“Defendant Annor is guilty of intentional injury, abuse, humiliation, and related offenses... The circumstances are severe. Due to being a male Zerg, the death penalty is waived and replaced with military penal service. He is to be incarcerated in the First Military District Prison for a term of 999 years, effective immediately!”
The judge brought down the gavel representing justice and law.
Thunderous applause erupted throughout the courtroom.
Camera flashes exploded without pause.
Standing at the defendant's podium, An Ruo felt as though he had accidentally wandered into a grand and absurd film.
He had transmigrated.
Into the body of an abusive male Zerg.
It was the sort of thing that only happened in novels.
What made it even harder to accept was that this appeared to be a novel he himself had written many years ago.
Too much time had passed. He could no longer remember the details.
The male Zerg had only been mentioned in a single sentence in the original story, existing solely as part of the tragic backstory of the novel's great villain—the future Marshal.
Background for a background character.
Not even worthy of being called cannon fodder.
And yet now he had become part of that backstory.
Everything was unfolding before his eyes as reality.
He was about to be taken to a military district and made into a psychic soother.
That was the polite way of putting it.
The less polite description probably wouldn't pass censorship.
The female Zerg soldiers assigned to escort him had already arrived.
Fully armed.
Expressionless.
Cold.
“Please come with us, Lord Annor.”
“I'm not—”
He wasn't given a chance to explain.
A female soldier roughly yanked him from behind the podium, fastened a suppressor around his neck, and escorted him out of the courtroom.
Even more flashes burst around him.
They were so bright he could barely keep his eyes open.
Struggling, An Ruo twisted his head back.
The media and female Zergs were excited and frenzied.
Among them were a few male Zergs whose expressions were ugly, fear hidden in their eyes.
And amid all that chaos sat a black-haired female officer in military uniform.
His eyes were lowered.
Lost in thought.
As though the noise and commotion filling the courtroom had nothing to do with him.
Sensing the gaze directed at him, the black-haired officer looked up.
Cold silver-gray eyes, lifeless as forged metal, met his own.
There was no emotion within them.
Neither sorrow nor joy.
Neither hatred nor relief.
Only the feeling of witnessing an inevitable outcome.
A clock reaching the time it was always meant to reach.
A stream finally flowing into the sea.
A cruel male Zerg would eventually be judged.
Eventually be sent to a military prison.
And after the verdict of this case, General Ulysses's prestige among female Zergs would reach unprecedented heights.
His authority and support would climb to their peak.
His succession to the position of Marshal would become a certainty.
This was a plot An Ruo had personally written.
A villain always needed a tragic or twisted past.
Those experiences would become fuel.
Become nourishment.
Something he would consume and use to climb higher.
Those dark experiences would also shape his beliefs, pushing him toward extremism and setting him upon a path of no return until he finally became the “villain.”
And in the end, he would be defeated by the protagonist chosen by fate and die at the protagonist's hands.
It was an entirely ordinary storytelling formula.
But if An Ruo had known all of this would truly happen in another world...
If he had known he himself would become the male Zerg responsible for that miserable past...
He would have written it differently.
Perhaps there wouldn't have needed to be such a male Zerg.
Perhaps there wouldn't have needed to be such a terrible past.
Perhaps there wouldn't have needed to be heroes and villains at all.
But now it was too late.
The male Zerg was escorted from the courtroom.
Watching the empty doorway, Ulysses recalled the strange look the male Zerg had given him before leaving.
His brows drew together slightly.
...
“This is your room.”
“You have half a star-hour to change clothes. After that, a machine bug will deliver your meal.”
After giving the instructions, the female soldier left.
The transparent prison door slowly slid shut.
Standing inside the metallic cell, An Ruo examined the unfamiliar room.
A single-occupancy room.
One large bed.
A desk and chair.
And a separate bathroom partitioned off in one corner.
For a prison, the conditions were surprisingly decent.
But the bed positioned in the center of the room was unnervingly large.
It didn't look like prison furniture.
It looked more like a king-sized bed in a luxury hotel suite.
Its intended purpose was painfully obvious.
An Ruo took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.
Things hadn't reached the worst possible stage yet.
But they were getting close.
