After Transmigrating, I Raised Cubs in the Insectoid Clan - Chapter 28

Xiwen was speechless with shock for a moment. By the time he regained his senses, Suter had already stood up from the seat beside him and returned to his office desk.

“You, how could you? No, when I asked you last time, didn’t you say he might be a spy sent by Fang Ye?”

The tip of the fountain pen soaked a blob of ink onto the white paper. Suter watched the black stain gradually spread across the document. “Until I find evidence sufficient to reach a final conclusion,” he turned the pen, letting the ink stain be swallowed by the shadows, “I am inclined to believe he is innocent.”

Hearing Suter’s words, Xiwen froze in place.

His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, but he could not make a sound. A moment later, realizing something, he felt a chill surge up his spine.

“Are you serious?” After a long pause, Xiwen finally found his voice. His throat was so tight it ached, and his voice was incredibly hoarse. His fingers trembled uncontrollably. “Aren’t you afraid he will, afraid he will—”

For a moment, he could not think of any words to dissuade Suter. He could only mechanically and chaotically repeat meaningless phrases.

The office’s climate control system made a soft click. The cool white lights cast sharp shadows across Suter’s well-defined face.

He leaned back into his leather chair, his silver-gray uniform shimmering with a metallic luster under the light. His slender fingers tapped a rhythmic beat on the solid wood desktop. Every tap landed precisely in the gaps of Xiwen’s ragged breathing. He was thinking, considering Xiwen’s words, but he did not entirely accept them.

Xiwen felt his head spin. He knew the man in front of him all too well.

This war machine, who remained unfazed amidst mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and who navigated political whirlpools with ease. Suter had always treated hearts as a chessboard, calculating every move with unerring precision. But now, now—

Xiwen’s fingertips dug deep into his palms. He knew exactly what this meant.

This was not an act, nor a temporary measure of convenience; it was a genuine, irreversible plunge into ruin.

“He specifically chose the moment your mental power went berserk to force a match. This is clearly—”

“Clearly a calculated move.”

Xiwen’s voice echoed in the empty office, bordering on a plea. He could no longer bear to lose anyone else close to him.

Suter finally looked up, his gaze meeting Xiwen’s calmly, yet he remained silent.

Xiwen’s breathing was shallow. He remembered the photo of the male insect he had seen on the Imperial Protection Society matching website, Samuel, those eyes that seemed gentle but hid a sharp edge.

He gritted his teeth. “And then there is Seren. His brother is dead, died by your hand. Even if you and I both know Seren’s death was a complete accident, does Samuel know that? After losing his blood relative, do you think he would be satisfied? Content to just stay by your side without any ulterior motives?”

A dead silence spread through the office.

Suter’s finger, which had been tapping the desk, stopped mid-air. His distinct knuckles curved slightly into a stiff arc.

After a long while, he suddenly smiled. The curve of his lips was perfectly placed, but the depths of his eyes were frozen over with thick ice.

“So what if it was calculated? So what if he is not satisfied?” Suter’s voice was very soft, almost a murmur to himself.

He slowly looked up. The cold light from the ceiling lamps fell into those dark green eyes, outlining a thin sliver of cold light at the edge of his iris.

“I will make him satisfied.”

Even if Samuel really was a spy sent by Fang Ye, so what? Even if that male approached him with bone-deep hatred, so what?

He would personally break those claws, pull out every venomous tooth, and then use the strongest chains to confine this person by his side forever.

He only wanted him.

When Suter pushed open the front door, the setting sun was casting its final rays into the living room. Golden patches of light flowed across the floor, and water droplets condensed on the kitchen window, refracting a hazy glow. The aroma of stewed soup mixed with steam drifted through the gaps in the door curtain, lingering at the entrance.

“Susu, welcome home!”

Xiaosu slid over on its rollers. The newly changed ink-wash landscape painting cheongsam looked exceptionally elegant in the twilight. Two white cranes appeared ready to take flight from the hem. Its mechanical fingers proudly pinched the edge of the cyber-skirt, performing an affected little twirl. It was indeed much prettier than its previous outfits.

Xiaosu bragged vanity-fully, “Samuel drew this on the optical computer.”

Suter said against his conscience, “You look too fat in that.”

Xiaosu: Angry.jpg

A red light flickered crossly on Xiaosu’s round head. Just as it was about to argue, a “ding” sounded from the kitchen. Only then did it reluctantly slide toward the kitchen, clicking the stew pot switch loudly as if to vent its frustration.

Suter asked Xiaosu, “Where is Samuel?”

Xiaosu covered its metal head, playing deaf and dumb to express its anger: “Flown away.”

Suter had no choice but to head to the second floor to find him.

The second-floor study was empty, with the screen projected by the optical computer glowing with a cool blue light. As Suter turned toward the bedroom, the door suddenly opened from the inside. Samuel’s cheeks were flushed with an unnatural red, and a section of his reddened neck was visible beneath his messy collar. There, on the skin that should have been smooth, a somewhat exaggerated black insect marking was clearly visible.

“You are back?” Samuel froze when he saw Suter, water still dripping from the tips of his damp hair. “Sorry, I did not hear you.”

Suter’s gaze darkened the moment it landed on Samuel.

He glanced seemingly casually at the half-open bathroom door behind Samuel.

Damp heat rushed toward him, mixed with the fresh scent of citrus body wash. Suter’s eyes scanned every corner.

