Luo Binhan was a virgin.
His ridiculously wealthy father had been married to two wives and had at least ten "partners" outside of marriage. And those were just the stable ones. As for the one-night stands, Luo Binhan couldn’t even begin to count.
Things were much better on his mother’s side. His mother had only been married three times, had never had any "unofficial partners" during her marriages, and had probably dated five or six boyfriends. Luo Binhan had absolutely no desire to ask about the extent of those relationships.
His parents’ lifestyles had a profound impact on him. He was well-groomed and wanted for nothing, but he had no girlfriend, had never had his first kiss, and had certainly never experienced the great harmony of life.
His mom once thought he had a secret crush on Zhou Yu. Because Zhou Yu came from a good family and had an upright character, his mom had been thrilled, offering her absolute support and even legal assistance. That is, until she discovered that when they were "under the covers," they were really just talking. She began to suspect her son had some functional defects.
Luo Binhan had no defects. His reaction after being forcibly kissed by a peerless beauty was also quite ordinary.
"What are you, calling for your mommy?" said Jing Huang, who had been woken up by his shriek.
Jing Huang’s face was dark, his eyes were puffy, and his hair was a mess. He looked exhausted, like he’d just been jolted from a deep sleep. Luo Binhan grabbed a lock of hair sticking up from the top of his head and started shaking it frantically. "Your first mate is harassing me!"
"Did she sleep with you?"
"Why is your mind so filthy?"
Jing Huang slapped his hand away. "Yalei is from the Evangelical Race. Sleeping with people is standard procedure for her."
"What about kissing?"
"Do you know how many slices of bread you’ve eaten in your life?"
"Forty-two slices so far this year," Luo Binhan said. "I was hoping someone would ask me that. Also, I’ve had six baguettes."
Jing Huang shoved him back into his chair. "Stop bothering me. I’m trying to sleep."
The soft chair once again floated upward, returning him to face Yaliriga, who was leisurely holding a flower and dipping it into a drink.
"Would you like some candy to calm down?" Yaliriga asked.
Luo Binhan nodded timidly.
Yaliriga pulled a small white flower from the water bottle holding the bouquet and handed it to him. Seeing this, Luo Binhan politely refused. "No, no, I’m not worthy of living on the same planet as Ma..."
"It’s a milk-flavored candy made by the Durand people," Yaliriga said.
Luo Binhan dubiously took the flower and put it in his mouth. The petals slowly expanded, turning into a soft ball like cotton candy, before melting into a sweet, milky liquid.
His stomach began to rumble. He hadn’t had a bite to eat or a drop to drink for several hours, not since the two fried eggs that morning. The flower candy only made him more ravenous.
"You can dip it in some of the toppings," Yaliriga suggested.
Luo Binhan pulled a pale pink flower from the bottle himself and dipped it into a dark green drink for a few seconds. Emerald droplets clung to the flower.
This flower tasted like crispy sweet peach slices smeared with cucumber juice.
Luo Binhan had an epiphany. He finally realized the lingering taste of sour-berry chocolate in his mouth had nothing to do with Yaliriga’s saliva.
"The captain has many enemies," Yaliriga said. "One of them was hiding on your planet, and the captain went to kill him. But the captain himself is also being hunted by other enemies. You took him in, and for that, I am grateful."
She gave a solemn, gentle nod. The fine metal chains hanging from her horns tinkled. Luo Binhan shifted uncomfortably.
"The person he was going to kill is already dead. Now we’re preparing to leave this place and travel through the Gate City to a region outside the Alliance," Yaliriga said. "The captain believes this will prevent his enemies from finding him."
Luo Binhan chewed on the flower petals, pondering for a few seconds before asking, "What’s the Alliance? Your government?"
"It’s more like your international community, but much more relaxed."
"So it’s completely useless?"
Yaliriga gave a cheerful smile. "Here in the Wuyuan Domain, the Alliance is indeed completely useless."
"Is there any law and order in this universe?"
"Better than nothing, I suppose."
"...Is anyone responsible for enforcing the law?"
"In name only."
