39
“I’ve made plans to go to the wildlife park with Ivan this afternoon, care to join?”
“The wildlife park? What made you think of going there?”
“I was chatting with Ivan a few days ago, and he mentioned he’s never seen Earth’s creatures. So, I thought of M country’s largest wildlife park.”
Something’s not right!
Since when did Roy get so close to the female father? They’re privately making plans to go to the zoo together?
He Qin paused his typing, raising an eyebrow as he pondered carefully.
In the month-plus since arriving on Earth, the female father had indeed become much more outgoing. There hadn’t been any instances of him hiding away timidly in his room during this time.
Could it be that Roy is somehow related to these significant changes in the female father?
“Hey, are you two coming or not?”
Roy was an impatient person; if someone he was chatting with didn’t reply within a minute, he would bombard them with endless messages until he got a response.
“Not going. Enzo’s men informed me a couple of days ago about some clues regarding my origins, and I need to leave today to verify them. I’ve been worrying about who’ll look after Ivan, so I’ll trouble you for this period.”
“Yes, yes!” Upon receiving this message, Roy jumped up excitedly from the bed, kissing his phone in exhilaration.
“He Qin, don’t you trust me yet?” After calming down, Roy quickly replied, “Leave it to me. You can relax.” He added another message, wanting to assure He Qin that he’s a reliable person.
He Qin lay in bed, using his recently awakened brain to carefully ponder Roy’s messages repeatedly.
Suddenly, He Qin pushed himself up from the warm bed, hair disheveled, not even wearing slippers as he hurried to the bathroom door. “Rhys, have you noticed that the female father and Roy seem to be getting along well lately?”
“Roy, the human who often visits the female father? Your friend?”
“Yes, that’s him.”
Rhys’ first observation was of the male zerg’s bare feet, looking somewhat reproachfully at He Qin. He then bent down to fetch another pair of slippers from the bathroom corner, squatting to help the male zerg put them on.
Normally, He Qin would never agree to Rhys ‘serving’ him like this, but right now, he wasn’t in the mood to dwell on these minor details.
With wide eyes and a face full of discovering a major gossip, He Qin looked like he wanted to consult his female lord about it.
“In recent times, there’s been a human who always comes to see the female father. Several times when I went to see the female father after dinner, he wasn’t there and later claimed to have already eaten.” Rhys skillfully prepared a toothbrush cup and excellent toothpaste for the male zerg, handing them over to He Qin.
Actually, Rhys had long felt that the female father’s behavior was odd and had intentionally guarded against any female zergs or humans appearing around the female father. However, under his observation, the female father had been getting better and more cheerful, no longer as cautious as during his time in the Qi family.
In Rhys’s memory, the female father also had a confident and candid side. It was just that once, when Qi Ran and his son mocked the female father, he and the female father were punished to kneel for two whole days until he collapsed from dehydration, after which the punishment stopped.
Since then, the female father had never shown a smile again.
To think that someone could actually resolve the female father’s years-long emotional burden. There must be a significant connection between the female father’s change and the human named Roy.
“Tsk tsk.” He Qin set down the toothbrush, shaking his head teasingly. “Tell me, how far have they progressed?”
“Huh?” Rhys didn’t understand.
In the higher zerg society, there was no process like courtship, love, engagement, or marriage. Once a male zerg showed interest in a female zerg, if nothing unexpected occurred, the female zerg would belong to the male zerg within two or three days.
“I reckon Roy is still harboring unrequited love.” Roy probably didn’t yet know the true relationship between Ivan, Rhys, and him. If he did, he would surely be unable to resist questioning him about it.
“I’ll have to have a serious talk with Roy when I get back this time. Can’t let him bully our female father.” He Qin muttered to himself, but a smile never left his lips.
He Qin grew up in an orphanage in a small town in Country C, which bordered lush forests and was located at the border of Country C.
The only way to reach Country C was by plane, and after getting off the plane, they had to drive for more than three hours to reach their destination.
Bricks scattered along the roadside, air-raid shelters in every household, and the necessary construction workers made it clear that the people here were also striving to recover from the ravages of war.
He Qin stood bewildered at the street corner of the small town, looking at the familiar yet unfamiliar surroundings.
Enzo’s men had informed him that the headmaster had not died in the war, prompting He Qin to return regardless of whether he could find information about his origins.
He Qin had left the orphanage at thirteen, joined the military for six years, and followed the troops in training and missions, but never had the chance to visit the orphanage.
“Lord, is it safe to bring just a few of them this time?” Rhys surveyed the surroundings uneasily, feeling concerned.
The streets were bustling with activity; clothing vendors shouted in a certain language, and around them, older female humans with baskets continuously moved between makeshift stalls.
Despite such a complex environment, the male Lord had only allowed him to bring two female zerg soldiers along.
On the streets of the small town, several tall and imposing female zergs sparked discussions among the locals. Elderly women gathered to speculate about their identities, while younger girls gazed admiringly at these strangers with extraordinary charisma.
“Do you really think Enzo can trust just us few to come alone to Country C?”
Human girls slowly crowded around the female zergs, one of them bold enough to reach towards Rhys. Fortunately, He Qin was quick-witted and grabbed Rhys’s hand back, preventing the girl from getting her arm chopped off on the spot.
