Chapter 286: Giant Caterpillar
Jiang Xia blinked his misty, vulnerable eyes as a soft hum of displeasure rumbled in his chest.
Shi Lan hardened her heart and tried to ignore him. She rested on his chest, her hand on his arm, and decided to take the opportunity to perform Deep Healing.
Jiang Xia, unable to speak, whimpered softly. But when he sensed Shi Lan’s spiritual power threads entering his body, he grew afraid of disturbing her and slowly quieted down.
During Deep Healing, the spiritual power threads would also create sparks as they collided. Jiang Xia trembled even more violently than Shi Lan. By the time Shi Lan finally finished clearing out the residual toxins from his body, his face was flushed, and his eyes were soft and filled with amorous desire. He looked like he had been thoroughly bullied.
But even so, afraid of disturbing Shi Lan, he remained as quiet and well-behaved as he was during their previous Spiritual Connections.
Only his hand, hanging off the side of the bed, uncontrollably clenched and unclenched its grip on the bedding.
Shi Lan teased the little Pallas’s cat inside his spirit sea. Watching the Pallas’s cat sway its plump little body, its walk like a deliberately seductive catwalk, she couldn’t resist using her spiritual power threads to catch it and play.
Jiang Xia’s spirit body was very familiar with her aura. It joyfully chased after the spiritual power threads, performing all sorts of parkour-like jumps and tumbles, stretching out its soft body and occasionally shaking its fluffy fur.
It was just too cute!!
Still, it felt like a hollow comfort. What Shi Lan really wanted was to re-experience the blissful feeling from her time on Yaoxing again, when she was buried in the fur of his large Pallas’s cat form.
She withdrew her spiritual power threads. Seeing Jiang Xia drenched in sweat, his breathing so ragged that his chest rose and fell dramatically, she found it somewhat amusing.
"How can you be so sensitive..."
She murmured softly. After the knot finally passed, she had Jiang Xia transform directly into a slightly larger Pallas’s cat.
Jiang Xia didn’t understand why, but he obediently followed Lanlan’s command. As long as she wasn’t telling him to leave, anything was fine.
The bed was huge, more than enough to accommodate a large Pallas’s cat.
Shi Lan finally understood the purpose of the huge beds in this world.
"Nice, very nice!"
She praised him happily, and after stroking his soft fur, she comfortably burrowed into his embrace.
Jiang Xia had already washed himself until he smelled wonderful. Even though he had broken a sweat just now, he didn’t have any strange odor; he still had that clean, crisp scent of ice and snow.
The scent was refreshing and uplifting.
Stroking the big kitty in front of her, Shi Lan’s earlier fatigue vanished. However, she had no energy left for a shower. Being on top was, after all, more tiring than lying down. After a simple wipe-down with tissues, with her clothes in disarray and sleepiness overwhelming her, she snuggled into Jiang Xia’s embrace and fell asleep.
The Pallas’s cat carefully pulled its mate into its embrace with its soft, thick paws. It curled its tail around her ankles, encircling her within its territory, before closing its eyes in satisfaction. Its ears also drooped obediently in the direction of the female.
After a night’s sleep, the first thing Shi Lan did upon waking was take a shower.
Jiang Xia was still in his big kitty form, lazing on the bed, not yet awake. But when he felt the warm body he was holding beneath his fluffy paws disappear, he jolted awake instantly.
"Lanlan!"
His voice was still hoarse. Shi Lan, in the bathroom, didn’t hear him call her at all. He, however, heard the sound of running water and breathed a silent sigh of relief. Then, he leaped lightly from the bed, padded silently to the bathroom door, and crouched down, standing guard over her just like that.
Even though Lanlan was still in the room, she wasn’t in his line of sight, which made Jiang Xia feel insecure. Only upon hearing the clear sound of the water did he feel the empty space in his heart fill up again.
His tail swept contentedly across the floor.
Robots cleaned Jiang Xia’s home around the clock, so the floor was clean enough to be reflective. There was no need to worry about it being dirty at all.
He narrowed his eyes slightly. Lying on the cool floor, his gaze inadvertently drifted to the foot of the bed.
His pants were still tossed there...
