The sound of water in the bathroom stopped.
Ye'er was sitting on the sofa in a daze. Hearing the silence, he called to 015, who was diligently cleaning. "Carry him out."
Having both legs broken was a terrible thing. Without 015's help, the female Zerg could not wash himself or use the bathroom. Perhaps for a very long time, he would be trapped on the sofa.
Ye'er frowned unconsciously, but he also understood that after being frozen in the snow for so long, avoiding necrosis and amputation was already fortunate. For now, there was no better solution than slowly treating him.
Click.
The bathroom door opened.
The little robot housekeeper, only half a meter tall, came out carrying a female Zerg several times its size. Its long mechanical arms were wound around his shoulders and thighs in a perfectly standard bridal carry.
The female Zerg was clearly unused to being carried that way. His body was stiff with helpless embarrassment.
Like a dwarf carrying Snow White.
Ye'er let out a quiet laugh. Noticing the female Zerg's embarrassment become even more obvious, he coughed to hide his amusement.
"Put him here." He patted the newly spread quilt on the floor and stood to make enough room.
The female Zerg lay flat on the clean bedding. He was no longer bleeding or being injured further, and he really did look much better.
He closed his eyes as if waiting for something. He no longer struggled violently or resisted, but had seemingly decided to become a weathered piece of bluestone.
Yet he clearly was not.
His breathing was slightly rapid. His closed eyelids trembled, making him look uneasy.
The soft, full contours of his body rose and fell faintly like cotton candy. The light glazed that pale honey color with a smooth sheen, like the sugar shell around candied fruit—though surely far more chewy and resilient.
Ye'er felt an itch at the roots of his teeth and could not help grinding them. Only after doing so did he suddenly realize what he was thinking.
He checked the time. Sure enough, it was already past eight-thirty in the evening.
He considered himself no hooligan, yet earlier he had inexplicably entertained strange fantasies about the female Zerg's body. Given that both fantasies had involved food, Ye'er concluded he must be starving delirious.
The female Zerg looked as though he rejected all communication, and Ye'er had no intention of forcing small talk. Making sure he was properly settled was enough.
The new clothes bought that afternoon would not arrive until tomorrow.
Ye'er shook out a quilt dug from the bottom of the wardrobe and covered the female Zerg thoroughly from head to toe. "Rest well. Sleeping more helps wounds heal."
The large mound beneath the quilt shifted, then suddenly threw the blanket aside. Xize propped himself halfway upright, jaw tight, expression wary and confused.
He lifted his eyes toward Ye'er's direction. His deep gaze was already clouded by shadow, yet it still looked stern and sharp, as though capable of piercing any hypocrisy or deception.
"What do you want?"
He spoke slowly. The injury to his throat made speech difficult.
Ever since earlier, Ye'er had been immersed in imagining dinner. Hearing the question, he blurted, "Tomato and scrambled egg."
"…"
The female Zerg's confusion was vast and silent. Ye'er finally came back to himself and coughed awkwardly.
Unfortunately, 015 had already captured the request. The little robot eagerly responded, "Okay! I'll make it right now!"
The interruption seemed to make the female Zerg a little less tense. After a moment of silence, he asked again, "Who are you?"
What identity did he have? Who had sent him? What was his objective?
Did he serve the nobility, belong to a military faction, or perhaps…? In the space of a few breaths, Xize had already listed every possibility. Yet helplessness followed close behind. Even if he learned the answer, what could he do about it?
Several questions came one after another. Ye'er paused, then considered his words. "Actually… I was just passing by."
He told the female Zerg about the tiny advertisement stuck to his door, the livestream from the slave exchange, and finally everything that happened when he passed through that alley. Then came the hospital, and then this home.
His account wandered without purpose or focus. He was merely remembering. As he spoke, a line from Hesse suddenly came to mind, so fitting and strange that it almost startled him—
[Because every wrong road led me to you.]
"Anyway, that's what happened. I was just a passerby."
Ye'er explained, thinking back on his motives. "Maybe it was nothing more than a momentary impulse that made me bring you home."
He expected Xize not to believe him. The female Zerg looked like a wolf—alert and cautious.
Unexpectedly, however, he did not ask anything more. The fingers resting on the quilt tightened, then loosened.
The sharp tension gathered between his brows gradually faded, returning to the quiet endurance of pain.
