After finishing his psychic soothing work, An Ruo returned to his cell and lay down on his comfortable bed while browsing comments and StarNet discussions.
By now, this absurdly spacious bed no longer made him uneasy.
All of his work took place in the treatment room, and no female Zerg would recklessly barge into his room.
Even Major General Uriel, who regularly picked him up and escorted him back, always stopped outside the door and never crossed the threshold without reason.
During this period, the one entering his room most frequently was the little robot bug responsible for cleaning and delivering meals.
Every day, the little robot bug brought him food and asked if he needed anything. If he had no special requests, it would patrol the room like it was inspecting its territory—cleaning, tidying up, putting away things he had casually left around...
Even the clothes he had intended to leave for two days before washing after his shower would be washed, dried, folded neatly, and put back into the wardrobe.
This was a room An Ruo truly liked, one that gave him a strong sense of security.
His happiness meter was completely full.
As a male Zerg, even if he rented an apartment outside, he probably couldn't find one this good.
There wouldn't be neighbors of such quality, nor security and services this excellent.
Relaxed, An Ruo scrolled through his screen.
Female Zerg readers were all stubborn.
The ones with the fiercest words were also the ones throwing the most rewards.
They despised Claire, envied him, and were jealous of him—all at once—while pouring money into the story.
The more sour they sounded, the more money they spent.
Clearly, they weren't just bitter.
They were enjoying it too.
It was just that there were too few feel-good stories in Zerg literature. Even those that existed focused on careers and achievements. Relationship-focused wish-fulfillment stories were extremely rare, so they couldn't even sort out their own feelings or understand what they truly wanted to read.
Like complaining that the plot was unrealistic while squatting every day waiting for updates.
Another issue was...
Zerg female readers were more accustomed to simple and direct descriptions. Their minds were rather straightforward; they only understood surface meanings and were helpless before subtle expressions.
That made An Ruo worry.
Readers not understanding what he wrote wasn't a good thing for an author.
Should he try adopting the Zerg style of writing?
An Ruo imagined the endless anatomical terminology that filled native Zerg novels like a medical dissection textbook.
Arms, legs, waist, buttocks, chest, wings, brood pouch, intestines, blood vessels, arteries, veins, muscles, shoulder blades, skull, kidneys, liver, heart...
No, he needed to throw up first.
Covering his mouth, An Ruo's face turned green.
This was far beyond what he could endure.
There wasn't a single thing he could learn from native Zerg novels.
Why didn't male Zerg like reading traditional Zerg novels?
Who the hell could stomach this?
Zerg erotica was genuinely "sex plus violence" with no false advertising.
Did female Zerg really not go soft reading this stuff?
While pondering, several fresh comments popped up on his screen.
[No wonder my pheromones wouldn't stop leaking! So that's what the clam shell and pearl meant! I thought I had a fetish for aliens!]
[What what? Wasn't it just becoming a clam shell to please Lord Xi'an and then receiving a deep mark?]
[It's not that simple, and it's not an actual clam shell either. Go read Lord Aira's new post! Hurry! You'll thank me after reading it!]
Curious, An Ruo searched StarNet.
Aside from certain special accounts, StarNet used real-name registration. The moment he entered "Aira," a series of related accounts appeared.
【Aira-C】
The first account carried the silver insignia of a C-rank male Zerg. His avatar showed a smiling male Zerg holding flowers.
White hair and pink eyes.
Quite a rare appearance.
An Ruo looked a second longer before entering the profile.
The homepage background was a picture of the male Zerg and a red-haired female Zerg together.
In a flower garden overflowing with spring colors, the female Zerg held the male Zerg up with one arm. The male Zerg hurriedly steadied his hat while looking down at his spouse, his expression carrying a hint of reproach but far more sweetness nourished by love.
Ah, that little albino.
An Ruo immediately remembered.
He had written too many stories, and too much time had passed. He couldn't remember many names anymore. Only vivid characteristics and plot points remained in his memory.
The rare albino male Zerg had appeared for fewer than three chapters in the original novel, but he had left an incredibly deep impression on both readers and the author.
Tragedy was always unforgettable.
...
Unable to bear looking any longer, An Ruo shifted his gaze away.
Just in time to see a newly popular post below.
《An Analysis of "Clams" and "Pearls" in Instructor》
Did Claire transform into a clam in his psychic landscape?
Of course not!!!
