Chapter 288: Custom-Made Rings: Five Eggs—Carry Them Again, Not a Single One Can Be Missing

An Ruo woke from his sleep, warm sunlight spilling over the platinum-blond hair beside his pillow. He was still a little dazed.

Ulysses woke along with him. He sat up and supported his forehead with one hand, looking equally hazy and disoriented.

It was extremely rare to see Ulysses in such a state.

Even while washing up and changing clothes afterward, Ulysses would occasionally glance at his abdomen and place a hand over it, as though vaguely recalling something.

An Ruo faintly realized what was going on. He was still hesitating over whether he should ask when Ulysses happened to raise his eyes and look at him.

Their gazes met, and An Ruo spoke first.

“You dreamed it too?”

Ulysses paused briefly before answering softly, “Mm.”

He wasn’t sure whether it had actually been a dream. Everything had felt far too real to him. He clearly remembered being opened up by the tentacles, and he remembered his god delivering eggs into his gestational sac.

Even now, after waking from sleep, he could almost imagine that he could still feel the eggs inside his abdomen.

But the swelling of his abdomen was gone.

He had secretly scanned himself with his terminal, but it hadn’t detected anything. It had merely informed him that his gestational sac was exceptionally well developed and highly suitable for conception, encouraging him to have more contact with Male Zergs.

Those had been five eggs.

Ulysses didn’t know whether the equipment simply couldn’t detect them or whether he had failed to bring them back from that world.

Those had been five eggs!

Ulysses secretly clenched his back teeth.

The male moved closer and soothingly touched the back of his hand, pressing himself against him.

Ulysses took the opportunity to embrace him, lowered his head to lightly touch the corner of his lips, and sighed, “God,” before seeking a kiss from him with infinite longing.

An Ruo heard that special yet familiar form of address.

Even before the dream, Ulysses had occasionally enjoyed playing out their god-and-believer dynamic. After that dream, he seemed to like the title even more.

After their previous experiences of sharing dreams, An Ruo didn’t find it strange that they would have the same dream.

Perhaps it was because their compatibility was so high, or because they had established a psychic connection before. Or perhaps it was simply because his Psychic Power was so strong that whenever he thought about Ulysses, he naturally pulled him into his dreams. Besides, they were sleeping together, extremely close to one another. Even the Psychic Power unconsciously leaking from them could easily influence the other.

As for why the dream had felt so real... perhaps that was also related to the “Male Zerg’s” powerful Psychic Power. Every dream An Ruo had experienced since transmigrating had been like this. Every scene and object within those dream worlds had been vividly lifelike.

An Ruo was willing to believe it had merely been a dream.

But from another perspective, a dream might also represent some kind of “possibility”—an alternative development, another branch diverging from the river of time, a parallel universe...

Whatever it was, to them, it had only been one great dream.

So he was not a tentacle monster.

An Ruo recalled how, in the dream world, he had turned into a transparent tentacle monster and done this and that to Ulysses. He was very worried that Ulysses might be angry with him because of it and think he was some pervert with unusual fetishes.

Heaven knew he had never thought about anything like that before!

Heaven knew what was wrong with that dream. It was practically slandering his character.

An Ruo grumbled softly as he kissed Ulysses, feeling somewhat aggrieved at having been defamed by his own dream. Fortunately, Ulysses didn’t seem to dislike him because of it.

When the kiss ended, Ulysses took his hand and placed it on his abdomen, which was once again flat and covered only by firm abdominal muscles.

He said quietly:

“Five.”

An Ruo stiffened and immediately apologized.

“I didn’t do it on purpose.”

He thought Ulysses was still blaming him for turning into a tentacle monster and tormenting him by making him conceive five eggs at once.

But Ulysses said, “No. Five eggs. I’m going to carry them again. Not a single one can be missing.”

An Ruo genuinely froze.

Five eggs?

No way. How could they possibly do that?

It definitely wouldn’t work in reality. There were far too many. Ulysses’s body wouldn’t be able to withstand carrying so many at once.

An Ruo had deeply regretted putting so many eggs into Ulysses’s gestational sac in one go. Although Ulysses had eventually persuaded him that it would be all right, An Ruo had still been frightened afterward. Upon waking, he hadn’t even known whether he should feel relieved that it had only been a dream...

