Insectoids: The Job of the Males

“Group Captain, sir,” greets the nervous Zhou Luoluo, who is quite relieved to see Wei Zhuo and Meng Yuele here, “I’ll be in your care this operation. You know, for subject credits.”

As Cheng Zhaoci’s junior in school, he’s had his thoughts about males-only schools upended entirely. Graduation is a serious pain in the arse, and apparently, there are even insectoids who are still falling short of graduation standards at 50 years of age.

Zhou Luoluo, freshly eighteen, is scared. Yet in this operation, it’s not just Wei Zhuo and his soldiers who would get lots of merit, but Zhou Luoluo can get lots of academic merit as well. Zhou Luoluo also trusts in the strength of his friend’s cijun.

“Did your cijun let you come?” Meng Yuele is also happier to work with males he knows. He doesn’t have to watch his language and gestures all the time, or possibly even have to spend time just synchronising their language in commands and arrangements.

The mention of his newly wed cijun makes Zhou Luoluo blush, “yeah. He believes in your strength too,” and he specifically reminded him not to blabber as much as usual in front of Wei Zhuo and the other soldiers if he doesn’t want them to resent working with him.

“I see, that’s well,” Wei Zhuo nods, then tells him, “now get ready. To minimise the chances of them having already moved on, we’re setting off immediately.”

Zhou Luoluo didn’t need to disguise himself, meanwhile. His school helped issue fake orders for him to acquire materials for his study, and the Zhou family’s male couldn’t buy it anywhere, so he was going to some other planet to try.

Taking into account the current situation, he hired Wei Zhuo and the other disguised shemale soldiers as guards.

Wei Zhuo runs Zhou Luoluo through the plan briefly.

“Got it,” Zhou Luoluo says, then retrieves some small circular buttons from his pocket, “these are from Cheng Zhaoci. They’re working prototypes. He says they will break if directly hit by class L kinetic weaponry or higher, but small energy firearms would be A-ok. It’s an additional security.”

The buttons are about the size of a fingertip. Most of the buttons are red in colour, except for a green and a pink one, with the characters ‘Zhou’ and ‘Wei’ there. Clearly, these are custom-made.

“Yooooo,” yells Meng Yuele. Never mind the custom one for the male Zhou Luoluo, but the grade S shemale Wei Zhuo who is getting a customised one too? This must be true love.

While suffering under the piercing gazes of every other member of the operation team, Wei Zhuo clears his throat, “we have no time for idle chatter. To your stations!”

Then Meng Yuele and the other soldiers all watch him turn around to check his equipment again.

Meng Yuele whispers, “he’s blushing.”

Another soldier nods, “yes, it’s red.”

Yet another chimes in, “hey, look, it’s up to his ears.”

Zhou Luoluo seals the deal, “wowie.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Yells Wei Zhuo, turning around in a snap, as his gossipping coworkers all immediately stand up straight. Then he repeats himself, “to stations! No more idle chats!”

“Oh? Those prototypes? They’re really rough around the edges. They also perform much worse than the one installed on my mecha,” Cheng Zhaoci is chatting to a senior, “it’s basically a big tough eggshell, too, not yet being able to take the form of the user’s body yet. It should be enough, though.”

“I see. It’s almost impossible to imagine being able to miniaturise all the bulky components needed to maintain a solid defence,” ‘almost,’ because a grade S male is really being a cheat.

Though the senior then wonders, “so what did you put in those two prototypes with the custom colours?”

What did he put? It’s all the same. Cheng Zhaoci answers, “it’s just the same as the other prototypes, but there is a small difference. The other ones all have normal, transparent shields, but those two have custom skins.”

Though clearly, the senior doesn’t understand what a ‘skin’ is, with the insectoids not having anything like gacha games, “well, if we get some post-action reports with images, you’ll know.”

“I’m also worried that mission might traumatise poor Zhou Luoluo,” Cheng Zhaoci adds, sighing, “so I added a little something that could distract him.”

The plan went pretty smoothly. They quickly run into the pirates, and having deliberately taking Zhou Luoluo with them, they have not aroused suspicions.

Zhou Luoluo was also genuinely scared and nervous when he was caught, mainly because he isn’t used to seeing something like this. It only makes it more convincing.

Actually, the weakest link in the chain was Wei Zhuo, whose acting was appalling at best. Still, he got by just staring daggers into the pirate who was tying him up – which earned him a big slap on the face. Meng Yuele was quite scared – for the pirate, that is. Poor guy.

What was unexpected was that Sun Wushe was on the spaceship.

When they were taken as captives in front of Sun Wushe, Meng Yuele was sweating quite a bit. He, Wei Zhuo and Sun Wushe practically grew up as childhood friends. They are at least thankful that, from the conversation taking place between Sun Wushe and his subordinates, the insane Jin Yue isn’t here. They only have to contend with the observant and familiar Sun Wushe possibly figuring them out.

To their immense relief, Sun Wushe’s attention was on Zhou Luoluo entirely, having spent much time with Cheng Zhaoci, and by extension, having seen this friend of his quite some time. He remembers this male as being quite talkative and careless, “Zhou Luoluo?”

“Yes, yes, it’s… it’s me!” Zhou Luoluo makes himself look too scared to look Sun Wushe in the eye, “I-I-I-I never did anything! I just married. I treat my cijun very well. Can you please let me go? I would never say anything. No one will know where you are.”

Before Sun Wushe can answer, a bald shemale standing on the side smirks, “let you go? Who do you think you are, ordering us around?”

“I wasn’t…” But he gets interrupted by the shemale slapping him right on the face – harsh enough that he is bleeding a little from the mouth. His face swells in almost no time.

Fuck! Zhou Luoluo is biding his time. He will remember him! He will have his revenge, or have his surname wiped!

“What are you doing?!” Wei Zhuo and his other soldiers make a show of struggling against the bonds, but pretending to be grade B shemales, they of course ‘fail.’

“Enough,” Sun Wushe orders, still looking at Zhou Luoluo, then waving his hand away, “take them to the cells, then.”

Zhou Luoluo, meanwhile, is struggling for real, mostly because he’s not going to be any danger against the shemales holding him still.

His struggling continues only until he ends up where the males are kept.

He freezes. Entirely. From both fear and shock.