APUTFFZG Chapter 39.2

"Your Excellency, do you still remember me? I'm Hade. I invited you to dinner before, but you declined (in a low voice). It's not a big deal. Can I invite you again to have dinner with me..."

But before he could finish, a hand pushed him back, and another face squeezed in.

The female zerg cleared his throat and said in a noticeably bubbly, deep voice, "Good evening, Your Excellency. May I invite you to spend a lovely night with me?"

"How dare you! You shameless fellow! How dare you invite His Excellency to do that thing!"

Perhaps caught up in the atmosphere, the female zergs were especially enthusiastic. Their faces crowded Ye Er so thickly that he nearly doubted his hearing, since how else could he keep hearing "Your Excellency" overlap again and again?

Next to those tall, imposing female zergs, the male zerg standing in the middle looked especially inconspicuous. Yet he was undeniably the center of attention, like a shrimp dumpling surrounded by huge buns, clean and pure yet exceptionally fragrant.

"Ah, I'm sorry..."

Xi Ze had been pushed out of the circle but didn't step forward to pull Ye Er out. He watched him deal with the various pleasantries, a little helplessly, a slight smile lifting the corners of his lips without his noticing.

He had long known that even if stars fell into the mud, their brilliance and warmth would naturally draw countless admirers and covetous eyes.

No living being could resist the urge to embrace a star, yet out of an inexplicable sense of sanctity and distance, they didn't dare truly reach out and defile it. At most, they would try hard, like peacocks spreading their feathers, to catch a glance.

Xi Ze loosened his scarf a little, white mist escaping from his lips.

He wasn't sure whether it was the biting wind drilling in through the gap at his collar, but he suddenly felt a little cold. A subtle bitterness spread across his tongue, tinged with astringency.

But when he lowered his gaze and carefully sensed for a moment, no pheromones were leaking.

Strange.

"...Hey!"

A somewhat resentful whisper made the tips of Xi Ze's ears twitch, and he quickly raised his eyes.

Only then did he realize he had become the center of attention. Not far away, the male zerg looked rather cornered, his eyes wide as he stared at him. After silently grinding his teeth, he formed words with his mouth—

Come save me quickly!

Xi Ze stared blankly for a moment, and the corners of his lips, hidden beneath his scarf, suddenly curled up.

That hint of bitterness turned into a sweet aftertaste, like a piece of candy resting on the tip of his tongue, and he even forgot the cold wind biting his face.

"Who are you?? No, don't push me...!"

"Who exactly are you?!"

It was unclear how the female zerg did it, but the three inner circles and three outer circles of the city wall quickly cracked open a gap. When Xi Ze pushed the crowd aside and stood in front of Ye Er, even his collar was undisturbed.

The broad-shouldered, long-legged military female was a natural clothes hanger*. His black wool coat hung especially long and straight. When he looked down with slightly drooping eyes, his expression was lazy, a hint of a smile at the corner of his lips as he held out a hand. "Come."

*Figuratively, someone whose build makes clothes look good on them

Ye Er was still a bit dispirited, but when he saw the female zerg's broad, slender hand in front of him, he reached out and took it.

His calloused fingertips rubbed unconsciously against Ye Er's before he turned his hand and caught the male zerg's wrist, easily lifting him out and half embracing him to separate him from those female zergs.

Xi Ze's expression softened slightly as he gave the stupefied female zergs a polite nod. "He has an appointment tonight. Sorry about that."

Just like that, they get away?

Even after they had walked far away, Ye Er still hadn't come back to his senses. He wanted to look back instinctively, but a voice beside his ear drew his attention.

"Do you want some sugar-roasted chestnuts?"

"Where?"

Ye Er instantly forgot what had just happened and followed the direction Xi Ze pointed. Sure enough, he saw a vendor selling sugar-roasted chestnuts. "Let's go, let's go."

Once he had a bag of nice, warm, soft, sweet, fragrant chestnuts, he began peeling and eating them with total focus and pushed the earlier episode to the back of his mind.

The chestnuts here were so big they seemed mutated, but they had a lot of flesh and tasted really good.

Also, because the shell had only a very small opening, it took a lot of effort to squeeze them open. Some were so hard that his hands turned red from squeezing without them budging an inch.

?

Ye Er prided himself on having decent strength. He was definitely not the delicate type who couldn't even open a bottle cap. But the chestnut in his hand was as hard as a green jujube and scalding hot, almost like a piece of volcanic rock.

He wasn't convinced, so he passed the bag to the female zerg and pried at the chestnut with both hands. The intense heat seeped through his gloves, and he had to squeeze while blowing on it. His fingertips were already red from the heat.

At that moment, Xi Ze took the bag of chestnuts and swapped it for Ye Er's bag.

Ye Er belatedly looked into the bag and saw round, plump, peeled chestnuts at the bottom, giving off a sweet aroma.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Xi Ze holding a chestnut between his thumb and index finger. With a gentle twist, the stubborn shell split in two, and the flesh went back into the bag.

He looked at the chestnut, then at Xi Ze, his expression gradually turning complicated.

Xi Ze brushed the crumbs off his hand. Noticing the male zerg's gaze beside him, he curved his eyes. "What's wrong? Eat while it's hot."

"...You eat too."

Ye Er picked out a few especially round ones and set them in the palm of the female zerg's hand.

The street was lined with shops and mobile stalls, brightening and bustling the entire city district. In the cold air, steaming heat rose and dissipated into the atmosphere with the chilly wind.

"This looks so delicious!"

The male zerg pointed at a squid leg as thick as a small arm, his eyes shining with excitement, an "I want to eat" expression almost written on his face.

The vendor next to him was frying it with a sizzle. The soft, bouncy squid leg curled up, sprinkled with cumin and chili powder, and an aroma that could tempt any zerg burst forth at once.

