Chapter 31
Arthur heard something snap inside his head.
He pinched Milo's shoulders uncontrollably, his arms shaking with the force.
"Where's the child? Where's the child!?"
Arthur heard himself roaring uncontrollably.
Milo was shaken by him, a strand of white hair fell on his forehead, covering the emotions in his eyes.
"It's gone."
Milo raised his head in a light tone:
"You weren't looking forward to the baby coming, were you?"
It was aborted.
Three easy words.
Arthur stumbled back, covering his face.
It was aborted.
He laughed until he couldn't breathe and it sounded like he was sobbing.
"Is it because of Seventeen?" he asked.
Milo didn't answer.
I see.
The aborted child was merely a stepping stone for Milo to climb up the social ladder and a token of his loyalty to the seventeenth little prince.
Arthur suddenly felt very hateful.
He was too stupid, always believing and expecting. He deserved to live like this.
"Get lost."
He pushed away Milo's reaching hand.
Therefore, I ignored the sadness in the young man's eyes.
Anger was like an out-of-control fire, burning Arthur's brain.
He didn't know where he was going, perhaps he had left the old general's manor.
The muzzle of a gun was pressed against his forehead, and guards armed to the teeth surrounded him tightly.
The unfamiliar officer looked at him, with the wanted poster hanging in the air:
"Arthur, you failed in your duties and murdered a court official before escaping. I am now under the Emperor's order to capture you and bring you back to the main planet. Do you have any objections?"
Did Milo calculate this too?
Arthur looked at the guns that were all around him, black and bloody, and there was no longer any ripple in his heart.
"No," he said.
——
"I shouldn't have agreed to let you come see Xiaoyu!"
The old general pointed at Milo, his fingers shaking, as if he had aged in an instant.
Milo's body swayed, his lips turned pale, as if half of his soul had left his body.
"You, ah, you, you."
Seeing Milo like this, the old general didn't know what to say anymore. He angrily waved his sleeves and left.
The courtyard was silent.
"Why don't you tell him the truth?"
Milo's expression finally showed some fluctuation. He raised his eyes slowly and looked at Seventeen.
"It's better for him to hate me than to feel guilty about it."
Perhaps influenced by the female father's anxiety, the child in her belly desperately longed for the comfort of his male father's pheromones. So much so that as soon as Arthur left, Milo entered her reproductive period again.
This kid almost cost Milo half his life.
This breeding season was more intense than any previous one. Pain, vomiting, and dizziness tortured Milo one after another, and even falling asleep became extremely difficult.
Seventeen had mentioned many times that he wanted to kidnap Arthur back, but was rejected by Milo every time.
At least Arthur is safe here. He is afraid that once Arthur leaves the protection of the old general, he will be immediately captured by the emperor's men and taken back to the main star.
After half a month, Milo finally emerged from the breeding season in a daze. The child who was not expected by his male father finally left the world.
"I'm so stupid."
Milo covered his face. It was the first time he had cried in a long time. He cried quietly, like a flower slowly rotting.
"I thought I could protect him as long as he didn't know."
"Boss..."
Before Seventeen could continue, Milo suddenly stood up.
He wiped the tears from his face fiercely, his eyes showing the determination to regroup: "I will find him, now."
——
Click.
Rainwater seeped through the roof and hit the cold stone slabs.
A red light flashed around Arthur's neck. If he struggled even a little, the electric current would run through the chains and knock him down.
Another drop of rain fell, hitting his dry, chapped lips. He stared at the ceiling, oblivious. Large patches of paint were ripped and chipped, like a shredded sky.
He didn't drink a drop of water for three days.
Outside the iron bars, the jailer came up with a string of jingling metal keys hanging on his head.
A tube of pus-like nutrient solution gurgled in and rolled into the middle of the pile of nutrients emitting a faint green light.
The insects instantly flew up with a buzzing sound, and impatiently lay on the wall of the tube, trying to quench their thirst by looking at the plum blossoms through the glass tube.
[Light rain.]
The spitting sounded far away.
[Want to leave?]
Arthur's eyes moved.
"I... don't want to have any contact with anyone anymore."
The decaying scene of the prison was reflected in his eyes. His eyes, which had lost their luster for too long, were like cracked jade, and the air also solidified.
"I want to die."
[Then come with me.]
In his mind, Tutu embraced him, melting like a mochi, slowly enveloping him. Fingers, limbs, then torso, until only a face was left, raised up, like Ophelia in the water.
There was a whisper in my ear:
[Go where there's no one else.]
The water covered my eyes.
Arthur woke up in a blank state.
He looked around in confusion. There were no edges of heaven and earth, no time, just a blank space.
Where is this?
who I am?
Arthur stared at the lines on his palm in a daze.
Suddenly, a hand grasped his palm.
Arthur was stunned for a moment, then suddenly raised his head.
The man appeared out of nowhere and stood in front of him.
A cloud of black mist lingered in front of the man, making it impossible for Arthur to see his face clearly.
"Come with me."
The man's voice was strangely familiar, tempting him to move. Arthur followed behind him in a daze.
