Chapter 302: What If An Had Been the One Who Married Ulysses (8): A Conscience Forever Uneasy, Forever Restless

Ex. Pe. Rience.

Of course Ulysses knew he had experience. Whether it was his practiced skill at Psychic Soothing or his thorough knowledge and exceptional prowess in bed, everything about him showed that he was a highly experienced male Zerg.

But Ulysses did not want to know where all that extensive experience had come from.

Not one bit.

Ulysses secretly clenched his teeth, resenting those parts of An's past that he had never been able to share.

An Ruo suddenly noticed that the atmosphere inside the aircraft had become rather oppressive, as though the air pressure had abruptly dropped.

And Ulysses had stopped speaking.

A faint sense of impending danger sounded an alarm in his mind. An Ruo looked at the silent Ulysses sitting opposite him.

He wasn't someone who was good at guessing what other Zergs were thinking, but when it came to Ulysses, he always possessed an unusual degree of sensitivity.

He understood Ulysses.

He mentally replayed what he'd just said, then cautiously explained,

"I do have a lot of experience with Psychic Soothing, because I used to be a very accomplished soothing specialist."

The kind who had personally been awarded the rank of Lieutenant General by the Marshal.

Thinking of that "Lieutenant General" rank he'd never actually had a chance to use still gave An Ruo a strange feeling.

But there was certainly no way he'd be using it in this world, so he tossed the thought aside.

An Ruo said all this because he wanted to make it clear that he wasn't recklessly putting himself in danger. He genuinely had both the ability and confidence to back himself up.

Across from him, Ulysses politely listened to his explanation and gave him a polite little smile.

An Ruo: "..."

All right.

Wrong direction.

There was no need for Ulysses to say anything. Just looking at his reaction was enough for An Ruo to know that he hadn't addressed whatever Ulysses actually wanted to hear.

But what did Ulysses want to hear?

An Ruo genuinely had no idea.

The Ulysses he knew understood his circumstances very well and knew that he was an outstanding Psychic Soothing specialist. He had never cared about this.

But the Ulysses in front of him didn't know him nearly as well.

An Ruo vaguely grasped something.

He thought about the standard method male Zergs used for Psychic Soothing—the method that was also commonly accepted in society...

An Ruo hurriedly added, "I'm good at Psychic Soothing without relying on physical contact! I just sit in the treatment room with a table between us, face-to-face, and perform the soothing that way. There are military females supervising from the side too!"

An Ruo rattled off an entire string of explanations, describing everything in excruciating detail. He practically wanted to account for the exact time, movements, and setting, then drag Uriel out through a crack in time to testify on his behalf, desperately proving that he had absolutely never done anything improper.

He was a perfectly innocent male Zerg—a perfectly innocent human being.

Seeing the male behave like this instead struck Ulysses as quite novel.

Male Zergs never needed to explain themselves to female Zergs. Even if a male had many females, that was completely normal. There was no reason for him to explain or justify anything.

Yet looking at the male across from him, gazing eagerly at him like that, something stirred faintly in Ulysses' heart.

Absurdly, he found himself wanting to believe him.

His hand settled on the table, and he leaned slightly forward, unconsciously wanting to be closer to the male as he asked quietly,

"You mean that all the Psychic Soothing you've previously performed for female Zergs was purely mental? You never had intimate contact with any of them?"

He waited for an answer, even though he knew perfectly well that the answer might be false, or might not be one he wanted to hear.

An Ruo fell silent.

He couldn't answer.

He couldn't lie to Ulysses.

He quietly fidgeted with his fingers and said guiltily, "Actually, actually... there was one. One and only one..."

The male's phrasing wasn't particularly straightforward, but Ulysses understood immediately.

There was one female Zerg who had been different.

He had shared intimate contact with that female.

Ulysses' throat moved as he swallowed slightly.

This male didn't seem good at lying, so Ulysses could easily tell that he was speaking the truth. And precisely because it was true, the realization felt even more bitter and complicated.

One.

Not all of them.

Not several.

One and only one.

That only made that female Zerg's special status stand out even more starkly.

Ulysses couldn't describe what he was feeling at that moment. He couldn't tell whether he would rather face a male who treated every female Zerg equally, or a male who held one particular female Zerg in a special place within his heart.

