Chapter 215: Tianjia Prince × Mixed-Blood Military Female (2): The Military Female Who Helped Him When He Was Most Helpless Still Held a Place in His Heart

[You Tianjia (furious)! You've gone too far! You actually let a male starve and live in a "birdcage"!]

[We've always known Tianjia treat males badly, but I never imagined it could be this bad. We really underestimated you Tianjia.]

[Huh? No? We don't...]

The Tianjia readers were confused too.

Males were a scarce and precious resource. Why would anyone abuse a male?

The males in their own families were carefully protected, everyone terrified that the slightest thing might happen to them. If one of them got sick, the entire family would be on edge.

Yet the male in the novel lived in a birdcage exposed to the wind on all sides and received so little food that he couldn't even eat his fill. This was completely unimaginable to the Tianjia.

If an incident like that were actually reported, the relevant authorities would absolutely intervene and reassess whether the other party was even qualified to have a male.

The Tianjia readers wanted to argue back.

But the novel also mentioned that the one who had locked the male away was Tianjia Emperor Chaos.

The former Tianjia Emperor.

That rumor had always existed. Supposedly, the former Tianjia Emperor Chaos had once kept his own younger brother, a male Imperial Prince, inside a golden birdcage.

Among the Tianjia, it was regarded as a somewhat risqué romantic anecdote. The most the public had ever imagined was a palace designed in the shape of a birdcage.

A beautiful male paired with a birdcage palace carrying overtones of confinement gave the Tianjia plenty of room for suggestive fantasies.

If anyone else among the Tianjia did something like that, it certainly wouldn't be acceptable.

Not that there was anything inherently wrong with a birdcage-shaped residence. Females had the right to arrange their male's residence according to their own preferences. As long as it wasn't open to the wind on all sides and freezing the male, they could build the residence into whatever strange shape they liked.

The main reason it was "unacceptable" was that they were brothers born from the same female parent and related by blood. In a species that placed reproduction above all else, something like this would be a scandal no matter how one looked at it.

Yet when it happened within the Tianjia Imperial Family, with its history of inbreeding and backcrossing, the Tianjia somehow didn't find it surprising at all.

Their reaction was more along the lines of, "Of course."

[This couldn't actually be about the former Emperor and the Prince, could it?]

[Uh, well...]

The Tianjia readers who had originally wanted to argue suddenly had no idea how to defend themselves.

That rumor really did exist, and it was famous even within Tianjia society. They couldn't firmly tell the Zerg that absolutely nothing like this had ever happened, nor could they accuse An-shen of deliberately smearing the Tianjia.

[Being exposed to the wind on all sides and not being given enough food is still a little too much. An-shen must be using the usual exaggeration you see in novels, right? (weakly)]

[And there are fountain pools surrounding the place. Any Tianjia who has ever cared for a male knows you shouldn't make a male live in such a damp environment.]

[Exaggeration? (points at the Imperial Family members Ares slaughtered to the last) Say "exaggeration" one more time?]

[The Tianjia Imperial Family really was bloody and brutal, with intense internal competition, but it's still rare for someone to wipe them out that thoroughly. I wondered at the time why Ares went that far. If what the novel says is true, and his twin older brother, who spent six months together with him inside their female parent's belly and hatched alongside him, was treated like that, then slaughtering the entire lot of them was going easy on them.]

[@Tianjia, come out and explain yourselves.]

[Come out and take your beating (furious)!]

Things weren't looking good.

The Tianjia quietly disappeared.

But in their hearts, they now felt a little more dissatisfaction and disgust toward the former Emperor Chaos and the Imperial Family members surrounding him.

Abusing a powerless male was disgraceful no matter the circumstances.

And they hadn't even fed the male properly.

That was just too low.

Some of the more rational Tianjia posted on Tianjia StarNet:

[Everyone, don't believe this. A novel is only a novel. Just treat it as a story. This Zerg novel has exaggerated the situation. His former Majesty would absolutely never have done anything this tasteless.] (This comment has been deleted. User muted for ten years.)

Tianjia: ???

For a moment, he thought he'd been muted on the Zerg network.

But when he checked, no, he was definitely on the Tianjia domestic StarNet.

He opened the reason for his punishment and discovered that it even included "insulting the Imperial Family."

Was there some mistake?

