Chapter 36

Later, the man bought a piece of cake from a roadside shop. Su Lin had been so weak he couldn't even hold it, and his immediate superior, the source of his scholarship-in short, his "sponsor"-had apparently grown impatient with how slowly he was moving. He simply held the cake in his own hand and brought it to Su Lin's mouth.

After going hungry for so long, and being fed personally by the legendary "Tyrant," Su Lin had naturally made an awful mess of himself. Come on, it was Xue Yao feeding him with his own hand! The fingers pressed against his lips, smeared with white cream, belonged to Xue Yao. That was the Tyrant's hand! The moment he realized it, Su Lin had nearly blacked out and fainted again. Worse still, he could feel Xue Yao's inorganic eyes fixed on him the whole time.

It was as though he could hear a mechanical timer ticking away inside Professor Xue Yao's head: one second, two seconds, three seconds...

Very good. Sixty seconds.

He had wasted one precious minute of the Tyrant's life. It was time to shoot him dead.

Su Lin had been too frightened to taste the cream cake. He hadn't even dared to chew, instead gulping down the soft, cloyingly sweet cake and cream in great mouthfuls. He even suspected that, in his haste, he had accidentally licked Xue Yao's fingertips several times.

Of course, he hadn't dared think too hard about that last suspicion. He was afraid he would have a nightmare about losing his scholarship and wake up crying.

In any case, Su Lin had proceeded to wolf down that big piece of cake at lightning speed. It was sheer luck he hadn't choked to death.

Fortunately, he had finished the cake before Xue Yao's patience ran out. Unfortunately, he strongly suspected that the way he had gobbled it down had given the professor, whose thought processes seemed to be made of mechanical parts, a strange misconception.

"Do you like cake that much?"

The question had been cool and flat.

With his mouth still full of cream, Su Lin hadn't dared deny it. He could only nod hastily, awkward but polite.

Su Lin had hurriedly forced the mouthful of cream down, nearly choking himself to tears.

"Thank you, Professor. Cake is my favorite."

He had fawned shamelessly over the provider of his scholarship, thanking him profusely.

"Mm."

Xue Yao had given a quiet grunt, his face expressionless. He had risen unhurriedly, then lowered his eyes and wiped his fingers clean with a handkerchief, taking meticulous care.

He hadn't even spared Su Lin another glance.

Yet, perhaps because he was worried that the long-term laborer he had worked so hard to lure in would run away, or perhaps because he feared Su Lin would faint again and delay the experiments, Xue Yao had brought him cake for the entire following semester. During that time, whenever Su Lin walked into the lab, he felt completely enveloped in its sugary scent.

And he hadn't dared refuse to eat it.

It had been fine at first, but by the end, every time he ate it, his eyes had brimmed with tears and his heart had filled with despair, while he still had to look delighted.

But no matter how hard those days of forcing a smile through cake and thanking his advisor profusely had been, he had still been at school. No matter how much he hated the overly sweet taste, he could find something else to balance out his tormented taste buds.

Among the Zerg, however, even that small wish was an extravagance.

After recalling the past, Su Lin looked at the nutrient solution in front of him, his heart utterly desolate.

The nutrient solution he forced into his mouth was bland and tasteless. Worse still, it was sticky and thick, with a faint fishy taste that rose back up. It wasn't something he could dwell on; the more he thought about it, the sicker it made him.

The more Su Lin drank, the greener his face became.

"Don't you Zerg have any food that's a little more normal?"

At last, he broke down and let go of the straw, voicing a desperate complaint.

Medises glanced at him.

"Yes."

He said.

"But for the time being, you have to live on this."

Su Lin nearly fell apart on the spot. "Why?!"

With his back to Su Lin, the man was straightening his collar. His movements paused almost imperceptibly, but his words remained calm and unruffled.

"This nutrient solution will make you smell more like a real Zerg, rather than a human-Zerg chimera sent by humans to infiltrate the empire." When Medises turned around, his cyan eyes were completely composed. "High-ranking Zerg have very sharp senses. They might notice that your scent is wrong, and I'd like to avoid that trouble as much as possible."

"I'm not the only high-ranking Zerg aboard the Security Committee's ship."

After hearing Medises's explanation, Su Lin fell silent at once.

The young man who had been complaining incessantly now gulped down the nutrient solution that could save his life in particularly large mouthfuls.

Looking on the bright side, at least it was better than the food at the orphanage.

Su Lin thought optimistically.

And when he recalled the past, Su Lin actually found that the sticky liquid in his mouth didn't taste so bad after all.

Mm, thanks to the orphanage, just thinking about its cafeteria makes me fearless.

Perhaps because Su Lin was cooperating, Medises's gaze softened immensely as it fell on the young man. Su Lin looked up inadvertently and met his senior's intent gaze. He couldn't help freezing for a moment, then blinked and gave the man his usual fawning, ingratiating smile.

In any case, the most important thing now is to cling to Senior's "thigh," a voice in Su Lin's heart analyzed earnestly. Once Senior sends me back to the human world, I'll find Professor Xue Yao and have him separate that damned Zerg Queen from me.

Once he had done all that, he would splurge on some natural meat barbecue at a barbecue stall!

Wow, perfect!

At that thought, Su Lin's smile grew even sweeter and more sincere.

Author's note: