Chapter 21
Chapter 21
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 21
Chapter Title: The Emperor's Jealousy
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In that instant, Heinrich's expression was one of pure fury—not the irritation of an emperor fielding a stupid question from a subordinate, but the rage of an Alpha whose mate was being eyed by another.
The researcher hadn't yet realized just how close he was to death when several colleagues hurriedly clamped a hand over his mouth and dragged him away. "No, no, Your Majesty, that's not what he meant. We've got all the answers we need..."
Heinrich ignored them completely, scooping Gavin up into his arms and striding out.
His ears were ringing, his mind foggy and dazed, every action driven by raw instinct. By the time he snapped out of it, he found himself in the bedchamber. Gavin had finally stopped his dry heaving in Heinrich's arms and, utterly spent, rasped, "Could you put me down first?"
"..."
Heinrich set him down in an armchair and stepped back half a pace.
By now, he had wrestled free from the whirlwind of frenzy and chaos, that sliver of reason he'd clawed back filling him with gnawing doubt. Was this really Gavin Celia? Was there even a one-in-ten-thousand chance... no, one-in-a-million chance... that he wasn't?
—Heinrich couldn't be blamed for his paranoia. Resurrection was too fantastical a notion, especially when it came to Gavin Celia, who meant far too much and was far too pivotal to him.
Gavin leaned his head back against the chair, his face ashen as he caught his breath for a moment before asking hoarsely, "Are your questions answered?"
"...What?"
"About the Phoenix's cockpit?"
"No," Heinrich replied on reflex. "Not yet."
The vast chamber held only the two of them, silent all around. Heinrich stared at Gavin, his long-frozen thoughts beginning to churn slowly. Had he not regained his memories? Were those flashes and images just a brief surge from brainstem stimulation, vanishing once the trigger faded, leaving nothing behind?
And were those memories even real? Were they fragments Celia had carried over in the soul refraction to this body, or a program Edna had pre-loaded?
—From Heinrich's experience, anything involving Edna meant endless schemes and conspiracies.
That woman knew exactly how vital Celia was to him. To keep him from claiming the Phoenix's cockpit, she might have cloned a Celia, injected him with fabricated memory code, tricking him into believing the marshal had returned—and thus abandoning any plans to use Celia's DNA for heirs.
It sounded far-fetched, but with Edna's resources, nothing was impossible. So was this boy before him a duplicate laced with false memories, or the marshal who'd lost his recollections in the soul refraction?
Gavin pressed hard at his brow with his fingers, shook his head helplessly after a moment, and sighed. "Can I rest for a bit?"
The gesture was so familiar it made Heinrich's heart skip a beat. He replied stiffly, "Yeah... sure. Rest up."
He turned and took two steps, then glanced back as if to ask something—but bit the words back. He pivoted again toward the door, only to bash his wrist against the frame with a stiff "Bang!" at the threshold.
"..."
Gavin watched with an expression beyond words as the emperor stumbled out, all awkward limbs.
Heinrich didn't go far before ducking into the study out of habit. The female attendant saw the emperor shuffle in, face vacant and soul-lost, and assumed his pursuit of that Omega cadet had gone south. With impeccable tact, she withdrew, even closing the door behind her.
"Your concerns are well-founded," Bian remarked as the study emptied, materializing from the light brain. "Alliance soul refraction tech never appears in any records—it's pure legend even now."
"...But he feels like Celia," the emperor murmured. "When he looks at me, it's like Celia himself is standing right there, alive..."
"So we need to confirm if those memories are genuine events or fabrications from Miss Edna. That's tricky, Your Majesty. The marshal had too many experiences—only a fraction were ever public. We have no way to verify them."
Heinrich frowned in silence.
He knew Bian was right.
Celia had been born over five centuries ago, in the Alliance's golden age. His pre-military life was a black box to outsiders; all anyone knew was the sanitized sliver the government released.
To the Alliance, the man was a myth—everything he showed the world polished to perfection, every achievement a shining beacon.