This is actually a more subtle and aesthetically pleasing style of writing.
Claire is compared to a clam, and the invasion and stirring inside the river clam symbolizes Xi'an's possession and marking of Claire.
This effectively enhances the expression, making it more vivid and lively.
Still don't understand? Then I'll explain more clearly.
The "clam" is Claire's body.
The "shell" is Claire's outer defenses. It can represent his vigilance toward the outside world, his clothes, or even his reproductive cavity.
...
The round "pearl" is a round Zerg egg. It's strawberry-gold because Claire wants to lay little strawberry eggs for Xi'an and give birth to children with the same hair color as him.
Once you understand the pearl, the "pearl nucleus" is easy to understand. The pearl nucleus is the seed of the pearl, which eventually grows into a pearl. So what exactly is it? Such a difficult mystery!
I won't explain the rest in detail, in case my Female Lord sees this.
Everyone can interpret it yourselves. If you really don't understand, there are other bugs' posts analyzing it too.
In any case, An-shen writes so beautifully!
Unlike traditional Zerg novels that are packed with descriptions of body parts, organs, and movements, his wording is elegant and subtle, giving readers much more room for imagination.
It's like thin sleepwear half-concealing what's beneath. Far more enticing than exposing everything plainly.
The first story even male Zerg can enjoy! I absolutely love it!
Sending crazy support to An-shen!!!
...
The post was highly popular, and countless female Zerg left comments below.
[Thanks for the explanation, Lord Aira! So that's what it meant! I got so excited reading that part yesterday I thought I had an alien fetish and was about to take medicine to treat myself. Thank goodness, I'm still a normal female Zerg who likes beautiful male Zerg.]
[I'm worse. I deliberately went looking for alien movies to test myself. Watching them mate actually lowered my mental stability!]
[I'm done for! Yesterday after my Male Lord finished reading the book, he shyly said he wanted to play clam shell. I didn't understand and sadly went to the market to buy a kilogram of seafood for him. He kicked me out with a dark face.]
[Damn... brother, you're the worst off here.]
[Alright, I learned it. Next time I confess to Lord Xi'an, I should say: "Please pry open my shell, stir my clam flesh to pieces, and let me carry your pearls."]
[Learned! Learned! I'm going to confess to Lord Xi'an in the review section right now.]
[This style of writing is so unique. It doesn't feel like a female Zerg's style at all. Could An-shen be a well-read sub-female?]
[Very possible. An-shen is obviously much more delicate and thoughtful.]
[Hey, just because 90% of female Zerg are rough around the edges doesn't mean thoughtful ones don't exist. There are always special individuals among large populations.]
Once again, readers argued over An's gender.
At first they thought An was female.
Then male readers insisted he was male.
Now they thought he might be a sub-female.
In short, "An" had become a genderless mysterious lifeform.
On a real-name StarNet, An's existence was extremely unique.
No real name.
No gender.
No known information.
It wasn't that no one had tried investigating him.
But every time they traced him to a military district, nobody dared continue.
Privately investigating military information was tantamount to stealing state secrets and could even be treated as treason.
Nobody dared take that risk.
And because of that military location, readers still leaned toward believing An was a military female Zerg.
They had guessed almost every officer in the First Military Region.
Even Lieutenant General Uriel had made the list.
Yet no one considered the male Zerg inside the military prison.
First, when people heard "military district," they rarely associated it with male Zerg. It was a blind spot.
Second, male Zerg psychics in prison were busy. Who would have time for this?
So An Ruo peacefully hid behind the screen and watched everyone discussing.
He liked the post.
Aira's analysis was the most popular, but not the only one.
With a group of male Zerg readers like this, there was no need to change his writing style.
Rather than adapting to the Zerg, he could let the Zerg adapt to him.
His eyes landed on the poster's avatar.
The albino male Zerg in the photo smiled brightly.
Remembering the ending he had written for him, An Ruo's feelings became complicated.
This was a living bug, not a fictional character.
He couldn't comfort himself with "double death equals a happy ending."
...
During the later years of Ulysses's rule, his policies grew increasingly extreme.
He even raised male Zerg in captivity and distributed them as military supplies.
Speaker Cassian and his family had pledged allegiance to Marshal Ulysses early on, tying themselves to his ship.
It was a ship they had no choice but to board.
Military power controlled politics, and the Speaker's seat could only belong to one of the military's own.