It had never been something Ulysses could choose anyway.

He remembered the painting hanging in the living room, the female Zerg in the painting who resembled him. He remembered the way the male occasionally looked at him and how extraordinarily well he treated him.

Ulysses asked hoarsely, "That female Zerg... who was he?"

Perhaps he shouldn't have asked.

But at that moment, Ulysses wanted an answer.

An Ruo opened his mouth, instinctively about to answer, "My Female Lord."

But just as the words reached his lips, that strange sense of danger made him change his answer. With a hint of shyness, he told Ulysses,

"It was you."

Ulysses fell silent.

His body slowly leaned back against the sofa seat. He took a deep breath and then smiled.

It was him.

Considering how practiced the male had been with him, this was obviously not a particularly convincing answer.

But Ulysses liked hearing it.

Female Zergs lost their rationality after falling in love.

That was something Ulysses had always guarded against.

He simply hadn't expected that one day he would fall this far himself, willing to listen only to whatever sweet words his male told him and let a male Zerg wrap him completely around his finger.

"Male Lord."

Ulysses called to him, using the form of address that represented the intimate bond between them.

Whatever the past might have been, he was An's Female Lord now.

With a faint smile in his voice, he asked, "What was it you were saying just now? You wanted to go to the Military Region Prison?"

An Ruo had no idea how the conversation had suddenly circled back to that. He could only tell that Ulysses was now in an excellent mood, so he nodded somewhat blankly.

Ulysses agreed.

"I'll take you there. You can have a look, and I'll stay beside you to protect you."

Ulysses deliberately didn't mention anything about Psychic Soothing.

Since the male wanted to go, he would take him there and let him look around. There was no harm in letting him try either.

Ulysses would protect him.

He wouldn't allow anything dangerous to happen.

And he also wanted...

To let An meet his female parent.

Even if they were separated by a transparent protective wall.

Even if neither knew the other's identity.

Even if one of them wasn't conscious.

He still wanted them to meet once.

His female parent had no awareness and spent long periods unconscious under the effects of medication. Perhaps he wouldn't even know that Ulysses had brought a male Zerg like this to see him...

That was good too.

His female parent wouldn't know that, in the end, Ulysses had also fallen into the hands of a male Zerg.

He wouldn't have to worry about him.

And the male wouldn't know that the female Zerg inside, the one who resembled a "monster," was Ulysses' female parent.

Thinking in a way that bordered on self-torment, Ulysses thus planned the family's first meeting.

An Ruo didn't know what Ulysses was thinking.

He only sensed something.

He got up, walked over to Ulysses, sat close beside him, reached out, and embraced him, quietly keeping him company.

Ulysses paused slightly, then raised his arms and naturally returned the embrace, drawing the male pressed against him into his arms.

They held each other without speaking, sharing the silence of that moment and the warmth of each other's bodies.

Ulysses stared ahead.

He had understood long ago that he must never fall into the hands of a male Zerg.

Never establish an intimate bond with a male Zerg.

Doing so would lead to eternal damnation.

But there was nothing he could do.

One male Zerg had barged unreasonably into his life.

He had disrupted every plan Ulysses had made, thrown his heart into turmoil, and even made him abandon his principles.

Even now, Ulysses didn't know whether this change was good or bad.

But the very fact that he had begun considering that question meant he had already allowed the male into his life.

From now on, there would be a male Zerg in his future.

If one day in the future some outside force—or the male himself, by his own insistence—were to tear him out of Ulysses' life, it would be equivalent to killing Ulysses alive.

He would never again be able to bear such a price.

The future awaiting a female Zerg who fell in love with a male was inevitably destruction.

Ulysses calmly walked down the road toward destruction, peacefully approaching his final destination, no longer putting up a futile resistance.

...

The aircraft stopped in front of the Military Region Prison.

Ulysses was the first to step out. He swept his gaze over the surroundings and confirmed that no danger was concealed nearby. His eyes then passed over the military females standing guard in front of the prison before he calmly turned around and extended a hand toward the aircraft.

An Ruo took his hand and stepped down.

For a moment, he felt countless gazes fall upon him.

But when he looked over, all he saw were military females standing guard with their eyes fixed straight ahead. Their backs even seemed unusually straight as they stood with their weapons in their arms, heads high and chests out, looking exceptionally imposing.

