Chapter 279: The God’s Blessing: Ulysses wouldn’t mind being the original protagonist’s "Female Father" for once

Following tradition, An Ruo joined Ulysses in handing out candied fruit and preserves to the assembled Generals and younger Zergs.

It was rather funny when he thought about it. Judging by age, he should have been sitting at the same table as little Isidore, yet the reality was that he was standing beside Ulysses, handing preserves to Isidore's Male Father and even to his Male Father's Male Father.

His seniority had suddenly shot up.

An Ruo didn't think there was anything wrong with that. Most of the Zergs here were characters he had created. Although he wouldn't actually regard the protagonists as his hatchlings or himself as their Male Father, when facing them, he really did possess a faint sort of creator's elder mentality.

An Ruo adapted perfectly well, handing them candied fruit one by one and offering each of them a few words of blessing.

When he reached Xi'an, however, he paused.

He had already written an autograph and blessing for Xi'an before. So what was he supposed to wish him now?

Xi'an gazed at An before him, his own feelings equally complicated.

He already held a fairly high military rank among military Male Zergs, and his promotion speed was very fast. But some time ago, he had learned that this Lord had already been awarded the rank of Lieutenant General. It was merely because the Lord disliked overly formal occasions that no grand conferral ceremony had been held. Nevertheless, the honorary rank of Lieutenant General had already been officially confirmed.

Xi'an had known before that Male Zergs advanced faster as military doctors.

Only now did he understand just how fast the promotion of a Male Zerg skilled in Psychic Soothing could actually be.

Of course, Psychic Power as formidable as this Lord's was extraordinarily rare in the entire world. Other Male Zergs couldn't imitate him even if they wanted to. Beneath this Lord, the one most likely to succeed was probably that brat Eugene.

Xi'an still intended to walk the path of a true military Male Zerg. Although he envied the promotion speed of military doctors and Psychic Soothing specialists, he still wanted to throw himself onto the battlefield.

After thinking for a moment, he said, "Then wish me promotion after promotion."

"All right." An Ruo smiled and earnestly spoke his blessing for Xi'an, giving him the blessing together with a beautifully wrapped portion of candied fruit.

Xi'an walked past the Marshal carrying his candied fruit and blessing, and unexpectedly received another handful of preserves from the Marshal himself, leaving him overwhelmed by the favor.

Next came Claire.

Claire didn't really have anything he wanted.

He was already very happy.

After thinking for a moment, he said with slight embarrassment, "Just give me a traditional kind of blessing."

A traditional Zerg blessing naturally meant wishing someone an egg.

Ulysses's gaze fell on Claire and slid across his flat abdomen.

Xi'an, who was waiting nearby, also immediately lit up.

Why hadn't he thought of that?

According to Aira, this Lord's blessings were incredibly effective. They were guaranteed to come true!

Under Xi'an's shining gaze, An Ruo remembered the suffering of being forced by Xi'an in his dream to write "two hatchlings in three years."

Very cautiously, he gave Claire a traditional Zerg blessing.

"May you lay an egg soon and live in happiness and good health."

Normally there should have been another phrase, "May you lay many eggs," but An Ruo was genuinely afraid that if he casually said it, it might actually come true. And with an unrestricted word like "many," who knew just how many that could turn into?

Better to be cautious.

Claire was already perfectly satisfied with that blessing and happily walked onward.

When he passed the Marshal, Ulysses indifferently raised his eyes, glanced at him, and casually sent him off with a paltry few pieces of candied fruit.

Claire walked away and looked at the preserves in his hand, which were obviously far fewer than Xi'an had received. Remembering the Marshal's equally cold expression, he wondered whether the Marshal had something against him.

But when he saw how happy Xi'an looked beside him, another thought occurred to him.

The Marshal must know that he didn't like sweets.

It was perfectly normal to give more of these highly sweetened snacks to a Male Zerg. Psychic Power consumed mental energy, and the brain needed sugar to function. Most Male Zergs had a sweet tooth.

Claire gave all his candied fruit to Xi'an and felt happy himself when he saw Xi'an's brilliant smile.

Xi'an fed one of the preserves to his mouth, and Claire opened his mouth and ate it.

Only after swallowing did Claire remember that they were in a banquet hall, in public.

Wasn't it a little too conspicuous for them to act this intimately as though there were no other Zergs around?

Then he turned around and saw that nearly everyone was paired off, behaving intimately with one another.

Among them, Claire and Xi'an didn't stand out at all.

Looking at the scene, Claire suddenly felt a little emotional.

Although most Zergs attending banquets brought companions, wasn't the pairing rate at this banquet in the Marshal's residence unusually high?

Then he remembered that the invitations had been based on the list of protagonists from An-shen's books and found it perfectly understandable.

After all, he wrote male-female romance novels.

Ulysses merely found every one of these Zergs irritating in their own unique way.

Cyril was already more than three hundred years old and heavily pregnant, yet he was joining the younger generation in clamoring for candied fruit.

What kind of behavior was that?

General Enzo, who held the same rank, had also brought the little hatchling he was raising over to ask for preserves. An had even grabbed several extra handfuls of candy for the little Male Zerg and given him a double portion.

Uriel...

It was about time he considered marriage too.

Ulysses casually grabbed a handful of candied fruit and handed it to him.

In truth, he knew that Uriel harbored some special feelings toward An.

After spending so much time with such an exceptional male, it would have been stranger if he felt absolutely nothing.

But Ulysses could also see that Uriel had no intention of revealing those feelings. He had even prepared to leave far away and extinguish them entirely. When An was released from prison, Uriel had applied for a posting to defend the border in the Ninth Military Region. If this banquet hadn't interrupted those plans, he might already have arrived there.

