A Guide to Raising your Natural Enemy

chapter 106

106. A Menacing Rival in Love, Part 1

Time flew, and Shu Shu had already taken up duty as the empress for three years.

A year ago, Edgar completely took over the industries that Chris set aside for him. Then Chris took Ian out of the capital star for interstellar travel along with Fred and Gary.
　　
This was the first time the two children left Shu Shu for a long time. Although Shu Shu often felt that they were annoying when they were around, once they left, he could not help but miss them.
　　
Of course, despite missing them, Shu Shu had to admit that his life was more comfortable without the two children . . . .
　　
He woke up early in the morning and ate a full breakfast. After that, he went to the hospital for two or three hours to see patients, and his one day's work was done. He usually went home for lunch at noon. In the afternoon, he either went to the charity hospital to perform surgery without spiritual power or learned the medical skills of the Beastman Empire or watched TV at home or went online or just did whatever he wanted to do. In the evening, Edgar returned, and they had dinner together. Then they started to tumble in the sheets or went out for a stroll and came back to tumble in the sheets.
　　
Such a life was simply wonderful!
　　
After he was together with Edgar, they got married right away without dating. They barely bonded after marriage and immediately had children. In the end, Shu Shu did not know how to talk about romance. It was only now that he got the feeling of being in love.
　　
Unconsciously, Shu Shu even became a few pounds fatter, and his face that was originally a little round became even rounder. The only thing that had not changed was his childish look.
　　
He could not do anything about it since he was a monster and not a beastman. Generally, he would always look like the age in which he transformed for the first time. If he wanted to let himself look old, he had to learn the spell of changing appearances.
　　
And Shu Shu did not want to learn this spell for the time being. He liked to watch the netizens praise him as a youthful empress.
　　
Today was Valentine's Day in the Beastman Empire. Shu Shu went online to find out what things lovers should do, and then he dragged Edgar to go watch a movie.
　　
Edgar did not like to watch movies because he had a psychological shadow toward them, but since Shu Shu wanted to watch a movie, he would naturally accompany him.
　　
The two disguised themselves and came to the movie theater together.
　　
After buying a cup of popcorn and other food offered by the movie theater, Edgar, wearing a hat and holding a pile of food, entered the viewing room with Shu Shu. "You can watch a movie at home; why do you have to come and watch it here?"
　　
"The movie theater’s equipment is the most advanced, and its film source is the most complete. It won’t be so enjoyable to watch a movie at home." Shu Shu said while holding the popcorn and stuffing his mouth with them.
　　
Edgar was silent. In fact, the private movie theater installed in the imperial palace was more advanced than the movie theaters outside. As for the film source . . . . Considering that the imperial family owned many movie theaters as well as specialized theater chains, generally, before those blockbuster movies were shown, the most complete film source was already sent to the imperial palace . . . .
　　
However, since Shu Shu wished to watch a movie outside, it did not matter as long as he was happy.
　　
Seeing that the popcorn in Shu Shu's hand was almost gone, Edgar took out a packet of fried chicken nuggets and handed it to him.
　　
Shu Shu took the fried chicken nuggets and continued to eat.
　　
These days, he became more and more fond of going online and was also fascinated by buying everything he needed online. This time, the movie tickets were also bought online by him. "Edgar, do you know that I grabbed these movie tickets? The movie theater did an activity and gave out fifty movie tickets for us to grab. My speed was the fastest, so I won first place and grabbed the lovers private room! I got the expensive lovers private room without spending a cent. Aren’t I amazing?"
　　
“Amazing." Edgar nodded earnestly. Shu Shu was a daemon after all. Although his courage was small, his reaction speed was very fast. In addition . . . the network speed in the imperial palace was an absolute killer. Therefore, it was really normal for Shu Shu to be able to grab the tickets.
　　
Shu Shu was particularly addicted to this recently, to the extent that he bought back a bunch of useless things . . . . For example, a few days before, after he became obsessed with skincare and makeup, he took advantage of a discount to buy a bunch of entry-level affordable skincare products and cosmetics recommended by some netizens. Then . . . .
　　
After applying the skincare products, he felt greasy and uncomfortable, so he turned round and threw them away. And the cosmetics? The skin decoration only made his skin worse. Some other things could be used, but it was undoubtedly too troublesome . . . .
　　
Ultimately, having only used the included sample, Shu Shu lost interest in this.
　　
Edgar had seen Shu Shu hang all these things on a website that specialized in selling second-hand goods. He was extremely hardworking and frugal, an enlightened housekeeper.
　　
Shu Shu was totally unaware of Edgar's thoughts. He felt that he was really amazing. He hummed a song and entered the lovers private room. Then he said to Edgar, "Today’s Valentine's Day. I specially chose a romance movie played by the very famous beastman actor XXX and sub-beastman actor YYY. It’s said that the movie's particularly good!"
　　
When Edgar heard the words "romance movie", he remembered that imperial family-themed movie about a crown prince and a discouraged sub-beastman which gave him a psychological shadow. His heart immediately "thumped", and he promptly went online to check the content of today's movie.
　　
Fortunately, today's movie had nothing to do with the imperial family and was mainly about career and love. Reportedly, the romance was poignant, and the entanglement was very deep.
　　
In that case, let’s watch it!
　　
Shu Shu and Edgar watched it seriously.
　　
