A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings, and From That Moment On, the Future Became Unseeable
The son of a high-ranking official who came to the orphanage for charity and an albino little male Zerg with a genetic defect—
It was not some romantic encounter.
But the fruit handed out that day tasted very good, and the young female Zerg with red hair stood in the light, scorching like the sun.
Aira was most afraid of the sun.
He was the lowest F-class male Zerg and suffered from a genetic illness. Sunlight shining on him would burn his skin and further damage his eyesight.
He was a Zerg that could only live in darkness.
He had no connection with anything bright.
The moment he saw the red-haired female Zerg, Aira was burned to tears.
He saw a moth flying into a flame.
He saw himself dying in the female Zerg's arms, burned to ashes by overwhelming light and heat.
The female Zerg was frightened by his reaction and thought he had been bullied, so he brought out the fruits and snacks hatchlings liked to comfort him.
Aira ran away.
His terrible eyesight caused him to trip over an obstacle after only a few steps and fall to the ground.
When the female Zerg came to help him up, he shook off his hand and limped back to his dormitory.
He knew the female Zerg had followed behind him all the way, worry in his gaze.
He feared such light and heat.
He feared death too.
The doctor arrived quickly, healed the injury on his knee, and left behind many nutritional supplements, snacks, and fruits.
He knew who had sent them.
After that, the female Zerg often came.
He brought snacks, toys, clothes, and other things for the hatchlings at the orphanage...
And naturally, things for Aira as well.
He was quite an enthusiastic philanthropist.
Aira always kept his distance from him.
His attitude could even be called cold.
Knowing his eyesight was poor, the female Zerg equipped him with a terminal for blind Zergs. It linked directly to his psychic power and generated maps inside his mind, planning routes for him.
He no longer bumped into things or fell down.
Knowing he liked books, the female Zerg often came to read to him. When he wasn't there, he had the terminal's AI read to him instead, though he restricted Aira's screen time to prevent him from straining his eyes.
He told Aira he had gained a younger brother, another male hatchling, and complained to him that the little brother was far more troublesome than Aira.
Aira ate the cake the female Zerg brought in small bites and said nothing.
Year after year passed.
One by one, the female hatchlings in the orphanage were adopted.
Only no one wanted him.
He knew that male hatchlings were often even harder to adopt.
According to regulations, in the case of adoption by the opposite sex, the adopter had to be several hundred years older than the hatchling and already in old age, no longer capable of laying eggs.
This was the Federation's protection law for hatchlings.
Mainly intended to protect female hatchlings from perverted male Zergs.
When it came to male hatchlings, the same rules had been preserved.
They likewise protected male hatchlings from perverted female Zergs bringing them home and squeezing out their essence to lay eggs.
Furthermore, every aspect of the adopter had to be evaluated.
Motivation.
Moral character.
Economic and housing conditions.
Family relationships...
The standards for adopting a male hatchling were especially strict and difficult to meet.
Not to mention that he possessed a rare genetic disease.
Even female Zergs who met all requirements would think that they themselves had already entered old age and did not have many years left to live. They feared they would not be able to provide such a fragile male Zerg suffering from a genetic disease with a good life and ultimately gave up.
As for same-sex adoption...
Male Zergs did not adopt hatchlings.
Male Zergs who wanted children could simply marry female Zergs and have them themselves.
Even if they could not produce them personally, male Zergs had no need to worry about support in old age.
Compared to bringing home a hatchling, they would rather marry a few more young attendants.
Hatchlings grew up and left home.
Attendants would not.
In short, no Zerg wanted to adopt Aira.
This was the fifth birthday the female Zerg had spent with him.
Aira had also reached the age when he should leave the orphanage.
At times like this, female Zergs generally found jobs and moved out.
Or they simply entered military service and lived in barracks.
As for male Zergs...
Male Zergs generally chose marriage.
The Male Protection Association had already come and given Aira a list.
On it were the female Zergs most compatible with him.
He could choose one to marry.
He was the most useless F-class male Zerg, with limited energy and unable to deal with too many female Zergs.
