Chapter 85: Fungal Infection
Yang Zhang crawled onto the back of Jian Yu’s hand, interrupting Pei Yin.
It looked up at her eagerly, its tentacles gathering and curling into a little ball.
Pei Yin picked it up with two fingers and set it aside.
He lied through his teeth. "You’re too heavy. You’ll hurt our baby."
’Our baby.’
Yang Zhang turned its large head, its small body curling up as it quieted down.
Ling Yanzhi noticed someone was missing.
Lifting his gaze, his eyes swept the room. "Where’s Xi Yu?"
"He was just sent to the emergency room." Pei Yin smacked his lips. "Almost died from a fungal infection."
Ling Yanzhi’s expression froze.
He opened his mouth, then closed it, afraid the fire would spread to him.
"..." Jian Yu curled her toes in shame.
Just then, Xi Yu walked in, having just washed his mouth.
His lips, naturally a light pink, were now a brilliant red.
Paired with his somewhat pale face, he looked like a terminally ill patient trying to feign health with makeup.
Facing the stares of the three others, Xi Yu looked a bit dazed. "What’s wrong with you guys?"
He walked over, picked up Yang Zhang, then reached under the covers and grabbed Jian Yu’s ankle.
Jian Yu struggled slightly.
Xi Yu tightened his grip forcefully.
He looked up, a hostile aura emanating from him. "Were you bad-mouthing me to the baby?"
Yang Zhang gurgled a few times.
Xi Yu’s eyelids drooped. "I don’t get sick."
He had been an Awakener since birth. He had no experience with what being sick was like.
Ling Yanzhi thought of another problem. "Will it have an effect?"
His gaze fell on Jian Yu.
Xi Yu quickly spoke up, "Don’t be scared, baby. My saliva can secrete healing components."
"That might not work."
Pei Yin threw up his hands. "In this situation, I’m not sure either. My advice is to avoid kissing for the next few days."
The color visibly drained from Xi Yu’s face, his expression turning dark.
’What is all this nonsense!’
Jian Yu couldn’t listen anymore.
She changed the subject. "Why did you say my Soul Beast is a monster?"
Pei Yin’s expression turned serious again.
"There are two possibilities. Of course, this is just my speculation; it might not be right."
"The first possibility is that you possess the bloodline of a Fierce Beast, and a high-level one at that. To make a wild guess, you might have the bloodline of a Primordial Beast."
"In other words, you didn’t awaken a Soul Beast. Your constitution is just similar to that of an Awakener undergoing their Awakening. The process is so long and overwhelming that your body can’t handle the load, crushing you to the point where you can’t breathe."
"The second possibility is that you fall into the category of a special Awakener. Your Soul Beast is likely an Alien Beast from a fourth-dimensional space, capable of switching forms like the Red Snake and displaying a variety of colors."
"However, for now, it can’t be detected by the human eye or by machines."
Pei Yin’s speech slowed.
"The smoke you mentioned might be because your Soul Beast can manifest by attaching itself to air currents. Our breath, the faint eddies in the air... it attaches itself to these gases or follows alongside them, spinning, swirling, and spreading."
Ling Yanzhi lazily toyed with Jian Yu’s fingers. "It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it’s useful."
He narrowed his eyes. "Whatever it is, we first need to figure out how to get her to control it. Her attack power needs to reach Lin Yu’s level, at least. That way, not just any stray cat or dog can come and bully our baby."
Apparently, he was thinking about Xuzhou again.
Jian Yu suspected he still might not have remembered Xuzhou’s name.
’The F6’s character setting isn’t face blindness, but it’s similar.’
’In any case, he can’t remember people, often failing to match names to faces.’
"Since it has an attack form, it definitely won’t just appear occasionally," Pei Yin mused. "The unexplained toxins found in your blood are also probably related to your emotions."
"The toxins can be utilized, too. I’ll figure that part out. As for you two, I’ll customize two versions of a training plan. When you have time, you can ’play’ with our baby."
