Chapter 269: Released from Prison? The Sky Is Falling! He had thought about getting out of prison, but he hadn’t expected it to happen this soon!

After An Ruo finished updating the final chapter of his new novel, he was scrolling through the discussions on StarNet when he received the news that his sentence reduction application had been approved.

Because of his outstanding behavior during his incarceration and the enormous number of Contribution Points he had accumulated, those Contribution Points had reduced his sentence by 998 years.

And from the day An Ruo entered prison until now, even counting every last day, it had only been one year.

Which meant...

"Congratulations. You have completed your sentence and may be released tomorrow."

Major General Uriel personally came to deliver the good news.

An Ruo was completely stunned.

He had guessed that his Contribution Points would reduce his sentence by a lot. After all, that dizzyingly long string of numbers looked impressive at a glance, but he'd never imagined they would be enough to get him released outright.

His sentence was 999 years, practically even more "life" than a life sentence. It looked like it had a fixed term, but in reality, it was worse than life imprisonment. After all, it exceeded the lifespan limit of virtually every Zerg. Perhaps aside from the legendary SSS-rank, there wasn't a single Zerg who could live that long.

But now Uriel was telling him that he could leave prison?

For a moment, An Ruo even suspected that Ulysses had used his authority as Marshal to pull some strings behind the scenes.

But the report Uriel handed him clearly detailed how the Contribution Points had been calculated and how much of his sentence each amount offset. There wasn't the slightest trace of falsification, nor was there any need to falsify anything. He simply had far too many Contribution Points. Even after his entire remaining sentence had been deducted, there were still some left over.

Uriel explained, "The remaining Contribution Points will be converted into Star Coins at a ratio of 1:10,000 as compensation for the period you spent incarcerated."

An Ruo no longer wanted to calculate how much richer he'd just become.

There was definitely a place for him on the Zerg wealth rankings now.

Uriel continued, "In addition, you also have military merit contributions. Those will be calculated separately, and you will receive a military rank as a commendation. The specific arrangements haven't been finalized yet, but the rank definitely won't be low. The Marshal should explain the details to you afterward."

Uriel's eyes were shining as he spoke. It was obvious that he was genuinely happy for him.

An Ruo understood. He would also receive an honorary military rank, probably calculated based on his status as a military doctor.

But An Ruo wasn't in the mood to think about any of that right now.

His mind was completely occupied by the fact that he was about to leave prison and move away from the place where he'd lived for the past year.

Move away from his writing space, his workplace, and the place where he lived his everyday life.

The sky was falling.

He had thought about getting out of prison, but he hadn't expected it to happen this soon!

He wasn't mentally prepared at all!

Uriel was still asking him with concern, "Would you like me to bring some Zergs over to help you pack up your room and luggage?"

An Ruo didn't have many everyday belongings, but he had a lot of letters and gifts.

He had already stored the gifts in his spatial button, but the letters needed to be checked and occasionally answered, so they required dedicated rooms for storage.

Three rooms in the prison were used specifically to store letters from the patients he'd treated.

Uriel talking about packing his luggage was undoubtedly another reminder that he was about to move out.

An Ruo covered his face and said weakly, "No need. I'll do it myself."

He needed some space to be alone and sort out his thoughts.

Packing everything was going to be a major undertaking, but Uriel figured the Marshal would definitely return tonight, so he didn't unnecessarily disturb him any further.

An Ruo returned to his room and stood blankly in the middle of it for a while. Looking up at the images of the protagonists displayed across the walls, he had absolutely no idea what he should do.

After a while, he sat down in his chair and opened his terminal, thinking that he ought to share this good news with Ulysses.

Although having to move out right now felt far too sudden for him, being released from prison was undeniably good news.

He himself wanted to get out too. He wanted to be with Ulysses and didn't want Ulysses to have to wait for him alone for too long.

Opening their chat page and looking at their previous messages, An Ruo suddenly realized that Ulysses definitely already knew about this. He had simply chosen not to tell him beforehand.

So mean.

An Ruo propped his chin on his hand and thought about it. In the end, he decided not to send anything for now.

He wanted to see how long Ulysses could hold out before coming to find him.

By this point, An Ruo had also accepted the fact that he was getting out of prison, and most of his emotions had settled.

He got up and began cleaning his room and packing his belongings.

First came the images of all those protagonists on the walls, along with the photograph of him and Ulysses.

Those were the most important things. He had to pack them carefully and transfer them exactly as they were.

An Ruo took down the photograph of himself and Ulysses. Looking at how closely Ulysses's body was pressed against his in the picture, the flowers blooming beneath the moonlight around them, the quiet and hazy atmosphere, and the intimacy and trust flowing through the scene, an indescribable feeling arose in his heart.

This photograph had been taken during the Legion Celebration. Back then, he and Ulysses had only been friends who could comfortably talk to each other. At the time, he'd thought posing for the photograph was terribly awkward.

Looking at it now, however, it felt completely different.

His feelings for Ulysses ran deep and had begun very early, all the way back when he'd first written this character.

It hadn't been romantic love back then, but it had still been an extraordinarily profound emotion.

