Ten Hosts
One, two, three… ten hosts for Taotie.
Including Xiang Zhong and Mao Zhengqi, there were a total of ten hosts for Taotie, all of whom have been awakened.
“You really look like a dog now, Qiong Qi.” Ten voices, each with a different tone, spoke mockingly in unison.
Xi Guican silently watched his enemies in front of him through the iron cage, seemingly surprised that Taotie would surround him in this manner. Ten hosts, representing ten hunger and madness.
When he and He Ruge destroyed Taotie’s breeding grounds, they cut off most of Taotie’s food sources. Now with Taotie controlling ten hosts at once, the energy consumption was immense, leaving only one option: a quick and decisive battle, or else they can’t sustain their energy intake.
Ten hosts…
He is currently attached to Xuan Wulian, greatly weakened, making him evenly matched with Taotie at this moment.
Moreover, Taotie has the home advantage in this pitch-black environment where shadows lurk everywhere.
Dark red vertical pupils appeared in Xi Guican’s eyes, his bones crackling and popping. In almost an instant, he transformed from a weak animal form into a frail human form.
His empty sleeve swung in the air, while his intact hand gripped the iron cage. Muscles bulged like sculpted marble as he tore open the iron cage. With one foot on the wall, he leaped towards the closest Taotie host!
＊
He Ruge sat in the room typing away, Zhi Zhi lying on his hand, its black eyes staring blankly at the words on the screen.
The plot of “I’ve Gotten Stronger” had progressed to the protagonist’s first resurrection, where he possessed the first minor executive of the military. The protagonist had just extracted memories from the minor executive and was about to make a move, but he died in battle in the latest campaign—
He was tricked.
The superior of the minor executive deliberately sent heads to the insect race, causing the once triumphant Federal Army to suffer a defeat. Besides the Federal soldiers who died unjustly, no one noticed the conspiracy behind this battle.
Even if the truth were revealed, who would believe it?
The Federation intentionally lost to the insect race?
The savage creatures without any intelligence?
It’s simply preposterous!
…
The inspiration for this update came from Xi Guican.
Xi Guican told He Ruge that the reason why Wu Chengdeng supported the live broadcast of Star Wars was because Wu Chengdeng suspected that the Federation deliberately lost to the Zerg in the first few battles of the first Star Wars.
Maybe there is some deal between Taotie and the Queen.
He Ruge guessed like this.
“Squeak?”
Seeing He Ruge stop his coding movement, the Zhi Zhi of Zhi Zhi that had been quietly acting as his hand made a puzzled sound.
“I’m writing a novel.”He Ruge said softly.
After he sent out the latest update, he saw many comments asking questions：
“What happened? Is the male lead dead again?!”
“How could the Federation deliberately lose to the Zerg, it’s too fake, author, do you have any common sense?”
“I know the novel is unrealistic, but you are insulting my IQ by writing this!”
“Smelled the conspiracy, I’m so nervous”
“How will the 20th be reborn in the next chapter?”
“How do I feel that this battle seems to have a prototype?”
He Ruge browsed the extremely lively comment area, because his live broadcast came with traffic, which attracted huge traffic to the novel.
At this time, the collection volume was an amazing number, and the comments were refreshed from time to time, and it broke a thousand all at once.
……I really didn’t expect that I could receive so many comments in my lifetime.
He Ruge turned off the novel interface, holding Zhi Zhi and preparing to teach him interstellar language.
“Zhi Zhi, do you know what to call me?”
The treasure hunting rat cub in the palm of his hand tilted his head and whispered in a low voice, “Ge Ge?”
“Zhi Zhi is so smart!”
He Ruge smiled and praised Zhi Zhi, and taught Zhi Zhi to learn a few simple daily vocabulary.
He had always liked Zhi Zhi, and after knowing Zhi Zhi’s life, He Ruge felt even more distressed about Zhi Zhi.
Because Fuxi told He Ruge that Zhi Zhi could choose his own family in the future, then this meant that Zhi Zhi could also choose He Ruge.
As a future orphanage dean who wants to be the father of all the little cuties, if Zhi Zhi chooses He Ruge, then He Ruge will not adopt Zhi Zhi in his personal name, but let Zhi Zhi join the big family of “Guican He Ruge”.
So He Ruge decided to let Zhi Zhi first have a video call with everyone in the first class of land elementary school, so that the cubs can understand each other and cultivate feelings.
Regardless of whether Zhi Zhi chooses He Ruge in the end or not, he can use this opportunity to make new friends.
Zhi Zhi, who was used as a treasure hunt tool, has no friends yet.
Thinking of this, He Ruge couldn’t help sighing.
“Zhi Zhi, do you want to meet new friends?” He Ruge asked.
The treasure hunting rat cub in the palm of his hand hesitated: “…friend?”
