High School Student with Immortal Race System

"You’re that scared of insects?"

Her reaction was a little over the top.

She couldn’t even jump this high when she was practicing her punches. It was a medical miracle!

Lin Yuebai scrambled back in a series of tiny steps, backing herself right into a corner. "What kind of person *isn’t* afraid of insects?!"

People who aren’t afraid of them aren’t even human!

’With your Spirit Monster Communication Contract Life Chart,’ Yang Shen thought, ’Gu Insects are supposed to submit to you, Spirit Beasts are meant to adore you, and Spirit Monsters should be devoted to you from birth.’

’Besides, in traditional medicine, plenty of ingredients are insect-based. This shouldn’t be happening!’

’She must have had some kind of traumatic experience in the past.’

When he first took Lin Yuebai in, there were several reasons. She was undeniably skilled in medicine, well-connected, and beautiful. But more importantly, he saw her potential for researching Witchcraft.

It was just that the timing had never been right. Before she signed the Blood Contract, she was only considered an outsider, so he had never brought it up.

Yang Shen placed the bottle on the windowsill. "You used to be in the Si Realm. The technology there is primitive, and you were always running around the mountains and countryside with your grandfather. Shouldn’t there have been insects everywhere?"

Lin Yuebai clutched her chest. "But I’m back now! Besides, back then, I’d draw a circle with medicinal powder every night before I went to sleep. Not a single insect dared to come near."

"And during the day?"

Lin Yuebai pointed to the sachet at her waist. "This repels them too... but it only works on small insects. It’s not very effective against Sun Worms..."

’Those stupid worms are always scaring me. I barely even dare to go to the Spirit Field in the backyard anymore.’

Yang Shen felt this would take a while to sort out, so he simply pushed the door open and walked in. "Tell me about your time in the Si Realm. Just the parts you’re able to share."

Lin Yuebai pressed her lips together. Keeping a wide berth around the plastic bottle, she shuffled over to her bed and sat down, her posture as straight and proper as a first-grader’s. "There’s nothing I can’t tell you anymore..."

When they first met, they were merely partners. She had been cautious due to the sensitive nature of information from the Exotic Realm.

But things were different now. She was part of the Yang Family.

There was nothing she couldn’t tell the Patriarch.

"My parents died when I was young, so my grandfather raised me. When I was seven, he started a collaboration with Seed Origin Technology to go to an Exotic Realm and cultivate special hybrid medicinal herbs..."

At the time, Lin Yuebai had just started first grade, about the same age as Xiaolei Yi is now. Because the cultivation cycle for the herbs was extremely long and the Lin Family had no other relatives, Mr. Lin brought her along.

The first few years were relatively normal. It was an Exotic Realm that Yanhua had been developing for centuries, so most areas were under its control. At worst, things were just a bit backward.

Lin Yuebai and her grandfather lived in one of the Yanhua Bases, which wasn’t much different from a remote town on Cyan Blue Star.

However, when Lin Yuebai was ten, the hybridization project with Seed Origin Technology all but failed. Mr. Lin had invested a lot of his own money as well, sinking most of his family’s fortune into it...

Unwilling to give up, Mr. Lin changed his approach. He began traveling throughout the mountains and rivers of the Si Realm, hoping to find suitable wild plants to bring back for hybridization.

He didn’t take Lin Yuebai with him at first. She was young, so she stayed at the base to attend a private school. But later, he figured those lousy schools in the Si Realm couldn’t teach her much of anything. Since Lin Yuebai had no talent for Martial Arts, he decided it was better to keep her by his side to pass on their family’s medical knowledge so she’d have a trade to fall back on.

The old man was stubborn. He ended up wandering the Si Realm for many years, so long that Lin Yuebai grew from a little girl into a young woman, and he still hadn’t given up.

Her quirky personality was largely forged during those years of wandering. She’d often set up a makeshift stall wherever they were to treat people and earn a bit of money for their travels.

As for her fear of insects...

Lin Yuebai recalled the past horror. "One time, we were staying the night in a village in the Si Realm. The village chief let us use his house. I had been hiking all day, so I was dead to the world the moment I lay down. Then, I had a dream..."

"What kind of dream?"

"I dreamed that a cockroach crawled into my mouth! It was trying to steal my food!"

The color drained from Lin Yuebai’s face, and her voice trembled. She started patting herself down frantically, as if having a sudden fit.

"And then... then when I woke up... I found there really was a cockroach in my mouth!!!"

Yang Shen: ...

He wearily wiped a hand over his face. ’Okay, now I get it...’

’That’s the kind of thing that takes a lifetime to get over!’

’He didn’t even dare to ask if it was a whole one or just half... or if she’d won the fight for the food...’

From that day forward, a certain someone developed a severe case of entomophobia—the physiological kind. Even now, for instance, Lin Yuebai was covered in goosebumps.

Yang Shen cleared his throat.

"Take a breath... Let’s talk about something else for now. You were in the Si Realm for many years. Did you ever go to the Great Cloud Marsh region?"

