45. Giving birth
"I only knew that the Tethys would have a period of weakness after reproduction, but no one told me that this period of weakness was so uncomfortable."
After a long while, the man remained limp on the ground, unable to get up at all.
Pi Min tried to help him up but couldn't, so he simply went back to his room, brought back a bed and a blanket, and spread them on the floor, leaving him lying there.
He was so weak that he couldn't go to work normally, so he had to call the hospital leadership to ask for leave.
The Thetian insectoids are an extremely powerful race, rarely falling ill. Upon hearing that he wanted to take sick leave, the hospital director, also a Thetian insectoid, was immediately overjoyed: "You want to take sick leave? Good! You've finally decided to let your wife get pregnant. You don't need to worry about the hospital; just rest at home. I can't wait to see your insect baby!"
The call was on speakerphone, and the leader's excited voice echoed throughout the room; you could almost guess his expression through the phone.
Thinking of the Thetian insectoids' passion for reproduction, Pimin felt a chill run down her spine. She cautiously asked the man still lying on the ground, "Is it really okay that I haven't gotten pregnant?"
The man patted his chest and confidently declared, "No problem. If anyone asks, just say I have a health problem and am a useless worm that can't reproduce normally."
Seeing someone so naturally accuse themselves of being incapable for the first time, Pi Min couldn't help but chuckle: "You're really going all out."
"It's better than actually getting pregnant and giving birth to bugs."
"It's just a copy," Pimin said dismissively.
“It is indeed just a copy, but the pain is real.” The man’s expression was solemn. “I can’t bear to see you suffer.”
His gentle gaze made Pi Min's heart tremble, and she subconsciously avoided his eyes.
"What about the others?"
“It’s their fault for wanting to sign the debt assignment authorization. If I don’t teach them a lesson, if I don’t make them feel the pain, they won’t believe me.” The man said, a smile unconsciously creeping onto his lips. “But you’re different. You know me. Even without this lesson, you’ll still be on my side.”
"Alright."
Seeing him lying on the ground looking weak, Pi Min kindly poured him a glass of water. But as soon as she handed the water to the man, he pulled her into his arms.
What are you doing?
"Let me kiss you." The pale-faced man clutched his chest and began to play the victim. "It hurts so much. The Thetian insectoids are practically reproducing at the cost of their lives. I feel like I'm going to die. My last wish before I die is for you to kiss me."
"nerve!"
She was just some clueless fool. If only the Thetians were that easy to kill. Their so-called period of weakness was nothing more than a bad cold; it wouldn't kill them.
Unfortunately, the man's expression was too aggrieved, his eerie golden vertical pupils were too beautiful, and his petal-like lips looked too alluring.
She ultimately couldn't resist the temptation, reached out and hooked her arms around the man's neck, and kissed him fiercely.
Pi Min felt she must be crazy to lie down on the living room floor with him and act silly.
Outside the living room window is a peach tree. When the dungeon opened, the peach tree had just started bearing fruit. Through the changing seasons, in the blink of an eye, it has reached the season when the peach blossoms are in full bloom.
Ignoring the aliens hidden beneath their human appearances, their lives in this instance are nothing more than ordinary, mundane daily routines.
This dungeon perfectly replicates everything on Earth, including a dazzling array of fresh ingredients. Not wanting to waste the fresh ingredients the man bought every few days, she, who had been surviving on nutrient solutions in the dungeon, even learned to cook with him.
The two novices carefully added each ingredient to the electronic scale as if conducting an experiment, and hugged each other excitedly and cheered every time they learned a new dish.
With warm sunshine, delicious food, and the company of her beloved, life was ordinary yet cozy. Pimin even felt, in a daze, that life in this instance was more peaceful and beautiful than when she was in the dungeon.
She wished time could slow down, but unfortunately, the days still passed by one by one.
With a chief governor willing to become pregnant and bear children for the Crown Prince of the Thetian Empire, the union of Kirini and Thetian people naturally became politically correct. More and more Kirini people "voluntarily" intermarried with Thetian people, and the streets were filled with more and more Kirini people with pregnant bellies.
Pimin, immersed in her wonderful daily life, only suddenly realizes that she is still in a dungeon when she sees those pregnant bellies.
Having grown accustomed to the sight of pregnant bellies everywhere, she occasionally had the illusion that pregnancy wasn't so terrible after all.
Until that day.
That day, on her way home from work, she took her husband's arm and went for a walk in the nearby park, as usual. On the way, they encountered a pregnant woman who had collapsed on the ground. The reason the word "pregnant woman" wasn't used is because the pregnant woman was a man.
The man's belly was horribly swollen. He was lying on the ground, groaning in pain. Blood was flowing from his mouth and nose. His swollen belly was writhing violently, the movements of which were terrifying, as if something was trying to crawl out of it.
Passersby were in a panic; some were shouting for help, while others were calling for an ambulance.
Finally, it was the man next to Pi Min who pushed through the crowd and went inside.
"I am a doctor."
The pregnant woman's family, as if seeing a savior, grabbed him tightly, pleading, "Doctor, please save him!"
“I don’t have any first aid medication on hand. If you want to save him, you have to do as I say.”
The pregnant woman's family members nodded vigorously.
Are there any pets nearby?
Upon hearing the man's words, a kind-hearted bystander immediately brought over a large golden retriever.
The immersion in this instance is truly exceptional; even the pets are in forms familiar to Earthlings. Led to the man by its owner, the Golden Retriever was overjoyed, running happily towards him with its pair of jet-black eyes full of curiosity, its large tail swishing wildly.