His best option was to marry the most outstanding female Zerg available to him, D-class or C-class, and depend on his Female Lord for the rest of his life.
Cassian had been visiting particularly frequently during this period.
Each time, he brought gifts, trying various ways to make him happy, and then indirectly asked which female Zerg he intended to choose.
Aira remained silent.
Cassian had investigated every female Zerg on the list and analyzed them one by one for him, as though helping him screen candidates.
"This one has terrible conduct."
"That one has a bad temper."
"This one isn't handsome enough."
"That one lacks assets."
"And this one's hairstyle is old-fashioned."
Anyway, in his mouth, not one female Zerg was acceptable.
None were worthy of Aira.
For the first time, the usually noble and courteous female Zerg spoke ill of so many others, his face flushed red with agitation.
His feelings had already become painfully obvious.
But Aira had never given him any hope, so much so that he did not even dare say it aloud.
And Aira absolutely could not give him hope.
The other party was an S-class genius blessed by heaven, with limitless possibilities.
His future Male Lord should be at least A-class, and at the very worst B-class.
As for himself—
An F-class male Zerg who couldn't even perform psychic soothing.
Giving him hope would only ruin him.
As the final deadline approached, the female Zerg came more frequently.
His restlessness and exhaustion became visible to the naked eye.
His eyes had become red.
“You've already decided which female Zerg to choose, haven't you?”
The female Zerg asked.
Aira had been too calm lately.
It was as if he already had an answer.
“Mm.”
Aira lowered his head and responded.
Actually, he didn't.
He had found a job.
Its duties involved sleeping on various beds and evaluating their comfort and quality.
It was a job he could do.
He would not have to marry a female Zerg.
But he did not tell the female Zerg.
Let him think he was going to marry someone else.
Let him give up and return to his own life.
The female Zerg was destined to shine brilliantly and be crowned with endless glory.
As for himself—
He was merely a white moth hidden in the darkness, destined to survive miserably.
They belonged to entirely different worlds.
The female Zerg left.
There would never be a future between them.
The night before leaving the orphanage, Aira sat alone on the bed with his knees hugged, staring blankly.
The flickering glow outside the window caught his attention.
He pushed open the window.
Countless fireflies filled the sky.
The little courtyard that had once held only a few bare trees had been filled with pure white moonflowers.
Silver moonlight poured down from the heavens, every petal gleaming with a pure radiance.
Fireflies danced among them like a fairyland.
Under the moonlight, Cassian proposed to him.
Like a fairy tale.
This heaven-blessed genius knelt before him, offering the Rose Nebula Ring, which represented true love in storybooks.
The burning love in his eyes was even more dazzling than the nebula itself.
A moth could never refuse such light.
Even if it was destined to be burned to ashes.
The white moth hidden in darkness threw itself into the flame.
He feared darkness and light.
Cold and heat.
Pain and death.
Yet he wanted to love him.
These years after marriage, Aira had lived happily.
He was a Zerg without a home.
Cassian had given him one and fulfilled all his fantasies about loving and being loved.
He cherished every second spent with Cassian.
If the ending was already fated, then at least it had all been worthwhile.
At least he had possessed it.
Still—
He could not bear to part with it.
Because it was so beautiful, he feared losing it.
For Cassian, and for himself, he constantly pushed beyond his limits and desperately raised his rank.
From F-class to C-class.
A near-impossible miracle.
Yet it still wasn't enough.
He did not know exactly how he would die.
But he vaguely understood that if he wanted to avoid tragedy, he had to break into B-class.
It was too difficult.
Impossible.
As the years passed and he drew closer and closer to that destined moment, fear consumed him.
On the day the Psychic Soothing Act was announced, he saw the flames of fate ignite.
He finally understood why he would die.
Inescapable destiny came upon him and mocked all his struggles as meaningless.
For a moment, he nearly broke down emotionally.
Cassian thought he was afraid of being forcibly divorced and hurried back from Parliament to comfort him.
Only Aira knew how close death and separation truly were.
The turning point came when he saw that novel.
The topic of Xi'an and Claire became a trending subject on StarNet.
