Zerg Chapter 4: Huan Jiade’s ‘Prank’

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: KarateChopMonkey

 

Huan Xiu didn’t know how Xi Ran’s life was, but at least for a short time after that, Huan Xiu’s life was on the right track.

Due to the delay the day before, Huan Xiu stopped by to have his hair cut the next morning before he went to the lab. When he arrived at the research room, his new style really caused a great surprise. Huan Xiu took this opportunity to get closer to many people, and once again received Kaczki’s enthusiasm from the next table who was trying to sell his brother to him.

The original owner of this body was originally a ‘bookworm’, otherwise, he would not have ended up in this job with such an unpleasant personality. With Huan Xiu’s current character, he was more like a fish in water. He also quickly won the favor of the professor when he worked as a teaching assistant twice a week. He classified all these reasons as ‘suddenly figured everything out’ and ‘cheered up after being lovelorn’.

It sounded ridiculous, but actually no one cared about the reason. Huan Xiu was a pleasant guy now, and it was enough for his ordinary colleagues and superiors and subordinates to know that. Fortunately, the original did not have any close friends, otherwise the switch may be revealed. Huan Xiu felt very lucky that he didn’t need to pretend to be someone else and live cautiously.

One of those who actually began to notice that Huan Xiu had changed was, sadly, the bunch of cousins who had been bullying him.

Huan Jiade held a more solemn ceremony than originally planned. There was a rumor that his female monarch was depressed for three days because he was also a female Zerg from a noble family. Huan Jiade had to spend some time to get the female to accept this.

When Huan Xiu found out about this, he thought it was incredible. Was his cousin a child? To piss him off, he was looking for trouble for himself? If Huan Xiu didn’t read the real disgust from the other person’s eyes, he would be afraid that the other was actually secretly in love with him.

A month later, Huan Xiu took the invitation and went to the ceremony like normal.

According to his seniority and status, Huan Xiu sat in the corner of the Huan family section. It was a ceremony, but it was a lot simpler than a wedding. After all, this was a concubine, and he couldn’t be more in the limelight than the main wife was when he married his husband. It was the first time that Huan Xiu had participated in such a ceremony. He remembered that the original never responded to similar invitations before and would only lock himself in his room.

He looked straight towards the center, and there stood the slender, inferior female, Ai Le. The other party seemed to sense Huan Xiu’s gaze, and looked up slightly, locking eyes with him. His expression was somewhat subtle but it couldn’t be said that he was sentimental or anything.

No. No way. Do you really want to hang on to others when you’re married? Huan Xiu was astonished. He knew that the original would have found an excuse and escaped. But he didn’t have any scruples. He just looked over there with no expression. Sure enough, it was Ai Le who retreated first and looked away in a panic.

Huan Jiade glanced at Huan Xiu’s line of sight, and seemed to make a triumphant glance.

Huan Xiu felt tired. He didn’t want to get along with these insufferable relatives.

He had been an adult for ten years. Couldn’t he move out of the house? His female father was unknown since he was born, and his irresponsible male father died accidentally by drunkenly stepping off a staircase. The original body of Huan Xiu had lived in his cousin’s house since he was a child. He had been suffering for more than ten years, but it seemed that he never wanted to move out until he died. Generally speaking, it was because of his own timidity.

This was immediately put on Huan Xiu’s agenda. Even if his aristocratic title would shrink rapidly after he left his family, he didn’t care. Because the troubles of the social aristocrats were too many for him to cope with. He just wanted to live a normal, everyday life.

In the twinkling of an eye, Huan Jiade and Ai Le were already in front of Huan Xiu. Huan Xiu said some old-fashioned blessings in a very uninspired way. In fact, his mind had already drifted to find a reason to leave his family.

Huan Jiade mocked, “I heard you don’t have a partner yet. Is it that you have a secret love that refuses to be with you? Cousin, you’re not getting any younger. Do you want to think about your marriage occasionally?”

“Ah, this cousin is really thinking about his younger brother.” A relative nearby flattered him.

