How does Long Aotian Have Children? - Chapter 2

At sunset, the small square was once again filled with starships and crowds.

“Move aside! Make way! Commander, the last fuser has been found!”

Two soldiers from the local legion ran wildly while carrying a stretcher. On it lay the fellow named Qin Zhen. Over the past half hour, the starship’s loudspeakers had blared that name countless times.

Naturally, everyone was curious. Fusing with a beast egg was not like fighting a war; all the fusers usually walked back on their own. How did this guy manage to get himself into such a state?

As the stretcher passed through the crowd, the square, which had been quiet for a moment, suddenly erupted.

“Naked? He is not wearing clothes?”

“He really isn’t wearing anything, not a single stitch.”

“Man, it is normal to shed clothes during the fusion process, but stripping this clean? If I did not know better, I would think he went out for a tryst in the wild.”

“Hey, I am saying the fusion site is below the navel. We were too embarrassed to take off our pants to observe the changes after fusion, but is this not a perfect specimen right here?”

“Do not say it, you really should not say it!”

Immediately, many people chased after the stretcher, craning their necks and widening their eyes to observe the naked man.

They looked incredibly closely, scanning Qin Zhen from head to toe. They especially focused on the area from his navel to his private parts, wishing their eyes could turn into X-ray machines to find the young beast hidden inside.

Based solely on physique, Qin Zhen was a standout among the soldiers with long limbs, broad shoulders, and a narrow waist. Even lying unconscious, the lines of his abdominal muscles were quite distinct.

Except at this moment, no one was in the mood for appreciation.

“Where is the egg? I do not see it.”

“His lower abdomen is so flat. It seems like what the beautiful doctor said is true; it will take at least three days to show.”

“Haha, they did not find a beast egg, but there are two soft eggs right there.”

“Get lost, all of you!” Vice Commander Ding Xiaoyi appeared with a grim face, dispersing the onlookers. “Fall in line and prepare to board! You two, get Qin Zhen onto the medical ship! Lu Yanqiu, detect the energy fluctuations immediately!”

An empty space was instantly cleared in front of the medical ship.

Ding Xiaoyi turned around and watched the stretcher disappear into the hatch. While relieved, he remained deep in thought.

Fusing with a beast egg was not a difficult task for an ordinary person, let alone for a battle-hardened soldier. What happened to Qin Zhen? Not only was he unconscious, but he did not even have a pair of underwear on.

He suddenly thought of a possibility, a robbery where he was stripped bone-dry.

Or perhaps he had encountered some other threat and was forced to strip, unable to run out for help.

“Damn it!” Ding Xiaoyi’s expression shifted, growing increasingly dark. “How bold, to dare cause trouble right under my nose!”

He turned to call his subordinates for a thorough investigation, but his toe accidentally kicked something. Looking down, he saw a communicator; it must have fallen from the stretcher.

Qin Zhen’s communicator?

Good. All fusers are required to record the fusion process. Perhaps there would be evidence of the robbery inside.

Lighting up the screen, he found the communicator was only on standby and not locked. The screen was frozen on the recording interface, giving Ding Xiaoyi a sense of something unusual, though he could not grasp exactly what it was. Frowning, he clicked into the photo album.

As he looked, his face suddenly changed color.

On the medical ship, there was an operating bed with the shadowless lamp already turned on. Two soldiers carefully moved the man onto the bed.

One of them spoke up: “Um, Doctor.”

“Yes?”

“On, on his body.” The soldier’s face turned red as he stammered.

Lu Yanqiu felt a bit strange. While putting on sterile gloves, she followed his index finger toward Qin Zhen’s chest.

She understood why he was embarrassed.

The man’s chest was covered in red marks. Because they were so fresh, they appeared a suggestive pink under the stark white light. Not just his chest, the man’s neck, the hollow of his collarbone, his shoulders, and even his waist and thighs had similar marks.

These kinds of imprints looked far too much like the kind left behind during sexual activity.

As the Director of the Breeding Center, Lu Yanqiu had participated in many fusion operations, but this was the first time she had seen such a situation. Her expression stiffened for a moment.

“Anything can happen during the fusion of a beast egg. It is normal. Thank you for your hard work; you may head out now.”

The soldiers left dubiously, and Lu Yanqiu breathed a silent sigh of relief.

If word got out that someone had engaged in indecent acts on the fusion grounds, the Vice Commander would truly be thunderously enraged.

