The registration site at the Imperial Military University was a sea of Insects, a dense, boundless swarm of bodies pressing against one another.
The military Female in charge of maintaining order stood at the front, roaring at the top of his lungs, “Everyone stand properly! Two lines! Form two lines! Males on the left, Females on the right!”
Below him, the candidates bobbed their heads, chattering away in a state of restless excitement.
The long queues, barely managed into a semblance of order, swayed from side to side. They collided and became entangled like a messy ball of yarn, with neither head nor tail in sight.
Clearly, shouting was having a negligible effect.
The pheromones of Males possess a unique scent that Females can identify.
Lu Qing’s pheromones were faint, making him inconspicuous among the more potent scents in the crowd. He had intended to follow the Male queue to the left, but he was inadvertently swept along by a well-meaning crowd, pushed from the left side into the Female queue on the right.
The instructors on the field were still busy organizing the ranks, struggling to squeeze through the flow of Insects. With only a cursory glance, they failed to notice a black-haired Male mixed in among the Females, quietly making his way through the Female channel.
Lu Qing gave a soft sigh. He was not in a hurry, so he simply continued walking forward at a leisurely pace.
The air was thick with the stifling, salty scent of Insects.
A Female instructor, with sweat beading on his forehead, licked his dry lips. He glared at the vast, unruly crowd behind him, his grip on the scanner slipping due to the moisture on his palms. “Bug droppings, what a mess.”
This had to be the most crowded registration site in history.
If he were not recovering from an injury, he would not be stuck here managing a bunch of brats in a line.
It was truly annoying.
“Pass. Good, you are through. Next, you.”
At the identity verification and record station, the crowd was much more orderly.
The listless instructor swept the machine over the Females at random, his gaze drifting lazily until it inadvertently landed on a head of glossy black hair and a slender, pale wrist.
Actually quite good-looking, he thought.
The instructor tapped the scanner against Lu Qing’s wrist a few times, muttering, “It is rare to see a Female this tall and fair.”
“Beep!!”
A sudden, startling alarm blared. A thin beam of red light erupted from the scanner’s interface as if desperate to signal an error, the sound sharp and ear-piercing.
The instructor snapped to attention, his gaze falling on Lu Qing with suspicion and confusion. “Where are your Insect markings?”
Males do not have wings, or rather, their wings have long since regressed to the shoulder blades. The Insect markings that represent the ability to undergo “Insectification” are only found on Females. Males lack them and therefore cannot transform.
The wrist scanner not only identifies an individual for automatic registration but also detects Insect markings. A successful detection emits a white light; a failure results in red.
Perhaps the red light stimulated the pheromones, as a faint scent of clear tea arrived belatedly.
The instructor’s nose wrinkled. The imperceptible pheromone felt like a tiny, innocent ant, tentatively poking at his gland with its slender antennae.
But no matter how minute the pheromone was, he could sense what it represented.
Bug’s grandmother, this is actually a Male.
The instructor smacked his lips. What was he thinking, running into the Female queue?
He looked at Lu Qing, and Lu Qing looked back.
The Male gazed at him cautiously with dark, moist eyes, his long eyelashes trembling slightly with a sense of helplessness.
The instructor’s heart gave a sudden throb, and all thoughts of reprimand vanished instantly.
“Wait here on the side. I will contact the staff to take you over.” The instructor was incredibly swift in reporting via his walkie-talkie, his gaze turning away immediately. Seriously, almost got bewitched by a young cub.
Lu Qing was obedient, standing gracefully in a patch of shade that did not block the walkway.
The Insects in the queue pushed forward. Lu Qing faced the front of the line, his bangs resting lightly against his brow and partially obscuring one eye, making him look as if he were staring blankly at the passing candidates.
No one noticed that in the brief moments his eyes opened and closed, the “dazed” look vanished completely. Those pitch-black eyes stared intently at a small corner just inside the school gates.
“Thank you.” The Male, a beat late, brushed back the stray hair blocking his eye. His gaze returned to the instructor, and the smile he offered was still that same lost, grateful, and somewhat fragile expression.
The instructor finished scanning a candidate. Upon hearing that gentle voice, he instinctively looked up, only then realizing the little Male was thanking him. He abruptly lowered his head, pressed a fist to his lips, and cleared his throat roughly. “No need to be so polite.”
