Yunyang had asked the question tentatively. She still felt that the point the Empress had cared about last time was rather strange.
But, just as had happened many times before, Yun Conglan did not reply.
It was nighttime, so it was perfectly normal for Yun Conglan not to answer her messages.
And yet Yunyang had a feeling that her mother was deliberately ignoring this particular message.
Perhaps that was a child’s intuition when it came to their parent?
Yunyang was suspicious, but she had no way to confirm anything, so she could only set the matter aside for now and turn to reply to the messages from her other contacts one by one.
Most of the people who knew her new address were family members. Like Yun Shaoqi, they had also prepared housewarming gifts for her.
The Federation Express was efficient enough. When Yunyang woke up the next day, the robotic butler had already brought in the parcels it had signed for. There were six of them in total, and every one was enormous.
Yunyang opened them one by one. Everything inside had been chosen according to her preferences. Her tastes overlapped almost perfectly with the original owner’s. Aside from their views on romantic partners, they were virtually identical in every other way.
At times like this, Yunyang would become a little dazed, feeling that the original owner might be another version of herself from a parallel world.
Of course, that sounded even more outrageous than transmigrating into another world.
Yunyang shook her head, cutting off that train of thought, and called over her eight beast husbands to put away the housewarming gifts.
Just as Yunyang finished unpacking the parcels, several of her beast husbands prepared breakfast.
After eating, she opened her terminal and contacted Lao Wei and Jenkins first, telling them that beginning tomorrow, she could reopen her purification slots.
Although You Lu had said the day before that she could do the same, Yunyang still asked for her opinion.
Only after receiving an affirmative answer did she send another message to Lao Wei and Jenkins:
“You Lu’s purification slots will also open tomorrow. There are only fifty group-purification slots, and the booking requirement is still an ability rank of A or above.”
Male beastmen below Rank A were not yet in need of help from her and Lulu.
Lao Wei replied quickly:
“Understood, Lady Yunyang. I’ll make the arrangements right away.”
Jenkins sent a message immediately afterward:
“I’ll prepare purification rooms for both of you at once.”
Ten minutes later, the reservation website opened the purification slots of two S-rank ladies at the same time.
The single male beastmen who had been suffering from contamination were stunned at first.
Everyone knew that Lady Yunyang would be opening purification slots, but nobody had said that Lady You Lu would be opening hers as well!
If they managed to book both at the same time, wouldn’t that mean they could be purified by two S-rank ladies in a single day?
The male beastmen without female partners erupted in excitement. The moment they realized what was happening, they began making reservations.
The result was that the two ladies’ combined total of 102 purification slots was completely booked before they had even recovered from their initial shock.
“I can’t believe this! Who was that fast? I only hesitated for one second, and all of Lady Yunyang’s and Lady You Lu’s slots were already gone!”
“You hesitated at a time like this? You deserved to miss out.”
“How do you know I managed to book a purification slot with Lady Yunyang?”
“I got one with Lady You Lu! This is great—I won’t be dragged off to the purification tower for supervision anymore! Thank you, both ladies! Thank you, Beast God!”
“What purification slots? I suspect this is a plot by the insect race. How about this? Transfer your slots to me, and I’ll go investigate on your behalf.”
“Hey, buddy, your scheme is practically bouncing all the way to the frontier stars!”
Because both ladies had opened their purification slots at the same time, the Star Network became livelier than ever. Even people who rarely posted online were drawn out of hiding.
Yunyang found the beastmen’s comments amusing and browsed through them for quite a while.
Her eight beast husbands sat beside her to keep her company.
Yunyang took a sip of the warm water Fu Shiyi handed her, then suddenly remembered the question that had been bothering her the night before.
“Fu Shiyi, besides the Federation’s three major star clusters and the Wasteland Star, are there any other star systems?”
The only places in the Federation suitable for extended stays were the X Star Cluster and the S Star Cluster, and even those contained some planets with extremely harsh environments.
There were plenty of planets in the two star clusters, but not so many that it would take three or four years to explore them all.
She had reasonable grounds to suspect that the Federation possessed other star clusters as well.
“The Federation’s territory contains only these,” Fu Shiyi said as he took the cup from her and set it aside. “But outside the Federation, there are indeed other star systems in the galaxy. They’re known as the Extraterritorial Star Systems.”
“The Federation once sent people to explore those star systems, but none of the beastmen they dispatched ever returned. The terminal signals also disappeared.”
“After that, the Federation abandoned its attempts to explore the Extraterritorial Star Systems.”
Although beastmen were not as fertile as the insect race, their reproductive abilities were still formidable. The previous Emperors of the Federation had all believed that the three major star clusters would eventually become insufficient to accommodate the beastmen population.
But with the Extraterritorial Star Systems impossible to explore, the Federation had no solution.
This was the first time Yunyang had heard the term “Extraterritorial Star Systems.” She was startled at first and instinctively wondered whether Yun Conglan might have gone there.
But after hearing Fu Shiyi’s explanation, she dismissed the idea.
So there was no terminal signal in the Extraterritorial Star Systems.
If her mother had gone there, it would be impossible for her to reply to Yunyang’s messages from time to time.
Perhaps she really had been overthinking things. Maybe her mother was simply having too much fun to want to come back.
Yunyang did not continue the topic and spent the entire day lounging at home.
After dinner came the daily main event.
Pei Wenye and Fuyuan’s tokens had been temporarily confiscated, so only six tokens remained tonight.
Yunyang swore that she truly had not peeked, but somehow, she had turned over the fox jade token.
The little fox’s luck really was extraordinary.
Chen Yueli was practically green with envy.
They were both new beast husbands, and both had successfully matched with their female master on the same day. Yet the fox had been chosen twice already, while he still had not been marked by his female master.
The Beast God was being completely unfair to him!
The other beast husbands were envious of Leonardo too, but they took it in stride.
Their turn would come sooner or later. The earlier they were chosen, the longer they would have to wait before their next turn.
They weren’t in a hurry.
Really.
When Yunyang turned over his token and then fell silent, Leonardo assumed that she had been dissatisfied with his performance the last time. He asked nervously, “Female master, why don’t you draw again?”
“No need.” Yunyang shook her head and put the fox jade token into her spatial ring. “It’s you.”
She had merely been wondering whether, if the little fox was this lucky, she would have to stop using a lottery-like method whenever she wanted to give him extra attention in the future.
Otherwise, it would be the little fox every single time. She was afraid she might grow tired of it.
But she did not need to worry about that yet.
Yunyang held out her hand to Leonardo. “Carry me to the bath.”
The moment his token was taken away, Leonardo could barely contain his excitement.
He fought to suppress the smile that was trying to spread across his face, then lifted Yunyang from the sofa.
The little fox worked hard all night and still wanted to continue his morning exercises the next day.
Yunyang was worried that it would interfere with her trip to the purification tower that afternoon, so she refused to indulge him.
The moment Leonardo learned that she was going to the purification tower on Central Star, he immediately abandoned the idea. As if by magic, he took out a bowl of golden crab-roe porridge from his preservation space ring.
“Female master, eat this before you go back to sleep.”
At the fragrance of the crab-roe porridge, Yunyang opened her weary eyes and forced herself to drink half a small bowl before collapsing back into sleep.
The remaining half bowl went into Leonardo’s stomach.
Knowing how exhausted Yunyang was, he first put away the empty bowl, then carefully carried her to the bathroom to brush her teeth.