The two protagonists of the story were lovers who grew up as childhood friends. Although they were not very rich, their relationship was very good. They had been saving money for marriage. They wanted to buy a house of their own and have a wedding that was memorable even if it was not grand.
　　
The two looked very happy. Edgar was quite satisfied with the beginning, hoping that the plot would not develop wildly. As a result . . . .
　　
When the beastman of this pair of lovers took an aircraft, the aircraft had a malfunction and accidentally crashed into another aircraft taken by the company president’s only son, a sub-beastman. The sub-beastman  at first scolded him and made him compensate for the aircraft, but later, after they got along, he fell in love with the beastman. The beastman was unaware of the sub-beastman’s feelings. As they got closer, his childhood sweetheart became jealous.
　　
In the movie, it was normal for a third person to be between the couple, and the relationship would always go through some twists and turns . . . . Edgar continued to watch.
　　
Then . . . the company president’s only son actually persuaded the beastman to take out his beast bead and ultimately snatched and ate the beastman’s beast bead!
　　
What was this development? Edgar was speechless; he really couldn't understand the behavior of the beastman in the movie. The beastman wanted to apologize to his angry sub-beastman and actually went to find another sub-beastman to help him with some ideas . . . . Even if he insisted on asking, could he not find a beastman to ask?
　　
Furthermore, the beast bead. Having been in a relationship with a sub-beastman he liked for so long, couldn’t he secretly feed him the beast bead in advance? If so, the sub-beastman he liked would not suspect him of falling in love with somebody else and then be uneasy and angry.
　　
Well, his beast bead had been eaten by another person now. Could it be that he would marry the company president’s only son?
　　
Obviously, a movie that extolled romance would not develop as Edgar thought.
　　
Although the beast bead was eaten by the company president's only son, the beastman still loved his childhood sweetheart dearly. In the latter half of the movie, he kept resisting and eventually married his own childhood sweetheart, while the company president's only son got the beast bead but not the love.
　　
Edgar: ". . ." Was it interesting that the movie was so crazy? Couldn’t you let the two main characters live well? Why did the screenwriter have to toss in a sub-beastman to mess with the couple?
　　
"Woo . . . that supporting role was so pitiful!" Shu Shu, wiping his face, cried horribly, as did everyone else in the movie theater.
　　
"Don't be sad. Generally, there won’t be such a sub-beastman in reality. Which sub-beastman will fall for a beastman who’s not as good as himself and has a lover too?" Edgar said comfortingly. He actually felt that the company president's only son had a problem in his brain.
　　
"Is that so?" Shu Shu wiped his eyes and turned his gaze toward Edgar.
　　
"Of course it is." Edgar replied. Normally, rich and good-looking sub-beastmen would not eat a beast bead indiscriminately and dig a hole for themselves for a lifetime.
　　
Shu Shu was still sobbing but looked much better. He hiccuped and said to Edgar, "I still want to eat popcorn."
　　
"I'll buy it for you." Edgar said with a smile.
　　
Edgar bought a large cup of popcorn and was about to hand it to Shu Shu, but then his communication device suddenly rang. He was contacted by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Beastman Empire—an alien princess came to the Beastman Empire, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs hoped that the imperial family could go to receive her.
　　
"It's night already." Edgar stated, frowning. He took his job very seriously, but he absolutely wouldn’t work at night. He wanted to have his own time to accompany Shu Shu.
　　
Otherwise . . . what’s to be done if his sub-beastman fell in love with somebody else because he could not accompany his sub-beastman all the time? The movie just now told everyone that the concept of a beast bead was not enough insurance.
　　
"People of the Kamira Federation are nocturnal." The Minister of Foreign Affairs was somewhat helpless. All their reception work had to be done at night.
　　
Edgar had already known that people of the Kamira Federation were coming, and he also knew that he was definitely going to receive them. But on Valentine's Day night . . . . The Valentine's Day gift he had prepared had not yet been given to Shu Shu.
　　
"Alien princess? I want to see!" Shu Shu, hearing the word "alien", opened his eyes wide in excitement. The people of the Beastman Empire were space aliens to him, but they looked about the same as the people on the earth, and the fact that the beastmen would change shape was something that also happened to him, a daemon, so that he simply didn’t feel like having seen the space aliens. Now, hearing that there was an alien princess coming, he naturally wanted to take a look.
　　
"Then let's go together." Edgar's mood was a lot better. If Shu Shu went along, that meant they were together.
　　
The aircraft that came to pick them up quickly set off. This was Edgar's personal aircraft; there was a special room on it, and there were a lot of his personal belongings as well as an entire set of imperial attires inside.
　　
Edgar began to change clothes as soon as he got on the aircraft. Shu Shu saw Edgar's attire and was a little terrified.
　　
After solemnly dressing up to receive the alien princess, he definitely had to talk endlessly, would not be able to eat well, and could not stare at people because that kind of staring was very rude . . . .
　　
"I don’t want to wear imperial attire." Shu Shu suddenly said.
　　
Edgar glanced at Shu Shu, "Then you change to an ordinary suit?"
　　
"No! I'm going without clothes!" Shu Shu unexpectedly said.
　　
Going without clothes?! Edgar was stunned and then saw Shu Shu suddenly disappear in front of him, and from the clothes falling on the floor, a very fat little hamster crawled out.
　　
The little hamster's fat legs were almost invisible, but his movements were very agile. He climbed to the table and then jumped into the paper cup with popcorn and began to eat the popcorn leisurely and carefree.
　　
Edgar: ". . ." Well, okay, he guessed they were going like this.