Chapter 236: Ulysses Is Incredible: Ulysses improved at a terrifying pace, catching An Ruo, who had once been his guide, completely off guard

In the morning, the sunlight was just right. Light streamed through the window and fell across the desk. An Ruo held a book in his hands, supposedly reading, but in reality, his mind was wandering.

Ever since last night, he had been unable to recover from the shock. Even when he went to perform Psychic Soothing, he had been in a daze, his mind constantly replaying what had happened the night before.

Ulysses was incredible.

An Ruo raised the book to cover the lower half of his face, his eyes shining brightly above it.

He truly could not understand how Ulysses had changed so much or improved so quickly.

At first, Ulysses had not even known how to kiss. He would only keep pushing the tip of his tongue deeper and deeper, almost reaching An Ruo’s throat, to the point that An Ruo had nearly thought he was deliberately torturing him.

After realizing that Ulysses genuinely did not know how, An Ruo had even taught him using the half-baked theoretical knowledge he possessed. In that regard, he could probably be considered Ulysses’s teacher.

Ulysses learned quickly, especially after he actually believed An Ruo and practiced tying knots in cherry stems with his tongue.

By the next time they met, An Ruo was already no match for him. He could only let Ulysses control the rhythm. Whether he was given even a moment to catch his breath depended entirely on how much opportunity Ulysses was willing to give him.

The same thing had happened when it came to taking their intimacy a step further.

At first, Ulysses had obviously been inexperienced. He knew nothing and had relied entirely on sheer determination, trying to lower himself all at once as though both he and An Ruo were made of reinforced steel.

An Ruo had nearly broken out in a cold sweat from fright. He hurriedly stopped him and patiently guided him into relaxing and becoming pliant, narrowly averting disaster.

It could be said that in both matters, An Ruo had been the one who guided Ulysses through the basics.

But now Ulysses had improved at a terrifying pace. The change was so great that An Ruo, who had originally been the guide, was completely caught off guard.

His kissing skills could at least be explained by all that practice tying knots in cherry stems.

But those other things, that side of things—how exactly had he improved so quickly? No matter how strong his learning ability was, surely he still needed practice and experience?

They had only been apart for half a month!

A single day apart felt like three autumns.

After half a month apart, An Ruo practically could not recognize him anymore.

Compared with Ulysses, An Ruo was like a complete rookie in this regard.

But being a rookie was supposed to be normal, wasn’t it? Hardly any time had passed, and they had only done it a few times.

It was Ulysses’s heaven-defying learning ability and rate of improvement that were utterly shocking.

It was simply terrifying!

An Ruo was so stunned that he could not recover, and even reading failed to calm him down.

After a while, An Ruo simply put down his book and walked to the window for some fresh air.

Ulysses had gone to handle government affairs. From upstairs, An Ruo could see officers and government officials coming and going below.

Most of them were military females or former military females who had served in the armed forces. They moved quietly and solemnly. Even with Zergs constantly coming and going, there was hardly any unnecessary noise. From inside the room, An Ruo could barely notice anything and was not disturbed at all.

An Ruo propped his chin on his hand and watched everything below.

Visitors entering the Marshal’s residence first parked their aircraft at a designated location outside the estate, underwent inspection, and then entered on foot.

There was actually a dedicated aircraft landing platform on the observation deck atop the main building of the Marshal’s residence, but it was exclusively for Ulysses’s use.

Yet Ulysses was accustomed to traveling with his spatial ability and rarely needed the landing platform. As a result, there was no aircraft traffic whatsoever above the Marshal’s residence, making the airspace as quiet as a no-fly zone.

There was actually another reason why all the Zergs coming and going were being so quiet, apart from their personalities, the solemn atmosphere of the Marshal’s residence, and their reverence for the Marshal...

They had all witnessed the renovations being carried out at the Marshal’s residence lately.

Generally speaking, when a Female Zerg suddenly started caring about the appearance of his home and even specifically hired Zergs to redesign and renovate it, there were only two possible reasons.

Either he was courting a Male Zerg, or he was about to get married.

In short, it inevitably had something to do with a Male Zerg.

There might be a Male Lord inside the Marshal’s residence.

The Marshal was currently at the critical stage of courting a Male Zerg. Naturally, they could not be the ones to sabotage his efforts.

