The elaborate relief of the pitch-black door handle let out a faint, mournful creak under unbearable pressure. The exquisite carvings were crushed into a lump, trembling beneath frosty white knuckles.
Leslie did not doubt that the fragile handle would be snapped clean off in the next second. As for the consequences of being broken in upon, his dull and indifferent mental sea refused to think.
The deformation of the iron bar stopped just at the threshold of breaking, and the fragile door trembled precariously as it escaped from the insect claws. The outcome, different from what he had expected, caused ripples in his mental sea. His mental threads curled into a slightly lively arc of confusion, sparsely encircling the military insect standing outside the door.
The evening breeze carried a soft inquiry mixed with the scent of sage:
“Your Highness, could you please open the door for me? Shall I carry you back to the bedroom?”
The male lying in the hammock looked too fragile, weaker than a newly born larva. He curled into a small ball, as if wanting to return to the state of being in his insect egg, returning to a state of ignorance and innocence, a blank sheet of paper unaware of the world.
Instinct prompted Casper to adopt a soft, coaxing tone, one used for a young cub.
The tiny ball in the hammock, upon hearing his voice, lightly pulled up the velvet blanket and shrank inward even more.
“No.”
It was too eerie.
Casper would never coax him like that.
Is it another dream?
Is his ability to create dreams so poor now? How could he come up with such a rough, clumsy, and nonsensical dream?
The surroundings gradually grew quiet. Even the sound of the wind faded away, and all potential disturbances were isolated.
The mental sea that had stirred with ripples returned to calm. Perhaps it was because the pervasive scent of sage had been mixed with a light, shallow scent of peppermint; Leslie slept exceptionally soundly.
When he poked his head out of the hammock, the figure outside the iron door was gone. Before him lay a simple, natural pastoral scene. The silver-blue mech he had glimpsed earlier had vanished without a trace.
[So it really was a dream.]
Ignoring the faint, lingering sense of loss in his heart, Leslie took a step to return to the castle to freshen up. Just as he reached the door, he stopped, startled by a silver-blue ball near the gate.
The high-tech metal ball rolled to Leslie’s feet, opened its chest, and displayed a gold-leafed, beautifully crafted letter inside.
Leslie pressed his lips together, remaining motionless for a long time.
Such an iconic silver-blue luster. If he was not mistaken, this was Frost Shadow.
Aside from its key form, could a mech really transform into a ball?
No. What was more important now was, if Frost Shadow was here, then where was Casper?
Was he here too?
His heart began to beat violently. Just because of a baseless guess, he uncontrollably felt excited and expectant.
Seeing that Leslie still had not made a move, Frost Shadow carefully extended its short mechanical arm to grip the hem of the little Prince’s clothing and tugged it.
Its master had ordered that it must not make direct contact with the Prince, must not frighten him, and must not stimulate him. So, Frost Shadow did not even dare to make a sound; it could only tug gently on the hem.
The slight pull brought Leslie back to his senses. With mixed feelings, he crouched down and took out the letter sealed with exquisite rose-colored wax.
[Such an old-fashioned method.]
But it fit perfectly with the style of this primitive ecological planet he had chosen.
He broke the wax seal, opened the letter paper, and as he read line by line, word by word, Leslie’s pale cheeks gradually flushed. Vivid blood color spread from his neck all the way to his earlobes and the corners of his eyes.
Frost Shadow crouched obediently at Leslie’s feet. Sensing the little Prince’s soaring body temperature, it curiously aimed its scanning port at the letter paper.
[May this letter find you well, my dear little Prince.]
[Please forgive my abruptness and recklessness; please pardon my conceit and ignorance.]
[My prejudice and arrogance locked away the heartbeat of our first meeting, and my past and ambitions suppressed my burgeoning admiration.]
[I only dared to kiss you recklessly under the moonlight when no one was watching, but I dared not.]
Before Frost Shadow could finish reading, Leslie quickly folded the letter paper, ran into the castle, and slammed the door shut.
The ball trapped outside the door spun in confusion, not understanding what had happened.
That could not be right. It remembered its master standing outside the door all night yesterday, releasing pheromones, without doing anything else.
Today, its master had not even dared to enter the main gate. He had only dared to climb into the study of a manor owner to write a letter, hand it to it, and then throw it inside.
Frost Shadow circled the castle entrance, waiting for Leslie to reply.
Although Frost Shadow did not understand why its master was so sure that the Prince would reply to him, and why the little Prince’s reaction after reading the letter did not look like he intended to reply at all on the contrary, he looked quite angry obeying orders was a nature written into its source code.
Frost Shadow waited like this until dusk, when the castle gate finally opened again.
Leslie’s expression had returned to calm, but his fingertips clutching the envelope were turning white from the pressure. Facing Frost Shadow, which obediently opened its cavity, a vein on his forehead throbbed slightly, but he still put the envelope inside.
Watching the silver-blue metal ball roll away, Leslie crouched by the door, grinding his teeth in secret, his cheeks flushing again.
Honestly, it was too much! How could he write such things on the letter paper!
It was the first time the well-bred little Prince had witnessed the folk culture of the chaotic lower regions.
It was an eye-opener; it was astonishing.
Casper opened the letter brought back by Frost Shadow. Seeing the two large characters on the paper, he could not help but laugh.
[Bastard!]
Across the vast distance of time and space, Casper could imagine the little Prince gritting his teeth, searching his vocabulary for a long time, before finally writing these two words down fiercely.
After a day’s time, a stack of envelopes had piled up by Casper’s side.
Each one was the embodiment of that surging admiration.
From the moment he first put pen to paper, it became uncontrollable.
The emotions long suppressed in his heart poured out like a floodgate opening, merging into the ink on the nib.
If words drifting with the wind were too thin, perhaps the words on black and white paper carried more weight.
Time could allow that love, lingering on the periphery, to merge into his heart, bit by bit, adding layer upon layer until Leslie was willing to believe.
Every day, Frost Shadow delivered something new.
There were fresh roses with dewdrops, fruits with strange appearances but great flavor, novel trinkets, or explicit confessions.
Leslie discovered that the letters Casper wrote were different from all his outward expressions.
Most military insects were rigorous and harsh, cold and stiff, just like mechs loaded with insect AI.
Casper’s public image was dignified and rigid; to him, Casper often brought a bit of teasing, wicked humor, yet both held the pride that permeated their very bones.
However, the Casper carried within the envelopes was like the weak, young boy before all his achievements.
He had nothing, only himself, and his heart.
[In the primitive era, all males belonged to the Insect Queen; worker and soldier insects were not qualified to woo, and the nature engraved in their genes let them know only work.]
[My dear little Prince, if, I mean if, we were in that era, I think I would betray my nature to love you, but I would not disturb you.]
That was the first time Leslie truly felt Casper’s deeply hidden inferiority and admiration.
The male’s powerful mental talent allowed him to outline the picture and image in his mind instantly.
Perhaps he would watch him secretly; perhaps he would pick the freshest flowers in the morning and leave them silently on his windowsill; perhaps he would bow respectfully when they met by chance, only to cast a long and ardent gaze when he turned and left.
It was a young and burning heart; it was the first time he had seen one.