Counting from birth, he was over forty years old. How many years had it been since he had heard a “thank you”?
While scanning the next candidate, the instructor could not help but look aside and ponder.
It must have been at least twenty years. Even he rarely said it himself. Getting hit with a phrase like that was actually quite unsettling.
As he thought this, his gaze steadied, and his complex vision fell upon the Male’s face once more.
Black-haired, black-eyed Males are rare; usually, that look is more common in Females. Light hair colors are the standard for Males, while military Females tend toward darker hair and body colors. Sub-Females can have skin ranging from fair to dark. It was not surprising that this Excellency had been mistaken for a Female.
“Just wait a moment.” The usually ill-tempered instructor glanced over several times. Thinking of his own incredibly pampered Male at home, he finally could not help but meddle and show concern for this “frail” and beautiful Male. “Do you want to stand further inside? Fewer Insects, better air.”
Lu Qing shook his head. “Thank you, standing here is fine.”
“Coming! Coming! Which Excellency is it?” A crisp, sweet voice, amplified several times by a loudspeaker, drifted clearly from the other side.
The instructor turned toward the sound and waved. A beautiful Sub-Female revealed half of his fluffy head, holding up a walkie-talkie and waving back as he squeezed through the sea of Insects from the side.
Seconds later, the Sub-Female burst through the crowd and stood by the line. His small black suit jacket had a crumpled corner, and strands of hair were stuck to his face with sweat, looking a bit disheveled.
However, he wore a perfectly polite and friendly smile. He smoothed his jacket the moment he emerged, standing upright with his hands folded neatly below his chest.
“Pardon the intrusion, Master Male. I will take you to the testing queue for Males.”
The Sub-Female smiled, showing white teeth, and spoke with half-closed eyes, bringing with him a pleasant, sweet scent.
Shu gave a sniff. It felt like the scent was somewhat familiar, and a look of suspicion appeared in its bead-like eyes.
On the way, Shu leaned close to Lu Qing’s ear and whispered secretly, “I suspect there is something wrong with this Insect.”
Lu Qing: “A problem?”
Shu nodded, looking very serious. “There are not many scents I find familiar, but I have definitely smelled this sweetness before. Moreover, it is a scent closely related to my life. It is not simple. I suspect…”
“Um…”
“Hmm?” Lu Qing turned his head slightly.
The Sub-Female stopped in his tracks, his back to Lu Qing, his thin chest heaving violently. Shu immediately teleported to the other side, away from him.
What? What is he going to do!
Influenced by the tense atmosphere, Shu could not help but take a deep breath along with the heaving chest, watching warily as the Female’s fingers slowly released the corner of the clothes he had been gripping tightly. In an instant, he spun around.
Shu gasped: “Aaaaah!!!”
A face with red cheeks and starry eyes appeared before Shu.
Shu: “…?”
“Excuse me, are you the Excellency from the livestream?”
The Sub-Female rubbed his hands, his face flushed with a strange glow, and said with both anticipation and excitement, “I, I am your ‘Female Father’ fan! I, I, I really like—”
Lu Qing: ?
Shu: “Heh. I knew it. The truth is he is a ‘Female Father’ fan!”
“The Scheming Frog keeps touching your belly!”
Shu pushed up a pair of glasses that had appeared out of nowhere, squinting its bead-like eyes. “The evidence is that sweet scent! It is the scent of the honey nectar Lu-lu-zi made before!”
Lu Qing: …
Lu Qing did not really want to talk to the book. He turned his head toward the Sub-Female and said, “No, you have the wrong Insect.”
The Sub-Female blinked, caught off guard. “I, I got it wrong?”
Lu Qing affirmed without changing his expression, “Yes, you are mistaken.”
The Sub-Female hesitated. “But, your appearance…”
Lu Qing nodded. “Yes, there are many Insects in the world who look alike.”
The Sub-Female’s heart, which had been leaping with absolute certainty, was shaken by this unwavering attitude. He could not help but doubt the reality of the situation. The more he thought about it, the more he felt: How could I be so lucky as to run into the streamer? A new streamer with very few fans, how could I bump into him while working? Could there really be such a coincidence in the world?
Evidences and details bubbled up. Once he “determined” he was wrong, a wave of unbelievable embarrassment washed over him, making him want to curl his toes and dig out a three-bedroom apartment in the ground.