The border was extraordinarily far from Capital Star. Once there, he might not return for years, perhaps even decades.

When it came to this former adjutant who had once been like his right-hand man, Ulysses's feelings were complicated.

Compared with those protagonists and unknown Male Zergs who constantly crowded around An, Uriel was clearly far more "well-behaved." He was also accustomed to yielding before his former commanding officer.

But there could be no other possibility between them...

Ulysses wasn't Cyril.

And An Ruo would never accept any Zerg outside the protagonists.

No.

In fact, he wouldn't even accept the protagonists themselves.

Ulysses lowered his eyes.

He could tell that although An liked the protagonists, that affection was merely appreciation, a desire to see them live well, and a wish for them to live happily together with their respective other protagonist.

There was no desire whatsoever within that affection.

Nor did it include An himself, not even through the desire for familial affection or friendship.

An had no intention of involving himself in his protagonists' lives. He maintained a distance from every Zerg, including his protagonists.

An drifted outside the world.

Even while physically existing within it, he had erected an invisible barrier around himself.

The sole exception was Ulysses.

He possessed absolute specialness in An's heart, enough that An had willingly broken the barrier separating him from every other Zerg and come to Ulysses's side.

Therefore, who An belonged to and who his future Female Lord would be went without saying.

Ulysses grabbed another handful of candy for Uriel and sent him off to the side.

An Ruo secretly glanced at Ulysses beside him and felt that he was radiating a strange, upward, almost triumphant aura.

In short, he looked extremely confident, as though everything was completely under control.

Of course Ulysses had every reason to be confident.

He was the Zerg race's only SSS-rank Female Zerg, an existence that practically represented the ceiling of power in the universe. He had ascended to the position of Marshal through sheer strength and now wielded immense authority. No one dared challenge his edge. Even with the emergence of an SS-rank Tianjia Empire, it still seemed dim beneath Ulysses's rule.

An Ruo suddenly wanted to feed him a piece of candied fruit.

Candied fruit represented harvest, blessings, and hopes for the coming year.

Would Ulysses like preserves this sweet?

An Ruo wondered distractedly.

...

Xi'an, Claire, Hill... Felix, Lucas.

An Ruo finished distributing the candied fruit one by one, only to realize that someone seemed to be missing.

He looked around, mentally counting the protagonists one after another, until he spotted Helios standing absentmindedly in a corner.

He walked over and asked with concern, "Why didn't you come get any candied fruit?"

Helios looked up in astonishment and saw An-shen enveloped in the warm light.

The Male Zerg wore white-and-gold formalwear, his entire figure seemingly radiating a gentle glow. The warmth and concern in his expression made Helios think of a "Male Father."

In truth, Helios had no Male Father and didn't know what a Male Father was supposed to be like.

He had grown up in a Military Region welfare home. After reaching adulthood, he enlisted in the military and was selected by the Marshal to become one of his personal guards.

The Marshal had personally taught him and looked after him.

He was like Helios's teacher, yet also like the Female Father Helios had imagined.

He saw the Marshal in the distance, currently speaking with the Generals and the Tianjia Prince. Ulysses didn't seem to be paying any attention to this side, nor had his gaze turned in their direction even once.

And yet Helios somehow felt that the Marshal had actually been watching this side all along.

Watching An.

Helios stood up stiffly. Facing the Marshal's male, he cautiously replied, "I don't like sweets."

A lie.

Helios had grown up in a Military Region welfare home. Although he had never lacked clothing or food, sweets had been a rare luxury. The carefree military Female Zergs hadn't exactly thought to prepare snacks for the hatchlings either.

Helios liked sweets.

As the author, An Ruo knew that perfectly well.

For a long stretch of the original story, the Male Zerg protagonist had been extremely fond of feeding Helios. After eating something sweet, Helios became much easier to talk to, which also made it more likely that he could be swayed and poached from under Ulysses's command.

Of course, part of the reason was simply that the Male Zerg protagonist liked the satisfied expression Helios made while eating.

During that stretch of the story, readers called Helios "Beaver," a pun based on his name. Because he was constantly being fed and also liked hoarding food, he eventually gained another nickname: "Squirrel."

Later, when the plot took a sudden dark turn and they were brutally suppressed by the great villain Ulysses, the pair became known as the "sewer rat couple."

An Ruo thought Helios was pitiful.

Like some poor little creature who had suffered far too much.

Especially since that entire miserable storyline had come from An Ruo's own pen, and Ulysses had also played a part in bullying him so badly.

An Ruo was dating Ulysses.

In his eyes, the two of them were one unit, so he very consciously took some of Ulysses's blame onto himself as well.

An Ruo reached out and handed Helios the candied fruit he had deliberately brought over.

"Even if you don't like sweets, you should still accept some. Candied fruit represents New Year's blessings and hopes for the coming year. Maybe next year you'll meet... a Zerg who can become your family."

An Ruo secretly winked at him.

Ulysses, who had keenly caught certain key words, turned his head.

If necessary, he wouldn't mind becoming the original protagonist's "Female Father" for once and occupying that family-member position himself.

That way, An would only ever be the other's "Male Father," rather than some other kind of family member.

This was called taking precautions before trouble could arise.

Although Ulysses knew that An's fondness for the protagonists remained entirely on the surface and would never develop any further, certain things still had to be guarded against.

So even though Ulysses still wanted an egg of his own more—an egg connected to both him and An by blood—if necessary, he wouldn't mind raising an additional oversized hatchling who was already fully grown.