The military was still the Federation's official armed force.
Surely they wouldn't force male Zergs into prostitution.
The only assignments they officially issued to male Zergs were psychic-soothing duties.
As for how far a male Zerg went with a female Zerg in order to complete those assignments, that was considered a matter between the two parties and had nothing to do with the military.
The even worse problem was that An Ruo didn't know any “psychic soothing” at all.
He didn't even know whether he possessed psychic power.
He had written male Zerg protagonists with immense psychic abilities before—ones who could use psychic power as a weapon, alter other Zergs' perceptions through sheer force of will, even accomplish unbelievable feats such as changing the trajectory of artillery shells or tearing open space itself.
But his own mind felt completely empty.
He was screwed.
If he couldn't even perform psychic soothing, then a male Zerg really only had one remaining use.
Sleeping with female Zergs and producing eggs.
The prison authorities wouldn't even need to order him to do anything.
They had plenty of ways to make a male Zerg willingly sleep with female Zergs.
Beep. Beep.
A small delivery robot appeared at the door.
The cell door opened automatically, and the white little machine carried a tray inside.
The moment An Ruo saw the open doorway, his heart leaped violently.
For an instant, he wanted to make a run for it.
“Your dinner has arrived. Please enjoy your meal.”
The mechanical voice brought him back to reality.
A male Zerg—especially one who might not even possess psychic power—escaping from a heavily guarded military prison was nothing but a fantasy.
The little robot placed the tray down.
After scanning his clothing, it issued another notification.
“Improper attire detected. Please change into the designated uniform immediately. Assistance can be provided upon request.”
“...”
An Ruo had absolutely no desire to experience the sort of assistance it was talking about.
Picking up the white prison uniform laid out on the table, he headed into the bathroom to change.
When he came back out, the robot collected his original clothes and handed him a numbered wristband.
B-999-01
The bright red identifier was engraved on its surface.
It looked like he was the first male Zerg ever sentenced to nine hundred and ninety-nine years.
As for the letter in front, it probably represented his rank.
Or rather, the original owner's rank.
He fastened the wristband around his wrist.
Blue light flashed.
The band automatically tightened until it fit snugly against his skin.
A holographic screen appeared before him, displaying the prison regulations and his assigned duties.
As a B-Class male Zerg, he was required to perform psychic soothing for at least ten military female Zergs of the same grade every day.
Alternatively, he could soothe two A-Class female Zergs.
That was the basic quota.
The military encouraged male Zergs to treat more female Zergs than required. Any extra work counted as merit and earned Contribution Points.
Contribution Points could be used to improve living conditions.
If enough were accumulated, they could even be exchanged for sentence reductions.
An Ruo thought about his nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine-year sentence.
Setting aside the question of whether he even possessed psychic power, it was obvious the military had never intended to let him leave this prison.
Dinner consisted of a single packet of nutrient solution.
Green.
Bubbling.
It looked like some bizarre experimental chemical.
An Ruo had no appetite whatsoever.
At twenty-two hundred hours, the cell lights switched off precisely on schedule.
The corridor lights outside remained on.
The feeling of being monitored was impossible to ignore.
Wrapped tightly in his blanket, An Ruo curled up in a corner of the bed and fiddled with the terminal wristband on his arm.
It functioned as a terminal.
Its restrictions were extensive, making communication with the outside world impossible.
Even if communication had been allowed, he wouldn't have known who to contact.
Still, it provided basic internet access and entertainment.
Novels.
Comics.
Games.
Videos.
The prison actually provided virtual entertainment to inmates?
Wasn't that a little too humane?
Or perhaps... too bug-mane?
Then An Ruo remembered that a male Zerg's psychic power was closely tied to his physical and mental health.
The answer became obvious.
This was for maintaining the psychological well-being of male Zergs.
Male Zergs assigned to military districts were valuable military resources.
Maintenance and upkeep were necessary expenses.
Mindlessly scrolling through the terminal, An Ruo couldn't resist searching for information.
Male Zerg penal service.
Psychic soothing.
Related topics.
One recent news report caught his eye.
It featured a B-Class male Zerg leaving military service after completing a three-month sentence.
In the video, the male Zerg looked utterly drained.