Fortunately, it was dusk outside, and with the man’s dark skin, no one should have noticed these bruises while the stretcher was being carried over.

The man’s chest rose and fell regularly, and his breathing rhythm was stable; there should not be any major issues. Lu Yanqiu thought for a moment and flipped him over, causing even her hands to tremble.

No one sunbathes with their backside exposed, so Qin Zhen’s buttocks were still pale. Precisely because they were white, the bruises and scratch marks on them were even more glaring. It was too much; even Lu Yanqiu, who had seen countless bodies, felt like she was going to get sties in her eyes.

“Are the test results out?”

The Vice Commander’s voice suddenly appeared behind her. Lu Yanqiu instinctively grabbed a surgical drape to cover Qin Zhen.

“The test has not started yet.” Ding Xiaoyi’s oppressive gaze made Lu Yanqiu a bit nervous. “I wanted to check his vital signs first, since he is unconscious.”

“Test him immediately.”

“Yes, Commander.”

The complex testing equipment eventually converged into a sensor patch similar to a stethoscope, which was placed on Qin Zhen’s lower abdomen.

A suffocating silence lasted for a long minute. On the instrument screen, the straight line representing the test results showed no fluctuation at all.

Lu Yanqiu was extremely anxious and spoke tentatively: “Commander, should we test again? The young beast’s energy is weak; it is possible it was not detected the first time.”

“No need.” Ding Xiaoyi closed his eyes, looking like he was disappointed in the man but powerless to change it.

He had already anticipated this result because there was no video of the fusion process on Qin Zhen’s communicator.

In fact, the abnormality he noticed the moment he opened the communicator had already foreshadowed the ending: the communicator remained on the initial recording screen; it had not started recording at all.

Simply put, this useless soldier might not have even found a beast egg, let alone fused with one.

“Commander-in-Chief, I am very sorry. I failed to meet your expectations. The success rate for this fusion is 99 percent. I am willing to take full responsibility.”

“99 percent?”

“Yes, one soldier failed to show any energy fluctuations.”

“Which star sector?”

“Sector 6, Colony Planet F1901. I understand what you mean; Sector 6 has been far too negligent in legion training. I will strongly condemn the Sector Commander.”

“Good work.”

The communication cut off.

Ding Xiaoyi stared at his communicator in a daze, wondering if he had misheard. Those two words were the specific phrase the Commander-in-Chief used to express satisfaction with a result.

The Commander-in-Chief was satisfied with a 99 percent fusion rate? How was that possible?

Before him, two Vice Commanders in charge of fusion operations were dismissed precisely because the fusion rate was stuck at 99 percent and would not go up.

“Commander! Commander!”

“Did you see that?”

Lu Yanqiu was so excited that she physically turned the frozen Vice Commander’s face toward the computer screen.

“Qin Zhen’s fusion was successful! The instrument detected energy fluctuations!”

On the screen, that dead straight line had come back to life, showing intermittent fluctuations.

Ding Xiaoyi suddenly understood. So that was it.

He had been so immersed in his own frustration that he had not noticed Lu Yanqiu’s report. Instead, the Commander-in-Chief on the other end of the call had heard it and automatically corrected his erroneous report about the 99 percent fusion rate.

That was why the Commander-in-Chief had rewarded him with the phrase, “Good work.”

On the edge of the Central Star Sector, there was a small colonial planet with thin air. Looking as far as the eye could see, there were only desolate and barren black stone mountains. Within the mountains, white steam curled up; the area was rich in hot springs.

A body with superior proportions was soaking in a hot spring, appearing exceptionally pale against the backdrop of the ink-black stones behind him.

He was literally Pale, Cang Bai, just like his name.

Cang Bai gazed quietly at the other side of the hot spring pool. Compared to the warm water, his war beast preferred the slightly hot, dry stones.

“That beast egg’s energy fluctuation was too strong, so it triggered your reproductive urge?”

Anyone else facing the cold questioning of the Empire’s Commander-in-Chief would have been scared out of their wits. But the White Python was clearly not anyone else. Its head hung lazily over its body, which was coiled like a mosquito coil, and it did not even open its eyes.

“Appetite and lust are nature; how should I know?”

“In the last hundred years, we have killed many exotic beasts stronger than that one. You have never had a reproductive urge.”

“Maybe they did not come at the right time. Or maybe your frigidity suppressed my instincts for too long, causing me and you to be unable to control it when it finally appeared.”