High-ranking Female Zergs had extremely sharp senses, so of course they could detect someone clearly watching them from above.

A Female Zerg who was about to enter the building stopped and looked upward in slight confusion.

An Ruo was startled and instinctively used his psychic power.

When the Female Zerg looked up, all he saw was an extraordinarily elegant Male Lord standing by the window. His beauty was breathtaking, leaving the observer’s mind shrouded in mist. Yet when he tried to recall the sight afterward, he could only remember that the Male Zerg had been extraordinarily beautiful—he could not remember the specific details of his face at all.

That must be the Male Lord the Marshal was courting.

“Was that... An-shen?” one Zerg asked his companion, who had witnessed the same scene.

Those fortunate enough to have seen him all nodded in agreement.

“Even though I couldn’t see his face clearly, you’d be hard-pressed to find a second Male Zerg with that kind of extraordinary bearing in the entire Federation.”

Judging by the situation, perhaps the Marshal’s marriage would soon have to be put on the agenda.

That would be joyous news for the entire Federation.

Ever since the divorce case, everyone had been deeply concerned about the Marshal’s condition.

Among the Zergs, a Female Zerg’s romantic circumstances were inseparable from his mental condition and could even affect his life. It was therefore an extremely serious matter.

Seeing that the Marshal had not remained trapped in the past, had recovered in excellent condition, and now even had a new Male Zerg by his side, everyone was genuinely happy for him. Some of the more perceptive Zergs, who had quietly worried that the Marshal might go to extremes, secretly breathed sighs of relief.

After getting some fresh air, An Ruo finally felt his mind settle down and returned to reading.

From time to time, Ulysses messaged him through his terminal to ask whether he needed anything, whether he was tired, or whether he was bored. He also had robot Zergs deliver food to him several times.

They ate lunch together. Ulysses stayed with him for a while during the midday break before leaving to handle official business again.

As for visiting the entertainment area upstairs, An Ruo kept putting it off until evening before finally agreeing.

The shock Ulysses had given him last night had simply been too great. An Ruo was genuinely afraid he might encounter something especially shocking upstairs and be unable to handle it. Only after thoroughly preparing himself mentally did he follow Ulysses upstairs.

The entertainment area was divided into a game room, screening room, toy room...

They really were normal toys.

An Ruo picked up an adorable wooden figurine and examined it from side to side. Then he looked around the entire room and saw it filled with all kinds of perfectly respectable toys in different styles.

He quietly breathed a sigh of relief.

His heart finally settled back into place.

At the same time, he felt ashamed of what he had previously imagined.

There was no helping it. When Ulysses had told him about this place, he had happened to be wearing that tail, so naturally An Ruo’s thoughts had gone astray.

Thinking about it now was truly embarrassing.

Fortunately, he had never voiced those thoughts aloud. That meant he only had to suffer his embarrassment privately rather than being publicly executed for it.

Come to think of it, Ulysses really was not the type to set up an adult entertainment room in his own home.

Ulysses looked as though he could accept practically anything, and sometimes he even shocked An Ruo so badly that his eyes nearly popped out, but the impression he actually gave people was rather conservative.

Mm.

Conservatively doing the most liberal things imaginable.

An Ruo looked over the various distinctive and interesting toys in the room. Nearly half of them were adorable toys designed for hatchlings. It was difficult to imagine Ulysses possessing such a childlike side.

He was like an oversized baby Ulysses.

Ulysses watched the Male Zerg explore and try the toys. He had deliberately mixed some hatchling toys among them as a subtle hint, but the Male Zerg did not seem to notice his ulterior motive.

That was fine too.

At least the Male Zerg liked this place.

If he did not notice, then so be it. To Ulysses, the Male Zerg would always come first, with a far higher priority than some hypothetical future hatchling.

Much, much higher.

As long as the Male Zerg was happy, Ulysses did not actually care that much about anything else.

Even if they truly never had a hatchling and simply spent the rest of their lives together, that would also be wonderful.

It was a kind of happiness that made him smile just thinking about it.

Ulysses walked over and accompanied the Male Zerg in playing with those childish toys.

Among them, An Ruo even found an exquisite set of Zerg chess pieces and asked Ulysses to teach him how to play.

