Picking Up An Alpha On Garbage Star - Chapter 76

The Xie household was unusually lively that day. It wasn’t until Pei Zhiyu needed to go to bed that the Pei couple finally took him to sleep, ending what felt like a large-scale family reunion.

Pei An lay on the bed where Xie Yu had slept. Since it was a bed Xie Yu had used for a long time, it carried a faint scent of alpha pheromones, making Pei An feel very secure.

“Are we still going to see Roskin tomorrow?” Xie Yu asked as he came out of the shower, slipped into bed, and hugged Pei An from behind, resting his chin on Pei An’s shoulder.

“No need. His attitude won’t be much different from Clovis Mondrei’s. They’re both very stubborn, and I’m not a teacher of ideological education, so there’s no need to persuade them.” Pei An turned to face Xie Yu and nestled into his arms. “Let’s just sleep in tomorrow.”

Xie Yu stroked Pei An’s soft hair and agreed with a murmur. There was indeed no need to visit Roskin again, as Roskin would only see them as usurpers who had taken his throne, reducing him from a mighty emperor to a convicted criminal facing life imprisonment.

As an emperor, Roskin’s crimes were grave—he failed to mobilize the people to resist foreign invasion, allowed arms dealers to supply the rebels, and permitted the nobility to exploit the common people. However, as the son of the previous emperor, the public showed leniency towards him. They did not demand his execution like they did with Clovis Mondrei, but they did sentence him to life imprisonment, never to return to the Central Star.

For Roskin, this was likely the greatest cruelty.

But they didn’t need to dwell on that now. Today was a good day: they had exchanged rings and met each other’s families.

Although Xie Yu, due to his possessiveness, had referred to the plum blossom necklace he gave Pei An as a “ring,” and despite the humorous moments during the family meeting, overall, it had been a good day.

“An An, do you want to experience a bit of husband life in my bed?” Xie Yu, although just out of a cold shower, was still full of untapped energy from not having fought for a long time, which was pent up in his body.

Pei An took the initiative to kiss Xie Yu and draped his legs over him.

Young AO, nightlife, commenced.

But then it ended.

Pei An’s smart device rang.

Xie Yu, with a dark face, picked up the device to answer the call from Ye Xiuzhe, his whole body radiating anger.

“Speak, what’s the matter?” Xie Yu was on the verge of exploding. Ye Xiuzhe would only contact them for something major if it were something he couldn’t decide on his own.

“Commander, Catherine has shot Roskin,” Ye Xiuzhe sighed. “I wasn’t able to keep an eye on Roskin. Commander, I didn’t complete my mission.”

Xie Yu: “… First explain to me, who is Catherine?”

Ye Xiuzhe: “???” Commander, you’ve even forgotten Princess Catherine.

Pei An and Xie Yu were rudely awakened from their post-bedtime activities and had to dress and leave for the palace in the middle of the night.

“If we had been any later, I wouldn’t have been able to stop,” Xie Yu lamented with a pained expression. “I just wanted to experience husband life; who did I offend?”

Pei An took Xie Yu’s hand and kissed it. “I’ll make it up to you later.”

Xie Yu found it tough—despite having a partner, he still felt like he was living a single life.

Energy consumption on the Central Star was always a huge number. Pei An had ordered the shutdown of many unnecessary lights, so their travel speed wasn’t fast. The people of Central Star were accustomed to bright nights, and it would take time for them to adjust, making driving potentially hazardous.

Shutting off nighttime lights and returning the night to humanity had both supporters and opponents. Supporters believed in survival of the fittest—if humanity always relied on technology to create an Eden-like environment, they would be weak and vulnerable without it. This view was supported by many soldiers of the Independence Army.

Opponents argued that since humanity had created so many technological achievements, they should be used to improve living conditions. Rejecting comfort was seen as self-inflicted hardship.

Pei An showed them what self-inflicted hardship meant by shutting off most of the lights.

Humans should remember to look up at the stars.

Fortunately, Xie Yu’s driving skills were reliable, and they safely arrived at the palace.

Before a formal trial, Roskin was being held in his own quarters, heavily guarded. However, no one expected Roskin’s younger sister would attempt to kill him.

Ye Xiuzhe rushed to meet Pei An and Xie Yu. “Catherine entered Roskin’s quarters under the pretense of trying to persuade him. Her reputation is good among the people, better than Roskin’s, so the soldiers let her in.”

Shortly after, a gunshot was heard. Soldiers rushed into the quarters to find Roskin with a bullet in his heart, bleeding profusely, while Catherine held a small handgun, declaring—“I killed Roskin.”

Catherine was temporarily detained in Roskin’s quarters. The soldiers, not daring to move Roskin’s body, left him lying on the floor, eyes wide open in death.

Catherine, dressed in her princess uniform, sat calmly on the sofa.

“I killed Roskin. I confess,” Catherine said with composure as she saw Pei An and Xie Yu enter.

She was prepared to die in order to kill Roskin.

Xie Yu only remembered this princess when he saw Catherine.

