entire day and night, a great purge took place in the royal palace. If Shen Qi hadn't seen so much already, he would have been unable to stomach it.

The returning crown prince had undergone a significant shift in character. He was no longer benevolent as before. His methods were ruthless and bloody, enough to chill anyone to the bone.

Shen Qi had seen his happiness value, a pitiful five points, even less than Zhao Huaiyu's at the beginning, completely darkened.

According to the provided finale, the darkened crown prince became a fierce tyrant in the history of the empire. With 3S psychic power, he became the strongest in the galaxy over time, with nobody capable of resisting him. Until his psychic power started showing side effects, he lost his sanity, turned mad, and disappeared into the cosmos.

Obviously, this is a very challenging mission target, more difficult than any previous one.

After reading the outline and carefully contemplating it, Shen Qi selected the character setup and began the mission.

He easily carried the crown prince out of the spaceship. The prince had a beautiful name, Huan, and his royal surname was Qin, hence, Qin Huan.

In the interstellar era, there were no longer racial differences as most people were mixed-race. Qin Huan, with his light brown hair, light green eyes, and profound facial features, was very handsome.

Of course, that was the past. Now, his face was ruined. He had not undergone surgery, and the upper half of his face was covered with a silver mask that stuck to his skin, leaving only his lips and chin exposed.

At the moment, his eyes were tightly shut, seeming to be in great pain.

Seeing this, Shen Qi frowned. He had hacked into the royal network, discovered his itinerary, and knew that he was coming to Fallen Star. He set up a signal to intercept his route and made him fall on this planet through magnetic field interference. But he didn't expect that he would pass out.

Normally, with the current spaceship materials, it would be almost impossible to encounter a problem unless facing a meteor storm or black hole or something similar.

"Mental power confusion, mental power confusion..." Gou Dan kept circling Qin Huan, his two round eyes rolling continuously.

So, that's it.

Shen Qi touched his nose. He was wondering why he had succeeded so easily, but it turned out that Qin Huan's psychic powers had been in disorder. This suggested to Shen Qi that Qin Huan's powers might have been problematic for a while.

But that's not the point right now. Shen Qi squinted at his half-covered face, thinking about another issue.

Generally, when one starts to have doubts about something, we start by observing, then verifying.

The same taste, the same preferences, the same gestures. He couldn't help but suspect that the target he had been pursuing was actually the same person.

If Lu Zhuo could be chalked up to a coincidence, then what about Zhao Huaiyu?

Shen Qi doubted, observed, and now had sufficient reason to be sure that there's a link between them. Next would be verification to make the final confirmation.

He reached out and poked Qin Huan's exposed face, tugged at his lip, and then stood up, carrying the man and headed back to base. His brows and eyes were expressive, and he began to hum an unnamed melody: "My gallant groom fallen from the sky~~~ I'll take you home for a sweet, clean bath~~~"

Oh, I forgot to say, Shen Qi's current identity is that of the young nephew of the Empress Dowager who was kidnapped by interstellar pirates and later fell into the ruins.

He was already dead, but when Shen Qi arrived, he came back to life.

A former fiance, who was thought to have died miserably in a remote place but battled on, now saves his fallen fiancé from a barren star. What a huge coincidence! Isn't it surprising? Unexpected? Touching?

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