Chapter 333: Male Zerg Celebrity × Arms Dealer (20): [Hurry up and explain to An-shen that Male Zergs don’t need contraceptives! Marshal, what are you doing?

[Grilling fish by the river with Mr. Ravens, eating freshly picked berries, while lively fluffball beasts chased and played around them—this was the kind of life Shamir would once have found difficult to imagine.

It wasn’t that Shamir couldn’t imagine a life surrounded by nature. For Shamir, who had grown up on a farm, this was actually the kind of life he knew best.

But once Ravens was added to the picture, it became something entirely different.

Ravens just somehow felt completely unrelated to any of this.

They belonged to entirely different visual styles.

Most of Shamir’s impressions of Mr. Ravens were tied to that villa, together with its cold yet luxurious furnishings and that magnificent pipe organ.

Or else, to the bed.

His pheromones carried the scent of gunpowder and metal, hazy and dangerous beneath the darkness of night.

They were Zergs from two different worlds.

Shamir had known that from the very beginning.

During the ten years of their contract, they actually saw each other very little.

Sometimes once every few months, sometimes once every few weeks.

Most of the time, Ravens came looking for him—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say he “summoned” him.

At first, their meetings always happened very suddenly, leaving Shamir completely unprepared and causing all sorts of problems. Later, though, they seemed to become fixed around Shamir’s days off, after each filming schedule or event ended.

Sometimes, even if Shamir’s filming period lasted half a year, Ravens would not contact him midway through it.

Back then, Shamir had actually thought Ravens had already lost interest in him.

Yet the next time they met, he would discover that wasn’t the case at all. Ravens’s body would still be burning hot, and sometimes Shamir could sense the other Zerg’s passion and reluctance to let him go.

Shamir didn’t know whether Female Zergs could separate physical desire from emotion.

He only knew that Ravens stopped seeking him out frequently.

And even at their most frequent, they only met once every few weeks.

That simply wasn’t how often a Female Zerg would seek out a Male Zerg he liked.

Ravens had probably chosen him partly because his low rank meant he wouldn’t have much effect on him.

In a relationship like theirs, involving feelings would have been the unwise thing to do.

But then why, after their contract ended, had Ravens come looking for him again?

Shamir watched Ravens, and some of the questions that had previously been buried beneath the influence of his emotions began surfacing again.

He watched as Ravens brought a piece of fish, grilled until fragrant and crisp, to his lips.

He watched Ravens gaze at him with gentle eyes, concentrating on him as he ate it, before a smile spread through his eyes like ripples across spring water...

Shamir was certain that Ravens liked him now.

At this moment, Ravens even seemed as though some invisible pressure had been lifted from him. Compared with the past, he was far more relaxed and at ease around Shamir, and much closer to him.

Perhaps Ravens had liked him during those ten years too.

Shamir could sense the emotions revealed through Ravens’s eyes and gestures.

But the fact that they only saw each other once every few months made Shamir wonder whether all that affection had merely been his own imagination or a mistaken interpretation.

Now, at last, he had the chance to ask the question that had been troubling him.

“Mr. Ravens, did you already start liking me while our contract was still in effect?”

Ravens paused slightly upon hearing that. He thought about it, then answered anyway.

“Mm. I did.”

His feelings for Shamir had only started earlier than that, never later.

Shamir’s eyes brightened. Smiling, he propped his cheek on one hand and asked curiously,

“Then why didn’t Mr. Ravens come looking for me very often?”

As his “financial backer,” Ravens could summon him whenever he pleased, entirely according to his mood.

Yet in reality, Ravens had only contacted him a limited number of times.

This time, Ravens remained silent for longer.

His brows drew together slightly, thought and hesitation showing between them, as though he wanted to speak but didn’t know where to begin.

In the end, however, he chose to lay his heart bare before Shamir.

“At first, I actually wanted to suppress this urge...”

He was talking about the period right after he and Shamir first entered into their contractual relationship, when he received Psychic Soothing for the first time and also slept with Shamir for the first time.

The effect Shamir had on him was far greater than he had expected.

He missed him desperately.

Ravens had assumed it was merely an aftereffect of Psychic Soothing and forced himself to overcome it.

After that first time, he went an entire three months without daring to see Shamir.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to.

He didn’t dare to, and he couldn’t.

