◎The Crown’s Return Gift◎
My proactive approach had worked wonders. After that, the Merchant Insect Contestant came to chat with me every single day.
Of course, it would have been better if the topics weren’t recent trade developments and item pricing.
Fresh produce sold for outrageous prices around here.
No wonder the Crooked Melons and Cracked Dates had made a beeline for my vegetable patch the moment they landed. Fine, I forgive them.
Wait, hold on. Not one of those insects ever tried to kidnap me and drag me back. Could it all have been for a few bites of food?!
“So you need me to purchase some Nutrient Fluid?”
What would I need Nutrient Fluid for? Fertilizer?
“Food is precious. If everyone’s meals were switched to Nutrient Fluid, it would cut costs dramatically.”
I didn’t get it. “Food is precious, sure, but shouldn’t that make it even more important for every insect to have it?”
Otherwise, what would be the point of it being precious at all?
The Merchant Insect Contestant froze like someone had pressed pause. The hand that had been scribbling notes on his tablet went completely still, and after a long moment he said, “I’m having trouble understanding you.”
You never understood me in the first place! Think back to what all that “understood” was even about!
“In any case,” the Merchant Insect Contestant said, “I understand what you mean now.”
That fast a turnaround?
“This may well be the correct path toward an ideal world.”
Hold on. Now it’s my turn to not understand you. What gibberish are you spouting?
But no matter. Faced with a situation like this, I had my own way of cracking it.
“Follow me.”
I led the Merchant Insect Contestant to the edge of the farm.
Endless fields stretching to the horizon, crops heavy with fruit. A settled, satisfying warmth rose in my chest.
The old world never had days this good!
Since the harvesting machines had been converted from Star Pirate weapons, some crop was inevitably left scattered on the ground.
“Let’s pick it up together.” I gathered the bundles of wheat ears into my arms, treasuring every last one. In the sunlight, the wheat looked like a bouquet of golden flowers.
Watching the Merchant Insect Contestant quietly gather wheat alongside me, I nodded with deep satisfaction.
Overthinking insects like him simply lacked pure physical labor. Schedule one stress-relief activity and problem solved!
Worried that Zerg stamina meant one activity wouldn’t be enough, I also took the Merchant Insect Contestant to feed the fish, and then to vaccinate the sheep.
Every time those burly Star Pirates gave the sheep their shots, they’d leave the poor animals’ behinds swollen!
The Merchant Insect Contestant administered the vaccines clumsily but carefully, while I leisurely stroked the bleating fluff. “There, there. With the vaccine, you won’t get sick.”
After a full round of farm life, I asked him, “Is your head clear now?”
If pure labor couldn’t calm him down, I’d have to look into how to knead the stress away myself.
The Merchant Insect Contestant looked back down the path we had come, silent, as if lost in thought.
I figured he was savoring the simple joy of honest work, because not long after, a smile actually appeared on that usually indifferent face.
Like sunlight passing over the branch of a cedar, bright yet steadfast.
“I understand now,” the Merchant Insect Contestant said. “We must gather all the scattered forces together. For those of us kept in pens who refuse to wake, we must offer enough benefit to unite them. There may be growing pains along the way, but the essence is a better future.”
His eyes shone as bright as that sunlit cluster on a cedar branch, and I felt dizzy from the glare.
Or possibly dizzy from the speech.
Did the Merchant Insect Contestant ace literature in school? Where on earth did he learn all this reading comprehension?!
The Merchant Insect Contestant fixed his beautiful blue eyes on me. “Why do you do these things? You could have everything without lifting a finger.”
These things? Which things? Farm work?
One listen and I could tell he knew nothing about farms. What did he mean, “nothing”?
“You loosen the soil before the seeds sprout. You keep the soil fertile. Sheep can eat feed, but they’re healthier when you let them out of the pen to graze…”
There was far too much farming knowledge to cover in one sitting.
“Let the sheep out of the pen…”
The Merchant Insect Contestant looked at me solemnly, and somehow, I saw emotion in his eyes. “For a soul like yours, the life of a male insect is also a pen. Yes. Only when the cage vanishes is there true freedom.”
Huh?
The Merchant Insect Contestant marched off, valiant and full of purpose, leaving me standing there in confusion.
What on earth was he talking about?
Still, thanks to the trade network the Merchant Insect Contestant had built, I no longer had to worry about what to do when the vegetables threatened to rot in the fields.
A while back, I had actually started learning how to pickle things.
Thinking of that, the Merchant Insect Contestant’s mental health was clearly a matter of some importance.
Armed with a little hammer, I staked out a corner of the farm, planted a ring of hardy crops, then put in a lamb and a clutch of chicks.
Finally, I hung a sign outside: Merchant Insect Exclusive Farm.
That way, whenever the pressure got to be too much, he could come plant, pet sheep, and feed chickens anytime.
When I brought the Merchant Insect Contestant over, I saw that look again, like sunlight drifting past a cedar branch and then through his eyes.
He looked happy. For the first time, he didn’t talk about how much everything in the plot would sell for.
He spoke of owning a great deal of property, and of how none of it was truly his. Everything belonged to his surname, his family.
Then he asked me, “Who is the Merchant Insect?”
Crap. What was the Merchant Insect Contestant’s name again?
“My name is Sid. Sid Youqi’an.”
Sid. It meant cedar.