Admittedly, there was also a complicated sense of nostalgia, melancholy, and regret.

But those were not feelings he should express in front of Ulysses.

He emphasized once again that five eggs were too many. It couldn’t be done. No matter what, carrying that many at once was out of the question.

Ulysses immediately seized upon the loophole—or perhaps the concession—in his words.

“Then I’ll carry them separately, one at a time, until all five have been born.”

“They’re our hatchlings. Not a single one can be missing,” he told An Ruo firmly.

An Ruo understood what he meant.

Ulysses regarded the eggs from the dream as the hatchlings they were supposed to have—the hatchlings who were supposed to be born. That was why he couldn’t accept that they had disappeared. He wanted to use this method to bring them back, one egg at a time.

An Ruo didn’t know whether the hatchlings born this way would still count as those five eggs from the dream.

But if Ulysses believed they did, then they did.

Something like this depended entirely on what one believed and how one chose to see it.

As for Ulysses, his reasoning was that these were his god’s hatchlings. As long as his god willed it, he could give Ulysses the hatchlings that had originally belonged to them without the slightest difference.

His faith in An Ruo’s power far exceeded An Ruo’s own confidence in himself.

An Ruo thought about Ulysses’s compromise and eventually agreed.

Although...

He wasn’t even sure whether they could actually have hatchlings in the real world. But in an atmosphere like this—Ulysses was kissing him while telling him he wanted eggs, and things had already reached this point. Anyone in his position would find it impossible to say no.

After obtaining his promise, Ulysses was perfectly satisfied. They remained affectionate for a little while longer before he left for work.

Ulysses still had a morning meeting today. Although he very much looked as though he wanted to take care of the matter of their first egg right there in the dressing room, he restrained himself and went to deal with work first.

An Ruo knew that under circumstances like these, all he had to do was say a single word and Ulysses would postpone all his work and deal with him first.

It had nothing to do with Ulysses’s personal attitude toward work or romance.

A species that placed reproduction above all else was simply like this. Anything involving the great harmony of life between a Male Zerg and Female Zerg took precedence over everything else. Any Male or Female Zerg would make the same choice, and society as a whole wouldn’t see anything wrong with it. Everyone was extremely tolerant of such matters.

So naturally An Ruo couldn’t say anything.

Even though Ulysses seemed to be waiting for him to ask him to stay, An Ruo had no intention of becoming some seductive Male Zerg who tempted the Marshal into neglecting government affairs.

He ignored Ulysses’s suggestive gaze and urged him to attend his meeting first.

After Ulysses left, An Ruo sat alone in the room in a daze for a while.

Then he suddenly remembered something.

He opened the holographic screen of his terminal and added another item to the schedule of a shut-in who previously had only one task on it.

Custom-made rings.

Write.

“Custom-made rings” was the newly added item.

As for “write”...

An Ruo’s gaze drifted guiltily away.

It hadn’t been that long since his previous novel ended. There was no need to rush into starting a new one.

He could wait a few more days.

He would definitely write tonight!

No, wait. Tonight he still had to... with Ulysses...

He would definitely write tomorrow!

Tomorrow they also had their conception plans...

The day after tomorrow...

He would definitely write before the end of the month!

An Ruo rubbed his face.

He believed he wasn’t the kind of author who would become completely immersed in romance.

He would definitely write.

Definitely.

——

An Ruo found several high-end jewelry boutiques on StarNet whose styles he liked and decided to visit them first so he could discuss his ideas with the designers.

He sent Ulysses a message telling him that he was going out for a while and rejected Ulysses’s offer to accompany him.

If Ulysses went out with him, he would definitely have to postpone work. An Ruo didn’t want to interfere with his duties.

Besides, when it came to giving him a ring, An Ruo wanted to keep it secret for now and surprise Ulysses.

He changed into something more understated and headed downstairs.

As soon as he came down, he saw an entirely black aircraft parked outside. One of the military Female Zerg guards, now dressed in civilian clothes, gestured invitingly toward him.

An Ruo glanced at the aircraft and naturally extended his Psychic Power inside, confirming that Ulysses wasn’t sitting there waiting to give him a “surprise.”

