The flower pot placed to the side was already empty.

The youth before him was as beautiful as a carefully painted oil painting, as if a single touch could easily destroy him. Audrose hesitated for a moment, not having the courage to step forward.

As a result of this hesitation, he saw the youth's spirit body that had shrunk to the size of a palm eagerly jump down from the table, then enlarge in size, lower its head and enthusiastically start licking the youth on the table, constantly making smacking sounds.

There were also little startled cries escaping from the youth's mouth: "Ticklish..."

The tender, water-pinchable beautiful youth before his eyes vanished in an instant, leaving only a lump of blackness.

Audrose: !!!

Although he understood that the spirit body was actually himself, for some reason, in that instant, Audrose still felt a sense of green light emanating from his head.

Very quickly, the sensation of the youth's delicate soft skin and the faint bittersweet scent from his body were transmitted to him through the empathic effect of the spirit body. Audrose's Adam's apple bobbed as he took a deep breath, then controlled his spirit body to return to the higher dimensional space before stepping forward to cover the youth.

He propped one arm beside the youth and placed the other on his shoulder, firmly imprisoning the person within the scope of his embrace.

Only when his palm touched the warm skin did he finally confirm that his little slave had returned.

His eyes grew hot and his throat welled with a salty bitterness. Accompanying the joy of recovering what was lost, there was also an uncontrollable panic.

Seeing him like this, Su Duan was a bit flustered. He carefully reached out to touch his cheek and very softly called out to him: "Audro."

That scamming prop had arbitrarily changed him into his original form, and it wasn't even free shipping. Only after he complained did they help change the parameters for him.

But it seemed like changing it didn't make it much better—

The loading time for the new form actually took a whole ten years!

When Su Duan received this news, he was so dejected he almost cried—if a piece of Poria could actually shed tears.

Moreover, the place he loaded into was overgrown with flowers, making him even more upset.

Fortunately, Audrose quickly found him and rescued him from the flower thicket.

Audrose reached out to grasp Su Duan's hand resting on his cheek. Like a large dog, he lightly rubbed his cheek against his soft palm, as if wanting to confirm something, and hoarsely asked: "This time... will you stay?"

When he asked this question, his heart suddenly ached with a fine pain.

It was as if in a period of time and space that he couldn't remember, he seemed to have lost his most beloved person. That pain was engraved in his soul and couldn't be erased even if he changed bodies.

Su Duan hurriedly nodded: "Mm, mm, I'll always be with you."

He thought for a bit, organized his words, and prepared to explain the background information that came with the prop: "Um, actually, I'm not from this star domain..."

The universe was vast and filled with all kinds of life forms, like those with only one eye, those with three legs, those with more than one head... So a race that was a plant in its youth or when its power was exhausted and turned into a human after reaching adulthood wasn't all that unimaginable.

The moment he returned to this world, the setting for this race was automatically added to the world's background information.

"Shh." Audrose used his fingertip to block his slightly parted lips, his voice carrying an undeniable hoarseness: "We won't talk about those things now."

Su Duan widened his eyes with his mouth blocked and made a questioning "wu wu" sound.

"Now, let's have dinner first," Audrose said.

Have dinner...?

Shouldn't he be released in order to have dinner? Why was he getting even closer instead?

It wasn't until Audrose's kiss fell that Su Duan suddenly realized the dinner to be eaten wasn't dinner, but him.

There were still saliva marks left by the dragon on Su Duan's neck and shoulders. Audrose lowered his head and kissed each of those marks again in turn.

His gaze shifted to the waist where the brand he had tattooed on Su Duan remained—

A small, flat, round black potato with two small leaves on top, exactly the same as the plant he had raised for ten years.

When he tattooed this mark back then, he only felt it was a somewhat farcical coincidence, but looking at it now, perhaps some hints had appeared by his side very early on and he was just too slow to realize it at the time.

With a hint of reverent carefulness, Audrose bent down deeply and lightly kissed the little black potato.

Dusk was just right, and His Highness the Prince's vacation was still very long.

......

Two months later, Audrose's starship landed in the encrypted zone of the Delaire Empire's capital planet's interstellar port.

Looking at this starship whose hull was already somewhat old after ten years, Avid couldn't help but feel his nose sour.

Big Brother had really been... gone for too long.

Once the starship had completely stabilized, he impatiently went up to the side of the ship's door and waited with anticipation for the person to come out. His spirit body had also exited the higher dimensional space and was restlessly pacing back and forth on the landing pad.

The Emperor, who had also been waiting here for several hours, silently followed behind him, not daring to get too close.

Half a minute later, the ship's door slid open to both sides and a tall figure that hadn't been seen for a long time walked out from the cabin door, bringing with him a cold aura.

"Big Brother!"

As soon as he saw the person, Avid's spirit body let out a bark and rushed forward, wanting to hug his leg.

As a result, just as its head lowered and before it could even touch the person's pant leg, its eyes suddenly widened as if it had seen something terrifying—

Seeing the slender figure peeking out a little from behind his big brother, an unbelievable thought surged in Avid's mind.

By the time that slender figure fully revealed his face, Avid's expression could no longer be described as just dazed.

No matter what, he never imagined that his big brother would bring a person back from this long journey, and this person was even an acquaintance he probably could never forget.

—After all, it was the person who had neatly chopped him unconscious and snatched away his mecha.

Although the matter of Su Duan's mysterious disappearance back then had been suppressed by Audrose using his authority, based on those bits and pieces of information, he could probably guess the before and after of the matter.

No one could survive in the cracks of the universe for more than a day. This was an iron rule recognized throughout the entire star domain.

However, Su Duan's behavior back then was indeed very strange. Not only did he use his weak body to knock him down and snatch the mecha, but he was also able to silently bypass the system and drive the mecha out of the base, only being discovered a few minutes later. This in itself was not logical.

Those questions that were not figured out back then resurfaced in Avid's mind, but the most direct feeling was—

His neck hurt.

The blow that Su Duan used to knock him out back then really hurt. And for some reason, even the healing device could not completely relieve that pain. He just lived with the pain for two days and couldn't even sleep well.

Even when his elder brother disciplined him, he would not really hit him hard and would at most just exhaust him. So for Prince Avid, who had been pampered all the way and had never been beaten to the point of fainting, the first severe blow he suffered in his life was deeply remembered.

Now seeing Su Duan, his neck began to ache again with a neurological reflex, still throbbing.

The spiritual body that originally wanted to hug his elder brother's thigh also cautiously retracted its head, stuck out its butt, and slowly retreated to his side.

Su Duan took the initiative to show a smile, with a clear friendly meaning.

Looking at the pure and harmless smile on the black-haired boy's face, Avid only felt that his neck hurt even more, and his mood was complicated.

— He originally thought his sister-in-law was a weak and delicate little package, but one day, he steadily and ruthlessly smashed his dog head.

While Avid was in a complicated mood, the Emperor was also unable to stay calm.