Chapter 224: Ulysses: An Ruo’s Weak Spot Was Hit So Hard That His Heart Melted

[Wait? What exactly is Caleb trying to fight for? Leave a good impression on the Prince, make him develop some affection for him, establish an intimate bond... Doesn't he already have all of that?]

Anyone could see that the Prince treated Caleb differently from everyone else.

The Prince was averse to physical contact between males and females, yet he accepted Caleb's touch and would even take the initiative to get close to him.

When marriage was brought up, Caleb had also been the first person the Prince thought of.

When the Prince mistakenly believed Caleb had some unforgettable first love, his mood had been terrible. After discovering that the one Caleb liked was actually him, his happiness practically overflowed, and he flooded Caleb with pheromones.

Yet under circumstances like these, Caleb actually called himself very "ordinary" and wanted to fight for a chance.

[? Please give me this kind of ordinary, thank you.]

[He also mentioned His Majesty the Emperor. What does this have to do with His Majesty?]

["The period while His Majesty the Emperor is away is critically important," plus the way Caleb lowered his eyes gloomily when he saw gifts from His Majesty in the Prince's bedchamber, and earlier, when he came out of the combat room and saw the Prince rushing over, he thought the Prince was extremely concerned about His Majesty's health... I think I'm beginning to understand something.]

[No way, right? Everyone knows that in An-shen's novel, His Majesty the Emperor likes the male Zerg Carl. They even have twin eggs!]

[Exactly. Although quite a few Tianjia in reality think that way, that's obviously not the case in An-shen's novel universe. Lieutenant General Caleb hasn't caught up with the latest version. If the Emperor really had something going on with the Prince, how could he possibly marry the Prince off? According to Imperial Family tradition, he would've forcibly kept him in the palace and monopolized him long ago.]

Ares, who was reading the novel together with the male Zerg, didn't understand at first. Only when he scrolled down to the comments did he become utterly baffled.

How had he gotten dragged into this?

Ares frowned at the screen, suddenly unsure whether he should hurry back sooner or deliberately remain away for a little longer.

While he was thinking, he sensed the male Zerg beside him beginning to radiate a faint chill. Ares's heart jolted, and he hurriedly explained:

"There's absolutely nothing like that. I've always conducted myself properly. Something like that could never have happened!"

Before meeting "Carl," he had never even entertained romantic thoughts about relationships between males and females. Compared with romance or pheromones, an exhilarating battle on the battlefield was far more capable of making his blood boil.

His imperial brother, meanwhile, had suffered deeply under the Imperial Family's twisted, perverse traditions. He was particularly resistant to relationships that crossed the boundaries of blood ties, to the point of disgust.

Both of them opposed inbreeding and backcrossing.

Ares had already purged the other members of the Imperial Family. This twisted tradition would end completely with their generation.

Eugene didn't actually suspect Ares of having done anything. He trusted Ares's character, and even in the novel, it was obviously nothing more than Caleb's one-sided misunderstanding.

Besides, Ares went through the trouble of coming to see him every month just for his pheromones. Any Tianjia who could accept another male's pheromones would never go through so much trouble for something so unrewarding.

Still, seeing a character in the novel make such a guess did feel a little uncomfortable.

Even the comments only said, "That's not how it is in An-shen's novel universe," without mentioning reality. That meant they either had the same suspicion now or had entertained it before.

Eugene huffed twice and, taking advantage of the perfectly natural excuse of being in a bad mood, pounced on Ares and tossed him around for a while.

Ares wanted to placate him and didn't resist, allowing Eugene to take the dominant position.

Mindful that Ares was pregnant, Eugene didn't actually go too far. In the end, however, Ares became dissatisfied with his overly gentle pace and turned the tables on him.

Even with his visibly pregnant belly, Ares could still move with an exceptionally steady rhythm.

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After finishing a section of the story, An Ruo browsed the comments for a while. Feeling somewhat tired, he collapsed onto the bed and hugged the Ulysses doll, kneading it in his hands.

While he was doing so, An Ruo suddenly noticed something wrong.

