Take it up with the general

"I swear all the confiscated ore was stored together, and absolutely no one touched it! It couldn't have gone missing!"

The staff member in charge of registration protested vehemently.

"Why didn't you store such important ore separately?!" Xingyao was even more vehement.

"No one told me there was any especially important ore!" The registrar looked utterly bewildered.

The two Beta staff members who had handled the confiscation barely dared to breathe.

"This is ridiculous!" Xingyao Beauty was on the verge of exploding.

He genuinely ached for the lost ore.

The registrar's expression turned solemn. "Even if there really was important ore mixed in, it couldn't have gone missing! The room where we store contraband has a dedicated iris scanner. Only Minister Lucas and I have access."

The pressure shifted to Lucas.

The Beta minister broke into a cold sweat again.

"I really haven't been in there, Director! I didn't leave my office all day yesterday!"

Yesterday, he had spent the entire day betting on the livestreamed dog races on Blue Star No. 33. He had nearly lost the shirt off his back!

Suddenly, inspiration struck. "Could it have gone missing somewhere other than the General Affairs Office?"

Those words jogged the two Beta staff members' memories.

"Now that you mention it..." One of them recalled, "After checking the contraband yesterday, we had lunch at Milu Restaurant in the First Oasis. Two mercenaries shared our table."

"Mercenaries?" Shen Que frowned.

"Yes!" the other staff member hurriedly said. "The kind you see everywhere in the desert zone. They were acting strangely, drunk and constantly sidling up to us, asking us to drink with them."

"Did you?" Shen Que asked.

"Of course not! We were on duty and carrying contraband. How could we drink?" the staff member argued. "We left as soon as we finished eating."

"So you can't be sure whether they were the ones who stole the stone." Shen Que reached his conclusion.

"Well..." The two Beta staff members exchanged a look.

"Then suspend them for now," Shen Que said succinctly. "Personal negligence resulting in a serious failure of duty. Report it to the Inspection Department and suspend them pending investigation."

He glanced at Lucas.

"The minister shares responsibility."

Lucas stood there, stunned.

Suspended pending investigation... How could he be suspended pending investigation...?

His mind kept bouncing between seven hundred million and suspension pending investigation.

No... Absolutely not...

Gabi was a hereditary noble. Even if he was suspended, someone would protect him and get him reinstated.

But Lucas wasn't! No one he knew outranked Shen Que.

Once he was suspended, there would be no coming back.

"I object!"

Lucas raised his voice.

The Beta minister, who never drew attention to himself and always kept a low profile, decided to stake his life on keeping his position.

Everyone immediately turned astonished eyes on Lucas.

He gritted his teeth.

"Deputy Director, have you forgotten that you oversee the Ore Department, not my Trade Department? You have no right to strip me of my position!"

"Confiscating your ore by mistake and losing it was indeed a failure on our part. I can offer you my sincerest apologies."

"But the lord personally appointed me. If I'm to be suspended, the lord must order it himself!"

Lucas clenched both fists, his voice trembling with instinctive fear.

He was gambling that Shen Que truly wasn't favored, that the lord wouldn't grant him this courtesy.

Going out wearing such a crude necklace.

How could the Young Lord possibly like him?

At that moment, everyone sucked in a sharp breath.

The three Little Maids standing behind Shen Que looked at Lucas, their surprise turning to pity.

Shen Que's expression didn't change at all. Instead, the corners of his lips lifted slightly.

"Minister Lucas, are you saying I need the lord's permission to suspend you?"

"Exactly!" Lucas said, holding his head high.

"Fine."

Shen Que lifted a hand, and Demi immediately stepped forward.

"Then we won't suspend you."

Delight instantly spread across Lucas's face. Had his gamble paid off? Was Shen Que really out of favor with the lord? Did Pei Ji dislike him too?

Then Shen Que spoke again.

"File criminal charges with the Oasis Court for malicious misappropriation of the Young Lord's property. Deputy Minister Xingyao, sorry for the trouble, but please help me estimate the value of that symbiotic stone. Everything documented today will be submitted as evidence."

"Devour Heaven's Brain Computer records should contain the entire process of Pei Ji acquiring the stone. Contact the Messiah Brain Computer Control Center and request those records in my name."

"Wha..." Lucas was dumbfounded again.

Wait... He meant...

Shen Que rose gracefully and walked up to the Beta deputy minister, who had frozen in place again. Lowering his long lashes slightly, he leaned toward Lucas's ear and said:

"You seem to have quite a problem with me, Minister. But I'm sorry, this stone isn't mine... Or rather, it isn't mine yet."

"It belongs to Pei Ji."

Shen Que enunciated every word. Each syllable was another shovelful of dirt filling Lucas's grave.

"If you have any objections, take them up with the general in court."

Demi slid a fingertip across her screen and filed the charges, then sighed regretfully. "Minister, why put yourself through this?"

"Why take a problem to the general when you could have settled it with his husband?"

"It's not as if you don't know our general's temper."

