Inside the meeting room.
Igris received the notification that his bank account had been frozen immediately.
Ah.
“Been found out,” the Councilman thought. His movements paused for a split second, and he mindlessly imagined the expression that must be on his Lord’s face right now.
Would he be angry? Or would his face be as cold and indifferent as ever, appearing as if nothing were wrong, while inwardly cursing him hundreds of times over? Well, it was better that he not be too calm. Based on his extensive experience in being scolded, a cold face was a minor matter. If His Excellency were actually wearing a calm expression, it would only prove that his patience was on the verge of erupting.
That would be a much bigger problem.
As if in response to his conjecture, his communicator, which had been silent for the past two days, suddenly rang without warning.
He glanced at the name popping up on the interface.
Was this a call to settle accounts?
Igris pondered for a moment, then looked up, his gaze sweeping disinterestedly across the other insects present. He reached out to rub his ear, stared at the floppy-eared rabbit flashing on the screen for a moment, and swiped to answer.
The video feed lit up instantly.
On the dark blue electronic screen, a face as clear as snow gathered in the moonlight suddenly appeared.
Noticing the setting on the other end of the video, His Excellency paused for a moment. But it was only a brief hesitation; the next second, the young male insect calmly averted his gaze. He locked his eyes firmly on the Councilman, ignoring the bewildered and confounded stares of everyone in the room, and spoke calmly.
“Igris Orwell,” his tone was cold, as if announcing an objective fact that had already occurred, “your pocket money for this month is gone.”
Just that one sentence.
Following the beep of the call ending, the previously noisy meeting room fell into instant, dead silence. The insects looked at one another, their minds going blank, their expressions profound and complex.
…？
Wait, why would a high-ranking insect not set their personal communicator to privacy mode?
Oh, right, it is the Councilman. Never mind then.
Those sitting in this small meeting room were mostly insects who leaned toward the Councilman’s faction, and they were accustomed to this Councilman’s temperament. Failing to use privacy mode was just one of his many complicated and eclectic quirks; it was truly nothing worth noting.
This kind of nonchalance even occurred frequently during work.
It was hard to tell if he was truly careless, or if he was simply too arrogant, believing that even if someone tried to monitor his private calls to fish for intelligence, it would be difficult to have any real impact on him. Or perhaps he was just so bored that he threw out a piece of bait to see what was lurking under the water.
But.
Was this topic, involving marital privacy, really something they were supposed to hear?
Weren’t they saying just a few days ago that the Councilman had suffered a setback at His Excellency’s hands, and that the couple was dealing with undercurrents of internal conflict? How did this look like the interaction of a pair of married partners on the verge of a fallout?
Inside the meeting room, the council members looked calm on the surface, but a storm of frantic thoughts was raging within them.
Just as they were letting their imaginations run wild, the call, which should have ended, suddenly lit up again.
The council members stared blankly at His Excellency on the opposite side, not knowing how to react. Theoretically, greeting one another is the most basic matter of etiquette between insects, but in this situation, they dared not, and did not know whether they should, speak.
The first to react was the Councilman sitting at the head of the table.
The black-haired female insect supported his chin in a lazy posture, staring at the fury on His Excellency’s face for a while. After a moment of contemplation, he suddenly moved his fingertips, adding a layer of mosaic effects to the video feed.
The ferocious Excellency turned into a ferocious little cake.
The bewildered council members’ heads turned into pig heads covering the entire screen.
Noah: “…?”
Seeing the sticker effects added to the council members across the screen, Noah did not think much of it, assuming the meeting was highly confidential and required masking the information of the attendees. As for why he had stickers on himself too, his gaze shifted slightly, lingering for a few seconds on the pile of little cakes stacked on himself in the upper corner.
So many cakes.
They looked kind of delicious.
He lost his focus for a moment, then quickly snapped back to reality. Through the ugly pig-head effects, he accurately called out the name of one of the high-ranking species: “Councilor Jones, long time no see. How is Lord Terrence doing lately?” Without waiting for an answer, the young Excellency smiled at him and said graciously, “You will not lend any money to Mr. Orwell, right?”
Councilor Jones, who had been called out, was silent.
Terrence was the name of his own male spouse.
Pig-head No. 1 shuddered, gasped, and said decisively: “That is correct!”
Lending money was impossible; it would be impossible in this lifetime to lend money.
Had he not heard that His Excellency had even brought up his own spouse? If he were to secretly lend money to the Councilman, the Councilman might be fine, but the next one to have his allowance strictly controlled would surely be himself. Since it was the Councilman’s family business, he, a passing insect, should not get involved and risk collateral damage.
“Councilor Smith?”
Pig-head No. 2 looked calm, unfazed by the crisis: “Lord Noah, to be honest, I am planning to propose to a Lord in the near future. The Councilman is a man of great understanding; I believe he would not ask to borrow money from me.”
His Excellency nodded slightly and looked at the third insect.
Pig-head No. 3 gave a disdainful laugh.
The other insects felt a stir.
Could it be?
Pig-head No. 3 brushed the nonexistent dust off his body and said heartily: “Lord Noah, please rest assured, I do not even have pocket money at all!” It was said as a matter of course, loud and clear!