After that, whenever I passed that field, I would see Sid inside, petting a lamb with a tablet in hand, working away.
I also heard he forbade anyone else from touching anything in that plot.
One rebellious Star Pirate didn’t believe it and tried. That was the first time I learned just how well Sid could fight.
And when the Star Pirate Contestant mentioned Sid in front of me, I felt a flicker of guilt.
He was the one who had given me my first gift, after all, and I had never prepared anything for him.
“So what did you say to Sid? His work drive has been terrifying lately. I half expect him to drag me out to rob a few more caravans because we don’t have enough cargo aircraft.”
Star Pirate Bro asked me curiously, and I recounted that day’s conversation, honest down to the last word.
Let him judge!
As a Star Pirate with terrible grades in literature, surely he’d also condemn Sid’s baffling reading-comprehension behavior.
As I finished, that careless, rakish air about him slowly settled like agarwood soaked in water, turning into something strangely profound.
When he looked at me, I realized his eyes were deep brown, the opposite extreme of his flashy red hair.
His irises were deep as tree rings, as if hiding many stories within.
“Do you think it’s useful?”
He spoke from rather close, and the pectorals that were especially imposing thanks to his sheer size rose and trembled before me, informing me:
Sound is produced by vibration.
“What did you say?” Sorry, I was paying too much attention in science class and missed whatever you just said.
This time I’ll definitely take another careful look. No, wait, another listen.
He asked again, his eyes deep as a forest, trapping me inside. And yet within that forest, I seemed to see himself, trapped as well.
“Do you think a handful of wheat ears, a little fish, a lamb that ran out of its pen are useful? They can’t change an entire field.”
Since when did you start teaching literature class?!
I turned my head away, refusing to cooperate. “No idea.”
I heard him click his tongue.
“You understood Sid just fine, but you can’t understand me?”
That familiar tone. The strange feeling was gone.
I let out a breath of relief. Otherwise, avoiding someone’s eyes would have been awfully hard to explain.
The Star Pirate Contestant kept going. “In any case, this Planet was built on my Star Pirate crew, so don’t play favorites. I was the one who found you first… and now you treat some crooked melon better than me.”
I knew it! He came chasing after a gift!
Too embarrassed to bring up Sid directly, so he took a feint with a “crooked melon” instead.
Please. Did he think a little scheme like that could escape someone as clever as me?
Still, what to give was a question.
As he kept muttering about how amazing it was to do business, an idea struck me. “Come on. Let’s go earn you a gift.”
I rummaged in my pocket and found the key to this whole gift-giving operation.
“This is…” The Star Pirate Contestant stared, dazed, at the coin in my hand.
“I hear this is the smallest-denomination coin in the entire interstellar realm. What do you think I can buy you with it?”
Word was that after the Second Highness, once known as General Phoenix for his head of red hair, led his troops to victory in the Border War, the Insect Emperor was so delighted that he issued this very batch of coins.
I had fleeced several of them off the Crooked Melons and Cracked Dates.
“A coin that’s been taken out of circulation can’t buy anything.” The Star Pirate Contestant’s tone was odd, but he seemed a little sad.
I would not allow any female insect to look dejected in front of me!
This was an insult to the dignity of this female-insect-novel’s protagonist top!
I dragged him forward. “Watch me pull off a magic trick.”
I told the Tiny Female Insect the story of General Phoenix (there were several children among the Star Pirate crew the Star Pirate Contestant had robbed), and successfully traded the coin to the little one’s Female Parent for a deck of cards.
With the deck of cards, I traded Cracked Date for a cup, and with the cup, for a jar of jam.
With the jar of jam, I traded for a book, and with the book, for a bottle of perfume.
Finally, the bottle of perfume bought a gold bracelet.
Gold wasn’t especially precious in the interstellar age, so I melted it down and cast it into a small crown the size of a fingernail, then set it on the Star Pirate Contestant’s head.
His red hair was silky and soft, with a slight curl to it. I couldn’t resist sneaking a touch. So soft.
The small crown in that red hair was like a fallen star.
I stepped back two paces to admire my work. Nothing beats gold after all!
“A return gift for your wheat ear crown.”
You gave me a crown made of wheat ears, so I’ll give you a real one. Now you’re not allowed to call me stingy.
For the first time, the ever-agile Star Pirate Contestant raised his hand sluggishly, carefully feeling for the crown on his head as if afraid of knocking it loose, then slowly drew it down.
He looked at the small crown in his palm, then looked at me. The emotion on his face was on a level this deadpan face of mine could never hope to describe.
But he had to be happy, judging by how tightly he clutched that little crown in his fist.
Gentler with it! With you female insects’ strength, one light squeeze and the crown would be crushed out of shape!
When he let go, he slipped the crown onto the ring finger of his right hand.
He kept his head bowed the whole time, watching as the crown passed slowly over each segment of his fingers, so I couldn’t see his expression as he spoke.
“I thought you didn’t answer because you didn’t know either,” the Star Pirate Contestant said. “I never expected you to give me an answer after all. From childhood, from a useless Phoenix to a crown…”
Hmm? Hmm hmm? What are you saying?
His beautifully sculpted lips curved slightly as they pressed, restrained and soft, against the small crown. “I will offer you my answer as well.”
He looked straight at me as he said it, giving me the strange illusion that the kiss had landed on me instead.