Had the doll's seam... come undone?

At the seam connecting the plush doll's short little leg to its butt, it seemed as though the thread hadn't been properly secured and had come loose?

An Ruo sat upright in shock, spread the doll's legs apart to inspect it, and confirmed that the seam really had opened. When he prodded it lightly with his fingernail, he could even poke inside.

How had this happened? It definitely hadn't been like this before. Or maybe it had? And he simply hadn't noticed?

An Ruo thought back and began to suspect that he'd damaged the doll the last time he washed it. Maybe washing it had caused the thread to split.

What was he supposed to do now?

He didn't know how to sew.

An Ruo became terribly worried.

Elsewhere, Ulysses, who had just been complaining that the Tianjia Emperor appeared far too often and simply refused to disappear, suddenly went rigid and stiffly looked downward.

Why would the Deity... suddenly...

Everything happened so abruptly that he had no time to react at all.

Ulysses's pupils contracted into vertical slits. Half-collapsed over the desk in his study, all the strength instantly drained from his body.

He could only be thankful that it was nighttime, that he had already returned to his estate, that he was alone in the study, and that no Zerg would suddenly come to visit.

The Deity's fingertip was overwhelmingly distinct, impossible to ignore. If it were forcibly pushed farther inside, perhaps it would even tear the doll open. For one brief instant, Ulysses panicked.

Perhaps because of the overwhelming physical sensation, or perhaps because of an instinctive reaction of self-preservation, his pheromones spread through the room.

But the Deity's fingertip withdrew.

An Ruo was still worrying over how to repair the doll.

He didn't know needlework. If he forced himself to try, the stitches would definitely come out ugly and ruin the doll's overall integrity and appearance.

There were specialists on StarNet who handled this kind of thing, but An Ruo couldn't bring himself to mail the doll away.

What if it got dirty, lost, or damaged on the way? What if the repairer didn't treat it carefully? Just thinking about it made him uneasy.

Mailing the doll away felt like gambling.

The Ulysses doll had special meaning to him. He treasured it far too much to gamble on even a one-in-ten-thousand chance of something going wrong.

He could also ask Uriel and the prison authorities to bring a repair specialist here and have them fix it on-site, just like the stylist who had previously come to do his hair and makeup.

But An Ruo couldn't bring himself to make such a huge fuss and inconvenience other Zergs over something so minor.

He stared worriedly at the doll and poked Ulysses's little plush butt.

The gap was tiny. Unless one looked closely, it was almost impossible to notice, and when left untouched it naturally closed up. But the seam really had come undone.

If he pulled it apart, he could see a little of the stuffing inside.

An Ruo couldn't simply close it and pretend nothing had happened. Broken was broken, and knowing it was there made him constantly want to patch it up properly.

After thinking it over again and again, An Ruo decided to add a little tail to Ulysses to cover it.

He opened StarNet on his terminal and started shopping for little tails.

As a result, he accidentally stumbled across a large number of tails intended for female Zergs, along with all kinds of implements provided for male Zergs that looked practically like instruments of torture.

An Ruo was so frightened that he hurriedly backed out, not forgetting to pat the Ulysses doll in his arms soothingly.

Those pictures were terrifying. It felt as though he had accidentally wandered into some strange circle.

Hopefully, they hadn't frightened his little doll.

"Good boy, we don't need that."

An Ruo comforted the doll, added more keywords, and searched again.

Doll tail... voice-controlled, movable, electric little tail.

An Ruo finally found tails he liked. They were fluffy and incredibly cute, and they could even sway back and forth on their own.

So adorable.

An Ruo was completely won over. Holding his cheeks in his hands, he searched through piles of photographs of adorable things.

Every now and then, he picked up the doll and held it beside the pictures to compare the colors and see how well they matched.

He ultimately chose a black wolf tail, but the black panther tail and snow leopard tail were also adorable, so he bought those too.

There were also tails designed in a more Zerg-like style. They weren't covered in fluffy fur and instead looked more like scales or bone.

