Chapter 46: Should I… Neuter Him?

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Karai

The snow leopard looked at Lu Yao. Lu Yao looked back at the snow leopard. He blinked in the big cat’s shocked gaze, though he didn’t let go of his hand. The air was silent for three seconds.

“Meow?” Torque finished the food in his bowl and let out a soft, weak meow toward Lu Yao.

The mysterious silence shattered. The next moment, the snow leopard leapt three feet into the air, twisting midair with teeth bared and claws out, kicking and flailing, his uncontrolled tail smacking the ceiling with a loud whap.

When he landed, the snow leopard tumbled and scrambled to the corner, burrowing into the drawn-up curtains, wrapping his long tail tightly around himself like a living sculpture. Was he really that shy? Or was it estrus, making him extra wary?

Lu Yao clapped his hands, brushing off the fur caught between his fingers. He didn’t go over to provoke the snow leopard again. After cleaning up the dishes, he picked up Torque, letting the snow leopard be alone.

Zhou Yunchen… Zhou Yunchen couldn’t calm down. He didn’t know why, but in the past few days he had felt unusually restless. His possessiveness and destructive urges had skyrocketed. The night was deep, stars flickering, yet his mind was still consumed by the earlier scene and the lingering touch. He couldn’t appreciate any scenery.

Yes, he wasn’t human now. He was just a snow leopard. But Lu Yao had directly grabbed a snow leopard… was that even reasonable?

Zhou Yunchen remained stiff all over. He remembered when Lu Yao had taken Torque to wash him, rubbing every inch of the white cat’s fur until it foamed.

Lu Yao had never thought it was a problem to touch a cat all over. But… Zhou Yunchen wasn’t really a cat. If he were in human form now, and Lu Yao reached out—no, stop. He couldn’t even imagine it. Even the slightest thought felt sacrilegious.

The more sacrilegious it felt, the more a guilty excitement surged in his chest. But Lu Yao wouldn’t do such a thing. He wouldn’t do it and still maintain that calm, serious expression, blinking, looking Zhou Yunchen in the eye.

The waves in his mind battered Zhou Yunchen’s already fragile rationality. His breathing trembled. Even when he closed his eyes, he could still see Lu Yao’s ice-blue eyes.

“Grrr…” The snow leopard let out a long sigh, collapsing to the ground and burying his face in his long tail. It felt as if thousands of shrikes had pierced his chest with their sharp beaks. Excitement and self-loathing made his muscles ache and tingle.

Lu Yao hadn’t closed the bedroom door that night, but the snow leopard hadn’t come in at all. Later, in the middle of the night, the snow leopard wailed again in the courtyard, his cry longer and more mournful than before. Lu Yao suspected that his own actions had worsened the snow leopard’s estrus. The AI had turned on soundproofing for Lu Yao, who forced himself back to sleep. In the morning, he didn’t hear the snow leopard’s cries.

But when he found the snow leopard in the courtyard, he saw him slumped, fur messy and limp. He clearly hadn’t slept well last night. Lu Yao went over and patted the snow leopard’s head, smoothing out his fur. Yet the snow leopard’s spirit remained low. He didn’t dare look at Lu Yao even once. This couldn’t go on. Lu Yao, feeling deeply for the big cat, hugged him around the neck.

“Wooo…” The snow leopard, overwhelmed by the catnip scent of Lu Yao’s pheromones, was dizzy and didn’t notice Lu Yao dialing Zhao Minghe.

“Hello, Aide Zhao. I wanted to ask you something.”

“Please, go ahead.”

“The snow leopard’s estrus period ¹has arrived.”

Zhao Minghe: “?”

“He seems uncomfortable, and I’m not sure whether I should arrange a neutering procedure for him.”

Zhao Minghe: “???” Neutering… what? Neutering who? The moment the word left Lu Yao’s mouth, the snow leopard instantly snapped awake, his eyes wide with fear. Estrus period? The restless, irritable behavior of the past few days—the constant yelling and roaming—was an animal estrus period?