But he'd lived over five hundred years, seen far too much. In that endless span, countless shadows, memories, and secrets lurked beyond the gentle mask of his public face, vanishing with his death, lost forever.
Heinrich narrowed his eyes, those fragments resurfacing— the momentary bewilderment at death, the warm afternoon sun, and... that dark, chill corridor...
"Yunes." The emperor spat out the name abruptly.
"What?"
"Yunes—Celia called him a sewer rat." Heinrich whipped toward Bian. "Celia never talked like that. Whoever he described that way wasn't a nobody. We can look up who Yunes is!"
Bian fired up the registry search instantly. Gavin's mental threshold was sky-high, the memory vivid; Yunes's pale, brooding face captured in crystal clarity. Bian scoured fifty years of Imperial records with name and image, sifting thousands of matches—nothing. Then it pivoted to Alliance census data.
The task was a monumental slog, but minutes later, Bian gave up.
"Sorry, Your Majesty. Alliance policy only retains three centuries of records, but this 'Yunes' from the marshal's memory dates back four or five hundred years... Whether he's even alive is anyone's guess."
Heinrich's brow twitched sharply.
To linger in Celia's memories for four centuries, Yunes had to be a crucial lead—proof his line of thinking was spot-on.
But the first emotion surging through Heinrich wasn't triumph, but a vicious, wordless jealousy.
He recoiled on instinct, nearly bolting up to interrogate Gavin right then.
"Your Majesty?" Bian asked, puzzled.
"...Nothing. It's nothing." Heinrich slumped into his chair, realizing he'd surrendered once more to Alpha mating instincts.
"My Omega, mine from start to finish—no other Alpha allowed in his head"—Heinrich had lived two centuries without feeling that urge, but he knew it: possessiveness.
Etched in the genes, the root of all that reviled Alpha chauvinism.
"There's one way to prove the memory's authenticity," Bian said cautiously, eyeing the emperor's face. "But we'd need to dissect the marshal's... um."
Heinrich rasped, "Check if he died as an Alpha?"
"Yes, and if there's a resonator in his brain. From my analysis of Alliance tech, soul refraction requires specific conditions: One, the deceased has an ultra-high mental threshold, soul lingering seconds after death. Two, the original's brain resonator pairs perfectly with the duplicate's receiver, wavelengths in sync."
"The marshal's threshold was always off the charts—condition one met. He has a receiver now; if the cockpit corpse's brain has a matching resonator..."
Bian trailed off. After a beat, Heinrich let out a cold laugh. "No wonder even Caroline blocked me from Celia's DNA. She knew about the soul refraction too."
Unlike Edna, Caroline was staunchly pro-Alliance. If the Empire could one day pivot to a federal parliament via Celia's heirs, she'd dismantle the Phoenix without batting an eye.
Yet here she was, siding with Edna against it. The only explanation: dismantling the Phoenix wouldn't help.
Either no corpse inside, or it was an Alpha. And if Heinrich sniffed it out, the secret of Celia's revival would unravel.
Heinrich gripped the chair arms tight. After a long moment, "Bang!"—his fist slammed the desk!
Bian jolted, zipping to the study corner at light speed. Only when the emperor's face softened did it timidly drift back for a loop around him.
"Your Majesty..."
"They dared deceive me on Celia," the emperor growled, each word forced through clenched teeth. "They dared deceive me like this!"
"Your Majesty—" Bian fretted, swallowing the suggestion to consult General Aaron.
Alpha possessiveness was terrifying enough; Aaron always knew how to play cute and win the marshal's favor... Better wait till this blew over and the emperor had marked his prize.
Bian was deep in solemn thought when a knock sounded at the study door. The female attendant's voice drifted in cautiously from outside. "Your Majesty, Dean Edna Consertlin is requesting a comm link... Shall I patch her through?"
Heinrich's face shifted subtly, then twisted into a cold smirk.
Right on cue. Everything proceeding exactly as planned.
He straightened, smoothing the sleeves he'd ravaged in his rage. His hands steadied through the motions, his expression cooling to detached cruelty, eyes gleaming with chill menace.
All done, he looked up and said flatly, "Patch her in."