“You’re too kind.” Huan Jiade fake smiled.

“Thank you. I’ll think about it,” said Huan Xiu, not surprised.

Huan Jiade was the most upset by his nonchalant appearance. But he seemed to suddenly think of some interesting ideas, and his expression became cheerful. Without saying goodbye, he dragged Ai Le to the next seat.

Huan Xiu didn’t think that the look Huan Jiade gave just now was anything good, but he didn’t think the other party could cause much trouble to him. Eighty percent of the time, it was just middle school student level mischief and pranks before. So he acted like he didn’t see it and let it go.

He didn’t expect that the nature of Huan Jiade’s ‘prank’ was many grades worse than before.

Huan Xiu, who had already mixed in with his colleagues in the research room, was eating with the other Zerg in the canteen at noon. He still didn’t talk much and most of the time just listened in silence, only occasionally responding with a word or two. Soon after eating, he felt the Zerg staring at him behind his back. He was very sensitive to the gazes cast around him, and immediately looked back a little uncomfortable. Two Zergs from other sections of the research department, who seemed to be inferior females, exclaimed.

There were no 300 silver Liang in this place, which made Huan Xiu more convinced that the two inferior females who had gathered together to whisper were talking about him.

“Wow, are you really lucky after having your hair cut?” Kaczki joked.

“What can I do for you?” Huan Xiu didn’t think that, because it was obvious that the faces of the two inferior females were not admiring, but suspicious.

“No, nothing, sorry!” Without answering him directly, the two inferior females ran away in a hurry.

On the way back to the lab, Huan Xiu felt the same kind of gazes from all directions. His inability to grasp the situation made him uneasy. What was going on?

Back in the lab, Kaczki took out his contacts, glanced, and then opened his eyes in surprise. “Huan Xiu, is it really true?”

“Hm?”

“’Hm’, what ‘hm’? Don’t you know? It’s your own business.” Kaczki swiped the screen, one dropping in thin air, and showed it to Huan Xiu.

Huan Xiu fixed his eyes on it and was surprised.

Since when was he going to marry?

And according to the news, it was the female Zerg, who was kicked out of his house recently.

Wasn’t that… Xi Ran?

Huan Xiu was a little confused for a moment, “I really don’t know… Who told you about this?”

“My concubine said his friend’s brother’s…” Kaczki reported a long list of relationships, “said you matched. Didn’t you? Is there something wrong? You’re not old enough to need a government match, right? Well… Although it’s true that a male Zerg can refuse the match unilaterally, but even if it’s only nominated as a concubine, it’s not right that the match will be rejected by the male Zerg…”

Because of the relationship between interests and marriage, the relationship between nobles was often complex. It was normal for such things to spread from ten to one hundred in an instant in noble colleges. Huan Xiu knew why so many Zergs looked at him curiously before.

Assuming that this so-called matching information was true, if he did not know the news yesterday, it must have happened only today. In a short period of time, once they knew about this private matter, they had publicized it. It was not that Huan Xiu liked to doubt it, but there were no other candidates except those cousins who weren’t busy all day and weren’t friendly with him.

As Kaczki said, although Huan Xiu’s identity was not valued in the Huan family, it was far from being ‘degraded’ to be matched with a divorced female Zerg. What’s more, Xi Ran was a commoner, not to mention, he had a young Zerg, even if he was to only be a concubine, it was a blessing for him.

Huan Xiu didn’t really understand these things, but only after listening to Kaczki’s quiet, indignant explanation did he realize the meaning behind it.

“To be honest, I think it’s probably the Zerg in my family who are behind this.” Huan Xiu couldn’t help but speculate about Huan Jiade’s behavior when he attended the wedding.

“You mean the cousins who used to pick on you all the time? Wow, there are still such things…” Kaczki stopped and put forward another possibility. “Say, is it possible that the female Zerg surnamed Xi, found a way to do this? You see, he has no way out now, and the child is also a big problem, so he casually found a good looking male Zerg… Although you can refuse, given the slightest chance, he will make a lot of money!”

