SZAR Chapter 91

The next day, yesterday’s absurd routine repeated itself.

Erwen slept through two natural wake-ups again. Over the past couple of days, his rest had been even more complete than at the military headquarters. Meanwhile, the male zerg slept in until the sun was high, leaving Erwen hesitating downstairs, unsure whether he should go wake him.

If he didn’t get up soon, he’d miss lunch.

Fortunately, before noon, Qu Xia finally hauled himself out of bed.

His hair stuck up like straw as he muttered, “This can’t go on… I need to reset my biological clock.”

The high-rank exam was imminent. If he continued staying up late and waking late, sleeping through the exam would be catastrophic.

He hastily ate lunch, once again marveling at Erwen’s superb cooking, then sprawled on the sofa for half an hour to digest before opening the laboratory door.

Qu Xia gestured: “Please, come in.”

Erwen stood, expression calm, fingers subtly curling within his sleeves.

Let’s see what tricks this strategist has today.

The lab was converted from the basement, dim, damp, with a musty smell. In the center sat a metallic restraint chair. Qu Xia indicated for Erwen to sit and then picked up the straps on either side.

“I’m going to tie you up now,” he said.

A female zerg’s mental sea was highly unstable. If disturbed, they could become enraged, collapse, or act erratically. Qu Xia was a self-taught, inexperienced, barefoot doctor, and a physically weak male at that. If a female erupted in rage, he couldn’t hold him down. So before every treatment, binding them was necessary.

Erwen nodded calmly.

It should be this way.

Even at the military, punishments required restraining the subject to prevent struggling. He was prepared for restraint.

Qu Xia bent down to fasten the straps.

The straps on the chair back had to loop over the shoulders, cross at the chest, and tighten at the back. The armrest straps wrapped around the thighs, forcing the occupant into a posture with chest out, abdomen tucked, and legs tense. As Qu Xia worked, he swallowed nervously.

Wow, such perfect muscles.

Beneath the restraints, the lines of muscle subtly recessed, then bulged into beautiful curves. Qu Xia instinctively covered his face.

Strange, he’d tied up countless people before, but this was the first time he didn’t dare look at his patient.

He hurriedly fastened the straps, then loosened them slightly so as not to pinch Erwen too tightly. Next, he placed a battered helmet over Erwen’s head and prompted, “Shall I begin?”

Erwen nodded, teeth clenched, tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth, this prevented him from biting through it in pain.

The knobs turned with a soft click; Qu Xia flicked the switch.

Erwen’s body tensed.

Gentle frequencies flowed into his mental sea, without the slightest discomfort, like invisible hands smoothing the turbulent surface of a stormy sea.

It wasn’t painful. It was… even pleasant.

Erwen hesitated.

Is this not the real start yet?

On the other side, Erwen’s mental sea appeared clearly on Qu Xia’s light-brain.

Qu Xia drew in a sharp breath.

After his modifications, this machine was far more precise than ordinary instruments. Erwen’s mental sea was vast, he truly was an S-rank female, one of the strongest S-rank. Yet, his mental sea was riddled with hidden trauma, jagged protrusions jutting up like reefs along the seabed.

Even the female zerg in the gang already had serious mental issues, but Erwen’s were far worse, practically as if he’d never received any proper mental care.

Qu Xia felt a twinge of difficulty.

For ordinary gang members, a drop of pheromone in the blood would suffice. But Erwen? His mental sea was too large, too chaotic. Qu Xia pressed his lips together, pausing his hands over the controls.

Academic papers offered guidance for such cases, the optimal method being intimate contact in bed, a full physical engagement to reach the reproductive center… practically optimal.

But, clearly, Qu Xia could not use that approach.

He stood behind Erwen, hesitated, then used a small knife to cut the back of his hand, letting blood flow.

Erwen’s breathing suddenly became rapid.

The pheromones of a high-rank male spread through the air, a lethal allure for any female. Under the restraints, Erwen’s body tensed painfully; tiny tremors ran through him uncontrollably. He bit down hard, struggling against the overwhelming craving, but forced himself to remain calm, fingers gripping the chair as tightly as a drowning person clings to a lifeline.