“Why did it go out of control this time?”

“I told you, I do not know.” The White Python felt a bit impatient. After a pause, it lifted its eye scales to reveal silver pupils. “Instead of asking me, why not ask yourself? That soldier was completely exposed before you. Did you fail to restrain yourself? Judging by human aesthetics, his body was quite alluring, was it not?”

“Are you saying that my desire for him caused the instinctual explosion?”

Cang Bai seriously considered this possibility. After a long time, he shook his head. “Impossible. I remember his appearance clearly; I have no emotional fluctuations toward him.”

Few people would describe themselves in such terms, and even fewer could objectively examine their own emotional fluctuations.

“No emotional fluctuations? Do you not remember even a bit of how you tossed him around? That little soldier is covered in marks; you really put him through the wringer.”

“I remember, but I feel nothing.”

This was not an evasion; the White Python could clearly sense that Cang Bai’s breathing, pulse, and heartbeat had not changed at all.

“How boring,” it said. “Instead of overthinking it, why not think about what compensation to give? The poor little soldier. By now he is probably packing his things to go back to that remote colonial planet.”

“Compensation? Why should there be compensation?”

“You slept with him for no reason and used my genes to wipe out the beast egg in his body, making it impossible for him to ever be a beast soldier. Do you not need to take responsibility?”

“If I had not removed the beast egg, he would be dead. I saved his life, and he smoothed over your reproductive urge. It is fair.”

The White Python was speechless for a while, then simply closed its eye scales again. “Many times, I feel you are more of a beast than I am. But where is there a frigid beast? Tsk.”

Qin Zhen had a dream.

In the dream, he successfully gestated a war beast, but during birth, a thick snake tail suddenly emerged from his backside and tightly coiled around his neck, nearly strangling him.

He shouted, “I am not even that dry!” and jumped straight off the operating bed, slipping and falling flat on his back.

A light surgical drape fell beside him. He stared blankly, not yet fully awake from the nightmare.

A smiling face entered his vision: “Congratulations, you are pregnant.”

“Pregnant?”

“Yes. Others were detected in less than a minute, but you took a full five minutes. Fortunately, energy fluctuations appeared. Seeing how much energy you have, you must have gained self-healing abilities from the young beast. Your body should be fine. By the way, there is a question I need to ask, though I do not know if you remember.”

“A question?”

“Yes.” Lu Yanqiu glanced outside the hatch and lowered her voice. “Your clothes, did you take them off yourself, or were you forced to?”

“Clothes?”

Qin Zhen instinctively moved his eyes and finally realized he was completely naked. Looking at the beautiful doctor right in front of him, he bolted up from the floor, grabbing the drape to cover himself front and back as everything came rushing back.

“Ah, sorry, sorry! I am not an exhibitionist.” His dark face could not hide the flush of blood as he spoke incoherently. Then, his brain suddenly caught the question she had just asked. “I took them off myself!”

The reaction was so intense that Lu Yanqiu’s eyes flickered.

Could it be as the Vice Commander speculated, that he was robbed during the fusion? And as a soldier, he felt it was too shameful to admit?

“Then when you took off, when you fused with the beast egg, was there anyone around you?” she asked as tactfully as possible.

“Of course not! That place was remote; I was alone the whole time!”

“I see. It is nothing; I was just asking. Your clothes have been brought back; put them on first.”

To Qin Zhen, the beautiful doctor’s tone sounded somewhat strange. Did she think he was doing that with someone on the fusion grounds and that is why he stripped?

Thinking of this, Qin Zhen could not help but repeat toward Lu Yanqiu’s back: “I really took them off myself! That egg was so big, I was worried!”

“I know, I know,” Lu Yanqiu replied, walking out the hatch without looking back.

Qin Zhen slapped his forehead in frustration. What was going on?

The facts were plain: he had fainted from pain during the fusion and had his body carried back like a corpse. Being that weak was embarrassing enough, but what was worse was losing all dignity in front of such a great beauty.

“Heavens, the first time in 30 years of being single since birth!”

After wailing, he encouraged himself. It is fine. I heard the doctors for fusion operations all come from the Breeding Center. There will be plenty of chances to repair my image in front of the beauty later.

Setting down the surgical drape and preparing to dress, Qin Zhen’s gaze froze.

On the snow-white drape, there was a glaring patch of dark red.

Blood? His blood?