Lin Yuebai calmed down. After a moment of thought, she said, "No... The Great Cloud Marsh is a famously Chaotic Land in the Si Realm. Cyan Blue Star People like my grandfather and I would never dare or want to go there."

"My grandfather was at the Late-stage of Marrow Refining, so he could protect himself, but the people in a place like that are fierce and still follow many ancient customs. There was no need to go looking for trouble."

The Great Cloud Marsh covered a vast area. The lake itself was said to contain a thousand islands, and combined with the surrounding territory, it was larger than a province. It had been one of the Si Realm’s great lawless regions since ancient times.

If most regions of the Si Realm were 100 to 200 years behind Yanhua, the culture and customs there were probably 1,000 to 2,000 years behind...

Its infrastructure was practically nonexistent, and its social morality was closer to that of a tribe.

If it were just a matter of crime, Yanhua had the power to easily crush it.

But changing the primitive culture of an entire population was a much harder task.

"Then in all your years in the Si Realm, you must have come across Witchcraft, right?"

Lin Yuebai nodded with a sense of resignation. "Of course... Over there, Witchcraft represents religion, power, and medicine all at once. The doctors in the Si Realm used to all be Witch Doctors, so we naturally dealt with them."

"Yanhua prohibits the use of Witchcraft among the common people of the Si Realm, so they only use it in secret. But it’s not that common. Ordinary people can’t afford it... and even for evil purposes, there’s no point using it on the common folk. They’re too poor over there."

"What about the Rebel Species? Are they rampant over there?"

"Actually... they’re even more secretive than on Cyan Blue Star. At least, outsiders like my grandfather and I never came into contact with them."

Yang Shen more or less understood.

’So in the Si Realm, Witchcraft is basically treated like an evil cult... It circulates privately among a small minority, and despite Yanhua’s repeated bans, it has never been stamped out.’

’But the common people of the Si Realm aren’t worth the price. Take controlling an ordinary person, for example. With the right target, like that woman from last night who was nearly stripped of all her family’s assets, you could profit tens of millions of Yanhua currency, if not more.’

’But to use it on the poor people of the Si Realm... a human life there probably isn’t even worth the leg of a Gu Insect.’

Having talked for a while, Lin Yuebai didn’t feel quite so distressed. She rested her chin in her hand and said, "Later... we passed through a town where we heard from a centenarian about a peculiar plant in the mountains. My grandfather was very interested, but I had a fever for a few days, so he went by himself."

"And then... a week later, an old hunter carried him back... He was already delirious. I did everything I could, but I wasn’t able to save him..."

Yang Shen frowned slightly. "Your grandfather was at the Late-stage of Marrow Refining. Even if he wasn’t skilled in combat, in a place as lacking in Spiritual Qi as the Si Realm, his raw strength should have been more than enough for self-defense. How did he die...?"

’The overall power level in the Si Realm is very low. A Late-stage Marrow Refining practitioner could break bones just by flailing around with Turtle Fist.’

Lin Yuebai shook her head. "It wasn’t an external injury. It was... poison. He must have misidentified something and accidentally ingested it."

’Marrow Refining grants a certain resistance to toxins, and he was an old master of traditional medicine. This is definitely strange.’

"Are you sure it wasn’t Witchcraft?"

"It wasn’t. I examined him myself."

Yang Shen sighed. "I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up painful memories."

Lin Yuebai shook her head. "Don’t worry about it, Patriarch. Grandfather lived a full life. It’s just a shame he couldn’t fulfill his lifelong wish..."

Yang Shen glanced at the water bottle, then chose his words carefully. "The Yang Family has a long-standing feud with the Rebel Species. In the long term, I hope to have someone who truly understands the Witchcraft and Gu Dao..."

"Not the kind of superficial knowledge a Cyan Blue Star Person gets from a book, but a deep, fundamental understanding."

"I don’t know if you can overcome this."

Given her dual psychological and physiological trauma, Yang Shen had no intention of forcing her.

Pushing too hard could make her break.

But he had to at least ask.

Lin Yuebai took a deep breath. After a long hesitation, she finally clenched her jaw and said, "The Patriarch has treated me very well... I’ll try... I’ll try my best..."

Yang Shen nodded. "You can start with research materials. Witchcraft may be mysterious, but there’s still some information available publicly. There should be even more in the medical field."

"I don’t know if these insects are useful, but they weren’t easy to obtain. I’ll leave them with you."

Lin Yuebai nodded firmly.

Back in the Si Realm—at least, before she developed her phobia—she had encountered Witchcraft a few times. Her starting point was already far beyond that of most people on Cyan Blue Star.

As for talent, Lin Yuebai had no idea yet just what kind of prodigy she was when it came to the Witchcraft and Gu Dao...

"Patriarch, I’ll try... but what if I can’t take it...?"

Yang Shen thought she was going to ask if she could give up.

Instead, Lin Yuebai looked up pitifully, tears streaming down her face. "Can I cry...?"

Yang Shen: ...

"Yes. Cry all you want. Cry as loud as you need to."

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[Monthly Ticket]