Chapter 66: Chaste
It felt so good in her hand that Jian Yu instinctively gave it a tug.
Her mind went blank.
Ling Yanzhi’s breathing grew heavier.
His voice was breathy as he finished, "Trying to murder your boyfriend so you can replace him with Sheng Yue?"
’This guy... he’s tilted again.’
Jian Yu quickly let go. Her eyes darted around before she reached out to pat his head, trying to soothe him.
As she raised her hand, she noticed that the bracelet from Sheng Yue had faint cracks appearing on it.
Jian Yu froze. ’Is it going to break again?’
’If Chairman Sheng finds out, what if he thinks I’m doing this on purpose just to make him run back and forth?’
The door suddenly opened, and Pei Yin’s grumbling voice drifted in.
"You followed me so closely just because you were afraid I’d stir up trouble and feed the Alliance a bunch of nonsense after the alarm went off, weren’t you?"
Xi Yu’s voice was light. "You talk a lot."
Jian Yu clutched her bracelet and glanced up at them.
Her gaze must have given Xi Yu the wrong impression.
"Baby, I knew you missed me. I missed you so much," Xi Yu said, stepping inside after Pei Yin and immediately getting clingy.
His eyes were bright. "Baby, maybe you should take some lessons from Pei Yin on how to talk. I want to hear your lovely voice every second of the day."
Jian Yu’s attention was drawn to the silver piercing on his ear cartilage. When she snapped out of it, her face flushed.
’He praises me every day. I’m going to get a big head.’
Pei Yin sneered. "Double standards."
Xi Yu squeezed Jian Yu’s fingers, then shot a cold glare at Ling Yanzhi.
His expression seemed to be demanding that Ling Yanzhi make good on a promise.
Ling Yanzhi shrugged, hooked an arm under her legs, and lifted her into his arms.
Jian Yu didn’t feel any discomfort being held by someone else. Her mind wasn’t on that, anyway.
’The appearance of the Purple Smoke... what exactly did they find out?’
She had her suspicions, but she had no way of being certain.
"Are you sure the alarm has been deactivated? What did you two say?" Although Ling Yanzhi had told Xi Yu to go with him, he was still uneasy.
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Pei Yin, but that he worried they wouldn’t be able to deceive the people in charge.
Normally, the alarm would only sound if there was an intrusion.
Xi Yu didn’t answer, simply carrying Jian Yu over to see the ling beast.
Pei Yin’s eyes followed them.
His tone softened abruptly. "It’s deactivated. I’m not that stupid. What good would it do me if the Alliance found out?"
Pei Yin wasn’t one to mince words. "What’s going on with her aura? Why is it so aggressive?"
He couldn’t help but ask, "She can’t control her own aura yet, can she?"
Pei Yin waited a few seconds. "I put my name on the line, claimed I recaptured an escaped test subject, and deactivated the alarm. Don’t you think you owe me an explanation?"
"No use looking at me." Ling Yanzhi met his gaze unflinchingly. "This is the first time something like this has happened. I don’t know, either."
Pei Yin frowned and looked toward Jian Yu.
Jian Yu opened her mouth to speak.
"Forget it." Pei Yin’s gaze faltered, and he didn’t press her. "You probably don’t know, either."
He turned and walked into the adjoining lab.
Not knowing if the higher-ups would investigate further, he had to find a ’Fierce Beast’ to serve as a scapegoat.
As it happened, he had a convicted murderer whose blood had been entirely replaced with that of an Alien Beast. The Alien Beast had died during a rampage, and its blood, once in a human body, retained its ferocious nature.
"So damn annoying. Always coming here and doing nothing."
Pei Yin stormed back in and met Jian Yu’s trembling gaze. "I wasn’t talking about you."
His tone was stiff. "Somebody get in here and help. Otherwise, when the higher-ups come to investigate, don’t blame me for ratting out your precious little ’baby’~!"
His voice was strange, and he seemed to be gritting his teeth.
When he said the words "precious little ’baby’," he even seemed to savor them for a moment.
Ling Yanzhi let out an unreadable chuckle and slung an arm over his shoulder. "Let’s go, Doctor Xiao Pei."
Jian Yu watched them leave.
She suddenly recalled that although Pei Yin was highly experienced, he was actually the youngest of the group.
’He was obsessed with his research, and Weis Lan Academy had given him the largest lab space with the best equipment. That’s why parts of the story’s plot basically revolved around his experiments.’
Xi Yu took out a box of Beast Fruits. "Here, baby. Feed it. It’ll become your Contracted Beast."