Hanging water droplets, a tilted bottle of body wash, wet footprints on the floor. There were no suspicious smells, no unfamiliar traces, only Samuel’s unique scent becoming more vivid in the rising steam.

His gaze slowly returned, finally pinning itself to Samuel’s exposed neck. On that patch of bare skin, the black insect markings were particularly prominent due to the congestion of blood, and the edges were unnaturally red, as if they had been scrubbed hard. Suter’s knuckles at his sides tightened slightly.

“Did you take a bath?” His voice was a few degrees lower than usual, his gaze lingering on that reddened skin like something physical.

Samuel instinctively raised a hand to adjust his collar, but Suter was one step ahead, gently pressing down on his wrist with a fingertip. The touch was light, yet carried an irresistible force.

“There is a water droplet.”

Without changing his expression, Suter wiped a drop of water from Samuel’s collarbone, his thumb lingering on that spot for an extra half-second.

His actions seemed gentle, but dark emotions surged in the depths of his eyes, a near-instinctive possessiveness. While confirming that only his own scent remained on this skin, he was also silently marking it.

The surveillance network he had once set up had been quietly removed, leaving only a monitoring program in the optical computer that was almost never used. To Suter, who was accustomed to controlling everything, this was nothing short of a massive gamble.

He was learning a completely new and foreign emotion, to love and trust without reservation, just as Samuel did.

The possibilities of what might happen after this change made him both crave it and fear it. Like someone who had lived in darkness for a long time suddenly facing the sun, he felt the sting.

But it was not entirely unbearable.

The steam from the bathroom drifted out, mixed with the fragrance of the body wash. Suter moved imperceptibly closer, his nose brushing against the damp tips of Samuel’s hair. He took a deep breath, carving Samuel’s unique scent into his memory.

Even though they used the same body wash, the scent on Samuel was always more intoxicating to him. He loved holding Samuel or nesting in the crook of Samuel’s neck to sleep, surrounded by that reassuring scent. Now, mixed with the steam, the scent felt even more vivid and alive.

“Why are you wearing this?”

He raised his hand to rub the low-quality insect-marking sticker on the back of Samuel’s neck, asking in a low voice. A trace of softness, which only Samuel could detect, was hidden within his cold voice.

Before Samuel could answer, he tilted his head and brushed against the corner of the other’s lips.

The kiss was as light as a falling snowflake, yet upon parting, his lips trailed ghost-like over Samuel’s chin.

His arm loosely encircled Samuel’s waist, maintaining a perfect distance. It did not make Samuel feel confined, yet it kept him completely enveloped in Suter’s presence.

He gazed at Samuel’s smiling eyes and brows, his Adam’s apple bobbing unconsciously. That innate possessiveness screamed in his blood, making him almost unable to control the urge to completely imprison the man in his arms. His knuckles turned slightly white from the restraint. Suter lowered his eyelashes.

“I was thinking,” the vibration in Samuel’s chest as he chuckled was clearly transmitted, “it would be easier to go out and work with a different identity.” He raised his hand to touch Suter’s tense back, his fingertips tracing the line of the spine in a gentle, soothing motion. “They keep looking at me, hmm? Putting this on makes things more convenient.”

Suter’s jawline tightened further. Of course, he knew how eye-catching Samuel’s appearance was.

Those ink-colored eyes and exquisite features could easily attract the attention of others. The thought of anyone else staring at Samuel caused his arm to tighten instinctively for a moment, before he immediately relaxed upon realizing it.

Samuel seemed to sense his mood and looked up with a smile to return the kiss. This kiss was gentle yet firm, like a silent promise. Suter closed his eyes, his clenched fingers slowly loosening, turning instead to lightly grasp the edge of Samuel’s clothes.

He felt that Samuel was hiding something, because he did not need to work at all.

Through the grainy, static-filled footage of the surveillance monitors, Suter had witnessed Samuel’s iron-fisted methods in reorganizing Seren’s industries.

He had been enveloped in a suffocating pressure, his black trench coat appearing like solidified night. Metal cufflinks glinted coldly under the ceiling lights as he looked down at the person pleading for mercy on the ground, throwing documents heavily onto the man’s face with his cool, slender fingers.

Throughout the entire process, Samuel had not uttered a single word. He had not even twitched an eyebrow. His thin lips were pressed into a sharp line, yet even through a screen, it was enough to send a chill up one’s spine.

With thunderous momentum, he had completed the integration of power within just one month of Seren’s funeral. He struck with alarming speed, like a cold scalpel precisely piercing the most vulnerable joints of the organization.

The “fence-sitters” did not even have time to shed a final hypocritical tear at Seren’s tombstone before they were forced to press their bloody thumbprints onto letters of allegiance.

Standing in the shadows of the funeral hall corridor, Samuel’s gloved hand brushed over the white rose petals: “A dead man’s mouth is the most tightly sealed.”

The purge came quietly yet overwhelmingly. The core members of the old-school factions suffered “accidents” one after another.

Cars lost control and plunged off cliffs on winding mountain roads, luxury apartments suffered sudden gas explosions, and some simply never woke up after drinking a glass of whiskey. The accounting books of the finance department were reconstructed overnight, and all suspicious capital flows were skillfully woven into logical investment trajectories.

In this Great Purge, only one person remained at the center of the storm yet stayed completely untainted, Lucien.

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