He'd clearly been defending the Imperial Family!

The Tianjia submitted an appeal.

Instead, he received a summons from the Imperial Investigation Bureau.

They said they suspected him of having connections with the Imperial criminals who had already been executed and required him to report to the Investigation Bureau for questioning.

Tianjia: ??!

I'm innocent!

Only then did the Tianjia remember that those Imperial Family members had been personally killed by their current Emperor.

Defending them was equivalent to disapproving of the current Emperor.

Which meant his ideology was incorrect.

For a while, the Tianjia on both Zerg StarNet and the Tianjia internal network became noticeably quieter.

The Zerg novel appeared to be slandering the Tianjia, yet not only did the Empire refuse to intervene, it practically seemed to acknowledge the claims in the novel while completely distancing itself from the previous Tianjia Emperor and his associates.

......

【After the male finished the meat pie, he assumed the military female would seize the opportunity to ask him to do something in return.

But the other said nothing.

He simply turned to face the wind again and resumed standing guard.

The male stared at the military female's straight, upright back and thought, He really knows how to put on an act.

Tianjia females were all like this.

They bestowed some tiny favor and then expected to profit from him in return. He had met plenty of Tianjia like that.

The only difference was that some were willing to maintain the pretense for a while, while others couldn't wait to reveal what they wanted.

The male believed this one belonged to the former category.

It wouldn't be long before he'd successfully taken the bait, and then the military female would reveal his true colors.

But many days passed, and the military female never made any special request of him.

In fact, he had never even spoken to him.

There was no physical contact either, even when the male sat right beside the edge of the birdcage.

Instead, the opposite happened.

Every night, he began receiving an extra meal.

The military female always brought him something to eat, though what he brought varied.

Sometimes it was a meat pie, sometimes fruit, and sometimes snacks intended for males.

The male couldn't understand it.

He felt that this military female must be plotting something enormous.

The more he owed him, the greater the favor he might demand someday.

The male mentally recorded every single debt he owed and began to develop a headache.

If it had happened only once or twice, he could simply avoid the military female whenever he came to collect his repayment.

But what if it continued for a month or two?

A year or two?

The male's feelings grew complicated, and the accumulating debt began weighing on him.

......

Until the day Ares stormed the Imperial Palace with his troops, the military female never asked him for anything.

On the contrary, when Chaos's subordinates and other members of the Imperial Family tried to forcibly take him away and use him as leverage against Ares, the military female remained firmly in front of him throughout the chaos, shielding him from countless dangers and refusing to let any Tianjia approach him.

The debt he owed only grew larger.

After Ares successfully seized the Imperial Palace and began purging the remaining opposition, the male personally intervened to spare the military female's life.

Later, he even introduced him to Ares, who had become the Empire's supreme ruler and commander-in-chief.

That should count as repaying the kindness he'd once shown him, right?

......】

By this point, both the Zerg and Tianjia readers had complicated feelings. For a moment, they couldn't decide whether they should be envious or emotional.

[He gave him food a few times, escaped the purge because of it, and even managed to get noticed by the new Emperor. Isn't his luck ridiculously good?!]

[If he was standing guard inside the Imperial Palace, that means he was one of former Emperor Chaos's personal guards—an Imperial guard serving the Royal Family directly. With an identity like that, during a transfer of Imperial power, even if he survived, his career should have been ruined for the rest of his life. He never would've been trusted with an important position again. Yet even though he backed the wrong side, he was literally saved because he'd brought the male food a few times?]

[If you consider that an investment, his returns were absolutely astronomical!]

[Lucky bastard.]

[It wasn't just luck. He took an enormous risk too. There were so many guards before him, yet not one of them helped that poor male. Chaos had obviously explicitly forbidden it. But not only did this military female take the risk, he did it repeatedly, even for years. And during the chaos afterward, he kept protecting the male. Considering those two things alone, whatever reward he received was something he'd earned.]

[That's true. I never expected there to be a decent female among the Tianjia. At least this one seems pretty likable.]

[The male is decent too. After being imprisoned for so long, once he got out, he still remembered the military female who'd brought him food and repaid his kindness.]

[Yeah. If it were me, I might've wanted to kill all of them (dead-eyed male Zerg).]

[(shocked) Isn't that going a little far?]