"Oh... then how do the common people ensure their daily lives and livelihoods?"
"They trust in fate."
Luo Binhan swallowed a mouthful of the sweet liquid. "Then how do you guys make a living?"
Yaliriga just smiled and said nothing. So Luo Binhan asked another question, "How do you usually split the take with the authorities?"
"We don’t split the take," Yaliriga said. "We don’t deal with the authorities."
Luo Binhan pulled the remaining flower stem from his mouth, cupped his hands in a fist-and-palm salute towards Yaliriga, and said, "My apologies for my earlier disrespect. You must be the Interstellar Zhang Mazi? If I join your crew, do I start as the counselor?"
"No, you don’t have to do anything," Yaliriga replied. "The Silence will protect you during this time."
Luo Binhan understood. He was basically just an alien souvenir potted plant that Jing Huang had casually picked up from Blue Star.
"How long until I can go back?"
"That depends on the situation."
"Will my family and friends be in danger?"
"The captain believes they won’t be, now that you’re gone."
That was pretty much everything Luo Binhan wanted to know about his current situation. He stopped asking questions, leaned back into the soft chair, and for the moment, cared for nothing other than eating the flower candies.
But Yaliriga had other ideas. "We have three problems to solve. The first is language."
"But your Chinese is excellent," Luo Binhan said. "Does everyone in the universe speak Chinese?"
"I learned your language from the captain. It belongs to the same language family as his mother tongue, so it was trivially easy to decipher. But you still need to learn one or two common tongues."
Luo Binhan started to feel uneasy. He traveled abroad often, but his foreign language grades had never been very good. "When do we start?"
Yaliriga gently caressed her own lips. "You’ve already learned it."
Luo Binhan opened his mouth, stunned. He watched as a string of syllables spilled from Yaliriga’s lips. It was definitely a language he had never heard before, yet his brain understood it automatically.
"Exchanging saliva with me allows for a partial sharing of our knowledge," she said. "This is how my people, the Evangelical Race, learn."
"...Does it have to be saliva?"
Yaliriga gave a suggestive smile. She licked her lips with her bright red tongue and said, "That’s just the elementary form, and it has obvious flaws... You can use the language I taught you, but only for words whose concepts you understand. If something doesn’t exist in your native language, it will be replaced by the closest concept."
Luo Binhan didn’t understand what she meant, but he wasn’t particularly concerned. His mind was focused on a more academic question. "May I ask what the advanced form of learning for your noble race is?"
"Reproductive information exchange. For your kind, sex would suffice," Yaliriga answered without reservation. "That way, the information we possess can be fully shared. Care to give it a try?"
"Oh. No, thanks," Luo Binhan said. "With benefits like that, why aren’t you called the Welfare Race?"
"’Evangelical’ was the most fitting word you chose yourself."
Luo Binhan was convinced he had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.
"The second problem we need to solve," Yaliriga continued, "is that you were born in a Trap Zone. This should make you naturally suited to the lifestyle of Reason-type civilizations. However, on our upcoming journey, we will encounter Covenant Law-type civilizations. You may run into situations you cannot comprehend. I hope you won’t panic."
"Because nothing bad will actually happen?"
"Because there’s nothing you can do about it," Yaliriga said, her voice as gentle as water.
Luo Binhan bit down on another flower. "Fine, I’ll just die then. Anything else?"
Yaliriga said, "We will arrange for someone to accompany you until you can adapt to life on the ship."
Luo Binhan thought for a moment, then asked solemnly, "Is that person going to sleep with me?"
Yaliriga seemed to pause for a few seconds. She didn’t seem sure.
"He is not of the Evangelical Race," she said. "But if the two of you are willing, I don’t think anyone would object."
She wasn’t speaking Chinese, so Luo Binhan could tell from her choice of pronoun that the "he" she mentioned was male. Although learning foreign languages had been a painful experience for him since middle school, after weighing his options, he still felt that sacrificing himself for this cause was not feasible.
"I won’t sleep with him, and he won’t sleep with me," he declared righteously.
Yaliriga quickly brought over the companion with whom he would not be sleeping.