Unfortunately, the man had no intention of playing with the dog at all. He coldly addressed the pregnant woman's family, saying, "If you want to save him, kill the dog right now, cut open its belly, and place the body next to him."
"You're crazy!" The dog owner, who had originally wanted to help, spat out the words and hurriedly put on a protective stance, hugging the golden retriever tightly.
Other passersby were also in an uproar.
Only the man's expression remained solemn: "Trust me and I'll act immediately!"
Of course, no one would make a move.
That was a living, breathing dog, a dog that its owner treated like family.
At this moment, the silly dog was completely unaware that it was about to face mortal danger. It was curiously observing the expressions on the faces of the people around it, its big tail still wagging happily. Its gaze towards everyone present was gentle and trusting, and it looked as if it was ready to go through fire and water for humans at any time.
Faced with such a dog, even knowing that one should trust a doctor's professional judgment, no one could bring themselves to harm it.
Seeing that no one was willing to take action, the man sighed deeply.
"Then let's wait for the ambulance. Whether he can pull through or not depends on his own fate."
His voice was cold and indifferent, devoid of any emotion.
Pimin recalled him from the previous test instance with Queen Kami. Although he was always a lively and clingy happy puppy in front of her, he was always cold and arrogant in the eyes of outsiders.
At this moment, his lips were tightly pursed, and his eyes were fixed on the pregnant woman's high, swollen belly. His stern and cold expression clearly showed that he did not think she could hold on until the ambulance arrived.
Just as Pi Min had guessed, as her gaze followed the man's line of sight to the pregnant woman's stomach, a tentacle suddenly burst forth from her abdomen—one, two, three…
The pregnant woman's belly was instantly pierced like a hedgehog, and then larvae covered in tentacles and almost transparent burst out of her body, without hesitation beginning to devour the man's flesh.
The scene before my eyes was even more terrifying than the movie "Alien." At least after the alien broke out of the body, it didn't continue to devour the host's flesh.
Upon witnessing this scene, screams, shouts, and shrieks erupted from the crowd.
"Don't look!" The man covered Pi Min's eyes the moment the larvae emerged from her body.
She knew she shouldn't keep looking, but she couldn't help peeking through the gaps between the man's fingers. The larva's body was almost transparent, and she could clearly see the pregnant woman's flesh and blood sliding down her mouthparts into its stomach. The originally transparent larva was instantly stained a shocking red with blood.
This special instance wasn't streamed live, and filters couldn't be used either; everything just happened right before your eyes.
The scene was so bloody and brutal that Pi Min's body began to tremble involuntarily.
Sensing her current mood, the man forcefully turned her body around, pressed her head into his arms, and then wrapped her tightly in his trench coat.
Feeling the warmth of the man's body, Pi Min's body, which had been cold with fear, finally began to warm up.
The ambulance arrived late, and by the time it was finally carried onto the stretcher, all that remained was a blood-stained skeleton.
Perhaps because it had consumed the mother's flesh and blood, the larva had successfully completed its mimicry and transformed into a chubby, white human baby when it was lifted onto the ambulance.
The baby, covered in blood, babbled and gave the crowd an innocent and bewildered smile, but Pi Min felt a chill run down her spine.
The scene was so shocking that even after returning home, she couldn't recover for a long time. The image of the larvae devouring the mother's flesh kept replaying in her mind, and she could only find a moment of peace when she was nestled in the man's arms.
"Is this why you don't want me to get pregnant?"
“Yes.” Seeing that she was still trembling, the man hurriedly patted her back and comforted her softly, “This is an accident. The larvae of the Thetian insect race do eat the mother, but as long as the larvae can be cut out in time before they hatch and put into a special nutrient tank, the mother will be safe.”
Just as Pi Min breathed a sigh of relief, the man opened his tablet and showed her a video of a cesarean section to remove the baby.
The long surgical incision stretched from the chest cavity to the lower abdomen, almost splitting the person in half. Only then did Pimin finally understand why the maternity leave of the Thetian insectoid mates was so long.
"Do you still want to have my babies now?"
"I don't want to think about it anymore!" Pi Min's face turned pale, and he shook his head repeatedly.
Strangely, even though the man was using the body of a Thetian insectoid, lying in his arms, she felt a strange sense of security, and even the bloody scene of disembowelment and child removal didn't seem so terrifying.
"Have you noticed any problems with these surgical videos?"
"All they found inside were worms, no babies!"
The man gave him a look of aptitude and nodded, saying, "That's right. Newly hatched larvae don't mimic; they all revert to their ancestral insect form. As long as the mate is a Tethys insect, the offspring of the pregnant woman will invariably be insects; there will be no Kirini aliens."
"Is this why you'd rather send all of humanity on a high-mortality space voyage than accept Queen Camille's marriage proposal?"
The man didn't say anything, but simply hugged her even tighter.
The images of the alien races that Queen Kamie had shown her when she boasted about them flashed through her mind, and Pimin felt a chill run down her spine. She unconsciously hugged the man tighter, as if trying to draw warmth from him: "Are those races that once intermarried with the Thetian insectoids really the same races they were?"
The man shook his head and said quietly, "In my opinion, those living on those planets now are nothing more than insects in different shells. Zetan aliens, Alpha aliens... no matter how the shell changes, they are all just insects inside."
Images of larvae devouring their mothers and disemboweling their offspring kept replaying in Pi Min's mind. Finally, Pi Min couldn't help but ask him, "Is it really okay to let everyone experience such a scenario?"
The man remained silent for a long time, staring intently at the swaying shadows of the trees outside the window. After a while, he spoke as if in a dream: "I don't know. Although dying in this instance is just exiting the game, the pain experienced before death is very real. Whether you can survive depends on your own mental fortitude."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