After hesitating, An Ruo chose two of those as well. One was slender, flexible, and highly maneuverable, while the other was thicker and looked more like a dragon's tail.

Ulysses was a Zerg, after all. Maybe he would prefer those.

Interstellar express delivery used spatial transmission, so the package arrived quickly. After being scanned and inspected by the prison authorities, it was delivered to his room.

An Ruo had no idea what those military females had thought when they scanned his package and discovered that he'd bought a whole pile of little tails.

Whatever. He was only trying to take care of his doll.

An Ruo took out all the tails, arranged them one by one for comparison, and asked the Ulysses doll lying beside the bed which tail it wanted.

Naturally, the doll didn't answer.

An Ruo thought the doll's pinkish skin was adorable. It seemed that ever since he'd washed it once, the doll's skin turned pink very easily.

He picked up the doll and decided to try every single one.

First came the black wolf tail.

It was fluffy and felt wonderful to touch, yet also looked fierce, matching Ulysses's temperament perfectly. When it moved, it even gave off the impression of a loyal guard dog.

An Ruo placed the doll facedown across his lap and attached it.

The connector was shaped like a teardrop and also resembled an egg. It was somewhat difficult to attach at first, so An Ruo spread the opening a little wider, kneaded and pressed it, loosening the stuffing before finally managing to push it into place.

The fluffy black tail matched the fluffy Ulysses perfectly.

Apparently, it could move too. It was voice-controlled.

An Ruo was wondering how to connect the controls when he stroked the fluffy tail with his hand, and it suddenly began wagging on its own.

An Ruo stared in amazement. It really could move€€?

But wasn't it supposed to be voice-controlled?

After a while, the tail stopped moving. An Ruo thought for a moment and quietly said, "Hi."

The tail started wagging again.

He tried calling, "Ulysses," and the tail moved again.

"Marshal," "Hello," "Cutie"... No matter what he said, it wagged along.

An Ruo found it incredibly fascinating. He'd assumed he'd need to connect it to some software and go through a whole complicated setup. He hadn't expected it to be this easy.

Apparently, as long as someone spoke and made a sound, the tail would move.

An Ruo kneaded wolf-tailed Ulysses until his skin turned completely pink, and he could faintly smell a pleasant fragrance.

He placed Ulysses on the blanket and took several photographs to admire later.

The bathrobe covered one end of the wolf tail, making it look particularly good when it moved.

After taking pictures of the wolf-tail version, An Ruo continued trying the other tails.

The black panther tail looked great too and suited Ulysses's temperament perfectly. Its color blended even better with his hair.

An Ruo removed the wolf tail and replaced it with the black panther tail.

Getting the wolf tail out took considerable effort. The stuffing had clamped tightly around it, holding it firmly in place. For a moment, An Ruo almost couldn't pull it out at all and had to twist it clockwise several times before finally removing it.

He'd originally worried that the tail might not stay securely attached. Clearly, there was no need to worry about that anymore. The fit was extremely snug and tight.

After switching to the black panther tail, Ulysses's overall aura seemed to become more elegant and gloomy, giving him an entirely different style.

An Ruo snapped picture after picture.

Next came the snow leopard tail. Paired with the snow leopard's thick gray-and-white tail, Ulysses acquired a uniquely blank and adorable quality, even looking slightly silly. It was difficult to imagine such an impression ever appearing on Ulysses, creating an enormous contrast.

An Ruo continued taking pictures.

With every round of photographs, Ulysses's skin became a little pinker, as though he were about to burn up.

Then came the two Zerg-style tails.

The first was slender and long, but its tip carried a sharp implement resembling an arrowhead, making it look like a flexible weapon capable of striking at any moment.

The thicker, longer version resembled a dragon's tail, densely covered in black scales. When it swept from side to side, it looked extraordinarily powerful.

What they had in common was that every one of them would begin wagging whenever An Ruo called out.

They were clearly fierce, yet somehow gave off an overwhelming sense of a loyal guard dog.

It struck An Ruo's weak spot so perfectly that his heart practically melted.

So now came the question:

Which one should Ulysses wear to sleep tonight?