“The white pieces represent the Zergs, while the black pieces represent the Tianjia. The two sides fight each other...” Ulysses explained the rules.

An Ruo rested his chin on his hand and watched curiously, studying seriously.

Once he had learned the rules, he immediately pulled Ulysses into playing a match.

An Ruo took white, while Ulysses took black. White moved first...

Ulysses deliberately intended to go easy on him so the Male Zerg could win.

An Ruo, meanwhile, played with complete concentration. Under his intense mental focus, his psychic power automatically analyzed every possible arrangement and variation with the precision of a supercomputer.

After only a few moves, Ulysses began to feel pressured and had no choice but to take the game seriously and play at full strength.

Although he wanted the Male Zerg to win, he could not lose too embarrassingly. That might affect the Male Zerg’s opinion of him.

The ideal outcome would be to go easy on him so subtly that there was no trace of it and lose by the narrowest possible margin.

But the current situation had already reached the point where holding back was no longer an option.

An Ruo won the first two games.

He also understood that if everyone was supposed to enjoy a game, he could not be the only one having fun. He had to take care of the other person’s—or Zerg’s—gaming experience as well.

And so, entirely self-taught, An Ruo began deliberately going easy on Ulysses, wanting him to win. He practically tried to feed the victory directly into Ulysses’s mouth.

Ulysses: “...”

Just moments ago, the Male Zerg had played against him like a supercomputer, putting him under tremendous pressure. Now, all of a sudden, he had transformed into an ordinary beginner, making terrible moves one after another.

With Ulysses’s perceptiveness, how could he possibly fail to notice what the Male Zerg was doing?

The problem was that he wanted the Male Zerg to win.

And so An Ruo deliberately went easy on Ulysses, while Ulysses deliberately went easy on An Ruo, both sides exhausting every possible method in an attempt to make the other win.

The originally high-level match gradually became more and more idiotic.

Playing chess well was easy.

Playing chess badly was far too difficult.

Both of them racked their brains.

In the end, An Ruo, unburdened by any pressure, shame, or regard for logic, simply started making ridiculous moves and successfully “lost” to Ulysses, who still had an image to maintain and at least some dignity left.

In terms of the actual chess game, Ulysses won.

But in the place where he had truly wanted to win, he lost.

An Ruo: two wins, one loss.

Having successfully handed Ulysses a victory, An Ruo was delighted.

He was even happier than when he himself had won at the beginning.

Seeing him like this, Ulysses said nothing more.

What kind of “Male Zerg” deliberately let a Female Zerg win?

His Male Zerg... was simply unreasonable.

He did not follow common sense at all.

But Ulysses loved precisely this kind of An Ruo.

He loved him no matter what, and seeing him like this only made Ulysses love him even more.

They could no longer keep playing chess, so Ulysses invited the Male Zerg back to bed to spar in other ways.

Ulysses, who was usually very good at deliberately holding back, particularly liked showing off at times like these. He wanted to display his very best side to the Male Zerg, putting everything he had learned to use on him.

And so An Ruo suffered another crushing defeat.

Afterward, An Ruo twisted the blanket between his fingers, conflicted. He desperately wanted to ask Ulysses exactly how he had managed to improve so quickly.

But when it came to this sort of thing, he simply could not bring himself to ask.

Seeing him like this, Ulysses wrapped his arms around him and softly asked, “Is something troubling you?”

An Ruo opened his mouth to speak, stopped, tried again, stopped again, and repeated this several times.

In the end, he still could not ask.

Ulysses was puzzled, but since the Male Zerg refused to say anything, he could hardly keep questioning him. He could only try to figure it out himself.

Yet the Male Zerg’s reaction was so strange that even after thinking for a long time, Ulysses could not make sense of it. He could only bring up something else first, attempting to divert the Male Zerg’s attention.

“Axel hatched two days ago. Would you like to go see him?”

“???!”

An Ruo instantly shot upright in shock.

Ulysses hurriedly pulled him back into his arms.

“It will have to wait until tomorrow. It’s already late at night, so it wouldn’t be appropriate to visit now.”

That might be true, but did Ulysses really have to hold him so tightly?

It was as though he were afraid An Ruo would run away.

An Ruo lowered his head and glanced at Ulysses’s arm wrapped around his waist. Then he settled back into his embrace and began asking him about Axel and General Enzo.