Chapter 250: Selerus Leaves Prison: Anyway, First Things First—Lure the God Out

At his desk, An Ruo stretched and loosened up his stiff limbs.

Tired from writing his novel, he decided it was time to balance work with a little relaxation.

€€€€By making his rounds.

An Ruo got to his feet, picked up the medical chart from his desk, and headed out with a great sense of ceremony.

First was Room No. 1, where Selerus was recovering well.

After getting together with Ulysses, An Ruo actually felt a little unsure about how he should face Selerus.

In human terms, Selerus should count as his... prospective father-in-law?

What an incredibly stressful title.

An Ruo had seriously considered how he ought to treat Selerus during this period. In the end, he decided to keep treating him the same way as before—as his attending physician, just with a little more concern. He could simply regard this patient as... a relative of a doctor's family member.

Fortunately, Selerus's attitude toward him remained exactly the same as before, without any change.

He still welcomed him warmly, stuffed fruit and snacks into his hands, chatted with him about the daily lives of the other military female patients, discussed child-rearing experience with him, watched news about Ulysses together with him, praised Ulysses in every conceivable way...

For some inexplicable reason, An Ruo got along extremely well with him. They had plenty of common topics.

His thinking was very simple: As long as you're praising Ulysses, we're good friends.

Sometimes, An Ruo felt that Selerus might have absolutely no idea about what was going on between him and Ulysses—that he didn't know An Ruo had secretly gotten together with his female son.

At other times, he thought that seemed rather unlikely.

In any case, Selerus never brought it up directly, and An Ruo never volunteered the information either, as though it were something perfectly natural that didn't need to be specially mentioned.

When An Ruo came to Selerus's cell for his routine rounds, he found him packing his luggage, stuffing all sorts of things into a spatially expanded suitcase.

Seeing him arrive, Selerus casually shoved a red fruit into his hand and told him:

“I'm getting out of prison. I'm leaving tomorrow morning.”

An Ruo thought of all the forms he'd reviewed and documents he'd signed lately, as well as the repeated psychic evaluations and condition assessments he'd conducted for the military female patients. He had already expected this day to come.

Yet now that it was actually happening, he was still a little surprised—and even happier for Selerus.

“Congratulations.” An Ruo congratulated him sincerely.

Selerus could already retract his wings, with only his tail still remaining outside.

At the moment, that tail hung behind him, its tip slightly raised. Hearing An Ruo's congratulations, Selerus gave a low acknowledgment, a pleased sound coming from his nose. His long black tail, hard as metal, swayed gently, sweeping across the floor and tapping against the metal panels. He was obviously in a very good mood.

An Ruo watched his tail. It was clearly a lethal weapon, yet it gave off no sense of threat whatsoever, making Selerus resemble a lazy, contented beast.

And now, this beast... this former General was about to leave his cage, return home, and reunite with his hatchling.

An Ruo was happy for him.

And happy for Ulysses as well.

Amid that happiness, however, there was also a trace of melancholy.

Partly because of his own seemingly endless sentence, and partly because there would now be one less familiar Zerg in prison for him to chat with.

The instant this thought arose, An Ruo hurriedly shook his head and threw it out of his mind.

Whether it was being discharged from the hospital or released from prison, it was a good thing. As a doctor, he couldn't possibly keep a patient in the hospital forever just to satisfy his own selfish desires. What kind of doctor would that make him...

Besides, this wasn't merely a hospital.

It was also a prison.

What normal Zerg belonged in prison? Of course they should get out as soon as possible.

Having sorted out his feelings, An Ruo asked Selerus:

“Once you go back this time, you'll be living together with your hatchling, right?”

Selerus glanced at him, seemingly considering something. The swaying of his tail gradually slowed as he said:

“We'll live together for the first half month. Once I've passed the strictest observation period, I'll return to my old home... It's the estate I used to own. My former Male Lord sold it because of certain circumstances, but Ulysses bought it back several years ago. I plan to move back there and spend the rest of my time recuperating and enjoying retirement.”

When An Ruo heard Selerus say “retirement,” he initially thought nothing of it. Then he suddenly realized that this was the Zerg race, and Selerus was a female Zerg still in the prime of his life. What retirement?

He still had several hundred years left to live! Wasn't it a little early to start living like an old man?

Well, making a female Zerg who had suffered a Psychic Riot and then spent decades being tormented in prison throw himself back into a career didn't seem quite right either.

But there was no need to enter retirement this quickly. He could still do something else, experience... a second spring?

An Ruo silently extinguished that thought.

Selerus had obviously been terribly hurt by a Male Zerg. Not merely emotionally, either—it had nearly cost him his life. Thinking along those lines wasn't very appropriate.

Unless Selerus himself wanted it, it would be inappropriate for any Zerg to bring up such things.

An Ruo hoped Selerus could walk out of the shadow of his past, but accepting a new relationship wasn't the only way to prove that he'd moved on. Selerus could choose whatever kind of life he wanted for himself.

Thinking about it that way, entering retirement early, developing some hobbies, fishing, raising animals, and things like that sounded pretty nice too.

It was quite an enviable life.

“But... you're only going to live together for half a month?” An Ruo asked. “Isn't that a little too short?”

They had, after all, been separated for so long...

An Ruo could tell that Selerus loved his hatchling—loved Ulysses very much. Likewise, Ulysses cared deeply about and respected his female father.

Having grown up without either parent by his side, Ulysses must have longed for familial affection, just as Selerus desperately wanted to make up for all the love he hadn't been able to give his hatchling.

Both of them cared so much about each other. Now that they finally had the chance to live together, shouldn't they stay together a little longer? Spend more time with each other?

