Chapter 49: Pregnant?
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: Karai
The glass wine bottle was put in an ice bucket and chilled, and the blue liquor was poured into a glass, coating the walls with a layer of white frost. When Lin Xu’s fingers touched the wall of the glass, the white frost turned into cool droplets of water that flowed down his palm and into his cuff, sliding down to his elbow.
He took a sip of the blue fruit wine, which came from one of the extraterrestrials’ plantations and produced a liquor with a subtle cranberry sweetness. Lin Xu poured himself a sip of wine, the other hand grasping Blackie, as if to relieve the restlessness in his body. Blackie finally could not resist, calling out. The blue fruit wine was not mild, and the cold liquid slid into the stomach and made the lips and teeth tingle.
Heinrich saw that Lin Xu did not have a free hand, so he brought the steak in front of Lin Xu to himself, cut it with a knife and fork and then put it in front of Lin Xu.
“Xu Xing said that you’ve had a bad appetite lately.”
“A little…” Lin Xu put down his glass and forked a small piece of beef. In fact, the food at Ninth Canteen didn’t taste bad, but Lin Xu’s stomach was so upset that he often couldn’t eat and could only chew and swallow.
“Is the food not to your liking?”
Lin Xu shook his head. In the last few days, Ninth Canteen had been bringing him different kinds of food, and those that he had eaten a few more bites at the last meal would be left behind, and those that he didn’t like would be replaced with new dishes. But he still didn’t have much of an appetite, the past few days, when he was really hungry, he’d just take a few bites of crystals to satisfy the craving.
The steak was evenly coated with silver, oily and golden, and if it was in the usual way, Lin Xu would have finished a plate in no time, but today after a few bites he began to retch. He tried to take a sip of wine to suppress the nausea that was coming up, but he choked himself and coughed, and Heinrich immediately stood up and patted Lin Xu’s back.
“Go see a doctor.” Heinrich whispered as he held Lin Xu’s shoulders. He didn’t want to see Lin Xu suffer. But the invincible Marshal Chu could not do anything but stand by Lin Xu’s side at this moment. Lin Xu tried to calm his breathing, his palm fell on the back of Heinrich’s hand on his shoulder, slowly holding Heinrich’s palm, but his mouth said the words of refusal, “No…”
Heinrich’s fingers moved and touched the inside of Lin Xu’s wrist, blood coursing through his veins, his pulse pulsing and emitting heat. And sweetness.
The sweetness of Lin Xu’s body hadn’t dissipated recently, lingering damply and warmly around him, and Heinrich even suspected that Blackie, whom he’d held in his arms for so long, was also tainted with it. But Heinrich stood his ground, “I’ll walk you to the doctor, it’s in C, not far.”
He turned the back of his hand and met Lin Xu’s palm, holding the warm, cool palm back. Lin Xu was reluctantly led up by Heinrich, both of their joined hands were right handed, Lin Xu’s right arm was angled around his body because of this movement, making it inconvenient to walk, and when he got up, they had to let go of their hands.
Lin Xu picked up the white gloves on the table and handed them to Heinrich, who led him forward while putting on the gloves, moving with some urgency, as if he wanted to retain the warmth and touch of his hands. The hand that was just held was now squeezing Blackie’s paw and playing with it.
His eyelashes drooped and his gaze, which was originally looking at Heinrich’s hands, retracted to Blackie’s paws when Heinrich turned his head. Blackie’s fur was shiny and glossy, but the plum-shaped fleshy pads were pink. Lin Xu intentionally or unintentionally pressed his thumb on the middle of the pads, and Blackie tried to tuck his legs in, but he pulled him back strongly and pressed the pads again.
The rabbit-cat’s toes were usually together, like little fluffy balls, but when Lin Xu squeezed them, they would open up, accompanied by a calling sound, and with a little more force, he could even press the rabbit-cat’s translucent milky white keratin paws. Lin Xu didn’t cut their nails, so the natural nail curvature was slightly curved and the tips were sharp.
Blackie desperately reached out to scratch a handful of nearby Heinrich, not leaving half a trace on Heinrich’s special black regular dress. But Heinrich’s eyes were startled, with a faintly dark ripple. Lin Xu’s fingers seemed to press him…
Blackie rolled in Lin Xu’s arms and buried his head in Lin Xu’s chest, refusing to face the two bad guys.
Lin Xu was a little more comfortable, letting go of Blackie’s paws and gently pinching the rabbit-cat’s long ears, he lifted his chin and looked at Heinrich. Heinrich looked away. He made no expression, but the surge in his chest and belly made Heinrich think he must have lost his temper. And missed Lin Xu’s revealing to the point of stinging gaze scraping across his sharp jawline and throat knot.
—
There was a knock at the door.
The doctor on mealtime duty, whose seat was facing the door, pressed the automatic door-opening button and mumbled, “Just a minute, I’ll be done.” as he winded down on his artificial macaroni nutritional solids.
Heinrich glanced at the duty roster displayed on the hover screen and replied, “Yes, Dr. Hassan.”
When Hassan heard the cold voice, he felt familiar, as if he had heard it somewhere before. The news? The radio? Wait! He jerked back, saw Heinrich’s face and shoulder patch, and jumped up at once to salute Heinrich, “Greetings Marshal!”
Heinrich returned the salute. “Marshal asked for me because…”
Heinrich’s medical administration was not vested in them, the doctors.
“To see a doctor.” Heinrich was brief and concise. Hassan looked over to Lin Xu, who was holding the rabbit-cat next to Heinrich, and realized that Dr. Lin did look like he wasn’t in good health and had needed to take a special blend of nutrients before. Hassan sat the two down and the intelligent medical assistant came up to take a blood sample for testing, and he began to ask Lin Xu about his condition.
