A star pirate turns over a new leaf, redemption is at hand!

Listen, just listen. Were those even the words of a sane person?

Ji Changqing was quite tolerant of partners like Jixin, for whom she bore no responsibility.

She could understand his impatience and urgency. With success in sight, just one final push away, someone was now subtly indicating they could provide that push. It was, admittedly, quite tempting.

But while Jixin could let his desire for revenge go to his head, Ji Changqing and her group could not. Though their motto was to take life and death in stride and fight anyone who disagreed, there was no need to rush to make the mission harder.

In the end, they reached a harmonious agreement, mainly because Jixin was worried that if he insisted on going his own way, Ji Changqing would make him “disappear” too.

The threat to his life forcibly cooled his overheated brain in an instant. What sobered him up even more was that the Omega man acted as if he had forgotten all about him. Things were so calm it almost made him think their previous probing conversation had been a hallucination.

The days passed as peacefully as flowing water, right into Hading Planet’s final harvest season of the year. After returning from her second mission, Ji Changqing woke up early one morning and watched the people on the farmstead. They were laughing as they finished breakfast, a bustling crowd with arms slung over each other’s shoulders. One by one, they headed to the warehouse, collected their tools as instructed, and drove out all sorts of agricultural machinery, roaring off toward the fields ripe for harvest.

After more than a year of settling down on Hading Planet, these people seemed to have adapted to the stable life here. The terror they once felt seemed to be gradually fading away, as if it belonged to another lifetime.

Humans, she thought, were truly a species with formidable adaptability.

She narrowed her eyes. Saiweiyala had mentioned to her a few times that recently, fewer and fewer people were desperate to return to the Alliance.

The journey through the stars was long, and returning as a stowaway was fraught with peril in the vast, empty sea of space. Some were willing to risk death on the journey just to go back, but many more, as long as they could get by, were unwilling to take such a risk deep down.

Their desire to return to the Alliance was at a level where they could cover their own travel expenses and endure hardships along the way, but only if their personal safety was guaranteed.

To all this, Ji Changqing’s approach was to ignore it.

What else could she do about something she couldn’t accomplish?

Let it go, of course!

Amidst the festive harvest atmosphere on the farmstead, three hover cars sped toward them. They bore the Earl’s crest, granting them unimpeded passage all the way to Ji Changqing.

Two of the cars hovered in mid-air, one on the left and one on the right, flanking the central vehicle like guardian deities. The middle hover car descended steadily, landing in the spacious area in front of the farmstead’s office building.

Ji Changqing’s expression didn’t flicker. She waved a hand, signaling for everyone to ignore them and continue their work as usual.

But inwardly, she was not so calm. The formation of the vehicles, along with the subtle malice she sensed, sparked some unsettling thoughts.

After the car landed, a squad of well-trained and disciplined soldiers disembarked. The leader exchanged a few brief pleasantries with Ji Changqing and handed her a list. “A mission has come down from above. We need to requisition some personnel to assist.”

Ji Changqing didn’t believe a single word. She lowered her gaze and glanced at the list. The very first name was “Zhao Qingci.”

Fear was not something she felt. After being imprisoned, surviving against all odds to join Star Hidden, and enduring the torturous training, there were very few things left that could frighten her.

She scanned the list without any change in her expression. “Alright. Should I have someone gather them, or…?”

She glanced naturally at the men he had brought with him.

The leader understood. He gave a slight nod. “You can make the arrangements.”

Ji Changqing complied smoothly and sent someone to do as instructed.

She was extremely confident she wouldn’t be exposed. Could it be that Jixin had been?

Only six people from the farmstead, including Ji Changqing, were summoned. They all arrived looking bewildered. Hearing that they were needed to assist with a mission, they felt a mix of apprehension and a slight thrill, and all looked toward Ji Changqing.

Ji Changqing spread her hands. “I don’t know anything either.”

The leader of the squad that brought the summons gave them a thoughtful look, then gestured for them to board the vehicles.

The hover cars sped into the same military base where they had briefly stayed upon their arrival on Hading Planet.

There, she saw not only Ming Zixing and his trusted subordinates from their time on Wendeli, but also a terrified-looking Saiweiyala.

A ripple of emotion stirred in her eyes.

Saiweiyala ran over, her face alight with pleasant surprise. Since she had entered the “Servant Training Program,” they had rarely had a chance to meet. “We get to go on a mission together!”

Ji Changqing smiled and, taking advantage of her height, patted the girl’s head. “Yes. Just do what you can. Don’t worry too much.”

Saiweiyala nodded vigorously. “I know!” She looked as excited as a child who had just been praised and encouraged.

Ming Zixing wasn’t far away, and their voices were loud enough for him to hear. He let out a disdainful “Hmph.” He was now highly valued, while Ji Changqing and Jixin, who had once ganged up on him, were now beneath him. He felt fantastic!

The guards, who were ostensibly there to escort them but were in fact their jailers, didn’t stop them from gathering and talking. They began a roll call in a stiff, formal manner. As each name was called, the person would go inside, supposedly for an inspection before being assigned their mission.