“…?”
The insects cast side-glances one after another.
Even Noah, who had originally just picked a few names from the Councilman’s social circle to issue a symbolic warning, could not help but look up at him again.
His Excellency paused subtly and said calmly: “Hmm, you are very good.”
Having been praised, No. 3 sat back down, full of pride and looking pleased with himself.
By the way, he swept a scornful glance across the entire room once more.
What are you looking at?
My lack of pocket money means that every cent I spend is my male spouse’s money. In other words, my male spouse is supporting me. This is affection; what do you single dogs know about it?
The call cut off again.
The meeting room fell into a dead silence.
The hall remained the same hall, and the small group remained the same group, but at this moment, it was as if an invisible chasm lay between them, leaving these high-and-mighty privileged insects speechless and unable to express their complicated feelings.
Seriously, guys?
Pig-head No. 1 and No. 2 slowly lowered their heads, attempting to bury themselves under their desks.
Pig-head No. 3 felt proud instead of ashamed, defying the whole room with a look of contempt.
The Councilman began to crack open sunflower seeds.
The sound was too obvious, successfully drawing the gaze of all the insects. The black-haired female insect, subjected to the collective stare, only lifted his eyelids slightly, looked back with surprise, and asked strangely: “Why are you looking at me?” He tapped his chin and said nonchalantly: “Continue the meeting.”
At the same time, the Orwell main residence.
Dismissing the servant insects and the butler.
Noah opened the door to his bedroom and then closed it. As his reason gradually returned, the young Excellency lowered his eyelashes, his gaze darting around in a panic. He gradually slid downward, hugging himself, and sat down cross-legged on the carpet in silence.
Floppy-eared rabbit in a daze.jpg
A belated, indescribable sense of awkwardness and shame enveloped him like a giant net.
It was not supposed to be like this, His Excellency thought, feeling frustrated.
He clearly did not intend to be this fierce.
In Noah’s childhood fantasies, his female spouse was supposed to be a stable, gentle, and considerate female insect.
Sensible and tactful, someone who would comfort him when he was frustrated and hold him when he was uneasy. In return, Noah would treat the other party with sincerity and gentleness, treating their marriage as a life-long project to be carefully, earnestly managed and maintained until death parted them.
Instead, it was like this: becoming the talk of the entire Federation, a complete mess.
He did not want to be this harsh to his female spouse, either.
His Excellency pursed his lips, rose slowly, and stood before the full-length mirror.
He raised his eyes and met his own reflection.
Perhaps because he had just lost his temper, the male insect’s expression was exceptionally cold. His golden pupils flickered slightly, like a biting blade, imbued with wisps of dangerous chill.
The unease that had dogged him since he woke up in the hospital, the excessive caution, the slightly furrowed, melancholic brows, had disappeared without a trace at some point. Replacing them was an incoming wave of sharpness, competence, and coldness.
It was as if the one standing here was not someone else, but the twenty-eight-year-old Noah Villoria who had held a high position from a young age.
Cold, detached, and beautiful to the point of being dazzling.
His heart stirred.
As if remembering something, the young Excellency lowered his eyes with a sense of realization and pulled up that absurd bill once again, finding that one-of-a-kind, “big spender” purchase record that had everyone speechless.
The first time he looked at it, he focused on the amount and the function.
This time, with clear intent, his gaze landed precisely on the date of purchase.
Noticing that familiar sequence of numbers, His Excellency widened his eyes slightly.
It was the day he had finished calling his female spouse a “pervert,” secretly retracted it, and told him “it is nothing.”
Was it a coincidence?
He pursed his lips, his mood complex as he met his own gaze in the mirror.
The male insect in the mirror tilted his head slightly, wearing a hesitant and confused expression.
If it was not a coincidence.
He counted the series of the other’s seemingly outrageous and absurd actions over the past few days.
At the time, he only felt speechless and angry, but looking back now, the other party’s reactions were quite subtle. Whether it was the head-on lecture in front of everyone or the unhesitating freezing of his account access, his female spouse had not shown a shred of annoyance or resistance, only lowering his eyes slightly and gazing at him quietly.
It was as if.
It was as if he were deliberately fueling his fire.
It was like a lazy beast.
Suddenly bitten, it did not get angry, but simply followed along, watching him mess up its fur. Then, after thinking about it, it picked up the chain connected to the collar around its neck, walked over slowly, leaned down, lowered its head, and placed the other end of the chain into his palm.
It was at that moment that Noah suddenly realized there was another layer of meaning hidden beneath the saying, “When it is safest, Igris Orwell is the most dangerous”:
Through such submissive and humble actions, he was warning all the insects who were stirring because His Excellency had lost his memory that, even if Noah Villoria had lost the experience and insight of his past ten years in power, he was still the sharpest blade in his male spouse’s hand; the coldest, yet most docile, beast standing silently by His Excellency’s side.
Afterward, he lowered his head, rubbed his chin gently against the slightly uneasy floppy-eared rabbit, and told him silently:
“Do not be afraid. I am right here.”