“No way.” Huan Xiu froze for a moment and shook his head. Although he had only met him twice, he didn’t think Xi Ran was that kind of Zerg. Last time, Xi Ran didn’t even want to ask Huan Xiu to help him with some small things, unless he was pretending that time as well – then he could really become a film emperor, so Huan Xiu didn’t have any doubts.

“Well? Do you know him?” Kaczki was surprised.

“Mn… I guess. I’ve met him by chance before.”

Kaczki regretted saying all that. Since Huan Xiu knew the Zerg, it may not be good for him to make wild guesses.

It was useless for them to say more here. Huan Xiu thanked Kaczki for his concern and decided to ask again when he went home. Gossip spread quickly, and in one afternoon, almost all the Zerg in the whole research room knew about it. Huan Xiu looked as usual, and they were embarrassed to mention it. It was only after Huan Xiu received the news from his uncle, the head of the family, that he went home early and had a general discussion.

When he got home and entered the guest room, Huan Xiu saw his uncle sitting on the sofa with Huan Jiade. His uncle saw Huan Xiu come in and silently waved to him to come and sit down.

After Huan Xiu’s father died, his uncle took him in. However, it seemed that it was just out of obligation. From childhood to adulthood, the number of times that Huan Xiu met with him alone could be counted with one hand.

“You know about the match, right?”

Huan Xiu nodded.

“You’re less than thirty. Although it’s not normal for you to marry at this age, it’s really not to the point where you need to be matched,” the head of the Huan family said frankly. “There’s nothing to hide. This time is Jiade’s prank that’s gone too far.”

Sure enough… Huan Xiu really didn’t feel there was any suspense about it.

Huan Jiade seemed to have never thought that this would upset his father. He tried to explain, “He said he wanted to get married last time, so I helped him…”

“Open your eyes and stop telling lies! Now a group of random Zerg are talking about our Huan family, saying we are only worthy of second-hand goods that the Shi family didn’t want. Have you considered these things when you did it?”

“He… he is not a Zerg of our family…”

“But he’s the same sex as you, and he lives in our house! That’s enough to be a joke!”

As soon as Huan Xiu’s uncle said this, Huan Jiade also shut up and cowered to the side without saying anything. Huan Xiu was still wondering what was wrong with the master of the family today. He even helped him punish his eldest son. The thought that it had something to do with the family’s reputation made sense to him.

“There’s nothing we can do about it. Figure out a way to handle it yourself. Don’t wander around outside for a while.” The master seemed to be in a bad mood, and this was not a big deal, but Huan Jiade, who had no brain, while he was trying to defame Huan Xiu, he also defamed his own family. The master of the Huan family just used this to teach Huan Jiade a lesson. From the bottom of his heart, he still preferred his son. To Huan Xiu, an outsider Zerg, it was enough to explain what was going on.

“Ah, uncle. In fact, I have something to say.”

“Mn? What?” The master, who had already got up and was ready to leave, stopped and looked back. He had never heard Huan Xiu speak in front of him. From childhood to adulthood, the child would only be silent and listen to him.

“I’m sorry to have been a bother and stay with you for so many years. After listening to what my cousin said, I think maybe I’m old enough to start a family. It happens that the research institute is busy with work, so I need to move closer to it, and I don’t have to occupy space here.” Huan Xiu made a somewhat guilty face.

Huan Jiade’s eyes were staring at him like he saw a ghost. But having just been lectured, he didn’t dare to speak out. When Huan Xiu saw this expression in his eyes, he almost laughed out loud.

“Our family doesn’t lack space. But that’s a good idea. You’ve grown up. If you really thought it through, suit yourself.” The family head was surprised. It was a good thing that Huan Xiu was willing to disassociate himself from his family on his own.

 

Although the cause was somewhat bizarre, Huan Xiu had achieved his second goal ahead of time – to move away from his relatives as far and as soon as possible.