Li Linghai was still silent, as if he had turned a deaf ear to his brother's interrogation.
However, Li Yao vaguely noticed that thousands of cracks were appearing on the invisible mask on her face, and the feelings in the deepest part of her heart were slowly leaking out.
Sensing his sister's subtle changes, Li Lingfeng was even more satisfied. "If you cannot give a reasonable explanation, Your Grace, I do have an immature speculation here.
"Perhaps, a lot of things happened between the young female warrior and the refiner of the Holy League deep inside the mysterious world fragment, but she kept it a secret and did not report it to the family.
"What happened at the beginning should've been true. The exploration squads of the two parties did have a gory battle. Most of them died together. She and the refiner of the Holy League were the only survivors. With her combat ability, it was naturally easy for her to capture the guy and keep him alive so that she could repair the starship and explore the world fragment with the guy's skills in refining.
"But in the half year that followed, when the man and the woman were alone together, there was no telling what happened between them. Their relationship far exceeded the boundary of captive and enemy, and they developed passionate feelings for each other.
"It's unbelievable, isn't it? By logic, a well-trained Immortal Cultivator who is loyal to the Imperium will never fall in love with someone from the Holy League.
"The people of the Holy League, on the other hand, are all human-shaped machines who have highly controlled and completely annihilated their feelings. How can they boast the ability of 'love'?
"Therefore, in the past hundred years, nobody thought in that direction.
"But when I was thinking about the whole thing, I suddenly had an epiphany. Was it possible that certain anomalies were hidden in the mysterious world fragment itself, such as traps, rune arrays, or ancient relics and heritages, and that the two of them had some sort of fortuitous encounter during the exploration of the relics and received something that interfered with their souls and caused … certain mutations to both of them?
"The mutation allowed the refiner of the Covenant Alliance to break the barrier of the 'Three Fundamental Laws' and gain the ability to fall in love with someone for the first time in her life. In the meantime, it also gave the female warrior who was' weak, innocent, kind, and unsophisticated 'a certain dark heart that even the big shots of the family and the loyalty test could not pry into?
"On second thought, at least for the refiners of the Holy League, the conjecture was very likely to be true.
"A 'human-shaped machine' who had never tasted feelings and was suppressed by barriers suddenly had the shackles completely shattered one day. For the first time in his life, he learned what love, hate, and the natural-born impulses of human beings. At that moment, he happened to have a glamorous, beautiful woman next to him. Wasn't it only natural that he fell in love with her wholeheartedly and dutifully?
"The female warrior, on the other hand, was away from her family for the first time in the depths of the unknown sea of stars when she was caught in a cosmic storm and the annihilation of her entire army. It was inevitable that her soul was greatly shaken. Now that she was in the perilous, mysterious world fragment, it was not strange that she considered the refiner of the Holy League, the only man next to her, as her only reliance and gradually grew feelings for him, right?
"I can even imagine what kind of clumsy and scorching way the refiner of the Holy League, who had just been unsealed and whose desires and instincts were unleashed, would have used to express his love.
"In the family, the female warriors who only know how to train and fight have never faced such a situation before. Their hearts are broken, and their minds are in a mess. Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk. It is only natural that they would throw themselves at him!"
Crack! Crack! "
The ground below Li Linghai's feet was torn apart in deafening noises. The cracks extended to all directions like dragons in an appalling way.
Li Yao, however, secretly frowned. He knew that it was a sign that Li Linghai had lost control of his spiritual energy because of the instability of his belief. It was not a good thing.
It seemed that Li Lingfeng had indeed poked his sore spot.
Li Jialing was breathing fast, too, and it was almost impossible for him to stabilize his stealth state. Li Yao felt that it was already impressive that the young man could hold himself back for so long after eavesdropping on such shocking intelligence.
Li Lingfeng's gloating was almost flowing out of every pore on his face. He went on, "It's a pity that the night of spring is always short. The unfortunate couple from the hostile side could not hide in the world fragment forever after all. After the starships were repaired, the two of them had to part ways.
"After the female warrior returned, she reported that she had killed the refiner of the Holy League in person. Was it true? I'm more inclined to think otherwise. Perhaps, the two of them repaired their starships with the resources in the world fragments. Then, each of them drove one starship and returned to their own side. They would be separated from each other from then on, keeping the relationship that must not be leaked to anyone else deep in their hearts.
"Perhaps, the female warrior thought that it was just a minor episode in her life, and she would forget everything very soon. Even if she could not, she would only consider the memory as a collection in her heart that she could play with once in a while.