“Aaaaah, I am so sorry!!” When one party is very certain, the other party, being less firm, cannot help but reflect on whether they are the problem.
This was exactly the Sub-Female’s current situation. He apologized repeatedly, on the verge of tears. “I am sorry, I am sorry!”
Lu Qing smiled: “It is alright.”
One apologized, while the other smiled with the gentleness of a spring breeze.
Shu shivered, its book-skin crawling. “Terrifying. You lie without even blinking. As expected of you.”
“Hey, man, what are you in such a hurry for?”
Tanqi followed closely behind the large, striding figure in front of him, shouting, “Are you ignoring the situation above? What about the supervision task assigned to you?”
Elliot did not look back, his pace hurried. “You are there.”
“I am happy you said that, but pay attention to the venue… Hey!”
Tanqi’s eyes widened. Fortunately, his hand was faster, catching the hand that was about to break the line.
“What are you doing!”
Tanqi hissed angrily, “This is the Male queue!!”
Elliot pulled back one end of the queue and had already stepped half a foot inside. His profile was as sharp as a blade, and his aura was like a massive iceberg pressing down on the Males near him.
Without exception, the surrounding Males felt an extremely intense pressure. Their mental power, whether high or low, was crushed to pieces by the Female’s strength.
Some Insects could no longer withstand the impact and collapsed to the ground, gasping for air with pale faces.
Seeing the instructor in charge of order coming from the other end of the line, Tanqi’s expression soured. He grabbed Elliot’s military collar and leaned into his ear, whispering through gritted teeth, “Are you crazy, brat? Disrupting the order of the recruitment meeting is enough of a crime for those bug-droppings who hate you to make your life miserable.”
“Who are you looking for? Which Male offended you? Hmm?”
Tanqi’s gaze swept sharply over all the candidates present, then he tilted his head and looked into the distance, pretending to be uninvolved. He whispered a suggestion: “We can secretly snatch him out later, then talk to an instructor we know to ‘take good care’ of him. There is no need to cause trouble here, right?”
He never considered the other possibility, or rather, the moment the thought appeared in his mind, he kicked it out.
It was a joke. Elliot was a famously cold block of wood, loyal to the Locke family as if he had taken a mind-control drug. Some in the army even whispered that he was a lapdog of the Males.
Only the Females who knew him understood his character.
Cold, strictly following regulations, a workaholic who did not know the meaning of rest. If there was any emotion outside the military… did tearing apart a Male with his bare hands count?
He still remembered that was the first time Elliot had lost his temper. The reason was not clear; the higher-ups suppressed the news.
However, after that one incident, this cold Female was locked in a cell and subjected to a flogging that nearly shattered his shoulder blades. They thought the Locke family would bail him out, but they completely ignored him.
So, he never really understood why Elliot continued to follow the orders of such a family.
Elliot was unaware of the thoughts of the Insect beside him. From the second he entered this area and captured that lingering trace of scent, his fingernails had uncontrollably lengthened. His black claws were sharp, and his pupils stretched into thin, vertical ovals. He was showing subtle signs of “Insectification.”
No, he is not here. Where did he go!
Elliot’s breathing was ragged. His eyes moved mechanically, and fine, mesh-like blood vessels began to branch out.
He did not know what was happening to him. A scalding heat rose in his throat, and the Insect markings on his shoulder blades throbbed with pain, as if wings were about to tear through.
No, I have to find him. I must find—
“Aaaaaah!!!!” Blood splattered in the air, falling like a few drops of bloody rain.
Black limbs suddenly leaped into the air, slashing the faces of the nearest Males in one stroke.
Screams erupted everywhere.
There were signs of a faint commotion in the university’s preliminary testing queue. Shu turned back curiously to look. “Hmm? Something seems to be happening outside. It is a bit noisy.”
Lu Qing had just pulled out a small piece of grass from the inner side of a stone pillar. He carefully wrapped the grass in a handkerchief, focusing intently and not moving much. “It is not our concern.”
Shu nodded. “True.”
Shu’s eager gaze fell on that small bundle of cloth, and it rubbed its hands excitedly.
Who would have thought this ingredient would be growing in a crack in the stones at the school gate?
Promoting medicinal cuisine, victory is in sight!