Find the photographer

Having stayed up late last night to watch the dramatic reversal of public opinion, the chamberlains, who had collected countless beautiful photos of Her Majesty Alyssa, were in high spirits. They pulled out all the stops to dress Her Majesty Alyssa in a fresh, youthful look. From her hairstyle to her hair accessories, her brooches, her socks, and even the small accessories on her schoolbag, every detail showcased their ingenuity.

Having witnessed the long-awaited lilies blooming and having slept well at night, Alyssa was in a very good mood today.

So when she came out of the airship to greet the students, her smile was particularly bright, and her pheromones were as sweet as honey, and the students who came to greet her were almost "drunk on honey".

This morning's reception shift had also changed, with the Cicada Clan, last night's key contributors, now in charge. With tears in his eyes, Sean eagerly watched Her Majesty Alyssa's improved mood, feeling that all his hard work yesterday had been rewarded with the perfect reward.

He bravely shouted, "Her Majesty Alyssa!"

Alyssa turned around and recognized him at a glance, smiling: "Good morning. There is no fighting today, which is great."

...Woo!

Sean clutched his chest, his mind switching back and forth between the thoughts of "dying without regrets" and "life is too good to die."

After Alyssa left, the cicadas chirped loudly. The cicada students uploaded photos and videos of Her Majesty Alyssa from that morning to the school network, along with vivid captions:

"Brothers and sisters! Our expedition was a complete success! Look at Her Majesty Alyssa's smile this morning! Isn't this the faith we swore to defend?"

Originally, the Zerg, due to their racial differences, tended to form cliques. However, after last night's experience of fighting together for a common goal, the students of Lugong Xingyuan achieved unprecedented cross-racial unity. They had no objection to the Cicada's temporary shift today, after all, they had truly made significant contributions.

And the brothers and sisters of the Cicada Clan really gave them the feedback that lived up to their expectations. This wave of posts was so timely!

Just as the students of Rugong Xingyuan were indulging in the good mood healed by Her Majesty Alyssa's warm smile early in the morning, an anonymous post attracted the attention of all Zergs.

Actually, it's not difficult to catch the traitor. Although Her Majesty Alyssa always wears a school uniform, the accessories she wears are different every day. From the accessories, we can roughly infer the date the photo was taken.

The poster enlarged the secretly taken photo, circled Alyssa's headdress, the pattern on her socks, and the accessories on her schoolbag, and wrote:

A small lily of the valley star diamond headdress, dark gray tights with lily of the valley green leaves at the ankles, and a bee plush hanging from her schoolbag. If memory serves, this was the outfit His Majesty wore ten days ago. The bee tribe even boasted about it on the forums at the time.

[The photo shows the Rennes guards helping Her Majesty Alyssa get off the hovercraft. They are facing the corridor to the right of the fountain garden. The picture is backlit, meaning the sun is on the east side. Therefore, the time of the reception must be in the morning.]

[Come on, this is the morning schedule from ten days ago.]

Before the students could even marvel at the poster's meticulousness, they had already looked at the shift schedule and saw the stink bugs that were scheduled ten days ago in the morning.

For a moment, the stink bug students felt that the eyes of the insects around them were not right. They felt very aggrieved and swore to heaven that they had not done it.

Seville was a little hesitant when he directed the network security engineer to post this anonymously. In the morning, when Alyssa didn't notice, he specifically asked Gabriel for confirmation.

"Master Gabriel, do you really want to do this? Wouldn't it be inappropriate to make it public on the school forum? After all, it involves an entire clan..."

Gabriel looked at Seville deeply, then turned aside. She picked up a rose still covered with morning dew, and her voice was so soft that the rise and fall were almost inaudible.

"Sevier, do you know why Her Majesty Alyssa's rescue mission... was delayed for three star years?"

"After losing the crucial Broodmother Egg, I immediately requested a rescue mission. However, it was not going smoothly."

"There are always obstacles, problems... I've questioned myself countless times, wondering if I'm too incompetent. I've also angrily questioned those worms who were making excuses countless times, asking if they didn't need a worm mother anymore."

"After receiving your message yesterday, I thought about it all night."

"What if... these obstacles, these problems, all came from within the team I trusted at the time? There's a bug there, deliberately holding us back."

Gabriel clenched her fist, and bright red rose juice burst between her fingers. "Then, Her Majesty Alyssa shouldn't have had to endure these three star years, twenty years of suffering for her; she shouldn't have had to be shaped by humans' deformed education and become a lowly woman who calls herself a 'slave'! If it was his malice that created Her Majesty Alyssa's almost fixed human appearance, and now he's making a big fuss about it!"

She turned to look at Seville, her eight eyes already red enough to look almost black, and the bright red sap of the roses dripped down her drooping fingertips like blood. "So, why should I care about the feelings of a stink bug student in a school?"

Seville was stunned by Gabriel's behavior. He'd seen so much of Gabriel's doting, almost doting attitude towards Her Majesty Alyssa, that he'd almost forgotten that this Chief Internal Affairs Officer was from the Thorne family, a species of highly venomous black widow spiders.