Pulling the warmth from his palm, Arthur felt his heartbeat quicken, as if a seed was struggling to break through the soil.
"Who are you?"
"Don't you recognize me?"
"Should I know you?"
The person in front of him chuckled, "I came here because of you."
"For me?"
"You must be lonely, that's why you ended up here."
Arthur paused.
His heart suddenly ached, as if the floodgates of a reservoir had been opened, and familiar yet unfamiliar emotions rushed out, almost drowning his heart.
He covered his heart and curled up.
"It's okay."
The man bent down and opened his arms to him.
A warm body, soft arms, and soft, lullaby-like whispers:
"We are the same. Stay here. The two of us will be here forever. No one will abandon you again."
"Never again...?"
Arthur grabbed the man's arm like a lifeline.
"Yes."
The man tilted his head and pressed his forehead against Arthur's.
The black mist spread, forming a rift between heaven and earth. The rift continued to tear, revealing the bottomless darkness behind.
"Stay here with me, forever and ever."
Arthur saw the other man's face clearly.
Her snow-white hair was blown by the wind, revealing a smooth forehead. Even her eyelashes were snow-white, and beneath her almost transparent lashes, a pair of ruby-like eyes looked at him.
"Qin Yi."
Arthur blurted out.
Wait, who's this name?
Suddenly, the delicate face in front of me flickered, and the picture was compressed and distorted, like a snow screen with an abnormal signal.
"Why……"
The sharp questioning sounded like a harsh electric current.
"Why? Why? Why is it still him?!"
Arthur took a step back in panic, not understanding how the situation had suddenly turned out like this.
"--Why!"
With the last scream, the picture seemed to have been paused.
"Continuous rain!"
The fantasy before his eyes suddenly shattered, and amidst the scattered mirror fragments, a hand firmly grasped him.
"Hold on to me!"
Black and white formed a huge vortex, time began to flow again, sounds, smells, touches, scenery, all five senses reawakened.
It was like something was returning to my body.
Arthur struggled to open his eyes.
What caught my eye was Milo's face that looked like he was about to cry.
"Wake up! The hero is awake!"
Arthur reached out and touched Milo's wet cheek with his fingertips: "It's you, how great..."
Fell into a deep sleep again.
Arthur didn't know how long he slept, and when he woke up it was early summer.
The cicadas outside the window are chirping like rain.
"Wake up."
The old general helped him sit up, considerately placing a pillow behind his waist. Arthur didn't know if it was his imagination, but the old general seemed to have aged a lot.
Arthur's throat rolled and he called out:
"Father."
The old general raised his head suddenly.
"You..." After the shock, the old general felt more relieved and smiled and shook his head: "You are really smart. Can you get up and let's go for a walk?"
Arthur thought he was just taking a walk in the garden, but he didn't expect that this walk would involve using a spaceship.
The coordinates on the screen were moving towards the main star, but he was inexplicably not worried.
"We met on the battlefield. He discovered the gun I had modified and threatened to denounce me if I didn't accept him as my apprentice. He's very smart. He can learn anything I teach him just once."
The old general spoke, his voice tinged with nostalgia.
"But we are all male insects."
"You know, even now, two male insects wouldn't be recognized, let alone more than 20 years ago. It's okay for me to be alone, I can come and go freely. But he is different. The burden he shoulders is much heavier than mine. He must reproduce. Plus, I am much older than him. Being with me would only be a burden to him. So I fled to this small planet."
Outside the window, the dazzling Milky Way slowly streamed, reflected in the old general's eyes. The ignition of the light seemed to turn back time to the beginning, allowing one to glimpse a corner of the past.
"But I didn't expect that he would find me a few months later. The person who came was his attendant, and with him came you, and the news of his death."
The atmosphere suddenly became heavy.
Arthur couldn't help but sit up straight. He stretched out his hand, wanting to put it on the old general's back to comfort him.
The old general smiled and shook his head.
He is no longer in the age of experiencing extreme joy and sorrow, but the pain in the old general's eyes is still so intense.
"I didn't know he was pregnant, and I don't know how he managed to get through those months without the comfort of pheromones. The birth drained his last bit of energy, but I wasn't by his side at the time."
Arthur's heart skipped a beat.
He thought of Milo.
What happened to Milo during his absence?
"No more."
The old general shook his head in relief and looked out the window.
"We're here."
The spaceship slowly landed, and below was the central square of the main planet. The square was crowded with people, and it seemed that something big was happening.
"Let's go and take a look."
"Old General?"
Before Arthur could ask anything, he was pulled out of the spaceship.
The world suddenly became noisy.
Arthur caught the "new emperor" from the noisy voices.
He looked suddenly at the old general.
The old general just smiled and looked away, revealing a somewhat emotional expression: "If he were here, he would probably be very pleased."
He? Relieved?
Arthur suddenly realized something.
"Father, he is——"
Suddenly his pupils trembled.
The crowd quieted down at some point, and the female insect marshal, armed with sharp weapons, split the crowd like Moses parting the sea, knelt before him, and looked at him with a pair of sincere eyes.
His knight took his hand and kissed it with reverence:
"Your Majesty, I did what you said.
Welcome home.”
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