Jian Yu looked at the trembling ling beast, and just as a wisp of purple smoke began to drift from her finger, she quickly snuffed it out.
She turned her head to look at the Beast Fruit being offered to her.
It was huge, bigger than her palm, and felt springy to the touch. The box that sealed in the fruit’s aroma looked very high-end, too.
’Can it eat when it’s this small?’ Jian Yu picked one up and placed it in front of the ling beast.
The ling beast still seemed very afraid of her.
But mixed in with its fear was a timid desire to get closer, a tangled web of apprehension and affection.
’It’s reacting like the Star Ridge Cloned Beast did, but not exactly.’
She watched the ling beast timidly nibble on the Beast Fruit before it fearfully nudged the finger she’d forgotten to retract, as if trying to curry favor.
Jian Yu couldn’t resist ruffling the fur on its little red head.
’It’s so fluffy, and its fur is a brilliant red... just like Lin Yu.’
Before it had even eaten half of the Beast Fruit, the ling beast had already doubled in size, visibly ’growing up’ right before her eyes.
Seeing her astonishment, Xi Yu explained, "Feed it one a day. Once it’s finished a hundred Beast Fruits, it’ll be fully grown. We can work on improving its intelligence after that."
’One Beast Fruit costs five hundred thousand Star Coins. It’s a notoriously high-profit industry.’
Jian Yu’s affectionate gaze toward the ling beast instantly shifted to one of slight disdain, as if she were looking at a Gold-eating Beast.
’I can’t afford it. I don’t want to raise it.’
Xi Yu found even her little look of disdain adorable.
He leaned in and kissed her again and again. "We’ve already prepared all the Beast Fruits. If I’m not here, baby, just ask Ling Yanzhi for them. Be good, now. Once the Contract is successful, you’ll have another Contracted Beast, and you’ll be much safer."
"Mm." Jian Yu’s face flushed unnaturally, and she quickly looked away.
She stared at the ling beast, her mind involuntarily turning to the theories about contracting Alien Beasts.
’Awakeners don’t need Contracted Beasts.’
’If a normal person wants to form a Contract with an Alien Beast, their only option is to entice, bribe, and please it with plenty of food, hoping the Alien Beast initiates the Contract of its own volition.’
’In this type of Contract, the Alien Beast’s own power level remains unchanged; it just doesn’t get any bonus.’
’If either a Contracted Beast or a Half-awakened tries to force a Contract, both are prone to losing control and suffering a backlash, and their powers will be halved.’
’However, if an Alien Beast willingly initiates a Contract with a Half-awakened, and both parties consent, not only does the Alien Beast receive a power boost from the Half-awakened, but the Half-awakened’s own Spiritual Power can also be pushed to its absolute limit.’
’The A-level ling beast is known for being a great escape artist because it’s aggressive but consistently loses its fights.’
’Don’t be fooled by its size. Its Level is high. When it’s time to flee, it would have no problem carrying an ordinary person like her.’
’Jian Yu has a natural affinity for teachers. She respects them and lets her guard down, which is why Xuzhou’s plan was successful.’
’If the ling beast had been her Contracted Beast at that time, then even if it couldn’t fight back, whisking her away to safety would have been simple enough.’
’When I think about it that way, this Gold-eating Beast is actually pretty cute.’
Xi Yu looked up. "What was that sound?"
"The bracelet broke." This time, Jian Yu didn’t try to hide it, calmly removing the bracelet that was on the verge of snapping.
’She hadn’t said anything at first, partly because she hadn’t organized her thoughts, but also because she felt she had no way to protect herself.’
’But thinking about it differently, could she really protect herself by staying silent?’
’Should I develop my abilities in secret, or should I just tell them and use their power to help me grow stronger?’
’The best course of action is probably to leverage their power to develop my own, especially while they’re still interested in me.’
’At the same time, I need to increase their sunk cost in me and entangle our interests more deeply.’
’But I should only tell them half the story.’
’I need to keep an ace up my sleeve.’
’The ideal level is to reveal just enough to pique their interest and get their help exploring my abilities, but not so much that they become overly covetous or wary of me.’
Her train of thought was broken as she was lifted and set down on a hovering chair that had suddenly appeared.
"Baby, you’re like a juicy peach."
Xi Yu’s tone was like a hook, each word wrapped in a tension that was warm but not cloying.
He leaned over her. "I can’t get enough of kissing you. Why can I never get enough?"
’A man this chaste always seems to be missing something.’