“Regurgitation, vomiting? Did you eat any food before this condition started?”
“The usual nutritional supplements.”
“Hmm.” Hassan nodded and crossed out food poisoning, “And did you encounter anything? Any previous cases of neurological gastroenteritis?”
“Lin Xu was on Blizzard during that time, facing the Black Hole front.” Heinrich explained that the security footage in the Delta Sector had been completely erased, and Heinrich did not say explicitly to the outside world why Lin Xu was on the ship that Zhou Pingbo was leading back to the ship. The soldiers vaguely speculated that Lin Xu had been brought there by Heinrich.
Hassan thought of the difficult battle conditions on the front lines earlier, “Then it could be neurological. Did Dr. Lin have a medical examination after the return trip? What did the doctor say at the time?”
“She gave me some medicine, mainly to repair radiation injuries and stabilizing drugs.”
Somewhat confused by the previous doctor’s judgment, Hassan asked Lin Xu to enter his ID and access his medical record information. When the electronic medical record loaded, Hassan stared at the striking red and blue heart symbol on the chart, leaning in close to it to try to make sure his eyes weren’t blurry. He took another careful glance at the silent, aloof Lin Xu, then looked down, then down again, then down at Lin Xu’s gender bar.
Perhaps Hassan’s behavior was so odd that Heinrich’s eyebrows wrinkled slightly and asked, “Dr. Hassan, is there a problem?”
“Just a moment, just a moment…”
Hassan sweated furiously as he took out the medical assistant’s lab data sheet, repeatedly confirmed Lin Xu’s HCG hormone values, and finally looked up at the cold, ascetic-looking Heinrich. In a skeptical tone, he slowly spoke, “It’s… it’s not a big problem…”
Heinrich’s golden eyes stared at him. Hassan moved back to his seat and took a deep breath to cheer himself up, telling himself that Marshal just looked cold, not scary at all, and it was fine.
“Nausea and retching are… A normal part of pregnancy, male beta’s body is not built for childbirth like omega’s, so the reaction to pregnancy vomiting will be stronger, if needed, I can prescribe some antiemetic and… antifetals?”
Hassan saw the expressions of the two men across the table change.
“Dr. Lin didn’t tell you?… …Dr. Lin, you didn’t know yourself?”
Lin Xu was bewildered for a moment, then suddenly got up and headed out, Blackie was picked up by him with a startled wail.
“Lin Xu!” Heinrich watched Lin Xu slam the door and instantly got up to catch up with him. Before he left the door, he looked back at Hassan, his voice cold and stern, “Dr. Hassan, you haven’t seen us today.”
“Yes, yes.” Dr. Hassan nodded his head repeatedly. He looked at Heinrich’s cold to horrible expression, countless speculations flashed through his mind, and suddenly his heart sank for Lin Xu. Alas, our poor and fragile Dr. Lin.
—
Heinrich chased him all the way out, “Lin Xu! Lin Xu!” The only thing he wanted to do now was to find Lin Xu, nothing else mattered, even if Lin Xu… already had a lover and didn’t care about him. Suddenly, a pair of hands rushed out and covered Heinrich’s mouth, pushing him into a utility room. The door slammed shut with inertia, and with a loud bang, the last of the light in the hallway was cut off, plunging the room into darkness.
“Heinrich, be quiet.”
Lin Xu pressed Heinrich against the wall and covered his mouth, sweetly wrapped in a gasp, like a grotto on a sand star… But Lin Xu was conscious at the moment, and he made sure Heinrich had calmed down before gradually letting go of his hand.
There was a lump against the front of Heinrich’s belly, but there was no semblance of light in the room, so he lifted his hand only to find that it was the hairy Blackie. Heinrich scratched Blackie’s fur, and his fingertips touched Lin Xu’s hand along the way, and through a layer of smooth silk, the warmth and undulations of his breath kept coming through.
Lin Xu did not pull his hand away, and the only sound that remained between them was the sound of breathing. Heinrich tentatively moved forward, and when Lin Xu did not back off, he took hold of Lin Xu’s slender wrist. Lin Xu felt remorseful for his impulsive escape, he was really… For a moment his mind went blank and he was lost. Pregnant?
When the chief physician told him at the time that he had an estrus stage and reproductive cavity and might be able to have little mermaid babies, he only heard it as a joke. Even on Sandstar, strong instincts swept over reason, and he might have forced Heinrich on him if he hadn’t been restrained and strong enough. But he had never thought of himself as pregnant.
Or about a child. In the apocalypse, some people indulged themselves in desire to escape reality. But no one thought about children. No new life should be thrown into a world of despair.
Lin Xu was speechless and did not resist when Heinrich took him by the wrist and tentatively took him into his arms. But he felt Heinrich tremble as he took him into his arms. When was the last time they had been this close? A fight? And the last time? It was like this, too. But Lin Xu and Heinrich had never had much ill will toward each other.
Lin Xu moved his feet and stepped forward a little, and Heinrich’s rough but soft lips pressed right against his brow bone. The two were close enough that Blackie finally had a chance to climb up and lie down on Heinrich’s broad, sturdy shoulders, his paws still in the crook of Heinrich’s arms holding Lin Xu.
Heinrich paused at the first moment of contact, almost afraid to breathe, unsure of how to move, until he couldn’t help it and let out a long breath. Hot breath sprayed on Lin Xu’s eyelashes.
The author has something to say.
Marshal is not easy (dog head)
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