"But she underestimated her desire for … love as a sentimental woman.
"It was especially so when, as a tool of the family, she was forced to marry a man that she did not love at all and went to the heart of the Imperium, the swirl of power, alone, where she had to accept the orders of the family to monitor and even control her husband for the rest of her life. The cold and dark contrast turned the 'beautiful memories' in the world fragment into thorns that were flowing with venom and gradually grew inside her chest, entangling her internal organs, limbs, and veins!
"Perhaps, she had never loved her husband, had she?
"Even though she tried to forget everything in the past and transfer her feelings for the refiner of the Holy League to her husband, the orders from the family forbade her from doing so. She was not allowed to have any feelings for her husband, which would interfere with the great cause of the four Kurfürst families to control the Imperium!
"Or rather, I'm very suspicious about whether or not she really loved the twelve children that she had with her husband.
"Those children were not the ones that she really wanted to have. It was only because she had no choice that she extracted her life seeds and gave birth to them.
"She did not have any feelings for those children at all. Whenever she saw her husband and those children, she would think of her desperate fate and become even more desperate!
"Such desperation reached the peak the year when her husband turned from 'crown prince' into 'emperor'.
"Perhaps before that, she had fantasized that an accident might happen, and another prince might become the emperor, or even that her husband might simply die abruptly. After all, too many crown princes died abruptly in the history of the Imperium.
"In such a case, her life in the future would be slightly freer. It was even possible for her to escape from the center of the swirl of power.
"But when the crown prince turned into His Majesty, and she turned from the crown princess into the empress, she would be caged in the cage of desperation in the capital of the Imperium forever!
"In her desperation, or under the interference of certain feelings that other people did not know, she did a shocking and audacious thing on her impulse.
"She secretly extracted one of her life seeds and unfroze the life seed of her lover from the Holy League that she had secretly kept for decades. Combining them into an embryo, she found a way to get an unmanned exploration starship. After modification, it boasted the abilities of automatic navigation and the survival of human children.
"She put the embryo into the unmanned exploration starship, set the destination to the edge of the Imperium, and launched the embryo out!
"Why did she do that?
"Perhaps, after giving birth to so many 'biological children' in a row who had no feelings for her, she craved to have a child that she really wanted to have with the person that she really loved?
"Perhaps, she regarded the child as some sort of incarnation of herself and hoped that the child could replace her and go to a place where nobody could find her. She hoped that the child could live a free, unrestrained life far away from slaughter, conflicts, schemes, deceit, and betrayal.
"Perhaps, it was even her silent rebellion against her family?
"Or rather, was it possible that she wanted the child to find the man, her lover from the Holy League who had broken free from the restraint of the 'Three Fundamental Laws'?
"Can you tell me the answer, Your Grace, my … good sister?"
Li Linghai slightly shivered. His calmness when he arrived at the beginning completely collapsed.
"You have a vivid imagination."
Li Linghai narrowed his eyes and sniffed. "It's a shame that you are not a culture-type Immortal Cultivator."
"Hehehehe. It has nothing to do with imagination. It's purely computational ability and deduction ability."
Li Lingfeng tapped his head softly and said, "Did you know that I've spent thirty years drawing a 'personality portrait' on you without leaving out any detail? Also, we are born from the same mother after all. Let's not talk about 'telepathy', but at the very least, we have a lot of similar ideas. After thirty years of repetitive deductions and calculations, I believe that my speculation is at least 70% correct.
"You don't need to deny it. Let me finish. The most exciting part is here. In fact, the story is rather warm and sweet to this point. It's perfectly normal for a woman to do stupid things on impulse after being captured by love, isn't it?
"But our queen is no ordinary woman. She is a woman who had a certain fortuitous encounter in the mysterious world fragment, which led to weird changes in the deepest part of her heart. She has also been soaked in the swirls of power for so many years!
"Power is a drug that you will never be able to get rid of once you are contaminated by it. You will only sink deeper and deeper into it and become more and more addicted to it.
"Having soaked in the swirls of power for decades, the queen was already unwilling to be a simple puppet and tool of the family. She had other plans and intended to seize the supreme power. The fetus that was a combination of the bloodlines of her and the people of the Holy League was obviously a product of her impulse. It was obviously a great weakness and loophole. Once it was discovered, there would be dire consequences.
"Therefore, almost the moment the unmanned exploration warship was launched, she regretted it, or rather, 'woke up'.
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