The drape had been covering his front and back, which meant the blood came from there. After twisting his head and looking down, Qin Zhen finally found the bloodstain at the base of his thigh, near the gluteal cleft. It felt sticky and somewhat dry, indicating the blood had flowed a while ago.

It must be a scrape, he thought.

He vaguely remembered that because it hurt so much, he had been rolling around on the ground clutching his stomach.

In the small square, the Central Legion and all fusers had already boarded. Only the neat square formations of the local legion remained.

Lu Yanqiu walked to Ding Xiaoyi’s side and reported the results of her inquiry.

Ding Xiaoyi pondered for a moment and asked, “You are a doctor and good at observing. Do you think he was telling the truth?”

“It should be true. The pain index of a beast egg merging into the body is too high; if it lasts a bit longer, it is easy to become delirious. The bruises on him might have been scratched by himself, an unconscious attempt to drive out the source of pain. After detecting the young beast’s energy, his self-healing speed significantly increased; the bruises have basically disappeared now.”

“Hmph, I suppose no one would dare act up on my territory.”

Accepting Lu Yanqiu’s deduction, the anger in Ding Xiaoyi’s heart finally subsided.

“Since his injuries are healed, kick that kid onto the warship immediately. Occupying the medical ship like this is unacceptable.”

As soon as he stepped onto the warship, Qin Zhen was treated to a round of staring.

Someone teased: “Yo, isn’t this the wild combat soldier who was carried back like a corpse?”

Hearing this, he understood. Everyone present had witnessed the embarrassing sight of him being carried back naked. As for wild combat, “Screw you! I am clean as a whistle; I haven’t even touched a woman’s hand to this day, alright?”

“With a build like yours, that should not be the case! Could it be that your gear is just for show but does not work?”

“Whether it works or not, why do you not try it and see?”

Since they were all men, Qin Zhen’s retort was merciless, even accompanied by two pelvic thrusts, causing a roar of laughter in the cabin.

The laughter quickly died down because Lu Yanqiu entered, tapping Qin Zhen’s arm with a folder. “Watch it with the jokes; there are female soldiers here too.”

The legion did not restrict gender, so the male to female ratio was roughly equal, as was the case with the fusers in this operation.

Immediately, a male soldier voiced his disagreement, pointing at a female soldier beside him. “Lu Yanqiu, she was laughing louder than me just now! You cannot treat the women in the legion like women!”

Qin Zhen deeply agreed.

Although there were no female soldiers in his squad, he had seen many tough ones. They were as fierce as wolves in combat and spoke filth without any inhibition, often leaving male soldiers blushing in defeat.

Therefore, Qin Zhen had no psychological qualms about being seen naked by these female soldiers. Only Lu Yanqiu, his dream goddess was a gentle and considerate beauty like Lu Yanqiu.

Qin Zhen stopped talking and dutifully found an empty seat to buckle his safety belt.

This sitting down caused a problem, a momentary flash of pain in his backside. Shifting a bit, the pain appeared, then slowly faded.

What is going on? Is the scrape on my butt not healed yet?

It takes ten minutes for a starship to go from takeoff to steady flight. During these ten minutes, Qin Zhen silently fine-tuned his sitting position, trying to find the specific point of pain. Sometimes it felt like the pain was on the outside, but after twisting a few times, it felt like it was on the inside, a slight, tearing kind of pain.

“That is weird.”

He muttered to himself. No matter how he scraped himself, it should not have reached the inside, right?

The starship suddenly jolted violently before transitioning from high-speed turbulence to stability; they had left the colonial planet and entered space.

That wisp of pain also completely vanished.

Qin Zhen instinctively looked down, and out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a pair of eyes seemingly staring at him. It was Lu Yanqiu, who had stood up from her seat. Her beautiful, smiling eyes always seemed to carry some deep meaning.

Qin Zhen scratched his head awkwardly and quickly sat up straight.

Lu Yanqiu stopped looking at him, her gaze sweeping across the vast cabin. Her voice was soft and melodious: “Before the starship reaches the Breeding Center, let us take the time to tally the gestational sac situation. Female soldiers do not need to participate. Male soldiers who have previously been found to have a gestational sac, or whose elders have one, please raise your hand.”

As a semi-native who had lived in this world for ten years, it took Qin Zhen several seconds to understand the meaning of her words, and his eyes widened in disbelief.

What the hell?

Men, gestational sacs?

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