’’Play’? Who’s he looking down on?’
Jian Yu clenched her fists in a small fit of anger.
"He’s looking down on the baby. The baby is going to ignore him for half a month," Ling Yanzhi said with a smile, giving her fist a squeeze.
Pei Yin choked. "I’m just afraid you two will hurt her."
"Send me the plan when it’s done." Xi Yu didn’t look up, his fingers kneading her ankle.
He was so quiet, one could almost forget he was there.
Jian Yu couldn’t understand what was so fun about her feet, but she didn’t mind. In fact, she even found a secret sort of enjoyment in it.
Xi Yu was the only one who liked to kiss her all over.
She liked this clingy side of him. Unable to pull her leg back, she decided to just let him be.
Their complete openness made her trust them a little more.
She had planned to rely on their strength from the start; hiding too much would only work against her.
"Actually, I can see five colors. It started after I accidentally ate a Beast Fruit." Jian Yu pursed her lips, her large eyes looking at them innocently.
"Will anything happen from eating it?"
She didn’t dare miss any of their subtle expressions.
Analyzing their faces and trying to figure out what they were thinking had already become a subconscious habit for her.
Ling Yanzhi really understood her.
"A Beast Fruit? It’s fine. Xi Yu and I eat them all the time."
Her heart, which had been in her throat, was instantly soothed by Ling Yanzhi’s single, lighthearted sentence.
Those few tears he’d shed—whether real or fake—had, in the end, found their way into her heart.
Jian Yu’s fist relaxed, and she turned her hand to grasp two of his fingers.
"Delicious," Xi Yu suddenly said, though it was just one word.
His eyes sparkled, the gloomy air around him vanishing, replaced by the handsome charm a young man should have.
"If the baby likes to eat them, I’ll have Duan Feiye pick more for me next time."
If you were to ask which family had the most Beast Fruits, it would definitely be the F4.
Beast Fruit Trees depend on humid environments to survive, and fireflies can locate them using their sense of smell and sight.
The olfactory receptors on their antennae are also acutely sensitive to the scent of Beast Fruits.
With their family’s Beast Soul heritage, the Firefly Clan, Duan Feiye’s family has an innate advantage in finding Beast Fruit Trees.
Pei Yin could see that Jian Yu was nervous.
He explained, "Alien Beasts like to eat them. Xi Yu and Ling Yanzhi are probably special cases; they eat them in private, too."
’Jian Yu realized they didn’t seem to care about her special ability at all.’
’Aren’t they going to ask what the five colors are?’
’Don’t they want to know what functions they have?’
’At the beginning, Pei Yin was so wary of her that he even thought she was trying to make him go berserk just from him losing control for a moment after smelling her scent.’
’Now, besides Ling Yanzhi, three people had lost control under her pink mist.’
’Even Sheng Yue lost his mind and couldn’t help but succumb. Wasn’t that reason enough for them to be on guard?’
’Oh, right. They don’t know.’
’She only said it was a colored mist that could change colors.’
’They only even knew about the pink one and didn’t press her for details about what other colors it changed into.’
Jian Yu pursed her lips.
’Hesitation, uncertainty... time to lay her cards on the table!’
She revealed the functions of two of the colored mists.
"The purple one gives an attack boost, which you already know. The pink one... I feel like it can arouse desire in people and Alien Beasts."
She added weakly, "Sometimes I can’t control it. I don’t do it on purpose."
Pei Yin shrugged. "We knew that already. We just didn’t expect there to be five."
To be precise, all three of them were well aware.
After all, it was pretty obvious, wasn’t it?
Jian Yu had faintly guessed that they saw the truth but chose not to point it out.
But the situation was too dangerous, and she couldn’t think of a solution, so she could only pretend not to know, unwilling to live in constant fear.
Now that she saw they weren’t surprised, she decided not to hold back any longer.
"The cyan one assists with hatching. The new colors are black and red, but I haven’t been able to trigger them yet."