After a long silence, Gabriel took a pure white silk handkerchief and wiped the rose juice off his hands bit by bit. "Don't worry. This is just a test. At most, it will only make the stink bug students uncomfortable for a while."

"If it's him, there will be an explanation for this matter soon. Just wait and see."

The aggrieved students quickly began an internal investigation, retracing their positions from that morning, trying to identify the traitor based on the angles used in the photo.

"Where's Mayer? Why isn't Mayer here?"

"Isn't he still in class this morning?"

"...Isn't it true that Mayer was standing in this area that morning?"

“…No way…”

Meanwhile, Meyer locked himself in a secluded gymnastics equipment room and called his father.

The gymnastics equipment room hadn't been bugged for a long time and was cluttered with junk. Meyer used gymnastics mats to build a small triangular area, just enough to curl up in.

He dialed frantically, but there was no response from the smart computer.

Meyer's pupils were as red as if they were about to bleed, sometimes stretching into needles, sometimes expanding into teardrops.

As soon as the posts slandering Her Majesty Alyssa were moved back to the school forum, Meyer recognized that he had taken those photos.

His mind was blank, save for his father's slightly disappointed words on the intelligent brain communication: "Our family wasn't invited to the last Thanksgiving dinner... I didn't get to meet the new Her Majesty the Worm Mother. What a shame. Meyer, you're at Lugong Xingyuan. I heard Her Majesty the Worm Mother is going to school. Can you take some photos of Her Majesty the Worm Mother so I can see her?"

His father's voice sounded helpless, yet filled with longing. To keep his family from falling out of the ranks of the elite, and to allow him to attend Rugong Xingyuan, his father had given so much. How could he bear to refuse such a small request from his father?

But, father, there were so many photos sent to you, why were those few posted online with such malicious intent?!

From the moment he saw the post, Mayer hadn't slept, his mind poring over his thoughts like a maniac. Seeing his classmates turn the tide and help Her Majesty Alyssa's reputation recover, he finally relaxed a little. He thought, perhaps he hadn't harmed Her Majesty Alyssa, and he hadn't intended to do so in the first place.

But this morning's post on the campus forum about the alleged photographer and the self-examination by the stink bug students had him on edge again. He curled up, dialing his father's number over and over again. Amidst the repetitive busy tones, he felt the overlapping gymnastics mats pressing in like two thick, closing walls. And his pheromones, in this cramped space, grew increasingly uncontrollable.

Meyer's father's intelligence brain was busy because he was calling another bug: "...Sir! Why! Those photos...! They're checking, the students are checking! They'll find it on Meyer!"

The bug on the other side of the intelligent brain, also a stink bug, seemed very calm compared to Mayer's father's anxiety and anger. "Don't worry, even if they find out that Mayer was the bug who took the photo, so what? He wasn't the bug who posted the photo online. Even if we check his intelligent brain, we won't find anything."

"But Meyer still has to study at Tsukumi-seiin! He's a sensitive and introverted child. Even without evidence, the gossip from his classmates would make him uncomfortable for a long time! Could you please ask Master Alfonso to think of a solution..."

Meyer's father suddenly shut his mouth. From the moment he said the name "Alfonso", the expressions of the stink bugs on the other side of the intelligent computer became terrifying.

He stared coldly at Meyer's father for a long moment before saying, "...This is a deal between you and me. Why are you dragging irrelevant people into this?"

What... irrelevant bug?

Meyer's father only felt that the blood in his body was flowing backwards, his muscles seemed to be out of control, and his shell stood up piece by piece.

It was clearly... Master Alfonso who had hinted at him to find some photos and videos of the bug queen. Then, Master Alfonso, citing his advanced age as inadequate for using a young person's intelligence, had him send the photos to the bug in the communication.

He quickly reviewed it and found that he had no evidence to prove that the order to take the secret photos came from Alfonso.

He looked into the cold compound eyes of the bug in the communication projection and knew that he was finished.

From the moment he said Alfonso's name in the communication, he was finished.

Meyer...!

He hung up and immediately called Meyer back, but no one answered the call.

In the small sports equipment room, a segmented tentacle thicker than a pen suddenly emerged from beneath the stacked gymnastics mats, followed by another.

A bug over 6 meters long lifted the gymnastics mat and crawled out.

Meyer had completely transformed into a worm, his compound eyes red as blood. The points where his tentacles split and the surface of his carapace were covered in dense, stalactite-like spines. Even with the naked eye, it was clear he had completely degraded!

He rammed his head into the wall of the gymnasium equipment room and rushed out.

On the Xingyuan playground, students were attending physical education class. Seeing the insects, which showed obvious signs of degradation, the students exclaimed in surprise. Soon, a buzzing sirens echoed over the Xingyuan grounds, and security guards, armed with protective gear and tranquilizer grenades, took off en masse.

But the degraded insect was already incredibly close to the alien species, and its speed was astonishing. It quickly caught the faint sweet fragrance in the air and flew towards its source.

There, Alyssa was sitting under a tree with the snail cubs, cheering for the other cubs.