When he initially followed the doctor’s advice and chose a Male Zerg with a large rank difference to treat him, part of his reasoning had been that a lower-ranked Male Zerg would be less capable of influencing him.

As for choosing Shamir specifically, that had come from another vague, secret thought that he could never voice aloud.

He had accounted for the influence a Male Zerg’s pheromones and Psychic Power might have on him.

What he had failed to account for was the influence of the Male Zerg himself.

A Male Zerg he already had some fondness for.

A night of careful tenderness tangled together with chaos.

Neither time nor distance managed to lower that burning temperature.

Instead, he only missed Shamir more and more.

He missed him until his heart itched unbearably, until Shamir even appeared in his dreams, and when he woke, he would still have to clean up the mess.

Ravens, who had lived abstinently for more than a hundred {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} years, had never experienced anything like that.

It only made him even more afraid to get close to Shamir again.

At least not until he had “calmed down.”

He was a sufficiently rational and restrained Zerg.

He could force himself to calm down.

He could endure not going to see Shamir.

He could stop himself from engaging in those suspiciously courtship-like behaviors.

He could even endure not asking after Shamir or seeking news about him.

He was afraid that once he learned anything about Shamir, his heart would only grow more unsettled, and he would be even less able to stop himself from missing him and wanting to see him.

But when the three-month mark arrived and his Psychic Domain—which, because of their enormous rank difference, had only undergone a preliminary soothing—sent out an alert that he needed a second treatment, Ravens’s first reaction was actually relief and joy.

Because now he finally didn’t have to keep enduring or restraining himself.

He finally had a legitimate reason to see Shamir.

He contacted Shamir almost impatiently and sent him an invitation.

He even forgot to first check where Shamir was at the time and what he was doing.

That mistake also planted the seeds for later trouble.

Shamir never told Ravens about the inconvenience Ravens had caused him.

Just as before, he treated Ravens and was intimate with him.

Ravens was blinded by lust.

Even when he noticed traces of discomfort in Shamir’s expression, he merely assumed the Male Zerg wasn’t accustomed to pleasing and serving a Female Zerg in this way.

He didn’t want to make things difficult for Shamir.

He made no demands of him in bed.

He even deliberately suppressed his body’s instinctive urge to keep him.

So Shamir left without the slightest hesitation.

And Ravens had to spend the second half of the night with his body pried open, yet without the Male Zerg there to accompany him.

At the time, Ravens told himself that this was normal.

Even after marrying a Male Zerg, Female Zergs often had to endure days without their Male Lord.

They might even have to watch helplessly as the Male Zerg left their body in the middle of the night and went to find another Female Attendant.

So choosing not to establish a closer relationship like this was the correct choice.

At least he would only have to endure temporary pain instead of a lifetime of it.

He restrained himself from seeking more.

He refused to greedily ask for more.

Because he had deliberately shut his eyes and ears like this, it wasn’t until half a year later that he learned Shamir had once left in the middle of filming because of him, delaying the production schedule, and later had to personally apologize one by one to the director, cameramen, and fellow actors in the cast.

He happened to learn this just when his desire to be close to Shamir was becoming increasingly difficult to restrain.

By then, he wanted to see him every week or two and had begun actively learning more about Shamir’s life.

It was like a basin of cold water had suddenly been dumped over him.

Ravens abruptly came to his senses and suddenly realized what he actually meant to Shamir.

He was his work.

The boss he had no choice but to deal with.

The troublesome burden who caused problems for him...

The realization chilled Ravens from head to toe.

As long as this contractual relationship existed, Shamir could never like him.

It was already fortunate if Shamir didn’t thoroughly despise him.

This kind of simple exchange of resources was the relationship Ravens had once wanted.

And yet now it was no longer what he wanted at all.

Once he clearly saw both the nature of his relationship with Shamir and the barriers between them, the heart that had once been restless, joyful, and impossible to suppress abruptly cooled down and became controllable.

Faced with news this terrible, he had no choice but to obediently restrain himself.

After that, Ravens stopped asking Shamir to meet so frequently.

He followed Shamir’s schedule and suppressed the impulse to see him again and again.

Only when he truly couldn’t bear it anymore would he choose one of Shamir’s days off and meet him once.

