The Mad King's Heir

Li Jun was eager to get his grandpa off his back, so he did the most effective thing he could do, which was giving the man an early birthday gift. Ever since he was a child, he would mail gifts to his grandpa behind his father’s back.

Draco, no matter what he gave him, would treasure it and display it in his office. His grandfather would even take down his precious inventions to proudly display the gifts he brought him.

He placed the box on the table with a proud smile like he had just done something noteworthy. Draco asked, "What is that?"

"Open it," he replied impatiently to see his grandpa’s reaction.

Draco wasn’t fooled. How could he not know what Li Jun was thinking? His mother used to behave the very same way. He scolded, "You kid, you think you can distract me by giving me gifts? I wasn’t born yesterday."

Li Jun didn’t say anything. He just pursed his lips with a stifled smile. The old man opened the box and looked inside. His eyes widened in surprise. Li Jun asked, "Do you like it?"

"The fuck do you mean by do I like it? Of course, I like it. How the hell did you get your hands on this?" The ’this’ he was talking about was a rare, high-grade regenerative energy core that was forged from the collapsed heart of a neutron star.

It had self-healing properties, infinite-cycle stability and adaptive intelligence, optimizing any system it powered. It was the ultimate power source of war mechs. Only a handful of them existed and at an auction, this could cost a whopping 4.7 million StarCoins.

So how did Li Jun get his hands on it? "I have my ways," he said, acting all mysterious. Draco knew that no auction house had announced having such an energy core otherwise, he would have been the highest bidder.

"Why are you acting all mysterious? Just tell me," he said, wishing he could shake the answer out of him.

Li Jun, seeing that he had succeeded, happily said, "Remember one of the companies my father left me. MX Dynamic Consortium." Draco remembered that it mined and researched energy cores. It wasn’t even among the top-ranking companies in that field, but now he understands why. It was because they were shifting focus to orbiting neutron stars, collecting rare energy materials, and forging powerful cores.

Draco was dumbfounded. "You did that?"

Looking smug, he said, "We can supply endless power to Blue Sapphire in case war breaks out in the future."

"Wasn’t it expensive? It is rare for a reason," he asked, wondering why Li Jun didn’t come to him for the funds and manpower. He was his only family after all.

Li Jun said, "That would spoil the surprise. Now you can power up Kael. You said it couldn’t run for a full battle cycle with the energy cores on the market, so I shifted the company’s focus to come up with the ultimate energy source." Kael was the ultimate mech his grandfather worked on for decades.

It was a colossal war machine with self-healing properties, an adaptive armor and weaponry system that moved at thought-speed through a neural link. It was packed with graviton blades and plasma cannons. As it stood, it was the most advanced combat machine to date but it didn’t have the right energy source.

Hearing this, Draco almost cried. How could his little Jun Jun be so thoughtful? It pained his heart to see how Aurelia hated him and scolded him day and night. If they only knew that the reason Aurelia hadn’t collapsed was because of him. If all his contributions were removed from the equation, they would descend into chaos. "You did it all for me?" he asked, feeling a little sour.

Li Jun said, "Who else would I do it for? You can play with your toys all you want now," using the same tone his grandpa used on him when he was a kid. As expected, this old man was very ungrateful. With a pah, he smacked him upside his head.

Li Jun, "..."

"You dare use such a tone on me," he scolded him, struggling to keep the corners of his lips down.

Rubbing the back of his head, Li Jun said, "Old man, how can you be this heartless?"

A voice came from the floating screen displaying mech schematics, saying, "Wow, so no gift for me?"

It was Haku Zhen, also known to Aurelia as Damian. He was the only one who had the balls to hack into his father’s server. Draco was so angry that he said, "Don’t you know how to use a phone?" 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

His handsome, smiling face appeared on the screen. He was a tall, burly man with a long gash from his brow to his cheek. It had long healed but it left an obvious scar. He had long hair tied up in a ponytail and on his wrist, were two longevity bracelets. One was his and the other was his twin sister’s.

"Where is the fun in that? I would rather catch you unguarded. If I didn’t do that, how would I have found out that my little nephew is being biased and showing favoritism?"

Li Jun, "..."

"Why wouldn’t he be biased towards his grandpa. After all, he loves me the most," replied Draco with a gloating look on his face. "Besides, when was the last time you bought me a gift?"

Damian chuckled while saying, "Didn’t I buy you those mittens. You said you liked them. I also got you safety goggles. See, I care about your eyes." That set off a chain reaction. The two of them began to bicker. They bickered so much that it was hard for Li Jun to get a word in.

This was how the pair of father and son got along. In fact, that’s how the entire family got along. His mother wouldn’t bicker with words. She would throw hands directly. Looking at his uncle’s stature, one would think he would defeat her in two moves but nope. He lost more than half the time. It was their way of getting along.

They could fight with each other, but Li Jun was treated like a fragile egg. After years of training and his grandpa would never spar with him. Even his uncle would let him win. Li Jun always complained that he wasn’t that delicate, but they still couldn’t bear to hit him.