When it was Ji Changqing’s turn, she went inside and was ordered to remove all spatial and communication devices. They tested her mental power and physical fitness levels, and after confirming she had nothing on her, they gave her a nameplate. “Area A, 1102. This way.”

Their arrangements were truly thorough. The inspection area, aside from the entrance, had three other corridor doors leading to Areas A, B, and C. The entrance to each area and the corridors were lined with armed guards. For a moment, she felt as if she had been thrown back in prison.

Under the watchful eyes of a group of guards, she walked down the corridor, found room 1102, and feigned hesitation. Instead of immediately swiping her card to enter, she turned to look around. A guard immediately raised his weapon and barked, “Get inside and stay there!”

Ji Changqing was not the least bit surprised by this reaction. Her earlier suspicions were not far from the truth. The setup here was akin to a prison: they were allowed out for meals and recreation at fixed times, but were otherwise forced to stay in their rooms.

The rooms were equipped with audiovisual devices, allowing them to watch downloaded movies, TV shows, and listen to all sorts of music. There were even web novels. During the designated outdoor times, people in the same area were not forbidden from gathering in small groups to whisper amongst themselves.

One could say it was very thoughtful and considerate.

This left everyone feeling bewildered. Was this an internal purge, or were their superiors secretly observing them before a real mission?

Should they think for the best, or for the worst?

Ji Changqing’s thoughts ran deeper than theirs.

She had initially assumed that Areas A, B, and C were divided based on strength, with the most powerful individuals placed in Area A to make it easier to assign guards of corresponding strength. But upon entering, she saw that almost everyone was a familiar face.

Ninety percent of the people here were those who had traveled with her from the barren planet, through Wendeli, and finally to Hading Planet.

Excellent. In that case, unless there was a truly special mission to be carried out, it was confirmed: Jixin had been exposed!

In the end, her trust had been misplaced. She sighed deeply to herself. She had no regrets, though. After all, there were risks, but there were also rewards.

As long as her Star Hidden identity wasn’t revealed, she was still of great value to Klopp. And as long as she was valuable, she had a way to survive.

However, her gaze fell vaguely on Saiweiyala, who was huddled with the friends she had made in the “Servant Training Program.” She was a little worried about the kid.

Ji Changqing was fearless because she had undergone hellish training, but Saiweiyala’s small frame… even though they had made contingency plans and exchanged a few veiled words before coming in, she couldn’t help but worry.

For the first two days of their confinement, the outside world was incredibly quiet. Inside, because no one knew if this was a good or bad thing, most people clung to a sliver of hope. No one caused trouble, and things were, for the most part, calm.

On the third day, this forced tranquility was shattered. People began to be taken away one by one. The difference was, some returned after a few days, looking weak as if they’d been ravaged and forced into debauchery, but with no visible injuries. Others never came back at all.

After the first wave of people were taken and returned, everyone understood. This was a large-scale internal purge. In other words, everyone present was a suspect.

Instantly, everyone began to see each other as a class enemy, becoming extremely wary. The casual gatherings and whispered conversations ceased. People maintained a safe distance from one another, terrified of being implicated.

When the door to her room was opened from the outside, Ji Changqing was engrossed in a game. It was a single-player racing game. The roar of the engine, the powerful howl of the wind at high speeds, and the game’s built-in background music created such a noisy and lively atmosphere that the newcomers mistakenly thought they had walked onto a racetrack.

Ji Changqing took a moment from her busy schedule to glance over, then said dismissively, “Wait till I finish this race.”

She showed absolutely no awareness that a suspect could be summoned for interrogation at any moment. The men who had come for her felt offended!

“You’d better behave!” As if they would wait for her. The leader of the four-man guard team sent to escort the suspect snapped, jogging over to shut off the power, returning the world to silence.

The moment the power was cut, there was a loud thud. Ji Changqing, whose game had been forcibly terminated, slammed the controller down in extreme annoyance. The guard whipped his head around, only to be met with a ferocious, violent face. Her eyes were savage, like a fierce beast whose food had just been stolen, looking as if she might leap up at any moment and snap his neck!

The other three members of the guard team tensed, their hands instinctively going to their weapons, poised to act.

The leader flinched and took half a step back. He then became furious at his own subconscious reaction and waved his hand. “Take her away!”

The burst of anger from the interrupted game quickly cooled under the pressure of cold reality. The expression on Ji Changqing’s face gradually softened. She swallowed, averted her gaze, and let out a “Tsk.” Before the men could approach, she started walking out. “I can walk on my own.”

It wasn’t the designated recreation time, so everyone was in their rooms. The silence made the tap, tap, tap of her footsteps seem excessively loud. The interrogation area was not connected to Areas A, B, and C. After leaving Area A, she could see a row of low-slung buildings in the distance, standing isolated from their section.

The four-man team escorted Ji Changqing onto a small transport vehicle within the base. Two or three minutes later, it stopped.

