Insectoids: The Job of the Males

Lu Su stops abruptly on his way ‘to the bathroom,’ right beside Cheng Zhaoci, facing him with a smile.

He might be quite the bellend in personality, but he can also act dignified when he needs to, “apologies, but I just happened to spot your page. Can I ask if you’re a comic artist?”

Not mentioning the ID itself is a saving grace for Cheng Zhaoci, that he isn’t exposed here.

When the three insectoids look at him, he extends his hand, “hello, I’m your fan. I’ve followed every one of your creations.”

Cheng Zhaoci wasn’t expecting to be spotted like that, but it’s also his own fault for being careless. Also, Cheng Zhaoci knows the lapel he is wearing.

It’s part of Wei Zhuo’s explanations for him, as one of the children his dead father’s cijun had ended up in parliament. His name is Lu Su, he thinks, but he didn’t get to see a photograph. There are none online.

Apparently, it’s to do with how the Federation strictly regulates photographs of officials.

The military is allowed to have their photos published and scrutinised, but not government officials. All photographs uploaded are scanned in the briefest of durations and deleted if it depicted any officials. It’s definitely an odd system. It’s not like they’re putting government officials undercover and must eliminate all traces of them online.

Not even Wei Zhuo knows why this system is in place; apparently his granddad, the Chief of the armed forces, knows something about it, but he hasn’t told him either.

The public are only aware of the politician’s name and what they did or did not do, but they have no idea how they looked.

As an extreme example, if someone was taking a photo of Cheng Zhaoci right now and happened to capture the member of parliament inside, their photo will fail to upload at all.

Cheng Zhaoci, seeing how Lu Su doesn’t seem to be leaving, asks tentatively, “would you like to eat with us?”

“If that doesn’t impose too terribly,” he says, while planting himself squarely across from Cheng Zhaoci, “I am quite surprised that you are a male,” not that it’s evident from his business smile.

Cheng Zhaoci also replies earnestly, “I’m not seeing that reaction,” at least, it’s far more subtle compared to Meng Yuele whose eyes were widened so much you fear they’d fall outside.

“I suppose it’s because there are too many surprising things to take into account in our daily lives,” Lu Su says while sniffing very subtly as he breathes. There isn’t a tinge of male pheromone, “you may understand the reason I’m still sitting calmly once you come of age.”

‘Calmly’ is quite the opposite statement if one could see beneath the smile Lu Su has, as his hands are buried in his blazers while his fingers are running nonstop to send a message to Lu Nianqian.

[LuSu: !!! guess who i met!]

The message is terribly like the opening act to an unfunny comedy show. Suspecting Lu Su to be up to no good, Lu Nianqian quietly turns off his message notifications for a while.

Leaving Lu Su to blabber alone.

Lu Su, while typing, is also multitasking by chatting up Cheng Zhaoci, “well, I’m sure it’s fate to run into a comic artist I like at an ordinary lunch. I’m Lu Su, how about you?”

Lu, Lu what?! Cheng Zhaoci blanks out, as all three insectoids stare right at Lu Su, making his finger freeze in his blazer, thinking they might have realised he is typing all along.

“Which Lu? Which Su?” Cheng Zhaoci asks.

Lu Su, while confused, still retrieves a calling card from his blazer to hand it over.

Ah, great. Cheng Zhaoci is certain now. The world sure is small, to run right into a member of parliament at a meal, and the member in question being that damned cijun‘s son!

Like, Capital planet. Planet! Planet! While Cheng Zhaoci is inside the most prosperous city, but there are so many other insectoids around! Why would he even run into him at all?! Is this actually the Capital village?!

“Tiezhu,” Cheng Zhaoci, glancing at Xiao Ji, says firmly, “Xiao Tiezhu. I’m Xiao Tiezhu,” Cheng Zhaoci ends up spouting this extremely easy to remember and also utterly depraved name in the eleventh hour.

“?” Lu Su looks like he has lots of question marks floating above his head. What family would name their beloved male kid Tiezhu? An iron rod?! Though, being the politician that he is, Lu Su is able to say with a completely straight face, “certainly, that’s a great name.”

Uh, wait what? Cheng Zhaoci is impressed by how well Lu Su is able to lie without flinching. Although Wei Zhuo described Lu Su the member of parliament as quite ‘unorthodox’ and ‘lively,’ his demeanour so far has only come off as proper.

“In fact, I suppose our appearance is a little alike, too. I might look more like your older brother than your actual brothers here,” the very unaware Lu Su is still trying to keep the mood up, “I have an older brother who looks even more like you, actually. Your eyes almost look like copies of each other’s pair. That must also be fate.”

‘Fate,’ or more accurately, ‘genetics.’ Cheng Zhaoci makes a very unconvincing smile while saying, “apologies, but I just remembered I have to receive a friend soon. I’ll be excusing myself,” Cheng Zhaoci gets up while glancing over at He Huaijian and gesturing subtly. Before Lu Su can even make pretentious polite remarks, they practically dash outside.

Lu Su looks at the meal left right in front of him, all bewildered, “wait, they’re not going to take a single bite?”