Catherine was the youngest daughter of the late emperor, much younger than Roskin, even a few years younger than You Xingzhou. However, due to her poor health, she rarely appeared in public, so few people knew her. Nonetheless, during the war against the enemies, she established a foundation and donated a lot of supplies to the front lines.

“Princess, may I ask why you want to kill him?” Xie Yu did not believe Catherine was an impulsive person; her formal attire sitting here was proof of that.

Catherine looked at Pei An, and for the first time, there was a hint of fluctuation in her usually calm eyes.

“Hello, Pei An. I am Catherine, a victim of the drugs, just like you.”

“What?” Pei An was astonished. “You were also injected with drugs?”

Catherine nodded lightly. She said, “The drug experiments conducted secretly by the Mondry family were supported by Roskin. Roskin used me for drug experiments because they are very dangerous. If I were to have an accident, he would be the only child of my father, and the throne of the Lyte Empire would forever belong to him and his descendants.”

No wonder she could align herself with Clovis Mondry; they were both extreme thinkers.

“I want to kill Roskin for two reasons. One is to avenge myself; he has made me live for years in a crippled state. The other is to clear my father’s name.” Catherine’s voice was firm.

Their father was such a heroic figure; why would he have a son like Roskin?

Roskin had wronged his father and the Lyte Empire, so he deserved to die.

“Roskin will always be a problem as long as he is alive. He can live for many more years, and as long as he is alive, he is a ticking time bomb. Only when he is dead can the Lyte Empire be reborn,” Catherine said.

Pei An was silent for a long time and then bowed to Catherine.

Catherine was a true princess, and she seemed more like an emperor compared to Roskin.

If the late emperor had not passed away prematurely, he might have trained Catherine to be an excellent successor and then handed over the Lyte Empire to her.

“Do you want to travel around and see different places, Princess?” Pei An asked with a smile. “Perhaps you would like to see the new reforms.”

Xie Yu quickly said, “The Independent Army will ensure the safety of the princess throughout.”

Catherine was surprised. “Aren’t you going to imprison me? I am a royal member with some influence among the people.”

Pei An said calmly, “Do you want the throne, Princess? No, so you can go wherever you like.” Because Catherine would not incite the public to oppose the new regime.

The dignified princess stood up, pinched her skirt, and performed a curtsy. “Thank you for your generosity.”

As for the cause of Roskin’s death, it would be announced that he died from an allergic reaction to the drug he developed himself, and that Clovis Mondry was involved. No one would feel unfair about his passing.

And the real perpetrator—oh, rather, the righteous figure, Ms. Catherine—would continue her journey under the escort of the Independent Army.

However, since Roskin was still an emperor, Pei An and Xie Yu made sure that Roskin was buried with dignity, rather than being burned to ashes immediately. Although Roskin had wronged their father, Catherine decided not to have Roskin buried next to their father, allowing for a more casual burial.

After handling Roskin’s death, Xie Yu drove Pei An home.

The round trip took two star hours, and they arrived home just past midnight.

“Go to sleep,” Xie Yu, no longer preoccupied with his marital life, wrapped his arms around Pei An and urged him to sleep.

Pei An leaned in and gave Xie Yu a goodnight kiss. “Goodnight.”

The Lyte Empire was officially renamed the Lyte Republic. There were many things to handle: political systems to reform, economic systems to change, a new national flag and anthem to decide… and a founding ceremony to organize.

Was that all? Certainly not. There were still many historical issues to address.

The surrendering troops needed to be disbanded and sent home, and the troops that had actively rebelled also needed to be disbanded, though they would receive a severance pay. Active rebels supported the new regime, so their treatment would naturally be different.

The issues with the rebels also needed to be resolved. Besides the extremely guilty ones like Shelly Joyce, who would face trial, there were also war criminals. Pei An decided to establish a war criminal concentration camp to reform them.

Executing these people was also an option, but once they were dead, the rebellion would quickly become history, fading from people’s memories and eventually being forgotten.

Forgetting the past was not a good phenomenon, so Pei An wanted everyone to remember history.

Memorials and museums would be constructed urgently, and activities for schools and businesses to visit would be essential. Additionally, he planned to put war criminals on trial after their ideological reform.

Pei An was learning from past experiences. Once these war criminals were reformed, they would realize the magnitude of their past crimes, regret for the rest of their lives, and spend the rest of their lives atoning for their sins. Their existence would help people with rapidly changing information remember this period of history.

In the intervals of preparing for the founding ceremony, Pei An chose a place as a concentration camp to reform them—Anmo Star, the planet destroyed by biochemical weapons dropped by the rebels.

The task of reforming these war criminals included cleaning up Anmo Star.

Only by sending these people to Anmo Star and having them stay there for an extended period to clean up the effects of the biochemical weapons would they regret faster.

But before that, the founding ceremony had to be prepared first.

“Supreme Leader, the meeting has started!”

“Do you remember you’re the Supreme Leader?”

“Don’t slack off. Get moving!”

Pei An really wanted to throw Ayegud out of the window for a free-fall experience.