Xi Ze glanced over. "That's a tentacle from the Youyouli* Sea Beast. The meat is quite tough. You might not be able to bite through it."

*Sounds similar to "squid" in Chinese

"Here! Hold it well!"

The female zerg next to them took the giant tentacle, deliberately shifted his teeth into sharp zerg teeth, and crunched down on the "squid leg" with a loud cracking and grinding, as if cutting through a stubborn piece of meat with a knife.

Ye Er instinctively took a step back and hurriedly pushed Xi Ze away. "...Let's check out the next stall."

As they passed a snack stall that seemed to sell gelatin desserts, he stopped and looked at the rows of transparent, soft jellies in small bowls, which seemed to have various jam fillings inside.

"This looks like bowls of steamed rice pudding*. What is it?"

*Put chai ko is a popular snack in Hong Kong, a rice cake made from white or brown sugar, long-grain rice flour, and a little wheat starch or cornstarch, sometimes with red beans. The batter is poured into porcelain bowls and steamed until cooked through.

Ye Er asked anyway, out of caution.

Xi Ze glanced over. "Those are unfertilized eggs of deep-sea star beasts. They inject the fillings and freeze them overnight, and that's how they turn out."

"...Ah?"

Ye Er's expression went slack. He looked at Xi Ze, then at the eggs, and his expression gradually turned incredulous.

"Let's go, let's go."

He shot a hostile glance at what looked like bowls of rice pudding but were actually giant beast eggs, held his breath, and pulled the female zerg away.

"How many weird foods do zergs have..."

He complained quietly, feeling lucky to have survived this long. "Not being poisoned to death yet is incredible luck."

Zergs generally didn't refer to their own race as "the Zerg race."

A flicker of doubt crossed Xi Ze's eyes, but he didn't dwell on it. He only softened his voice to comfort the male zerg.

"They're not all that weird. This is a border star, so there are bound to be plenty of foods with local character. But the food is much better on the Main Planet."

Ye Er suddenly turned to look at him, his brow slightly furrowed. "But how come you're even more familiar with this place than I am? I thought..."

Wasn't the female zerg always imprisoned in the female slave exchange?

And if he had held a high position before, he shouldn't know so much about the specialty snacks of the border star system, enough to describe them just by looking.

"I lived on a garbage star and a border star for several years before I moved to the Main Planet when I came of age, so I know a bit more."

Xi Ze spoke lightly, clearly not wanting to talk about it further. He raised his chin slightly toward the way ahead. "That one ahead looks really good. Want to try it?"

Ye Er looked pensive but nodded along. "All right, let's go take a look."

It turned out there were still plenty of normal foods. With a reliable guide, this food street full of "open and hidden dangers"* suddenly became clear, and they ate their way through it with ease.

*Literally "bright knives and hidden arrows"

They were so content they could have forgotten home and duty.*

*An idiom: indulging in pleasure and forgetting home and duty

After dinner, Ye Er finally remembered his task of shopping for New Year's goods.

He flipped through the list on his terminal and paused at the item "Buy three new sets of clothes." Just across the street was a clothing store.

"Shall we go in and take a look?"

He tugged at the female zerg's sleeve again and said it with a smile, lips pursed.

As they approached the road, Xi Ze shifted the food to his other hand. He gently pulled his sleeve free, then wrapped his hand around the male zerg's wrist and moved it along the forearm until his broad palm held the bend of the arm.

It was a very firm, practiced hold.

"Okay, be careful."

Ye Er didn't break free, but there was a hint of helplessness in his eyes. "I'm not a little cub who needs to hold hands to cross the road."

Xi Ze watched carefully for oncoming cars and answered absently, "There's no harm in being extra careful."

"The traffic system on these fringe stars isn't very well developed. Accidents happen quite often. Aitar is managed decently, but you still need to pay attention."

He didn't let go until they had crossed the street. His grip had wrinkled Ye Er's sleeve, and he smoothed it down for him. It really felt like being treated as a cub who needed looking after.

---

They came out of the clothing store half an hour later.

Neither of them knew what to choose. In general, if something looked wearable, that was enough. Even when buying new clothes, they usually stuck with the old styles and mostly tried different colors.

"Let me see what else we need outside. We can get everything else at the department store and have it all delivered together."

Ye Er said as he scrolled through the long list.

Last New Year, he had just gone through the motions without giving any thought to preparation. In fact, he hadn't gone out at all.

But 015 took it especially seriously. It had thoroughly cleaned and redecorated their home in advance and had even prepared this list in painstaking detail.

He couldn't disregard its good intentions.

A few snowflakes drifted down from the sky, lightly and gently covering the streets and shops. They landed on the shoulders of walking zergs and wrapped the displays of fireworks and lanterns in a soft veil that made everything feel almost warm and lively.

Now and then, Ye Er turned to look at Xi Ze beside him.

The female zerg would stare at him in a daze every so often, and when he saw him turn, he would quickly lower his gaze and look away.

Sometimes, while helping him watch the shops around them, Xi Ze's concentrated, searching expression made him look a bit cute.

"Hmm..."

Ye Er pressed his lips together, unable to suppress the corners of his mouth curling up beneath his scarf.

At last, when they came out of the department store and left all their bags of various sizes at the delivery counter, Ye Er let out a sigh of relief.

"Let's go. We'll browse a little longer before heading back."

The night grew deeper.

The city was still bustling and lively, full of the sound of zergs, as if they wanted to light up this dusty gray planet through the night.

But then his ears seemed to catch a faint rumbling, indistinct amid the cold wind.

A faint red light flickered in the pitch-black sky but was quickly hidden by clouds.

Xi Ze's expression changed suddenly, and he grabbed Ye Er's arm, his voice incredibly somber.

"We need to leave here immediately."