Selerus said, “That wouldn't be appropriate. He has his own life.”

Ulysses was a married female Zerg. What would it look like if his female father clung to his household year after year?

It wasn't appropriate and could easily cause family conflicts between Ulysses and his Male Lord.

Thinking this, Selerus secretly glanced at the Male Zerg before him, dressed from head to toe like a doctor.

Although... this particular Male Lord didn't seem to go home very often either.

He lived in prison every single day.

Seeing that the Male Zerg still looked somewhat regretful, Selerus said:

“You don't need to worry about us. This is the interstellar era, and transportation is convenient. I'll be in the eastern district of Capital Star. It only takes Ulysses a few minutes to visit me. We can see each other whenever we want.”

An Ruo thought about Ulysses's spatial ability and felt that this was indeed true, so he nodded along in agreement.

Forget a few minutes. With his spatial ability, Ulysses could arrive in an instant—in the blink of an eye.

And just as Selerus said, distance wasn't an issue, so where they lived didn't really matter.

Selerus added, “If we want to meet, there will always be opportunities. There's no need to rush to spend every moment together. Later, when the two of you have a Zerg egg, I can also help incubate it for you.”

An Ruo had still been nodding along, but when he heard the latter half of Selerus's words, he abruptly looked up in astonishment.

“Huh???”

Wasn't that an enormous leap in topic?

He couldn't react at all.

How did they suddenly... get onto the subject of laying eggs?

Who—who said anything about having an egg?

He was living in prison serving his sentence! How could there possibly be an egg?

An Ruo nearly tied his tongue into a knot. For a moment, he had no idea how to explain himself, nor did he know whether he should even discuss something like this with Ulysses's female father.

And besides, Selerus really did know that he was dating Ulysses!

He'd suddenly pierced straight through that unspoken understanding without warning. An Ruo hadn't been prepared in the slightest!

In the end, An Ruo didn't dare respond to the subject at all. Using his need to make rounds on the other patients as an excuse, he hurriedly fled.

Selerus watched the Male Zerg's retreating back in confusion, his brows drawing together slightly as doubts arose in his heart.

Was the Male Zerg... unwilling to let an outsider like him incubate their egg?

Or... did he not want Ulysses to have an egg?

Some time ago, Selerus had noticed the Male Zerg's pheromones on Ulysses. Ulysses's aura had also become calmer and more stable, his mental condition had improved, and some of his gloom and hostility had faded. His entire demeanor had changed, as though he were full of hope and anticipation for the future, looking every bit like a Zerg whose career was thriving and whose family life was happy.

Selerus had assumed that the problems between Ulysses and the Male Zerg had already been resolved, and he'd been greatly relieved.

But judging from things now, perhaps that wasn't actually the case?

He would have to ask Ulysses properly later.

......

That night, An Ruo opened his terminal and contacted Ulysses, telling him that his female father was about to be released from prison.

Unsurprisingly, Ulysses had already known about it.

Perhaps, as Marshal of the Federation, he had even personally approved the authorization.

An Ruo wondered for a moment whether that counted as abusing one's authority for personal gain, then immediately laughed.

Selerus's condition was very stable. An Ruo himself had conducted the assessments.

And aside from Selerus, the other military females from the same group had also recovered very well.

This time, a full 33 military females had received permission to leave prison.

As their attending physician, An Ruo also felt proud of their achievement.

Although for a long period after their release, these military females would still be living under Federation monitoring, at the very least, this was a good beginning for a group of military females who had experienced Psychic Riots, lost their sanity, and nearly lost their lives as well.

The Federation's monitoring was both surveillance and protection.

Someday in the future, when both the Federation and its citizens believed that these military females who had experienced Psychic Riots would no longer lose control or cause harm, they would finally be able to truly return to normal life.

An Ruo looked forward to that day.

On the other end of the terminal, Ulysses sensed that An Ruo was in a very good mood at the moment, so he tentatively brought up the matter of using Contribution Points to reduce his sentence.

[Ulysses]: According to Federation law, once you've been imprisoned for a full year, you become eligible to submit a sentence-reduction application. In other words, at the beginning of next month, you can apply for your first sentence reduction. Would you be willing to use your Contribution Points to offset your sentence?

Of course An Ruo was willing!

Sure, prison was pretty nice, but a 999-year sentence was simply far too endless to contemplate.

And Ulysses was waiting for him. The release of familiar Zergs like Selerus had also left him feeling somewhat melancholy. He really was looking forward to shortening his sentence and getting out of prison sooner.

He had never carefully calculated the conversion between Contribution Points and time. Those numbers were far too long and made his head spin just looking at them.

Professional Zergs would calculate it for him anyway, so there was no need for him to do something so unnecessary himself.

But according to his gut feeling, offsetting maybe one year, two years... ten years shouldn't be a problem, right?

His Contribution Points really were an extremely long string of numbers, long enough to make his eyes blur.

An Ruo conveyed his thoughts to Ulysses.

Now that he had An Ruo's consent, Ulysses finally relaxed.

But... ten years?

Wasn't the god underestimating himself a little too much?

Ulysses couldn't help finding it amusing.

However, he had no intention of telling him.

He planned to give the god a surprise.

More importantly, he was afraid that if he told him too soon, the god would retreat back into his shell again.

He could see perfectly well just how much An Ruo loved this “nest” called prison. He had to strike decisively and give him no time to react.

Ulysses's gaze was sharp as he stared at the light screen, but when it fell upon An Ruo's message, his eyes unconsciously softened again.

His conscience wouldn't hurt over such a tiny scheme. At worst, he could ask the god for forgiveness afterward.

Anyway, first things first—lure the god out.