—As though he did not truly intend to dig for the deepest truth. He merely needed one reasonable explanation that would allow him to accept this suddenly changed and entirely unknown situation, after which he could close his eyes and keep struggling to live.
"…I am very grateful that Your Excellency helped me then. I will repay the medical fees twice over when I can, and I will do everything in my power to fulfill any request you make."
Xize's voice was hoarse. His expression carried the upright seriousness typical of a military female, with a hint of embarrassment hidden in his brows. "Truly, thank you very much."
"It's fine. Focus on recovering first. We can discuss the rest after you're better."
Ye'er smiled and reassured him casually.
He was not surprised by Xize's reaction. It was precisely why he had looked so humiliated during the livestream. If he had not retained this kind of nature, perhaps he would not have suffered so badly.
Silence stretched between them.
"…"
Ye'er could sense the unease and hesitation Xize was hiding.
Perhaps the female Zerg did not really want to stop questioning so quickly, but he knew nothing about his current situation, while lies could be invented with ease.
Or perhaps there was simply nothing malicious or sharp in this house for him to raise his spines against. Vigilance and resistance stretched without end, then slowly became wrapped in the quiet, peaceful air.
Whatever the reason, it was a good beginning.
It would take time.
Ye'er reminded himself again.
Then he decided to go check the kitchen, lest 015 suddenly run out of battery again and burn through the bottom of the pot.
*
At exactly nine o'clock, Ye'er finally ate his long-delayed dinner.
Somewhere in the middle of cooking, 015's culinary module seemed to malfunction intermittently again, resulting in an enormous basin of tomato and scrambled egg.
The tomatoes were indeed tomatoes, but Ye'er had no idea what kind of star-beast egg had been used. It was enormous, like an ostrich egg. Once cooked, the color was tender and bright and the fragrance was wonderful.
Ye'er often felt grateful that rice and wheat grew in this world and had not been eliminated by sticky, unpleasant nutrient solution. Otherwise, his difficulty adapting to this planet would have been far worse.
When the aroma spread through the room, he clearly heard a growl. Turning, he found Xize also looking toward this side, lips pressed together in silence.
The female Zerg probably had not eaten for a long time. He had received nutrient injections in the hospital, but from leaving the hospital until now, two full days had passed without a grain of rice entering his mouth.
Ye'er divided out half of the tomato and egg, mixed it with rice, and turned it into a bowl of somewhat sticky but richly sauced mixed rice. Then he handed it to 015.
"Please feed him."
Damaged eyesight was as inconvenient as broken legs. The first problem was that if he tried to eat alone, he might stick the chopsticks into his nostrils. He either needed someone to feed him or specialized training.
Caring for the female Zerg was like repairing an old machine that had been neglected for years. Plugging it in and barely getting it to boot was only the first step. The long series of repairs and maintenance afterward was the truly troublesome part.
Ye'er sighed and sat on a section of sofa untouched by blood, bowl in hand.
"…"
Hot food slid down Xize's esophagus and soothed a stomach that had been empty for more than ten days, perhaps even longer. The satisfaction of that moment nearly exploded through him.
He had almost forgotten how long it had been since he last ate normal food.
Xize's expression held suppressed longing. His Adam's apple worked, and his body leaned forward involuntarily, nearly pressing against 015.
015 was forced to speed up more and more, sparks almost flying from its mechanical arm again.
"Slow down." Ye'er helplessly caught the frantic spoon between his chopsticks. "Careful, you'll choke."
The female Zerg pressed his lips together and turned toward him. His gaze was dim and unfocused, yet somehow it carried a trace of accusation.
As if Ye'er were a cruel person who fed a puppy half a piece of sausage, then wickedly pulled it away just to watch the dog whine, stand up, and paw at his trousers.
But the female Zerg was not a puppy. When his food was intercepted, all he could do was lower his eyes in silence and force down the urge to swallow.
"Go charge."
Xize heard that clear voice speak. Then the little robot housekeeper rolled away, leaving him still ravenously hungry and almost unable to suppress his disappointment.
The next second, however, a warm spoon reached in from the side and touched his lower lip—
"Eat. Chew before you swallow, or your stomach will hurt."
"…Thank you."
Ye'er scooped up another spoonful of rice and looked at the female Zerg wrapped in the fluffy quilt.