He had to be supported by others.
He could barely stand on his own feet.
It looked as though every last drop had been squeezed out of him.
An Ruo immediately closed the page.
That was terrifying.
Three months had reduced a male Zerg to that state.
With a sentence length like his, he might as well not bother living.
His heartbeat became increasingly erratic.
Desperate, he turned to searching for information about psychic power.
A dead horse was still worth trying to revive.
What is psychic power?
How do you discover psychic power?
How do you control psychic power?
How do you perform psychic soothing?
A psychic-soothing tutorial even younglings can learn.
An Ruo made no effort whatsoever to hide his complete ignorance regarding psychic abilities.
He knew the military was probably monitoring his terminal.
His searches might expose him.
But he was practically doomed already.
He was about to be dragged off and turned into a stud male Zerg.
Why would he care about exposure now?
Besides, he had already told them he wasn't Annor.
No one believed him anyway.
At six in the morning, the prison alarm sounded.
The room lights switched on simultaneously.
Rubbing his sore eyes, An Ruo slowly raised his head from beneath the blanket draped over him.
Everything that had happened yesterday felt like a nightmare.
A nightmare he still hadn't woken up from.
Fortunately, he had managed to grasp the faintest hint of psychic power.
Controlling it was extremely difficult.
He wasn't sure whether he could perform something as delicate as psychic soothing.
But at least he had psychic power.
As long as he had psychic power, there was still a sliver of hope.
An Ruo got out of bed and headed into the bathroom.
He splashed water onto his face.
The cold sensation cleared his mind.
After tidying himself up properly, he finally saw his current appearance reflected in the mirror for the first time.
The most striking feature was his beautiful platinum-blond hair.
Even though he'd just woken up and several messy strands stuck out in every direction, it lost none of its brilliance.
His eyes were an emerald green.
Natural and exquisite in a way no contact lenses could ever imitate.
Like gemstones.
Yet seeing such colors on his own face felt strange.
His features closely resembled those from his original life.
But they were more refined.
More beautiful.
Like a character rendered in a game cinematic or painted on a canvas.
The mixture of familiarity and difference created a distinctly inhuman feeling that left An Ruo uncomfortable.
He looked away.
No longer wanting to stare.
The familiar mechanical voice sounded again.
The little robot delivered breakfast.
It was nutrient solution again.
An Ruo cautiously took a sip.
It tasted more like a beverage than medicine, carrying a faint sweetness.
The flavor wasn't nearly as strange as he had expected.
The moment it entered his stomach, a feeling of fullness and vitality spread through him.
His exhaustion vanished.
His energy returned.
An Ruo kept the unopened packet from the previous night.
The robot showed no reaction.
It merely collected the empty packet he had finished, made the bed, and cleaned the room.
If he ignored the nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine-year sentence, the psychic-soothing quota hanging over his head, and the constant threat of losing his virginity at any moment, An Ruo actually liked life in the prison cell.
A private room.
Clean.
Quiet.
No Zergs coming to bother him.
No forced social interaction.
Robots delivered meals and handled cleaning.
The terminal contained novels, games, comics, and videos.
The prison maintained a regular schedule.
Security was excellent.
...
It was practically the perfect environment for quietly writing.
Writers were like that.
Even after transmigrating into their own novel and suffering the consequences of their own creation, the moment they found an opportunity, they still wanted to write.
Of course, he would never include an abusive male Zerg in his novels again.
Not even as a background character's background character.
From now on, he would only write pure romance stories.
Safety first.
Author's Note:
Suddenly starting a new novel~ [Throwing flowers] [Throwing flowers] [Throwing flowers]
★ Various Zerg romance stories. The main story is written in Chinese, and the protagonist and Marshal count as one of the stories too.
★ Planned stories currently include:
【Male Zerg Recruit × Former Drill Instructor】
【Campus Heartthrob Male Zerg × Military Academy Student】
【Star Pirate Male Zerg × Undercover Military Female】
【Tianga Adopted Son × Zerg Adoptive Father】
As well as the protagonist's own story:
【Shut-In Novelist × Villain Marshal】
P.S. Nothing is guaranteed. Changes and revisions may happen at any time.