Only then did he close the holographic screen of his terminal and board.

He had originally planned to hail an aircraft himself through StarNet, but having a dedicated Zerg drive him around was pretty convenient too.

His understanding of Zerg society was still mostly theoretical. He wasn’t actually all that familiar with its reality, so having Zergs from the Marshal’s residence accompanying him was safer as well.

But once the aircraft took off, An Ruo vaguely sensed something unusual.

He spread out his Psychic Power.

Then he detected more than a dozen aircraft following behind them.

There were even aircraft flying ahead specifically to clear the way.

An Ruo stared blankly.

Just how many Zergs were [N O V E L I G H T] following him?!

Wasn’t this procession a little too much?!

Socially anxious An Ruo died of embarrassment for one second.

But he quickly realized that the aircraft weren’t following particularly closely. They were merely escorting him from a distance. Once they entered the busy city center and blended in among the other aircraft, they became virtually impossible to distinguish.

Clearly, whoever had arranged all this had deliberately taken his feelings into consideration.

An Ruo silently withdrew his Psychic Power.

Since that was the case, he would simply pretend he knew nothing.

The aircraft stopped in front of the first jewelry boutique.

This was also the boutique whose design style An Ruo found the most distinctive. If possible, he hoped he could commission the rings he wanted here.

He declined the military Female Zerg guard’s offer to accompany him and entered alone.

An Ruo had deliberately dressed inconspicuously before leaving. He wore only a simple white trench coat and even had a hat on.

But the moment he entered everyone’s field of vision, he instantly attracted the attention of every Zerg present.

The surrounding air seemed to fall silent.

No matter what anyone had been doing before, the instant they saw him, they stopped moving and simply stared straight at him, mouths hanging wide open.

One Zerg even walked past him without reacting, then suddenly whipped his head around so violently that he nearly twisted it a full one hundred and eighty degrees and almost crashed into a pillar.

An Ruo: “...”

He silently pulled his hat lower over his head.

Then he repeatedly confirmed that he wasn’t leaking any Male Zerg pheromones or anything else.

The face he was using was also An-shen’s true appearance, which he had never revealed before the Zergs, rather than that of the Psychic Soother whose appearance every Zerg already knew.

An Ruo entered the jewelry boutique and tapped his fingertips against the counter before finally snapping the clerk out of his open-mouthed stupor.

“This distinguished... sir? May I ask what you need?”

There were no pheromones and no leaking Psychic Power. The Sub-Female clerk couldn’t determine this gentleman’s sex, so he conservatively chose a relatively neutral and universally applicable form of address.

Although this gentleman was so extraordinarily beautiful that merely looking at him made a Zerg blush, among Zergs, the higher one’s rank, the more outstanding one’s appearance tended to be.

Marshal Ulysses, General Cyril, Major General Iso, and others were all exceptionally beautiful Female Zergs.

Moreover, Desperate Straight Female had only recently concluded, so its influence was currently at its peak. Even though the latter part of the book had already explicitly revealed that Felix was a Male Zerg, it had still somehow sparked a strange wave of female-female interest.

Nowadays, whenever Zergs saw an attractive “Female Zerg” who made their hearts race, their first instinct was to wonder whether they might actually be attracted to Female Zergs.

“I need to commission a pair of rings. I have an appointment with Designer Kalanto,” An Ruo briefly explained.

Upon hearing that he wanted custom-made rings, the Sub-Female clerk immediately understood.

After An-shen’s books became wildly popular, giving rings had also become fashionable among Zergs. There were rings designed in the style of suppressors as well as ordinary rings, and both had their own markets.

Most were purchased by Female Zergs or Sub-Females as gifts for Male Zergs, though a small number of Male Zergs also came to buy them.

The Sub-Female clerk escorted the distinguished guest toward the lounge.

As they passed customers browsing jewelry and clerks serving them, An Ruo received countless envious looks.

An Ruo also noticed that although many Zergs were staring at him, almost none actually approached to strike up a conversation.

That made him breathe a sigh of relief.

It seemed everyone among the Zergs still had excellent social etiquette.

What he didn’t know was that the reason none of them immediately approached was because they were all secretly questioning their own sexual orientation.