But Cassian's personal ideals never truly aligned with Ulysses.
Personally signing those extreme policies and watching them being carried out caused him immense suffering.
Yet he couldn't retreat.
And he wasn't allowed to.
Under such circumstances, only by staying at his side could his Male Lord remain safe.
And to protect his fragile Male Lord and family, he could only stand firmly behind Ulysses.
Otherwise, the first to be crushed beneath the wheels of the era would be him and his male Zerg.
Under overwhelming work and mental stress, Cassian's condition deteriorated further and further.
His Male Lord was only C-rank and couldn't provide psychic soothing.
Aira suffered even greater pressure.
He spent all his time in training rooms, forcing himself to improve, squeezing out every ounce of potential, repeatedly challenging the threshold of B-rank.
If he reached B-rank, there was hope he could soothe Cassian.
But how easy was ranking up?
Countless male Zerg spent their entire lives standing still.
Not to mention one with genetic defects.
The albino male Zerg looked fragile, but his heart was astonishingly strong. Otherwise, he couldn't have climbed from F-rank to where he stood now.
Given ten years.
Or decades.
He might have succeeded.
But time was too short.
And he pushed himself too hard.
Cassian had begged him countless times to stop, but he never changed his mind.
Finally, Cassian's mental condition reached a dangerous threshold.
Not wanting to lose such a capable Speaker, Ulysses proposed arranging another male Zerg for him.
That became the final straw.
Aira committed suicide.
It wasn't that he hadn't considered letting Cassian receive psychic soothing from another male Zerg.
For him, nothing mattered more than Cassian being alright.
But he knew Cassian wouldn't accept it.
On some matters, Cassian was absurdly stubborn.
He insisted on binding his entire life to this low-ranking male Zerg.
So Aira traded his own death for Cassian's freedom.
From then on, he would be free.
After a Male Lord died, female Zerg were allowed to remarry.
Holding the frail body of his male Zerg, Cassian disobeyed his Male Lord for the first time.
He chose to die for love.
Before ending his own life, he defected, handing confidential information to the female Zerg protagonist of the resistance.
Then he boarded a spaceship with his little white moth.
Under the scorching light and heat of a star, they became eternal stardust.
Their love was like moths flying into flames.
From the very beginning, Cassian had rushed into the fire for low-ranked male Zerg Aira, giving up any possibility of receiving psychic soothing and disregarding his own life.
And Aira answered his love in the same way, throwing everything he had into pursuing the impossible—from F-rank to challenging B-rank—until he was finally consumed by flames.
...
Ulysses lost his right-hand man.
The information Cassian left behind before his death strengthened the resistance.
From rats hiding in the sewers, they gained the confidence to challenge him, dragging every conflict into the open.
Aira's death became the catalyst.
The fuse for the final battle.
An indispensable trigger in the story.
But now, this bug had stepped out from words on a page and appeared before An Ruo alive and vivid.
In his avatar, he held flowers and smiled brightly.
In his background image, he stood happily with his spouse.
In his new post, he wrote:
"Sending crazy support to An-shen."
An Ruo knew he was doomed.
There was no way he could just watch this little male Zerg walk toward the ending he had written.
An abusive male Zerg being sent to prison was only natural.
But the little albino's death wasn't.
Right now, Ulysses had only just become Marshal. There was still a long time before the original story began.
Everything still had hope.
...
Ulysses arranging another male Zerg for Cassian had become the final straw that pushed the little albino to suicide.
But in truth, his tragedy stemmed from the tides of the era.
If male Zerg truly became military supplies distributed by the federal government...
In a world where even marriage wasn't a personal choice, the tragedy of a C-rank male Zerg whose status didn't match his spouse's was inevitable.
Saving him meant changing the direction of the entire age.
Could one person really do something like that?
An Ruo fell into confusion.
Then his gaze was caught by a touch of blue on the bedside table.
It was the preserved flower gifted by the military female Zerg.
Inside the glass cover, a blue electronic butterfly rested on the flower, slowly flapping its wings.
An Ruo picked up the lamp and held it toward the light, watching the butterfly inside.
He had already changed this world.
The military female Zerg he had rescued from critical conditions.
Every reader who had read his books on StarNet.
They were all proof that he was changing this world.
A butterfly flapping its wings could create a storm across the ocean.
Perhaps he really could remain inside prison...
And with nothing but his pen and words...
Bring a storm to the entire Zerg race.