Chapter 42 Part 1

East Zhao District was abundant in vinewood trees. The vinewood trees towered into the clouds, with small clusters of purple vine flowers blooming between the vines. The vine flower wine produced from them had always been a bestseller in the male insect community. Passing through Virasen Avenue, overgrown with vinewood trees, led to Azure Sparrow Hill, where Vidonien resided.

The architecture in the Azure Sparrow Hill villa district was full of nature-loving charm. The community streets were adorned everywhere with decorative flowers and green plants, interspersed with planted vine trees.

Amid the dense vine trees, one could glimpse the Mensa-style roof of the villa where the Sadro Family male insect resided.

The roof was fitted with exquisite round dormer windows, and the white gauze curtains were fixed to the window frames by a yellow long-stemmed flower.

Vidonien reached out and removed the long-stemmed flower. The gauze curtain softly fell, blocking prying eyes. The silver-haired male insect had just finished bathing, steam still rising from his body, clad only in a white bathrobe.

The petals of the long-stemmed flower still held dewdrops from the morning, plump and round. As Shen Yu moved, the dewdrops rolled to the ground and shattered into water.

His groggy mind from sleep cleared a bit. Yesterday’s memories flooded back in an instant, and Shen Yu finally remembered the female insect he had tossed to the housekeeper robot to fend for himself last night. He slipped on his slippers and went downstairs.

The slippers rubbed against the soft wool carpet on the floor, producing a faint sound.

Even with his senses dulled, Ludwig instantly caught this subtle noise. He hadn’t slept all night, and his already dark red eyes grew even murkier, like a pot simmering thick black blood.

He hadn’t stayed up out of excessive vigilance. Ludwig was a hedonist by nature; no matter the circumstances, he always sought the most comfortable state possible. Even when he suffered a severe blow to his spirit sea and was brought back to this residence by a scheming low-grade male insect, his first thought was to rest and recover—then—

When the weak and incompetent male insect let his guard down, launch a fatal strike, seize the male insect’s terminal, and use the connector to send a pinpoint signal to Red Blood.

This was the complete plan Ludwig had formed the moment he reached out from the darkness and grabbed Vidonien’s foot.

Ludwig’s eyes darkened. Though many deviations had occurred now, entering the house openly and obtaining the terminal was only a matter of time.

Moreover, even in sleep, he would wake instantly upon sensing danger.

But that damned housekeeper robot, following who-knows-what instructions, had spent the entire night trying various methods to heal his wounds.

Long ago, he had suffered a near-fatal spirit sea restriction. Watson, that fool, had burned his own life force to forcibly seduce him with male pheromones in a desperate bid for his bloodline, exceeding his level.

When the Imperial Federation’s cowards surrounded him, they noticed something off and unleashed massive indiscriminate ray strikes over a huge area.

To protect Red Blood, Ludwig resolutely piloted his mecha, drawing the entire Imperial Legion into the Pocket Star System before shedding his shell like a cicada, forcibly insectifying his bones and plummeting into space.

Those idiots had been played for fools, chasing their target with great difficulty only to find an empty mecha. Ludwig thought gleefully of their expressions—they would surely be spectacular.

And they would never imagine that the fugitive they hunted was now openly hiding on Imperial Capital Star.

His ordinary wounds had fully healed, but most of the remaining ones, tied to the spirit sea restriction, couldn’t be healed by his own recovery abilities. The bleeding hadn’t stopped once.

Fortunately, his body kept producing blood nonstop; otherwise, the world would have one more bug bled to death alive.

To heal these wounds, he either needed to repair his spirit sea or use special restoration potion. There were no other ways.

So all the housekeeper robot’s treatments were useless. Useless was one thing, but the key was they were all crackpot remedies from who-knows-where!

Crushing snake leaf grass and soaking it in vine flower wine? That old folk remedy had been debunked by modern medicine a hundred years ago as worthless for wound healing, right?

The stimulating alcohol mixed with prickly snake leaf grass was densely packed onto the gaping wound flesh. Compared to wounds Ludwig had suffered before, it was like tickling—but who the fuck could sleep while being tickled??

Ludwig bared his teeth and couldn’t help pondering again.

Fuck, this wouldn’t be that damned male insect’s way of torturing him specifically, would it?

Hearing the sound of someone coming downstairs, the red-haired female insect looked up, glaring viciously toward the source. His dark red eyes were like boiling magma, burning with rage.

What entered his view were the male insect’s feet in white slippers stepping on the carpet.

The pale ankles were bare.

The male insect didn’t come down fully, deliberately taking a condescending, overlooking angle from above. Ludwig’s chest heaved as he shifted his gaze upward.

Under the lights, the doll-like male insect with long silver hair stood expressionlessly at the top of the stairs.

The silver-haired male insect’s pale muscles were wrapped in the loose bathrobe, cinched at the waist by a thumb-wide beige sash. The sash was long, draping down with the bathrobe to his knees, revealing a straight, slender section of calf.

The male insect’s light-colored lashes drooped low, his ice-blue pupils holding little warmth as he watched him with keen interest.

The tall female insect leaned in the corner like a heavy, oppressive dark cloud. Female insects were mad and dangerous creatures, and top-grade ones even more so.

Number Two, as the housekeeper robot, had safety protocols hardcoded. The villa always stocked spirit sea chains specifically for female insects. The chains linked to the spirit sea; if a female insect tried to break free, they would suffer agonizing spirit sea backlash.

No less painful than a mental attack.