Why had the snow leopard suddenly entered estrus in this season? Could it be… because he had smelled too much of Lu Yao’s pheromones and lost control?

Lu Yao held the snow leopard by the neck, unable to see his face, and continued speaking. “Since there’s no second female snow leopard for mating on New Blue Star, preserving this snow leopard’s reproductive function isn’t absolutely necessary. He’s very uncomfortable now, so neutering is the better option.”

Zhao Minghe looked both confused and overwhelmed. He had always considered himself calm, collected, and rational, yet he had lost count of how many times he had mentally collapsed under Lu Yao’s casual words.

“Mr. Lu,” Zhao Minghe said, “I… uh, I don’t think this is necessary. If needed, when General Zhou raised him, everything would have been handled.” He had no choice but to invoke Zhou Yunchen as a shield. “Right now, we can only refer to ancient Earth practices for raising large felines. Generally, large predatory cats weren’t neutered. Has he interfered with your life in any way?”

Zhao Minghe noticed that Lu Yao kept speaking about the snow leopard being uncomfortable due to estrus, without mentioning whether he himself had been troubled at all.

“No, he’s very obedient,” Lu Yao said, stroking the tense muscles along the snow leopard’s back.

“That’s good, then. Neutering isn’t necessary.” Zhao Minghe still couldn’t be sure if neutering the snow leopard would affect Zhou Yunchen’s human form. If it did, agreeing today could mean needing to atone with his life tomorrow.

“How long will the snow leopard’s estrus period last?”

“About a week,” Zhao Minghe replied, citing data he had seen in historical records.

“Then we’ll wait until he gets through this week.” After ending the call, Lu Yao stood and saw the snow leopard’s gaze—complex, a mixture of fear, surprise, and subtle emotions. The snow leopard immediately lowered his head, biting his own tail to block his mouth and stop himself from making any sound, as if anticipating Lu Yao would scold him.

Though they had just been discussing terminating the snow leopard’s lineage, Lu Yao now bent over gently, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead. “It’s okay. Once this week is over, everything will be fine.”

The full council meeting would be held at the Space Planning Department building. When Lu Yao and Mo Feng arrived, there were still thirty minutes before the official start. The conference hall’s tiered seating formed a semicircle. At the front, in front of eight-meter-tall floor-to-ceiling windows, stood the podium.

Over three hundred council members occupied the central section. Lu Yao and Mo Feng sat in the invited guest section on the right. Lu Yao’s gaze drifted to the entrance, where Chang Jian was greeting arriving guests. His eyes shifted, meeting Lu Shiyan’s from the left front. The silver-haired elder pursed his lips and nodded at Lu Yao. Lu Yao nodded back from a distance. It seemed things were on track.

More members and invited guests continued to arrive. Mo Feng got up to rehearse his speech in a nearby lounge, leaving a vacant seat beside Lu Yao. A few seconds later, someone took the seat.

“Chief Engineer Lu, hello. Long time no see,” the newcomer greeted.

“Hello. You’re… Mr. Liu, Sales Director of Helios Group?” Lu Yao glanced at the nameplate on the man’s chest, which read “Committee Member #87.”

“Yes. I’m honored that someone as busy as you remembers me,” Director Liu said with a smile, noticing Lu Yao’s glance. “I’m attending as a council member today, but since the meeting hasn’t started yet, I’m just an ordinary person for now. I wanted to ask if Helios Group might have a chance to receive the next batch of orders for the First Base.”

Lu Yao replied, “The FL03 mecha will soon enter production. There will be a major energy contract at that time.”

“But I heard that your next NTL mecha will improve energy efficiency?”

“Heard?” Lu Yao raised an eyebrow.

“Yes. During the last council review of the NTL concept, a few technical experts mentioned it to me. They said the energy system seems to have been changed in the new core design.”

“It’s just some structural adjustments,” Lu Yao said.

“Will it save more energy?”