He doesn’t have the concept of friends.
“Friends are friends who can play with you, talk together, and share food, happiness, and sadness with you.”
He Ruge tried his best to explain what a friend is in words that Zhi Zhi can understand.
Zhi Zhi was silent for a while, then suddenly Zhi Zhi jumped into He Ruge’s pocket.Just when He Ruge thought Zhi Zhi didn’t want to meet new friends, the little head of the treasure hunter suddenly came out of his pocket, and his Zhi Zhiy cheeks were bulging at this time, as if something was stuffed.
A little claw spread out and put it under his mouth, and Zhi Zhi spit out a few nuts from his mouth. Soon there was some food on the little claw.
Zhi Zhi raised his eyes and looked at He Ruge with his bright little eyes, and said cautiously, “My friend.”
He Ruge told Zhi Zhi that friends are friends who can play with him, talk together, and share food, happiness, and sadness with you.
Friends sound like very good, very good things.
But Zhi Zhi doesn’t know how to play with his friends or how to talk. He was a “little dumb” who can’t speak interstellar lingua franca, and Zhi Zhi doesn’t know how to share abstract things like happiness and sadness.
He thinks the only thing he can do is share food.
I’ll give you all the delicious food, will you be friends with me?
This is the subtext that Zhi Zhi didn’t say.
He Ruge looked at the nervous treasure hunting mouse cub, his eyes suddenly became very soft, “Zhi Zhi will definitely have a lot of friends.””
“Do you know what you should say when you meet a friend?””
The treasure hunting rat cub shook his head blankly.
He heard He Ruge’s gentle voice, “You have to say-hello everyone, I’m Zhi Zhi, and I want to be friends with you.””
Sentences that are too long are difficult for Zhi Zhi. He Ruge repeated it more than a dozen times, and Zhi Zhi repeated it stumbling, like a stuck repeater, and it was hard to speak this sentence completely.
After He Ruge was sure that Zhi Zhi could speak, he turned on the video call.
The video call was quickly connected, and the cubs scrambled to say hello to He Ruge. I don’t know who was the first to discover the treasure hunting rat cub in He Ruge’s palm.
The cubs were either curious or jealous and shouted, “Who is he?”
Why can you be hugged by Ruge?！
The sudden hustle and bustle scared Zhi Zhi into a ball. He lay on He Ruge’s palm in fear and pretended to be dead. The cubs of the first class on land were stunned by Zhi Zhi’s skillful pretending to be dead.
“Why is he motionless, is he sick?” Xiong Xinhao asked puzzledly.
“I think he must be sleepy, just like me.” The baby sloth yawned.
“Ah, I remember, he is the cub that Ruge told us before.” Ruanruan said suddenly.
He Ruge mentioned Zhi Zhi in his reply to them last time.The other cubs remembered softly after hearing Ruanruan’s words.
“So it’s this Zhi Zhi!”
“He was lying in his pocket in the photo I sent last time, and I couldn’t even see what he looked like.”
“Zhi Zhi looks so small, he is younger than the youngest child in our class!”
“Is Zhi Zhi a hamster? Why is its tail golden?”
“Zhi Zhi is really motionless.”
The cubs were like 100,000 children, not only asking all kinds of questions, but every sentence was inseparable from Zhi Zhi, screaming non-stop.
The golden tail of Zhizhi trembled weakly twice. Zhizhi had been playing dead all this while.
Upon hearing the familiar “Zhi Zhi” sound from so many people and sensing no malice in their voices, he couldn’t help but quietly lift his head and look at the furry creatures on the screen.
The furry creatures also looked at Zhizhi with curious eyes, creating an adorable scene of big eyes meeting small ones.
Unable to hold back, He Hugge chuckled and said to the Land Cubs’ group, “Hello, everyone.”
Zhizhi, who had practiced for a long time, reflexively responded to “hello.”
“H-hello, I-I am Zhizhi. I w-want to be… friends with you,” his voice trembling slightly with immaturity.
“Big clumsy bear, he talks just like you, stuttering and all,” Bad Gugu No. 1 mercilessly mocked.
“Friends? Do you think just anyone can be friends with me so easily? Hmph,” Bad Gugu No. 2 said coldly.
“Are you called Zhizhi, or Zizi?” Little bear Xinhao earnestly asked the new friend about his name.
He Ruge stroked Zhi Zhi’s back and, calming Zhizhi’s emotions, said to the two Bad Gugus, “Zhizhi has lots of delicious food, but only Zhizhi’s friends can share it with him.”
He showed everyone the nuts Zhizhi held in his small paw.
Bad Gugu No. 1 sneered, “Am I the kind of Gugu who just makes friends with anyone because of food?”
Bad Gugu No. 2’s eyes lit up, “Great, Zhizhi, from today onward, we’re friends!”