Soft, slightly curling white hair fell around his face. At rest, his sharp features softened somewhat. Every time he swallowed, he would lift his eyes toward Ye'er, looking vivid and alive.
Only then did Ye'er feel the first real sense that this female Zerg had truly been brought home by him, rather than existing in some regret-soaked dream.
For the first time, this islandlike house contained the sound of another living creature besides 015. He was breathing, warm with body heat, filling the other half of the home completely.
It felt pretty good.
Ye'er's eyes curved, and a trace of pleasure softened the corner of his lips.
…
The sofa was no longer available for sleeping, so Ye'er could only make a bed on the floor. Fortunately, the central heating ran continuously, so he probably would not catch cold.
Ye'er dropped two doses of sleeping medicine into a small pot of warming milk. The tablets dissolved among the bubbling foam. After thinking for a moment, he added a spoonful of sugar as well.
Only one dim yellow lamp remained on in the living room. Xize was completely wrapped in the quilt but had not fallen asleep. When Ye'er approached, he opened his eyes.
The glass cup tapped lightly against the coffee table. The sweet scent of milk spread with the steam, seeming to drive away even the cold that seeped through every gap and absorb it into the thick, soft foam.
Ye'er patted the female Zerg through the blanket.
"A collapsing mental landscape can cause severe headaches. Before you sleep, I'll give you another mental-guidance session…"
Mental guidance.
Before he finished speaking, the body beneath his hand went rigid. Xize suddenly lifted his head toward Ye'er—
"Male Zerg…"
He murmured, then repeated in disbelief, "You're… a male Zerg?"
"Yes. You…" didn't know?
Ye'er was confused for a moment before realizing he had never actually stated his sex. But why would that need to be deliberately emphasized?
Then he looked at the female Zerg and belatedly understood that perhaps this was not something that could be ignored.
The anger and fear Xize had suppressed and buried seeped out through the cracks of his indifferent mask, winding like vines around his pale-gold eyes.
He looked as if someone had stabbed him brutally. All color drained from his face.
Ye'er recognized that look and expression. He had seen it in the advertisement and across Xize's face during the livestream—
It was the gaze of someone looking at an abuser.
A sour ache struck Ye'er for no reason. He suddenly remembered that the female-slave collar "could only recognize the identity information of male Zergs."
He thought of Xize, marked exclusively with Ye'er's information while unconscious and thereby made his property from that moment onward.
He thought of Xiuyisi's apologetic but careless smile at the beginning, the surface apology directed at Ye'er while the mockery and indifference were aimed at the severely injured female Zerg on the hospital bed.
Sure enough, Xize's expression changed abruptly. He raised a hand to feel the black band around his neck.
He quickly obtained the answer. His jaw tightened, and he clenched his teeth as if he could barely tolerate it. "…I've already become your female slave?"
"I'm sorry. That was an accident," Ye'er said quietly. "At the time, I…"
His expression was almost helpless. He sensed that the situation was about to lose control.
It was as though a volcano stood before him on the verge of eruption, and he did not know whether he could withstand the torrent of burning lava.
"An accident?"
Xize laughed sarcastically. His face was stern, like a harsh officer dressing down a recruit who had made a grave mistake, fury almost blazing from him. "Do you know—"
He swallowed the rest.
After panting roughly in silence for a long while, he pulled every exposed emotion back inside his shell, like something that had burned itself to ash without a sound.
He had believed himself mutilated beyond repair, with nothing left.
But the truth was that he still had one last bit of value. Perhaps that was why the male Zerg had picked him up.
It felt as though a swollen lump blocked his throat, tightening the restraint collar until it was unbearable. Xize felt a stabbing sense of suffocation.
That bowl of sweet rice turned into poison churning in his contracting stomach. He nearly vomited.
But in the end, he was still alive. And he… still wanted to keep living.
He suddenly smiled, though it looked more like crying.
"Your Excellency, do you want to fuck me?"
The calm, hopeful dream of one evening shattered like foam so quickly.
Author's Note:
Oh-ho.
The General has such a powerful flavor. Like a snow leopard torn bloody while fighting for the throne, baring his teeth and growling threateningly at a tribal child carefully approaching to treat his wounds, yet forced by impending death to bow his head and submit. Later he'll obediently lie down and expose his belly so anyone can bury their face in it and rub him all they want… hehe. (perverted laughter)—