Ji Changqing, who had been expressionless, smelled the faint scent of blood the moment she stepped into the building.

This area was clearly a temporary setup, hastily partitioned into individual rooms. At one end of the building was the interrogation, or rather, torture area, where they did the beating. At the other end was the medical treatment area, where the beaten were given cursory treatment to ensure they didn’t die.

The sight of bloodied individuals being dragged from one end to the other served as a silent deterrent to those being held in the semi-open cells along the corridor.

As she was led to the interrogation area, she saw Jixin standing with his hands clasped respectfully to the left of the only seated person in the room.

Ji Changqing raised an eyebrow slightly, her gaze shifting down to the seated man.

He was an Omega, with sharp features and a slender frame. He looked more like a proud and arrogant youth than a ruthless interrogator.

Seeing Ji Changqing enter, he turned his head slightly, casting a casual glance at her. A corner of his mouth lifted as he slowly continued questioning the person who was hanging, beaten black and blue. “Who else?”

The hanging man was on the verge of death, his voice a mere thread. “I don’t know anymore.”

“Hm? You don’t know?” The man smiled. “Beat him again.”

The salt-water-soaked, barbed whip cracked through the air, accompanied by mournful wails.

He acted as if he heard nothing, turning to size up Ji Changqing. “Zhao Qingci?” He flipped through the file in front of him and tapped it. “Confess about the messages you’ve been sending out.”

“Sending messages?” Ji Changqing looked surprised. “What kind of messages could I possibly send out? The farmstead’s grain yield?”

Seriously, she had always been on the periphery. Her two missions had been assigned directly by a designated person. Other than that, she had stayed quietly on the farmstead, frequently going out for some debauchery. What valuable information could she possibly have to sell?

“You had Saiweiyala transmit intelligence twice using different signal codes,” the man said unhurriedly, completely unfazed by her reaction. “Do I need to be more specific?”

Ji Changqing smiled. “You know my former identity, right? Those two times, I was sending some people a little something to annoy my enemies.” She adopted an attitude of holding nothing back. “I reported this in advance. Assigning me tasks is fine, but when I get a chance, I still have to get my revenge, don’t I?”

“Your former identity, huh?” The man gave a meaningful smile and turned to instruct Jixin, “Go and ask about it.”

Jixin respectfully agreed and slipped out quietly, apparently to contact someone for verification.

A short while later, Jixin returned. “They replied. It was indeed agreed upon beforehand.”

“Hm? How did you ask?”

Jixin repeated the exchange verbatim.

The interrogator listened quietly, nodding thoughtfully. “Hang her up. One cup of water a day. Let her clear her head for a bit. Three days should do it.”

The men beside him moved swiftly, restraining Ji Changqing and tying her hands to a torture rack, her toes just barely able to touch the ground.

After that, the man didn’t spare her another glance, continuing to interrogate others as usual.

It was as if he had brought her over just to go through the motions.

During the three days she was hung up, she watched people come and go. At its busiest, the spacious torture chamber held seven or eight people at once. Some couldn’t endure the torture and, in a state of extreme exhaustion, let slip information. Others stubbornly denied everything, only to be accused by someone else, and when evidence was found, they were shot on the spot…

The more she watched, the more confused she became. Something felt strange.

This handsome Omega man’s skill level seemed incredibly inconsistent. Sometimes his questioning was deep and skillful, while at other times he would ramble on about pointless nonsense. His performance fluctuated so wildly that it was hard to tell if he was genuinely incompetent or deliberately going easy on people.

After three days, she began to enjoy the luxury package of being beaten three times a day. They even started repeatedly questioning her about every detail of her two missions, the decoded signals Saiweiyala had sent out twice, and every single person she had come into contact with during her nights of revelry…

Her two completed missions were flawless, but the places she frequented for her “leisure” were within Earl Klopp’s fiefdom, and they were investigated from top to bottom.

On the evening of the sixth day, she was dragged to the medical room, her external wounds were hastily treated, and she was rushed onto a ship.

The men who escorted her to the ship were laughing and joking. They clapped her on the shoulder, cheerfully congratulating her on passing the assessment. She was now a confirmed trusted confidant, they said, with a boundless future ahead of her.

Ji Changqing’s mind was full of question marks. WTF?!

What kind of fucking lunatic selects trusted aides this way? Weren’t they afraid of beating a grudge into someone who would then turn around and send them to heaven with a single stab?!

In fact, such people did exist, and damn it, the method worked!

When she was brought before the Omega man with the inconsistent skill level, the one she suspected had gotten his position through his looks, he offered a slight smile. His face was full of an expression that said, “You’ve won a surprise gift package.” He extended his hand with sincere and natural grace. “Then, let’s have a pleasant cooperation from now on.”

A roar echoed in Ji Changqing’s mind, the explosion sending her soul flying out of her body.

Because the man’s lips had silently formed her name.

He had said, “Then, let’s have a pleasant cooperation from now on, Ji Changqing.”

Syllable by syllable, perfectly clear.

It was Ji Changqing.

Not Zhao Qingci.