He hadn’t expected Qu Xia to do this.

Exposing high-level pheromones to a female without granting him even a single drop is a form of interrogation far more terrifying than mental sea punishment. In such extreme temptation, a female long denied comfort reacts like an addict gone mad, the pain rippling through his  bones, the tingling in his muscles, driving him toward insanity. Erwen inhaled sharply, clenching his lower lip between his teeth.

He couldn’t understand why Qu Xia was doing this.

Males normally feared pain, but this male had cut his own hand to punish him this way. A chill ran down Erwen’s spine; cold sweat beaded on his forehead. Seeing his reaction, Qu Xia offered reassurance: “Hold on a little longer, it’ll be over soon.”

Erwen clenched his fists, nails digging into his flesh. The male said a little longer, but no one could predict how a fickle male would push him. If Qu Xia stepped out now, leaving him alone in the lab amid such intense pheromones, Erwen wouldn’t last long.

Qu Xia collected some of his blood and dropped it into a nearby container.

The container was directly connected to the metal helmet via tubing. Through a series of distillations and refinements, the blood was purified into a highly concentrated pheromone gas.

Erwen stiffened instantly as the pheromones traveled through the tubing, permeating his muscles and bones. The scent was a pleasant spearmint, like a summer afternoon, and even his agitated mental sea began to calm.

He exhaled deeply, leaning back in the chair.

His tense body relaxed, his tightly clenched hands unclenched, and he felt as if he’d been transported to another world.

What was happening?

The male zerg had cut his palm, extracted the pheromones, and now he was giving them directly to him?

It wasn’t to torment or interrogate him, then why?

Qu Xia’s voice came from behind, tinged with slight reproach: “Wow, I’ve never seen a mental sea like yours. It’s a mess, how did you get yourself into this state?”

Erwen had no words.

He felt an unreal, dizzying sensation, unable to tell reality from dream. For a moment, he even wondered if he had died at the hands of the raiders, and whether this dilapidated little building and the male insect inside was just a dying fantasy.

It was absurd. A male zerg  had cut his hand and drawn blood just to soothe his mental sea?

While Erwen was still stunned, Qu Xia undid the restraints on the chair and patted his shoulder. “All done,” he said.

Then Qu Xia opened the laboratory door and stepped out first.

Erwen sat quietly in the restraint chair, the straps undone, yet he didn’t move an inch, like a sculpted statue encased in a film of stillness.

Qu Xia’s voice called from the doorway: “Finished yet? I’m hungry! Come help me make dinner!”

Only then did Erwen seem to wake from a dream. He felt along the wall and walked out of the lab.

He firmly took the bandages and medicine from Qu Xia’s hands. Seeing the confused look on Qu Xia’s face, Erwen pressed him gently onto the sofa, then half-kneeling, took Qu Xia’s hand and applied the medicine.

Though Erwen couldn’t see, his movements were meticulous, cradling Qu Xia’s hand like a butler holding his young master, a caretaker tending to his charge.

Qu Xia squirmed, tugging at his wrist. “You don’t need to be so careful. I just got a tiny cut—ah!”

The desolate star had no good medicine, only cheap leftovers the main planet’s males didn’t need. It stung terribly when applied to a wound, and Qu Xia couldn’t help but yelp, tears bursting out of his eyes.

“Ow…ow…ow! Be gentler!”

The young researcher was talented in every way, but his tear glands were just as overdeveloped as his brain. Sometimes he didn’t even want to cry, yet the tears came first: sunlight too bright made them fall, staring at screens made them fall, a bit of wind or minor pain, tears would flow.

Erwen couldn’t see and didn’t notice Qu Xia’s reddened eyes. His brows were like clamps, and his voice nearly scolded: “You shouldn’t do this.”

Males were precious; they couldn’t tolerate a single injury. This was ingrained in every female from childhood and was their guiding principle. Erwen’s mental sea might be a mess, but it certainly didn’t require a male zerg to cut his hand to treat it.