And Aira saw a butterfly flap its wings, stirring up a storm and bringing mist.
From that moment onward—
The future became unseeable.
Gray-white fog enveloped the entire Zerg race.
Impossible to observe.
Impossible to predict.
Which also meant...
Everything was possible.
From then on, Aira became a fanatical fan of “An”.
He believed the other party could bring entirely new possibilities.
...
“Then, why are you looking for An God?”
Aira asked Xi'an.
“He turned my story with my Female Lord into a novel and posted it on StarNet for everyone to know. Isn't it normal for me to want to meet him?”
Xi'an spread his hands.
Cassian emerged from the kitchen carrying sliced fruit and happened to hear that sentence.
Immediately, his gaze sharpened.
“What do you mean, your Female Lord?”
Xi'an remembered something and immediately became guilty, his eyes drifting away.
“I mean... Claire. Don't you all know already? Uh... the whole internet knows.”
The entire network practically watched it live.
This couldn't count as not informing the family, right?
“You mean that novel?”
Cassian frowned.
“The honeymoon after marriage you mentioned before was also with Colonel Claire?”
Aira covered his mouth in surprise, his eyes wide.
“So everything in the book is real!?”
“More or less. Some artistic embellishments were added, but the events themselves are real.”
Xi'an replied.
Because he read stories aloud for his Male Lord, Cassian had never missed a single update of Instructor and knew the plot extremely well.
As a novel, he had only thought it was well-written.
He had even shipped Xi'an and Claire together with his Male Lord.
But once he learned that everything was based on real events, his blood surged upward.
He wanted nothing more than to drag Xi'an into the training room and beat him.
What exactly had Xi'an done?
He had voluntarily matched with a female Zerg in extreme psychic danger.
Gone to meet him without any protection.
And then married him!
And there was the encounter with the Tenga Fleet—
Such a dangerous experience, and he had hidden all of it from the family!
Cassian was furious beyond reason.
Meanwhile, Aira keenly noticed something even more important.
“Wait. You mean... you don't know An God? But An God wrote your story?”
“Right. That's why I wanted your help finding him.”
Aira pondered the connection.
Then he answered frankly:
“I can't find him. I can't see anything. There is only heavy mist, obscuring everything.”
Xi'an knew Aira's ability was mysterious, but hearing this made it seem even stranger.
Mist and fog and all that...
Still, he had never intended to trouble Aira too much.
Xi'an looked at Cassian, clasped his hands before him, and blinked his sparkling eyes.
“Brother~”
Cassian's face remained dark.
His anger had not subsided.
But Xi'an was his younger brother.
He couldn't ignore him.
In the end, he snorted coldly.
“Wait for news.”
—
First Military Region Prison.
After finishing today's psychic soothing sessions, An Ruo returned to his room—
And discovered in horror that the outer wall of his room was gone.
Not gone exactly.
It had been replaced by a glass sliding door.
Outside was a lush garden blooming with flowers, complete with fountains cascading like curtains of water.
It was so beautiful that it didn't look like something belonging inside a prison.
For a moment, An Ruo thought he had transmigrated again.
If he remembered correctly, his room was on the third floor.
Where had this garden come from?
Only after seeing the familiar furnishings inside did he confirm that he had not transmigrated again.
Yesterday, Uriel had said the prison intended to build a new garden and asked his opinion because the location was close to his room.
He had assumed it would be downstairs or perhaps some indoor garden next door, so he had casually agreed.
Who knew that “close to his room” meant building an entire sky garden outside?
Was this what they called close?
They had practically moved the whole garden right to his doorstep!
An Ruo stared blankly at the vibrant scenery outside.
Had his prison cell been upgraded into a scenic room?
Beautiful views without leaving home.
Open the door and step directly into the garden...
This was amazing.
Suddenly, the terminal on his wrist lit up.
It was a message from Uriel.
An Ruo opened it.
Uriel informed him that someone would come to visit in ten minutes and told him to prepare.
A visit?
Who would come visit him?
It wasn't even the scheduled end-of-the-month visitation period.
And ten minutes from now?
Wasn't that arranged a little too hastily?
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