“For the sake of our years of friendship, Ayegud, I’m begging you, stop nagging,” Pei An said, nearly in tears. Building a new country was so difficult, and he was originally just a researcher!

Ayegud continued to murmur: “Today we still need to discuss the national flag and anthem. Many talented people have sent us their works. Today, we’ll probably listen to two hours of songs and view four hundred paintings. Some have suggested that we might use the Lyte Empire’s red, yellow, and blue tricolor flag, just changing the horizontal stripes to vertical ones…”

“Stop!” Pei An stood up with determination, forcing a smile. “Isn’t it just a meeting? Let’s go!”

Hopefully, after listening to hundreds of songs today, he wouldn’t have various melodies endlessly echoing in his mind, mixing together for no reason.

Pei An floated into the meeting room, joining the future core members of the republic in the monotonous task of listening to music.

“Today we will listen to tracks 401 to 600 from the shortlist,” said Iris, who had also come to Central Star and was now Pei An’s secretary.

The meeting room was still quite full. Besides Pei An himself, there were Xie Yu, Gu Fan, Ayegud, Xie Rao, Gu Yuanyang, Li Chengrui, Lin Bieyan, and Mr. Oswald, the former finance minister of the Lyte Empire, whom Pei An had invited back, among others.

Let’s just say, whoever is out on a mission at this time is really lucky.

“Alright, let’s start,” Pei An tried hard to mask his pain under a calm façade.

Each song only had a one-minute preview. After listening, all attendees gave their opinions, and then the next song played. This meant they could do nothing else today, and they had no chance of getting off work on time.

Everyone: 🙂

Pei An had listened to all the songs of his life over the past two days. After experiencing absurdities like spoken word and rap in songs, he had Iris supervise the song review and deduct wages for any bizarre songs.

This was the third day. Thanks to Pei An’s threat of wage deductions, today’s submitted songs were more normal, but the sheer number was still overwhelming. After all, with a population of several billion, there were always ten or twenty billion people with musical talents.

Help…!

“I said, I’m from the Science Department; can I go back to my research?” Li Chengrui knew that when Xiao Xue and Yan Yuefei insisted on pushing him to be the Science Department head, it was only a matter of time before trouble arose. His brain now had no formulas or theorems, only melodies—countless melodies.

Sticking to the principle of “misery loves company,” Li Chengrui was forcibly held in the meeting room by the dizzy, tortured crowd.

No one was allowed to leave!

Pei An was almost becoming a broken record. The phrase he repeated the most these days was “Next song.” He was worried that when he got home and lay in bed, he might accidentally say “Next song” while calling Xie Yu. That would be so embarrassing.

Xie Yu wasn’t much better. This was the first time he had felt what it was like to be completely exhausted—not physically, but mentally.

As a marshal, the first major task of selecting the national anthem and flag nearly drove him to collapse.

The circumstances of founding the Lyte Empire back then were different from today, so they couldn’t rely on past examples. However, choosing the national anthem and flag was something that required utmost care, so they had to torment themselves through the selection process.

Pei An was glad they still had enough manpower to handle other tasks because, during the time they spent choosing the national anthem and flag, they couldn’t deal with many other things.

“Today’s two hundred songs are finished,” Iris reminded.

Fortunately, the secretarial department had many people, so they could take turns playing the songs. Otherwise, they would have gone mad.

“Finished already?” Pei An was so dazed that he could barely tell what time it was.

“Does anyone have any comments?”

“The songs did not reflect the difficulties of establishing the country. I suggest we also screen the lyrics during the selection process, filtering out those with poorly written or problematic lyrics,” Gu Fan weakly suggested.

“Why didn’t you think of this sooner, you brat!” Gu Yuanyang wanted to kick his son.

Gu Fan: “I could think of it, but you couldn’t, Father.”

Gu Yuanyang: “…” He wanted to hit his son again.

Sigh, forget it, no strength left to do that.

“Then let’s strengthen the initial screening. If we don’t find any favorites, we’ll move on to the flag designs,” Pei An signaled Iris to switch.

At seven in the evening, Pei An, Xie Yu, and Xie Rao, the father and son, went home together.

Xie Rao dutifully took the passenger seat, raised the partition, and leaned back for a nap, while Pei An and Xie Yu settled in the back seat.

After the car door closed, Pei An immediately fell into Xie Yu’s arms. Within moments, his breathing became steady, and he fell asleep.

He used to be able to work late nights in the lab, but now he was exhausted from listening to too many songs, despite his extremely strong mental stamina.

Even Xie Yu’s boundless energy couldn’t withstand it. After making sure Pei An was comfortably held, he also leaned back and fell asleep.

When the hover car returned to the Xie family home, You Xingzhou came out to greet them, and they saw the attendants calling people one by one to get up, as they had arrived home.

“I feel like I just closed my eyes, and now we’re already home,” Pei An rubbed his eyes as he got out of the hover car.

Xie Yu held Pei An’s hand. “Let’s go, time to sleep.”

You Xingzhou asked, “Aren’t you going to have a late-night snack?” Didn’t they say they were very hungry yesterday?

Pei An, exhausted, replied, “Eat…”