The female insect’s limbs were bound by the chains, trapped like a caged beast.

Ludwig was completely naked, his overly developed muscles knotted together, thick bandages wrapped around his arms and abdomen.

The bandages were tied tightly and neatly, with Number Two dissatisfiedly knotting an ugly dead knot.

The white bandages were more than half stained red with blood, the red and white starkly eye-catching. The housekeeper robot was tidying up hemostatic agents and the discarded bandages nearby.

Number Two had wanted to find clothes for him, but the female insect’s build was too massive; nothing in the villa fit. In the end, he only draped a blanket over the female insect, now bloodstained from the bandage change.

His condition looked decent.

No pool of blood on the floor, and his floors weren’t dirtied.

Shen Yu thought.

“Master~ You’re awake! Number Two will prepare breakfast for you now. How about your favorite cream of mushroom soup today?”

Lily No. 2 spotted him, its eyes lighting up instantly. The housekeeper robot shifted from the hell of treating the stinky female insect to the heaven of preparing breakfast for its master, its tone rising excitedly even at the end.

Shen Yu: “Mm.”

Receiving the master’s response, the housekeeper robot happily glided into the kitchen.

Under the female insect’s gaze, as tangible as a physical weight, Shen Yu slipped on his slippers and walked up to Ludwig.

He bent slightly at the waist, his waterfall of silver hair cascading forward, a few stray strands floating in the air, nearly transparent under the lights.

The male insect’s gaze casually fell on the bandages on the female insect’s arm—right on the spot where it had been sliced off last night, by coincidence.

Both realized it instantly.

Ludwig involuntarily tensed his muscles. As they flexed, more red liquid oozed out, expanding the bloodstain at the bandage’s edge, the center shifting from syrupy deep red to an eerie dark red.

A rusty iron scent suddenly filled the air, quickly diluted by the room’s air purifier.

Why hadn’t the wound healed?

Impossible—it should have regenerated overnight even if shredded—

Shen Yu had chosen this female insect for his powerful recovery ability, but now even basic wounds wouldn’t heal? Had he misjudged? Perhaps this female insect had some unusual talent for rapidly reassembling bones and flesh, but that didn’t mean strong self-healing.

After all, such basic wounds healed and stopped bleeding quickly even for the lowest-grade female insects.

A surge of anger and sense of being cheated welled up in Shen Yu. He licked his dry lips and reached out, clamping the female insect’s neck in one grip.

Fuck, what now?

Caught off guard by the male insect’s sudden move, Ludwig’s prominent brow bones pressed down.

The male insect wore no gloves; his extended hand was cold, even his palm icy, as if all the frozen wilderness had melted into it.

This temperature was clearly abnormal for a normal insect race member.

Ludwig had no time to think deeply. Female insects’ body temperatures were already higher than male insects’ or sub-females’, let alone the vulnerable throat area handling constant breathing. The moment the hand clamped it, the sensation was awful—like an irregular chunk of hard ice jammed into his throat, brutally blocking warm breaths.

Fuck, so cold—

And this ice block moved up and down, its jagged edges grinding the throat mercilessly. Every precious breath was cold, freezing cold.

It didn’t hurt, but that was worse than pain.

Ludwig was forced to roll his Adam’s apple.

Too uncomfortable.

Too uncomfortable.

The red-haired female insect was forced to tilt his head back, breathing labored, teeth chattering faintly.

“You, fucking, what—”

The male insect was even angrier, fury at the deception surging to his head. He furrowed his brows deeply, ignoring how the female insect’s hard throat bones chafed his palm red-hot.

Shen Yu tightened his fingers inch by inch, squeezing out the neck muscles between them. His grip grew heavier with his rage, his expression icy cold. Ignoring the female insect’s question, he stared into his eyes and demanded coldly:

“Why hasn’t your wound healed?”

What bullshit question?

Ludwig met his gaze head-on, fire burning in his eyes, each word spat out through gritted teeth.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

His vocal cords vibrated, sending a faint tingling through the palm. Shen Yu’s face remained expressionless, coldly watching him, his gaze scanning Ludwig inch by inch like a scanner.

From the female insect’s dark red hair to his heaving chest, from his defiant eyes to his tightly bound wrists. Fresh liquid seeped from the bandages, and the wet, bloody scent filled the air again. The blanket on the female insect had slid to the floor, his taut muscles outlining the undulating contours of the Sea River Star System Achiram Mountains.

Vigorous life bred, grew, and thrived here.

Shen Yu’s five fingers dug into the female insect’s neck, nails nearly embedding in the skin. The red-haired female insect tilted his head back, on the verge of suffocation, thick, gnarled veins like tree roots bulging wildly.

The male insect lowered his eyes, feeling the strong pulse throbbing in his palm, one beat after another.

Air, like addictive poison, entered through nose and mouth, reaching the alveoli.

The bewildered right ventricle accepted venous blood from the body’s dead cells. The right ventricle pumped the red liquid into the pulmonary artery, where it gained oxygen, transitioning from one kind of red fluid to blood—arterial blood laden with oxygen.

The pumped blood returned to the left atrium, slipping through pulsing vessels into the left ventricle, then delivering oxygen to every tissue and organ—

Blood was merely a carrier for oxygen and nutrients.

So, without enough oxygen, what sustained the heart’s beating?

Shen Yu changed his mind again. This female insect had brought him too many surprises.

He liked dismantling gifts himself.

Shen Yu suddenly leaned in dramatically, drawing close to Ludwig.