[You can do anything after being driven insane from imprisonment. He was still one of the guards watching "me," which makes him one of the people participating in my abuse. Even if I rationally knew I shouldn't blame him, emotionally, I wouldn't be able to control myself.

"I" was freezing in the wind and missing nine meals every three days, while those guards watched "me" and saw every humiliating moment. If I ever got the chance to escape, I'd absolutely kill every last one of them!]

[Scared-ing.]

[Please rest assured, Male Lord. Something like that would absolutely never happen. We Zerg would never permit the imprisonment and abuse of a male Zerg!]

[Look what you've done to your male Zergs! They can't even distinguish right from wrong anymore! He even wants to kill the Tianjia who helped him!]

[Get lost, get lost, get lost. Who gave you the right to talk? Male-abusing Tianjia (stomps to death).]

[What? I'm only thinking about it. I didn't actually do anything. Is thinking illegal now? (male Zerg rolls eyes) Actually, I suppose I could spare that military female. Marry him as a Female Attendant, then whip him whenever I'm happy and whip him whenever I'm unhappy.]

The Tianjia, who had originally been ashamed because of the novel's plot, saw the male Zerg's comment and once again felt fortunate that they'd been born Tianjia.

Male Zergs were completely unreasonable.

No matter how bad the Tianjia were, they were still better than the Zerg.

The Zerg, on the other hand, readily accepted the male Zerg's statement.

They believed that the Male Lord being willing to marry that military female was itself a blessing bestowed upon him.

As for being whipped?

That was normal.

After everything that had happened, the Male Lord had been imprisoned for so many years. Of course he'd have emotions to vent.

Letting the Male Lord whip him a few times to relieve his anger was a good thing.

[Stop dreaming. Among the Tianjia, there's no such thing as a male marrying a female, and you even want him as a Female Attendant? Dream on. If anyone marries anyone, the male marries into the female's household!]

Despite saying this, not a single Tianjia believed the male in the novel would marry that military female.

The marriages of noble males were decided by the female relatives of their families, and that was even more true for the Imperial Family.

An Imperial male would probably be married off by the Tianjia Emperor to some distinguished war hero.

It would be a way to win that person over and deepen the relationship between them.

As for that military female......

He had appeared too early.

His status wasn't high enough.

Besides, since when could a commoner marry Imperial royalty?

......

【Prince Metis awoke from his sleep.

Looking at the magnificent palace bed curtains above him, then at the luxurious walls surrounding him on all sides, he was momentarily dazed.

Perhaps because he was about to get married, he'd suddenly dreamed about things from long ago.

That birdcage, destroyed many years ago.

And that military female who had always stood silently in the shadows......

At the thought of marriage, the Prince felt no anticipation whatsoever. Instead, what rose within him was a restless, irritable sense of frustration.

Marriage for a Tianjia male was a gamble.

A transaction.

No male could ever truly win through marriage. There were only those who lost miserably and those who lost somewhat less miserably.

The Prince didn't want to marry.

His past experiences had left him with a physiological revulsion toward females.

But because of various considerations, he had no choice but to step into the grave of marriage.

At least now, he could still choose for himself.

Choosing a female himself was still better than being selected by a female.

At the very least, it gave him the appearance of some autonomy and allowed him to filter out some of the more obvious bastards.

As for the female he had chosen......

The Prince's brows drew together slightly, a trace of agitation and conflict passing through his handsome features.

He didn't want to choose Caleb.

This military female, who had once reached out to help him during the darkest and most helpless period of his life...... still represented one of the few beautiful things he could hold onto in his heart.

Perhaps the best choice would be to select another female general with whom he could cooperate.

At least then he wouldn't have to worry about her revealing her true colors after marriage, destroying his trust and shattering the one tiny illusion of goodness he still held in his heart.

But he truly couldn't choose anyone.

When matters had nothing to do with males and females, he could calmly and impartially deal with every general and every government minister.

But the moment females and marriage became involved, his psychological distrust and physiological disgust made it impossible for him to maintain even a superficial pretense of harmony.

The Prince rubbed his forehead with a headache, a trace of exhaustion visible in his eyes.

At the very least, he should meet him first and have a conversation.

The other party might not even be willing to marry an Imperial Male Lord and bring him home to be worshipped and provided for, thereby forever giving up the possibility of marrying additional Male Attendants and enjoying the company of multiple males.

......】