Seeing the pants, the pleasurable memories from last night resurfaced. It was the first time Jiang Xia knew such a thing was possible—a pleasure so intense it felt like dying. Just the thought of it made his body seem to burn hot again.
He rolled around on the floor, trying to cool himself down.
When Shi Lan came out in a clean set of pajamas, she saw Jiang Xia, still in his beast form, wriggling on the floor like an oversized caterpillar.
She blinked in confusion. "What are you doing playing on the floor so early in the morning?"
Jiang Xia noticed she had come out, and his eyes lit up. With a few more wriggles, he was at Shi Lan’s feet. She had just stepped out of the shower, and her slippers were wet, so Shi Lan instinctively pulled her foot back.
Jiang Xia clingily scooted closer again. "Lanlan, why are you hiding from me~"
Shi Lan crouched down in exasperation and viciously ruffled the fur on his big, fluffy head, paying special attention to grabbing and pinching his ears. "Didn’t you see my slippers are all wet?"
"Get up, quick. You’re a grown-up, why are you still rolling on the floor?"
Jiang Xia’s ears twitched sensitively. He tried to prop himself up on his four limbs, then looked at her with a helpless, pitiful expression. "My legs are weak. I can’t stand up."
’Shouldn’t I be the one with weak legs?’ Shi Lan thought. ’He was the one just lying there and enjoying it last night.’
But then again, she recalled how just a kiss from Jiang Xia could leave her feeling weak, and she fell silent. She pulled her hand back. "Alright, you haven’t showered since last night. Go take one now."
"Oh."
Jiang Xia lingered on the floor for a moment, still wanting more.
’It felt so much better when Lanlan petted me,’ he thought. ’Although... it’s still hot down there.’
The bathroom door was open, and steam billowed out. The rose-scented fragrance he had specifically bought—the same one Shi Lan used—wafted into his nose, carrying its own unique allure.
However, if Lanlan were willing, he much preferred her natural scent. Unfortunately, she was off drying her hair now.
Jiang Xia couldn’t bear for the scent in the bathroom to dissipate so quickly. Though his limbs were still weak, he stubbornly wriggled inside. He originally wanted to roll around, but that ’ugly thing’ was acting up. If he rolled over and exposed something, it would be far too embarrassing.
He closed the door and finally, dutifully, went to take a shower.
Out of the corner of her eye, Shi Lan glanced at the bathroom door, her gaze inadvertently sweeping over the pants on the floor. Her face flushed a little.
’I was amazing last night!!’
The bed was also a bit of a mess, though. Thankfully, they had mostly stayed on top of the covers last night. Later, while snuggled up against Jiang Xia, she had kicked the blankets away, so the mattress was fine.
Shi Lan called a robot to clean up. After drying her hair, she began to carefully brush it.
Her stomach rumbled at just the right moment. Shi Lan put a hand to her forehead. She still had to cook. She decided to just let the housekeeping robots handle it.
Thankfully, Jiang Xia’s home had robots in spades. While it wasn’t like the Night Nether Palace, which had one in nearly every room, she saw over a dozen connected devices after Jiang Xia granted her access.
’Indeed,’ she thought, ’people really can’t live without high technology.’
A few minutes later, the robot had cleaned the bedroom spotlessly. Even the wet spots on the floor from her slippers were repeatedly mopped, washed, and dried. The clothes and bedding had also been taken away by the robot for washing.
As for the clothes Shi Lan had changed out of, they were still in the bathroom.
She planned to wait for Jiang Xia to come out before tossing them to the robot, but unexpectedly, Jiang Xia took even longer in the shower than she did. When he came out, he was wrapped in a bath towel and carrying a basin holding her clothes.
Shi Lan walked over in shock. "What are you doing?"
Jiang Xia’s cheeks were red. "Lanlan, washing clothes for my wife is part of a Beast Husband’s responsibility."
Shi Lan moved closer and glanced down. When she saw that he had also washed her underwear, her own face turned red.
"But, but aren’t there... robots? Why... did you wash them?"
Jiang Xia gave a shy grin. "It’s okay, Lanlan. I really like doing it."
"And don’t worry, I did a special search. I know the best way to wash a female’s clothes until they’re clean."
Shi Lan was speechless.