Rhys didn’t care about the humans’ reactions; he was more concerned that the male lord was holding his hand in front of everyone again.
Indeed, making the “zergs” feel embarrassed…
“Look over there, and there too.” He Qin’s eyes scanned several places in the distance, and Rhys followed his gaze.
Among the crowd watching the bustle, there were several alert-looking male humans, and behind the houses with half-drawn curtains along the way, there were also a few humans holding guns.
It turned out that this small town was already filled with Enzo’s secret posts.
“Enzo won’t let anything happen to us on Earth, so rest assured.”
Travel within the Central Star System relied mainly on spacecraft, whose speed was beyond comparison with ordinary Earth transportation.
On their journey from M to Country C, they had spent quite some time. For He Qin, traveling quickly was commonplace, but for Rhys, who now carried a child, it was inevitably more strenuous.
Yes, He Qin again used the pregnancy condition of Earth females to speculate about their young major general.
Having not returned in several years, and with the town renovated due to the war, He Qin circled a few times before finding the rebuilt orphanage.
“Xiao Qin? Is that you?” An elderly man leaning on a cane, as usual, stood in front of the orphanage gate after putting the children to bed, never expecting to see his most kind and filial child from his memory.
“Headmaster Grandpa?”
When the headmaster found him, he was already forty-five years old, and twenty years had passed. The old man’s hair had turned gray.
“What happened to your leg?” He Qin thought the headmaster needed a cane due to old age, but as he approached, he saw that the left leg of the old man’s pants was empty.
“Oh, during the last war, I was trapped under a rock. When I woke up, I found my left leg gone.” Here, surprisingly, the old man showed no signs of sadness, still smiling. “But it was because of that rock that I wasn’t discovered by those aliens and managed to save this old man’s life.”
“Oh, who are you?”
“This is Headmaster Grandpa, and this is my partner, named Rhys.”
The old man didn’t understand what a higher zerg species was or what a female zerg was. In his understanding, He Qin had found a taller and stronger “man” to be his partner.
The elderly man, who had lived his whole life in the small town, hesitated for a moment, then greeted them, “Let’s go inside first.”
Despite leaning on a cane, the old man moved surprisingly quickly. It wasn’t that he disliked Rhys or their relationship; he was just embarrassed that he couldn’t quite catch He Qin’s partner’s name clearly.
Was it called Rui… or something like that? Foreign names were hard to remember.
“He Qin, you sit here.” The old man hesitated but finally made up his mind. “Riri, you sit here, it’s clean here.” With that, he took out a cloth and dusted off some dust for Rhys.
He Qin struggled to suppress his laughter, feeling uncomfortable with the nickname “Riri” bestowed upon the zerg major general who blinked at enemies on the battlefield without a second thought.
The old man embodied typical C-country hospitality, insisting on serving his guests with the best. He turned to the kitchen and sliced several plates of precious fruits, serving them to He Qin and Rhys.
“Grandpa Headmaster, this time I came back because there’s something I want to ask you about.” He Qin wasn’t at all polite, his mouth full as he spoke, even burping a few times before speaking.
“What is it?” The old man looked kindly at He Qin, never expecting the crying baby from back then to grow up so quickly.
He Qin pulled a jade pendant from under his clothes. “I want to ask you, were you really the one who found me in an alley all those years ago?”
The old man’s heart tightened at these words. “Y-yes, of course.”
“But I heard someone say that it was a man who brought me to you back then.” He Qin continued.
This information came from Enzo’s subordinates, who had learned it from a neighbor opposite the orphanage. He Qin didn’t know why the headmaster had kept this from him for over a decade, but he still hoped to hear about his origins firsthand.
The old man didn’t speak for a long time, sitting quietly, and He Qin waited patiently.
“Sigh…” The old man sighed. “I had planned to take this secret to my grave.”
“He Qin, you weren’t actually found in an alley. You were brought to the orphanage by a man…”
That day, not far from the town in the mountains, there was a huge explosion. That night, a man wearing strange clothes and covered in blood knocked on the orphanage door.
He went out to check, and the man dragged him into the blind spot of the camera.
The man looked seriously injured and handed the child in his arms to him, leaving behind only a sentence: “Please take good care of him,” before leaving with his broken body.
He was scared at the time, and when he reacted, the child was already asleep in his arms.
That child was He Qin.
What was the man’s identity, a drug dealer? Or a fugitive? After discussing it with the staff at the orphanage, they decided it would be best to send the child to the local police station.
The police searched for more than half a year but couldn’t find the child’s biological parents, so the orphanage raised He Qin like this. As the child grew older, he naturally became curious about how he came to the orphanage and who his parents were.
The headmaster initially thought that the man covered in blood was a criminal, and he also worried that the child would be psychologically affected. He discussed it with the staff at the time and fabricated such an origin story for little He Qin.
So, by chance, He Qin mistakenly believed he was an abandoned ordinary human baby. Like any ordinary boy, He Qin yearned to join the army.
Six years after joining the military, he transformed on the battlefield where he cooperated with the higher zerg race.
Human He Qin became the He Qin who was now a male zerg.