Qu Xia was acutely aware of Erwen’s intense gaze and felt completely on edge. He had drawn less than half a vial of blood. Even human health checks required that much; in his previous life, he’d donated 400 cc of blood, and aside from a little cake from the nurse, got nothing. Yet Erwen’s reaction made it seem as though he’d bled to death.

Awkwardly, Qu Xia twitched a finger. “I mean, it’s just a tiny cut. It’ll heal later. Just putting on the medicine is fine, no need to wrap it in gauze, right?”

Erwen held Qu Xia’s struggling hand firmly, folding it like a rice dumpling.

After meticulously finishing, he stood up and grabbed the spatula from the coffee table. For some reason, Qu Xia felt like Erwen was lifting a butcher’s cleaver, radiating an imposing aura.

Erwen walked into the kitchen with a quiet, low-pressure presence, closing the door to isolate the smoke from the living room. He thrust the spatula into the pan, stir-frying a bit, then leaned against the stove’s edge and exhaled a soft, cloudy breath.

Why go to all this trouble?

Why make him indebted in this way?

If it were a female, Erwen could grant him high rank, wealth, and a secure future. But a male insect, especially one of such high rank, what could he do to make up for days of concealment and deception?

Qu Xia had no idea.

The moment Erwen opened the kitchen door, the aroma hit him. Today’s dishes were even more enticing than yesterday’s. The meat was coated in golden sauce, sprinkled with bright green scallions. Qu Xia immediately forgot the pain in his hand and lunged at the table.

“Wow… you’re amazing!”

How did he even manage to get such a perfect housekeeper?

Erwen rolled his sleeves up to his forearms and spoke plainly: “You’re a male. You should reveal your identity and return to the main planet as soon as possible.”

Qu Xia wasn’t worried about Erwen discovering he was male. He had exposed his pheromones directly in the lab. That Erwen hadn’t noticed was almost unbelievable. Still, Qu Xia didn’t care; Erwen was a servant he had bought, with a suppression ring on his neck that prevented him from leaving without permission, and he was about to take the exam anyway.

The following days passed quietly.

Every other day, Qu Xia used the machine to help Erwen organize his mental sea. After the first session, he no longer needed to draw blood; with the initial guidance, the instrument alone could achieve effective results.

With the high-level exam approaching, Qu Xia spent more time having Erwen explain poetry. Though he didn’t fully grasp the emotions, he diligently copied down notes, relying on his exceptional memory to memorize most of it. He also casually ran through a couple of math and physics exercises to get a feel for the papers. He was practically guaranteed to ace the exam.

Before long, the day of the exam arrived.

That morning, Qu Xia retrieved the communicator from the storage room and played the pre-recorded audio.

Electromagnetic waves carried the male’s clear, sharp voice outward, entering the military’s secure communication channels. Meanwhile, Qu Xia slung his backpack over his shoulder, waved goodbye to Erwen under the pretext of going grocery shopping.

Servants couldn’t leave the house freely. Qu Xia had been doing all the shopping these past days.

He stole one last glance at the barren planet, shrouded in twilight, as the public transport aircraft drifted away. Then he turned, gazing across the stars. At the edge of his vision, military warships slowly approached, their escorting aircrafts swarming like a dark tide, finally converging with Qu Xia’s ship, leaving trails of thick black exhaust in their wake.

Qu Xia clasped his hands: “Housekeeper, you may go home now.”

Moments later, the military locked onto Erwen’s position, and to their relief, the admiral’s small residence stood alone, deserted, with no guards nearby.

Analysis from the sky-eye confirmed that all other gang members on the garbage planet were desperate fugitives with blood debts, criminals who had fled here after committing crimes.

To ensure the admiral’s safety and prevent the gangs from launching attacks, the commanding officer immediately issued the order: “Fire.”

Powerful grenades exploded among the trash piles, sparks scattering everywhere. Erwen put down the spatula, his brows knitting sharply.

Qu Xia hasn’t returned yet!