He sent apology gifts to the Zergs who had been affected by his decisions and compensated them in other ways, repairing whatever negative impression they might have formed of Shamir.

But the Zerg he truly needed to apologize to was actually Shamir.

Yet the contract had already been signed.

The harm had already been done.

No matter how much Ravens tried to make amends, there was no way to undo it.

Ravens finally understood his own heart.

But it was already too late.

He gave Shamir more resources.

More freedom.

He sent more Zergs to Shamir’s side to help and care for him, built a personal team around him, and even organized entire production crews around Shamir so that everything served him.

No Zerg would ever have any complaints about him again.

He would never need to explain himself or apologize to anyone.

The world would revolve around him.

He could do anything he wanted.

He wouldn’t even need to pay Ravens much attention anymore...

Shamir devoted himself to his career.

He became more and more popular, and also more and more busy.

They only saw each other once every few months, or even once every half a year.

...

Ravens laid his heart bare to Shamir.

He told him that at first he had tried to restrain himself, but in the end he failed.

He had fallen in love with Shamir.

He told him he had learned about the trouble his invitations had caused Shamir and felt deeply apologetic and ashamed of it.

He told him that afterward, he changed and only sought him out during Shamir’s days off.

But Shamir, focused on his career, often had a schedule packed so full that going three or four months without a single day off was perfectly normal...

It wasn’t that Ravens deliberately avoided him.

He told Shamir many things.

And omitted many others.

There were many things he could not say aloud.

Those thoughts that were too dark—he didn’t want Shamir to know them.

Shamir watched him intently and listened.

When Ravens said that he had fallen in love with him, Shamir’s eyes suddenly lit up, overflowing with happiness.

“Mr. Ravens... so you really did like me back then!”

Shamir was delighted.

Delighted that all the emotional turmoil and struggle he had gone through back then hadn’t been one-sided.

“Mm. I liked you. Very much,” Ravens answered frankly.

He had liked him.

Earlier than even Ravens himself had believed.

Before Ravens had realized it.

Far, far earlier.

Perhaps as early as when he had watched over the sleeping Shamir at the spaceport, Ravens had already begun to feel a Female Zerg’s protective instinct toward a Male Zerg.

And that protective instinct, together with a little pity and fondness, had been the beginning of falling for another Zerg.

Ravens simply hadn’t noticed it.

Instead, he had used a contract as the medium through which they could come into contact again.

And that had nearly destroyed every possibility they might have had for a future together.

It was Shamir’s tolerance and affection that had given them the chance to begin again.

Shamir truly was such a very, very good Zerg.

After a past like theirs, even if an ordinary Zerg didn’t become enemies with Ravens, it would still have been difficult for genuine feelings to develop.

Yet Shamir was willing to forgive his mistakes because he loved him.

Or perhaps Shamir didn’t even think of those things as “mistakes.”

Those beautiful mint-colored eyes of his seemed rarely to notice another Zerg’s faults.

He always preferred to remember the good parts.

...]

By this point, even readers who wanted Ravens and Shamir to end up together were becoming twisted with jealousy.

[Ravens must have accumulated some unbelievable luck. Early on, he treated the Male Zerg like a sedative, called Shamir away in the middle of filming to serve him, and Shamir genuinely doesn’t blame him?!]

[Maybe in Shamir’s eyes, that was just a normal part of the job. They signed a contract, so when his boss needed him, going over to provide service was normal.]

[And just like the story says, Shamir always remembers the good parts of a Zerg. Ravens treated him well too, so Shamir definitely saw that.]

[I think everyone has overlooked one thing: why was Shamir willing to accept that contract in the first place?

Shamir did want to enter the entertainment industry, and with Ravens backing him and providing resources, his path would certainly be smoother. But judging from what the earlier chapters said, and how decisively Shamir later retired from the industry, he wasn’t especially attached to being an entertainer. It was more like something he wanted to try and experience. Once he’d experienced it, that was enough.

He lacked both the ambition to claw his way to the top and any reason that would force him to sell his Psychic Power and his body.

If he hadn’t wanted to do it, he had absolutely no need to sign that contract.

The story never showed Shamir resisting the contract either. Even when he sometimes reminded himself internally that this was his job and a contractual obligation, he was still willing to perform that job. There were no negative emotions.

On the contrary, as the time for them to separate approached, Shamir showed a great deal of reluctance to leave Ravens.]