Lu Yao glanced at him. “I hope weapons powered by the mecha itself will be more powerful. The new design won’t necessarily save energy.”

In other words, it might not reduce energy procurement—and Liu was definitely waiting to hear that. Director Liu seemed to finally relax, his smile deepening. “Then I’ll wish you all the best with your work, Chief Engineer Lu.”

In reality, even if the current energy consumption wouldn’t change, the improved efficiency of the NTL energy system would still reduce the amount of energy that might have otherwise been purchased. But that was better than Lu Yao directly telling Helios Group that the high-efficiency NTL system was actually being prepared for another type of new energy. Until the new energy experiments were complete, the NTL series would continue using conventional energy as a temporary solution.

Ten minutes later, the full council meeting officially began. The council members typically used this session to review proposals requiring reconsideration. After presentations on captured exotic beasts, planetary land management regulations, and border star police–legion cooperation laws, Mo Feng and representatives from the other two R&D bases took the stage to restate the advantages and positions of the Mecha Research Institute.

After an impassioned presentation, the meeting moved into the long, tedious process of voting and tallying. Each member voted anonymously on their personal terminals, while the front screen displayed the proposals and their vote counts.

A proposal required over two-thirds of the votes to pass. The previous border star police–legion cooperation law was clearly losing, ultimately receiving only a quarter of the votes. Groans of disappointment echoed from the invited guest section behind Lu Yao.

Mo Feng whispered, “The border star police won’t want to be under direct Federation legion control. This proposal was bound to fail. Don’t worry about us.”

Lu Yao said nothing. The Mecha Research Institute’s projects climbed steadily in vote count on the screen, but as they neared a majority, the counting slowed. Just five votes remained. Trying to calm Lu Yao, Mo Feng gripped his suit pants tightly. Five… four… three… Sweat soaked his palms. The results were about to be revealed.

Suddenly—bang bang bang!—flames erupted in the conference hall. Explosions instantly drowned out the electronic vote tally. Fireball after fireball erupted against the glass curtain wall, tongues of flame consuming the screen, erasing all text and light. Before anyone could react, the blast wave carried shards of glass into the hall. The intense heat and blinding light hit Lu Yao’s vulnerable eyes almost simultaneously, plunging him into darkness.

When Zhou Yunchen realized that the agitation in the snow leopard’s body was due to estrus, the sensation became even more pronounced under his conscious attention.

The snow leopard rolled across the floor several times until even his thick tail couldn’t silence the cries from his throat. He sprinted up to the second floor in three long strides, found Lu Yao’s room, and leapt, curling midair into a perfect leopard shape, landing on Lu Yao’s bed. He rubbed his face vigorously against the scent left behind by Lu Yao.

Nearby, the housekeeping robot was busy cleaning the scattered cat fur. The flying fur triggered its sensors when the snow leopard jumped onto the bed. The robot’s indicator lights lit up. “Hair debris detected. Hair debris detected. Activating vacuum cleaning mode.”

The next moment, the rumbling vacuum landed on the snow leopard’s back, buzzing and shaking, sucking up all the loose fur. The snow leopard shook his head but quickly realized that the sensation wasn’t unpleasant. He buried his face in Lu Yao’s pillow and stayed still.

After a while, Zhou Yunchen received a message through his implanted chip from Zhao Minghe. “General, the full council venue has encountered an explosion!”

Lu Yao was at the council venue right now! In the next instant, the housekeeping robot’s system lost its cleaning target. Its recognition software identified the moving object in front of it as human. A pair of feet, encased in military boots, hit the floor and sprinted downstairs. The housekeeping robot was toppled in the rush. Its indicator lights flashed red. “Tipped over. Tipped over.”

Author’s note:

Zhou Yunchen: Apparently, being a cat in Lu Yao’s house is still very dangerous…

 

 

This Title is available for faster chapter releases through paid Patreon membership. Any proceeds go to keeping the website running. Check it out HERE.