Part 2
Ning Yunyi watched him calmly. “Then you must also know that if I tell you, for the sake of security, you will have to stay with me under my control until the mission is complete. I won’t allow you to leave until then.”
Harlo looked at his father in shock. “Father? You know that place?”
The father thought of his familyâold, weak, and crippled. Staying with this Mr. Godefroi was actually the safest option. After a moment, he nodded. “Very well. We promise to keep your secret. But I must know what you plan to do…” Even though he was a nobody, he didn’t want to aid a villain.
Ning Yunyi was surprised by the underlying meaning. “I can tell you that we are from the government. Although this is a desolate star, youâve likely heard of Marshal Zong. He will arrive tomorrow with his legion to lay siege to the base. I am here as an official to learn about the current internal situation from Harlo.”
The father looked up in disbelief, his eyes shining. “Youâre Marshal Zongâs people?”
Ning Yunyi nodded. “We are.”
The fatherâs spirit seemed to revive. “But rumors say Marshal Zong was critically injured and went missing in the last battle.”
Ning Yunyi hadn’t expected the old man to be so well-informed. “He was missing, but he returned recently. It just hasn’t been announced publicly yet. Do you know that many shifters are being held there?”
The father finally believed him. Even if this Mr. Godefroi wasn’t one of the Marshal’s men, he was certainly “in the know.” There was no longer a need for secrets. If this man was an enemy, his family was already dead; after all, their lives had been saved by him, and he could kill them with a snap of his fingers.
The father lowered his eyes and patted his leg. “I lost this leg in the mines. But when I was young… I didn’t do this kind of dangerous, low-level work. Over thirty years ago, I was an engineer in the official Engineering Department of the military on a C-rank planet. One day, twenty of my colleagues and I were given a secret mission and sent to a desolate star. The mission was strictly confidential. We made arrangements for our families and followed the team out. But we didn’t know… it was a mission of no return.”
Bitterness flashed in his eyes as he continued. “When we arrived, we found that it wasn’t just twenty engineers from our planet. There were engineers from other planets as wellâat least one or two hundred of us. And there were countless star miners brought in from who-knows-where, all wearing masks to hide their ages and faces.
Only then did I realize our mission was to oversee these miners in constructing an underwater base. Although I had my doubts, I didn’t ask questions; I simply did my job. Most of us felt the same. We worked in secret beneath the water for three full years.
A few days before the completion celebration, a colleague came to me in a panic. He had overheard the base commander discussing plans to ‘secretly dispose’ of all of us to prevent the location from leaking.
That was when I learned the base wasn’t a prison for high-level mental power criminals as we had been told. It was… a confinement facility for shifters. I didn’t believe it at first, but my colleague and I used a magnetic card we hadn’t returned to sneak into the newly finished cells. Inside, we saw shifters in various beast forms.
From their size, it was obvious they weren’t exotic beasts. I believed it then, and I was terrified. To save ourselves, we dressed the bodies of two miners who had died during construction in our clothes to fake our own deaths. We planned to run, but they were more ruthless than we imaginedâthey unleashed a high-level mental attack.
I realized then that every guard there had at least double-S-rank mental power. I was lucky; I happened to be stuck in a corner that shielded me from part of the attack. I survived, but my colleague didn’t.”
The father looked dazed. These secrets had been buried for many yearsâso long that he had begun to believe he truly was just a miner on a desolate star.
Because they found the miner wearing his clothes and ID, they thought he was dead.
He didn’t dare return to his home planet, fearing that if they knew he was alive, they would kill his family to keep him quiet. So he embraced his ‘death’ and struggled to survive here.
As time passed, he gradually forgot his past and put down roots in Slum City, the furthest point from the base. He lived as an ordinary miner, met his wife, married, and had children, planning to spend the rest of his life that way.
He was a nobody and didn’t dare oppose those people. They were clearly hiding a massive secret, and every one of them was a double-S-rank mental power user. No one would believe him if he spoke out, and even if they did, he couldn’t win a fight against them.
It wasn’t until his injury that things changed. He never thought… that one day, he would voluntarily reveal his long-hidden secret.
He composed himself and took a deep breath. “If you are truly here to destroy that base, you must know that the mental power of the people inside is incredibly strong.”
Ning Yunyi nodded. “Itâs beyond strong. Thatâs why we want to avoid a direct confrontation if possible, to minimize casualties.”
The father smiled. “Regardless, the fact that youâre thinking about minimizing casualties makes you better than those bastards. It must be fate that Mr. Godefroi ran into Harlo. Perhaps it was meant for me to speak of that place. The reason I escaped back then was due to a hidden safety feature we engineers had. When we designed the blueprints, we would add a hidden escape door in an inconspicuous place, just in case something went wrong elsewhere. I never expected that I would be the one to use it… If you want to win without a fight, that escape door might be exactly what you need.”
Ning Yunyi was speechless with surprise. Was this another luck buff from the heavens? He had chosen Harlo for help on a whim, only for it to lead to this unexpected windfall.
The father not only had the blueprints for the base but also knew of an unmarked escape door.
Ning Yunyi brought the family of three back to the hotel and opened a room next to his. Godefroi and Brownie were in another room. Hearing the commotion, Godefroi stepped out. Harlo was stunned when he saw Godefroi. He looked at him, then at Ning Yunyi: “W-Why are there two Mr. Godefrois?” He didn’t dare ask and quickly lowered his head.
Godefroi didn’t say a word. He nodded to Ning Yunyi and glanced at Harlo’s family before closing his door, planning to contact Mr. White via his wristband later.
Ning Yunyi settled the three in the room. Harloâs sister, who looked less than fifteen, was clearly frightened and pale. She was already asleep in Harloâs arms.
Ning Yunyi closed the door. As Harlo placed his sister on the bed, Ning Yunyi stepped forward to examine her. “I am a Healer. Thereâs no need to find another one; Iâll take a look at her.”
Harloâs eyes lit up. “T-this… thank you, sir. In the future…” He wanted to say he would work like a horse to repay him, but realizing he had no skills, he fell silent. His ‘help’ seemed like a fantasy compared to this.
Ning Yunyi comforted him. “Thereâs no need. The blueprints you provided are a huge help. Treating your sister is just a small matter.” While it might be difficult for a low-level Healer, for Ning Yunyi, it could be achieved with a single piece of jade.
The father was also excited. The girl was a premature baby and had been in poor health since birth. At first, it wasn’t serious, but over the last two years, she had been diagnosed with a terminal condition. That was why he had been so desperate to mine more star ore, leading to his accident.
They thought Harlo’s windfall was already a stroke of luck, but who knew their savior was also a Healer?
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