This long analysis sounded extremely reasonable to the readers and only made the Zergs even more curious about the reason behind it.

Ravens had chosen the contract and Shamir because he needed Psychic Soothing and because of the vague fondness he had developed for Shamir when they first met.

Then what about Shamir?

That first encounter at the spaceport should have been a memory that belonged to Ravens alone.

Shamir had been asleep. He might not even have known such a Female Zerg existed.

So why had Shamir agreed to sign that contract?

It didn’t seem like Ravens had used his power and status to intimidate or coerce him either.

The Male Zergs’ answer was very simple:

[Because he was handsome.]

[Ravens has money, power, influence, resources, he’s tall, long-legged, broad-chested, and gorgeous. Forget everything else—even just getting to sleep with a super-A-rank handsome Female Zerg is already worth it, okay?]

[Did you all forget how attractive a super-A-rank Female Zerg is in and of himself? Shamir was only C-rank back then, right? Ravens could attract him with nothing but his appearance and pheromones.]

[Also, Shamir is actually pretty softhearted. You can tell just from how little he cares about everything Ravens did to him. He’s definitely a softhearted Zerg.

Ravens signed that contract with Shamir under the pretext of treatment through Psychic Soothing, right? His mental condition definitely couldn’t have been good, and he urgently needed treatment.

Shamir absolutely went softhearted back then. He really was willing to deliver himself to Ravens’s doorstep and act as his doctor.

And because their rank difference was so large, if he wanted to soothe and treat him, they needed more bodily contact. He had to pry the Female Zerg open.

So he diligently pried and pried... until Ravens was thoroughly comfortable.]

The Female Zergs found it unbelievable that this could actually be the reason, but somehow the Male Zerg Lords’ explanation sounded very convincing.

[You can do that??? I need Psychic Soothing too! Why hasn’t any Male Zerg Lord signed a contract with me?]

[Learned something today. I’m going to use this method to pursue a Male Zerg. Step one: make myself look pitiful.]

[Lord Shamir, look at me! I’m also tall, long-legged, and broad-chested, and I require Psychic Soothing treatment. Please sign a contract with me! (attached image: marriage registration form)]

[You cunning bastard! Lord, choose me! I have two fluffball beasts! And lots of experience taking care of pets!]

[Ah, well... that really does require consideration.]

[I have lots of experience taking care of hatchlings!]

[I have lots of experience giving birth to hatchlings (shy).]

[??? Even divorced Female Zergs with hatchlings are showing up now? Wait, with the birth rate this low, exactly how “extensive” can your experience possibly be?]

[Shamir and Ravens don’t have any hatchlings yet. Ah, no, wait, they seem to be raising their pets like hatchlings. Especially that gemstone dragon egg. Ravens is practically incubating it like it’s his own egg.]

[Speaking of which, Ravens still doesn’t know Shamir took contraceptives for ten years, right? He has no idea that the reason they didn’t have a hatchling was because the Male Zerg kept taking medication.]

[When Ravens later made Shamir leave his pheromones inside, he definitely wanted a hatchling. Before he thought of using pets to make Shamir stay, he must have thought about using a Zerg egg to make Shamir stay...

But after ten years with no result, maybe he started questioning his whole Zerg life and wondering why he couldn’t get pregnant. He might even have thought it was because their rank difference was too large, making conception difficult. Later on, he probably stopped daring to hope for it at all, which is why he settled for raising pets instead.]

[That makes a lot of sense!]

[Wait? Did Shamir really take contraceptives for ten years? Isn’t that just some nonsense plot point An-shen wrote because he doesn’t understand the situation? How could any Zerg possibly sell contraceptives to a Male Zerg? And in such a huge quantity! What if they damaged the Male Zerg Lord’s body?!]

[That part is probably something An-shen just made up. It’s extremely difficult to find contraceptives specifically made for Male Zergs among the Zerg race. Tianjia might have something like that, though.

The real situation was probably just that their rank difference was enormous, conception was difficult, and they didn’t do it frequently enough. Not having an egg is perfectly normal.]

[Hurry up and explain to An-shen that Male Zergs don’t need contraceptives! Marshal, what are you doing? (clutches face in panic) (panic) Why did you let An-shen develop this kind of misunderstanding?!]