Chapter 17: Attendants! Bring a Bigger Cup!

As Dieyi slipped off her pajama pants, folded them neatly, and set them on the wooden bucket beside her, Ella felt her temples throb twice.

It was as if two tiny people were drumming inside her skull.

A chill crawled up her spine, racing along her vertebrae all the way to the back of her head. She couldn’t help but shiver.

Moonlight poured in through the porthole and fell across Dieyi. 

The pink-haired girl lifted her pajama top with her teeth, exposing her entire lower body—her flat stomach, slender waist, and fair skin that gleamed faintly in the moonlight.

She wore nothing underneath.

From the hem of her lifted top down to her fluffy slippers, there was nothing at all.

Ella’s pupils quaked.

“You said you’d already vomited everything in your stomach and couldn’t pee, right?”

Dieyi tilted her head. The motion looked cute, yet carried a dangerous edge.

“Then right now—”

She took a step forward. 

Her fluffy pink slipper left a clear footprint—complete with a little butterfly pattern—in the dust-covered floor.

“I’ve prepared a drink for you.”

Ella’s throat bobbed.

“Drink it all up, then pee. Your goal will be complete.”

Dieyi’s voice floated lightly, as if she were recommending a new juice flavor.

“As the Insect Mother, you can manage that much, can’t you?”

“What…”

Ella’s voice scraped out, hoarse and dry.

What?

What?!

What?!

Her gaze slid from Dieyi’s face to her collarbone, from her collarbone to her chest, from her chest to her flat stomach, and from her stomach—

Her eyes snapped away as if burned. 

They darted to the ceiling, to the wall, to the floor—anywhere that didn’t have to look at that spot.

But the image had already seared itself into her retinas.

Dieyi’s skin, fair and smooth, glowing with a faint pink hue in the moonlight—

And that pink thicket…

Stop.

Ella roared at herself inside her own mind.

Stop! Don’t think about it anymore!

“Of course not!”

She crossed her arms in front of her chest, forming a giant X. 

The motion was so forceful she nearly toppled off the workbench. 

Her toes slipped on the surface, but she managed to squat steady again.

“That’s disgusting!”

Her voice echoed sharply through the warehouse, resolute and final.

Drink someone else’s pee?

Unless she were starving to death, the answer was absolutely, positively no!

She was the Insect Mother, the supreme being who had once ruled this island. 

She ate ingredients carefully cultivated by the Swarm, drank fresh water extracted and collected with precision, and wore clothes woven from the finest silk secreted by insect glands.

And now she was supposed to squat on a table in an abandoned warehouse and drink a Failure’s—

No.

Absolutely not.

“Eh?”

Dieyi dragged out the syllable, pretending to be surprised.

“You can’t do it?”

The corners of her mouth curved upward. 

There was no disappointment in that smile—only a condescending contempt that made Ella’s teeth itch.

It was exactly like watching a stupid dog fail to learn the simplest trick.

“You’re clearly the Insect Mother. You’re supposed to be utterly inhuman, without a shred of humanity for the sake of reproduction and expanding the Swarm—”

She paused and tilted her head again.

“Your Majesty, you actually can’t manage it?”

She moved once more. 

Her right hand slowly, inch by inch, lifted the fabric higher.

The pink material bunched up between her fingers, revealing more of her stomach, more of her waist, more of—

Ella’s gaze lingered unwillingly on the exposed skin for a moment.

She saw Dieyi’s navel—small and round.

She saw the smooth line of her waist, elegant and flowing, as if drawn with the softest brushstroke.

She saw Dieyi’s hip bones, slightly raised and casting faint shadows beneath the fair skin.

Her eyes stayed there for a fraction of a second.

Then she jerked her gaze away and stared fixedly at the floor in front of her, as if it held some profound secret worthy of a lifetime of study.

“You bastard!”

The words squeezed out between her teeth.

“You’re! You’re provoking me on purpose!”

Her fingers clenched around her knees, nails digging into her flesh.

“I won’t fall for it! You maniac!”

Her chest rose and fell violently. 

Silver strands of hair fell messily across her face, looking like a disordered waterfall in the moonlight.

“If I were still a guy!”

Her voice suddenly shot up, turning vicious and almost hysterical.

“I’d definitely fuck you to pieces! I’d pound right through you!”

After the shout, the warehouse fell silent for a beat.

The silence was so complete that Ella could hear her own heartbeat, Dieyi’s breathing, and the distant sound of waves slapping against the ship’s hull.

Then Dieyi laughed.

It was a soft laugh, dripping with mockery.

“Only words—”

Dieyi’s voice was slow and unhurried, each syllable seeming to have been chewed thoroughly before being released.

“But they’re useless, Your Majesty.”

She took another step forward.

The fluffy slipper brushed the floor with a soft rustle.

Another step.

Rustle.

One more.

Rustle.

Her figure grew larger and larger in Ella’s peripheral vision, drawing closer and closer until Ella could smell the faint floral scent mixed with moonlight that clung to her.

“If you can’t even do this—”

Dieyi stopped less than half a meter from the workbench.

She looked down at the silver-haired girl squatting on the table. 

Pink hair cascaded over both her shoulders like twin waterfalls, enclosing the two of them in a narrow space filled only with the sound of each other’s breathing.

“You don’t even qualify as a proper leader of the Swarm.”

Ella’s lips trembled.

“I! I…”

Her mouth opened. 

A single syllable forced its way out, then lodged in her throat.

She wanted to argue back.

But the words stuck.

Because a voice inside her head was asking—Is she right?

She couldn’t speak.

She couldn’t find a single point to refute.

Not one word.

She slowly lowered her head. 

Silver hair slid down from her shoulders, covering her face, hiding her expression, and veiling the crimson pupils that were trembling faintly.

What is happening?

She asked herself silently.

How can I not even manage something like this?

Dieyi is so arrogant right now. 

This is the perfect chance to use that arrogance against her—to take nutrients from her body, spread the bacterial carpet, wait for the Swarm to cover the ocean once more, and then get my revenge.

It was the most rational choice. The one that best served her interests.

There was no reason to refuse.

Yet her body refused.

Her stomach churned.

Why?

She couldn’t understand it.

She was the Insect Mother. 

She was supposed to be utterly inhuman. 

She was supposed to care only about benefits, efficiency, and results.

No matter how her body resisted, no matter how her stomach rebelled, no matter how her sense of shame screamed—

She still wanted revenge.

So she had to do it.

“Hey!”

She jerked her head up. 

Silver hair whipped away from her face, revealing crimson pupils burning with something close to madness.

“Fine!”

Her voice exploded inside the warehouse, making the spiderwebs on the ceiling sway again.

“Come on!”

She stared straight at Dieyi, straight into those glowing crimson eyes.

“You dare pee—”

Her lips trembled. 

Her voice trembled. Her entire body trembled. 

But she clenched her teeth and tore the words out of her throat.

“I’ll drink it for you to see!”