Lucas's legs gave out, and he sank to his knees.

Only one thought remained in his head.

It's over.

He was going to be exiled to the desert zone to feed the worms.

The General Affairs Office, Ore Department.

Having finally finished the tasks Shen Que assigned him, Xingyao rubbed his aching eyes and returned to his desk. At the sight of two cups of coffee sitting side by side, he let out a deep sigh.

Why did he have to handle the paperwork for Jin Yi's promotion?!

Though seeing the Alpha's unsmiling face on the acting minister's ID card did leave him feeling rather pleased.

But... The coffee had gone cold...

He reached for the coffee that should have been Jin Yi's.

"Huh?"

It was empty.

Who had drunk it?

"Did you drink my coffee?" he asked the appraiser beside him.

"What coffee?" The appraiser looked baffled. "Oh, right. Deputy Minister Jin Yi took some of the documents on your desk to work on."

"Oh..." Xingyao lowered his eyes.

No wonder there were so many fewer documents...

He probably thought I was too slow again.

He shook the empty cup and tossed it to the Garbage Robot.

Never mind. Better someone drank it than let it go cold.

"By the way, Deputy Minister, I heard Minister Gabi's in trouble. Is Jin Yi going to be the minister now?" The appraiser leaned closer, eager for gossip.

"Only temporarily." Xingyao sorted the documents on his desk, answering casually.

"Come on... What actually happened? They said the director called you away first thing this morning. Tell me, tell me!"

"Nothing." Xingyao brushed the question off. "The director... said not to tell anyone."

His hands paused as he remembered what Shen Que had told him before he left.

"I may be calling on you often for a while. I'll arrange for Jin Yi to cover your share of the work as well. You should know... not to say anything you shouldn't."

Terrifying, really.

Xingyao pursed his lips.

Shen Que truly possessed an innate, oppressive presence.

He sat back down, picked up his own cold coffee, and took a sip, swiping through the photos of the symbiotic stone Shen Que had sent him.

A symbiotic stone of crystalline sand gold and aquamarine.

Wow, this purity... It was almost one hundred percent...

Crystalline sand gold was good stuff. Used as a decorative mecha coating, it could resonate with sand gold to form an exceptionally resistant protective layer.

Unfortunately, it was too rare and too expensive.

Only 3S mecha would even consider using crystalline sand gold as a coating.

In symbiosis with aquamarine, it would also gain the mineral's concealment and color-changing properties.

If only, back then, he...

Back then, he...

Xingyao's finger stopped tapping the screen, and his thoughts drifted.

Scenes from the past surfaced before his eyes once again.

A young mecha student, his hair still short, pushed open the door with blueprints in his arms. His excited voice rang through the room:

"Teacher Lan! I discovered that sapphire has color-changing properties. If we could use it as a decorative mecha coating, perhaps it could produce some new characteristics!"

The mecha professor, wearing thick, round glasses, gently reminded him, "But sapphire lacks stability. It flakes off very easily."

"True." Young Xingyao spread out the blueprints and frowned. "If only there were something that could compensate for that."

He suddenly looked up.

"What about a symbiotic stone?"

"That would be too expensive." Blue Crane smiled helplessly. "Xingyao, your ideas are good, but many of them aren't practical."

"Are they...?"

The young mecha student didn't understand what those words meant.

There were too many ideas in his head, taking up too much of his time.

"Teacher Lan, I think the light mecha designs on the market are too limited. They're all built for ranged attacks. They're clearly lightweight and fast, so why can't we design more close-combat modules for them?"

"Because light mecha can't withstand much damage."

"Why does close combat have to mean taking damage? They could approach the enemy suddenly like assassins, attack in an instant, and retreat just as quickly."

The older professor smiled without speaking, seemingly amused by his naivety.

"Light mecha have too many limitations, Xingyao. You're a very gifted child, and hardworking too. But if you want to achieve results sooner, you should focus on medium mecha and heavy mecha."

"There isn't a single light mecha among the Empire's few 3S mecha. That already says a great deal."

But the boy refused to accept it.

He studied the blueprints intently, as though determined to imprint every component in his mind.

"There's still so much room to improve light mecha, Teacher Lan. The first mecha ever built was a light mecha. There should be a place for them among 3S mecha."

"Just watch, Teacher."

"I'll definitely design a light mecha that can handle both ranged attacks and close combat. It'll become the first 3S light mecha and usher in a new era for light mecha!"

Young and reckless, Xingyao swept back his golden hair, his beautiful eyes shining like gemstones.

The golden sunlight bore witness to the boy's words.

The morning breeze carried away his vow.

That day, the gifted boy, who had yet to taste life's bitterness, looked up through the window at a spotless blue sky, clear as a gemstone.

A white bird flew nimbly through the air, like a lightweight white mecha spreading its wings.

He made a promise to the teacher he admired and trusted most.

"Teacher Lan, if one day I really do design a light mecha like that..."

"I'm going to name him-Cold Glow."