Then what about Ulysses's feelings for him?

Looking at the tranquil gaze Ulysses directed at him in the photograph, An Ruo thought that perhaps those feelings had begun much earlier than he'd assumed too.

Earlier than their kiss, earlier than this photograph...

This wasn't a photograph taken amid the awkwardness he'd imagined.

It was a photograph of two hearts cautiously trying to draw closer to each other.

An Ruo admired the picture for quite a while, the pad of his finger brushing across Ulysses's face. Then, afraid that he might smudge it, he carefully put it away like a treasure.

Just as he was preparing to pack the other protagonists' images, spatial fluctuations came from outside the door.

Ah, looks like a certain Zerg couldn't wait any longer.

An Ruo had thought he wouldn't come until evening. Turning his head toward the outside, he saw that the sky was still bright.

Before the Zerg outside could even ring the doorbell, An Ruo went over and opened the door first.

The door opened. He raised his eyes and saw Ulysses standing outside, as handsome and composed as ever, though the eyes looking at him carried a faint trace of nervousness.

An Ruo smiled.

"Come in."

Having received the invitation, Ulysses entered the room, and An Ruo closed the door behind him.

At a glance, Ulysses noticed the missing photograph of himself on the wall.

Only his photograph was gone. All the other Zergs were still there.

Just as he was wondering whether this was some punishment bestowed upon him by his God, someone hugged him from behind.

Physical closeness always gave a Zerg strength and confidence, and Ulysses's heart immediately settled.

Coming back to himself within that embrace, he wrapped his arms around his God in return and observed his reaction.

His eyes were sparkling, filled with happiness.

He probably wasn't very dissatisfied with him.

Ulysses's suspended heart finally dropped completely back into place, but he still took the initiative to apologize.

"I'm sorry. I didn't deliberately mean to hide the matter of your sentence reduction and release from you."

He had been afraid that if he told his God too early, his God might hesitate and then refuse to leave.

"I know. You wanted to surprise me," An Ruo replied.

He had also considered that because Ulysses was the Marshal, it would have been inappropriate for him to abuse his position by revealing the decision ahead of time. But within a romantic relationship, it could also simply be explained as a surprise between lovers.

There was no way An Ruo could have imagined that the real reason was something as bizarre as Ulysses being afraid he wouldn't agree to leave.

Although that did, in fact, strike directly at his heart.

Ulysses fell silent for a moment.

Comparing those two explanations, "surprise" definitely sounded better.

So he went along with his God's words and asked, "Then, were you pleasantly surprised?"

Actually, the surprise outweighed the pleasure.

But if there was both surprise and happiness, how could you say it wasn't a "pleasant surprise"?

An Ruo gave a vague response, then leaned over to kiss him, partly using the kiss to conceal the fact that he didn't know what to say.

He had been aiming for the corner of Ulysses's lips.

But Ulysses noticed that he wanted to kiss him and lowered his head to meet him, turning an ordinary affectionate kiss into a deep one.

An Ruo should never dream of gaining any advantage against Ulysses's kissing skills.

A kissing technique capable of tying a cherry stem into a knot could only force An Ruo's defenses to collapse layer by layer.

He had brought this upon himself.

When they finally separated enough for him to catch his breath, he saw Ulysses gazing at him with silver eyes filled with delight and anticipation, as though he wanted another round.

Absolutely not.

An Ruo pushed against Ulysses's chest and escaped.

He still had a room to pack.

Ulysses followed behind him. When he saw An Ruo taking down the images of the protagonists one after another, he finally understood why his own photograph had disappeared.

Looking on the bright side, the photograph of the two of them had been the first one his God took down.

Surely that carried some special significance.

Ulysses helped him pack from the side. Even though these protagonists would soon be transferred exactly as they were onto the walls of his Marshal's residence, he would accept them as usual.

As An Ruo packed, he secretly glanced at Ulysses beside him from the corner of his eye.

He had originally felt extremely reluctant to leave, but with Ulysses accompanying him, his heart seemed to settle.

It made him willing to follow Ulysses away from this familiar environment, and it also filled him with anticipation for the new life awaiting him.

From now on, he and Ulysses were going to... live together.

They had already been together for quite a while, yet merely thinking about it still made An Ruo's face heat up slightly.

His eyelashes fluttered as countless scenes of everyday life together with Ulysses passed through his mind.

An Ruo still planned to spend one final night in prison tonight and properly say goodbye.

So he only packed the things he wouldn't need tonight, leaving behind his basic daily necessities.

The real bulk of the packing was in those rooms full of letters.

Ulysses had come intending to explain things to his God and help him pack his belongings. He also knew that An had received many thank-you letters from military Female Zergs.

But when he actually saw the sheer scale of those letters, even he was stunned.

The prison didn't allow military Female Zergs to privately add their Psychic Soother's terminal contact unless the Psychic Soother offered it first. With An Ruo's personality, he obviously wasn't going to volunteer it.

So the military Female Zergs could only use the most traditional method: handwritten letters, officially collected and delivered to express their gratitude.

There were an unbelievable number of physical letters here.