An Ruo followed Ulysses into the Military Region Prison.

The great Psychic Soothing specialist had returned to the little nest from which he'd been separated for so long.

Thanks to Ulysses' advance arrangements, they encountered no questioning or obstruction and traveled unhindered the entire way.

An Ruo couldn't resist looking around everywhere.

The layout of the Military Region Prison wasn't very different from what he remembered, though the faces of the military females standing guard were relatively unfamiliar.

An Ruo did have mild face blindness. Other than the Zergs he cared about or those he frequently spent time with, he couldn't really remember other people's faces, retaining only a vague impression.

Though saying he couldn't remember them wasn't entirely accurate.

With Psychic Power comparable to that of a top-tier male Zerg, he could perfectly memorize anything he wanted to remember.

It was simply that these things didn't fall within the category of information he considered worth memorizing.

Just like how he could remember every patient's Psychic Domain perfectly, yet could never match them to their faces.

Ah, exactly.

Doctors recognized patients from their medical records, after all.

Of course, he still recognized Selerus.

How could he possibly fail to recognize his father-in-law?

Even though the enormous fantastical creature before him looked somewhat different from the Selerus he was familiar with, An Ruo couldn't mistake him.

He was familiar with Selerus' Psychic Power field, and he had also seen Selerus' original form before. Although it had only been once, all of it was stored in the doctor's virtual medical-record database.

An Ruo stood beside Ulysses outside Cell No. 1, looking into the cell filled with the collision of °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° two opposing forces—chaotic energy and suppressive energy.

Electrical arcs danced through the chains, almost completely enveloping the enormous sleeping creature.

An Ruo secretly glanced at Ulysses beside him, whose lips had tightened into a straight line, then tentatively suggested,

"Turn those things off. I'll be able to soothe him very quickly."

Ulysses was silent for a moment.

Then he turned his head toward the prison warden accompanying them and quietly gave several instructions.

The warden acknowledged the order, walked to the cell door, and used his authorization to connect to the internal system and operate it.

Before long, An Ruo saw the dancing electrical arcs disappear.

The powerful suppressive energy filling the cell receded, while the chaotic and violent energy within began climbing layer by layer.

Only because the powerful sedative injected directly into his spine was still taking effect did the restrained female Zerg in his original form remain unconscious.

But if the energy continued rising at this rate, it was only a matter of time before the female Zerg awakened from his deep sleep.

Ulysses watched the interior vigilantly.

He stepped half a pace forward, partially shielding the male behind him.

Seeing Ulysses' protective movement, An Ruo knew there was absolutely no chance Ulysses would agree if he proposed opening the door and letting him enter the cell to perform the soothing.

Although working through the specially constructed protective wall would definitely reduce his efficiency, it wasn't impossible.

He was already very practiced at this.

An Ruo extended his Psychic Power and, with the ease of someone intimately familiar with the process, began piecing his father-in-law back together and repairing him.

Come to think of it, how many times had he done this now?

Practice made perfect.

An Ruo could practically do it with his eyes closed.

He picked up a fragment of memory concerning Ulysses' egg, carefully wiped it clean, sighed softly, and returned it to the shattered ocean of memories.

No matter how many times he went through this, those memories concerning Ulysses were always the ones Selerus treasured most and preserved the longest.

Perhaps during those years filled with darkness and chaos, that already-rampaging "monster" had still repeatedly looked through those memories within his sea of consciousness, even though he could no longer understand what they meant.

Ulysses suddenly sensed something.

He turned his head and immediately froze in astonishment. His eyes flickered as he asked gravely,

"Why are you crying?"

"Am I?"

An Ruo raised a hand blankly and touched a trace of cool moisture on his face.

Perhaps it was because, just like Selerus, he deeply loved the Zerg standing before him and had been moved by those lingering emotions.

Or perhaps it came from a kind of guilt and remorse he couldn't quite explain.

The reason he kept repeating this, saving them again and again, was probably not only because this was Ulysses' obsession.

It was also because of his own conscience—

forever uneasy, forever restless.

Inside the cell, the enormous female Zerg opened his eyes.

Within those huge red irises were reflected two blurry figures standing outside.