Chapter 87 - 86: A Taste Test
"Sister Qing, look at this..."
Tossing his blood-stained jacket by the door, Lin Fan sat on the sofa. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a transparent, polygonal crystal, slightly larger than a fingernail.
It was an Activation Crystal...
"Oh! What a beautiful Crystal Stone... Is it real?"
Su Qing’s eyes lit up when she saw the crystal. She smiled and sat down next to Lin Fan, nudging his arm as she spoke:
"Is it for me?"
As she spoke, she reached out, took the crystal from Lin Fan’s hand, and held it up to her eye to examine it.
"Wow, it’s glowing inside..."
Lin Fan couldn’t help but laugh at her question, but he answered truthfully:
"Not exactly. This one isn’t for you..."
"Oh..." Su Qing’s face suddenly turned away, a little unnaturally. She mumbled, "Is it for Zhaozhao then?"
Lin Fan knew immediately that she’d gotten the wrong idea. Leaning back against the sofa, he slowly explained, "It’s not for her, either... I found this inside a zombie..."
"What!?" Su Qing’s face paled in horror. She flung the crystal at Lin Fan’s stomach.
"From inside a zombie? A... a kidney stone?"
"What kind of stone are you talking about... When you were holding this Crystal Stone, did you feel anything special?"
"I didn’t before, but now that you’ve said that, I feel a little sick. I’m going to go wash my hands..."
"..."
’It’s like talking to a brick wall...’
’Still, it seems like Su Qing really didn’t have any special reaction to the crystal. Did I guess wrong?’
He returned the Activation Crystal to his inventory. With a thought, he took out another crystal.
Lin Fan had two types of crystals in his possession. Besides the polygonal one, there was another kind dropped by Mutated Zombies with non-integer health—a round crystal...
And the one he took out now was precisely that first Stealth Crystal he had obtained.
"Sister Qing, take a look at this one..."
"Is this one from inside a zombie, too?"
Su Qing didn’t immediately reach for it, asking suspiciously instead.
"...You could say that. Oh, it’s fine. Look how pretty it is..."
Lin Fan pressed the Crystal Stone into Su Qing’s hand as he spoke.
Su Qing gingerly picked up the Crystal Stone, whose shape was completely different from the previous one, with two fingers. She held it up to the sunlight to observe it. It was crystal clear, without a single impurity.
She brought the Crystal Stone back in front of her face, sniffed it, and turned her head to ask:
"Lin Fan, why do you keep making me look at these Crystal Stones? What are they for? GULP..."
As she spoke, she tossed the crystal into her mouth and swallowed it...
"...?"
"..."
The two of them stared at each other, speechless, for a full three seconds...
WHOOSH! Lin Fan shot bolt upright on the sofa, his eyes locked on Su Qing’s face, filled with utter horror.
Su Qing was completely bewildered by Lin Fan’s shocked expression. Twisting open a bottle of water and taking a sip, she asked, puzzled,
"What’s wrong, Lin Fan? Why are you looking at me like that..."
"...What... what did you just do?"
Lin Fan asked hesitantly, his mind racing.
Su Qing!
She actually ate that crystal!
Ate it!
And she did it so unexpectedly!
"Didn’t you ask me to look at that Crystal Stone?"
Su Qing wiped her mouth and retorted.
"Where is the Crystal Stone?"
Lin Fan stared into her eyes. They were still clear and bright, filled with confusion.
But above her head, on the edge of her green [105/105] health bar, a purple halo was beginning to coil around it, dyeing the entire bar purple...
"The crystal? I ate it... Huh?!"
As if finally realizing what she had just done, Su Qing abruptly shot up from the sofa and stuck her fingers down her throat!
"RETCH...! RETCH...!"
Provoked by her fingers, she bent over so far she was nearly doubled over on the floor, dry-heaving repeatedly but unable to bring anything up.
"RETCH...! Oh god! Lin Fan... what do I do! RETCH...!"
Lin Fan patted her on the back.
"You can stop. You won’t be able to throw it up..."
’Since her health bar has already started changing, it means the crystal has already taken effect. It’s too late to try and spit it out now...’
’Thankfully, the one I took out was the incomplete Stealth Crystal. I already have a level 1 version. If she’d just mindlessly eaten that one, it would have been a huge loss...’
He helped Su Qing sit down on the sofa. After retching for a while, tears were streaming down her face.
"No... what am I going to do? Am I going to turn into a zombie...? I can’t throw it up... Was that thing useful to you...? Maybe I should take some laxatives..."
Su Qing muttered frantically. Her suggestions grew more and more absurd until Lin Fan finally had to cut her off:
"Alright, alright, Sister Qing. Don’t panic. Do you feel sick at all? It’s okay, it’s okay..."
The flowing purple light in her health bar gradually solidified around the edges, slowly forming a thick border that seemed to have some kind of pattern on it.
Although an unexpected change had occurred, Su Qing’s health bar eventually stabilized, and Lin Fan let out a sigh of relief.
’As long as she didn’t turn into a zombie, it’s fine...’
A moment ago, Lin Fan had been incredibly worried. What kind of energy did that thing contain? Was it something that could be eaten so casually?
For a split second, he had genuinely feared that Su Qing might turn into some kind of purple-health-bar zombie or monster. He had even subconsciously equipped his Armor Crystal...
But seeing that the purple hadn’t invaded her health bar and had only formed a strange border, and that her appearance hadn’t changed at all, he slowly relaxed.
He pulled her into his arms, comforting her in a soft voice.
The purple border was somewhat different from his own golden one. His own was clearly more solid and substantial.
"I... I just wanted to get a closer look to see if it was glowing inside... and then, I just... ate it?"
Su Qing’s eyes trembled as she seemed to be trying hard to recall what had just happened, but the memory was a blur.
"It just felt... like that thing was a piece of candy or a vitamin pill I’d normally eat. It was in my hand, and I just tossed it in my mouth... I don’t know why..."
"It’s okay, it’s okay. What’s eaten is eaten. It’s not necessarily a bad thing..."
’It’s true, it might not be a bad thing. Or to be more direct...’
’As long as she didn’t turn into a zombie, it’s most likely a good thing.’
From the moment Su Qing’s health became 105, Lin Fan had a gut feeling that changes were happening—to everyone around him, and maybe even to everyone in the whole world...
This purple-bordered health bar was just one part of that change...
"...Are you sure you don’t feel anything at all right now?"
Lin Fan asked, watching Su Qing gradually calm down and looking her seriously in the eyes.
"Sick...? No, not at all. Other than my throat feeling sore from all the retching..."
"Sigh..."
Looking at Su Qing’s purple health bar, Lin Fan couldn’t help but let out a long sigh. The mysteries piling up in his mind were only getting more numerous.