In an interstellar era where offices had long since gone paperless, this was the first time Ulysses had ever seen such a massive quantity of physical documents.

And these were only thank-you letters from military Female Zerg patients.

If letters from readers were added in the future...

Ulysses began wondering whether all those storage rooms he'd prepared would even be enough.

They might have to use spatial expansion technology specifically for these letters.

After all, in ordinary Zerg households, technology like that was generally only used for mech rooms so they could accommodate enormous mechs.

Letters were actually about to receive the same treatment as mechs.

Ulysses silently helped organize them, putting them into spatial buttons one by one according to their sorting and classifications.

Whenever he encountered letters written directly on paper without envelopes, he would occasionally glance over them in passing.

His expression immediately became even darker.

They were all filled with shamelessly obscene lines written by Female Zergs in heat.

Didn't these Female Zergs have Male Zergs of their own?

Why were they going into heat over his male?

And it wasn't just the words. These Female Zergs also liked spraying perfume onto their letters. Some of the more confident ones even added the scent of their own pheromones, hoping His Lordship would remember them because of it, or fantasizing that their pheromone scent might earn them a personal audience with His Lordship.

The more Ulysses packed, the darker his expression became.

He desperately wanted to destroy those letters outright.

It wouldn't be difficult.

The instant he closed his hand around one, he could reduce it to ashes. Even if someone noticed anything, they would probably assume it was merely dust from somewhere that hadn't been cleaned in too long.

But Ulysses glanced at the male's back and ultimately didn't dare do anything so blatant.

First, even if the male couldn't see it, his Psychic Power could still sense certain disturbances. Ulysses wasn't confident he could conceal it from his God's perception, and the other clearly cared a great deal about these letters.

Second, if he truly wanted to destroy them, he'd have to destroy more than half the letters in this entire room. With ashes piled all over the floor afterward, even a blind Zerg would know something was wrong.

Ulysses sped up, silently continuing to pack.

He decided that after they arrived at the Marshal's residence, he would suggest adding another letter-review team to filter out letters containing overly extreme or unbearably obscene remarks in advance.

That would also save the male some time when reading his correspondence.

Halfway through packing, An Ruo noticed Ulysses behind him practically radiating black air.

He wasn't sure what had provoked him this time.

Ulysses wasn't a Zerg who openly displayed his emotions, so making him this angry was genuinely no easy feat.

An Ruo looked at the letters in Ulysses's hands and vaguely understood.

Thank-you letters among Zergs were just... exceptionally uninhibited.

Some of their contents were practically love letters.

He walked over and took the stack from Ulysses's hands.

"I'll do it."

Then he didn't forget to explain, "Don't worry. I've firmly rejected everything like that. I've never given any of them unrealistic hopes."

Ulysses was indeed somewhat appeased, but the thought that the male would still read these letters and even reply to those Zergs made his anger flare again.

Of course, those emotions weren't directed at the male.

They were directed at those shameless Zergs writing him letters.

An Ruo kissed him again.

"There won't be any more in the future. I'll have letters like these filtered out, and I'll publicly tell them not to write this kind of content anymore. I won't accept them."

That was exactly what Ulysses had been thinking earlier. Now that An himself had suggested it, it would be even easier for him to implement.

An's attitude also soothed him extremely well.

It felt like his ruffled fur had been stroked perfectly smooth.

But then Ulysses abruptly realized that he had been acting far too jealous.

That wasn't good.

In a society where one male commonly had multiple females, no Male Zerg would like a Female Zerg interfering excessively with his other pursuers.

Much less a God.

Ulysses attempted to salvage the situation.

"That's not what I meant..."

It was exactly what he meant.

An Ruo looked at him with a smile, completely unconcerned by his interference.

They were lovers.

This was only natural.

Before they got together, he could have been casual about such things. But now that they had confirmed their relationship, they needed to care about each other's feelings.

Letters like these genuinely were inappropriate.

Whatever defense Ulysses had intended to make ultimately dissolved beneath the male's affection.

An Ruo seized the opportunity to make his own request.

"When I'm released tomorrow, don't come pick me up. Don't show up."

Ulysses's eyes immediately widened as he snapped back to full alertness.

"No!"

How could he possibly not come to pick up the male on something as important as his release from prison?

An Ruo was equally adamant.

"My release is definitely going to attract a lot of attention. If anyone sees or photographs you coming to pick me up, it'll cause an enormous uproar, and it'll be bad for your reputation. We've already agreed that you shouldn't get too close to this identity of mine in public. We can't let people connect us."

Ulysses understood the reasoning.

But there was no possibility of him not coming.

Since the male was being released through official procedures, he would inevitably leave ceremonially through the prison's main gates, walking openly and honorably out of the prison and departing the Military Region.

He wouldn't leave as usual by following Ulysses through a spatial passage.

Which meant Ulysses absolutely had to be waiting outside the prison to pick him up.

He had been preparing for such an important day for so long. Moreover, he was the male's one and only lover.

There was no possibility of him not appearing.

What kind of Female Zerg wouldn't come to pick up his Male Zerg when he went out?

Wouldn't that be the same as denying his status as the legitimate partner?